This master thesis has been performed at the department of Machine Design at KTH, The Royal Institute of Technology. The thesis has been a part of a global development project in collaboration with Luleå University of Technology, Lund Faculty of Engineering and Stanford University. Corporate liaison and sponsor has been Immerse Global Inc. The project was also performed on sponsorship from the Product Innovation Engineering Program, PIEp. The thesis is a representation of some of the contributions made by the authors.The lack of clean drinking water is one of the key issues facing the world today.

Miljömedvetenheten och ökat intresse för energieffektiva hus har gjort att byggnader isoleras som aldrig förr. Oftast är det på lång sikt ganska så lätt att räkna hem en ökad isoleringsmängd och det är just den ekonomiska vinsten som brukar lyftas fram som det främsta argument varför en beställare bör välja den tjockare isoleringen. För en beställare av hyresfastigheter är det oftast ekonomin som avgör ifall ett projekt ska påbörjas eller inte och denna studie ska därför vara en hjälp till att välja den mest ekonomiska isoleringstjockleken i väggar.Syftet med denna studie är att utreda var den optimala väggisoleringstjocken hamnar på en hyresfastighet med flerfamiljsbostäder som byggs på en begränsad byggyta. Inte sällan finns det krav på maximal byggyta från kommunen och då innebär det att ju tjockare isoleringen är desto mindre blir den uthyrningsbara boytan.Kvalitativa intervjuer låg till grund för att bestämma några vanligt förekommande ytterväggskonstruktioner som isoleringen sedan skulle optimeras på. Dessa ytterväggar placerades på en teoretisk referensbyggnad som därefter energiberäknades med hjälp av handberäkningar där matematiska uttryck för en varierande isoleringstjocklek användes.

The work of the board in owner-managed firms often differ compared to the work of the board in large listed companies. Since the owners are working in different roles, the board in owner-managed firms might discuss topics outside the typical boards agenda, such as questions relating to ownership structure and operational matters. This thesis examines what external board members can contribute with in owner-managed firms, and which the most frequent difficulties are for the owners when deciding to recruit external board members. Through qualitative interviews, three owner-managed firms have been studied, which together with two expert interviews and five seminars, creates the empirics. In the analysis, the empirics are compared to what the earlier theory states.

The Göta älv-bridge is a welded steelbridge which is located in Gothenburg,it connects the inner city of Gothenburgwith the island Hisingen. Cracks wasdiscovered in the steel in 1999-2000which started an investigation of thebridge to clearify the condition of thebridge. The conclusion was a monitoringsystem based on laser light sent throughan optical fiber.This report describes the bridge, thedamages, the monitoring system and thetraffic on the bridge.Stefan Pup, at Vectura Borlänge was mysupervisor during this work. In myinvestigation the costs of themonitoring system and the costs ofclosing the bridge is compared andevaluated. The biggest investigatingpart is the costs of closing the bridge.The results of my investigations is thatclosing the Göta älv-bridge would cost 1107 300 SEK / day.

AbstractIt is important to choose which spare parts to keep in stock. With the right spareparts in stock the costs for inventory and production loss will decrease. Cavalieri et al. (2008) highlights that the balance between inventory cost and production loss is underestimated.  It affects the company and must be considered before decision on purchase.The problem with spare engines is that they are all more or less critical for the production. That can be a reason for why no previous research targeting engines and classification of with engine should be kept in stock has been found.

Background: Every year 56 million people die around the world and it is estimated that 60% of these people are in need of palliative care. It has been shown that patients in the palliative care experienced their situation as uncertain. When life no longer was certain, the patients tried to live their life day by day and make the best of it. Problem: When patients were diagnosed with an incurable disease the future became unsure, because their life would come to an end. Therefore patients with a palliative diagnosis could be in need of experiencing feelings of security.

Background: outsourcing is one of the most obvious and continuous trends that has been able to study during the past ten years and also has had a strong development in the industry. What consequences will follow from an extended outsourcing? Purpose: the study?s overall purpose is to investigate what possibilities and risks that can be connected to an outsourcing decision and how the order of the service will handle the risks. The study will also investigate what management philosophy that will be used and regulate the outsourcing relation and how the company?s strategy will affect the decision and how the process of outsourcing will look like.

The purpose of this study was to increase the knowledge and understanding of what impact support-groups, such as represented by Qvinnoqulan, can have on women with drug-addiction. The questions at issue for the essay was: How does a selection of women who participate in Qvinnoqulan describe their thoughts, experiences and reflections of the group? What sense has Qvinnoqulan made for the women on a personal level and for contributing to live a life without drugs? To answer the questions a qualitative method was used and five interviews were made with women who participated in the activities of Qvinnoqulan. To analyze the data a social constructionist perspective and an empowerment perspective was used. The result of the study showed that the women were in the process of rebuilding a new life without drugs and reconstructing a new identity.

The aim was to describe the experiences of couples where the male partner had undergone radical prostatectomy due to prostate cancer. Furthermore, the study explored how the operation had affected their sexual life, whether the couples had received enough post surgical support and information concerning these issues, and to describe the kind of support and information these couples desired. Twenty men and ten partners participated. All the men experienced a varying degree of post surgical erectile dysfunction and only five men had received support concerning their sexual life. Eleven men desired professional visiting support activities.

The aim of this study was to examine if performance-based self-esteem, personality (Type A), perceived stress, age and gender predict the value of own or others life-stress (VLS). The aim was also to examine whether the variables were correlated significantly with each other. The investigation was conducted in a town in the mid-south of Sweden. The instrument consisted of two forms where the first measured Type A personality and the second tapped perform-ance-based self-esteem, perceived stress and the level of life-stress. The results showed that the level of life-stress could explain, on the basis of the predictors, performance-based self-esteem, personality (Type A), perceived stress, age and gender.

I have done a case-study about building a new stable for slaughter pigs at a farm close to Kalmar. The farm is able to supply the breeding with cereals and it has enough area to spread the manure on. The most important factors to gain profit, is the cost for building the stable, the price of the feeding-stuff and the growth of the pigs. The discount from the slaughter-house was less important than I thought from the beginning, and it?s a factor that is hard to influence. With the new production of slaughter-pig and cattle that already exist on the farm, the farm will get a well-functioned rotation of crops with lye and autumn rape as interruption-crop.

Background - Swedish trade and industry primarily involves small corporations, including small manufacturing corporations. Currently, most costing models that are used are based on studies accomplished at large corporations. This conveys to the fact that product costing that occurs at small manufacturing corporations is based on all complexities that large corporations bring, which rarely match with small corporations. It occurs that small manufacturing corporations unconsciously rely on incorrect information that has been calculated based on great corporations? product costing.

The purpose of this essay is to try to understand the relationship between the structures of modern working life and the development of burnout. By using the method of qualitative interviews we wanted to see if the Effort-Reward Imbalance Model could be applied to the data we had collected. Two questions have been highlighted in our research:        ? Is it possible to establish a relationship between the structures of modern working life and the development of burnout among the subjects interviewed?  ? Is it possible to explain the development of burnout among our interviewed subjects through the Effort-Reward Imbalance Model?    Our theoretical frames are the general theories of the modern society and the modern working life as developed by Anthony Giddens, Ulrich Beck and Zygmunt Bauman. We have also used Johannes Siegrist?s medical-sociological Effort-Reward Imbalance Model (ERI-Model).

The aim of our thesis was to gain greater knowledge of how young people relate to religion, religiosity and life, and this behavior might show influences of a gender perspective. Part of the aim was also to have greater awareness of how our education should include a gender perspective. To get to this goal, we have assumed the qualitative investigation method which we discussed with a number of students who read last year of high school. First, the interviews were aimed to let students talk about matters concerning religion and life. The next step was to examine their thoughts with a gender perspective as a starting point.

This case study attempts to examine how students of Religionswissenschaft at Södertörns University reflect about their philosophy of life and if their studies have some impact on their tendency to reflect. Also what aspects the students tend to reflect over will be investigated. In this study the term ?philosophy of life? includes humans thought and conceptions of the world and their outlook on mankind. To answer these question an interview study with 6 students took place, and the transcriptions produced 5 categories; ?The philosophy of life, to believe or not believe?, ?Development of concepts?, ?Outlook on mankind?, ?The founding of meaning? and ?Understanding and progress?.