With rising energy prices and the threat of climate change, energy costs and energy savings havebecome a central and important part in building. Therefore it is interesting to explore different andnon-conventional methods of energy conservation. Building Earth sheltered houses is such a method.Earth provides good insulation and provides the ability to both reduce the total heating needs and toreduce the maximum power demand. The aim of this study was to construct a house in Malmö and seeif Earth sheltered houses can be a cost effective alternative for the construction of sustainable andenergy-efficient houses.Previous studies have shown that Earth sheltered houses have reduced their power requirement with upto 25% and their use of energy with 10%. Numerical calculations in Comsol Multiphysic 4.2, wasperformed on a house with different degrees of earth covering.

Our purpose was to investigate if Swedish University educated social workers, living as active Christians, in any way might be influenced by Christian values. The main questions; Can Christian values be a factor in the choice of career to become a social worker? How does a personal belief in Christ impact the relationship towards the clients? Is Christian belief a support in the work? In this paper we used a qualitative method and interviewed eight persons, with a background as above, four of them employed by a church organisation and the other four working in the social sector. The result we present is that the eight Christian social workers Christian belief influenced their work very individually. How much this supported them was a choice about how official and open they wanted Christian values to be.

High-performance equine athletes have an energy requirement that often reaches twice the maintenance requirement. Horses are grazers and adapted to a grass diet, and diets high in grains and concentrates are associated with digestive upsets and behavioural disorders. It could therefore be of interest if the energy requirement of a high-performing horse could be met by forage. It is important that the forage have a high concentration of energy so that the horse is able to consume the whole amount of energy needed from the forage without exceeding the maximum voluntary intake. The purpose of this literature study was to investigate if the energy demand of a high-performance horse can be covered by forage produced under Northern Swedish climate conditions.

The purpose of my study is to give a good picture of what social media really is and how companies can make use of it, in their marketing strategy. It gets more important for every day that companies fully understand how social media works and how to act in the new digital channels. To be an updated marketer today, you need to fully understand social media and how it can be implemented in the company marketing strategy. This study gives you a snapshot over todays situation in the area of social media marketing.I have interviewed four different persons, who I believe have a great competence and are highly qualified for this kind of study. All of the interviewed persons work with social media marketing at a daily basis.

This study has been performed at a smaller high school and with its industry students, the high school is located in a small industrial community. The purpose of my study has been to find out what students think about their work with the project work, what they think has been positive and negative, how their motivation is influenced by the work on the project and if the work has been affected by factors outside the school world.The interviews have been carried out like normal conversation with open questions. The students who participated in the study comes from the school where I did my internship. The selection was done by asking all students from a specific course, those who were positive to participate are also the ones I have chosen to interview. My main study results, in summary, described as the students, once they were inside their work were positive to the project work and felt motivated in their work. Negative experiences, for the students which attend a practical program, has mainly been economic, as the school does not provide any financial support.

Background: The meeting industry has had undergone a extensive changes due to a number of factors. The globalization has meant that supply increases and congress organizers have more options to choose from. Development in communications, for instance internet, means that meetings can take place without a physical presence. Congress organizers as clients have also changes. Stockholm as position as a leading city to hold congresses in has also changed for the worse, in 2006 Stockholm dropped of the top-10 list.

Resource-based learning or problem-oriented learning are teaching methods that are becoming more and more common in schools today. In order to make these teaching methods work there is a demand to make students information literate. The aim of this thesis is to find out how six teachers at six senior high schools apprehend their professional role of seeking, preparing and developing the course in history of literature. I have used phenomenography which is both a set of theoretical assumptions and a methodology. This means that by doing a limited number of qualitative interviews one is able to describe the variations of the conceptions that have emerged.

The aim of this thesis is to accomplish a user study on how e-book users experience the electronic book, the e-book, as an instrument for reading fiction. The study is based upon qualitative interviews with twelve e-book users and a small survey carried out at the Stockholm City Library. The purpose is to identify the users' incentive for choosing the e-book as a medium for reading fiction, elucidate if and how the interface of the e-book affects the reading experience, and distinguish if there are any factors common to the users in their choice of reading e-books. How the users look upon the future of the e-book is also discussed. Among the people asked in the survey we note little if any demand for the e-book as an instrument for reading fiction.

The theme in this report has been how to benefit experience from accident investigations. The demand on the municipality to perform accidet investigations is relatively new, and maybe they aren?t clear what the demands means. This causes that there might be a problem to benefit experience from accident investigations, for improving the overall safety in the municipality. The main purpose of this report has been to clarify how experience from accident investigations, can be of benefit to society on a local level.

Background: A majority of strategic alliances do not create value for the participants. One of the main reasons for the high failure rate is an inadequate process for partner selection. If the correct partner is not selected, it can have serious effects on the management of the partnership. This is a serious problem since failed alliances usually are very expensive for the involved companies. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to investigate which theoretical factors are important when selecting a partner for a strategic alliance.

The purpose of our study has been to examine the methods of validation and reminiscences from an employee point of view. To answer our aim a qualitative disquisition with four assistant nurses and one pedagogue in craft was conducted. The result was divided into three different themes: the view on people with dementia, merits and demerits with the methods and to work with people with dementia. The analysis of the result was made from selected parts of the system theory and symbolic interaction theory.The result of our disquisition can be summarized in that all our interviewed persons above all only can see advantages with the methods and several express that they are good tools to use in their work with people with dementia. The majority of our interviewed persons make use of the methods in everyday, spontaneous, meetings with the elderly.

This thesis examines if commercial-of-the-shelf (COTS) systems meet the needs in different types of organizations. This was investigated through a case study of a COTS system. The system is built for contact centers and used in different types of organizations. Contextual inquiries with users from six different organizations were held together with interviews with stakeholders of the system. This gave an understanding for how the system is used and the needs to be met in the different organizations were recognized.

The aim of my study is to answer the question whether there is a potential for services by working horses in the Swedish municipalities. The Swedish University for Agricultural Sciences (SLU) and Swedish Farmers Union (LRF) has started a cooperation called Climate School (Klimatskolan), with the purpose to increase knowledge in environmental and climate related issues in context of agriculture. This Master thesis is in the framework of the Climate School.Global warming is a problem that gets much attention today. Global warming and climate change are two subjects that are very much in focus on the political agenda. The municipalities of Sweden have a big responsibility concerning environmental work and to develop their own environmental thinking.

This paper examines and compares several different sites in Sweden in addition to one in Mexico regarding whether the ecological requirements theses sites have had during planning and construction has affected the design in any way. Is it possible that, for different reasons, one thinks ?like nature? when one thinks of ecology and, if true, how does this reflect on the spatial and structural design? This paper tries to identify if some sort of general design expression is used in projects with requirements on ecological sustainability. In total, five projects have been compared in different areas such as choice of materials and their composition. These projects have an ecologically sustainable processing of water in common, although most also have ecological consideration in other areas as well.

Automated Guided Vehicles, AGV:er, används i huvudsak som monteringsplattform inom tung fordonsindustri. En AGV kan användas vid montering av motorer, växellådor och chas-sin. AGV:n transporterar produkten genom en slinga i fabriken, där produkten monteras. Idag säljs AGV:n med ett löfte om femfaldig säkerhet mot brott för alla de ingående komponenter-na. AGV:n är konstruerad för att bära upp en last på maximalt 1800 kg, med säkerhetsfaktorn inkluderad.