The Swedish social insurance agency provides financial support for families and children, but also for people with work injury, illness and at old age. During 2012 they saw the amount of notifications of insurance increasing in Sweden, which is a development that cost our society a great deal of money. With the aim to pursue a sustainable development I have therefore devoted this project to wellness and stress management within preschool.The employees of preschool are often dealing with a lot of stress, due to the big groups of children that causes high noise and sound levels. The high noise and sound levels is a contributor to stress which additionally can damage the health and cause impaired hearing loss. About half of the people around their forties until the age of retirement have difficulties understanding speech in large groups.The purpose of this project has been to investigate the causes of negative stress for my target group, women between 30-60 years old who works in preschool.

The City of Gothenburg has an urgent need to upgrade its public transport. The capacity of its light rail transit (LRT) has reached maximum capacity within the inner city limits years ago. The construction of an underground metro will be very expensive and time consuming due to the soft clay beneath the city. The apparent need of developing another type of mass rapid transit (MRT) is urgent. An elevated metro have turned out to be a success in Greater Vancouver, but is it possible for the system to operate well in Gothenburg with its narrow streets and current land use; will its route coexist with the current LRT or will the noise disturb people too much?.

På bullriga arbetsplatser använder personal ofta hörselskydd med inbyggda högtalare för att lyssna på exempelvis musik i underhållningssyfte. Om användaren lyssnar på höga ljudnivåer under långa perioder kan bullerskador uppstå i dennes öron. Enligt lagstiftning måste nivån därför begränsas i förebyggande syfte.Bullernivån är ett genomsnitt av de ljudnivåer användaren exponerats för under en arbetsdag. Användaren måste vila öronen om gränsvärdet för bullernivån nås.Om man utnyttjar att det är ett genomsnitt kan användaren tillåtas lyssna på en hög ljudnivå under en begränsad tid för att sedan sänka den. Det går att bevara både säkerheten och lyssningsupplevelsen om en sänkning införs långsamt.Detta arbete beskriver hur en algoritm till en digital signalprocessor kan konstrueras för att reglera ljudnivån.Målsättningen var att algoritmen skulle skydda användarens hörsel utan att försämra lyssningsupplevelsen, och utan att förbruka mer energi än nödvändigt.I algoritmen ingick en prediktor som predikterar mängden buller användaren riskerar att utsättas för, om denne fortsätter lyssna på samma nivå.Långsamma sänkningar av ljudnivån kan då utföras i tid innan gränsvärdet nås.Det visade sig att algoritmen endast behövde ett fåtal samplingar per sekund för att skatta och reglera ljudnivån tillräckligt precist, vilket reducerade energiförbrukningen.Resultatet visar möjligheten att kombinera målen för säkerhet, lyssningsupplevelse och energieffektivitet i hörselskydd.Algoritmen implementerades inte på ett skarpt system.Den hade enbart tillgång till ljudsignalen användaren ämnade lyssna på i underhållningssyfte..

The Swedish social insurance agency provides financial support for families and children, but also for people with work injury, illness and at old age. During 2012 they saw the amount of notifications of insurance increasing in Sweden, which is a development that cost our society a great deal of money. With the aim to pursue a sustainable development I have therefore devoted this project to wellness and stress management within preschool.The employees of preschool are often dealing with a lot of stress, due to the big groups of children that causes high noise and sound levels. The high noise and sound levels is a contributor to stress which additionally can damage the health and cause impaired hearing loss. About half of the people around their forties until the age of retirement have difficulties understanding speech in large groups.The purpose of this project has been to investigate the causes of negative stress for my target group, women between 30-60 years old who works in preschool.

The Swedish social insurance agency provides financial support for families and children, but also for people with work injury, illness and at old age. During 2012 they saw the amount of notifications of insurance increasing in Sweden, which is a development that cost our society a great deal of money. With the aim to pursue a sustainable development I have therefore devoted this project to wellness and stress management within preschool.The employees of preschool are often dealing with a lot of stress, due to the big groups of children that causes high noise and sound levels. The high noise and sound levels is a contributor to stress which additionally can damage the health and cause impaired hearing loss. About half of the people around their forties until the age of retirement have difficulties understanding speech in large groups.The purpose of this project has been to investigate the causes of negative stress for my target group, women between 30-60 years old who works in preschool.

The Swedish social insurance agency provides financial support for families and children, but also for people with work injury, illness and at old age. During 2012 they saw the amount of notifications of insurance increasing in Sweden, which is a development that cost our society a great deal of money. With the aim to pursue a sustainable development I have therefore devoted this project to wellness and stress management within preschool.The employees of preschool are often dealing with a lot of stress, due to the big groups of children that causes high noise and sound levels. The high noise and sound levels is a contributor to stress which additionally can damage the health and cause impaired hearing loss. About half of the people around their forties until the age of retirement have difficulties understanding speech in large groups.The purpose of this project has been to investigate the causes of negative stress for my target group, women between 30-60 years old who works in preschool.

I have conducted a qualitative study were the aim was to understand how the freedom of choice act in eldercare is handled at a municipality level as well as a national level and the effects that can occur. The methods I have used for this study is a document analysis and semi-structed interviews.     I have conducted semi-structed interviews with three professionals in the eldercare organization in a large municipality in the south of Sweden, I have also conducted a phone interview with a representative from Socialstyrelsen. The professionals that I chose for my study was a chief of staff, an aid case worker and a person who worked in the municipality with the implementation of freedom of choice act.     The study shows that the work quality is expected to rise with the freedom of choice as a consequence of the customer and performer model and will give the caretakers a higher level of influence. The study also shows that the municipality will get a greater responsibility and the aid case workers will get extended tasks though they will have to inform the caretakers regarding the options and they will also be mediate between the caretaker and the performers. However the study also show concerns regarding rough traders whose aim is to make money and does not have the same rehabilitation agenda.     There are also concerns for those who can´t chose for them self though they will not be able to be a part of the freedom of choice act in the same way and that is something the municipality needs to work out a system for.

The current debate about environment and climate change has contributed to more andmore investment in alternative energy sources such as wind, solar and biogas. The Swedish Parliament has set the target that wind power should supply 10 TWh in 2015.In Sweden, wind power establishment began in the early 1980s. Since then the development has gained a tremendous momentum. The purpose of this study was to find out what problems wind power brings and what power relations that exists in connection with wind power establishment and how the landscape is affected by windpower construction, focusing on some cases in Falkenberg and Varberg. This study shows that wind power establishment is a very complicated process.

At the Department of Technology and Built environment at the University of Gävle there was an interest to study GNU Radio, which is an "open source radio project. The project is based on that most of the radio signal processing is made in an ordinary PC. The idea behind this degree project was that in a laptop there are several radio transmitters/receivers that takes space, generates heat and transmit in varied frequency band etcetera. All these radio transmitters/receivers could be replaced with a Software Defined Radio system. It means that one common, general radio hardware is used to different communications such as: WLAN, Bluetooth, GPRS, 3G etcetera. The waveform is generated in the software, which makes the system very flexible.

Uppsatsen behandlar bullerdämpning vid kap på ProfilGruppen Extrusions AB i Åseda. Problemen med ljudnivån beror bland annat på stomljudet som alstras av kapen i de långa profilerna. För att sänka ljudnivån har fastklampningskonstruktioner tagits fram som dämpar stomljudet och förslag på vidare åtgärder rapporterats.Försök och jämförande mätningar av ljudnivån har utförts för att få ett bra underlag att utvärdera. Resultaten av försöken med viskoelastisk plast som dämpelement visar en viss dämpning. Dämpningen kan med all sannolikhet bli större med användning av tjockare dämpelement..

Studier har visat att höga bullernivåer kan vara skadliga för såväl röst, hörsel och språkliginlärning som andra kognitiva förmågor. Höga ljudnivåer kan bidra till ett hyperfunktionelltröstbeteende som kan ge kroniska besvär. Barns röstorgan kan vara särskilt sårbara då de ännuinte är fullt utvecklade. På många förskolor är bullernivån hög och ogynnsam för både barn ochpersonal och därmed utgör de båda en riskgrupp för att utveckla röstbesvär och hörselskador.Föreliggande studie består av ljudnivåmätningar av två förskolors lokaler samtfokusgruppsintervjuer av 16 femåriga barn. Syftet var att kartlägga hur barnen upplever bulleroch kommunikation på förskola samt relatera det till uppmätta ljudnivåer.

Vid både ny- till- och ombyggnation sker ofta arbete tätt inpå redan befintlig bebyggelse. Då dessa innehåller både kontor, bostäder samt övriga verksamheter är risken stor att dessa påverkas negativt av buller från närliggande byggarbetsplatser. I dagsläget finns allmänna råd som Naturvårdsverket har tagit fram. I dessa går det att utläsa vilka ljudnivåer buller från byggarbetsplatser inte bör överstiga samt under vilka tider på dygnet dessa gäller. Det är viktigt att komma ihåg att allmänna råd inte är bindande utan endast riktvärden som i möjligaste mån bör följas.

The problem being examined is the disturbing noise that is created in an open plan office on a company working with a creative process, such as a newspaper or a communications agency. The purpose of this study was to examine the needs for today for a sound absorber in open offices and create and design a design proposal. The aim is also to develop a marketing material the product proposal. The problem has been broken down into the following questions:- How does the user look at the need of a sound absorber in an open offices solution today?- Does an interior designer apply sound absorbers when they furnish the intended environment? - How can a design that meets the needs that exists be achieved and to speak the user?The study is based on three choice of methods a literature review on selected topics that relate to the topic, an interview with an interior designer to explore how an interior designer applies absorbers in open plan office and finally an extensive survey that treats the user's needs and appropriate appearance for the product proposal.The design process has undertaken the following methods, design brief, requirements specification, functional analysis and sketches to produce the final product proposal.

The problem being examined is the disturbing noise that is created in an open plan office on a company working with a creative process, such as a newspaper or a communications agency. The purpose of this study was to examine the needs for today for a sound absorber in open offices and create and design a design proposal. The aim is also to develop a marketing material the product proposal. The problem has been broken down into the following questions:- How does the user look at the need of a sound absorber in an open offices solution today?- Does an interior designer apply sound absorbers when they furnish the intended environment? - How can a design that meets the needs that exists be achieved and to speak the user?The study is based on three choice of methods a literature review on selected topics that relate to the topic, an interview with an interior designer to explore how an interior designer applies absorbers in open plan office and finally an extensive survey that treats the user's needs and appropriate appearance for the product proposal.The design process has undertaken the following methods, design brief, requirements specification, functional analysis and sketches to produce the final product proposal.

This thesis explores the possibilities of avoiding the issues generally associated with compression of noisy imagery, through the usage of vector quantization. By utilizing the learning aspects of vector quantization, image processing operations such as noise reduction could be implemented in a straightforward way. Several techniques are presented and evaluated. A direct comparison shows that for noisy imagery, vector quantization, in spite of it's simplicity, has clear advantages over MPEG-4 encoding..