The aim of this Master of Science Thesis is to develop guidelines and improvementsuggestions of RiNOVA Traffic AB?s dynamic speed bump. The project started with athorough pre study of the design and its function to find out how passing vehiclesaffects the dynamic speed bump. The majority part of the pre study was to createnecessary mathematical models to explain the arisen forces and strains.The results of the mathematical models gave necessary information about the designregarding weaknesses and flaws. The most critical ones where those which interferedwith the design?s performance and reliability, and therefore needed to be corrected.These problems where more thorough analysed and discussed with experts before thefinal guidelines and improvement suggestions where developed.The parts of the design that had to be redesigned were the extension springs and thebearing that enables the dynamic properties.

The contact company, LRF Konsult, is a consulting firm specialized in areas of law, real estate, finance and taxation. Discussions on the subject of agricultural improvement in the area of Lean, has primarily been driven by the Royal Swedish Academy of Agriculture and Forestry, where LRF Konsult also participated. This thesis can be seen as a preliminary study of how Lean can work within agricultural enterprises.The thesis primarily focuses on the possibilities dairy farms have to improve operations. What practical benefits they can obtain through the implementation of Lean. And how an implementation could take place.By visits to two dairy companies, and through interviewing their respective business leaders, an image of the companies activity for improvement, in connection to this thesis was established.

Title: Bottleneck management through materials administration Course:  4FE05EAuthors:  Mikael Karlsson and Johannes Mueller  Examiner: Helena ForslundKey words:  Bottleneck management, material management, process description, timber, proceduresPurpose:   The objective of this study is divided into three parts, all three parts of the purpose aim for the same goal. Namely, to improve the material management so that this enables the bottleneck in the planing mill to keep a continuous  flow, and thereby minimizing the risk for production stops at LB-Hus.  Part.  1:  Identify  and  analyze the material management  connected to  the planing mill  in order to identify problem areas.Part.2:  Identify  improvement potential  in the material management connected to the planing mill.  Part.3: Suggest improvements in the material management connected to the planing mill. Theoretical framework: Process mapping, inventory accounting, balance safety, inventory availability / service levels, safety stock and reorder point, forecasting and routine descriptions.Empirical foundation:  Interviews carried out at LB-House,  illustrated with the help of process maps and a description of each process.  Conclusions:  To work with  the  suggestions  given  and  to  follow  clear procedures  in  all  processes would  result in  a more  efficient  inventory management,  it would also present  a  solution  to  the problem regarding the planing mill being a bottle neck.Suggestions for further research: Review and map the information flow from demand to production start.

An organization that uses all of its improvement opportunities has a great advantage compared to its competitors. It is an important task when it comes to continuous improvements of every process. Up until September 2007, Husqvarna AB had a suggestion committee who evaluated every suggestion separately and the proposer received a payment if the suggestion was approved by the committee. However, this system did not work satisfying enough to fulfill Husqvarna?s needs and they are now looking for a system that can handle the ideas from the employees in a more effective way.

Background: Hepatitis E (HEV) is a small, non-enveloped virus that belongs to the viral genus Hepevirus. HEV is a positive sense single-stranded RNA virus and there is insufficient information regarding its replication. This is mainly because the virus has low capacity to grow in normally used cell cultures. Many specific strand assay detection studies have been done in order to understand more about HEV replication. Unfortunately, these assays have the disadvantage of giving false positive results.Aim: The aim of this project was to improve the positive strand assay to increase specificity and eliminate false positivity which is due to high sensitivity of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR).

With the purpose of finding the motives behind use, production and reuse of Open Educational Resources (OER), the writer has conducted a qualitative survey. The three main questions in this two years master?s thesis are:? Why do people use others? unmodified OER?? Why do people produce OER?? Why do people alter and reuse OER?The theoretic framework is built around Manuel Castells? network society, with its social and efficiency seeking dimension, along with the Knowledge commons. Some pedagogy is included as well.A web survey was distributed to 796 users of the Connexions OER repository. 95 responses were received.

Sandvik Group is a global engineering corporation within materials technology and produces, among other things, band sawsteel. In order to develop custom relations, custom benefits and the supply chain Sandvik wants to become more acquainted with its customers. Improved feedback means that Sandvik will be able to develop its products in a customized direction. This thesis is a tool for educating and developing sales staff. As a support a calculation tool that can be used as a sales aid has been developed.

This thesis has been conducted at Volvo Bussar ABunder a period of ten weeks. Within the organizationVolvo, the work is conducted with leaders and teamson every level; from production to top management.They have three tasks, besides executing their dailywork, they are expected to actively work on improvingtheir individual work as well as themselves as persons.The two latter are future value adding activities for theorganization. When doing so, however, it has beennoticed that they often lose the grasp of their dailywork. The question that consequently arises is whythis happens. Is it because of lack of time or it isbecause the co-workers do not have the competenceand simply do not know how they are to execute thethree tasks? Or, is it because the motivation to executethe three tasks is not enough? With this in regard, thestatement of issues for this bachelor thesis were thefollowing: how can the conditions for leaders and theteam be improved, in order for them to execute thesethree tasks.To find out why the execution of these threeassigments did not always succeed, the decision wastaken to conduct a survey and interview study in reallife and at the plants.

This thesis has been conducted at Volvo Bussar ABunder a period of ten weeks. Within the organizationVolvo, the work is conducted with leaders and teamson every level; from production to top management.They have three tasks, besides executing their dailywork, they are expected to actively work on improvingtheir individual work as well as themselves as persons.The two latter are future value adding activities for theorganization. When doing so, however, it has beennoticed that they often lose the grasp of their dailywork. The question that consequently arises is whythis happens. Is it because of lack of time or it isbecause the co-workers do not have the competenceand simply do not know how they are to execute thethree tasks? Or, is it because the motivation to executethe three tasks is not enough? With this in regard, thestatement of issues for this bachelor thesis were thefollowing: how can the conditions for leaders and theteam be improved, in order for them to execute thesethree tasks.To find out why the execution of these threeassigments did not always succeed, the decision wastaken to conduct a survey and interview study in reallife and at the plants.

Glulam is a product that was engineered to make use of timber in a more efficient way. Bychoosing timber of similar quality and discarding natural defects during production, thedevelopment of a stronger cross-section is achieved.Carbon fiber is a relatively new material with a high tension capacity. This feature is used toexamine how the bending capacity of the beams improve by adhering carbon fiber laminateson the lower edge of the beamsThe strength of the material is tested with three experiments: carbon fiber on the bottom of thebeam (a), carbon fiber attached to the lower sides of the beam (b) and carbon fiber in thebeam, covered with a layer of wood (c)The results show that the first case, where the carbon fiber is attached to the bottom of thebeam, gave the best result with an increase in capacity of 59 % compared to the nonreinforcedcontrol. The other two cases also show an improvement in capacity, beam-type 3had a capacity increase of 47% and beam-type 4 increased with 25 %Tests were also made with glulam beams reinforced with fiberglass, but these tests were notanalyzed in depth because the purpose was to compare the capacity to carbon fiber. Thisbeam improved its capacity by 40.3%.The tests show that carbon fiber as a reinforcement material for glulam is a good choice whenthere is a requirement for stronger cross-sections in both new production and renovation ofold buildings.

The level of increased central government that we have experienced during the last decades in school, for the purpose of increasing equality and to adapt the Swedish school to a certain international standard, clearly shows that increased control scarcely leads to improvement.The aim of this paper is to examine whether teachers believe that national tests contribute to equivalent assessment and increased goal attainment. Furthermore the teachers? attitude towards and work with national tests is described. The paper is written from a school improvement perspective, where good examples from current research on what creates increased quality in school meaning increased goal attainment and equivalent assessment are related to research on school effectiveness and increased testing in schools. The study builds upon a quantitative survey among teachers in upper primary - and secondary school in a medium-sized municipality in Sweden.The result shows that the teachers have a somewhat more positive than negative attitude towards national tests, as a whole.

The aim of the study was to illustrate how music therapy can be used in the care of patients with schizophrenia and other psychotic illness.The method used was a literature review. Scientific articles were searched in PubMed, Cinahl, PsycINFO och Scopus databases with an outcome of ten articles, with in total 330 participants, that underwent quality and outcomes analysis.The results showed that music therapy could provide potential improvement in the patients' social functions and that it could also improve negative, some positive and general schizophrenia and psychotic symptoms in some patients. The form of music therapy used was often creative music activities with music therapist, with or without structure, or individually customized. The length of treatment varied widely. It was not possible to draw conclusions about which type of music therapy was best.

If Swedish companies are to compete with companies in low-cost countries they have to achieve a more efficient production. The purpose of Total Productivity Maintenance (TPM) is to increase the company's profitability by increasing the productivity. TPM is a method that involves all employees and aims to prevent failures in order to increase the availability of existing equipment.The aim of this paper is to evaluate the implementation process of TPM and give recommendations for the further implementation process. The conclusion and the analysis are based on a case study done at a production department at ABB Cewe-Controls facilities in Nyköping. The case study consists mainly of qualitative data from participation observations, surveys and interviews.Commitment of the management is a key factor in the implementation process of TPM.

In 2005, Outokumpu began to implement its system of continuous improvement, OK> 1, at Avesta Jernverk. OK> 1 has not generated sufficient results on plant KPI:s. The purpose of this study is to identify the understanding,  participation and commitment regarding to OK> 1, and to suggest some actions to make OK> 1 more successful with emphasis on these three aspects. The thesis shall also determine whether there are any differences in the attitude towards OK>1 between Blue Collars and White Collars.The study consisted of a survey, and interviews. The output from these methods were processed and analyzed and finally resulted in a SWOT ? analysis and suggested actions for improving the understanding, participation and commitment towards OK>1.

The purpose of this study is to give a description of how six pedagogues in the third and fourth grade teaches mathematics and which working methods they use. When using the term working methods it is implied that it can for example be outdoors pedagogic, laboratory material, problem solutions et cetera. This material can both be an everyday material or a pedagogical material. The research was carried through by interviews and observations. Six pedagogues were interviewed in two different districts.