This report is a result of a bachelor thesis at the school of Architecture and the Built environment (corresponding to 15 HP) and is written during spring 2012 at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm. The Bachelor's essay is based on the design and dimensioning of a house which is located at a predetermined site in Malmo, Sweden.The idea is to construct a house that is appropriate to use for an average Swedish family of four family members. The house is designed in a modern way with respect to ease of access and disabled facilities. The installation that have been considered are heating, ventilation, sanitation and electricity. Construction calculations and material selection are also discussed.Furthermore, a study about photovoltaic cells has been done.

During consultation procedures between forest owners and the Sámi, data on, e.g., reindeer lichen biomass on the current site is needed. Hitherto, the existing methods of measuring lichen cover and biomass has been either objective methods such as the Point Intercept method, which is time consuming, or some sort of subjective visual estimation, which is faster but less accurate. However, both these methods are sensitive to different observers and/or to different inventories. This paper addresses the further development and evaluation of a photographical inventory method that uses colour distribution in images to estimate lichen biomass. During the autumn of 2011 six different locations, with different grazing pressure and lichen cover, in Norrbotten county were inventoried using both the Point Intercept method and the photographical method, complemented with collection of biomass samples.

The Internet has played an important role for libraries giving them a means of fulfilling their democratic mission of giving equal access to everyone, including people with disabilities. In order to achieve this it is of the utmost importance that they ensure that their web sites are accessible. In this masters thesis we have examined to what extent the web sites are accessible. The thesis is based on theories of human-computer interaction, information architecture, pedagogy and a checklist. The checklist is derived from established international guidelines from W3C, which has been adapted to, and is used by Swedish public authorities to achieve the mission of a ?24-hour authority?.

 This report is an evaluation of Peab's purchase and call-off system, PIA.PIA is used to order goods for Peab's construction sites. The background to the work is that users of the system have understood the system cumbersome to use when purchasing goods for construction sites. The evaluation was carried out by the interviews and tests with users of the program, in this case, supervisors and site managers at the company. Ten users of the system were interviewed and eleven people have carried out a test order.The focus is primarily on the test order that users have implemented, which has been clocked and analyzed for time and cost. The evaluation is also a user analysis concerning how the users perceive the program, mainly in terms of usability, functionality and benefits.The result of this report shows that PIA is economically profitable to use for the purchase of goods for construction sites.

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.

The Sand Catcher                                                       The thesis project The Sand Catcher investigates the encounter between permanent structures and an ever-changing landscape. The migrating sand dune Råbjerg Mile in northern Denmark is 40 meters high and moves more than 15 meters every year. By introducing a solid structure on the site, the fast movement of the sand dune is emphasised and thereby our view of time and space.Through intuitively building models with varied openings and densities I investigated how architectural elements react with sand. From these experiments a series of spatial features and effects were found, generated from the meeting with the sand.The Sand Catcher is a solid and permanent structure. The sand is the liquid element that generates new spaces, circulations and experiences.

Sverige klassificerades år 2004 som det aktietätaste landet i världen, då hela 77 procent av befolkningen var exponerad mot aktiemarknaden i någon form. År 2012 uppgick innehaven på svenska börsen till 3 715 miljarder kronor. Utvecklingen på aktiemarknaden är därför något som berör merparten av Sveriges befolkning.Investerare har sedan börsens introduktion försökt förutse marknadens utveckling för att finna de vinnande aktierna. Detta har utmynnat i flera olika sätt att analysera marknaden, exempelvis genom teknisk och fundamental analys. En tredje omtalad metod är kalenderanomalier, vilket baseras på kända mönster som tenderar att inträffa under vissa perioder på handelsåret.

This is a final project which makes up 20 credits at the Landscapearchitecture programme at SLU in Alnarp. The thesis is design based. My final project is comprised two parts; of a competition entry for ? A New Square in the Centre of Täby? as well as a theoretical study that derives from the competition proposal. The competiton itself was announced on March 1st 2007 with the final hand-in date on May 28th 2007. The program of the competition asked for a flexible urban square that offers a diverse range of activities that can be used during both night and day, all year around. I became interested in the term ?mutlifunctionality? and I went on to use the subject as a base for my design approach.

Syftet med studien är att utfo?ra en receptionsstudie da?r fem stycken kampanjbilder fra?n utla?ndska organdonationsorganisationer studeras fra?n ett mottagarperspektiv, i den ha?r studien syftar det till en svensk ma?lgrupp.Studien a?r uppdelad i tva? huvudmoment, en semiotisk bildanalys och fokusgruppsintervjuer. Med hja?lp av dessa insamlingsmetoder besvaras studiens fra?gesta?llningar?Hur a?r de utvalda kampanjbilderna komponerade ur ett semiotiskt perspektiv?? samt ?Hur uppfattas de utvalda bilderna av en svensk ma?lgrupp??. Socialpsykologi utgo?r det teoretiska ramverket i studien och anva?nds fo?r att na? en ho?gre fo?rklaringskraft i analysdiskussionen.Den semiotiska bildanalysen genomfo?rs med de semiotiska begreppen konnotation, denotation, ikon, index och symbol.

Competing is a well established work model among Swedisharchitects as well as in the international architect work force.Through this study we set out to get better acquainted with thiswork model in theory and in practice, and to hopefully gainknowledge that will be of use to us and to others working in thefield of architecture.Techniques, materials as well as the artistic expression ofcontemporary architecture is international and today?s architectsoperate on a global labour market. Architects often commit to workon assignments far away from where they are based. Therefore,to physically visit the site of interest may be time consuming,expensive as well as harmful to the environment. Is it possible fora designer to accomplish relevant proposals on how to develop andimprove a place that he or she has never visited? May there evenbe situations in which the outsiders point of view is preferable?These are questions that we aim to investigate, and we do sothrough participation in an international design competition.

The purpose of this study was to increase the level of knowledge in the field of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for wind power. The study includes six wind power farms in the County of Västerbotten in northern Sweden. The main questions were: What are the real dimensions of roadways and land claims for both roads and wind power turbines? How do those dimensions correlate with the dimensions stated in the EIA? Are there any differences in values of the dimensions between the wind power farms that are included in this study? The width of the roadways and the land claims for both roads and wind turbines in wind power farms were examined on site. The results from the examinations were compared with the dimensions available in the EIA for each wind power farm.

Bakgrund Det finns ännu inga etablerade officiella gränsvärden för övervikt och fetma som är baserade på proportionen fettmassa (FM%) utan de gränsvärden som finns är utgår body mass index (BMI) eller midjemått.Syfte Att utveckla modeller för att prediktera FM, procentuellt och i kg, utifrån antropometriska mått hos unga och medelålders (20-49 år) svenska män. Vidare syftar uppsatsen till att undersöka vilka värden för FM% som motsvarar 25 kg/m2 och 30 kg/m2 i BMI och samt för 94 cm och 102 cm i midjemått.Metod Männen har rekryterats med hjälp av en mödravårdscentral, kvinnohälsan, i Linköping i samband med ett projekt om utveckling av barnfetma. Totalt 136 män undersöktes med Bod Pod, en maskin som mäter kroppssammansättning med hög validitet. Vidare mättes antropometriska mått såsom vikt, längd och midjemått vid mättillfället.Resultat Regressionsmodellerna med midjemått och BMI (r=0,94) samt midjemått (r=0,94) var de som var signifikant högst korrelerade till FM (kg). De regressionsmodellerna som förklarade mest av variansen i FM% var de med 1) M/L (midja/längd), midjemått och BMI 2) M/L och 3) midjemått som oberoende variabler (r=0,86-0,88).

The purpose with this paper is to examine if tertiary education and democracy have an impact on economic growth. In order to decide how democratic the examined countries are the democracy index constructed by The Economist is used. Besides the two central theories the purpose is also to explain why these variables could affect growth and to examine direct and indirect effects. Indirect effects mean that one variable affects another variable which thereafter has an impact on economic growth.34 OECD countries are compared in order to investigate whether education and democracy are strongly correlated with BNP per capita. Therefore a statistical design is used as method.The empirical results suggest that there is significant correlation between democracy and economic growth.

AbstractTitel: Self-presentation at online dating ? through a gender perspective and an age perspective.Number of pages: 44Author: Karin WestlundTutor: Amelie HössjerCourse: Media and Communication Studies CPeriod: Autumn term 2009-12-21University: Division of Media and Communications, Informatics and Media, Uppsala UniversityPurpose/Aim: The aim of this essay is to examine the phenomenon Internet dating through a gender perspective and to some extent through an age perspective. What do the members? presentations look like? Do men and women select different ways to present themselves, and how does it look between the different age groups?Material/Method: Qualitative method with 42 presentation texts, half men, and half women in three different age groups collected from a Swedish dating site.Main results: The study shows that men and women choose to highlight their good points at self presentation in the student forum. The differences between the various age groups proved not to be significantly large.

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.