The Smart Grid technology has during the last decade been established as a way to create a greater flexibility on the electricity grid that will be needed as the development moves towards an increased share of renewable primary energy sources in the electricity production. One part of the Smart Grid technology is the ability to shift loads in time, to adapt to either price or emissions, known as Demand Response. This project, which was conducted at KTH in collaboration with the consulting corporation Capgemini, examines the economic, environmental and social aspects of the Demand Response technology. In the project, three household products are used in a model that derives the potential savings in costs and emissions of CO2e. The results show that the actual savings measured in SEK are small, but that the savings measured in percent can be as high as 20 percent. Reduction of CO2e emissions is slightly lower.

The study aims to investigate student?s attitudes and experiences of information retrieval on the Internet, as tools for learning. I have been interested of their own views about their own knowledge and experience in the subject, information seeking on the Internet. The focus is on what they perceive as problematic, what skills they consider they have and what needs they have in terms of teaching. Data were collected via questionnaires.

This thesis is about university spin-offs and the competition in high technology industries. In the light of efforts to increase the competitiveness of the European Union, an effective transfer of cutting edge technology from universities to the industry plays an important role. University spin-offs, start-ups founded to exploit academic inventions, are likely to face considerable market entry barriers. This is among other reasons due to high capital requirements for further technology development and lack of complementary resources. With a combination of relevant literature and empirical investigation, commercialisation of technologies within spin-offs is investigated and analysed.

To create fair conditions between majority and minority in Sweden is a challeging project. Male immigrants usually do not get same opportunities for a success identity structure and integration into Swedish society as women and children. The aim of this thesis is therefore to critically examine and analyse the processes regarding identity structure and integration for male immigrants with a specific focus on Helsingborg. The object of this study is Mansgrupp, a project which helps men to build up a secure ground for identity structure and which further helps them to integrate into the society. To be able to reach the results I have made a literature study as well as a minor field study in Helsingborg, where I conducted interviews with men from the above mentioned project.

The present thesis is about how preschool children develop their language skills. The purpose is also to discuss how library and preschool can collaborate and in different ways together help the children to achieve different skills and to use their first and second language in a more appropriate way. The main problem identified from literature and own observations is why library and preschool dont collaborate to help young children to develop their language skills? Which reasons are behind a lacking collaboration? What can be done to increase collaboration between the library and the preschool? How can librarians and preschool teachers use their different professional skills in the best manner to be able to help the children to develop their skills in language acquisition? Is it possible to measure childrens language skills and how can one decide what characterizes a good collaboration? We started with a literature review and continued with collecting qualitative data by means of interviews with people who worked as librarians and preschool teachers, who were supposed to collaborate in a language oriented project. We have chosen different language theories by well-known scientists and we have only picked a few of them, which we considered relevant for the chosen topic.

The value of a company's employees is considered to be higher and more important for a business success than ever. Losing employees is not only a loss of valuable knowledge, it also implies a significant cost related to the recruitment of new employees. To attract potential personnel, it is important for the companies to understand how to communicate with talents. Choosing a communication medium for a job advertisement is not easy when new options constantly arise. Despite the development of new communication mediums and channels, such as social mediums, the traditional communication medias still remain available.

Background: Employees acting towards company goals and having a strong desire to remain in the organisation are very important for the success of a company. In order to generate such organisational commitment of the employees, the knowledge about what motivates and satisfies them is essential. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to investigate and analyse the factors which motivate employees, under consideration of individual characteristics. Limitation: Age, gender, marital status, work area, position and the years a person has been working in the company represent the individual characteristics examined in this study. Realisation: Literature research as well as a practical survey consisting of mail questionnaires and personal interviews were carried out in order to best serve the purpose of this thesis.

The primary purpose of this thesis is to study how political agents construct and give meaning to the concepts of democracy, representative democracy and referendums. The starting point of the thesis is the pressing issue whether or not Sweden should hold a referendum on the new EU constitution. To analyze this question my choice of method is critical discourse analysis and the topical theories revolve around democracy and responsibility.My study shows that there are three different discourses in this debate: ?the democratic process?, ?the representative democracy? and ?the concept of democracy?. However, the meaning of the concepts in these discourses varies depending on which side the political agents are on.

In the spring of 2006 a pilot project was initiated by The Rural Economy and Agricultural Societies of Sweden together with The Swedish Ornithological Society in order to increase collaboration between bird watchers and farmers. The project as a whole comprised 11 farms in South-Central Sweden. The aim was to benefit the decreasing populations of bird species related to the agricultural landscape. The purpose of this master thesis was to study how similarities and differences between bird watchers and farmers regarding opinions about nature, landscape, agriculture, birds and nature conservation have influenced the collaboration. Four of the farmers and five of the bird watchers that participated in the project were included in this study.

 Background: Earlier studies show that 30-92 % of ACL reconstructed return to their pre-injury physical activity. It is not clear why some people do not return.Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the return rate to pre-injury sport among ACL reconstructed men. Another purpose was to characterize those patients who return and those who do not.Metod: A Web-based questionnaire with questions about returning to physical activity was sent out during the spring of 2012 to 93 men who had undergone an ACL reconstruction 6-40 months earlier and who, after 6-40 months after surgery, were evaluated with validated strength tests and self-assessment outcome measures.Results: At 12 months after surgery 56 % of the subjects had returned to their pre-injury sport. If the criteria were set higher ?back to the same- or a higher level? 14 % had returned.

Syftet med studien var att få förståelse för hur aktörer som arbetar i skolan, hos polisen och inom socialtjänsten uppfattar sin samverkan med de andra aktörerna kring elever som far illa eller riskerar att fara illa, samt vad de ser som framgångsbärande faktorer och utvecklingsbara områden i samverkan. Studien är kvalitativ och empirin är insamlad med hjälp av webenkäter. Dataanalysen är genomförd med tematisk analys där olika teman utlästs. Resultaten visar att samverkan upplevs som såväl positiv som utvecklingsbar och att de olika aktörerna har olika bilder av hur väl samverkan fungerar. I diskussionen kopplas resultaten till tidigare forskning och litteratur och de framgångsbärande faktorer som respondenterna tar upp, överensstämmer till stor del med tidigare forskning, men även fler goda exempel på framgångsbärande faktorer kommer fram.

The objective of this study was to assess validity and reliability for five different owner-completed instruments evaluated to assess chronic musculoskeletal pain in cats. All of the instruments were questionnaires, three asking about behavioral changes, one about the degree of pain and one about quality of life. One of the instruments was written originally in Swedish, the other four instruments were translated into Swedish before use. Data available were records from 57 cats with no signs of pain and 11 cats with different pain-related diagnoses. The diagnoses were ensured by clinical examination including palpation and manipulation of joints, gait testing on a force-plate and X-ray scans. Instrument 1 was completed by 57 pain-free and 11 pain-affected cats.

Along with rising energy prices and increasing awareness of environmental issues, the criteria for buildings energy performance have been sharpened through the years. Today, ?passive house? and ?low energy house? are commonly used phrases in the construction industry and is expected to become increasingly common in the future.For houses with well-insulated building envelope the importance of well constructed details increases when minimizing the heat losses. Examples of these details are floor-wall junction and window openings in the wall. In such connections thermal bridges occur, which means that heat more easily is transported out of the building, compared to the rest of the building envelope.This report deals with detail solutions around windows and a comparison between a traditional slab and a foundation from Koljern consisting of foam glass.

Syfte: Syftet med studien är att undersöka och presentera vilka investeringskriterier som svenska kommuner använde år 2011 vid byggnadsinvesteringar, samt i vilken utsträckning extern hjälp vid investeringsbedömning och utförande av byggnadsinvesteringar användes.Frågeställning: Vilka samband fanns mellan investeringsandel per omsättning och i hur stor utsträckning beslutade byggnadsinvesteringar blev dyrare än beräknat?Vilka skillnader fanns mellan större och mindre kommuner med hänsyn till investeringsbedömningar i byggnader?I vilken utsträckning förekom samarbete mellan kommuner gällande byggnadsinvesteringar?I hur stor utsträckning anlitades extern hjälp med projektledning och kalkylering vid byggnadsprojekt?Metod: Studien är baserad på en webbenkätundersökning med 44 deltagande kommuner och en personlig intervju. Denna undersökning analyserades och jämfördes sedan med en referensram baserad på sekundära källor.Slutsats: Större kommuner behöver förbättra sina planeringar och kontrollera sina byggnadsinvesteringar i och med att investeringarna ofta är större och fler saker kan gå fel än för mindre kommuner.Fler kommuner borde samarbeta mer vid byggnadsinvesteringar för att på det viset kunna matcha byggföretagen vid upphandling.Kommunerna bör fortsätta kontrollera den externa hjälp de använder vid byggnadsinvesteringar och göra tydliga kontrakt..

The Smart Grid technology has during the last decade been established as a way to create a greater flexibility on the electricity grid that will be needed as the development moves towards an increased share of renewable primary energy sources in the electricity production. One part of the Smart Grid technology is the ability to shift loads in time, to adapt to either price or emissions, known as Demand Response. This project, which was conducted at KTH in collaboration with the consulting corporation Capgemini, examines the economic, environmental and social aspects of the Demand Response technology. In the project, three household products are used in a model that derives the potential savings in costs and emissions of CO2e. The results show that the actual savings measured in SEK are small, but that the savings measured in percent can be as high as 20 percent. Reduction of CO2e emissions is slightly lower.