Newspaper articles and media have shown that the use of illegal weight loss compounds, such as ephedrine and Melanotan, is becoming more common among adolescent girls, who are at risk of becoming a new group of addicts. These girls are rarely aware of the risks that the use of these compounds entails and the consequences that could adversely affect their bodies, mentally and physically. The aim of this paper was to investigate the use of and attitudes towards illegal weight loss compounds amongst girls in year three, at Swedish upper secondary schools. In order to do that, a questionnaire was sent out to 120 girls in five different high schools, with varying college preparatory and vocational program directions. My research shows that the use of illegal weight loss compounds, particularly ephedrine, was found among girls in year three, at upper secondary schools. Seven percent of the girls claimed they use, primarily, ephedrine. This result exceeds earlier studies findings on boys' use of anabolic androgenic steroids (AAS).

The purpose with this study was to find out if tailbiting pigs have a higher or lower daily weight gain than non-tailbiting pigs in the same pen before tailbitingbehaviour occur. The purpose was also to compare the occurrence of tailbiting between different breeds (Swedish Landrace, Yorkshire and Hampshire). Tailbiting among pigs has been a problem for pigfarmers a long time. Tailbiting means reduced animal welfare for the pig and economical loss for the farmer. The results of this study are based on statistical analyses.

Sheep production is the only animal production in Sweden that is increasing. Therefore,increasing knowledge of the production is of great interest. In order to run a viable sheepproduction, producers needs to be successful in the breeding of the animals and achievean economic surplus in the end. Lambs that are born healthy and vital have greaterconditions to perform high lamb weight gains and thus a successful production. Thereare many factors affect the survival, birth weight and early weight gain of the new bornlamb.

Sheep production is the only animal production in Sweden that is increasing. Therefore,increasing knowledge of the production is of great interest. In order to run a viable sheepproduction, producers needs to be successful in the breeding of the animals and achievean economic surplus in the end. Lambs that are born healthy and vital have greaterconditions to perform high lamb weight gains and thus a successful production. Thereare many factors affect the survival, birth weight and early weight gain of the new bornlamb.

In this master's thesis the problem of determining the uncertainty for an estimator of an unknown parameter is considered. The case we study is the estimation of gravity using a reversible pendulum. This involves the estimation of the point where two regression lines intersect. The estimated gravity is a function the coordinates of this point. One way to determine the uncertainty of this estimator is to use bootstrap methods.

With numerous applications in both military and civilian life, the demand for accurate 3D models of real world environments increases rapidly. Using an airborne laser scanner for the raw data acquisition and robust methods for data processing, the researchers at the Swedish Defence Research Agency (FOI) in Linköping hope to fully automate the modeling process.The work of this thesis has mainly been focused on three areas: ground estimation, image segmentation and classification. Procedures have in each of these areas been developed, leading to a new algorithm for ground estimation, a number of segmentation methods as well as a full comparison of various decision values for an object based classification. The ground estimation algorithm developed has yielded good results compared to the method based on active contours previously elaborated at FOI. The computational effort needed by the new method has been greatly reduced compared to the former, as performance, particularly in urban areas, has been improved.

Body awareness is a term that refers to a person´s perception and knowledge about his or her body. It includes proportion, size, weight, contour and image of ones body. The Ben- Tovim Walker Body Attitudes Questionnaire (BAQ) contains 44 questions concerning the different aspects of body awareness: Feeling fat, Body disparagement, Strength and fitness, Salience of weight, Attractiveness and Lower body fatness. The purpose of this study was to investigate body awareness among men in military recruit training. BAQ was distributed to fifty recruits for military service in Boden.

Live-weight at different ages for Swedish Holsteins (SLB) and for the Swedish Red and White Breed (SRB), and the correlation to heart girth and height at withers. The aim of this investigation was to study the live-weight changes and mature weight for the Swedish Red and White Breed (SRB) and for Swedish Holsteins (SLB), and to estimate the correlations between body weight and body measurements such as heart girth and height at withers, respectively. The material used was from one of the experimental dairy herds (Jälla) of the Swedish University of Agricultural Science. It included recordings on 293 dairy cows with information from 7142 weight occasions and recordings on 275 dairy cows with information of 557 heart girth measurements and 560 measurements of height at withers. The registrations were done during 1993-2002. There was a large variation in live weight between cows in different ages and lactation stages.

Background: Obesity has expanded to a nationwide issue that affects millions of people. The healthcare system struggles to handle the epidemic as the problem grows. Studies show that healthcare workers have negative attitudes toward obese and overweight people and that they lack knowledge and proper tools to support this patient group. Motivational interviewing (MI) is a known technique for initiating lifestyle changes with patients. Aim: The aim is to evaluate the effectiveness of MI as a tool for weight loss and sustainable lifestyle changes for people with obesity and overweight. Method: This study uses a literature review methodology with a systematic perspective. Data is gathered and analyzed to investigate how MI affects weight loss.

To complete an overweight treatment program is associated with better weight loss. Previous studies have in principle focused on drop-out from the entire program, not individual parts of a program. Factors previously shown to influence the patients´ weight loss results are: frequency of individual meetings with a professional, the lack of social support from family or friends, the lack of motivation and in a few studies vacations. In several studies the drop-out patients have stated that their reasons for drop-out were dissatisfaction with the staff and the program design. Drop-out has also been shown to be connected with difficulties in adherence to the diet.

To complete an overweight treatment program is associated with better weight loss. Previous studies have in principle focused on drop-out from the entire program, not individual parts of a program. Factors previously shown to influence the patients´ weight loss results are: frequency of individual meetings with a professional, the lack of social support from family or friends, the lack of motivation and in a few studies vacations. In several studies the drop-out patients have stated that their reasons for drop-out were dissatisfaction with the staff and the program design. Drop-out has also been shown to be connected with difficulties in adherence to the diet.

The purpose of this report is to evaluate different methods for identifying states in robot models. Both linear and non-linear filters exist among these methods and are compared to each other. Advantages, disadvantages and problems that can occur during tuning and running are presented. Additional measurements from accelerometers are added and their use with above mentioned methods for state estimation is evaluated. The evaluation of methods in this report is mainly based on simulations in Matlab, even though some experiments have been performed on laboratory equipment.The conclusion indicates that simple non-linear models with few states can be more accurately estimated with a Kalman filter than with an extended Kalman filter, as long as only linear measurements are used.

In the automatic manual transmission system, Opticruise, the choice of gear is based on several parameters such as road incline, driving resistance and vehicle mass. Many different mass estimations are made during driving. A final vehicle mass is then used to determine the current gear. Construction vehicles are often not equipped with air suspension and can therefore not estimate the vehicle mass when standing still. If that sort of vehicle is reloaded while standing still an incorrect mass estimation will be used and as an effect of that also a wrong gear.

To complete an overweight treatment program is associated with better weight loss. Previous studies have in principle focused on drop-out from the entire program, not individual parts of a program. Factors previously shown to influence the patients´ weight loss results are: frequency of individual meetings with a professional, the lack of social support from family or friends, the lack of motivation and in a few studies vacations. In several studies the drop-out patients have stated that their reasons for drop-out were dissatisfaction with the staff and the program design. Drop-out has also been shown to be connected with difficulties in adherence to the diet.

Difficult calvings and stillbirths are problems in Swedish dairy production that result in large expenses for the farmers and welfare issues concerning the animals. A common opinion is that the live weight of SRB and SLB is increasing, and whether increased weights have caused the increase in calving problems has been discussed. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between the relative birth weight (calf/cow) and calving difficulty and stillbirth, respectively. The importance of breed and parity for the relative weight has been investigated, and comparisons with previous studies have been made to evaluate whether the relative weight has changed over the last decades or not. The study was based on 807 calvings, registered during the period 1993-2003 in the experimental dairy herd of the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (Jälla).