The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the degree of influence of holes in the web of steel beams with long spanson weakening of their bearing capacity. Making holes in the web of the beam generally reduces the bearing capacity of the beam. However, it might be necessary seen from both an architectural perspective as well as from a building services perspective by creating an opportunity for building installations.The objective of this thesis is to examine how much an I-beam can be weakened without sacrificing safety and functionality. The investigation has been done by using Finite Element Method through commercial software.The regulation for structural design of building structures in Sweden used to be specified in the document known as BKR. But this was replaced by the European norm Eurocode back in May 2011.

The aim of this degree project is to find out how people who have grown up in families with addiction problems have experienced their childhood and how their adult life has been affected by this. With the help of qualitative interviews with four grown up children to addicts, knowledge has been gained about what was experienced as problematic during childhood, what was beneficial and compensatory as well as how they feel today. The results have shown that their childhood was affected by a deficiency in the ability to parent, weak networks, adjusting, responsibility, a feeling of being left out and few positive experiences. Factors that have been protective are: important people, interests as well as attitude. In adult life many habits from childhood remain.

The purpose of this essay is to evaluate stock index bonds return to risk ratio in order to investigate to which degree an investor in a stock index bond take part of the underlying index return and what the investor must pay for the security of not losing his funds. In order to carry out this evaluation an average return per year and the Sharpe ratio will be calculated and a mean- standard deviation analysis will be made. All investigated stock index bonds are based on a Swedish underlying asset.The results show that the stock index bonds haven?t generated a higher risk adjusted return than its underlying asset. The stock index bonds took part of 57 % of the underlying assets return, and the loss of 10 percentage points per year for the stock index bonds compared to its underlying asset can be seen as the cost for the guarantee a stock index bond gives..

This master thesis studies how much the cycle time, i.e. the time it takes for an industrial robot to perform a given task, can be reduced if an extra degree of freedom (DOF) is added to the robot system. The extra DOF consists of a linear track, which is supposed to be used in an optimal way. The problem has been studied using simulations in the robot simulation tool RobotStudio. To be able to run an optimization in Matlab, with the RobotStudio simulation cycle time as the object function, communication between Matlab and RobotStudio has been set up with an interface written in Visual Basic.

This degree project was conducted in collaboration with Gremo AB located in Ätran.The aim of the project was to develop a solution to secure quality and to help assemblingthe locknut holding the vertical hinge on the harvesters and foresters from Gremo.At this time the nut is assembled manually by the aid of an overhead crane. The nut istightened differently from time to time, and there was no specified torque to which it istightened. Another present problem was the locking washer which sometimes getsdamaged during assembly, when this happens the procedure has to be started over fromthe beginning. The current assembly procedure is very time consuming and lengthy forthe employees.Our task was to design a machine that could tighten the nut to a specified torque with amargin of error of ± 3%. The assembly procedure will be held simple and the timerequired at a minimum.The project started by developing several principle solutions, the one solution that bestmatched our specifications were developed to a primary solution.Today we have started manufacturing and assembling our prototype.

The foundation for this thesis lies in whether or not, and how, the body representation in printed commercials, specific products directed to the body (shampoo, body lotion etc.), has changed during the last fifty years. Four years have been chosen because of the changes in society that we believe might have had an impact. The commercials that have been picked out are the ones that best represent the general view of the body. We have found that the changes when it comes to body presentation has followed the social development to a certain degree, but it is difficult to say how much the society has had an affect on the body ideal in advertising. Representations of the male body is something that has escalated since the early 70?s, fifteen years earlier few commercials was made with male models, and the few there were, never showed more than the face.

The aim of this study was to compare unemployed and workers' life situation and the way they cope with different situations and to determine their degree of Type A. We used two different instruments: Friedman and Rosenman?s Type A-test and Carver?s cope test. The total number of respondents amounted to 169 participants. The participants were selected from a convenience sample at the employment service and from three different companies.

It may seem obvious that the urban space in our northern cities should be design to function and inspire throughout the whole year. This is not always the case. The urban space is often designed on a summer basis and the winter is regarded more as a problem then a resource and its potential remain unused. I have in this master thesis studied the impact of the winter on people and spaces and ponder on how to design functional and attractive places for winter. The project ends in a design concept for Broparken in Umeå on the theme "everyday winter day". The work with this thesis has given me, as a landscape architect, valuable experiences and filled a gap of knowledge that I had in this subject. I hope that this thesis can inspire Umeå kommun and others who are interested in how northern cities can benefit by its climate and develop towards a more complete city. The thesis begins with a chapter that present the subject from four different perspectives.

The purpose of this Master´s thesis is to examine howchildren?s needs, based on the Convention on the Rights ofthe Child, are provided for by the librarians when they havethe opportunity to create new libraries. We also examine ifchildren have been involved in the process and in that case towhat extent.Our theoretical perspective is based on MarianneAndersson?s and Dorte Skot-Hansen?s model of the fourdifferent functions the library can have for their users. Inorder to illustrate the degree of children?s involvement weuse Roger Hart?s model of participation.The thesis is based on qualitative interviews with seveninformants working at six different libraries.As a result of the thesis we can see that priority have beengiven to the function concerning how to find your way in thelibrary as a user.

In this degree project I have studied how an anti-discrimination bureau can adapttheir online information to the target group ? immigrants who only have modestunderstanding of the Swedish language. This group is often subject of discriminationmatters, and therefore it?s important that they can take part of the information.To find answers to my questions I have studied different relevant theories, performeda readability analysis on the online information and have had qualitativeinterviews with representatives from the target group. I have also tested my rewrittentexts on both representatives and other readers.The result from my studies has shown that it is words that are the most difficult inthe current online information, while length and structure of the sentences are alsoof importance when it comes to the readability.

Abstract Youths and adolescents have for a long period of time, and at a high degree, beenabsent from the party political stage. The causes for this have been discussed inthis essay through a quantitative survey made in an upper secondary school class,consisting of some 19 subjects in the municipality of Kalmar. Tied together withrelevant literature and discourse on the subject, the essay has dealt with thepossible societal-, system- and individual barriers for political interest andinvolvement. Central questions for this essay has been for instance; age, gender,social background, geographical domicile, as well as the decline of ideology, theforms of current party politics, political interest, political engagement and soforth. The concluding remarks contain not only a mix of these barriers existing,not exclusively, for young and adolescents but different ground for them as well.On the one hand, there exist barriers which exclude youth from the conventionalpolitical life, but on the other, the more individualised youth of today, prefer to agreater extent not to participate under the conventional circumstances that partypolitics has to offer.

ABSTRACTPurpose/Aim: This essay aims to investigate what picture (obvious and hidden) of men and womens equality in our society that is to be found on DN Debatt.Material/Method: The material consists of 175 articles from DN Debatt during 2004. A content analysis and a rethoric analysis has then been used as a method of analysing the material.Main results: Men are much more represented on DN Debatt then women. The underlying picture of men and women that is presented sees men as being the ones who are in charge of all the important and ?big? decisions and questions in our society. Women on the other hand are pictured as, although they have reached higher positions in society, the ones who to a high degree focus on closer and more socially important issues.

According to the study [1] several firefighters are killed in action each year. This happens naturally in various ways. One of the major factors is that firefighters often do not know how the environment looks like, for example that a building in an industrial area contains hazardous gas cylinders. Without a solution, fire-fighters will continue to die in duty. It is therefore important to solve this problem so that we can minimize the risks and save lives.The goal of this project was a control system for pneumatic artificial muscles.

Publication of science fiction has a tradition in Sweden. Adult-fantasy does not. In recentyears, the 1980's, Swedish publishers have realised how profitable fantasy is. Of the totalpublication of the two genres between 1989 and 1994, 54% was science fiction and 46%was fantasy. The reason for this even balance is that fantasy-books get reprinted more frequentlythan science fiction-books.

This is a project in Entrepreneurship and Creativity on masters? degree. The purpose was to verify whether the Swedish retail trade within the beauty care business was ready for an in-troduction of colour cosmetics. Through the qualitative research grounded theory, I made several phone interviews with independence retail traders within the Swedish beauty care business. The selection of respondents is based on statistical facts and geographic coverage of Swedish beauty care shops.