Nuts of all kinds are common ingredients in food. For nut allergy sufferers the frequent use of nuts cause problems and "hidden" nuts in food products may elicit allergic reaction when such foods are consumed. Methods for detecting and quantifying walnut (and other nuts) with high sensitivity and specificity are therefore very important.The objective of this project was to verify the specificity of a rabbit antiserum against walnut with immunodiffusion and to determine the size of the dominant walnut antigens with Western blotting. In addition, a commercial sandwich ELISA for walnut quantification was validated and compared with a qualitative real-time PCR.The rabbit antiserum proved to be less specific but after absorption with cross-reacting nuts and seeds it showed high specificity. The ELISA kit reacted, except for walnut, with pecan and slightly with other nuts and seeds tested.

This thesis of 15 hp has been implemented at Halmstad University, in collaboration with Saab Dynamics in Linköping. Saab Dynamics is a company operating in the defence industry where competition is tough. This necessitates new ways to increase efficiency in the company, which is the basis for this thesis. Saab Dynamics wants to introduce simulation driven design. Since Saab Dynamics engineers have little experience of simulation, required a user methodology with clear guidelines.

Syfte: Syftet med vår undersökning är att skapa bättre förståelse för hur en säljare förmedlar empati för kunden i en säljrelation. Tidigare forsknings uppmärksamhet för förståelsen och empatins påverkan utgör grunden till att vi mer specifikt vill undersöka; hur kunden uppfattar att fastighetsmäklaren förmedlar affektiv respektive kognitiv empati i en säljrelation.Metod: En studie av kvalitativ art valdes med bakgrund till studiens syfte. För insamling av kvalitativ data använde vi oss av tidigare forskning samt semistrukturerade intervjuer, vilka utfördes med respondenter som anlitat en fastighetsmäklare inom de närmaste tre föregående åren. Well-grounded theory användes sedan som analysmetod av det empiriska materialet.Slutsats: Studien indikerar att kunden uppfattar både affektiv och kognitiv empati i mötet med fastighetsmäklaren. Vi har genom analysen uppmärksammat skillnader och likheter i respondenternas svar, mer specifikt har vi funnit att kundernas uppfattning av empati upplevs olika av olika personlighetstyper och situationer.Förslag till vidare forskning: Vi anser att vidare forskning bör ta hänsyn till fler variabler, exempelvis ålder, kön, personlighetstyp eller situation.

Purpose: To investigate if Altman´s Z´-score model, which calculates financial distress, can be applied on companies established in Sweden and if the financial crisis in 2008 made previously healthy companies go bankrupt.Methodology: Quantitative studies with a positivistic foundation. Empirical data will be collected in order to examine if there is generalizability among the studied objects. Conclusions will be made by comparing the empirical data with the theoretical foundation. Financial distress in firms will be measured.Theoretical perspectives: Altman´s Z´-score model, designed to predict financial distress in private firms.Empirical foundation: A selection of 93 private firms that have gone bankrupt in the years 2008, 2009 or 2010. The firms selected all have a turnover that exceeds 20 million SEK.

A Social Enterprise is a business that features a mixture of characteristics that originates from the third and private sector. A general conception of Social Enterprises is that they aim to improve social welfare by the use of sustainable business models. The mixture of social and business features has created ambiguity about how to define Social Enterprises. The purpose of this study is to clarify Swedish Social Enterprises as a phenomenon and to examine antagonism that arises from mixing the two different sets of organisational characteristics. This is achieved by conducting a qualitative study of ten Swedish companies that the market considers to be Social Enterprises.

This candidate essay is built on literature studies and discusses the meaning of the residential yard along with what you, as a landscape architect, should think about when you are designing functional residential yards. To do this I found it necessary to figure out what it is that makes people step outside their own apartment and out into the city?s public places. The reasons for this are numerous and many times individually affected. Something that plays a role in people?s outdoor life and prevents them from spending time outside is the lack of time, the technique of today and the feeling off insecurity.

Organizational democracy has been a popular research area in recent decades but the implementation in real organizations is slow (Kokkinidis, 2012; Verdorfer, Weber, Unter Rainer & Seyr, 2013). Several researchers (Schön Jansson, 2012; Falkheimer, Heide & Johansson, 2013) argue that communication practitioners have a key role in democratic processes and that because their job role is under constant change there are only a few modern studies regarding the subject. The purpose of this study is to illustrate how communication practitioners in private and public organizations experience their role in the process of internal communication and to what extent they are aware of, and work with internal organizational democracy.The practitioners we interviewed had a strong feeling that they were a support function for the business and the organizational management. As a result of the study it is clear that communication practitioners are very loyal to their employers and to the organization they work for. They are, therefore, not neutral in their professional role and argue that their task is to represent the management's interests.

Under de senaste åren har planprocessen legat i fokus. I Stockholm råder en stor bostadsbristoch de långa planprocesserna som kan sträcka sig upp till fem år eller mer har medfört att ettantal utredningar och rapporter har genomförts för att se vari problemen ligger. De långa ochkomplicerade planprocesserna medför även att konkurrenssituationen mellan byggherrarpåverkas då enbart de större byggherrarna har den tid och resurser att genomgå dennautdragna process. I den nya plan- och bygglagen som infördes 2 maj 2011 fanns en delförändringar som hade som mål att effektivisera denna process men än finns det utrymme förförbättringar.I vårt examensarbete har vi analyserat tre projekt i tre olika kommuner för att se huruvida deutredningar som krävs skiljer sig mellan kommunerna. Kommunerna vi har valt är Stockholm,Solna och Södertälje och för att få en mer nyanserad bild har vi pratat medstadsbyggnadskontoret i Södertälje kommun samt två exploatörer i Stockholm och Solna omderas syn på processen.

This Masters thesis work describes a comparison between two different methods for estimation of the down channel (base station to mobile subscriber) in Wide-band Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA). The first estimation method, Optimal Feed-forward Channel Estimation (OFCE), is a conventional method that bases the estimates on data that is known to both sender and receiver, so called pilots. The second method, Decision Directed Channel Estimation (DDCE), is an elaboration of OFCE. It also uses user data for estimation. Simulations show that DDCE, in comparison to OFCE, does not attain an improvement in signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR) for high bit error rates (BER). An improvement is only seen when the BER becomes much lower than what is common in real situations. In conclusion DDCE is complicated, involves many mathematical operations and gives insignificant improvement of SNR when BER takes common values. It is legitimate to question if it is possible to use the method in a real mobile phone system..

Denna studie undersöker hur statliga myndigheter är som hyresgäster på den svenska lokalhyresmarknaden. I studien analyseras myndigheternas hyreskontraktslängder samt den faktiska hyresperioden för respektive lokal. Därutöver utreds hur respektive myndighet hanterar sin lokalförsörjning både organisatoriskt och strategiskt. För att få en tillförlitlig perception om dagens situation har såväl historisk utveckling samt rådande trender och framtidsutsikter i den statliga lokalförsörjningen beaktats.Tidigare forskning kring myndigheters lokalhyrestider är begränsad, således är förhoppningen att denna studie ska bringa klarhet i detta. Vidare ämnar studiens syfte till att klargöra statliga myndigheters strategi gällande lokalförsörjning.Studien bygger på en kvalitativ del vilken innefattar intervjuer med fem statliga myndigheter.

Title: The Investment Savings Account ? Standard Taxation ? Right in TimeAuthors: Gustav Mårtensson and Erica Nordström LöfSupervisor: Göran HäggBackground: In order to facilitate and stimulate financial investments among privateinvestors the organization Aktiespararna made a proposal for a standard-taxed account. As aresult of this, the Swedish government decided to implement the Investment Savings Accountin January of 2012. The introduction of the Investment Savings Account implies that there arenow three different types of accounts for financial investments that are differently taxed onthe Swedish Market. Private investors can improve their after-tax results by combining AssetAllocation and Asset Location, according to earlier studies.

This essay is a selective review of Nordic literature with the aim to explore contemporary conceptions of male-on-female rape, to increase the understanding of how these can construct ?a real rape?. To achieve this two questions were formulated: What circumstances can cause an incident not to be defined as rape? What circumstances can cause an incident to be defined as rape? Searches in international and Swedish databases led to initial selection of peer-review journal articles and dissertations that were reviewed against set criteria. These criteria were met by 8 studies, that were assigned codes, from which comprehensive categories were developed.

In a global context the traditional democratic process is facing new challenges. Scholars are talking about a transition from government to governance, where local and regional networks as well as international collaboration are an important part in how regional policy is produced and implemented. In this paper the processes in regional projects funded by the European Union are considered, and related to the traditional democratic process. The study has been fulfilled through informant interviews with representatives from four EU-projects. The interviews are supplemented by a qualitative text analysis of current statutes.

In recent decades, demands has emerged that the companies shall take a greater social responsibility for the impact that they have on their environment and that this impact shall be reported, which is known as Sustainability Reporting. The Sustainability Report is based on a number of general principles that ensure the content and the quality of the Sustainability Report. One of these principles is the principle of completeness. In the research, this principle seems to have been interpreted in terms of number of reported aspects and indicators, which can be a limited view where only the existence of the aspects and indicators is observed. By including the degree of the reporting in terms of full, partial and no reporting as well as a comparison between the real and the alleged reporting, our intention is to extend the principle of completeness and to develop a tool that we also apply through an empirical survey in a particular area.

The BA thesis Front Yard Gardens ? spatiality, design elements, expression and social aspects is a summary of the entrance and front yard garden phenomenon ? where the entrance is the set design and the designer is the director. The thesis touches the social context of which entrances have been and still are shaped. The various appearance of the entrance and front yard gardens throughout the history, starting with the first entrance by the edge of the wood and coming up to the front yard gardens of today, is described. It touches the present day through an analysis of some entrances and front yard gardens of modern residential areas.