Embedded Systems Lab at Umeå University is currently part of a research project with the purpose to examine the behavior of dairy cows inside a barn. Each cow needs to be tracked with a precision of 50 cm, and since GPS-technique has poor functionality at indoor environments, an indoor positioning system needs to be developed.Embedded Systems Lab has already developed an indoor positioning system using IR-light and radio, but since this system demands extensive infrastructure and is rather expensive, an alternate positioning system using ultrasonic pulses and radio is being examined.In this report the range, beam angle and current consumption of ultrasonic transmitters- and receivers are investigated. Three different driver stages for the transmitter is tested, and two amplifier solutions for the receiver. The report also describes how the length of the transmitted ultrasonic pulse affects the received signal, accessibility of a ?shadowed? signal, and the effect of different sound frequency..

The purpose of this essay is to examine how a newly built library and an old library from the sixties work out of an experience and feeling oriented view. Are the fundamental conditions of an old library compatible with the library standards of today? To be able to carry out this examination we have chosen two rather small Swedish libraries. One is the public library of Hässleholm, which opened in the year 2000, and the other is the public library of Kristianstad opened in 1965. The material used to attain the purpose of the study consists of literature studies and qualitative observations and interviews.

The aim of this comparative study is to analyse the French and the Polish regional governance in order to see if there are any differences in their regional ruling systems. Further more I will study their different possibilities in taking part in the European Union regional political market. The shape of the regional systems will be explored both organisationally (study of the institutional entities of the regional construction) and functionally (study of the competencies of the regional body etcetera) to focus on its cause on the regional development. My over all focus will be to find out whether regional rule means differently in the countries France and Poland.Several questions are dealt with and the two main ones are as follows; How do the different structures of the form of government in France and Poland influence the governance on the regional level? Do Poland, as a new member state of the European Union, have what it takes to face the challenges of the new membership; or are there a complex of problems arising from the admittance that prevent its regions from fully taking part in the European regional political market?Some of my conclusions are as follows;There are major differences between the two countries when it comes to their regional ruling systems leading to different abilities in taking part in the European regional political market.

The aim of this essay was to examine the impact that parents drug abuse have on their children´s chances and possibilities while growing up. This study is done by investigating literature written by acknowledged authors and experts in this field. The following questions were asked:How does the literature describe the influence of parent´s drug abuse on their child´s ability to develop and learn?Which factors does the literature distinguish as determining factors on the child´s ability to resist and recover, from a childhood with drug abusing parents?The result of this essay showed that having drug abusing parents constitute different types of risks when it comes to the child´s ability to develop and learn. How the child is able to cope with it´s parents drug abuse is determined by several factors such as, the situation in the family, the child´s personality and how people in the child´s surrounding react on the child´s needs..

In some coastal areas in Sweden water shortage sometimes appears because the withdrawal of groundwater is greater than the groundwater recharge. It creates a situation where the available groundwater is insufficient to support residents and businesses with drinking water. The high withdrawal of groundwater also creates a risk for saltwater intrusion to drinking water wells. The problem most commonly occurs during the summer when the groundwater recharge is low, but the population is high, due to tourism and summer residents.The purpose of this study was to investigate how local water supply in areas affected by water shortage can be solved as sustainable as possible. The work was divided into three parts where the first part comprised of a literature review on water systems in which four different options were investigated: artificial groundwater recharge, rainwater harvesting, desalination and water reuse.

This paper intends to examine how parents think and reflect on gender issues when they borrow books for their children at the library. The theory applied is Yvonne Hirdman?s theory of a gender system. A questionnaire was made available at the Children's department of Uppsala City Library in February, 2010. The material was compiled and analyzed with the intention to try to detect trends, patterns and themes, rather than statistics and hard data.Parents in the study perceive themselves as gender-conscious.

Today, individual indoor stalls and individual outdoor paddocks are the most common way to house horses in Sweden. The way that we manage, house and feed the horses are not optimal for the species natural basic behavioural needs. However, the awareness of this grows in the context of research and the emergence of alternative housing systems. One of the alternatives to the traditional format in individual boxes is called group housing. Group housing systems allow horses to live in herds and they can choose how they want to distribute the hours of the day between movement, resting and foraging. The purpose of this study is to examine how frequently the young horses in a group housing system use the indoor lying area.

This thesis is about how to criticize the large number of non-fiction for children which is published nowadays. I have noticed that both librarians and teachers do not know what perspective to apply with regard to this category of books. There are some good ones, but also a lot of bad ones and some really bad ones. The purpose of this essay is to search by means of criteria from history of art, history of literature ? principally history of children's literature ? and pedagogy, for prevalent attitudes towards non-fiction for children.

The subject of this paper is to examine the view of diversity among ten teachers and three principals in the Swedish compulsory school. The purpose is to investigate how they relate to the diversity and in what ways it is involved in their work.The French sociologist Pierre Bourdieus basic ideas of habitus, capital and field are used as a theoretical starting point. The study is mainly based on interviews supported by literature in the subject area.The findings show that diversity is associated with ethnicity among all informants. The drawn conclusion is that this is partly due to the mediated picture but also since ethnicity mainly serves as a starting point in the literature..

There are many barriers and obstacles that need to be removed to make the urban environment more accessible for people with disabilities. There are currently no adequate tools for urban planners to assess and address these obstacles. Geographical Information Systems (GIS) provide powerful methods for the visualization and analysis of spatial data, including the kind of data important in studies of accessibility. This study suggests a method urban planners can use to identify accessibility obstacles and to propose future actions to fix them.A literature review was conducted to find out what has been done and what is new regarding the accessibility issues. Different methods were evaluated which in turn led to the construction of a multi-step analytical strategy.

The purpose of this qualitative study is to investigate how some teachers make use of the results of the national tests in mathematics to plan their teaching. The questions are how they plan their teaching in mathematics and if they use the results of the national tests to compare with their own teaching.   Five teachers in mathematics has been interviewed. I have used unstructured interviews with open-ended questions, and I have been able to ask follow-up questions based on their answers. The analysis of the survey is made from a systems theory approach.  The result of the survey shows that teachers make use of student performance to look at their own teaching of the current group of students. However, there is not enough time to rehearse and repair the deficiencies discovered in the national tests, which for some is perceived as a stress factor.

This is an essay concerning the differences between boys? and girls? way of learning and how this difference influences the teaching in the technology subject. The method is divided in two. The first part is based on a survey over literature about teaching girls and boys in the technology subject. The second part is based on interviews with three male teachers in the same subject.

Active headsets have been on the market for years and now it is time for something else to enter the stage. The technology of active noise reduction can for exmple also be used in ventilation systems for reducing ventilation noise. An active control system principally consists of four important components, namely the downstream error microphone, the upstream detection or reference microphone, the digital signal processor (DSP) and a loudspeaker. The upstream reference microphone listen to the primary ventilation noise and sends it to the DSP which makes a phase shift to the signal and sends it to the loudspeaker. The loudspeaker sends out the opposite waveform of the incoming one and reduce the primary ventilation noise.

This study has been conducted on behalf of Vectura Consulting AB with the purpose to examine how different actors perceive the dimensions of sustainability and sustainable construction. The purpose is also to provide an understanding of existing barriers and opportunities for sustainable construction within the industry and exemplify with different directions for the actors in order to develop sustainability. The study has approach the research problem by using systems theory, developed by Checkland, to identify the relevant system. Other systems theories has been used as an theoretical framework in order to identify barriers and opportunities, which in this study are based on Hughes?s theory about reverse salients and salients.

This Masters thesis concerns difficulties experienced by Gender Studies researchers in an information seeking context. The aim is to identify, and study the cause of, these potential difficulties by asking the following questions: How do researchers in Gender Studies seek information? What difficulties may arise when information seeking is carried out in Gender Studies? What may be the cause of these difficulties? What does Gender Studies consist of? In order to find feasible answers to these questions, particular attention is paid to the context in which the researchers exist and work. The database KVINNSAM serves as an example of how libraries have tried to overcome barriers in information seeking in Gender Studies. The method used is a qualitative one based on interviews and literature studies.