One must consider cost effectiveness when deciding how resources within the health sector should be distributed. Quality adjusted life years (QALYs) are used to measure the value of different medical treatments. QALY is based on utility maximization theory, which suggests that a QALY is always a QALY regardless of who receives it. Therefore, a produced QALY is worth the same regardless of the age or the initial health of the patient. Previous research has shown that these assumptions do not seem to fit the real preferences of individuals.

Syftet med detta examensarbete var att underso?ka MEMS och elektretmikrofoner fo?r att finna vilken typ som la?mpar sig ba?st fo?r fo?retaget Comfort Audio AB och deras ho?rselhja?lpmedelsprodukter. Uto?ver detta underso?ktes mo?jligheter att kontrollera upptagningskarakteristik med hja?lp av en teknik vid namn end-fire.Resultaten har erha?llits genom att underso?ka ett antal elektroakustiska egenskaper hos olika mikrofoner, som sedan har ja?mfo?rts med respektive tillverkares tekniska specifikationer. Upptagningskarakteristiken har underso?kts genom konstruktion av en mikrofonuppsa?ttning da?r den summerade signalen underso?kts.

In query expansion (QE) terms are added to an initial query in order to improve retrieval effectiveness. In this thesis we use QE in the sense that a reformulation of the query is done by deleting the terms in the initial query and instead replacing them with terms from the documents retrieved in the initial run. The aim of this thesis is to, in a experimental full text invironment, study and compare the retrieval result of two different query expansion strategies in relation to each other. The following questions are addressed by the study: How do the two strategies perform in relation to each other regarding recall? What may be causing the result? Are the two strategies retrieving the same relevant documents? Two strategies are designed to simulate a searcher using automatic query expansion (AQE) either with or without relevance feedback.

In Sweden, large scale planting of Lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta var. latifolia) started in the beginning of the 1970?s. At first, the aim was production of pulpwood, but later, also production of timber became considered realistic. Today, Sweden has more than 520 000 ha of Lodgepole pine.

Nearly 50 years after the building of the first million programme neighbourhoods many Swedish municipalities faces an extensive restoration work in these neighbourhoods which during their relatively short lifetime have acted as a target for a large amount of criticism. Öster in Gävle is a million programme neighbourhood that has gone through an extensive restoration between 2001-2009 with the aim of improving the living environment. Improvements have been made in the outdoor environment, to the facades of the houses and the entrances? of each building. The purpose of this study has been to investigate the effects of the renewal in the physical outdoor environment for those who live in the neighbourhood.

The purpose of the study is to investigate the possible effects of an unstable ventilation system and its influence on energy use and thermal comfort. The report also explores how qualified personal working with HVAC view and handles system control.In order to meet the requirements in energy efficiency and a comfortable indoor climate control regulation is a prerequisite. With optimized increased complexity of the climate systems, it becomes more challenging to control the system and the risk of unstable control increases. No previous studies about what affect an unstable system can have on energy use and thermal comfort have been found.The report is based on several tests were the controlling variable has been increased until the system becomes unstable. Two different types of unstable systems have been investigated.

Climate and environmental issues is now high on the agenda. We live in a generation that must try to solve some major environmental problems. Buildings and habitations account for approximately 40 % of Sweden's total energy today. To reduce this figure, as needed, more research in the field of energy efficiency is required.This thesis concerns the heating of buildings. The load on district heating is heavy during certain times of the day.

Climate and environmental issues is now high on the agenda. We live in a generation that must try to solve some major environmental problems. Buildings and habitations account for approximately 40 % of Sweden's total energy today. To reduce this figure, as needed, more research in the field of energy efficiency is required.This thesis concerns the heating of buildings. The load on district heating is heavy during certain times of the day.

Background Satisfaction of life and wellbeing is shown to be important when the quality of life is to be understood. The nurse has a significant role in the care of the patient and in his/her experience of life. Aim The purpose of this study is to examine the quality of life, from a nurse perspective. Method The text analysis was carried out with qualified attempts, of a book, "Quality of life a challenge for the nurse" (in Swedish) by T. Rustoen, a nurse who also worked as a teacher in Norway.

The real estate company Ihus is facing an expansion of its comfort cooling in Noatun,Uppsala, to provide the buildings in the block with cooling. The buildings in Noatunare mainly used for office premises, where the requirements for an accepted indoorclimate is great. However, it?s uncertain whether Ihus should continue, as currently,producing comfort cooling by themselves using a compressor chiller, or if they shouldconnect themselves to Vattenfall?s district cooling net.The purpose of this report is to examine which technique of cooling is best suited forIhus and their buildings in Noatun. It should also work as a guideline for othercompanies facing the same problem as Ihus.

Background Satisfaction of life and wellbeing is shown to be important when the quality of life is to be understood. The nurse has a significant role in the care of the patient and in his/her experience of life. Aim The purpose of this study is to examine the quality of life, from a nurse perspective. Method The text analysis was carried out with qualified attempts, of a book, "Quality of life a challenge for the nurse" (in Swedish) by T. Rustoen, a nurse who also worked as a teacher in Norway. The book describes how quality of life is experienced from the patients and staffs view. Results The text analysis showed that out of the ordinary descriptions of quality of life, the author found four new themes. These themes where; the meaning of solidarity, confidence, activity and meaningfulness in the existence. Conclusion Quality of life is an important word, which means different to different kind of people.

The purpose of this thesis is to evaluate two pearl growing methods in ISI Web of Science. The methods tested are Find Related Records FRR, an automatic service that uses bibliographic coupling, and Author Keywords AK, where searches are performed using the two first keywords from this field. Both search methods were used on twenty initial documents and the first twenty hits were evaluated for relevance using a binary scale 0,1. The relevance criteria were based on specific information needs connected to every initial document. The measures used to evaluate the effectiveness of the search methods were Precision at DCV=10, P10, and Uninterpolated Average Precision AP.

Syftet med uppsatsen är att undersöka och analysera initialfasens betydelse i en förändringsprocess i ett serviceföretag, med fallföretaget Serviceshop som exempel. Vår ambition är att nå ökad förståelse för faktorer som är avgörande för en lyckad initialfas i en förändringsprocess. Uppsatsen visar att initial fasen är avgörande för en framgångsrik förändringsprocess. Vidare åskådliggjorde vi ett antal faktorer som är viktiga för en lyckad initial fas och hela förändringsprocessen. Vår forskning visar att fallföretaget, Serviceshop, inte beaktat dessa faktorer i sin planerade förändring..

Comfort analyses regarding human induced vibrationsIt is not too common among civil engineers in Sweden to perform comfort analyses considering the vibrations caused by human activities. In addition, the Swedish standards lack requirements to be used for comfort analyses in design of floor-systems. The demand for large spans in combination with slender slabs, is today a reason to investigate the floor-system constructions, in order to prevent disturbing vibrations and oscillations.The purpose of this thesis is to create a guide for how a comfort analysis, considering vibrations, should be implemented. Göran Svedenbjörk who is an expert in structural dynamics has been interviewed where he presents his latest project Värtaterminalen and answers some questions about vibrations due to human activities.Floor-systems, consisting of concrete slabs supported by steel or concrete beams, have been investigated with simulations in the finite element program Abaqus. In the simulations, the influence of various factors on the natural frequency of floor-systems and the acceleration level caused by dynamic loads, is studied.

This report describes the initial work intended for updating the car sharing service Roadmate. Roadmate is one of the services received by the car rental company Hertz First Rent a Car. The goal was to present the client with design- and structure proposals for a car sharing service that includes high usability and at the same time remains aesthetically pleasing.The work is based on an initial study with data collection, mapping the target user group and its needs. Subsequent structural and design proposals for Roadmates company carpooling service are based on the facts surrounding the target group's needs. The result are well developed and tested design sketches with accompanying visual identity and sitemaps that can be the basis for the further work on the development of the service..