Sweden recently changed the national regulation of chimney sweeping. This study has two purposes. The first purpose is to evaluate the effect of this reform to see if the new regulation has led to an effect in terms of increased chimney fires in single-family houses and for the wood-burning and oil-burning stoves, respectively. The second purpose is an updating of a previous study (Mattsson 1994) of analysis of society´s benefits and costs of different alternative sweeping frequencies for wood-burning and oil-burning stoves. This study also has a secondary purpose to examine the extent to which the local sweeping rules vary with climate conditions.  Mattsson, based on his results, proposed that the sweeping requirements for oil-burning stoves should be reduced from twice a year to once every second year and for wood-burning stoves the sweeping should be reduced from four times to once each year.

The aim of this thesis was to investigate whether the selection of products in the school cafeterias in Uppsala county high schools' comply with NFA's (National Food Administration) recommendations. Furthermore, the intention was to examine pupils´ eating habits before and during the school day, and their views on the school cafeteria´s selection of products. To investigate this, an inventory of school cafeterias in six high schools in Uppsala County, and a survey among 60 pupils were carried out. The results showed that the NFA's recommendations not always were followed. The survey showed that there were healthy products in the cafeterias but unhealthy products nevertheless constituted a large part of the selection.

Working horses in developing countries are mostly used for transportation. They are often owned by people with limited economical resources and lack of knowledge about how to take care of the horses and due to this the horses often suffer from problems such as dehydration, poor body condition, lesions and parasitic infections. The aim of this master thesis was to investigate if free veterinary care improved the health and hydration status of working horses in Nicaragua and it was performed as a part of a project called ?Free veterinary assistance for working horses and training of their owners as veterinary promoters in the Pacific coast of Nicaragua?. Five parameters were used to investigate whether free care improved the health of working horses in six towns along the Pacific Coast of Nicaragua.

This Master?s thesis is an analysis of metaphors in relation to actors, and of discourses used in the copyright-debate in two major Swedish daily newspapers and one American: Göteborgs-Posten, Svenska Dagbladet and New York Times during the years 2001-2006. We aim to answer the following questions: Which metaphors were being used in the copyright-debate to create the archetypal villain, hero, winner and loser in editorials, debate and letters to the editor in the three newspapers? Which discourses did those metaphors relate or conform to? Which similarities or differences could be found when comparing the two countries? newspapers regarding representations and constructions of villains, heroes, winners and losers in the copyright-debate? Firstly we distinguished who the actors in the debate were, following parts of Theo van Leeuwen?s actors? analysis. Secondly we distinguished which metaphors were being used to describe the actors as either villains, heroes, winners or losers.

Under våren 2008 utförde jag mitt examensarbete på Utvecklingsverkstaden, inom Volvo Construction Equipment i Eskilstuna. Uppdraget bestod i att presentera förslag på ett skyltsystem som skulle vara modernt, professionellt utformat och ha ett enhetligt utseende. Den befintliga skyltparken var kraftigt eftersatt och föråldrad.  Syftet formulerades till att utforma förslag på ett tydligt skyltsystem som skulle representera aktuell avdelning och dess verksamhet. Syftet innefattade även att ta fram övergripande riktlinjer om placering, för varje kategori av skyltar.

In music performers and music-making are oftenused different distortion effects to give the desiredcharacter on the individual sound sources andinstruments. These have different names (fuzz,distortion, overdrive) depending on the character. Tocarry out this work, an extensive literature study ofthe circuit diagrams of a large number of the classicdistortion circuits implemented. In this work, adistortion effect of the character fuzz was createdfrom several other existing effects. MeasurementsFFT, frequency response have been conducted tovalidate the desired results along the given problem.The finished effect was named Instant Carlos and aprototype was manufactured.

This is an essay about unemployment in Trollhättan during the period 1880-1910. In my essay I write about what was made to help the ones who were unemployed. I ask the questions: What did the society, the workers and last but not least the unemployed themselves do?My conclusion is that some things were done. For example were The Labor Unions in their growth and economical support from them and the county could help some people.

The aim is to develop a new decision-making model for credit-loans. The model will be specific for credit applicants of the OKQ8 bank, becauseit is based on data of earlier applicants of credit from the client (the bank). The final model is, in effect, functional enough to use informationabout a new applicant as input, and predict the outcome to either the good risk group or the bad risk group based on the applicant?s properties.The prediction may then lay the foundation for the decision to grant or deny credit loan.Because of the skewed distribution in the response variable, different sampling techniques are evaluated. These include oversampling with SMOTE, random undersampling and pure oversampling in the form of scalar weighting of the minority class.

Bakgrund och Problem: Aktiemarknaden påverkas både av inhemska och utländska faktorer. Därför är det av intresse att se vilka makroekonomiska variabler som påverkar den svenska aktiemarknaden. Anledningen till att Sverige har valts som den geografiska punkten är att det är av intresse att se hur ett litet land som Sverige, som har en öppen ekonomi påverkas av de utvalda makroekonomiska variablerna.Syfte: Syftet med uppsatsen är att med hjälp av information samt analys, studera hur de olika makroekonomiska variablerna påverkar den inhemska aktiemarknaden. Olika faktorer som påverkar aktiemarknaden kommer att lyftas fram för att i sin tur även se till de olika branscherna.Metod: Då data enbart består av hämtning av tidigare information fokuseras det enbart på sekundärdata i form av historiska siffror samt historiska undersökningar. De statistiska tester som tillämpas är Granger Causality test, Johansens Cointegration test, Impulse Response Function test, ADF test, KPSS test, Mulitpel regression.Slutsats: Med de resultat som presenterades i denna studie, skulle vi nog inte kunna säga att vi har ett svar över vilka aktier en investerare ska införskaffa.

This thesis describes how a cost reduction project was done on the Packsize ondemand packing machine EM7. The cost reduction was achieved by making minorredesigns of the EM7.The project began by studying the EM7´s structure and function by working on itsassembly line. A short literature study on the subject Design for Manufacturing wasalso done.By working on the assembly line and by speaking with staff from production anddevelopment departments, a number of ideas for reducing manufacturing costs arose.Estimations of the potential cost reduction size for each proposal were done incollaboration with vendors and the purchasing department. Based on the size of the cost reduction, technical risk, impact on the assembly lineand the development time the various proposals were ranked. The two highestranked proposals were selected for further development towards finished solutions.One of the ideas that were selected to develop in to a finished solution meant thatsome of the pneumatic valves were replaced with others.

Pharmaceuticals are environmental pollutants that are a major threat to aquatic ecosystems and very little is known about their ecological consequences. In this study growth, survival and behaviour (sociability, activity and boldness) of perch fry (Perca fluviatilis) were examined in order to study the possible effects of exposure to a benzodiazepine anxiolytic drug, Oxazepam, during embryonic development. The study tested following hypotheses: (1) perch growth is affected positively by exposure during embryonic development; (2) early perch survival is affected positively by exposure during embryonic development; and (3) boldness and activity increases while sociability decreases in perch fry exposed during embryonic development. Embryos of naturally spawned perch were exposed to water with two different concentrations of Oxazepam. The embryos were exposed during different parts (24-hour periods) of the embryonic development, because embryos may be more vulnerable at certain times during embryonic development and/or because the exposure at different times can produce different effects.

I den här uppsatsen undersöks två västerländska dagstidningars förstasidesbilder somtidningens anslag. Tidningarna är Dagens Nyheter, Sverige och The Times,Storbritannien och de studeras under en 3 månadersperiod. Anslagens likheter ocholikheter analyseras utifrån bildspråkligt perspektiv. Här ses tydliga skillnader iDagens Nyheters helhetsperspektiv och The Times personliga anslag som enkonsekvens av deras medvetet valda bildutsnitt. När jag närmare studerar bildernasinnehåll och funktion ses här tydliga likheter i anslagen såsom antal färgbilder och hursvartvita bilder används, antal nationella bilder som dominerar, att positiva kontranegativa budskap i bilderna är relativt lika representerade och att det finns ettgenerellt negativt budskap i internationell rapportering.

External forces have significant impact on organisations. This study analyzes the implications of one type of external forces in aid-focused NGOs through two qualitative case studies where it is investigated if Sida?s reporting requirements have the intended effects: learning and control using a theoretical framework where it is recognised that the requirements may also result in dysfunctional behaviour: decoupling and colonisation. The study shows that when the demands are the result of institutional pressure rather than an ambition to generate learning and control, the demands tend to be unrealistic and the NGOs therefore decouple the formal fulfilment of the demands from the actual activities. It is argued that a partnership, which incorporates trust and dialogue, is a prerequisite, not only for learning, but also control.

External forces have significant impact on organisations. This study analyzes the implications of one type of external forces in aid-focused NGOs through two qualitative case studies where it is investigated if Sida?s reporting requirements have the intended effects: learning and control using a theoretical framework where it is recognised that the requirements may also result in dysfunctional behaviour: decoupling and colonisation. The study shows that when the demands are the result of institutional pressure rather than an ambition to generate learning and control, the demands tend to be unrealistic and the NGOs therefore decouple the formal fulfilment of the demands from the actual activities. It is argued that a partnership, which incorporates trust and dialogue, is a prerequisite, not only for learning, but also control.

Scintigraphic examination of the esophagus has for some time been the method of choice for the study of motility dysfunction in humans. The method has not yet been described for horses hence the lack of reference values for passage time for a bolus through the esophagus in healthy subjects. The purposes of this study were to measure passage velocity and time for a bolus to pass through the esophagus in healthy subjects, as well as to evaluate the reproducibility of the method. Eight warm-blooded trotters were used in the study. The horses were sedated with a low dose of Acepromazine prior to onset of the study.