AbstractConcrete foundation slabs are usually exposed to unilateral drying during the curing process. The unilateral drying causes an axial shrinkage and a concave curvature of the construction. The curvature results from the fact that the upper part of the slab is drying and shrinking faster than the lower part. This is called gradient shrinkage.A problem occurs when the slab is considered fully restrained by adjoining structural parts. The deformations caused by axial contraction due to the constant part of the shrinkage and the curvature caused by gradient shrinkage of the slab are then prevented by the fact that the slab is fully restrained.

The aim and research questions of this study are concerned about how, and what kind of, problems and subjects that citizens raise during verbal interaction with politicians and officials in the field of participatory democracy. The theoretical framework of the study dominates by theories with a positive approach towards participatory democracy, but there is also a broader discussion on the phenomenon?s strengths and weaknesses.The case in focus of the study is a specific phenomenon of participatory democracy created by the municipality of Växjö. The empirical material that is analysed is consisted of written text based on the verbal interaction from these meetings between citizens and politicians/officials.The outcome of the study shows that most of the verbal interaction was held between citizens and politicians/officials in a vertical direction and that a major part of the responsibility concerning the raised subjects is estimated to be in the hands of the latter part. In the light of under what circumstances the meetings are practised, the democratic and collective minded performance of the citizens is argued to be in good condition, despite the dominating vertical interaction and estimation of trust..

Vertical jumping ability is an essential skill in many sports. The aim of this study wasto investigate the acute effects of assisted jumps on subsequent countermovementjump (CMJ) performance by female athletes. Nine healthy, trained female subjectsvolunteered to participate in the study. In a randomized order, they performed oneregular warm up protocol before testing their CMJ baseline value, and one warm upprotocol with an addition of five assisted jumps at 30% body weight reduction beforeanother CMJ test. Elastic cords attached to an overhead pulley system and to aharness around the subjects' upper body were used to reduce the body weight.Significant improvements were noted in jump height, 2.3 cm (7%), positive forceimpulse, 4.7 Ns (2%), vertical take off velocity, 0.1 m/s (3%), countermovement time,0.1 s (12%) and breaking time, 0.1 s (14%), p.

Over an extended period of time there have been plans to establish a shared facility in Lennheden to extract groundwater from the Badelunda esker to provide drinking water for the cities of Borlänge and Falun. The city of Falun is dissatisfied with the quality of its drinking water and the city of Borlänge is concerned about the risk of contamination of its existing groundwater supply at its current location. To provide a basis for a decision on this issue, the company Midvatten AB has been commissioned to perform hydrogeological investigations in the area of Lennheden.The purpose of this thesis is to design a functional groundwater model of the area between Lennheden, place of planned extraction, and Övre Tjärna, place of existing extraction, to get a better understanding of the groundwater situation in the area. A groundwater model enables simulations of different scenarios in risk assessment and contaminant transport. The aim of the thesis is that the model can be used as an aid in Midvatten?s investigations in Lennheden and that it also can be used in future projects in the area.The model has been made in Processing Modflow 5.3 and encompasses an area of 19,5 × 11 km along the Badelunda esker and the river Dalälven between Djurmo and Frostbrunnsdalen.

One of the most distinguishing features of contemporary globalisation is production fragmentation, a splitting up of the manufacturing of a good into several different stages. Production fragmentation creates new opportunities through vertical specialization; a country incapable of mastering the entire production process may specialize in the manufacturing of one separate part. The aim of this thesis is to examine to what extent international integration affects a country?s ability to engage in vertical specialization in an industry characterized by production fragmentation. The analysis focuses on the european integration process over the last decade, where countries in eastern Europe with relatively low labour costs have been integrated with more capital abundant western economies.

Purpose: This study deals with warehouse management with an emphasis on vertical lift modules (VLM). The aim is to examine the effect of the implementation of VLM on a business's warehouse management. In order to obtain a result, the study has been based on the following questions:? How was the warehouse management designed before the implementation of VLM?? How is warehouse management designed after the implementation of VLM?Method: To be able to answer these questions, interviews with ten users of VLM performed. All users usually lift systems from the same manufacturer.

The largest project at the AICG lab at Linköping University, Cognitive models for virtual characters, focuses on creating an agent architecture for intelligent, virtual characters. The goal is to create an agent that acts naturally and gives a realistic user experience. The purpose of this thesis is to develop and implement an appropriate learning model that fits the existing agent architecture using an agile project methodology. The model developed can be seen as an online unsupervised reinforcement learning model that enhances experiences through reward. The model is based on Maes model where new effects are created depending on whether the agent is fulfilling its goals or not.The model we have developed is based on constant monitoring of the system.

Idag, inte bara i Sverige, bygger man mer och mer i betong. Betongkonstruktioner ses inte längre som något kallt, grått och tråkigt då man kan uppföra byggnadsverk som inte bara är starka och tåliga utan även med originella former och färger. För att få betongen stark, inte bara i tryck måste så gott som alla konstruktioner dock armeras på ett eller annat sätt. Dessa nya och ofta komplicerade former på konstruktionen ställer nya krav på armeringsmetoden som används, trots detta har sättet att armera i stort sätt sett likadant ut i många, många år.I den här rapporten kommer man att utreda möjligheterna för en ny typ av armering att etablera sig på en mycket konservativ marknad där utrymmet för utveckling och nytänkande är till synes mycket litet.Jämförelser mellan traditionell armering och denna nya cellarmering har gjorts, framförallt med avseende på projekterings- och utförandenivå. Detta har gjorts genom intervjuer med sakkunniga, både ute på byggarbetsplatsen och i armeringsverkstad.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine and analyse which effects a service strategy has on the control system of an organisation. The thesis takes a service perspective, and it is assumed that a service strategy gains competitive advantage and that the goal of the service strategy is to increase the customers? satisfaction level. A qualitative in-depth case study was performed on a Swedish beauty company. The organisation?s vertical structure was examined, from central to local level.

Self-compacting concrete has soon been around for a decade. Recently the prefabrication industry has started to use this fairly new concrete type in larger scales, mainly because of its distinctive properties.  There are still certain areas that need to be thoroughly examined, such as bond capacity. There have been very few studies regarding shear capacity due to the fact that the procedure is complicated.This report will highlight a method to examine the shear capacity of different surfaces that have been prewetted as well as non-prewetted surfaces. The surface areas follow BBK 04?s and Eurocode 2?s demand for surface roughness.  A smooth surface will be completed in order to confirm if the different shapes influence the bond strength by shear stress or not.                       The purpose of this essay is to measure the bond strength within the shear capacity as well as examine the impact it has on surface roughness and treatment for shear bond.The method used to identify the shear capacity is called L-shaped Push-Off Test.

Tractors of today come equipped with a CAN-system. A CAN-system sends information from sensors to electronic control units who process the signals. The sensors measure several interesting parameters such as force, pressure and speed for various components of the tractor. This thesis discuss a force sensor which is placed in the pivot of the tractors three point linkage, the sensor measure the horizontal reaction force from the load that the tractor is exposed to. Signals from this sensor can be used to measure the force from any implement that the tractor is exposed to during an operation.

Social a?ngeststo?rning (SAD) a?r ett a?ngestsyndrom som orsakar stor funktionsnedsa?ttning och fo?rsa?mrad livskvalitet. I fo?religgande studie presenteras fo?rklaringsmodeller till SAD med fokus pa? temperamentsforskning och reinforcement sensitivity theory (RST). Syftet var att genom explorativ faktoranalys identifiera latenta variabler i fra?geformula?ret ?Hur man var som barn? (HMVSB), som administrerats i en klinisk population (n= 100) och i en kontrollgrupp (n= 246).

This rapport handles the presence of two kinds of watermills in the Swedish landscape. The first is a small type with a horizontal shovel blade and the other a bigger kind with a vertical standing shovel scoop. The rapport seeks for information of their capacity and how long they existed as flour producing units. A important issue is how small can a brook be and still run a mill. Finally the reasons for their disappearance in one selected parish is shown..

The project contains a force analysis of the vertical axis wind turbine Lucia's supporting arms and a measuring device to experimentally measure the forces is made. The forces between the supporting arms and the tower are calculated theoretically and then simulated by a computere. A measuring devise is then designed to measure the forces experimentally. The forces acting on the attachment between the supporting arms and the tower is primarily the centripetal force, gravitational force and the aerodynamic forces on the rotor wings. The maximum forces were theoretically calculated and is 13.38 kN along the x-axis, -0.25 kN along the y-axis and then 0.5 kN along the z-axis.

The aim of this bachelor-thesis is to study how postgraduates approach open access during times of change within scholarly communication. Our theoretical framework is based upon Knorr Cetinas epistemic cultures and Cullen & Chawners theory that there is a paradigmatic conflict within scholarly communication due to the fact that open access has failed to reach the same level of prominence among researchers as it has within research libraries. We interviewed six postgraduates at Malmö högskola in order to find answers to our research questions. We identified a shared epistemic culture among the postgraduates, which can be explained by the fact that being postgraduates, they all share similar experiences and values. We chose to call this epistemic culture the horizontal epistemic culture.