Ovarian stimulation in assisted reproduction often leads to the production of a high number of oocytes. After fertilization of these oocytes, the resulting embryos can be cryopreserved for later use. Vitrification is a recently introduced method for cryostoring embryos, showing high survival rates for both cleavage stage embryos and blastocysts. Characteristic of vitrification are high concentrations of cryoprotectants and ultra fast freezing which makes the material glassily. A major concern with vitrification has been the direct contact of the cryo-solutions with liquid nitrogen.

The purpose of this Master Thesis was to study the reader in the informal reading group. To fulfil our purpose we have used the following questions: how did the reader become a reader and what does her reading look like, why do people choose to participate in a reading group, how may the group influence the individual member in her reading and interpretation of a book, does the reading group have a therapeutic function, how does the informant find the group dynamics and different roles in the reading group, and finally how does the informant experience the discussion in the reading group. We have used two studies about reading groups, one by Elizabeth Long and one by Jenny Hartley. Our theory is divided into reading and group psychology. We have interviewed seven women belonging to different reading groups.

Tail-biting in pigs is an animal welfare issue and in Sweden during 2002 the producers lost tree million Swedish crowns because of tail biting. This economic loss depends on the pigs which are discarded at slaughter because of tail biting. Tail biting can be separated into two stages, "pre-injury" and "injury". The aim of this study is to investigate if tail biting depends on environment or genetic background.A lot of research on the environments effects on the behaviour of pigs but not so much on the genetic effects has been performed. The frequency of tail biting in pig farms influence among others of environment enrichment, ventilation, gender and breed of the pig.

Family members need a great deal of support during palliative care. It is vital for the family that nursing contacts are accessible all day and night. The nurse can support the family members by sharing a professional knowledge and adapt the information to the recipient, by being present and also encourage them by not only focus on death. The support should be adapted to each individual and also have the possibility to be adjusted in each case. The aim of the study was to illustrate family members experiences of support in a late stage of palliative care.

Direct marketing is an area within marketing that is growing rapidly. Many companies has realised the benefits of using direct marketing, such as receiving direct response from customers and gaining a better customer relation. The growth within direct marketing means that traditional mass marketing today face harder competition than ever. This thesis examines and look in to three well recognised Swedish companies use of direct marketing. Our main purpose is to establish how companies spend their marketing budget between direct marketing and traditional marketing activities.

Since the role of the libraries as merely a place for loans has decreased, the importance of giving the visitors a total experience has increased.The aim of my thesis was to investigate whether a change in the sound environment at the library of Jokkmokk could generate more satisfied visitors, whether they are borrowers or use the library for other purposes. The change in the sound environment was to be effected by means of a background sound experiment in the magazine room at the library. Action research was used as a research strategy and observations and interviews as method to collect data.The experiment was conducted with two selected sounds of nature: birdsong and a rippling brook. The observations and interviews were executeted in three stages: 1. Without any background sound.

The purpose of this thesis is to get an improved understanding of what the bases for relevance are, when people in real information need situations make relevance judgements. In order to meet this purpose, an investigation based on research literature is performed. Four types of relevance are investigated: topical or subject relevance, cognitive relevance or pertinence, situational relevance or utility, and socio-cognitive relevance. The investigation also deals with users relevance criteria identified in fourteen empirical studies, in which the users are adults and engaged in oral, textual, and multimedia information retrieval. Finally, the connections between the user criteria found and the types of relevance are discussed.

One of the most distinguishing features of contemporary globalisation is production fragmentation, a splitting up of the manufacturing of a good into several different stages. Production fragmentation creates new opportunities through vertical specialization; a country incapable of mastering the entire production process may specialize in the manufacturing of one separate part. The aim of this thesis is to examine to what extent international integration affects a country?s ability to engage in vertical specialization in an industry characterized by production fragmentation. The analysis focuses on the european integration process over the last decade, where countries in eastern Europe with relatively low labour costs have been integrated with more capital abundant western economies.

In today?s IT-community, consumers use the internet in a increasing rate to find information or to purchase products and services. This has led to a growth in the market, but also a greater competition between e-stores and web shops. To separate yourself from the masses has become more important, the question is; what strategy should the IT-salesman use? The meaning of this scientific study is to find and focus on witch the primary factors/aspects are, that controls and is the very foundation for the consumer making a purchase, by using the internet. The purpose is to give companies a clear view of what it is that influence the consumer into buying theirs products, and how this group responds to different strategies and factors.

The Swedish government ratified on May 1 2009 an amendment of marital law, resulting in same-sex marriage becoming legalized. With the rights of the Christian Swedish state church to officiate weddings originating from the same law, the church was thereby faced with two options: Either officially include same-sex couples in the Christian concept of holy matrimony and keep the right to officiate weddings; or give up the right to officiate weddings altogether. An official decision to accept the terms was reached on October 22 2009, but not without being preceded by an agitated medial debate.This research attempts to analyze the arguments of the debate in three stages: In the first stage the arguments are categorized according to their respective ideological standpoint. In the second stage these categories are examined from post-modern, social constructivist and socialization theory perspectives. Based on this, the third stage sees the arguments analyzed from a viewpoint based in the Copenhagen school concept of securization.The research concludes that the debate does not only simply feature two sides with differences of opinion; but rather that the arguments of the two opposing sides are founded in a common view of the other side as a fundamental threat to ones conception of a sound society..

The wide distribution range of our boreal pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) provides a great variation in growing conditions and climate/weather factors that influence the wood development of the trees. A great number of extensive studies have been conducted over the years in order to clarify growth trends of this and other species over more or less wide-ranging areas. In this thesis effects of weather factors were instead compared between different forest stands from the about same geographical location. The effects of precipitation, temperature and frost on the year ring characteristics of pine were studied in the research forest of Svartberget Vindeln, in northern Sweden. The stands differed in site index and silvicultural treatment; fertile ? high stem density, fertile ? low stem density, poor ? high stem density and poor ? low stem density.

The Internet protocol of today has been used for over 20 years. A new version of the protocol has been developed to replace the old one. This is a direct result due to the explosive growth of the usage of the Internet. This follows by new demands which needs new solutions. This report brings up the old protocol IPv4, the new protocol IPv6 and shows what kind of changes that has been developed to meet the users demand.The report brings up two important aspects; internet security and mobility.

This thesis is structured as a combined empirical and literary study. The aim is to investigate how children at the age of 11-12 years reflect on their readings of fiction and how these reflections relate to the librarians' perspective of a child's reading ability and reading development. Qualitative interviews with children and librarians constitute the empirical part. Research and theories are compared to the empirical part then placed into a more extensive context. How do children at the age of 11-12 years old reflect upon their reading of fiction and how do librarians relate themselves to this age? An analysis using interviews, research and theories is used to answer these questions.

This master thesis is a part of the DySCAS project at ENEA. The purpose of this thesisproject is to add support for streaming media and USB support to the DySCAS demonstratorplatform.To achieve this, some of the widely used middlewares available today were studied. The onethat proved to be of most interest is CORBA. Although CORBA?s solution to streamingmedia couldn?t be used due to their use of object programming, the CORBA solution didprovide some interesting thoughts regarding how the USB devices should be handled, in thiscase their ?resource inspector? and ?trading service?.Ethernet was the chosen network to support streaming media.

Marknaden för barn är lukrativ och omsätter årligen mycket pengar. Barn ses som tre marknader i en; de spenderar sina pengar på den existerande marknaden, påverkar föräldrarnas köpvanor och kan genom sina erfarenheter bli trogna ett märke i framtiden. Därför är det viktigt för företag att göra reklam för sina produkter och tjänster och teknikerna för att fånga uppmärksamhet är många, till exempel produktplaceringar. Reklam finns idag på många platser i vårt samhälle och barn utsätts dagligen för den. Syftet med detta examensarbete var att genom en litteraturstudie undersöka hur mycket av reklamens säljande budskap barn förstår och frågeställningen som knöts till syftet var: I vilket kognitivt och socialt stadium förstår barn reklamens säljande syfte? På grund av variationer i de valda vetenskapliga artiklarnas resultat var det svårt att göra några generaliseringar och studien gav inget entydigt svar på i vilket kognitivt och socialt stadium barn förstår reklamens säljande syfte..