This master thesis has been performed at the department of Machine Design at KTH, The Royal Institute of Technology. The thesis has been a part of a global development project in collaboration with Luleå University of Technology, Lund Faculty of Engineering and Stanford University. Corporate liaison and sponsor has been Immerse Global Inc. The project was also performed on sponsorship from the Product Innovation Engineering Program, PIEp. The thesis is a representation of some of the contributions made by the authors.The lack of clean drinking water is one of the key issues facing the world today.

In this study I have explored five parents reasoning about toys, from a gender perspective. During the interviews, we have reasoned about toys that are made for girls and for boys, what the differences are, and what advantages and disadvantages there might be for children to play with a variation of toys, made for both genders. The results of the study show that most of the participants are more accepting for girls playing with toys made for boys than the other way around, which indicates that boys? experience of the world might be somewhat limited, while girls have easier access to toys made for both genders..

Cultural objects may become wet by deliberate water cleaning, water disaster or watersoaked for other reasons. Air drying textile objects and even other organic materials from awater wet state, involves many problems depending on the strong capillarity action of water.Damages and changes such as bleeding of dyes, stains or lines of impurities from watermovement, shrinking or stiffness can occur. Freeze-drying as an alternative drying methodhas often been used for wet archaeological and marine objects, but more seldom for historicalmaterials.This bachelor thesis addresses the issue of whether freeze-drying can be an alternative controlleddrying method for historic costumes. Costumes and related objects are often compositeobjects, consisting of multiple materials, as well as being three dimensional, all of whichwill complicate drying. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether it is possible tohandle costume objects after wet cleaning for drying by freeze-drying, and if damages due tosurface tension of water, can be avoided in this way.

Storm water is defined as runoff from precipitation such as rain or snow. It is collected in sewage disposal systems and since it mainly originates from urban areas it can contain high levels of heavy metals, nutrients and oil etc. Polluted storm water is currently treated by different methods such as wet ponds, constructed wetlands and filter strips. This study investigates these methods, which in earlier studies have shown to give varying results regarding their treatment efficiency.This thesis has been written on commission of SWECO VIAK and was aimed at studying those parameters that may affect the treatment efficiency of nutrients and heavy metals in storm water treatment facilities (STF:s). Through literature studies the dominating treatment processes in ponds and wetlands were examined.

In this study the author attempts to identify factors that are determinants for why some pupils in Swedish grade school have high status in comparison with their peers. The study takes on the characteristics of both an ethnographic and a literature study by comparing the findings of interviews carried out with students of a first grade class with previous research. The study identify several tools for analyzing of how status may be understood in specific situations.The study also finds that important factors for gaining high status amongst children in aschool classes might be the ability to apply access strategies to get accepted in social interactions, such as game play, have the ability to create games that are enjoyed by peers and social skills, to name a few. Overall the study shows that children's game play with each otherare crucial for their social interactions and their social position. The study also show that children that have earlier established relationships with other children in a specific group alsohave a better opportunity to establish a high status position..

Large amounts of phosphorus (P) are lost from the arable land due to water erosion. Both phosphorus attached to particles and dissolved phosphorus (mainly phosphate) are transported away with drainage-water and surface runoff. Good soil structure is important in minimizing these losses. In this study, soils from 50 fields were analysed with respect to aggregate stability as measured by dispersion of clay together with the content of total phosphorus (TotP), particulate phosphorus (PP) and phosphate phosphorus (PO4P) in the water phase. All soils were clay soils with clay content varying between 21 and 54%.

Varför är det viktigt att undersöka på vilka sätt maskulinitetsideal i svensk ishockey har ändrats över tid? Den här frågan har flera svar. I den här uppsatsen har jag haft ambitionen att relatera maskulinitetsideal till svensk ishockeys utveckling åren 1969-1976 i ett vidare perspektiv. Under dessa år genomgick svensk ishockey många förändringar, men den största var förmodligen skiftet från att vara en amatörsport till att bli en professionell. Genom att studera hur förväntningarna på spelare ändrades under den här tiden, kan man bilda en förståelse för hur professionaliseringen av sporten påverkade enskilda spelare.

In October 2010 it was discovered that leach water had been released from a waste deposit directly into a ditch during a period from March until October 2010. The river Dalhemsån runs close to the waste deposit, just about 10 meters from the ditch. By studying the benthic fauna it was discovered that the environmental status of Dalhemsån is bad in this part of the river, but the discharges of leachate from the waste deposit does not seem to have deteriorated the water further since May 2010..

The river Göta Älv reaches between Vänern and Gothenburg and is the main raw water source for Gothenburg that supplies about 700 000 people with water. To protect and maintain a high water quality, continuously samples and water analyses are made throughout the river. In 1998 a protection area was founded between surte and Lärjeholm where the raw water intake is. This was made to increase the awareness of the importance to protect the water. However, there is a lot of contribution of untreated stormwater to Göta Älv within the protection area.Göteborg Water and Sewage Works commissioned this thesis where two areas, Tagene industrial area and Kärra residential area, with untreated stormwater outlets within the protection area are studied.

This study investigated potato growing in beds as an alternative to conventional ridges.It was based on results from field trials on bed-grown potatoes carried out by Halland Rural Economy and Agricultural Society in 2007, studies of literature and interviews with farmers with experience of bed growing of potatoes. Due to their shallow root system, potatoes are one of the most drought-sensitive crops. Potatoes are often grown on sandy soils with poor water-holding capacity. Factors such as total yield, tuber size distribution and quality defects are negatively affected when water becomes insufficient. Wide beds have a more flat top which leads to more uniform water infiltration. Further on, beds have lower soil surface area due to its shape, and therefore, retain water more efficient. In the field trials, which were carried out at the Stjärnarp Estate near Halmstad, potatoes were grown in beds alongside a conventional ridge-grown crop.

Bath has been a part of human history for a long time. Today bathing/swimming inmunicipal pools is for people of all ages and it is possible to take swimming courses,exercise or enjoy recreation. The municipal indoor pool of Hogdalen in Sweden wasbuild in the sixties and has had problems with high levels of heterotrophic bacteria. Thefacility has two larger pools, one adventure park for young kids, two smaller bath tubsand a jacuzzi. To improve water quality UV light and coal filter were installed inOctober 2009 to the already existing purification system.

This is a historical documentary research study across Neva Leona Boyd (1876-1963). The theoretical perspective is based on the historical perspective of knowledge from ancient Greece to the approach of modern symbolic interactionism. The study shows that Boyd, who was Viola Spolins teacher, was a proponent of the modern view of group play theory. 1909 she founded Chicago School for Playground Workers, later transformed to the Recreation Training School. Until 1927, the school entered in Hull-House initiated by Jane Addams.

We have chosen to focus this paper on the importance of game-components in the MMORPG-game World of Warcraft, in order to discover which of them who are the most important and create the biggest motivation to play the game for the players of World of Warcraft. We made this  investigation because we wanted to find out more about the specific reasons about what people think is especially great with World of Warcraft and makes them want to play it for hour after hour. By doing this we wanted to find out what it is that is so appreciated with this game. But this is a big area and it has therefore been difficult to find a way to satisfy and make those who have answered on our survey to feel that the game-component they enjoy most has been a part of our questions.To solve this problem we did a survey that included 200 persons and two interviews. When both the survey and the interviews had been completed, the result was being compared against each other and together to see if there was any difference between them or if they had any similarity to the attraction and motivation.

An excessive input of nutrients to lakes and other water bodies has created a problem with eutrophication in Sweden. Untreated, or partially treated, domestic sewage is a major source for discharge of phosphorus (P), which is the nutrient most frequently responsible for eutrophication of most fresh waters and the Baltic Sea. The waste water can be cleaned by filter materials, which have a high P-retention ability and which after saturation may be used as fertilizers. Four potentially suitable filter materials were tested in batch- and column experiments in this study. In the batch experiments, the following materials were shaken with waste water in time series ranging from 5 seconds to 60 minutes: coarse (1-4 mm) and fine (0-2 mm) Polonite® (heated bedrock from Poland); Filtralite® (light expanded clay aggregates with limestone added before burning); water cooled blast furnace slag (BF-slag) and BF-slag mixed with 10% burned limestone.

Drinking water is produced from raw water and is either from groundwater or surface water. This thesis aims to find out if the cleaning process of raw water is sufficiently effective. This is important because consumers are otherwise at risk of waterborne infection caused by pathogens. There are three groups of pathogens; bacteria, virus and parasite. These have different characteristics which mean that they require different water treatment to be separated.