Due to their complexity and heavy wear from rail traffic, switches are a sensitive part of the railway infrastructure and moreover expensive to maintain. Furthermore, increasing railway traffic not only accelerates the wear rate but also obstructs the necessary maintenance measures. This paper examines the opportunities for a transition to a long-term maintenance strategy in the Swedish railway network. It contains a study of the maintenance strategy of Banverket, and also analyses statistics of errors in the railway infrastructure. The survey was completed utilising interviews with infrastructure managers, maintenance contractors, planners of railway operations and the Banverket material service department.

Mitt intresse för utomhuspedagogik har funnits så länge jag minns men själva begreppet kom inte till mig förrän jag började på lärarutbildningen där jag verkligen förstod innebörden. Att undersöka hur man arbetar med utomhuspedagogik på två olika avdelningar där den ena arbetar enbart utomhus verkade intressant och så föddes frågeställningarna och syftet till detta arbete. Jag ville veta hur föräldrar och pedagoger ser på utomhuspedagogik i förskolan och hur de två olika avdelningarna arbetar med det.Jag valde att intervjua två pedagoger och två föräldrar på vardera avdelning. Det som förvånade mig var att pedagogerna på den traditionella avdelningen var mycket positivt inställda till utomhuspedagogik men som de ändå inte arbetar med i större utsträckning. Båda avdelningarna tillbringar däremot stor del av verksamhetstiden utomhus men på olika sätt och alla föräldrar verkar nöjda över att barnen vistas så pass mycket ute..

 The intention of this paper is to explore the contacts between the Swedish province of Scania and Southeastern Europe in the Migration Period. This has been done through comparative studies of four object categories. Parallels to glass, horse trappings, jewellery with inlays and sword decorations found in Scania have been studied in southeastern and centralEurope, as well as the cultures of peoples involved in the Migration processes. The conclusion is that contacts were upheld in several ways: through trade, exchange, alliances and gifts. Old trade routes along the Vistula were used in the south-easterly direction to the Pontic area but were changed to the Moravian Gatein the latter half of the period, while westerly routes probably worked most of the time.

Forecasting is an important part in attempting to predict how companies will perform in the future. The more accurate the prediction, the more valuable are the results obtained from the forecast. This thesis aims to investigate forecasts of return on equity, and whether a disaggregation of the leverage formula into its underlying components affects the forecasting ability positively. This is conducted by comparing a model based on the leverage formula's components with a model solely based on return on equity from previous years. The study includes manufacturing companies on the Swedish Stock Exchange over the period 1998-2011.

Information handling has been a key issue for different companies for a long time. Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) is used to transfer different business documents from one company to another. This is done in such way that the information itself is separated from how this information is stored and handled in the companies internal systems. As different companies have different systems there is a need for a standardised format for this exchange. There is a big difference between EDI-systems based on what kind of EDI-standard is used.

The aim of this masters thesis was to study how the members of a small non-profit organisation perceived the web forum, compared to the other information channels of the organisation. The organisation was defined as a virtual community. A literature review was conducted. The theory construction was based on the sensemaking theory. Interview questions were constructed based on the literature review and the sensemaking theory.

Shear Strength and Deformation Characteristics of Uppsala Clay with CRS and Standard OedometerTyra Morell Bonin & Magdalena MählerTo see how much a clay compact under different pressure one can use several different methods and in this project, two methods were used, the Standard Oedometer and a CRS apparatus. A Standard Oedometer is a full-time manual device and the CRS apparatus is a modern electric and automatic device. The aim of the project was to see similarities and differences between the two methods and examine which method that were most reliable. This has been done with repeated laboratory tests and afterward evaluations. With this information one can get a picture of how the clay will behave and how it will deform in nature.

The main purpose of this essay is to look closer at how and when the Swedish women?s organization Grupp 8 changed their initial socialistic ideological approach and turned it into a feministic one during 1971 to 1979. By 1979 the group was referring to them self as a feministic movement. This is done by analyzing the way Grupp 8: s discussion in the areas of women in relation to work, family and society changes. The primary information is represented by the groups own magazine Kvinnobulletinen.

The purpose of this Master?s thesis is to examine what role the new city library in Halmstad has for its users. The questions posed in this study are: What do the users actually do at the library? What roles are the most significant according to the users? Have the politicians succeeded in their intention of realizing a modern library according to the users? The theoretical starting point is Andersson?s and Skot-Hansen?s theory of four different roles of public libraries. In order to extend the model we added a fifth function; the one of aesthetical experience.

Findus Sverige AB, referred to asFindus from now on, harvests peas during a period ofaround 50 days during the summer. The harvest generates about 30 000 tonnes of peas which gives around 40 000 pallets to distribute to the warehouses which Findus uses for final storage. Three hours after the peas are picked in the fields, they have to be frozen to keep their good taste and quality. Because of this the pallets are marked with a preliminary label with quality classification of the content. The Findus quality department then has one day to determine the correct quality of each pallet.

Ericsson?s factory in Kumla, Modules Kumla, became a hub for radio modules and micro base stations, which enables mobile communication through radio base stations, in 2004. Because of this the factory focuses more on the logistics operations. This has led to a need to be able to plan the capacity for the materials handling system. This master thesis has therefore been performed at Modules Kumla to develop a capacity calculation model for the material handling flow during the autumn of 2005.The work has contained a mapping of the material handling flow regarding to which activities was performed and how much time they consumed.

A large number of farms within the agricultural sector will shortly be facing a point of time where the farm will be transferred to the next generation. The grantor can choose between totally 8 different strategies to transfer the farm, of which purchase, gift and a mixed form of these are the most common. During 2007 almost 10 000 transfers of agricultural estates occurred in Sweden and the expectation for the coming years is that about 15 000 estates will be transferred each year. By the time a transfer is about to materialize there are usually several stakeholders that in one way or another is trying to influence the outcome of the transfer. The choice of transfer method affects the conditions and possibilities for compensating the siblings.

The purpose of this study was to investigate what competence social workers have, don´t have and ask for in the work with unaccompanied children, how a lack of competence and guidelines has been compensated in the practical work and how the social workers view the future work with unaccompanied children. This has been done through eight semi-structured interviews with social workers who work with unaccompanied children. The result has been analyzed with help of the theoretical perspective globalization connected to social work and showed that none of the social workers felt not having the competence to work with the children. However, everyone mention one or more areas where they ask for competence development. The study showed that lack of education has been compensated through practical experiences, knowledge exchange with others and that guidelines now have been formed.

Denna rapport ger en bild av vilka olika saker byggherrar i Sverigeanvänder sig av idag för att öka den sociala hållbarheten. De projektsom studerats är Bygga om Dialogen i Malmö, Älvstaden i Göteborg,Vivalla i Örebro och föreningen Byggemenskap.Genom att intervjua en person från varje område studeras likheteroch skillnader i hur man arbetat med den sociala hållbarheten vidbyggnation. I Malmö och Örebro studeras arbetet med att öka densociala hållbarheten vid renoveringsobjekt, hur får de hela områdensom länge haft ett dåligt rykte att bli socialt hållbara där stort fokusligger på att anställa långtidsarbetslösa.I Göteborg och i föreningen Byggemenskap fokuserar man på attföra in den sociala hållbarheten vid nybyggnation och hur vi kan byggahyresrätter som har en lägre hyra än nybyggda lägenheter i dagslägethar..

In this thesis you will be able tofollow the design work of a drumtest. A tool that by having a rotatingdrum with equally positioned obstacleswill simulate the conditions a mountainbike rim will pass through.Initially there is a specification ofsome parameters and requirements thatthe design had to fulfill. There is alsosome brief background information aboutwhy a drum test is required for abicycle rim manufacturers and about thecompany Innolite Design AB that thisthesis is done for. After that itfollows an extract from conceptgeneration with the chosen concepts andsolutions but also some of the conceptsthat were not chosen.The thesis also contain a part where thereader cangain a deeper understanding of how thedesign works as well as some moredetailed facts about how the choice ofmaterials, their thicknesses, etc. havebeen made.