Through interviews with children of ages 4-5 years old and by observing children children at play at three preschools with different types of outdoor surroundings, I have investigated if the preschools outdoor surroundings have any influences on the children´ choice of play. The hypothesis was that natural surroundings can entice children´s interest in nature being in it and play. I have also investigated if the children know why it is important to be outdoors and if they know it has a positive influence on their health.The result of my investigation is that the children play about the same games at the three different preschool gardens, but at the preschool with more natural surroundings, the children have more contact with plants and animals, and could learn of the different phenomena of nature by the preschool teacher answering their questions. Most of the children in the interviews know it´s useful to be outdoors and be on the move and get fresh air, but many of them thought it was most important to play. By being outdoors the children get exercise, fresh air, play and at the same time they establish an understanding of the nature and a healthier life..

There are today large amounts of contaminated sediments in the Baltic Sea. These contaminants are the result of many years industrial activity where the contaminants have not been taken care of and just released out in the water. When ports want to dredge in their fairways and harbor areas the contaminated sediments need to be considered since they are a environmental risk. The development in this area has been slow and new techniques have just recently made its way into dredging operations in the Baltic Sea region. As a result of this there are no clear methods for implementing new techniques today.

Studies show that visual elements in store have a great impact on consumers. Of all the impressions that the brain receives the visual impressions count for 83 %. One of the visual elements that retailers can use in-store to influence consumers is signs. Today, there are a lot of studies on regular signs but this is very limited when it comes to motion displays. Motion displays are signs printed on electronic paper with animated messages.

The purpose of our essay is to study the institutional-, demographic and accounting theoretical factors that influence an organisations actuarial commitment.The research was performed through a web based survey, with complimentary telephone interviews, directed to companies listed on Stockholm Stock Exchange A- and O-list on the 30 of November, 2003.Our data was analysed with a Median test, Kolomogorov-Smirnov test, T-test and a Mann-Whitney test. The purpose of the Mann-Whitney test was the low number of respondents that took part in the research. The Kolomogorov-Smirnov test was done to determine whether the population variances was equal or not. The data showed that organisations with a majority of female employees assume a lower salary increase, and a higher average age than other companies with a male majority. Only 2 of 11 hypothesis can be accepted as temporary truths but several other visible relations are indicated in our research, but can not be statistically proved.We think that the major problem with our is the time it was performed.

A new phenomenon on the Internet is the online audience response. Mentimeter is a web-based tool where you can create online polls. The users can then cast a vote and the result is shown in real time. We want to test the information visualization in Mentimeter and we base our hypothesis, that a better graph design is possible, on the work of Edward Tufte and Stephen Few. Edward Tufte is an emeritus at Yale University, where he held courses in statistical evidence and information design and has created theories about how visual information should be designed.

In this thesis, two real-time stereo methods have been implemented and evaluated. The first one is based on blockmatching and the second one is based on local phase. The goal was to be able to run the algorithms at real-time and examine which one is best. The blockmatching method performed better than the phase based method, both in speed and accuracy. SIMD operations (Single Instruction Multiple Data) have been used in the processor giving a speed boost by a factor of two..

The aim of this thesis was to examine if it is possible to keep nitrogen in the form of nitrate(NO3-) in ponds from one season to another by keeping a high concentration of oxygen in thepond water. This hypothesis was tested by doing a lab experiment where two systems werecompared according to nitrate concentration. One system had high concentration of oxygen inthe water and one had low concentration of oxygen. Before the main experiment wasconducted I did a pilot study to test the system setup and included parameters. The result fromthis study and the main study did not show the same result.

In my project, Cups on the run, I have studied the relationship between ceramic utility objects and different environments, when moving them off the table. My background as a potter has been the starting point. From there, I wanted to see if I could expand my craft to the space beyond. With the cup, which for most people has a clear function and a relation to us human, in repetitive structure I explored the spatiality and architecture in various environments. Life fascinates me through how everything is made up of tiny parts that together create the tangible and intangible.

Abstract The main purpose of this study was to investigate if and how the employees in elderly care experience stress and which underlying causes they understand to be important in their work situation. The purpose was also to investigate whether Karaseks and Theorells demands and control models could be used to explain the employees feelings of stress and to see in which categories the participants are in. Furthermore, the purpose was also to understand the participants work situation and to describe the factors and remedies the employees perceive to contribute to the stress levels at their workplace. 81 questionnaires were distributed at three different locations, two of which were in Ronneby and one in Örebro. 56 people answered the questionnaires.

During spring 2009 a three meter tall and laughing robot was developed in collaboration between Royal Institute of Technology and Royal University College of Fine Arts. The robots function and esthetics is based on an existing toy robot called Elmo. Elmo is 30 cm tall but now the goal was to make it 1000 times bigger in order to present it on the spring exhibition of Royal University College of Fine Arts. Due to only four months of developing and building time a demand of fast determination and good planning was required. In order to make a good structure for the project it is divided into five phases: Analysis of Elmo, planning, concept development, detail construction and finally product development and testing.In the first phase valuable knowledge is obtained according to the movements and geometry of Elmo.

This thesis examines the possible beneficial effects of a temporary cooperation between a national brand and a private brand. The main hypothesis suggests that if a national brand wants to make a category extension to a remote product category, it should be able to decrease its risk by affiliating itself with a private brand. The national brand should through such a brand alliance be able to borrow some of the flexible characteristics that a private brand possesses to increase its associations with the new category. The survey consisted of 800 questionnaires with different cooperations between a private brand (ICA) and two national brands (Tropicana and Bravo). These were handed out to students in the universities of Stockholm.

Health and fitness are two controversial and not easily defined topics that affect people in our modern society every day. We believe that we can find a link between individualism, globalization and the stress concerning weight and appearance ideals. Our bodies have turned into a popular subject for the media, and there is no indication that the interest will decline. As the world gets more artificial, "natural" ideals are getting more attention, such as the concept of a strong and healthy body. But there is also a downside, for example with health issues such as cardiovascular disease increasing following the birth of high-fat diets.

With this thesis I have examined the views of religion among six comparative religion teacherstudents, with the perspecitve of their life stories. I have also examined what stance they want to take due to their personal beliefs in their forthcoming teaching. To achive this I have used in-depth interviews among the six soon examined teacher students, and within the interviews I have had a particularly focus on turning points of the students? life stories. Later on I have used their turning points in an analysis with the hypothesis of ?Rites des Passage? and ?Structure and Anti-Structure?.In my survey I have found a significant relationship between the students? life stories - inparticularly their backgrounds and tourning points - and their views of religion.

This thesis focus on the presentation of the filmic room the viewer sees in George A. Romero´s three horror classics Night, Dawn and Day of the Dead. The hypothesis goes as follow; fear and element of tension becomes greater if the audience/viewer has a good knowledge about the filmic room in the film, in other words, a good spatial awareness. The conclusion is that it does. The environment is active in its becoming and in its presentation to the viewer.

Background: Type 2 diabetes is a disease which causes vascular damage, stroke and premature death.Oxidative stress may play a role in the development of insulin resistance and diabetes. Selenium is amineral involved in the protection against oxidative stress, and has been thought to be favorable in theprevention of the disease. However, this has changed since trials observed positive correlationsbetween high selenium levels and incidence of type 2 diabetes.Objective: To examine the studies that investigates seleniums effect on the incidence of typ 2 diabetesSearch strategy: Searches have been done in PubMed and Scopus.Selection criteria: Included studies were human studies in English/Swedish with RCT or cohortdesign with the aim to investigate the correlation between selenium and incidence of type 2 diabetes.Excluded studies were studies whose aim was to investigate the role of selenium in patients withexisting diabetes. Studies regarding pregnant women, animals or children and with in vitro design werealso excluded. Of the studies found in Scopus where MeSH terms were available, the ones who did notinclude relevant terms were excluded.Data collection and analysis: Studies were collected according to the aforementioned criteria.