Introduction: A complex interaction between muscles, tendons, bones, joints and nerves are required for optimal function of the human hand. It is known that an individual?s grip strength is vital for performance of physical demanding tasks such as strength training with free weights. Strength training including a thicker grip around the bar may enhance the strength of the grip in the athlete without other special routines for grip strength development. The purpose of this investigation was to examine the difference in performance in multiple repetitions in two strength training exercises using two different sizes on the bar, to look for correlations between grip strength of the subjects hand and the amount of repetitions executed with two different size of the bar and finally the correlation of hand size and the amount of repetitions executed with two different size of the bar.Method: 15 strength training men (23,9 ± 4,1 years), underwent measurements of hand size, maximum grip strength, 1 repetition maximum (1RM), a 80 % of 1RM weight strength test with two different  bar sizes.Results: The results from the present investigation indicates a 21,1 % reduction of 80 % of 1 RM weight performance in repetitions executed in the bench press with the thicker diameter of the bar and a 66,2 % reduction in repetitions executed with a 80 % of 1 RM weight in the lying bench row with the thicker diameter of the bar.

Botanically diverse pastures are commonly used in New Zealand to reduce the ruminant environmental impact by reducing the methane production from the rumen digestion. In order to evaluate the effects diverse pasture species have on the milk fatty acid profile seventy-two lactating Friesian-Jersey crossbred dairy cows were used in a randomised block design with two replicates of six treatments. Six different pasture mixtures were fed at a daily allowance of approximately 15 kg DM/cow/day. The mixtures were categorised as either a simple or a diverse pasture. The simple mixtures all contained white clover with the addition of either a standard diploid perennial ryegrass (RG), a diploid high sugar ryegrass (HS) or tall fescue (TF).

This degree project was made in cooperation with AssiDomän Frövi and Charlotte Andersson and the main objectivehas been to create to ice cream pacbges from 250 gsm Frövi Light board. The paekages are intended to be easilyresealable while decreasing in size together with the ice cream. The project also describes the food packaging labelsand symbols currently present in the European common market.Both capsules utilize a separate lid for resealing. One of the paekages (Capsuie A) is indended to be cut along withthe ice cream and thereby decrease in size. The other one (Capsuie B) uses a series of flaps for contracting and expandingwhich enab1es adjusting of the size without cutting the package up.The design for Capsuie A is created both as a series of flavours with a super-hero theme intended for children andwith a colfee flavour for a maturer audience.

Vole populations in northern Scandinavia vary in cycles with peaks every third or fourth year as described by the National Environmental Monitoring Programme of small mammals (NEMP). Some vole species have declined in population numbers since the NEMP started in 1971, especially the grey-sided vole (Myodes rufocanus) which is nearly extinct in the forested region. Since small mammals are an important food source for several avian and mammalian predators, the decline in vole numbers is expected to have consequences for the whole food chain, especially if other vole species start to decline in numbers. This study tried to test the hypothesis that presence and abundance of M. rufocanus (a specialist species) and Myodes glareolus (a generalist species) can be predicted by patch size and connectivity of forest patches >60 years old with a minimum of 15% pine >100years old.

Infection with intestinal parasites can in many cases be the reason for decreased performance or production. The gastro-intestinal nematode, Ostertagia ostertagi, and the lungworm, Dictyocaulus viviparus, are the most pathogenic nematodes of cattle and severe infection can lead to death. They have both a direct lifecycle and on the pasture the parasites spread as freeliving worms. The parasites are mainly a problem for the first season grazers. They have not developed immunity against the parasites and are therefor more sensitive to parasite infections.

Large amounts of phosphorus (P) are lost from the arable land due to water erosion. Both phosphorus attached to particles and dissolved phosphorus (mainly phosphate) are transported away with drainage-water and surface runoff. Good soil structure is important in minimizing these losses. In this study, soils from 50 fields were analysed with respect to aggregate stability as measured by dispersion of clay together with the content of total phosphorus (TotP), particulate phosphorus (PP) and phosphate phosphorus (PO4P) in the water phase. All soils were clay soils with clay content varying between 21 and 54%.

Animal welfare in Sweden has gone through major changes during the later years. In 2004, Swedish Animal Welfare Agency took over the central responsibility for the animal welfare from the Swedish Board of Agriculture, and in 2007 the board again became the central authority for animal welfare in Sweden.Even the practical supervision has changed, from the 1 of January 2009 the supervision is to be performed by the county administrative boards, instead of by the individual municipalities. Since 2006 every horse in the European Union has to have an identification card, in Sweden called a ?horse passport? which describes the color and markings of the horse as well as any veterinary treatments.The ELOF-project, a collaborative project between the Swedish Board of Agriculture and the county administrative boards, intends to make the animal welfare supervision effective, standardised, fair and risk-based. Because of the takeover of the supervision and of the ELOF-project the Örebro County Administrative Board has began to make an inventory of the number of horses and horsefarms in the county. Another Ethology and Animal Welfare-student and I did, in collaboration with the county administrative board created a checklist that in connection with the inventory will lead to a risk-based animal welfare supervision.

This thesis has been written at Linköping University for the company Instrument Control Sweden AB (ICS).ICS is a small company located in Linköping that develops software and hardware for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, UAV. At present, ICS has a fully functional autopilot called EasyPilot but they want to reduce the autopilot?s size to make it more attractive.The purpose of this thesis was to investigate if it was possible to reduce the size of the autopilot and how, in that case, it would be done. It was also necessary to examine whether the old processors should be replaced by new ones and how hard it would be to convert the old software to these new processors.To succeed with the goals many of the old components had to be changed for new, smaller ones. Some less necessary parts were also completely removed.

Concrete is one of the world?s most common construction materials and is composed of 70-80 % stone material. Today crushed stone is used as aggregate in concrete in order to replace natural aggregates due to strong environmental reasons. Stone crushing yields flaky material and in this thesis studies are made on the flaky particle shape and how it influence properties of concrete such as workability, rheology and strength. The concrete recipes used in this thesis have fixed values, the only variable is the flakiness of the crushed stone.

The presidency of the European Union (EU) is one of the most important institutional actors for the improvement of democracy and equality between the member states. To hold a presidency is a big task and for many countries a tough challenge. What makes a presidency successful? The purpose of the thesis is to examine this question using Ole Elgströms? ?four properties for defining a successful presidency? as the theoretical background. This thesis will employ a comparative framework of four countries, using size and age (age understood as ?time being an EU Member State?) as the defining factors.

Previous work by researchers as Eugene F. Fama and Kenneth R. French, show that average return on stocks are related to a firms characteristics like size and book-to-market ratio. These kinds of patterns in average return is not explained by The Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM), and are therefore seen as anomalies. Fama and French have proposed a three-factor model, which captures patterns observed in U.S average returns associated with size and value.

This literature study deals with the pig industry and how group size and available floor area affects the animal welfare and the production results. It shows that both the pigs? welfare and production result can be affected negatively if the environment seems stressful for the pigs, and if they are housed in a narrow area. If the pigs are being exposed to either physiological or psychological stress factors their immune system can be decreased and the growth can be impaired. Influence by the social status of the pigs is also reviewed.

This master thesis was made to investigate the possibilities of using the Matlab-basedsoftware Basegrain to determine grain size distributions of erosion protections onhydropower dams. Basegrain is a photogrammetric tool developed to generate grainsize distributions and other information about coarse flood sediments by analyzing adigital photo of the stone bed. The investigation was made by validating the ability forBasegrain to assess grain size distributions of various materials smaller than the blocksused in an erosion protection by comparing sieving results or manual measurementswith the results obtained by the program. A statistical comparison was then made bycomparing the results from sieving and the program. The possibilities of using thesame method on existing hydropower dams were then investigated by determiningwhether the method was practically viable or not.The results showed that Basegrain generated grain size distributions for coarse gravelthat were very close to the sieving results.

The aim of this thesis has been to study the development of Ordfront förlag from their foundation in 1969 until today, concerning their publishing profile and their size. Ordfront started out as a small publishing house and is today one of the few middle sized publishing houses in Sweden. Their books focus on questions concerning society, debate and politics. The question posed in this thesis was: What has influenced Ordfront förlag concerning size and publishing profile? In order to answer our question we have used a system analytic method, in which we examined some external and internal elements.

Treatment wetlands been showed efficient for reducing pollutant in waste water. In Lajeado ? RS, Brazil the landfill has poor leachate water treatment. It is necessary to supplement the treatment plant because they need to reduce BOD, COD and nitrate of the water going to recipient. A subsurface flow wetland (SSF) can be a good choice.  In order to be able to design an efficient SSF it is important to understand how the grain sizes of a substrate affect the reducing of pollutants in waste water.