In today's society, the availability of energy plays an integral part in our everyday lives. Unfortunately, the price of energy in Sweden has increased in recent decades. A large part of our energy consumption goes to heating modules for houses, where heating methods that depend on energy sources such as electricity, district heating, fuel oil, gas and biofuels are the most common ones. During the winter period, the increase in energy costs becomes significantly evident, especially for small property owners. This increase in energy cost is most noticeable for home owners with electric heating.This thesis is written at the Halmstad University, in cooperation with a company, which makes parts of this thesis confidential.

Today?s construction buildings contain more advanced technologies than before. The development of newer and stricter regulations to the construction industry makes the door environment more and more complex.In large construction projects the door environment is held up as a major challenge to get to in a good way. It turned out after a discussion with one project manager and a site manager at NCC, that the door environment is difficult to get right in major construction projects and it often causes many error reports in to the aftermarket after that the final inspection is completed.Interviews have been done with key figures in the building process at NCC and Akademiska hus. A study on a university building for around 3500 students and with 300 workplaces was made.

The purpose of this study is to examine whether personality traits, self-esteem, performance-based self-esteem and demographic data relate to, and can explain the variation in psychological ill-health among students at Lund University. A questionnaire was distributed to students attending the Psychology program, Bio-technology program, Theologian program and Law program. There were 247 respondents to the questionnaire, mainly attending their second or third semester. General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12), Rosenberg's Self- Esteem scale, Hallstens scale measuring performance-based self-esteem, questions relating to demographic data and a short version of the personality inventory scale Big Five were included in the questionnaire. Positive correlations were found between psychological ill-health and the variables neuroticism and performance-based self-esteem.

People live longer. There is a growing need to increase the knowledge of aging and of the need among the elderly for medical care in the near future. As a step towards meeting this need, a survey among the elderly in Skåne is made by the division of Geriatric Medicine in Malmö University Hospital. This survey is called Gott åldrande i Skåne, GÅS. A frequent decease among the elderly is Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI).

This study examines the scholarly communication activities in two scientific fields, chemistry and economics, in a Polish context. The dissertation aims at investigating what characterises the publishing choices of researchers and what supplementary forms for the dissemination of research output are used by scholars. In addition, the paper is looking into what are the views and awareness of open access and institutional repositories within this scientific community. This thesis gives the results of semi-structured interviews and an online survey at two academic faculties at a Polish technical university. As its theoretical framework, the study uses Whitley?s theory of the intellectual and social organisation of academic fields and Latour and Woolgar?s study regarding various motivations for publishing.

ABSTRACTThe EU as a normative power in Belarus ? a critical caseBy Anna JohnssonUniversity of VäxjöSchool of Social SciencesSpring semester 2007The European Union?s identity is a much debated topic. Some say it?s a unique actor in the international arena because of the different tools it has at its disposal. Ian Manners claims that the EU is what he calls a normative power.

Researchers at Karlstad University have developed a method for making paper ion conducting. The reasearchers want to test this technique in various applications and produce products that make use of the ion-conducting paper. Hopefully this will drive the development forward and result in new applications for the ion-conducting paper.This study was to test the possibility of manufacturing a gas sensor of conducting paper along with electrodes of conductive polymers printed on the paper. By comparing the paper sensor with an electrochemical cell in which the electrodes of conductive polymer replaces electrodes of metal and ion-conductive paper replaces the liquid electrolyte in the electrochemical cell, it was hoped that it would be possible to measure the oxidation and reduction reactions that a gas could introduce at the electrodes.It was shown that it is possible to measure a potential difference in the range of 0.3 V to 0.5 V between the electrodes when exposing an electrode to 100% oxygen. The reaction that takes place is relatively slow and the reaction rate is partly due to the distance between the electrodes.Since the sensor can measure oxidation and reduction reactions it is possible that, in further development of a sensor, the sensor can be made ??into a versatile sensor with more applications than gas measurement as there are many more ways to oxidize or reduce the electrodes than by exposure to oxygen.During the study there have been discussions and meetings held with various companies in the sensor industry to be able to specify what the market demands of a sensor made ??of paper and the requirements that must be placed on the sensor for it to be interesting for the companies..

This study examines journalism student?s information use atSödertörn University during the writing process of theirbachelor thesis. The students are divided in two groupsfollowing the schools main bachelor programs majoring injournalism.The method used in this study has been a reference analysisof the student?s bibliographies along with five semistructuredinterviews. The study stems upon a socioculturalperspective and drives the thesis that information use is asituated activity.

This thesis has been carried out within the bachelor program for mechanical engineering at Karlstad University in collaboration with BAE Systems in Karlskoga. The purpose with this work was to design a mechanism and associated parts for loading and unloading of shots between primary and secondary magazine in BAE's new 40mm's ship gun.Parts designed or redesigned among other things a transfer mechanism for shot at loading and unloading, well as a hatch mechanism which makes the shots do not fall out of the primary magazine when making separate use. Various important details have been designed to maintain a good functionality of the mechanism.The construction work has mainly been carried out in the CAD software Solid Edge and its associated FEM module. The construction work has also been carried out on rough calculations for constructed details in order to ensure that they meet the stringent requirements of military use in tough marine environment. Two of the most critical parts of the structure where analyzed with the FEM module for estimating the stresses in the material at the applied load.The final design, which is a result of the thesis, meets the requirement specification and the set targets.

To reduce emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technologieshave been developed. Chemical Looping Combustion (CLC) is a CO2 capture technologywith the CCS framework, and at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg,Sweden, a 100 kW chemical looping combustor has been built.This project aimed to investigate to what degree air can replace helium as the uidizinggas for uid dynamical studies in a CLC cold ow model of the above mentioned 100 kWfacility. Experiments were performed using air and helium separately as uidizing gas andpressure data were obtained, which formed the basis for the comparison. The project alsoaimed to investigate uid dynamics in the uidized bed and study when the risk of sluggingoccuring was greatest. The results were presented in the form of figures and tables dividedinto pressure, concentration and standard deviation of the pressure.The results obtained showed that air as uidizing gas did not create the same uid dynamicsas helium over the entire fuel reactor.

The aim was to examine whether measurements of creativity as a domain general trait can explain possible connections between a domain general creative performance and one of the creative domain specific areas, humor. Another aim was to examine whether the maladaptive humor styles can explain possible differences in creative performances. An Internet-based survey was used on 281 students from a Swedish university. The survey was composed of three parts consisting of three separate measuring instruments ? Sense of Humor Questionnaire (SHQ-6) was used to measure the respondents? sense of humor, Humor Style Questionnaire (HSQ) measured the respondents? humor style and Alternate Uses Test (AUT) gave the respondents an opportunity to account for their creative performances.

This study was made in collaboration between Umeå University and Västerbotten sportsfederation. The study was aimed to find out how the municipalities are working with variousissues in the sports field. A subject of interest for this study was to see if the municipalitieswere implementing strategies in the sports field on determined goals by using policydocuments. Our study focused mostly on kids and youth that participate in organized sports inVästerbotten. Other aspects of interest in the study were economics in sports, how youthsports should be organized, and segregation in sports due to financial factors.

rary of Sweden Statens musikbibliotek [51][pdf.gif] The aim of this study is to investigate how bibliographic description of music materials has improved through history. The historical aspect is given by a study of bibliographic data in different catalogues of a specific collection. The aim is also to understand what specific problems will arise in the work of cataloguing music materials and how the problems are discussed in the literature. The study is focusing of church music material and the history of churchmusic is therefore given an exposition. The origin of musical notation, which took place within the church, is also discussed.

AbstractUniversity of Växjö, School of Social SciencesCourse: PO 5363, Political Science 41-60Title: US and UN, cooperation or conflict?Author: Charlotta BjuvlingSupervisor: Lennart BergfeldtDate: Autumn 2007The international society changed a great deal after the end of the cold war. It gave the United Nations a new oppertunity to act after the deadlock during the war, and it gave the United States a new hegemone role in the world politics. The aim of this paper is to investigate wheter the United States foreign policy action have been accordence to a realistic way of thinking since the end of the cold war. I will do this with the help of my research questions:? Have the United States followed the guidelines of the United Nations in their foreign policy?? Are there signs that show of a change, either towards more or less cooperation between United Nations and the United States?To answer these questions I will use the theories realism and Hedley Bulls concepts of fairness and his ideas of an international system in his book ?An Anarchical Society?.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine the usability of the Umeå University library catalogue Album. The aim is to evaluate the catalogue in order to establish if there are any problems that could be solved by modifying the catalogue. The following questions are answered: How should a good catalogue be designed? Which problems are common when using a library catalogue? Is Album user friendly? Are there any problems that occur when using Album and how can the catalogue be changed to avoid the problems? To answer these questions I have performed a usability test in which five persons, all students, got to carry out twenty tasks in the catalogue and talk about what they were doing and thinking while doing the test. This method is a usability method called Think Aloud.