Lattelement AB in Ornskoldsvik is one of the leading companies in Sweden in composite elements in walls, floors and roofs in particular. The company supplies elements to buildings located with a wide geographical variation, which means that the products are subjected to very different climate with regard to snow, wind and humidity. This places high demands and requires the elements to withstand large variable loads.The elements are made of lightweight beams with flanges of structural timber and beam webs made of OSB. These are bound together by nogging pieces with the same kind of structure. On top of the beams a nailed and glued plywood is added to absorb compressive forces and on the underside of the element a sheet of steel is added for tensile absorption.These elements are then attached to the building framework in different ways depending on the particular element height, loads and the structual supporting material of the frame work.

In this thesis a concept for floor hatches for foam pits has been developed. Since there is an existing solution that is powered by hydraulics and is expensive, the goal was to develop a cheaper solution, as simple as possible.A number of different concepts were developed and evaluated. A concept with five sections that are pulled to the side and stacked on each other was chosen as it was thought to have the lowest risk of crush injuries and to be easiest to manage and control. In the opening behind the foam mattress a lifting table is placed to regulate the height of the stacked sections.To be allowed to be installed in the floor of sports halls the sections must be dimensioned according to the construction standards for these types of buildings. Different dimensions of beams in steel and wood materials were evaluated and of those, who lived up to the requirements of the standard, a concept was chosen.

The Swedish government has introduced a goal to reduce the energy intensity by 20% to the year 2020. To reach this goal actions need to be taken throughout the energy sector which includes residential and commercial buildings. This thesis considers the possibility to reduce the energy usage in a building located close to Uppsala. The analyzed building is a combined office, cafeteria and entrance and was completed about half a year before this project started. Therefore the measures presented for a more energy efficient building are presented as measures for future constructions.Simulations have been made in VIP-Energy, a dynamic energy calculation program.

The latest thing in the area of environmental building today is energy-plus-house. The idea behind the energy-plus-house is to create a house that produces more energy than it consumes. To accomplish this, the house uses renewable energy, in this particular case solar energy. With the help from a proper construction and thoughtfully projected installations you can achieve a surplus of energy. The surplus energy can then be sold to the surrounding buildings and thereby conduce to a financial profit for the household.

This account deals with my degree in furniture design. The project was done in collaboration with the architect firm Byggnadskonst AB in a quest for the cafe chain "Vivels"Byggnadskonst AB?s mission was to make the interior of the cafe that Vivels is building in Larsberg Center on Lidingö. My assignment was to design chairs for the café. In the beginning I had even thought about designing a table, but as time past I focussed more and more on the chairs.

Vargaslätten is a 15 hectare large privet garden in Halland in the south-west of Sweden.In the beginning of the 1990s Gunnar O.Westerberg, the owner of Vargaslätten,commissioned a work from the young landscapearchitect, Rolf Efvergren, to writeVargaslätten ? tillägnad naturen. It was a discribing work of the current status of the gardenand the summer-house of Vargaslätten. Vargaslätten ? tillägnad naturen was acomprehensive work with a detalied inventory of all the plants, the buildings, the descriptionof the surroundings and the history.

Introduction:By insight in the company and by monitoring the management, the board has an important function in creating trust in governance of the company. Furthermore, the board reduces the asymmetry of information between the owners and the management, which also is the function of the auditor, by auditing how the board governs the company and the accounting. In case the board does not effectively monitor the management, the auditor has to extend its monitoring, which increases the owners agency costs through the audit fee. The board composition can affect how effectively the board practices the monitoringProblem: How is the audit fee affected by the board composition?Purpose: The purpose of this study is to explain how the board composition affects the audit fee.Method: The study uses a quantitative method, where the data was collected from the annual reports of 112 limited companies listed on the NASDAQ OMX Large and Mid Cap lists on January 2, 2012.

The construction and use of buildings in the EU accounts for half of the EU?s extracted materials and energy consumptions, and a third of greenhouse gas emissions. In the past decade, the construction sector has responded to such concerns by focusing on post production energy efficiency. However, new findings indicate that upstream construction processes influence emissions significantly ? necessitating a shift in focus to include material choices and building processes.

Purpose: To examine how video-game releases affect the share price, and if video-game reviews have any impact on the share price of gaming corporations. Method: A quantitative deductive research approach is applied with event study methodology used as basis. The investigated companies were the five largest gaming companies listed on the U.S. NASDAQ exchange. A total of 29 video-game launches and 85 reviews where examined.  Theory: The study is based on The Efficient Market Hypothesis, Agent Theory, Public Relations Theory, Nextopia and previous research.Results: The result contains 114 observations in five companies.

Today all buildings contain some form of home automation. It might be heating controlled by athermostat or motion detectors controlling outdoor lighting.This paper,The Intelligent House, deals with the planning of a house in Kiruna, in the north ofSweden and further immerses itself in home automation or intelligent control in single-familyhomes. The house has been entirely planned, from layout to structural design and plumbing.The purpose of the paper has been to investigate the possibilities in home automation in singlefamilyhomes and to choose a suitable home automation system for the house being planned.The system has been designed and the costs and energy savings have been calculated.The system chosen for the house is called KNX and is the largest system for home automation inSweden. It is used to control heating, ventilation, lighting and alarm systems in the house. Is hasbeen found that KNX is very expensive and that the amount of energy, possible to save in thehouse, using the system, is relatively small.

Background: Etiquette has become vital in business relationships. In today?s competitive business climate signs indicate that social competence affect whether a business deal is settled or not. This type of competence could be of crucial importance at a first business meeting and it also plays an important role for future business relationships. Business etiquette is therefore, within the world of business, an interesting area to study.Purpose: The purpose of this essay is to clarify what knowledge and understanding companies, listed on the Swedish stock exchange, possess towards business etiquette, their viewpoint on etiquette education and finally to ascertain whether or not those companies perceive business etiquette to be pivotal to success.Methodology: In order to attain our purpose of this essay we found it most suitable to utilize both a quantitative and qualitative research method.

This account deals with my degree in furniture design. The project was done in collaboration with the architect firm Byggnadskonst AB in a quest for the cafe chain "Vivels"Byggnadskonst AB?s mission was to make the interior of the cafe that Vivels is building in Larsberg Center on Lidingö. My assignment was to design chairs for the café. In the beginning I had even thought about designing a table, but as time past I focussed more and more on the chairs.

This thesis examines the sheep shed called Ronningsgift, and its historical functions and geographical location. The study aims to make a comprehensive gathering of the existing knowledge and to shed light on new theories about the history of Ronningsgift. This is done through desk research including literature and archive search, as well as an investigation and description of the construction and materials, and an interview. Further, I got the opportunity to take part of the results of two C14 samples from Ronningsgift. The literature and archive search shows that the most common theory of the historical function is as a guest house (g?ststuga/h?gstuga) or more traditionally called, Malst?ue/Malsteuvu.

Background: In 1999 the Swedish pension system was reformed with an aim to create a stable and high return on pension assets. First, Second, Third and Fourth general pension funds, hereby referred to as AP1-AP4, had an important part in the reform. AP1-AP4, also called the buffer funds, was assigned to secure long-term, big parts of the pension capital. The funds objective is by law, to manage the fund's assets in a manner that provides maximum benefit for the state pension. The funds will also invest pension assets with an overall low level of risk while achieving a sustainable high return.Aim: The purpose of this study is to investigate whether the First-Fourth AP-Funds is meeting its objectives regarding risk and return according to Swedish law.

Eutrophication of the Baltic Sea is a serious problem. A major contributing factor is diffuse losses of phosphorus (P) from agricultural land in surrounding countries. In order to estimate P losses, environmental monitoring of small agriculture-dominated catchments is being carried out in most of these countries. Evaluation of the risk of P leaching to waters is usually based on chemical tests originally developed to quantify the amount of soil P available for plant production. The tests are performed in different ways in the different countries and a number of different extraction agents are in use.