Abstract Background: Families with sick children are expressing the needs of accommodation near the hospital, in order to be close to their children and be together as a family.Aim: To investigate how parents experienced the hospitality and the environment at the Ronald McDonald House (RMH) in Uppsala and how they feel their children have experienced the stay.Method: Descriptive qualitative interview study. Five parents who lived with their family at RMH between 2013- 2014 have been interviewed with a semi-structured approach. A qualitative content analysis with an inductive approach according to Graneheim and Lundman (2003) was conducted on a manifest level.Results: RMH made the families? situation easier. RMH met their needs of a homelike environment where they could be themselves; be together and maintain everyday routines.

Urbanization has for a long time been a threat to our biodiversity. Epiphytic organisms such as lichens have been negative affected by traffic pollution and the new urban environment surrounding their old habitat (van Her 2001). Another epiphytic organism is the green algae Desmococcus olivaceus. Unlike lichens the green algae is favoured by polluted areas. The aim of this study was to investigate if time in urban environments affected the cover of the green algae on old oaks.

To work with environments outdoors for people, animals and plants is the main topic for the landscapearchitect. On several occasions the work is about public places that is to be in relation with other parts of the town. It is about the activities and the life that take place. The physical environment and the interpretation of it gives possibilities or obstructions for people who moves around or spend time in it.Since public places, parks and places for movement are used in daily life they strongly effect the people who use the places. The concequences of this effect can be positive or negative experiences.A positive example is a passage over a brook on the way to school while a negative one is to be afraid while passing a tunnel when it is dark outside. Other examples of concequences are stress effect from traffic noice or calming environments with twitter of birds. The physical environment is also a part of the total interpretation of a town.

This study examines the use of building modeling and energy simulations in the design process  of  a  building.  The  take-off  point  is  the  notion  of  energy  simulations  being needed early and throughout the building design process, and that the lack of energy simulations may be explained by the fact that they are time consuming and therefore often too expensive. A greater interoperability between software tools used by relevant disciplines,  such  as  the  architect  and  the  energy  specialist,  would  create  smoother workflows, which would reduce this cost and open up for more frequent and iterative energy  simulation  processes.  The  study  is  an  assessment  of  the  modeling  tool  Revit and  the  simulation  tool  Virtual  Environment  and  whether  they  can  create  smoother workflows, and make leeway for a more frequent use of energy simulations throughout the  design  process.  It  also  investigates  the  limitations  of  what  can  be  examined  by simulations in Virtual Environment. This will hopefully help clarify the future role of energy  simulations  in  design  processes.  The  method  is  a  trial  by  error  approach  of testing the two software tools by building and simulating a model. The results of these tests  show  that  the  workflow  is  not  optimal  (and  therefore  time  consuming)  for frequent  and  iterative simulations  throughout the  design  process,  but  it  also  reveals some  great  possibilities  of  what  can  be  performed  with  these  two  powerful  tools  at hand.  Further  development  with  regards  on  platform  independency  of  the  building information  model,  including  seamless  exporting  and  importing,  seems  necessary  to strengthen the future role of energy simulations..

Sydkraft Vattenkraft AB owns and operates the Traryd hydropower plant, located in the river Lagan in the southern part of Sweden. The gravity dam is classed according to RIDAS guidelines (Hydropower Industry Dam Safety Guidelines) as a class 1B dam. This means that the dam must discharge a class 1-flow which has a return period of 10 000 years. The inflow into the dam has been calculated in an earlier report to 495 m3/s, with a waterline at an elevation of 126, 3 meters above sea level. The gravity dam has a discharge system with two rectangular weirs, which results in a smaller discharge than the necessary 495 m3/s.

In this study I examine the debates, intentions and ideas concerning the physical and created schoolroom as they appeared in the journal Lärarnas Tidning - Svensk Skoltidning (Teachers Journal ? Swedish School journal) during the period 1962-1974. The built and created school building and its environment has been a relatively neglected topic in Swedish pedagogical research.When the Swedish comprehensive system transformed during the sixties, with new curricula and a common nine year school, many school professionals realised the need for a new and pedagogically adjusted schoolhouse.The early seventies marked a decline after a ten year period with an extensive building program affecting large parts of Sweden, and where schoolhouses had been an important part. The debate concerning the new Swedish school building was sometimes inspired and refreshing, but resistance and bitterness was also expressed. In part, this should be seen against the backdrop of the introduction of a new educational system, using new and sometimes untested pedagogical ideas, together with the fast transformation of the Swedish society.The research method is an exploratory textual analysis focused on five different issues: ideas concerning community centres and integration, participatory and democratic issues about the built environment, the school building as a pedagogical tool, aesthetic considerations, and the working environment.

In my study I have chosen to examine the mathematics in children's free play and everyday situations, with focus on sorting and classification. The purpose of the study was to see how children express their mathematical knowledge. I have chosen to use a qualitative method in my examination, here I did observations in a children's group where the children were between three and six years old. I also did interviews with the teacher's on the department to see how they relate to the mathematics and how they formulate the department to achieve as good a learning environment as possible.The result shows that the teacher's approach is incredible important to the children's learning ability and that they are always present to challenge and discuss together with the children. The observation indicates that children use mathematics all the time in their everyday situations and that it is the interaction between individuals and environment that affects children's development. .

The purpose of this study is to generate knowledge about how teachers relate to students with language impairment in learning situations, with particular focus on working memory. The questions are: What kind of knowledge do teachers have regarding language impairment and working memory?, What experience do teachers have regarding lack of working memory abilities among students with language impairment and which consequences do the teachers believe such defects may have for the students? and How can teachers create a learning environment that reduces the working memory demand for students with language impairment? A review of the field shows that there are gaps to fill regarding students with language impairment and working memory. Language impairment has so far been neglected by researchers and within the public debate. How working memory capacity affects the students has only recently begun to receive attention in school and research.

This report is about accessibility in a station environment. Studies have been made about how an accessible building should be designed. Accessibility is an important issue when striving for a society with equality as the foundation. Sweden is one of the most accessible countries when speaking about the built environment. A result of prosperity and a well-managed democracy.

Many people choose to live in urban environments. Since everyday life in many cities is characterized by a high pace it is important that good recreational areas, with the possibility of recovery, are available to the population.This paper is based on a case study of Växjö city park, which is the area surrounding the lake Växjösjön. The park and the lake are of great importance to the citizens. The lake Växjösjön has for a long time been affected by eutrophication, which has caused major problems as algal blooms and fish mortality. An extensive lake restoration was carried out in the 1990s in order to save the lake.

Several scenarios point toward a future where we are far more people on Earth than today, where most of those people will live in cities and where oil no longer dominates in the transport systems and in agriculture as an energy source and where less energy will be available to us. The report investigates what areas in traditional ecological knowledge that can contribute to the transition that follows a future with less energy and establishes three areas with the potential of becoming important: areaspecific biological knowledge in societies that are more dependent upon its surrounding environment and its natural prerequisitesthe local management of these biological resources, which often means a fair sharing and sustainable handling of the resources and which has been observed in Nobel price awarded Elinor Ostrom?s researchthe world views that lie behind how the environment is considered and managed, world views that can inspire and point toward how we in the future should formulate world views that do not give the destructive modern management of the environment It is also noted that the magnitude of the city living in the future is a historical news and that very little research has been done in how traditional knowledge can be transferred into this kind of living..

This thesis has been carried out to the Technology Group at industrial plant Tube Mill2012, which belongs to the Sandvik AB. Technology Group is a unit that takes care ofall requirements and suggestions regarding investigations, test runs and designmodifications. The main objective is to identify and analyze the existing initializationprocess to see where improvement opportunities exist and to come up withsuggestions for improvement, supported by previous research and literature. Anextensive literature search and case study has been conducted to provide a solidfoundation to refer to during the work. Completing the interviews and the workshopgave a clear picture of their unstructured work and approach, how the lowrequirements on the received orders caused problems for the group as well as thelack of a standardized resource allocation method provides major delay factors.Solution proposal then became a very easy process model in five steps with all theinformation gathered in one place.

Environment.

Today we are living in a knowledge-society where knowledge sharing is of utmost importance for companies in order to keep their competitiveness. Therefore, it is a much debated issue - in both the academic and the corporate world - in what way one should handle the knowledge which continuously is created within companies. The aim of this study is to describe how practitioners share tacit knowledge within a large knowledge company. By that we aim to get an answer to how the chosen theoretical models regarding tacit knowledge relate to the empirical world. In this study we will focus on tacit knowledge in contrast to explicit one.

No infrastructures today are growing faster then communication network. The requirement of being able to communicate in a fast and qualified environment to a low cost increases in line with the development and competition. Itera Networks is no exception when it comes to rapidly developing new and better network solutions for themselves and for their customers. With these requirements in mind their needs for an analysis of the existing communication solution becomes very obvious. This project contains such an analysis in which various studies of the existing network environment have been made.