Historically, the horse has in many ways been important to human beings. Today, Equine Assisted Therapy is a form of treatment in which the horse is used as a tool from the treatment of the client. Supported Equine therapy has a therapeutic purpose and may vary depending on the patient's needs and the professionals work competence. Various studies show that animals have a positive impact on people. The aim of our study was to explore how Equine Assisted Therapy is used within the practical fields of social work in Sweden.

Polaris Eyewear is one of the world's leading companies in innovative eyeweardesign. My assignment has been to, in collaboration with them, expand their range with a pair of children's glasses, while maintaining the innovative character they are so known for.The problem with childrens eyewear today is that most of the time the glasses tries to mimic the adult eyewear and the ?childish? type of designing is spared. From an ergonomic point of view, a child's nose is smaller than an adults and therefore needs a different type of shape and nosebridge. In addition, children have softer ears, which means that they need a different type of shaftend as well.

Lameness from the carpus is not unusual in the horse. Multiple soft tissue structures such as tendons, ligaments, the joint capsule and synovial structures can be the originating source. All these structures can be examined with ultrasound, although a description of a systematic examination method is lacking. That is ? which structures, what they look like in an ultrasound examination, how to look at them in the best way, and in what order.

Horses are by nature herbivores, specialized on grass, and graze during the main part of the day. The horse has neither changed this basic behaviour nor the function of gastro-intestinal tract, when the horse was domesticated by man. A horse on pasture has an even production of saliva and gastric acids. The buffering effect of the saliva makes the pH in the stomach above four throughout most of the day. With abnormal long breaks of eating, the pH may decrease, causing an increased risk of gastric ulcer.

Horses respond individually to challenges, and the possibility to use these reactions to evaluate equine temperament with an objective instrument would have several advantages. Horse welfare could be improved by making it possible to find individuals best suited for a specific use, and understanding of the development of abnormal behaviours, such as stereotypies, could be increased. Management routines and training could be adjusted tosuit each individual horse and it could facilitate the selection of individuals appropriate for breeding. There are also economic implications, as horse buyers consider temperament important and after evaluating temperament, money can be spent solely on specific horses with all the right qualities. During the last decade, many attempts have been made to measure different aspects of temperament in horses, and the first aim of this project was to look at these studies and see which methods were used and which temperamental characteristics they measured.

This thesis considers the development of the software for an, newly developed, embedded real-time control system, based on a Periferal Interface Controller (PIC). The control system is developed to be used for several different applications. In this thesis work, software for two different applications are developed. The first task is a time controlled system, while the other task is implementation of aPI-/PID-controller. A user interface is also developed and implemented.The time controlled system is an automatic horse feeder, which is used for feeding horses at certain predefined points in time.

Joint injury (inflammation) or osteoarthritis is the most common cause of poor performance in the athletic horse. Osteoarthritis is the ensuing degeneration of joint cartilage due to inflammation/injury. The single most important factor in the inflammation cascade of joint injuries is interleukin-1 (IL-1). Until recently, these injuries have been treated with products like hyaluronic acid, cortisone and polysulphated glycosaminoglycans (PSGAG). Several studies have not been able to demonstrate a significant difference in the clinical improvement of joint injuries treated with hyaluronic acid or PSGAG and saline.

Swedish horse breeders have generally very few mares producing a few foals a year and the breeders have relatively few traditions, little knowledge and experience to breed foals successfully. It is therefore important to provide adequate information about new findings in horse nutrition. However, there is not much research about feeding the suckling foal to ensure a sound growth. Current feeding recommendations in the literature seems to be different. This gives a confusing message and the information is difficult to apply. This paper reviews some publications in the area of feeding the suckling and weaning foal. Most authors stress that it?s important to start feeding the foal early in life.

 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.

Idrottskulturen präglas av en tydlig könsordning. Detta gör sig gällande då idrotter anses vara kvinno- eller mansidrotter. Att en idrott anses vara en kvinno- eller mansidrott tenderar att betyda att det är ett kön som är i majoritet av de som utövar.  Denna uppsats syftar till att undersöka hur tjejer påverkas av att de utövar en sport som domineras av tjejer respektive killar. Uppsatsen utgörs av en litteraturstudie.

Animal welfare in Sweden has gone through major changes during the later years. In 2004, Swedish Animal Welfare Agency took over the central responsibility for the animal welfare from the Swedish Board of Agriculture, and in 2007 the board again became the central authority for animal welfare in Sweden.Even the practical supervision has changed, from the 1 of January 2009 the supervision is to be performed by the county administrative boards, instead of by the individual municipalities. Since 2006 every horse in the European Union has to have an identification card, in Sweden called a ?horse passport? which describes the color and markings of the horse as well as any veterinary treatments.The ELOF-project, a collaborative project between the Swedish Board of Agriculture and the county administrative boards, intends to make the animal welfare supervision effective, standardised, fair and risk-based. Because of the takeover of the supervision and of the ELOF-project the Örebro County Administrative Board has began to make an inventory of the number of horses and horsefarms in the county. Another Ethology and Animal Welfare-student and I did, in collaboration with the county administrative board created a checklist that in connection with the inventory will lead to a risk-based animal welfare supervision.

Records of P III fractures from 235 horses, 71 of them were standardbreds, treated at 3 major Swedish equine hospitals (Strömsholm, SLU and Mälaren hästklinik) between 1994 and 2004 were evaluated for information such as the patients age, sex, breed, type of fracture, affected leg, time and place of the injury, treatment and, if possible, result of treatment. For the standardbreds, result of treatment was also followed up through written correspondence with owners and by screening AB Trav och Galopp racing-results. Moreover, results of horses with type II and III-fractures treated with rest and therapeutic shooing only were compared to horses in which lag screw fixation were added to achieve interfragmental compression. Compared to the rest of the Swedish horse population, P III fractures were slightly more common among standardbred horses. The mean age of the affected standardbred was 5,8 years, compared to 7,9 years in the rest of the horse-population. Most horses injured themselves in the paddock.

Horses are herbivores that spend almost all day grazing. While grazing they are infected by different endoparasites through ingestion of infective eggs or larvae on pasture. The most significant equine endoparasites in Sweden are the equine roundworm Parascaris equorum, small (Cyathostominae) and large strongyles (Strongylus spp), the tapeworm Anoplocephala perfoliata and the pinworm Oxyuris equi. For many years have horses been dewormed on regularly basis, which has resulted in the development of resistance to many anthelmintic classes. Because of the problems with resistance it is since 2007 necessary to have a prescription on anthelmintics and faecal sampling is also recommended.

Laminitis is a debilitating disease causing much suffering to horses and ponies all over the world. It is manifested in the hooves as a mechanical failure of the suspensory apparatus between the hoof capsule and the distal phalanx. Due to the weight of the horse the disease may result in a dislocation of third phalanx. Six healthy standardbred trotters were used in this study on whether standardbreds tolerate forced recumbency as well as Shetland ponies. Recumbency was induced pharmacologically but maintained only by lowering the ceiling height of the box to a height of approximately 125 ? 140 % of the horse´s thoracic height.

In today?s horse keeping, there is an increasing awareness of the importance of movement and activity for the horses comfort and tenability, while tradition has it that horses should be kept in boxes and small paddocks. In order to develop housing systems that fulfils and optimizes the horses needs regarding movement and activity, we need to know more about factors that influence the activity patterns of horses. A first step is to be able to record and analyze the gaits in horses with an automated system. This could be done by use of accelerometer data.In this pilot study, existing accelerometer technique was used to characterize the different gaits in horses (walk, trot and canter) by studying how their respective signal patterns differ and how this is influenced by the size of the horse.The accelerometers being used in this study measures the movement in three different spaces; horizontal, lateral and vertical.