This degree project has been carried out in cooperation with Enertech AB in Ljungby and is pilot study to automating all current manual soldering. The soldering process accounts for a large part of the processing cost in the production of a heat pump. The process is also a quality risk and has a major impact on the lifetime of the final product.The Main task of this project has been to evaluate automation of the soldering process, to develop automation solutions and a principle layout, to draw the design changes required for the automation and to calculate the supposed solution.This pilot study has resulted in a suggested automation solution using laser as a heat source for soldering. Calculations of the solution show that a automating a laser soldering cell is very profitable..

A pilot-study was used to investigate, types of assistance, assessed needs, outcomes and effects of special-needs assistance given to a subsample of compulsory school pupils in an effort to develop an evaluation strategy for identifying educational impacts of specific special-needs inputs.  Preliminary results indicate a tendency for postive outcomes for most pupils in the pilot group (n = 11) but also that many pupils have residual difficulties.  Pupils with residual difficulties mostly required special education asssitance with Maths, English or Swedish.  More pupils also needed support with behavioral difficulties.  More research and an expanding knowledge base is required in order to effectively evaluate outcomes of teacher support.  Schools need help in devising different methods of assistance and particularly for pupils with behavioral difficulties..

This study has been executed at the Public Employment Office, an institution that has beensubject for much debate during the last couple of years. The government has instructed theLabour Market Board to change the Public Employment Office toward a more effectiveorganization. This study examines one of the Public Employment Offices that are included in apilot project that aims to improve and develop work methods with the objective to become amore service minded organization. From this starting point we have investigated which effect thisorganizational change has had on the employee within this organization and within the pilotproject. In addition we investigate whether attitudes of the unemployed has an effect on thestaff´s work situation.

This essay contains material of how the competence maintenance works on a chosen company and how a web based tool developed for its use can help companies with competence insur-ance. As competence maintenance is a major factor to have a long term profit it´s necessary to be aware of the company?s future needs in the competence sector. This essay describes the company?s competence maintenance occupation needs taken from internal documents; it also identifies the need for competence maintenance and presents multiple areas of possible im-provements.

Purpose: During the last years Real Options have been established in many areas of the day-to-day business. Recent literature also tries to address Supply Chain problems with option theory, since an efficient Supply Chain increasingly gains in importance as a significant competitive advantage. This thesis tries to answer the question, if Real Options can mitigate the costs induced by the Bullwhip Effect as one of the major problems in Supply Chains. Methodology: The authors of the thesis used a deductive approach. Based on a theoretical model utilizing Real Option contracts and under the usage of a randomly created dataset the influence of the Bullwhip Effect on the company?s business and financial structure is examined and subsequently analyzed.

A plant's defensive ability against herbivore attack can be influenced by many different factors, one of them being domestication. During human selection to improve the yield of plants, the resistance against herbivore attack can have been lowered, due to a trade-off for use of resources between these traits in the plants. In this thesis I investigated the effect of domestication on resistance against herbivorous insects in cotton plants. I used different varieties and species of wild and domesticated cotton in three different experiments. A feeding assay was conducted, the mortality, development time and pupal weight of larvae of the Egyptian cotton leaf worm Spodoptera littoralis was studied. In a second experiment the preference of the root-feeding beetle Agriotes spp.

Theoretical framework: The Theory of Human Caring by Jean Watson was used as a theoretical framework.Aim: The aim of this literature review was to describe the attitude of nursing patients who go through an induced abortion, from a nurse perspective.Method: This literature review is based on a sample of nine qualitative and quantitative studies, collected in the databases Cinahl, PubMed and PsycInfo. The qualities of the studies were assessed through modified templates. Analysis of the results from the studies was inspired of a content analysis.Findings: The nurses experienced their work as meaningful since they give support to the patient. The nurses felt that their work was justified when the decision to have an abortion was well thought through and they felt respect towards the patient when they were aware of the patient?s circumstances.

The aim of this thesis was to examine if it is possible to keep nitrogen in the form of nitrate(NO3-) in ponds from one season to another by keeping a high concentration of oxygen in thepond water. This hypothesis was tested by doing a lab experiment where two systems werecompared according to nitrate concentration. One system had high concentration of oxygen inthe water and one had low concentration of oxygen. Before the main experiment wasconducted I did a pilot study to test the system setup and included parameters. The result fromthis study and the main study did not show the same result.

The cat is one of our most common pets. Understanding the reproductive physiology of the queen is important, not only for the knowledge of our domestic cats but also for wild undomesticated feline species, many of which have been reported endangered. Understanding the mechanisms behind the estrous cycle, ovulation and pregnancy is also important for handling the feral cat populations that are a problem in several countries. The purpose of this literature study is to look into the hormonal patterns of the reproductive physiology of the female cat, with focus on ovulation, pregnancy and pseudo-pregnancy, and from this information determine in which fields more research would be needed. The female cat is seasonally polyestrous in Sweden, meaning that she can have several estrous cycles during the breeding season but goes through a long period of reproductive dormancy during the darker months of the year. The queen is considered an induced ovulator, with copulation triggering the release of luteinizing hormone (LH) from the pituitary gland needed for ovulation.

Complete tumour regression is the optimal outcome of cancer therapies. There are however types of tumours that naturally regress. Most of these are benign, dermatological and have an early onset in life. This literature study aims to elucidate the mechanisms behind spontaneous tumour regression. In Libechov Melanoblastoma-Bearing minipigs, an animal-model specifically bred to develop malignant melanoma, the tumours usually involute within three months.

The climate affects animal populations through several processes. These processes includereproduction, phenology and the success of hunting. By influencing the phenology of species theclimate also affects the way species interact. If a climate-induced phenology change promotes abasal species to bud earlier in the spring for example, this will affect the links to other species inthe food web due to a time lag in the tropic levels above. This dependence, that a predator has tobeing synchronous to its prey, is called the match/mismatch hypothesis (MMH).

System based models of plants rely on descriptions and assigned functions of genes, and currently 50% of the genes in Arabidopsis thaliana has either no assigned function or a function based on homology only. Mitogen activated protein kinases (MAPK's) are key players in cell signalling and are conserved among eukaryotes, though their targets are highly diverse. A recent study has described a small Arabidopsis protein (80), without homology to any described protein, as a phosphorylation target of the MAPK's MPK3/6. Further work established ?-glucan phosphorylase (PHS) as interacting with 80 and described a delayed senescence phenotype for 80 knock-out plants.

Syftet med denna studie var att utvärdera CI-terapi för strokedrabbade. Metoden som användes var att analysera redan insamlad data från journaler. Bedömningsinstrumenten som användes i studien var självskattningsinstrumentet UE/MAL, handfunktionstestet GAT samt den klientcentrerade intervjun COPM. Undersökningsgruppen bestod av 23 personer. Data behandlades med statistiska metoder..

Expanderande städer resulterar i ökande behov av godstransporter och för att behålla en fungerande godsdistribution kan åtgärder behöva vidtas. Trafikstockning och försämrad stadsmiljö är negativa effekter som kan förknippas med en dåligt fungerande godsdistribution. Citylogistik handlar om att kontrollera och optimera godstransporter i urbana områden (city) så att negativa effekter minimeras.Olika typer av citylogistiska åtgärder och koncept har identifierats. Till dem hör till exempel samdistribution, reglering av godstransporter och avancerade IT-system. Inom ramen för projektet SAMLIC, som startades i Linköping 2004, genomfördes pilotförsöket PILOT med det övergripande syftet att utvärdera ekonomisk potential med samdistribution i Linköpings city.

We have been looking at three different types of agriculture in Södermanland, in the middle east of Sweden. We call the different types for Intensive, Extensive and Mix. The purpose is to get an economic defensible plan for how to run different farm sizes. We also have been looking at the working hours and how many hours the different types will give. We have a farm called Taxinge Gods as our pilot farm. Taxinge Gods grow 407 ha land and is located 60 km southwest from Stockholm.