In the post Cold-War era, world politics was transforming itself through its emerging complex issues such as terrorism and influential and interdependent actors such as the European Union. In this new era, the European Union was developing its Common Foreign and Security Policy pillar both to present a coherent and unified EU policy and to prove its political potent in order to become an influential actor on world politics. On the other side, security environment was also transforming its content through emerging actors and issues. As one of the most prominent actors of the world politics, the EU was influenced by the transformation of security environment, whose economic ?soft power? proved necessary but insufficient for being a global power in this emerging security environment.

In studies of serum, in the early 1930s, from patients with pneumonia, a factor was found. It could agglutinate certain pneumococcal species. This factor, which later became known as C-reactive protein (CRP), increased sharply during the early and middle stages of the disease. CRP was identified as an acute phase protein and found especially in bacterial infections. CRP is synthesized in the liver by stimulation of interleukin 6 (IL-6), which is produced by the monocytes, and consists of five non-covalently bound subunits.The aim of this study was to compare two different analytical Instruments (Vitros 5.1 FS Ortho-Clinical Diagnostics and QuikRead CRP Orion Diagnostica) for CRP analysis.

AbstractPURPOSE: The aim of this study was to describe and compare possible differences regarding selected prognostic factors for disability between patients with non-specific chronic pain who were about to start a multidisciplinary treatment program (MMR), either within primary care (MMR1) or hospital care (MMR2).METHODS: The study had a descriptive and comparative cross sectional design. Eighty-nine patients were recruited consecutively when they were about to start their team treatment (50 in MMR1,39 in MMR2). The measurements were; Evaluation of self-reported self-efficacy for eight daily activities (STIVA-8), The Pain Belief Screening Instrument (PBSI) and Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS).RESULTS: The study found some significant differences between the answers from patients in MMR1 and those from patients in MMR2. For instance, patients in MMR2 estimated lower self-efficacy according to STIVA-8 than patients in MMR1. Also, there were fewer low risk patients and more high risk patients in MMR2 than in MMR1 regarding pain intensity according to PBSI.

Mankind faces a serious threat. Its activities, for example the burning of fossil fuels, have led to an enhancement of the greenhouse effect - something that has given rise to a global warming. The climate is becoming warmer, a change that has important effects on the nature as well as for humans and their society. Sea level rising, extreme temperatures are becoming more common, glaciers and other ice caps melt and storms becomes more intense when they appear. The main cause is the emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere - carbon dioxide in particular.

Title: Territorial identities and fusions- regional identity by interregional fusions Level: Final assignment for Bachelors Degree in Social Science with specialization in Urban and Regional Planning. Major subject: Geography. Author: Mladen Krajisnik Supervisor: Carl-Johan Nordblom Date: 2009 May Intention: The main focus of this study is to verify the existence, or nonexistence, of local and regional identities. Considering the result regarding regional identities, this thesis will continue on to clarify if these identities are to be seemed as a threat or resource during fusions, and if so, how can one best manage these different identities.Method: Only secondary data has been used in this study. I've botanized amongst the literature that processes fusions, impact of culture, identities, regions, territory. Continuing on, the collected empirical resources have been compared to my theory, from which an analysis was able to be spawned and conclusions were drawn.Result & Conclusions: The thesis confirms different regional identities, although it does not treat the subject regarding the inner strength of regions comparing to one another.

Det har de senaste årtiondena skett en ökning av den internationella handeln vilket har medfört en internationell kapitalmarknad. Användningen av finansiella instrument har ökat och det har uppstått ett behov av enhetliga regler för redovisningen av dessa. Från och med år 2005 ska samtliga börsnoterade företag inom EU redovisa enligt IASB:s standarder. I uppsatsen studerar vi vilka effekter IAS 39 ?Finacial Instruments: Recognition and Measurement? kommer att få för svenska börsnoterade företag samt svensk lagstiftning.

In this report a system for Rapid Control Prototyping, RCP, is evaluated through animplementation of the motor control methods Field Oriented Control, FOC, and Space VectorPulse Width Modulation, SVPWM. The evaluation emphasizes on time-consumption andresource utilization on the used hardware and on usability for of software.A new mechatronic laboratory is under development at ABB Corporate Research in Västerås. Itwill be used for both mechanical and motion control design using existing and new hardware.The control structure in a traditional robot system will be interfaced to a rapid prototypingsystem which should allow easy changes to algorithms at different levels in the system.The system designated for this project comes from National Instruments and constitutesLabVIEW Real-time and FPGA module as the software tools. The hardware is a NI Single-Board RIO (Reconfigurable Input Output), sbRIO, development board including a Field-Programmable Gate Array, FPGA, from Xilinx and a microprocessor from FreescaleSemiconductor. Graphical programming is performed in the LabVIEW environment, andthrough Xilinx tools the LabVIEW FPGA code is compiled to VHDL code.A pre-study was carried out to clarify the concept of RCP and investigate different systems forRCP and their traits.

Platelet aggregation is a major and common problem in blood samples from cats. This greatly affects the accuracy of counting of the platelets. Because of the difficulties in counting feline platelets, results for patients and reliable reference values for cat platelets are currently so inaccurate as to be almost useless in diagnosis of thrombocytopenia. In this study we used an effective method to prevent platelet aggregation. Blood was collected in CTAD test tubes and prostaglandin E1 was added to the blood sample.

To be able to move around without having to think about each movement is for most people amatter of course. Todays society contributes to a life at high speed where the sparetime is oftenspend doing somekind of sport, even extreme sports which earlier only a few people wheredoing. This leads to not only good health effects but also to more injuries. One of the mostcommon injuries is the knee injury.Capio Artro Clinic is a clinic specialized in sports medicine and particulary patients with injuriesin knee, shoulder, foot, hip or elbow. They perform a great part of all the crucial ligamentsurgeries in Sweden and has therefor also a lot of patients in need for rehabilitation of the knee.During the rehabilitation the load of the injuried knee is increased in steps.

In this essay, I analyze the syllabus for Swedish with specific regard to literature teaching. I identify three different perspectives which carries seperate implications. First, a text-centered perspective, which tends to position the importance of the text as a part of a tradition. However, this seems to distance the reading from the reader, and place the importance of the reading event outside the student. The consequence might be that the student employs an instrumental reading which simply responds to a pre-set idea of meaning.

This master thesis was carried out at ELFA, one of the largest catalogue distributors of electronics in northern Europe. ELFA offers a wide selection of products such as measuring Instruments, fuses and screwdrivers. The master thesis handles the possibilities of an increase in the internal flow of products. The background to this problem is ELFA?s acquisition of two new companies, which brought the product range in the warehouse from 55 000 to 80 000 products.

The objective of this work was to evaluate and compare three field methods for detection of mastitis, California Mastits Test (CMT), DeLaval cell counter DCC (DCC) and FMA2001 Farm Milk Analyzer (FMA2001). Furthermore, to investigate at what cell count level clinical symptoms of mastitis are seen, and finally to check if the clinical findings and cell counts could be related to bacteriological findings. DCC and FMA2001 are new analytic Instruments to be used on dairy farms for detection of mastitis. CMT has been a widely used cow-side-test of milk quality in mastitis control efforts, but it cannot be used for estimating cell counts in scientific studies or investigations. Two hundred and eight quarter milk samples from 52 cows were analysed with DCC and CMT, and 168 of these samples with FMA2001. Microbiological examination was done on 38 milk samples with CMT scores of 4 and 5.

This two years master's thesis examines the experience of children who read to a dog. The theoretical framework is inspired by sociocultural theory developed by Roger Säljö and the concept carnival inspired by Mikhail Bakhtin. The sociocultural theory has been chosen because it emphasizes the role of practice, Instruments and communication in learning and the concept carnival has been chosen to analyze the experience of reading to a dog.The method used is qualitative interview and observation. A total of eight interviews and two observations when children read to a dog have been collected. One interview is with a teacher and seven interviews are with the children (six children participated and one child was interviewed twice).

The thesis mission is to investigate whether the swiveling laser that Vectura (former Vägverket Konsult) has in use to measure the road areas and straddle measuring can be used to detect differences in the reflective road markings function. This is to increase use of the swiveling laser and get rid of the manual measurements performed today.Currently, the measurement of road markings reflective function is performed with both mobile and handheld measuring Instruments. The purpose of this thesis is to develop better methods for determination of road markings? reflective function, in order to facilitate the description and suggestions for improvements of the maintenance of road markings reflective function.The questions that the thesis has been to start with are:Can the swiveling laser detect differences in longitudinal and transverse road markings reflective function?The accuracy of measurement has been sweeping the laser over the reference instrument (LTL-2000)Is it necessary with a conversion factor for swiveling laser data against the reference instrument data?To answer the question 2 and 3, there has been a field work in Värnamo where a road stretch with longitudinal road markings and zebra crossing (transverse road markings) has been investigated with a swiveling laser and LTL-2000.The formulas and calculations contained in the thesis are drawn from scientific reports that are produced by VTI in Linköping. The same formula that was used to calculate the optical measurement data was also used for the swiveling laser data.

Sweden's drinking water quality is considered to be high partly due to a high quality of the raw water and a well developed sewage infrastructure. Despite this, there is water contamination that could be prevented by installation of a sophisticated early warning system. Some of the major players in the production of drinking water have already invested in different types of early warning systems to ensure drinking water of high quality. There are various forms of early warning systems where automatic monitoring of E. Coli is an interesting alternative.