The Swedish Transport Administration manage nearly 4,000 railway bridges in different condition and age around the country. These bridges is in constant need of maintenance and requires continuous inspections. This thesis is designed as a damage investigation on a single-track railway bridge south of Solvarbo in Säter municipality. The railway bridge is in operation and serves over 10,000 trains a year, everything from speed trains to freight trains. The bridge is built as a beam bridge, simply supported over a road.

Herbivore impact on the Swedish forest has under a long time been a common subject of debate. There are many different opinions depending on what direction the forest owner has with his/her forest. Populations of moose and roe deer have increased significantly in Sweden during the last decades. The purpose of this study is to get a full picture of the herbivore impact on the regeneration areas. The field work was done once a year for seven years (1999?2005).

The Swedish dairy sector is facing several challenges the coming years. One big challenge is how they will secure the access of their raw material milk in the future. The number of milk producers has decreased for an extended period of time, but was for a long time partly compensated by an increased productivity among the remaining milk producers. From year 2000 that trend was broken and also the quantity of milk produced started to fall quickly. Milko is a dairy company with members from Dalsland in the south to Jämtland in the north. During the first seven moths 2007, their number of members decreased by almost a fourth, from 1 272 to 974.

This thesis aims to present the essential background on how to perform climate changeimpact assessments, and to present the results from a climate impact assessment on waterbalance and nitrate leaching for an arable Swedish soil. The soil is a sandy soil in southwesternSweden, grown with spring cereals. This study is meant to be a benchmark example,and cannot be seen as a regional or national assessment for Sweden, rather as an approachto present and analyze the most important parts of these kinds of assessments.A dynamical simulation model (COUP, Jansson and Karlberg, 2004) was used for thisstudy. The model was parameterized and calibrated against data from an experimental site,located in Mellby in Hallands county, south western Sweden. Measurements were carriedout between 1st of April 1988 and 1st of April 1991.

This report presents suggestions and recommendations on how to convert an old industrial building, built in 1958, to an office hotel. One of the main criteria was that the floor plan should be flexible. The building is situated at Jonsereds Fabriker and the study was conducted for Hantverkslokaler i Göteborg AB, the estate owner.The survey is initiated with study visits at various office hotels, together with studies of literature regarding office planning. One conclusion from the study visits is that meeting-places, where the different companies can meet and exchange ideas and services, are important. Another one, and probably the most important parameter when planning offices is that they should have windows.

A today common soil reinforcement method is the installation of lime-cement columns. Lime-cement columns have been used since the 1970?s and have been a useful method for stabilizing soil at great depths. It is mostly used for stabilizing road and railway embankments because the method is economically viable and the columns are easy to install. The total costs for the installation of the lime-cement columns is dependent on the numbers of installed columns, what percentage of lime and cement that has been used and the pattern in which the columns has been installed.

This thesis aims to present the essential background on how to perform climate changeimpact assessments, and to present the results from a climate impact assessment on waterbalance and nitrate leaching for an arable Swedish soil. The soil is a sandy soil in southwesternSweden, grown with spring cereals. This study is meant to be a benchmark example,and cannot be seen as a regional or national assessment for Sweden, rather as an approachto present and analyze the most important parts of these kinds of assessments.A dynamical simulation model (COUP, Jansson and Karlberg, 2004) was used for thisstudy. The model was parameterized and calibrated against data from an experimental site,located in Mellby in Hallands county, south western Sweden. Measurements were carriedout between 1st of April 1988 and 1st of April 1991.

Wildlife contributes with many benefits to humans but also brings economic costs. From being eradicated in Scandinavia the grey wolf (Canis lupus) is returning to South-Western Sweden and people are not used to its presence. In Scandinavia carnivores have to co-occur with humans in a landscape used for many different interests. Consequences of wolf establishments are e.g. competition for moose, depredation on sheep and attacks on hunting dogs.

Denna uppsats handlar om anställningsbarheten hos personalvetare, med fokus på informella kompetenser, i Sverige och Sydafrika. Studiens syfte var att utifrån ett arbetsgivarperspektiv undersöka vilka typer av kompetenser som gör personalvetare, vilkas yrke är att arbeta med personal- och arbetslivsfrågor på företags personalavdelningar, anställningsbara samt hur dessa typer av kompetenser värderas. Vidare var syftet att utreda om det råder en skillnad mellan svenska och sydafrikanska arbetsgivare vad gäller synen på ovanstående. Ur detta formulerades sedan fyra frågeställningar för att konkretisera syftet. Dessa syftade till att klargöra vilka typer av kompetenser som gör personalvetare anställningsbara i respektive land, hur kompetenserna värderades samt eventuella skillnader mellan länderna.

The content of teaching materials considerably affects pupils? attitudes and worldview. This paper is an analysis of textbooks used in 7th through 9th grade of the Swedish School system in Swedish as a Second Language (SSL) and English as a Foreign Language (EFL). The purpose of this paper is to look at which minority groups, the five official national minorities as well as other minorities, are included and portrayed in the textbook series Tre gånger svenska and Wings Mini as well as to see if there is any bias in their portrayal. The seven types of bias investigated; invisibility, stereotyping and generalizations, unreality, imbalance and selectivity, fragmentation and isolation, linguistic bias and cosmetic bias are an adaption of the framework to detect bias in curriculum materials presented by Sadker and Zittleman (2002/2003).

Interpret, concretize and set grades - Is it that simple? A study of similarities and differences in local grading criteria in music. The purpose of this study is to examine similarities and differences in local grading criteria in music at schools in a larger municipality in the south of Sweden. The research question is: How have schools interpreted national grading criteria locally and how do music teachers look upon the grading procedure? This study is based on an analysis of the grading criteria at ten schools.

During the 20th century a significant proportion (about 15 %) of the peat-covered wetlands in Sweden were drained to improve forest productivity. Area wise, most of the forest drainage was done in northern Sweden, but relatively speaking a larger part of the wetlands have been drained in the southern parts of the country. Most often, the forest drainage resulted in increased forest growth, but failures were not unusual, and harmful effects, e.g. on species richness, have been a common cause for draining. Ditch cleaning is necessary for maintaining the ditches in good condition.

Bedömning av estetiska ämnen har varit ifrågasatt gällande dess kvalité, rättvisa, funktion och hur det påverkar ämnet och individen. Studien syftar till att beskriva bedömning av det estetiska ämnet Visual Arts vid en lärarutbildning i Sydafrika presenterat ur ett lärarperspektiv. Forskningsfrågorna utgår från ämnesdidaktikens teori gällande Vad bedöms, Hur kommuniseras bedömningen och Varför görs bedömningen. Metoden som använts är ett två månaders fältarbete vid en bildlärarutbildning där jag följt tre lärare och deras arbete genom deltagande observation, samtal, intervjuer och insamling av vissa dokument.Det empiriska materialet har analyserat från de tre didaktiska frågorna. Resultatet visar att lärarna, som var utbildade konstnärer lade ned mycket tid och engagemang på bedömning.

Every place is a stage where people interact. The nature of the stage and its scenography to some extent shapes the interaction. Considered as a place, the school ground gives rise to many varying expectations. Lower school pupils often have clear ideas of how they are expected to behave and how they are expected to use the place. But as the pupils age, the purpose of the school ground grows less obvious.

In Örebro, the car traffic share does not tend to decrease. The crowdedness on some of the bus routes is high at times. Investigations show that the residents of Örebro want a city centre whose street environment is more restrictive of car traffic and better for pedestrians, cyclists and public transport. To decrease the car traffic share a rapid, convenient, clear, effective and environmental friendly public transport with high frequency and strong capacity in a short, direct and logical network is needed. A modern tramway fulfils these criteria.At first, this report describes factors that are important to take into consideration when planning a tramway.