Today 70 percent of the world's sand beaches are under recession due to erosion. The global warming may have the effect upon the sea level increasing and the erosion increasing on the sand beaches. To save these sand beaches, the erosion must be prevented. Coast erosion shelters like gabions and sea walls are functioning extremely well to protect the land behind the sand beach, but due to the wave reflections, created in front of these so called hard erosion shelters, the erosion of the front beach is accelerated. During the last decades, artificial sand supply (beach nourishment) has been the adopted praxis.

Blood-borne infectious diseases such as Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV)and Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) spread when the addicts share needles and injecting equipmentwithin contact networks. A quantitative cross-sectional study was conducted in Winnipeg,Canada in December 2003 - September 2004. Through a special questionnaire, respondentswere asked to answer questions about themselves and about their contacts, about relationshipsand how they shared syringes and other injection supplies. Blood tests were used to identifywhether they carried any blood-borne infectious diseases. We selected some variables from theoriginal data set.

The aim of this thesis is to investigate what distinguishes the views of staff at centres for learning as regards users? motivation at centres for learning in public libraries. The following questions were asked:? How do staff at centres for learning view the users? motivation to studies?? How do staff at centres for learning view causes for lack of motivation and obstacles for motivation to studies?? What methods do staff at centres for learning use to motivate potential users to studies and to market the learning centres? ? What distinguishes these views of staff on users? motivation at centres for learning in public libraries?The methods used in this study are: literature studies, qualitative interviews and questionnaires. Interviews and questionnaires were done with six employees at six centres for learning.

This masters thesis aims to explore the branch libraries in Kalmar municipality and their relation to the Information and communication technology ICTsociety. How do they adapt to and assimilate with, the ICT-society? What are their roles in local social networks and do they make a difference there? To answer these questions, critical discourse analysis, CDA, as founded by Norman Fairclough is applied to four interwievs with branch library managers. Other theorists used are Michel Foucault, Chaïm Perelman and Ludwig Wittgenstein. A solid description of todays society on different levels is also given.

Detta examensarbete har studerat försäljningsprocessen vid leverans av kundanpassade system. Examensarbetet undersökte försäljning ur perspektivet nöjda kunder. Vid leverans av kundanpassade system beror kundens upplevda kvalitet inte bara på den direkta produktkvaliteten utan också på hur väl säljarna identifierat kundens önskemål på anpassningar och sedan kommunicerat dessa anpassningar till leveransavdelningen. Försäljning har setts ur ett holistiskt perspektiv, det vill säga, som en process som startar i de inledande kundkontakterna och avslutas med idrifttagande av leverad produkt. Under arbetet antogs, och motiverades, att leveranskvaliteten påverkas av att alla säljares arbete följer en etablerad och genomarbetad process.

The period of church awakening in Sweden during the first half of the nineteenth century, has had a great influence on the Swedish society. During that time certain persons are to be noticed. Peter Fjellstedt and Peter Wieselgren, priests in the Swedish Church, are among those who were of special importance. But even the British preacher George Scott and later the Swedish layman Carl-Olof Rosenius became aware of the importance of networking. They all felt a call from God to preach a message of redemption and restoration.

No infrastructures today are growing faster then communication network. The requirement of being able to communicate in a fast and qualified environment to a low cost increases in line with the development and competition. Itera Networks is no exception when it comes to rapidly developing new and better network solutions for themselves and for their customers. With these requirements in mind their needs for an analysis of the existing communication solution becomes very obvious. This project contains such an analysis in which various studies of the existing network environment have been made.

In the future network-based Swedish Defence (NBD), attaining information superiority will be of great importance. This will be achieved by a network of networks where decision-makers, information- and weapon-systems are linked together. As a part of the development of NBD, we have performed a study of user interface design for a future network-based tool package for analysis of sensor systems, referred to as the C2SR-system. This thesis was performed at Ericsson Microwave Systems AB, Sensor and Information Networks, during the autumn 2002. A pre-study concerning the requirements of usability, trustworthiness and functionality of a user interface for the C2SR-system was performed.

The aim of the study is to gain a deeper understanding of how young people's current identity is affected by their criminal background. We also want to understand the impact of resources in these young people?s social networks (that is their social capital) on their life course and formation and reformation of their identity. The theoretical frameworks used (as a tool to be able to analyze the empirical data) are theories of stigma, identity and social capital. The empirical study was conducted using semi-structured interviews that focused on questions about the life-story of informants.

With the advent of a range of social networks, librarians all over the world have startedto ask themselves how this new technology can be used as a way to market theirlibraries. Today's information websites and search engines are difficult competitors forlibraries and information centers, and are forcing traditional information institutions tomarket themselves in new ways.Marketing theories have traditionally concerned themselves with money transactionsand marketing of specific services and/or products. Relationship marketing theories, onthe other hand, focus more on the relationship between the customer and the companythat produces the product or service. These two parties are seen as co-producers, andrelationship marketing theories tend to focus more on a win-win situation, than on thecompany gaining power of the customer. The relationship is the important thing, and thetheories concentrate to a great extent on how to nourish these relationships.This paper is a discussion about whether Facebook as a social network is a usable toolfor library marketing.

The background to this report is based on how architectural art through timesbeen treating daylight with greatest precision to take advantage of its good quality,and how the technical revolution with artificial lighting affects our way of workingwith daylighting today.The purpose of the study is to contribute to the knowledge how the daylightopening affects the perception of a room. The aim is to clarify how proportionsand placement affects how the incident light occurs in the room and how thataffects on how the room is perceived. The study is meant to be used by lightingplanners, and in terms of pleasantness, be able to create the best possible daylightenvironment..

The purpose of this study is to increase the understanding of how venture capitalists can use their network in order to reduce information asymmetries between themselves and the venture management team. A qualitative approach with semi-structured interviews, consisting of open questions, have been used to receive gradate information in order to reach our explorative purpose. Our theoretical framework consists of relevant studies made on the dynamics of networks and the problems that can arise in the complex relationship between a principal and an agent. We have been interviewing two venture capital firms and therepresentatives from two business angel networks. We also made an additional interview with an influential financial actor in order to try to verify our conclusions Our conclusions are that an extensive network can be used by venture capitalists in order to; verify ventures? technologies, complement the competences in the venture management team, and arrange co-investments, resulting in reduced information asymmetries between themselves and the venture management team.

Detta arbete tar upp och diskuterar det eventuella användandet av representationer i en autonom robot kontrollerad av ett extended sequential neural network (ESCN). Diskussionen utgår från en tidigare distinktion, framförd av bl.a. Bickhard och Terveen (1995), mellan traditionella representationer, som förespråkas av kognitivismen, och interaktiva representationer, som förespråkas av många företrädare för en mer förkroppsligad och situerad syn på kognition. Resultatet i detta arbete visar att det är möjligt, med hänvisning till robotens interna tillstånd, att påstå att roboten inte använder sig av representationer i någon traditionell bemärkelse. Resultatet visar vidare att det är möjligt att hävda att roboten använder sig av interaktiva representationer.

This thesis describes and examines a new line of business, CleanTech. CleanTech comprises a wide range of different types of companies and is not yet well defined. In this thesis only the Swedish market is considered, and a variety of players on the market are included to give the most extensive picture of the current situation. Recent research shows that a gap has arisen between governmental financing and private equity-investments in CleanTech-companies. This gap occurs mainly in companies in expansive phases and causes problems both for the companies and for the line of business as a whole. To investigate this gap the Swedish CleanTech-business is described in terms of earlier and existing financing, age and size of the companies and their turnover and profit.

Management consulting firms are an important part of the knowledge economy and they capitalize on the analytical ability and knowledge of their employees. Much research have been made on large consulting firms and their management of knowledge, but little is known about how small consultancies manage their knowledge. Even less is known about the management of knowledge in small consultancies specialized in change management. These firms rely solely on senior consultants and focus on the human aspect of organizational development. This thesis aims to show how these firms manage their knowledge and also provide an understanding of why.