The report describes an ecodesign thesis performed by the author at the ÅF EcoDesign Center. The basic idea of ecodesign is to develop products with a minimized environmental load, without neglecting other significant product aspects such as function and price. During the last couple of years the public interest in environmental friendly products has increased, which has made it possible for companies to make a profit from their investments in ecodesign. To meet the increasing market for ecodesign services ÅF started the ÅF EcoDesign Center, where the company has gathered all of their competence in ecodesign in order to help companies to become greener. The task was to develop a tool for an Eco Screening.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of bilateral repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) on language ability in eight participants with aphasia. All participants underwent two periods of treatment and five periods of evaluation. During one treatment period high frequency stimulation was given to the left hemisphere and low frequency stimulation to the right and in one other period placebo stimulation was given. Boston Naming Test and Token Test were used to assess the effects of treatment on naming ability and language comprehension. Results showed that no significant effects were found on group level.

Tractors of today come equipped with a CAN-system. A CAN-system sends information from sensors to electronic control units who process the signals. The sensors measure several interesting parameters such as force, pressure and speed for various components of the tractor. This thesis discuss a force sensor which is placed in the pivot of the tractors three point linkage, the sensor measure the horizontal reaction force from the load that the tractor is exposed to. Signals from this sensor can be used to measure the force from any implement that the tractor is exposed to during an operation.

SyfteStudiens syfte var att undersöka ifall det fanns en skillnad av kontrastseendet mellan icke-dementa människor över 65 år jämförelsevis med människor som var diagnostiserade med demens. Även denna grupp hade nått en ålder över 65 år.MetodStudien genomfördes på olika demensboenden eller hemma hos deltagarna. Först fick alla deltagare genomgå en kontroll av närvisus för att se om de kunde läsa 8 punkter eller bättre på en närvisustavla. Om det visade sig att de klarade detta fick de delta i studien. Därefter fick de, binokulärt, läsa så långt de kunde på Mars letter kontrast sensitivity test.

Trots att en stor del av befolkningen är arbetslösa saknas forskning på hur arbetslösheten påverkar individens kognitiva förmågor. Föreliggande studie undersöker effekten av arbetslöshet på episodiskt och semantiskt minne samt visuospatial förmåga. Även könsskillnader testas. Med resultat från tidigare forskning om de arbetslösas negativa psykosociala situation som grund hypotiserades att de arbetslösa skulle prestera sämre på test som mäter episodiskt minne, semantiskt minne och visuospatial förmåga. De arbetslösas psykosociala situation undersöktes med självskattning av variablerna stress, depression och sociala nätverk och kognitiv förmåga mättes med 16 olika kognitiva test.

This thesis is focusing on how global and local search engines retrieve information from the local domain. The three search engines tested are the global search engines Yahoo, Ask.com and the local search engine Web Wombat. The questions we examined were: which search engine has the best retrieval effectiveness? Could there be other reasons than retrieval effectiveness, to choosing a local search engine?For our test we constructed 20 questions related to Australia.We chose to divide the questions into topics like nature, sports and culture. For all questions we evaluated the relevance of the first 20 hits.

By using steady-state measurements for predicting emissions under a dynamic drive cycle wouldsave a lot of time and money for the exhaust aftertreatment specialists at Volvo cars. The idea forthis thesis has been to investigate if statistical regression models can be used with good accuracy.Questions included are for example if common operating variables such as engine speed, air-fuelratio etc. is sufficient to predict engine-out emissions over the engine operating range with goodaccuracy. Focus was set on the modelling of warm engine, but also the more complex engineheat-up phase was investigated since it is a great contributor to total emissions. While NOxcouldnot be measured because of malfunctioning measurement equipment, only HC, CO andtemperature at inlet of first catalytic converter has been modelled.

Syftet med studien var att undersöka hur gymnasieelever vill få feedback i ämnet idrott & hälsa, om positiv feedback från idrottsläraren upplevs som gynnande för elevernas motivation samt att undersöka om motivationsklimatet upplevs som uppgiftsorienterat eller självorienterat av eleverna. I studien deltog 8 gymnasielever (4 pojkar, 4 flickor) i åldern 16 år. Semistrukturerade intervjuguider användes under intervjuerna som genomfördes på neutrala platser. Informanterna ville få positiv feedback samt instruktiv feedback. Positiv feedback upplevdes som gynnande för informanternas motivation.

Tidig upptäckt och intervention är av stor vikt när det gäller att komma till rätta med alkoholproblem. För att identifiera vilka som har alkoholproblem använder man sig inom vården av screeninginstrument. Dessa screeninginstrument kan distribueras på olika sätt, till exempel som enkät eller som intervju. Tidigare forskning har kommit fram till motstridiga resultat gällande vilket distributionssätt som ger den mest tillförlitliga informationen. Syftet med föreliggande studie är att undersöka om det finns skillnader i svar till följd av distributionssätt.

AimThe aim of this essay is by using a motor skill track to see if there exists any remarkable difference in the motor skill profiles between pupils from our montessori school and the mean score in the "Nytidstest". The questions at issue we had were: How is the motor skill profile on pupils in year 2 and 3 practicing montessori pedagogy? Is the motor skill profile superior or inferior to the mean score in the "Nytidstest"? What factors, if any, concerning the montessori pedagogy affects the results of the test?MethodWe used a motor skill track consisting of 8 stations sellected from the "Nytidstest" adapted for year 3 (the original test consists of 16 stations). Pupils from year 2 and 3 in our chosen montessori school were tested in groups of 4-5 persons each. We made the tests on two occasions each lasting for 100 minutes at the time.

The aim of this essay is to examine the supervisor?s view on the structure and content of the tasks given to students during their vocational training. The investigation could be of help for teachers when devising new vocational training tasks. The study is based upon qualitative interviews with five supervisors, all of whom work at preschools. The supervisors were asked to grade all the vocational training tasks on a scale from one (easy) to five (difficult).

In recent decades here has been a huge development in information technology (IT), where we humans are increasingly using IT in our daily lives, ranging from social media to music streaming services; this has also been a reflection of the technologies developed to our cars. Infotainment systems have become an increasingly regular feature in modern cars where the high degree of integration such as navigation, mobile and Internet has become more common and more sought after. Despite this, relatively little research problemized User Experience of a complex infotainment system in a car. This study thus has the intention to consider the relevance of reality based tests by examining how the user experiences a complex infotainment system in a car. We asked ourselves; How do the user experience a complex infotainment system in a car? We conducted our qualitative study, an interview with researchers in the field of vehicle and road safety and designed a number of system-related activities in a test session where we observed three users.

As demand for renewable energy is increasing rapidly, the market for biomass pellets is expected to continue to grow in the near future. Most of the new raw materials that are discussed for pellet production have one thing in common; the production costs will increase compared to using traditional raw materials such as sawdust and planer shavings. The aim of this thesis is to investigate to what degree increased use of new raw materials for pellet production will affect the general pellet prices in Sweden and to survey what plans Swedish pellet producers have concerning new raw materials. To investigate the raw material situation of the Swedish pellet producers an industry survey was performed. Literature studies were also made on previous research in the subject field. Calculations of the production costs for pellets were done for the raw materials sawdust, wet sawmill chips and energy wood respectively. New raw materials are already used by the large-scale pellet producers in Sweden.

Syftet med denna litteraturstudie var att beskriva sjuksköterskans arbete med patienter med TBC (tuberkulos) och sjuksköterskors uppfattningar av risker som de utsätts för i vårdarbetet i kontakten med patienter med TBC. Sökning av vetenskapliga artiklar gjordes i databaserna Medline via Pubmed, Science Direct, Swedmed + samt Cinahl. Studiens huvudresultat utgjordes av tre huvudkategorier; Ssk bidrag till minskad smittspridning, omvårdnad vid TBC och Sjuksköterskans risker i arbetet. Ekonomisk levnadsstandard samt utbildningsnivå visade sig ha stor betydelse för utbredningen av TBC. Det sociala umgänget är en viktig del i sjukdomsförloppet eftersom patienterna känner att nära och kära undviker dem.

Det har länge varit känt att stålkonsumtionen har en stor betydelse för samhällsutvecklingen. En ökad stålkonsumtion betraktas ofta som en indikator på ekonomisk utveckling. Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka hur Kinas stålkonsumtion förhåller sig till den snabba ekonomiska utvecklingen och i vilken inriktning går sambandet, dvs. är det den ekonomiska utvecklingen som driver stålkonsumtionen eller vice versa. Undersökningen omfattar perioden mellan 1970 och 2011.