Intelligibility is a central concept in speech-language pathology regarding assessment and treatment of speech. At present, there is no reliable or valid Swedish test for measuring intelligibility. The main purpose of the current study was to conduct a clinical trial of the computer-based intelligibility test ?Swedish test of intelligibility for children? and to investigate the test?s reliability. Another purpose was to investigate the reliability of the rating form ?Intelligibility in context scale?.

The purpose of this masters thesis is to evaluate the retrieval effectiveness of three different search engines on the Internet: Google, Yahoo! and MSN Search. We have constructed 25 topics and queries with varying contents, in order to test the width of the search engines as much as possible. In every search we have evaluated the first 20 hits in each of the search engines. The measures we have used are precision and cumulated gain. Precision is based on a binary scale and cumulated gain is calculated by means of a non-binary relevance scale.

I studien, vilken omfattade 177 svenskfödda studenter, utvecklades och kontrollerades enegenkonstruerad enkät: SAPS. Även könsskillnader i fördomar mot okända personers etnicitetoch kön samt könsskillnader i Social Dominance Orientation (SDO) undersöktes. Fördomarmättes med SAPS och SDO mättes med en svensk översättning av SDO scale (Pratto et al.,1994). SDO scale användes också som validitetskontroll av SAPS. Statistisk prövning medSpearmans Rho visade på en negativ korrelation mellan SAPS och SDO scale.

Psykometriska egenskaper presenteras från en nyöversatt självskattningsskala för funktionsnedsättning vid social fobi. Liebowitz Self-Rated Disability Scale (LSRDS) avser att undersöka hur ångestproblem kopplade till olika funktionsområden hindrat normal funktion dels de senaste två veckorna och dels när det varit som värst i livet. LSRDS har acceptabel test-retest reliabilitet och god intern konsistens. Den diskriminativa valideten i LSRDS är god i jämförelse mellan normalgrupp och klinisk grupp. I samband med en kognitiv beteendeterapeutisk behandling av åtta individer med social fobi har skalan provats och förefaller fånga förändringar i funktionsförmåga.

The population over 65 years of age is increasing and health in elderly has been a subject of research for decades but voice function and vocal health has not been prioritized. The purpose of this study is to obtain reference value for the Swedish version of Voice Handicap Index (RHI) and the Throat Scale among people over 65 years of age and assess voice function and vocal health for this age group. The questions were as followed:1) What is the reference value of RHI for people over 65 years of age? 2) What is the reference value of the Throat Scale for people over 65 years of age? 3) Is there a correlation between a self-rated VA-scale on the perceived degree of voice problems, and the self-rated RHI-/Throat Scale result? 4) Does age, gender or previous profession matter for the self-perceived voice?In total 100 individuals participated in the study, 50 women and 50 men, between 65 and 92 years old. The reference value of RHI for people over 65 years of age was 13,4 points and the reference value for the Throat Scale was 7,7 points.

AbstractThe main aim of this study was to investigate if four humour styles, affiliative, self-enhancing, aggressive, and self-defeating humour can be related to all five dimensions of the Big Five Factor Model of personality and study if gender has any influence on those relation-ships. A survey questionnaire was distributed among 72 individuals from Kalmar County, in the South-east of Sweden. There were 42 women and 30 men. A humour test questionnaire, Humour Scale Questionnaire (HSQ), with 32 items was used and the Big Five Factor test with 40 items was used for personality test. The results showed that men have a more aggressive humour than women and that the older we get the less affiliative and self-enhancing humour we have.

Wood for commercial use is harvested from forests using forest machines like harvesters which folds, branches and cuts trees and forwarders which transports logs to a landing area for further transport to a processing facility. Future forest machines have to be much gentler to the machine operators and forest soil than today's machines. Hence new machine solutions must be developed and tested. A practical way is to develop a physical scale model which can be used as a test-bed to incorporate different types of solutions for suspensions, cabin damping, tires and tracks, crane and overall architecture. The aim of this project was to develop such a 1:5 scale model of a forest machine, named as ?Skogbil.A scaling strategy was employed to arrive at important scale dimensions and specifications ofSkogbil which would be comparable to the full scale model.

I dagens västerländska samhälle finns ett kroppsideal som påverkar unga kvinnors inställning och attityd till den egna kroppen. Kroppsidealet ställer krav på att kvinnan ska vara slank, solbränd och vältränad. Dessa ideal kan medföra att individen ej förmår att acceptera sin kropp. Syftet med denna enkätstudie var att jämföra unga kvinnors kroppsattityder beroende på utbildningsinriktning. Studien genomfördes med en enkät som innehöll Body Attitude Test (BAT) och Figure Rating Scale (FRS).

Assessing and measuring post-operative pain in all animals is a challenge, but doing it in small mammals, for example guinea pigs, presents an even larger difficulty. Validated pain scales developed for use in dogs in clinical practice are currently available, but no such scale has been widely accepted for use in guinea pigs in the veterinary setting. In this experimental study, six guinea pigs that had undergone surgery and anaesthesia were observed for behavioural changes that could be associated with pain. The six guinea pigs were also given pain scores with the use of Colorado State University Feline Acute Pain Scale (CSU-APSF), a scale which uses both behaviour when not handled, body tension and response to palpation to evaluate pain intensity. The six guinea pigs showed a number of different behaviours, for example rigid posture, fixed stare and ?wet dog response? (the body is vigourosly shaken), that could be associated with pain.

This project was started within the Market-Design programme of Elforsk, with the aim of developing representative test systems of Swedish distribution networks. Using such test systems as a basis for reliability and customer interruption cost calculations makes it feasible to analyse the network tariff regulation of Swedish power  istribution companies. In particular, it enables studies of the incentives for companies to invest in system reliability. Until now, the available test systems are either not representative of Swedish conditions, or too small in scale and limited in function.Within this project we have created two test systems. In order to represent the diversity of actual Swedish distribution networks, we have created one test system for urban environments and another for rural environments.

Syftet med denna studie var att testa och beskriva aspekter av reliabilitet och validitet av två versioner av Fatigue Severity Scale (FSS) på svenska, FSS 1 och FSS 2, vid mätning av trötthet hos patienter med systemisk lupus erythematosus (SLE). Metod: Två grupper av patienter med stabil SLE, låg sjukdomsaktivitet och liten organskada inkluderades. Diskriminant validitet för FSS 1 testades på 32 kvinnor med SLE och 35 friska kvinnor. Följande test av FSS 1 och FSS 2 gjordes på 23 patienter med SLE: Tak- och golveffekter, intern konsistens, stabilitet över tid (test-retest) samt innehållsvaliditet uttryckt som faktoranalys och innehållsvaliditet sett ur patienternas perspektiv vad gäller FSS 2. Resultat: FSS 1 kunde signifikant särskilja kvinnor med SLE från friska kvinnor.

Theory of mind involves the ability to take another person?s perspective in thought, emotions and intentions.  There is today a lack of instruments to assess children?s development of Theory of Mind (ToM) in Swedish. ToM is considered by many scientists to be the basis for development of pragmatic competence. The relationship between these two abilities is complex and not fully resolved. Both abilities are important components for the development of social skills.    The purpose of this study was to compare 4 and 5-year olds ToM-ability measured with a Swedish version of Wellman and Liu?s ToM-scale, Sally Anne and Social Emotional Test with estimated pragmatic competence measured with the Children?s Communication Checklist (CCC).

Religiositet och andlighet tycks ha samband med fysisk och psykisk hälsa. I uppsatsen undersöks sambandet mellan andlighet och utbrändhet, två grupper behandlare jämförs och mätegenskaper hos skalorna Spirituality, Religiousness and Personal Beliefs Field-Test Instrument (WHOQOL-SRPB), Spiritual Involvement and Beliefs Scale (SIBS), Maslach Burnout Inventory ? Human Service Survey (MBI-HSS) och Utbrändhet i arbetet (UA) undersöks. Studiedeltagarna var 38 programledare för kriminalvårdens tolvstegsprogram och 39 behandlare i ett psykoterapinätverk inom beroendevården (svarsfrekvens 61,5%). Andlighet korrelerade med personlig prestation (personal accomplishment; r = 0,315, p < 0,05).

This paper studies patterns of consumption within a product category. Using make-up as a base for the study, we applied the Mokken Scale to examine if consumers follow a hierarchical pattern when buying items within the product category. Based on a survey of 250 female respondents, we establish a hierarchic scale for consumption. Assuming generally accepted attributes for determining physical attractiveness, the results of the Mokken Scale study were cross referenced with a survey among 200 male and female respondents. Students were asked to evaluate pictures of a model using different combinations of make-up, i.e.

Det perfekta kroppsidealet gör sig ofta påmind i samhälls- och mediadebatten. Dagens västerländska kroppsideal domineras av en smal och fettfri kvinnokropp. Under tonåren är fokuseringen på kroppen mer påtaglig än under någon annan del i livet. Strävan efter det slanka idealet är svårt att uppnå och kan medföra att individen inte förmår att acceptera sin kropp. Syftet med denna studie var att få en bild av och jämföra kroppsuppfattningen hos unga kvinnor som går på gymnasiet i Luleå respektive Jokkmokk.