To achieve an optimal combustion, an even air/fuel ratio in the combustion chamber is required. An optimal combustion leads to reduced amount of emissions due to a more complete combustion, which is an important matter because of the sharpened environmental laws. This can be attained, among other things, by applying entirely variable cam times. To optimize the engines efficiency and its emissions at all workloads and speeds, an active valve control can be applied. This means that the intake and exhaust-valves can be opened and closed at any time, independent of the crankshaft position.

Sudoku solvers are a widely researched topic among mathematicians and computer scientists. This report investigates the differences in execution time and time complexity between backtracking and human strategies for classes with 17-21 clues. Backtracking is compared to our implementation of human strategies with test data that contains 99 Sudoku puzzles for each class. The study shows that the execution time and time complexity is improved for human strategies compared to backtracking for each class. The conclusion shows that it is always favorable to implement the human strategies investigated in the report. .

An increasing number of heat pump producers have developed heat pumps that can be connected to solar panels. In this thesis we have examined the possibilities of connecting solar panels to existing ground source- and geothermal heat pumps that has not been adapted to solar panels. During the work process, a prototype plant has been built to compare our theory with the practical results and with our designed sizing tool. The work has rendered in knowledge that will be used to build a sun module that can be easily connect to the existing heat pump system. The existing heat pump, our test plant, has been supplemented by an advanced storage tank used to allow different operating modes.

Background: Inter-organisational ways of working have become more and more common during the last decades. In order to attain efficiency and productivity, such inter-organisational relationships need to be governed and controlled. However, studies have shown that inadequate control is one of the main reasons for why inter-organisational relationships fail. One of the means that can be used for governing and controlling a business is management control. The use of management control in inter-organisational contexts is a quite unexplored area of research at the present time, which might seem somewhat surprising considering the fact that inadequate control is a common explanation for why inter-organisational relationships fail.

The purpose of this thesis was to investigate how the distance between real estate manager and the managed item influenced the real estate management process. The overall real estate management within Lantmännen Fastigheter AB was investigated to give suggestions on how to improve the quality of the real estate management within the company. To do this, questionnaires, interviews and observations was performed within the Lantmännen Fastigheter AB organization. Real estate managers answered questions about their role as real estate manager, maintenance planning, decision processes, leasing and strategies within the company.The analysis of the questionnaires, interviews and observations showed that the real estate managers wants to rearrange their spent working hours around on working tasks to spend more time on the tasks that brings income and spend less time on tasks that are unsatisfying and unnecessary. The analysis also shows in which areas the real estate managers want more support and education and that they mostly work with unplanned maintenance.

During the last years the need for real-time database services has increased due to the growing number of data-intensive applications needing to enforce real-time constraints. The COMponent-based Embedded real-Time database (COMET) is a real-time database developed to meet these demands. COMET is developed using the AspeCtual COmponent-based Real-time system Development (ACCORD) design method, and consists of a number of components and aspects, which can be composed into a number of different configurations depending on system demands, e.g., Quality of Service (QoS) management can be used in unpredictable environments. In embedded systems with requirementson high up-time it may not be possible to temporarily shut down the system for reconfiguration. Instead it is desirable to enable dynamic reconfiguration of the system, exchanging components during run-time.

ur society is today in a phase of development in environmental and sustainable thinking. Alarming reports show changes in climate caused by our load and exhaust of resources. The energy usage contributes to a big part of it, by its emission of carbon dioxide. The built environment uses around 40 % of the total energy consumption in Sweden and requests to strongly reduce it are presented from both EU and national level.This thesis brings up the subject of green building with a focus on how we can create more energy efficient buildings in projects of new construction. Since the construction industry today often fails to pass on the knowledge between different projects, as a return of experiences, the construction company Skanska suggested the topic for this thesis.

To make wave power more competitive on the market Uppsala University leads projects that examine how to accomplish better efficiency in the production. One of these projects is described in this report and examines whether it is possible to make the production of dovetails more efficient by using an industry robot of type ABB IRB6000 S3 M91. This project is using an already presented working method, from a previous project, which involves that the robot picks up the dovetail and moves against fixed cutting machines where the dovetail will be drilled, threaded and milled. Drilling and threading are the sub operations that will be examined in this project where experiments are made with the presented working method and with equipment from Uppsala University.Experiments show whether it is possible to drill the holes in the dovetail within specifications by using the specific robot and the presented working method. The threading operation is examined theoretically if it is possible to accomplish by using the same working method.

The purpose of this Masters thesis is to investigate the reasons for public libraries to have story-time today and also the reasons for story-time at the public library historically in Sweden. Why is the phenomenon of story-time still existing at public libraries today? The study is based on a questionnaire that was sent to childrens librarians in the Västra Götaland region. The material collected in this questionnaire was put together and resulted in six different categories showing the libraries purposes and thoughts of their story-time activities. The categories were: cultural heritage/tradition, joy of reading, language and imagination, library visits, storytelling and mutual experience.

The environmental demands are increasing when it comes to product development. EcoDesign isabout minimizing the environmental impact of a product, considering the entire life cycle of it,without compromising other qualities like function or cost. In this master of science thesis amobile phone has been analysed with Ten Golden Rules in EcoDesign regarding production, useand End of Life. Also a functional and an environmental profile were made. The goal was tomake a new concept phone, based on the previous analysis, which communicates userfriendlinessand sustainable development.

An energy calculation model for Swedish houses   that is fast, flexible and user-friendly has been developed within the   framework of this thesis.  The model   also provides a set of actions which may be investigated in the model based   on savings and payback period. Energy use in a house depends on the technical   conditions, such as building envelope and heating systems, which outdoor   climate the house is exposed to and who lives in the house. Energy use for a   house can be divided into heating, hot water and household electricity. There   are several methods to calculate the energy use of a house. This report   summarizes the methods that may be suitable for a fast and user-friendly   calculation model.

Technology evolves quickly, with innovative ideas growing everywhere. Still, no technology is anywhere near challenging the mouse and keyboard for navigation of your standard computer. This study focuses on comparing the traditional technologies of mouse and keyboard with the new technology of gestures - in this case Leap Motion - in purpose of finding how the usage differs and what the potential users want from the competing technology. The experiment was executed in a controlled environment, with as few external factors as possible. We found that although the test subjects found Leap Motion fun, the test subjects do not want to surf the web with gestures.

The question of excessive global energy use needs to be solved. All energy production and usage have negative environmental impacts, which are best solved by reducing energy consumption and by using energy more efficiently. A large part of the Swedish energy use is concentrated to the building sector and to reduce the total energy consumption real efforts need to be made to make buildings more energy efficient.The aim of this study was to investigate how energy is used in one of Göteborg University?s buildings and to find measures that can be taken to improve its energy efficiency. The chosen building Zoologen, is used for research and education.The main method of the study is computer simulations of the present building and of possible energy reducing measures to be made in the future.

Background: Low Price-Earnings ratio, low Book-to market ratio and low stock prices can give the impression that a stock is ?cheap?. Is it through systematic use of these portfolio strategies possible to beat the market index ? in other words does financial illusions exist? Purpose: To examine if the Stockholm Stock Exchange is an efficient market. Limitations: The efficiency is tested solely through the chosen portfolio strategies: low Price-Earnings ratio, low Book-to-market ratio and low stock prices.

District heating covers around 80 % of the heating demand in apartment buildings and 10 % in single-family homes in Sweden. In the year 2010 the total input of energy to the Swedish district heating grids was about 70 TWh, which corresponds to 11 % of the total energy input to the whole energy system in the country. Through the combined production of heat and power the CHP-plants often reaches an efficiency of 90 % from energy in the fuel to produced heat and power. In order to keep the efficiency high it is important for the owners of the plant to have good knowledge about the plants performance at different operation points. Strängnäs Energi AB initiated this diploma work together with FVB Sverige ab in order to come up with a program for short term planning of the production of heat and power at the company´s CHP-plant.The work consists of three main parts.