Chemicals in preschools - a study of endocrine disrupting chemicals and awareness among preschool teachers The purpose of this study was to investigate endocrine disrupting chemicals that have been shown in preschools and also the preschool teachers? awareness of these chemicals. There were two methods used for completing this study; a literature study and a practical study. The literature study was made by researching on the internet and in books. The practical study was performed by sending questionnaires to all preschools in Kiruna municipality to study awareness among staff.

Blast furnace is the heart of every steel plant. Steel production is based on the blast furnace process, as it is where the iron is extracted from the iron ore and turned into liquid iron, which will subsequently be used to make liquid steel. Therefore, without hot iron, steel can not be produced. Blast furnaces in this process are supplied among others with pulverized coal. Raw coal should be prepared for the blast furnaces in the form of fine coal powder.

This is a final thesis done at BT, considering one of their forklift truck models called Reflex. The first part of this report is about a preliminary investigation investigating what kind of diagnostic systems BTwants to use, and also which demands there are to meet all expectations on such system. Secondly a diagnostic system, which will show if the drive wheel is worn out, will be presented. In the preliminary investigation, two kinds of diagnostic systems were mentioned. These were Model based diagnosis and Predictive analysis.

With the advance of the modern information society, the importance of reliable identity authentication has increased dramatically. Using biometrics as a means for verifying the identity of a person increases both the security and the convenience of the systems. By using yourself to verify your identity such risks as lost keys and misplaced passwords are removed and by virtue of this, convenience is also increased. The most mature and well-developed biometric technique is fingerprint recognition. Fingerprints are unique for each individual and they do not change over time, which is very desirable in this application.

AbstractThe research project Liberation, supported by the European Commission under the Environment and Sustainable Development Programme (Fifth RTD Framework Programme) aimed at developing a decision support system for ecological risk assessment of contaminated sites has proposed a tiered system including the triad method. This method integrates contaminant chemistry and bioavailability analyses with observed ecotoxicological effects in soil and groundwater. In this study the triad method was used to perform a risk characterization of a former surface treatment and metal industry, now used for the student union buildings of the Mälardalen University in Eskilstuna, Sweden. On the site, high concentrations of copper, zinc and nickel have been detected in the soil in a preliminary investigation of contaminant levels with XRF. For performing the risk assessment of the site according to the triad method, contaminant bioavailability, soil metal concentrations and soil toxicity were determined and an ecological assessment was carried out on four selected soil samples (one reference soil and three samples with low (B), medium (C) and high (D) contaminant levels). Contaminant bioavailability was measured through leaching (ISO TC 190/S7) and biouptake tests (DGT).

This M.Sc. thesis is a material application evaluation commissioned by the advanced body engineering department at SAAB Automobile AB. The purpose of the thesis is to evaluate implementation of the innovative sandwich design material Hybrix into an automobile body. Today the most commonly material used in the body is galvanized steel sheets and by shifting material to Hybrix several problematic issues have to be dealt with. Hybrix is an innovative sandwich sheet that inherits thin stainless steel face sheets and a stainless steel fibrous core.

A renewed application for environmental permit for the Hovgården landfill in Uppsala shall be submitted before December 2004, therefore the municipality of Uppsala needs improved knowledge of the contents, mostly organic compounds in the leachate and they also want to find a method to minimize the emissions of these compounds. The purpose of this study was to find a practical and economical method based on chemical oxidation using oxidants. The oxidants investigated are Fenton's reagent, hydrogen peroxide, Oxypro, potassium permanganate and potassium persulfate. The study was made on untreated leachate and leachate that has been treated in an aerated dam followed by sedimentation dams collected from the Hovgården landfill, and alson on sludge water from sludge storage cells. The effects of the five oxidants have been established by analysing the UV absorbance at the wavelengths 253,7 nm and 260,0 nm at different pH values. The UV absorbance was used to indicate the amount of aromatic hydrocarbons in the water. Also analyses of iron and manganese were done after the experiments with potassium permanganate, hydrogen peroxide and Fenton's reagent.

In the process laboratory of Metso minerals (Sala) AB, continuous tests have been made with a laboratory unit High-Rate thickener. The tests are made in order to compare three methods of thickening techniques of suspended solids. The three techniques are High-Rate thickening, conventional thickening and lamella thickening. The High-Rate and the conventional trials are based on a continuous method, while the lamella thickener is based on batch trials. Because the lamella thickener is based on batch trials and there were some optimization problems with the adding point of the flocculant at the continuous trials, it was not feasible to compare the lamella thickener with the other two thickener types.

District heating covers around 80 % of the heating demand in apartment buildings and 10 % in single-family homes in Sweden. In the year 2010 the total input of energy to the Swedish district heating grids was about 70 TWh, which corresponds to 11 % of the total energy input to the whole energy system in the country. Through the combined production of heat and power the CHP-plants often reaches an efficiency of 90 % from energy in the fuel to produced heat and power. In order to keep the efficiency high it is important for the owners of the plant to have good knowledge about the plants performance at different operation points. Strängnäs Energi AB initiated this diploma work together with FVB Sverige ab in order to come up with a program for short term planning of the production of heat and power at the company´s CHP-plant.The work consists of three main parts.

This report describes procedures and preparations made for developing a mobile application.Using a questionnaire and usability tests, I have developed a design document for a parkingapplication for the iPhone 4. The purpose of the application is to help drivers find allowedparking spaces thus making roads safer for everyone while the driver avoids parking tickets..

Through a thorough analysis of the current situation, we have highlighted differences inworking methods for the various workshops and drew up proposals for improvements incombination with a practical work description that can be implemented in the company..

In Sweden, grass is the single largest crop grown. Nearly 1 000 000 Ha grows on the fields, this is primarily used as feed for livestock. To get a good seed, you need to handle the crop carefully from planting to delivery. The part that I have been interested in, is how to dry the harvested seed with out destroying the growth in the small seed. This is very easily done if you aren?t careful during the drying period.

The study aims to describe, compare, and analyze how managers and basic staff in disability care reflects on education and competence in the organization and from an organizational context explain how the professionalization efforts can be understood at different levels of disability care. Highlighting these questions can stimulate discussion within this field when it comes to the evaluation of competence and skills of staff working with people with various disabilities, which is also sought after in society even more today. The study is qualitative and the result is based on five semi-structured interviews with managers and basic staff in disability care. The interview questions were categorized according to the concepts that are central in this essay: competence, training, professionalism and organization.The results show that there is some doubt about what a higher competence of personnel in direct contact with the users would mean. Among the basic staff uncertainty seems to be highest.

The aim of this thesis is to improve the control of urea injection at the combined power and heating plant Framtidens Gärstad (FTG). Tekniska Verken i Linköping AB is the owner of the plant.The FTG plant consists of a boiler where garbage combustion is done. From the combustion nitrogen oxides are emitted. These nitrogen oxides are hazardous to the environment. To reduce the nitrogen oxides, injection of urea into the boiler is used.

The current study aimed to test the public self-consciousness impact on creative performance. An experimental design was used in which 40 participants were randomly assigned to two groups, one of which was the experimental group and the other was the control group. A mirror was used in the experimental group to induce public self-consciousness among the participants while they performed creativity tests. A consequence test was used where the participant had to give suggestions for the given scenario "What would happen if everyone became blind?" which was then measured in the number of proposals (fluency).