The technical achievements that have occurred in recent years have led to a greater use of the Internet around the world. Today, more and more people are using virtual communities, a place where communication occurs with people who have similar interest. Due to the option of being an anonymous user, the concept of trust plays a big part in how virtual communities are working. It is therefore of interest to investigate how trust develops between users in virtual communities. This report asks the following question:"How is trust formed between users at a virtual community?"A qualitative and netnographical study was conducted to answer the question above.

Since the beginning of the internet the criminal world has used the medium as a platform for operation.This dark web is a domain where illegal sites are flourishing due to the possibilities offered by newtechnology. Net-based criminal activity is a challenge for society as it uses hard proof technologicalsafety measures to avoid the law. Silk Road is the most prominent example, an online illicitmarketplace where drugs and illegal substances are being traded based on conventional e-commerceconcepts. This paper argues for trust as an important factor for the survival of illicit online trade andapplies existing theories on e-commerce and virtual communities. To identify patterns of trust andcommon trust-based issues among Silk Road users, a netnographic study was conducted on the site?sdiscussion forum.

Native spider silk is an attractive lightweight natural polymeric material with a unique combination of strength, extendibility and flexibility. Synthetic, recombinant spider silk is an attractive biomaterial with several possible fields of application. When a foreign material is introduced to blood, this can for example cause unwanted coagulation and complement activation. The aim of this study was to investigate if coatings of heparin or albumin could improve the blood compatibility of films of recombinant spider silk and to develop an initial method to do so. Hypothetically, objects like pacemakers, stents and dental implants could be covered with spider silk films of high blood compatibility to reduce potentially harmful foreign body reactions caused by the immune defense. Increased blood compatibility would likely lead to improvements for both the individual patients and the society thanks to reduced load on healthcare institutions. Our objective was to assess the blood compatibility of both functionalized and non-functionalized recombinant spider silk by evaluating coagulation and activation of the complement system of the immune defense. Coagulation was evaluated visually on glass slides and complement activation was analyzed by measuring the concentration of the complement system mediator C3a in blood samples that had been exposed to the different materials. This study introduces a non-toxic and easy performed method of improving the blood compatibility of recombinant spider silk films by adding a heparin coating. Heparin coated surfaces had statistically significantly higher blood compatibility than uncoated surfaces. The effects of albumin coating of films were less clear compared to the results of heparin coated films. Complement activation could not be evaluated because of high activation in all samples prior contact with the materials that were included in the study..

This report discusses questions concerning wear on forest roads. The purpose of the work is to investigate if the wear on the roads will decrease when the speed limit gets lower for the trucks that transport the wood. A normal forest road, class B, was used in the study. In total 5000 m3f timber was transported on the road. Data about the road was measured with a profilograph car before and after the timber transport.

This is a pattern project for textiles, with main purpose to develop and challenge my design process and to experiment with a mix of different printing techniques. The goal of the project was to create three textile individuals as representatives of my experiments, inspired by natural surfaces.The world of fashion have been an inspiration and has been the model for these textiles, with its powerful and playful patterns. With the world of fashion as a model, I also chose to work with the materials habotai silk and silk velvet. The qualities of these materials has also been influential in my design language.The work has been very focused on experiementation and exploration, and resulted in three printed fabrics that I have chosen to call Björkalm, Lindstam and Lavbädd..

Sweden have 419 000 km road in the country and about half of these roads is forestroads. The forest road net most important mission is to make it possible to deliver wood from the forest to the industries. With a raw material that is spread over a large area the road network is important. Each year has the forest road network been extended with about 1 700 km new roads. To decide if a new road is to be built different forest road cost estimation models has been used.

This thesis focuses on the driver?s experience of the road and its surroundings. ?The view from the road? takes place every day and a high-quality ?road experience? is therefore a question of importance. Since cars made their breakthrough in the 1920-30, the approach to ?the driver experience? has varied notably.

The use of gabions means a reduced amount of filling material in the road section and a more narrow construction. Also the use of limestone cement columns can be reduced. All together this results in lower costs. The columns stand for about 55% of the total costs for the road. If gabions are used you can reduce the total costs with over 10%..

The forest industry is one of the most important industry branches in Sweden. Since the demand of high precision wood deliveries has increased, the demand on a well constructed forest road net also has increased. A good road net gives the wood-supplier competition advantages and also increases its service level towards its customers, lumber-mills and pulp-mills. In some parts of Norrbotten, the road net is still insufficient and not yet built out enough, and that is why it is important to know how to act and where to improve the road net in these areas. The purpose of this thesis was to create a work-model for long term road planning in areas with no road net or a not yet complete road net. The model has been created in an ArcGis environment, where a long chain of tools has been tied together with the program ?Model builder?.

New method for measuring road quality- A statisticalstudy of the relationship between road quality andsocioeconomic development A new tool with implications for road maintenance has the potential to yield statistical data for road quality in a large number of regions. This thesis investigates the possibility to develop a method, from this data, for evaluating the effects of road quality on socioeconomic development.The thesis is essentially divided into two parts. Part one looks to qualitatively establish the link between socioeconomic development and road quality and the second part focuses on how to develop a method for evaluating the effects of road quality on socioeconomic development. A method was devised using categorical data and a multinomial regression model. This method provides a comprehensive overview of the complex relationship between a variety of different variables.

Transportation constitutes a large part of the forest industry's raw material costs. Transport also contributes a significant proportion of the carbon dioxide emissions. In order to reduce both the cost and environmental impact different types of decision support are required. These, in turn, require extensive information about the road network and correct information on road path selection and transport distances. In the development of national road data base for forestry (SNVDB) a road selection application has been included.

A Road project?s frame is built up of a decision- and consultation process, where the results of the preparatory studies are being discussed. The aim with a consultation process is that all theopinions and knowledge from the operators' will be taken into count in the basis of information, that is needed in order to the different involved operators' to take a decision.The aim of the essay was to investigate how the decision- and consultation process for a road project, the E4 section between Uppsala Läby, turned out. The aim is also to bring up how theprocess could have been done more correctly. The study was carried out through a qualitative method with an analysis of materials from the National Road Administration's archives, the associated Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and through interviews of the different operators.My theoretical basis has been a Stakeholder Analysis and its principles, and theory about different executions of social planning.The result showed that the decision- and consultation process has been bursting in democracy and consideration taking of the different operators' opinions, has been poor from the developer?s, in this case the National Road Administration's, side.

This report is written in cooperation with the Swedish National Road Administration South-Eastern Region in Jönköping. The report is a result of the evaluation to give an answer to the question about how well the function contract has been carried out on the E4 in Östergötlands and Jönköpings län. The evaluation is divided in two hard parameters and one soft.The Swedish National Road Administration is interested in knowing how the standard on the road have been changed during the functions period, which is the reason why the first hard parameter is considering road standard. To evaluate the standard there have been a comparison of values from measures taken every year on the current road stretch. The second hard parameter considers economy.

The increased travelling of today makes nodes along travelling routes more and more important. This is very much the case of petrol stations. They constitute important nodes in the road network, filling up thirsty fuel tanks and hungry stomachs, guiding road users and providing vehicle-services. In this thesis the role of the petrol station for road users was investigated in order to find out if the petrol station was a potential hot spot. We performed an ethnographic field study at a petrol station and found that a great number of visitor activities took place at the petrol station.

Msc in Logistics and Transport Management.