Native spider silk is an attractive lightweight natural polymeric material with a unique combination of strength, extendibility and flexibility. Synthetic, recombinant spider silk is an attractive biomaterial with several possible fields of application. When a foreign material is introduced to blood, this can for example cause unwanted coagulation and complement activation. The aim of this study was to investigate if coatings of heparin or albumin could improve the blood compatibility of films of recombinant spider silk and to develop an initial method to do so. Hypothetically, objects like pacemakers, stents and dental implants could be covered with spider silk films of high blood compatibility to reduce potentially harmful foreign body reactions caused by the immune defense. Increased blood compatibility would likely lead to improvements for both the individual patients and the society thanks to reduced load on healthcare institutions. Our objective was to assess the blood compatibility of both functionalized and non-functionalized recombinant spider silk by evaluating coagulation and activation of the complement system of the immune defense. Coagulation was evaluated visually on glass slides and complement activation was analyzed by measuring the concentration of the complement system mediator C3a in blood samples that had been exposed to the different materials. This study introduces a non-toxic and easy performed method of improving the blood compatibility of recombinant spider silk films by adding a heparin coating. Heparin coated surfaces had statistically significantly higher blood compatibility than uncoated surfaces. The effects of albumin coating of films were less clear compared to the results of heparin coated films. Complement activation could not be evaluated because of high activation in all samples prior contact with the materials that were included in the study..

Direkt viktoptimering (Direct Weight Optimization, DWO) är en ickeparamterisk systemidentifieringsmetod. DWO bygger på att man skattar ett funktionsvärde i en viss punkt genom en viktad summa av mätvärden, där vikterna optimeras fram. Det faktum att DWO har en inparameter som man måste veta i förväg leder till att man på något sätt vill skatta denna inparameter. Det finns många sätt man kan göra denna skattning på men det centrala i denna uppsats är att skatta inparametern lokalt. Fördelen med detta är att metoden anpassar sig om till exempel systemet ändrar beteende från att variera långsamt till att variera snabbare.

The Swedish Prime Minister, Tage Erlander, made a speech on the 22 of August 1961 in which he dismissed speculation that Sweden was seeking to abandon its neutral stance and non-alignment in foreign policy with a view to requesting membership of the European Economic Community. The reason was that the EEC was supposed to have a political part where a connection with NATO should have existed. This speech led to a domestic discussion which has been called the most intense debate of foreign affairs in recent history. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the reactions of the other parliamentary parties to Erlander?s speech.

The purpose of the study was firstly to describe the use of news articles from the largest Swedish news agency, TT Nyhetsbyrån, in four Swedish newspapers. Secondly, the purpose was to see if there was a homogenization of which TT-articles that was used. This was carried out by examining articles on the newspapers? local, domestic and foreign pages. The newspapers that was chosen were Aftonbladet, Dagens Nyheter, Göteborgs-Posten and Nerikes Allehanda.

AbstractAs human beings, we are all governed by our innate instinct that to kill another human being, or to just inflict pain on another, is to go against what makes us human. Still, it happens every day, far and near. Some of these killings happens in war-like situations, where atrocities against humanity occur. The international community has since the founding of UN in 1945, a duty to intervene where crimes against the human rights occur. This is a difficult task, because, in order to intervene and help those in need, the situation might postulate states violating states sovereignty.

Automatic rumination measuring can be applied as a health indicator in dairy farming but is also highly desirable for research purposes. This study aimed to validate the technical functionality of the product RuminActTM, which employ acoustics to monitor rumination duration. The time budget of high yielding cows was studied and possible differences in rumination time between 13 rations were interpreted. Further the study examined what affects daily rumination and rumination efficiency. The validation was performed with direct observations that were compared to the automatically recorded rumination durations.

 Introduction and research question: In the global media field, global expansion has become more common and is a way for media companies to reach out to a broader audience. Both advantages and disadvantages come with a global expansion and there are several cultural differences that have to be considered. This thesis will deal with the cultural differences and discuss how a Swedish media company efficiently goes about establishing in Vietnam. This leads us to this thesis' research question: How does a Swedish media company succeed in Vietnam? Purpose: This thesis' purpose is to find out what media companies do to successfully acclimate to the Vietnamese culture and the important aspects of the cultural differences to consider.Delimitation: In order to present a thesis with greater depth and acquire a deeper understanding, the study is limited to examine Swedish media companies and what intercultural aspects are important to consider when establishing in Vietnam. Method: The research we have done is based on interviews, which we thought could give us the accurate information and a good base to stand on.

Background: Since the coining of the phrase lean production by Womack, Jones and Roos in 1990, this mass production system of Japanese origin has been implemented in a multitude of organizations throughout the world, the results being predominantly positive from a financial point of view. The possibly negative effects of mass production on worker motivation have been discussed since quality of work life became an important political issue in Sweden in the 1970?s. As the popularity of lean service is now increasing, there are still unresolved issues regarding the transferability of a mass production system to the service industry, particularly with regards to the motivation of service employees.Purpose: The purpose of our thesis is to study the lean system of a Swedish bank, SEB Way, from a management- as well as an employee perspective in order to describe how lean may affect the work motivation of service employees.Research procedure: The study is empirically based on observations and interviews on multiple hierarchical levels at SEB. We have conducted a total of 13 interviews with front line employees at SEB, with the central SEB Way team as well as two external lean specialists.Results: The study indicates that SEB Way has little direct influence on the intrinsic work motivation of the SEB front line employees, as work motivation was present prior to the implementation of lean.

This thesis is about adware, which is very popular today. The adwares are used to, among other things, down- and upload files from other users on the Internet. One thing that most users of such programs are not aware of is that many of the adwares contain spyware. These spywares install themselves simultaneously with the adwares. Two of the spyware features is to generate pop-ups in the web browser and to direct advertisment from the users web habits.

The voluntary none-financial sustainability report has become a trend within accounting. The environmental issues used to be driven by activists only, but lately it has moved in to the general agenda in many companies. Investors are starting to put more attention to the sustainability reporting as it is considered to add value to the company. There are several standard guidelines to be used when producing a sustainability report, one example is the GRI´s Guidelines that takes the following three dimensions in consideration: economy, environment and social. This Guideline is from an international perspective considered to be of good accounting practice (Ljungdahl 2008).

The world economy of today is in an extensive financial crisis which has lead to the fact that people seek well placed investments and securing of capital, something that by many people can be found in forest investment. The price of forest estates has increased with 90 % during the last 5 years and marketing polls indicate a positive belief in the future among forest owners. The development of timber prices has not increased to the same extent as the forest property prices which implies that the property price not only reflect the yield value from the forest but also that the lumber value does not have such a meaningful role in the pricing of forest properties as proven earlier. This fact means that forest owners either invest their capital in forest in a speculative point of view or that the purchasers of forest properties invests in non monetary benefits that lacks a direct yield value. The purpose with this degree thesis is to increase the understanding of the pricing of forest properties with focus on the above mentioned fact.

Animal welfare is of increasing concern in present society. In commercial pig farming, animal welfare problems are common. One of the causes for these problems is the barren environment in which pigs are housed, which can cause oral manipulation of pen mates. Providing straw might be one solution to this problem. Another solution could be reached through genetic selection.

Three different factors are thought to be involved in the increased segregation in Stockholm: the living segregation, scientific and political dissonances and the social economical factor. Many segregated areas have many inhabitants with foreign background. Schools in these areas have a higher number of students with lower grades compared to other schools with higher number of students that are ethnical Swedes. Jordbromalmsskolan is a school in Haninge kommun that is one of the seven schools in Stockholms suburbs where students graduate with the lowest grades. The school is suffering from a very bad reputation because of many problems like fights between students and lack of resources like purchase stop.

With a larger awareness of the climate changes and increasing electricity prices, energy efficiency measures in the industry have become more common. By rationalize the activity and by the same time decrease the emission of greenhouse gases the company can both save money and reduce negative environmental impact. For the Swedish industries the electricity price have traditional been relative low, which has resulted in a considerable larger usage than other European countries. By a deregulation of the European electricity market the electricity price will level off between the countries, which will cause a higher electricity price in Sweden than we are use to. To prevent that the Swedish industry don?t lose competitiveness against the other European countries, it will require energy efficiency activities in all different forms.ABB Sweden has decided to decrease their total energy usage with five percent in two years.

The world gets smaller and smaller and goods, services, people and information are nowadays more and more able to freely cross borders. Half of the Swedish GNP consists of export and almost 70 % of that amount is goods. Because of today?s increasing globalization the Swedish companies are now faced with both new opportunities and threats. Companies with goods which are manufactured in Sweden gets challenged by increased competition from cheap goods produced in other countries and companies can no longer afford to entirely focus on the domestic market.