Several studies shows that dietary supplements do not have any proven effects on health, yet these supplements are increasing in sales. The study aims to find out what attitudes and knowledge people involved in physical activity have towards supplements and which factors influence them to buy supplements. How these factors differ between men and women was investigated. The study is based on answers from 100 collected questionnaires from people who are physically active at several gyms. Of those who participated in the study, 56 percent were men and 44 percent were women.

This thesis aims to open the Pandora?s Box of hedge fund styles through an index-based style analysis. This information asymmetry is due to both less strict disclosure requirements and inherent nature of hedge funds. We employ a multiple unconditional linear regression model wherein 23 Swedish hedge funds are regressed on 10 style indices. In addition to the increased interest in hedge funds and their performance drivers, our unique approach with regressing return on return motivates this study.

The task in this thesis is the steering of one of Saab Bofors Dynamics robots using Sliding Mode Control, a method they never used before. The robot constitutes a system which in addition to perturbations and uncertainties due to modeling imprecision, hold the difficulty of being highly time variant. In order to be able to keep required performance with uncertainties and modeling imprecision present, the use of robust control methods like Sliding Mode Control is necessary. SMC is based on the states of the system being forced to stay on or in the direct vicinity of a hyper plane in the state space which is chosen in a way that gives the system dynamics desired properties. Other advantages with sliding mode are reduced order dynamics on the switching surface and total insensitivity to some uncertainties and perturbations.

The life cycle of the anadromous Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) can span large geographic, political, and socio-economic boundaries. Management strategies and regulations that only concentrate on small spatial scales often overlook larger basin-wide problems, especially relating to post-spawn seaward migration. In this master thesis one entire migration cycle of wild adult Atlantic salmon in the unregulated northern Swedish river Vindelälven was monitored by radio-telemetry tracking during upstream spawning migration and downstream seaward migration back to the Baltic Sea. The effect of ladder passage variables (time to pass, total time in the ladder, passage day over the ladder) at a fish ladder downstream in the river Umeälven, as well as fish size, were evaluated to determine if differences in upstream migration distance in the river Vindelälven could be observed. Ladder passage variables did not affect migration distance, but size exhibited a negative relationship to migration distance.

The standard model concerning the relationship between perception and motility is linear and one-way. It depicts the flow between the two as moving from sensation to perception to representation to computation, and finally, to motility and action. According to this model, animal being is basically a bundle of reflexes. But what can correctly be considered a bundle of reflexes from a natural science point of view, doesn't necessarily have to be true. This conception does not take into consideration the more complex interactions between motility and perception that constitutes, or generates, animal and human beings.

Denna studie undersöker om det är möjligt att införa nåbarhetstestning i en baneditor. Testets syfte är att ersätta manuell testing, det vill säga att bankonstruktören inte ska behöva spela igenom banan för att säkerställa att denne kommer kunna nå alla nåbara positioner.För att kunna utföra studien skapas en enkel baneditor som testplattform. Vidare utförs en jämförande studie av flera alternativa algoritmer för att fastställa vilken som är mest passande för nåbarhetstestning i en baneditor.Resultatet från den jämförande studien visade att A* (A star) var den mest passande algoritmen för funktionen. Huruvida automatisk testning kan ersätta manuell testning är diskutabelt, men resultatet pekar på en ökad effektivitet i tid när det kommer till banbygge..

Within the literature and film sciences there are clear models of storytelling and methods of creating a good story. In the game industry it's more difficult because the games are often non-linear, and games are a less established medium than the other two. With this study our purpose was to examine game developers and methods they used when creating a videogame, with focus on storytelling. Four interviews were made with representatives from four different videogame companies in Sweden. The information from the interviews was put in relation to theories regarding the structure of videogames and an established model for creating videogames.

Academic research concerning how to determine the power situation in a supply chain where an investment product supplier is involved did not exist. Therefore new models has been developed that analyses the power relations and maps out the power situation in a supply chain. In the future these models can be applied on similar cases by modifying the included parameters. The new models show that case company FAS should focus on the big producers of garbage bag which are Trioplast, Rullpack and Miljösäck. By strengthen the brand FAS can make more money in these relations.

The purpose of this study has been to evaluate whether a Low temperature bio-mass dryer could be integrated with the local district heating system in Malå. The aim is to increase the thermal efficiency of the cogeneration plant in Malå, by lowering the temperature of the cooling medium. Another benefit that comes from this is improved combustion efficiency at the power plant, since drying the fuel causes an Increase of the heating value.Simulations has been made in Excel, and with use of linear regression, to find out if it is profitable. Data for this purpose has been supplied by the power company Skellefteåkraft and furthermore SMHI.The result of the Calculations shows that a very efficient bio-mass dryer is needed, if yield of investments should be made possible. An Investment of 4,27 Mkr, in a dryer, could at a such criterium return 60000 kr/year, if the price of the biomass is 190kr/MWh.

ABSTRACT There is present a lot of focus on animal welfare issues during transport and the related loading and unloading of animals. This thesis is a field study investigating the present situation of beef and dairy farms in Sweden. The predominant reasons stressing cattle when transported to abattoirs are when they are loaded and unloaded on the trucks. The aim of this thesis is to improve the handling and the loading facilities to facilitate the handling and reduce the stress for the animals as well as the personnel. The field study was done by travelling together with the transports from the farm to the abattoir in Uppsala. Three trucks where used and about 60 farms were visited January to March 2003.

This master thesis work was done at Saab Underwater Systems AB, a company at the cutting edge of underwater technology. Here torpedoes and other underwater vehicles are developed and manufactured. The major customers are navies of different countries, mostly the Swedish navy. The aim of this master thesis is to develop, construct and evaluate an automatic Trim System for Unmanned Underwater Vehicles. The task of the system is to change the position of the centre of mass and the vehicle?s total mass or volume.

Nyligen kom ett pressmeddelande fr?n Statiska Centralbyr?n (SCB) att Sverige har den l?gs ta siffran p? antal barn per kvinna i modern tid, 1.43. D?rf?r ?r det relevant att spekulera kring hur Sveriges framtida befolkningsm?ngd kan se ut, b?de p? kort och l?ng sikt. I detta arbete har begrepp unders?kts som populationsstorlek, fruktsamhetstal, f?rs?rjningskvot och befolkningspyramid, och hur dessa ter sig ?ver tid. Fyra scenarier analyserades: of?r?ndrad fruktsamhet, fortsatt nedg?ng, ?verg?ng till ?kning samt en cyklisk utveckling med b?de minskningar och ?kningar.

This thesis has the overall objective to develop the optimum sealing system between the retarder and transmission. Today, there is a pressure-relief and two radial seals separation between the retarder and transmission. It has been found that carbon residue formation may occur between retarder axle and seal lips with, in some cases, leakage as a result.We have in this thesis tried to explain the phenomenon of carbon residue, how it is formed and why it can be seen just on the seals? A rig test was conducted where we show how friction, speed, transmission temperature and mitigation phases of the retarder affects temperatures in the sealing environment. Factors affecting the coke structure are reported, together with proposals for measures that provide a mitigating seal environment.

Ship formed monuments from the Late Bronze Age on the island of O?land, southeast Sweden, have never been thoroughly dealt with in previous research, despite the fact that the region is suggested to have had a key-role in maritime trade networks. This thesis aims to address the ship formed monuments on O?land in relationship to the monuments in northern Sma?land and the island of Gotland. My goal is to discuss how the ship symbolism was practised during the Late Bronze Age in Scandinavia from a new perspective.

The aim of this study is through a policy analysis to illuminate the decisions that the EU has taken to respond to the terrorist attacks in the US, Madrid and London and through this analysis try to explain the problem of each decision and find out if these decisions might risk the individual rights of the European Union?s citizens.In order to reach this purpose the following questions are to be answered: In what way has the EU?s decision-making process, regarding its fight on terrorism, been affected by the terrorist attacks in Madrid and London? What consequences may the EU?s decisions against terrorism have on the individual rights?The method that has been used is qualitative studies of literature and the main material is overarching policy documents from the EU.The conclusions are that the bombings in Madrid and London have increased the speed of the decision-making process and more areas have been included in the union?s fight against terrorism. If individual rights are at risk by the union?s decisions there are reasons to be concerned. But my conclusion is that the European Union has to have strong and effective instruments to answer to the threat of terrorism..