This Masters thesis aims to study the reading habits of readers of romantic fiction, especially focusing on gender issues. The main areas studied are the function of reading romances compared with reading other genres, and how the readers value romantic and general literature. The thesis is based on qualitative interviews with seven readers of romances, five women and two men. The theoretical background is based on reader response theory and gender theory. Before I started interview the readers I asked them to read two romances; Sidney Sheldons - The best Laid Plans, and Rosamunde Pilchers - The End of Summer, which we later discussed during the interviews.

Background: For most children, being hospitalized is a whole new experience. The care should be safe and meet the children?s needs. In hospital care, children are a large group of patients. It?s important for them to be involved in decisions regarding their care and to get proper information.

The purpose of this study was to examine domestic adoptions in Sweden, and also compare the Swedish adoption system to the Canadian adoption system. I wanted to find out why there are so few domestic adoptions in Sweden, and how it has changed over the years. I also wanted to know why there is such a large difference between Sweden and Canada regarding adoptions.I interviewed five social workers to find out what attitudes the social services have regarding adoptions. My other questions were how the childs best interest is considered when a parent wants to place a child in an adoptivefamily, and which parents decide to place their child instead of keeping it.I found that the social services are reluctant to place children in adoptivefamilies because their main goal is to keep biological families intact. In Canada the social services goal is to provide the child with a safe and stable home.There is no longer any stigma surrounding single mothers and well developed welfaresystems enable most to keep their children.

This report describes an investigation of the indoor climate in two different workspaces. Since we a big part of our lives are staying indoors in artificial environments, and more particularly in our workplaces, we think it would be interesting to do this investigation. The technical solutions for air treatment systems began with simple natural systems without fans and where the thermal rise of the air applied. In modern time is technical air treating systems used to take care of the fresh air supply. This type of units can supply filtered air with the right temperature to the building. Well-functioning ventilation is essential to bring clean fresh air to the room and effectively remove impurities without sound- or draught problems. The indoor climate is relevant for the output capacity.

The purpose with this work was to investigate some alternatives for an effective handling with grain, to find the most economic alternative. It is not common that moisture content is below 14% when harvesting grain in Sweden. To store the grain safe it has to be preserved in some way. I have described some of the most common systems for preserving grain in this paper. I have used the systems as a basis when I made calculations in handling the grain for a company. I have chosen a company placed in south of Sweden. The productions are crop farming and pork.

The aimof this study is to contribute furthermore to understand the complexity of theprocess of learning to read and write in an inclusive environment. It focus on the syllableinstead of the phoneme as a unit in this process which is not the most common way ofdoing it. The report is based on a qualitative analysis of this task in pre-school and gradeone at a primary school in a small municipality.In the result, I have found, that the very structured working process and the diagnosticapproach helps the teachers to understand on what level pupils are at. The pupils whostart working this way in pre-school, feel safe knowing what is expecting from them andthey also learn from each other. All pupils in grade one have, before w 45 in autumnterm, very good letter knowledge and have learnt how to read words with two syllableswith a consonant-wovel-structure.

The Smart Grids development is driven by forces concerning safe electrictransmission done in an energy efficient way. Vattenfall Eldistribution AB has a visionto transform their electricity network into Smart Grids. To invest in Smart Grids theyhave a need to show their customers what advantages they will get from thedevelopment. This led to the formulation of this dissertation project where the aim isto identify products and services related to Smart Grids that will increase thecustomer satisfaction for Vattenfall Eldistributions private customers.The project started with a mapping of existing products and services on the Swedishelectricity market. From the mapping several development possibilities for VattenfallEldistribution were identified.

Det här är en studie kring ämnet flexibel utformning av offentliga rum, och ett förslag på hur Båstads hamnområde skulle kunna utvecklas till en plats som på ett mer tillfredsställande sätt kan användas året runt. Idag är hamnen en plats som präglas av några månader med intensivt liv och mycket rörelse under sommaren, för att sedan bli en tom och oanvänd plats vintertid. Förslaget har föregåtts av analyser, både under vinter och sommar, av hamnens rumslighet, aktivitet, rörelse och attraktioner, en litteraturstudie kring ämnet flexibel utformning av offentliga rum, samt två studiebesök på mindre orter i Sverige som kämpar med en liknande problematik. Förslaget har också föregåtts av en inventering av området, samtal med tjänstemän på Båstads kommun och näringsidkare i hamnen samt studier av tidigare planprogram och planer för hamnen framtaget av kommunen. Med utgångspunkt i resultaten av analyserna och med inspiration från litteraturstudien och studiebesöken har jag tagit fram ett förslag på hur Båstads hamnområde skulle kunna utvecklas, göras mer flexibelt och därav mer användbart hela året.

Sedan 80-talet har inställningen till funktionsplanering av städer svängt från funktions- uppdelning till funktionsblandning. Anledningen är att funktionsblandning främjar stadsmiljöer för fotgängare och cyklister, ökar det sociala klimatet i gaturummet och minskar miljöpåfrestningarna genom möjlighet till samordnad logistik. Men även om stadsrum och stadsformer på pappret i många fall anpassas för att stödja funktionsbland- ning så blir resultatet inte alltid en funktionsblandad stad. Idag börjar planeringsfältet inse att istället för att planera funktionsblandning måste de incitament som stödjer funktionsblandning planeras för. För att möjliggöra denna planering måste verktyg och analysmetoder användas och utvecklas för att mäta vilka grader och typer av funktions- blandning som en plan har potential för.

Diesel electric propulsion is in many ways a good alternative to conventional shaft propulsion, both economically and environmentally. There are also many other good side effects which need to be considered, i.e. better manoeuvrability, more efficient use of space and less noise on board. However, there are applications where diesel electric propulsion is not profitable. Large ocean going ships? profitability is much depending on fuel costs and the diesel electric alternative cannot compete on long journeys with large low speed engines.This thesis will treat the aspects of choosing between a diesel electric system and a classic mechanical propulsion system.

Aortic insufficiency is a very common valve problem in horses and most often affects older individuals, but nevertheless existent within younger ones. The root cause for aortic insufficiency can be varied, for example; endocarditis, ventricular septum defect or congenital valve disease but the most common are progressive valve degeneration or elite competition. Depending on the root cause, different changes can be observed on the aorta valves, but they do all have the same effect, the valves do not seal properly and blood leaks backwards. Many horses can, even with this deficiency, perform highly without any visible impacts and there is therefore no need to treat those subjects. Most often the symptoms arise at a later stage in life and they are, more often than none, put down for other reasons. In the occurrence of the clinical symptoms showing, treatment guideline is to inhibit these symptoms since the valve degeneration is presently irreversible.

The purpose of this study is to better understand patients suffering from psychotic illness along with their family members, and to identify treatment factors that have been helpful for these patients and their families by investigating how their relationships have been affected by treatment. In this way, treatment methods can be put in a theoretical context, treatment efforts can be clearer, and the therapist can develop professionally.The research method used is a semistruktureted interview conducted with tree patients and their families. One conclusion one can draw in the successful treatment with psychotic patients is strongly based on the therapist?s ability to build a safe and secure treatment alliance with both the patient and his family members. Meeting with patients in situations outside of the therapy room have been of great importance for the therapeutic process.Important themes for recovery that come forth during the interviews with the patients are the quality of the therapy session as healing factor.

Gothenburg municipality has a lot of natural water. This paper enhances the function and importance of water in the city. It also deals with the problems of sewage water and flooding. Gothenburg has reached an advanced stage of water planning. By developing a Waterplan, the municipality highlight that water has an important position in the urban planning.

This thesis describes an optimising compiler for translating from SMV to CLP(B). The optimisation is aimed at reducing the number of required variables in order to decrease the size of the resulting BDDs. Also a partitioning of the transition relation is performed. The compiler uses an internal representation of a FSM that is built up from the SMV description. A number of rewrite steps are performed on the problem description such as encoding to a Boolean domain and performing the optimisations.

The author has, with the help of AK Consultancy Indoor Air AB, formed a series of questions regarding moisture problems in buildings and how these are handled in extreme climates with high temperatures and a high relative humidity. Furthermore to analyse and indentify key material that makes a construction safe against moisture problems. Ventilation, AC and the choice of materials have in a later stage of the thesis been investigated to enhance the knowledge of moisture protection. The research for this report includes measurements on existing buildings, calculation models on the building envelope for analyses and the ingoing materials of the envelope. The health aspect of moisture problems related to ?sick building syndrome? has been included and interviews have been conducted to gather relevant information.A study of the American system, ASHRAE, American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Engineers and the standards used in Singapore has been made to highlight the difference.