Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion, OTEC, is a sustainable energy conversion technology that is not yet commercialized. OTEC is a technology that utilizes the temperature difference in oceans between the warm surface water and the cold water at 1 000 m depth to run a Rankine Cycle. This technology can produce electricity and provide synergies like fresh water, air conditioning and aquaculture. A simulation program for three alternative OTEC systems has been created in order to decide which OTEC system is most profitable; closed, open or hybrid system. In this simulation a production cost analysis is performed in order to investigate and decide which one of the three systems that has the lowest production cost. The production cost analysis also analyzes if the profitability is affected by the size of the facility. After these analyzes, the most profitable of the three different OTEC-systems is expanded by an installation of solar collectors in order to see if the thermal efficiency is improved. The result shows that the most profitable system varies with the size of the facility.

no abstract available.

Active headsets have been on the market for years and now it is time for something else to enter the stage. The technology of active noise reduction can for exmple also be used in ventilation systems for reducing ventilation noise. An active control system principally consists of four important components, namely the downstream error microphone, the upstream detection or reference microphone, the digital signal processor (DSP) and a loudspeaker. The upstream reference microphone listen to the primary ventilation noise and sends it to the DSP which makes a phase shift to the signal and sends it to the loudspeaker. The loudspeaker sends out the opposite waveform of the incoming one and reduce the primary ventilation noise.

Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka förskollärares erfarenheter av och tankar om implementeringen av barns inflytande i förskolan. För att på bästa sätt kunna besvara studiens syfte har semistrukturerade intervjuer använts som metod. Fem förskollärare intervjuades enskilt av mig och en intervjuguide användes under intervjun. Resultatet visar att barns inflytande är något som förskollärarna arbetar med i förskoleverksamheten men att barns inflytande tar sig uttryck i förskolan på olika sätt. Det finns både likheter och olikheter i hur de ser på barns inflytande.

Our aim in this work has been to redesign ModernFamilies and make a user-friendly interface for people with aphasia. The focus has been to identify general issues they might face while using different technology and applications, in order to find better alternative design for ModernFamilies, with a focus on usability. To approach this issue, we used a qualitative method. Our study includes several interviews and observations preformed in conjunction with the AGNES project (AGeing in a NEtworked Society) and speech therapists. Aphasia requires simple design that in the same time gives them support to understand and use technology and different applications.

The purpose of this paper is to see how differences are handled in preschools, with a focus on children with homo- or bisexual parents. By doing this we wanted to see how the conditions for a child with homo- or bisexual parents looks like, in order to have their family conditions mirrored, confirmed and visualised in the preschool.The foundation for the discussion is a questionaire which has been answered by 229 preschool workers from 24 different preschools in the City of Stockholm. The result of the questionaire has been handled in a statistics program. Our analysis is based on the statistical numbers and the written replies to the open questions in the questionaire.As a theoretical starting point we have used Iris Marion Young?s ideas about how our society is coloured by an ideal of similarity that defines liberation as the transcendence of group difference, where the dominant group cannot see how their perspective is just one of several perspectives.

The purpose of this study was to find out how young children are allowed to influence and affect their daily lives in preschools, as well as teachers? views on the latter. My interest in this topic is born out of my experience of working with both younger and older preschool children. My view is that democratic work with older children is largely based on direct verbal communication while with toddlers it is based on an adult?s interpretation of a child?s often non-verbal expressions.

The purpose of my study was to explore how preschool educators in Kenya look at children's influence on teaching. Researchers have argued that the formal educational system in Kenya today is a remnant of its days as a colony when people were expected to blindly follow rules without questioning them. I have used qualitative interviews as a method in order get the most concrete understanding of educators? views on the influence from children. The educators I interviewed were based at a school I visited in Kenya.

Today there is a large consensus about the importance of Swedish schools providingconditions enabling students to develop the ability to manage and learn through information technologies (IT). The goal of this study was to describe and examine how national education goals for the use of IT transformed into municipal IT-strategies for the school. A content analysis was conducted of thirty-eight municipal IT-strategies collected from Swedish municipal websites on the Internet. The content in the municipal IT-strategies was compared with the content in both the Swedish education act and the national curriculum. The results showed that the content in the Swedish education act and the national curriculum in fact was translated into municipal IT strategies, but that the range of strategies concerning technology, pedagogy and content in relation to IT was broad.

Bakgrunden till examensarbetet är att det existerar ett behov inom Sandvik Materials Technology att komma tillrätta med problemen avseende dålig leveransprecision och antalet reklamationer genom ett förbättringsprogram som kan angripa alla bekymren inom företaget. Företaget har i dagsläget inlett ett internt förbättringsprogram kallat Lyftet Ledtid, med övergripande syfte att sänka ledtiderna i processerna för att minska kapitalbindningen samt uppnå bättre kvalitet. Andra företag har implementerat förbättringsprogrammet Sex Sigma och en undersökning av dess lämplighet för Sandvik Materials Technology bör ske. Arbetet syftar till att undersöka förbättringsprogrammet Sex Sigmas utrymme inom det interna förbättringsprogrammet Lyftet Ledtid. Det bör även ange hur en eventuell implementering kan ske.

Mobil förskola är ett fenomen som har börjat ta plats och växer snabbt som ett komplement till den ordinarie pedagogiska förskoleverksamheten. Den har uppkommit som ett resultat av att samhället förändras och det ställer andra och nya krav på förskolan och skolan att möta barn och elever i ett lärande. Det finns många åsikter om vad som är bra eller mindre bra för barns lärande och utveckling men det saknas en övergripande forskning om mobil förskola som stöd för nya antaganden, tankar och idéer. För att förstå lärandet har jag valt att lyfta fram teoretiska funderingar ur ett sociokulturellt perspektiv som har kopplats ihop med forskning både från förskola och från skola. Resultatet visar att pedagogerna ser den mobila förskolan som ett verktyg som underlättar för dem att genomföra sitt uppdrag om lärande och utveckling.

New technology makes it possible to remotely measure all consumers in a power network onan hourly basis and store the values in a database.This thesis work describes the conversion process between automatic meter reading systemMActor and calculation software Xpower.Then the possible differences between calculations of power networks using load curves incombination with a yearly estimate of consumption and calculations using hourly measuredvalues is examined.The result of the comparison shows that, for the power network under inspection, nosignificant difference could be noticed. This does not mean that calculations using hourlymeasured values would be unnecessary. I believe that in a near future calculations using hourmeasurements will be the primary choice for many power companies to whom technology isavailable.Also some basic calculations of fundamental power network parameters, such as power factorand loses, are presented using hourly measured distribution transformers in combinations withits hourly measured loads.The report is written in Swedish.

AbstractThe purpose of this study is to illuminate if the preventive practices and the identification of early signals about reading and writing difficulties is different between two Norwegian and two Swedish teachers' work in preschool. Research questions focused on the differences as well as similarities between Swedish and Norwegian educators working preventively current literacy in preschool, and their efforts when they identify signals to reading and writing difficulties.The study has been conducted through interviews with four female teachers, two who work  in Norway and two in Sweden.Swedish and Norwegian teachers work preventively on reading and writing, analysis resulted in three categories; books in text and pictures, words and rhyming chants and songs. No differences between Norwegian and Swedish pedagogues? prevention methods could be identified, however Norwegian teachers put more focus on rhythm and rhythmic pat exercises than the Swedish educators.The conclusions are that the Norwegian teachers mention more preventative approaches and early intervention for children with suspected dyslexia, than the Swedish teachers in the study makes. The Norwegian teachers also seem to have access to more expertise in connection with suspected dyslexia, compared to the Swedish teachers.

Studien behandlar begreppet det kompetenta barnet och dess komplexitet. Denerfarenhet vi har genom att vara verksamma i förskolan innebär att vi uppleverbegreppet används utan någon större eftertanke eller notis av dess betydelse. Syfte medstudien är att förklara och förstå innebörden av begreppet det kompetenta barnet iförskolan. Studiens litteraturgenomgång berör aktuell forskning inom området,begreppet det kompetenta barnet och barnsyn. Datainsamlingen som ligger till grund förstudien består av åtta kvalitativa intervjuer med förskollärare och genomfördes med stödav fenomenografin.

Sociala nätverk tar stor plats på Internet genom virtuella communities. Användare har en större möjlighet att nå dem via mobila lösningar och därmed göra dem till mobila communities. Kriterierna som ligger till grund för framgång för virtuella communitiesvill vi applicera på mobila communities. För att undersöka dessa kriterier, och bakomliggande faktorer, har vi valt att titta på ?tidigt bruk? användning av en mobil community, Facebooks mobila portal med hjälp av Technology Acceptance Model (TAM).