Powder Metal (PM) gears are machine element components which operate under the same principle as conventional gears, but, due to their intrinsic material characteristic need to be designed slightly different, and its manufacturing process offers advantages previously unobtainable by conventional steel gear manufacturing methods. The use of PM in similar applications, such as synchronous hubs, makes them a suitable candidate for production in such material. The current master thesis work focuses on gear design using PM by utilizing finite element method (FEM) to reduce weight and inertia taking into account root bending strength and tooth deflection.First a topological optimization is used to determine feasible candidates for different web designs which have as objective to reduce volume, similar topologies were shown during different loading conditions; and hence, this topology was chosen as a suitable candidate. A shape optimization of the topological candidate was performed having as state variables root bending strength, independent for compressive and tensile side of the tooth loading; and tooth deflection, which in concept can be correlated to static transmission error (TE).Another aspect in this thesis analysed is the possibility to incorporate non-trochoid root geometry, a trochoid root is always present when machining with a hob, into the gear root and hence reduce the stress concentration here. Due to the use of PM, a non-symmetric optimized root can be achieved and hence be optimizing compression and tension.Results showed significantly lower inertia, for example certain results showed 40% reduced when compared to solid gear, with adverse effects as increase in tooth deformation and increase in maximum principal stress.

A new phonological test, LINUS, for Swedish-speaking children between the ages of three and seven, has been developed at the speech and language pathology department at Linköping University. The aim of the present study was to create a reference manual for the long version of the new test. The participants in the present study were children between the ages of five to seven in a medium-sized municipality in the Northern part of Kalmar County, Sweden. In total, 124 native Swedish-speaking children (58 girls and 66 boys) with typical language development participated. The children were divided into two age groups, 5;0-5;11;31 and 6;0-6;11;31 years.

This report is the result of a degree project in building engineering, at an advanced level. The project evaluated a building from a technical and historical point of view, and focused on its energy consumption, particularly the energy used for heating. The building in question was a small apartment building in Strömsholm, Sweden. It was made in 1902, from vertical logs, a not so common form of the traditional log house. The goal of the project was to evaluate if the energy consumption could be reduced in accordance with building preservation regulations, that is without damaging any of the building?s cultural or historical values.The building was surveyed with the help of archive and literature studies, interviews and inspections.

In this thesis a number of energy saving methods for a multiplier on algorithmic level are investigated. For the investigation a multiplier is constructed in VHDL, after which the circuit's performance is investigated. A number of techniques for reduced power consumption are introduced in the circuit and are then evaluated. The conclusions are that all investigated methods, pipelining, interleaving and voltage scaling, should be maximally made use of in order to minimize the power consumption..

This thesis studies whether private equity owned firms within the Swedish welfare sector distinguish themselves in terms of tax planning and short-termism from a control group consisting of other privately owned welfare firms. For the first time, the comparison is made on the entire welfare sector, between 14 matched pairs within education, health care and elderly care. We use financial metrics associated with tax planning and short-termism in sign tests to examine whether the private equity owned firms differ from our control group. The financial metrics tested are actual and paid tax rates, level of interest, book-tax gap, investments, personnel expenses per employee, and cash earnings. We find that the private equity owned firms in terms of tax planning only differ in the level of interest, while no notable differences are found in terms of short-termism..

This thesis has been performed at International Aluminum Casting AB in Eskilstuna,Sweden.International Aluminum Casting is currently working with a number of improvementsin their production in order to achieve their vision of being the leading aluminum foundry in Sweden. As a step in their improvement efforts, focus was directed ondeveloping the company's fixtures for machining.Efforts were focused on two main objectives: to develop a complete proposal on afixture which leads to a more rational use of an assigned part and also form general design advice for development of fixtures in the future.During the work progress, discussions have been made with experts at International Aluminum Casting within the field of fixture design. The objective was to obtain sufficient knowledge about the underlying problems with the current fixture for the part. At this stage of the thesis, a number of essential criteria for fixture design were produced. Information and inspiration were obtained by examining the company?s currently developed fixtures.After gathering the necessary information the process of developing three different fixture concepts started.

Piled friction soil show a set-up which is increasing with the time after installation. The cost could be reduced if the set-up had been taken into account when designing but in Sweden it is very unusual to do that. Previous studies showed that set-up can vary between 25 % and 75 % during the first 90 days after pile installation. This showed that the effect of the phenomenon is difficult to predict. A study involving five projects have been carried out by specifying certain parameters like pile type, method for pile installation and test method for measure the bearing capacity in friction soils located in Sweden.

This bachelor thesis is intended to gather the knowledge and experimental data on the winter wheat crop production relevant for Swedish conditions, with focus on sowing time, row spacing and seed rate. This essay is a literature study with a minor component based on interviews with farmers producing winter wheat. The work is divided into a background part where basic knowledge of winter wheat physiology, development and environment interactions are described and one part where results of field trials studies are presented. Optimal date of sowing winter wheat depends on annual weather variations. Because it is difficult to forecast the weather the choice of sowing date should be based on weather statistics, production experience and previous results depending on sowing date.

The aim of this work is to demonstrate how the net present value (NPV) at the time of the first thinning depends on the spacing after pre-commercial thinning, and show how net value from first thinning in same stand is influenced. This study is performed with models based on non-distant dependent growth models for single trees. Two different growth models have been used, one for cleaning (pre-commercial thinning) and one for thinning. The first one yields stem density distributed over diameter classes. In the second one, (the thinning model), it is possible to choose when thinning should be done, the thinning method, thinning grade and numbers of thinning.

In Sweden we have the highest rate of nontraditional students among Europe. Coincidently, we also have the highest rates of drop outs among OECD. In this particular field, drop out from higher education, there is a need fore more qualitative studies that can support the "statistics". Studies about experiences of drop outs are significant for society, university and individual. The aim of this study is to describe and understand how nontraditional student experiences drop out from higher education.

This thesis is using the theory of participatory democracy to show how one can work to increase the participation in the society, between elections as well as during elections. For a couple of years now many traditional democratic countries have been struggling with low voting rates. Hence this, I find it interesting to study what has been done to cope with this problem. The government in Sweden had a project working on how to make more people involved in the democratic process, especially people that to a lesser extent participate in this process. In this thesis two projects will be studied, Möllevångsgruppen and Unga väljer Miljö i Malmö.

Today Scania give a high priority to the continuous improvements on the quality of their vehicles. To follow up the flaws in product quality, which are recognized by the repairs at the local workshops, material requests are carried through to be able to analyze the defects at the plant in Södertälje ? in purpose to improve the product quality. The material requests are also carried through to compensate the workshop for their expenses and to check that they are working according to the company?s warranty manual.Due to local routines and different distribution structures at the different markets the lead times and the costs caused by the flow of material are hard to estimate.

This thesis has been focused around the Diels Alder reaction with the goal to design an enzyme catalyzed reaction pathway. To achieve this goal computer aided enzyme design was utilized. Common traditional methods of computational chemistry (B3LYP, MP2) do not do well when calculating reaction barriers or even reaction energies for the Diels Alder reaction. New calcu- lation methods were developed and tested. This was the focus of the first part of the thesis, by choosing a small system, extensive and heavy calculations could be done with CBS-QB3.

Objective: The out-of-hospital cardiac-arrest incidence in Sweden averages about 10 000 a year. Whether the victim will survive or not is dependent upon rapid actions according to the chain of survival ? early alarm, early CPR, early defibrillation and early medical treatment. While waiting for the ambulance the victim is completely dependent on immediate help from any bystander, because early CPR improves survival rates by two-three folds. Unfortunately not all bystanders start CPR because of different reasons.

AbstractThis is a thesis done in cooperation with the firm Somas and University of Karlstad. The project is an independent final examination part of the program in Innovation and DesignEngineering comprising 22.5 points, and performed by Mia Myrén Zreloff during spring term 2012. In parallel and collaboration, Fredrik Kjellin performs a similar job for the same company and with the same extent, but for the Program in Mechanical Engineering.The client and supervisor at the company have been Magnus Jansson and Anders Josefsson. At Karlstad University has technical supervisor been Hans Johansson, and in the design- and development process it was Monica Jakobsson. Examiner has been Fredrik Thuvander, professor in the Faculty of Technology and Science at Karlstad University.The mission has been to make a basis work for the company's own development and make a computational model to calculate, visualize and implement materials and other solutions in the manufacture of the company's ball valves.The project has undergone three major phases that included thorough study of the company, production, the problem and product.