The Swedish Transport Administration manage nearly 4,000 railway bridges in different condition and age around the country. These bridges is in constant need of maintenance and requires continuous inspections. This thesis is designed as a damage investigation on a single-track railway bridge south of Solvarbo in Säter municipality. The railway bridge is in operation and serves over 10,000 trains a year, everything from speed trains to freight trains. The bridge is built as a beam bridge, simply supported over a road.

The companies of today compete about the consumers? attention. In a society where the speed is increasing and the trends are constantly changing the marketing of today will soon be obsolete. This is something that is clearer in the fashion business where the consumers always are looking for news at lower costs. It?s no longer an economical question to be able to wear the latest fashion trends, the availability of cheap fashion clothes is constantly increasing.

Today, equine breeding is based on performance and conformation, resulting in a vast variation in fertility among different horses, with noticeable economic losses as a consequence. The horse breeding industry is therefore in need of methods that diagnose the spermatozoa concerning their quality and provide the best sperm for AI. The commonly used selection methods for sperm today are: centrifugation, where extender is added, the sample is centrifuged and then resuspended; swim-up self-migration; adherence separation; and density gradient centrifugation. However, none of these methods are in used routinely in practice before inseminating mares with fresh or cooled semen. The aim of this study was to evaluate a new selection method, Single Layer Centrifugation (SLC), and its effect on sperm viability. The viability was analyzed with regard to membrane integrity and membrane stability of ejaculated spermatozoa.

This thesis aims to present the essential background on how to perform climate changeimpact assessments, and to present the results from a climate impact assessment on waterbalance and nitrate leaching for an arable Swedish soil. The soil is a sandy soil in southwesternSweden, grown with spring cereals. This study is meant to be a benchmark example,and cannot be seen as a regional or national assessment for Sweden, rather as an approachto present and analyze the most important parts of these kinds of assessments.A dynamical simulation model (COUP, Jansson and Karlberg, 2004) was used for thisstudy. The model was parameterized and calibrated against data from an experimental site,located in Mellby in Hallands county, south western Sweden. Measurements were carriedout between 1st of April 1988 and 1st of April 1991.

This thesis aims to present the essential background on how to perform climate changeimpact assessments, and to present the results from a climate impact assessment on waterbalance and nitrate leaching for an arable Swedish soil. The soil is a sandy soil in southwesternSweden, grown with spring cereals. This study is meant to be a benchmark example,and cannot be seen as a regional or national assessment for Sweden, rather as an approachto present and analyze the most important parts of these kinds of assessments.A dynamical simulation model (COUP, Jansson and Karlberg, 2004) was used for thisstudy. The model was parameterized and calibrated against data from an experimental site,located in Mellby in Hallands county, south western Sweden. Measurements were carriedout between 1st of April 1988 and 1st of April 1991.

Approximately 60 million cubic meters of round wood are transported every year with trucks in Sweden and stand for 15 % of all truck transportation in the country. The big amount that is transported results in many haulage companies works in different parts of the country with different conditions to get a good flow on their transports. Today the transport pricing is very general and the payment consists of the unit round wood they are transporting and the distance of the transport. The purpose of this study were, from the freighter and the haulage company?s perspective, try to find ways to change the today applied transport pricing to more differentiated and compare them to historic payment of transportation.

Large areas of forests in the tropical region have during the last decades been lost and converted to new land uses while other areas have been degraded into secondary forests. These secondary forests need to be restored and rehabilitation through enrichment planting and liberation may help to speed up the recovery process. The objective of this thesis was to evaluate a rehabilitation method that includes enrichment planting, slashing of weeds and girdling of unwanted trees. The site for the project is situated in Sabah, Borneo in a secondary forest which had been logged and burnt by a wildfire. The project?s goal is to rehabilitate and increase biodiversity through enrichment planting of seedlings mainly belonging to the family Dipterocarpeaceae (dipterocarps).

Arbetet behandlar frågan om elever läser olika snabbt beroende på varifrån de läser en text? Studiens grundläggande syfte är att undersöka om det föreligger någon skillnad i läshastighet i en bok, på en dator eller i en så kallad smartphone? Undersökningsgruppen är fem slumpmässigt utvalda flickor i årskurs 8. Intresset för arbetet tar sin grund i ett stort eget intresse för läsning men också i deltagande vid insamlandet av data till en större studie i ämnet. Studien har för avsikt att jämföra lästeknik och förståelse i en bok, på en dator och i smartphones. Som en del två skall försök göras för att utveckla lästekniken genom mental teknik- lånad från idrotten - i avsikt att utveckla elevers läsförmåga och uppfattningsmöjlighet. Metoden som används i är i detta arbete en fallstudie samt en analys utifrån observationer av deltagarna.

One of the biggest challenges in the human history is to prevent environmental pollution. Everybody has an indirect or direct influence on the environment through his or her consumption. The stakeholders are not just interested in price and quality, they are also interested in the circumstances of production and how this affects the environment. By taking environmental concern in public procurement it is possible to speed up the environmental adjustment of services and products. Environmental awareness has become more and more self evident in the environmental work.

The Swedish government have a goal that wind turbines shall produce 30 TWh by the year 2020, compared to about 3,5 TWh produced in Sweden during 2010. To minimize the disturbance that wind turbines create the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency has stated a guideline value that noise from wind turbines at nearby residents shouldn?t exceed 40 dBA, at 8 m/s wind speed. With advanced calculation models, like Nord 2000, the emitted sound from future wind turbines can be calculated at an early stage to optimize the power production without exceeding the 40 dBA. When the turbines have been built there is a need to verify that they really are within the guideline.

This thesis studies settlement continuity on Gotland between approximately AD 200 and AD 1700. The method used is to calculate correlation between the geographical distribution of all known Iron Age stone-wall-houses (on Gotland known as "kämpagravar") and all farms included in the detailed taxation maps from approximately 1700. The number of remaining house foundations is between 1800 and 1900. A model to estimate the number of removed foundations is presented. It is based on the assumption that the settlement density was proportional to land use around 1700, and that the rate of removal is related to the current land use.

Syftet med denna uppsats var att undersöka integrationsprocessen för de syriska immigranter, som har kommit till Sverige för minst två år sedan. Vi ville få reda på hur de hade upplevt första tiden i Sverige, hur de uppfattar att stödet från det svenska samhället har varit och vilka faktorer som har haft betydelse för deras välmående.I denna uppsats har vi använt oss av en kvalitativ metod. Data har samlats in genom intervjuer som har behandlat integrationsprocessen utifrån syriska emigranters perspektiv. Till våra intervjuer har vi använt oss av en intervjuguide och vi valde ut tre kvinnor och två män där deras ålder varierade från 20 till 45 årsåldern.De teoretiska utgångspunkterna utgick ifrån Bourdieushabitus, Olkiewiczs (2008) assimilatoriska och nostalgiska grupper samt Franzens (1997) konstruktiva och destruktiva mönster.Vårt resultat visade att första tiden i Sverige ansågs som en väldigt svår period för våra informanter. Detta berodde dels på att man var rädd att inte bli erbjuden ett svenskt uppehållstillstånd och dels att man i vissa fall upplevde osäkerhet på förläggningen.

SammanfattningDenna studie ämnar till att bredda kunskap kring sexual debut i Rwanda, där forskning i en afrikansk kontext kopplar tidig ålder vid sexual debut samt föräktenskapligt sex till ett riskfyllt sexuellt beteende. Eftersom att risken för ökat antal sex partners samt oskyddat sex stiger, vilket kan leda till oönskade effekter så som sexuellt överförbara sjukdomar och oönskade graviditeter. Rwanda är ett land som drabbats hårt av HIV spridning framförallt som en konsekvens av oskyddat samlag. Därför anser vi att en studie kring sexuellt beteende är ett viktigt område att belysa. Uppsatsen avser att studera vilka faktorer som kan tänkas ha ett samband med ålder vid sexual debut, kontrollerat för om första samlaget skedde innan äktenskapet eller efter.

Background Research concerning footing and its contribution to injuries has been conducted primarily in racing Thoroughbreds. Studies in UK and Japan indicate that some specific factors could be responsible for an increase in performance-associated injuries. Researchers in Sweden have performed studies on Standardbred trotters. More research is needed to be done on equestrian sports since requirements on footing are not exactly the same in riding and trotting horses. The lack of scientific evidence on the construction of equestrian surfaces has lead to anecdotal validation of designs.

Glass has sophisticated front properties and are used as facades in high buildings. During cold periods, these glass facades could cause thermal discomfort, due to cold downdraught. Cold downdraught can be countered by placing heaters under glass surfaces. Nowadays technology offers highly insulating windows, which is why there is an interest to investigate the indoor climate with only underfloor heating. The research in this area is limited, and few empirical methods are available.