Värdefull litteratur : Fyra gymnasielärare om samhällsuppdragets etik i förhållande till litteraturen i klassrummet

The ethical aspects of the Swedish Curriculum for the non-compulsory school system, Lpf94, will form the basis of the research in this essay. The ethical aspects constitute fundamental values and goals as well as common tasks that must be carried out by every teacher. Since the school debate focuses a lot on this perspective, which is often mentioned together with the words problematic and contradictory, it will consequently also be the focus of this essay. Here these features are treated in relation to literature in all its forms used by teachers in class, which also represents a part of the school debate. Together ethics and literature form a perspective that lacks research. The goal is to investigate the ethical awareness of teachers in relation to the literature, and find out which ethical decisions are made by teachers and in what ways the ethical aspects of the curriculum is fulfilled. A qualitative method has been used in order to gain results: four upper secondary school teachers/senior high school teachers have been interviewed. The results are presented in interview transcripts which have been analyzed and interpreted in the light of recent studies and research and pedagogical-didactical literature. Accordingly I have been able to draw the conclusions that the ethical features in teaching is not explicit and that there seldom seems to be any conscious ethical reflections in relation to the literature. The ethical aspects are rather invisible and unconscious. However, it is clear that the interviews raise the awareness of the ethical perspective and thus emphasize the growing and developing function of the dialogue. Finally the results have been interpreted from the point of view of the ethical tasks of the teacher in order to make the ethics visible.I detta examensarbete ligger fokus på de etiska aspekterna av samhällsuppdraget i förhållande till den litteratur som lärare använder sig av i klassrumsundervisningen. Eftersom en stor del av skoldebatten handlar om samhällsuppdraget och dess värdegrund utgör också detta perspektiv utgångspunkten för denna undersökning. Målet är att undersöka vilka etiska avvägningar lärare gör i valet av litteratur och på vilket sätt samhällsuppdragets etik blir synlig i lärares arbete. Därmed framkommer också till viss del i vilken omfattning värdegrundsarbetet sker. Genom en kvalitativ undersökningsmetod i form av samtal har fyra gymnasielärare intervjuats. Erhållna resultat har presenterats i form av intervjutranskript som analyserats och tolkats med hjälp av aktuell forskning och pedagogisk-didaktisk litteratur. De slutsatser som kan dras utifrån resultaten är att etiken i lärarnas arbete inte är explicit och att det oftast inte finns en medveten etisk reflektion utifrån litteraturen. Etiken är snarare osynlig och tämligen omedveten. Dock medvetandegörs den under samtalen vilket framhåller dialogens betydelse för utveckling. Vidare framkommer att etiken aldrig är ett mål i sig, utan fungerar mer som medel för att nå andra mål i klassrummet. Slutligen, för att synliggöra etiken, har resultaten tolkats utifrån de etiska krav i samhällsuppdraget som ställs på lärare.

TCA Evaluation : Lab Measurements, Modelling and System Simulations

The study reported here is part of a large project for evaluation of the Thermo-Chemical Accumulator (TCA), a technology under development by the Swedish company ClimateWell AB. The studies concentrate on the use of the technology for comfort cooling. This report concentrates on measurements in the laboratory, modelling and system simulation. The TCA is a three-phase absorption heat pump that stores energy in the form of crystallised salt, in this case Lithium Chloride (LiCl) with water being the other substance. The process requires vacuum conditions as with standard absorption chillers using LiBr/water. Measurements were carried out in the laboratories at the Solar Energy Research Center SERC, at Högskolan Dalarna as well as at ClimateWell AB. The measurements at SERC were performed on a prototype version 7:1 and showed that this prototype had several problems resulting in poor and unreliable performance. The main results were that: there was significant corrosion leading to non-condensable gases that in turn caused very poor performance; unwanted crystallisation caused blockages as well as inconsistent behaviour; poor wetting of the heat exchangers resulted in relatively high temperature drops there. A measured thermal COP for cooling of 0.46 was found, which is significantly lower than the theoretical value. These findings resulted in a thorough redesign for the new prototype, called ClimateWell 10 (CW10), which was tested briefly by the authors at ClimateWell. The data collected here was not large, but enough to show that the machine worked consistently with no noticeable vacuum problems. It was also sufficient for identifying the main parameters in a simulation model developed for the TRNSYS simulation environment, but not enough to verify the model properly. This model was shown to be able to simulate the dynamic as well as static performance of the CW10, and was then used in a series of system simulations. A single system model was developed as the basis of the system simulations, consisting of a CW10 machine, 30 m2 flat plate solar collectors with backup boiler and an office with a design cooling load in Stockholm of 50 W/m2, resulting in a 7.5 kW design load for the 150 m2 floor area. Two base cases were defined based on this: one for Stockholm using a dry cooler with design cooling rate of 30 kW; one for Madrid with a cooling tower with design cooling rate of 34 kW. A number of parametric studies were performed based on these two base cases. These showed that the temperature lift is a limiting factor for cooling for higher ambient temperatures and for charging with fixed temperature source such as district heating. The simulated evacuated tube collector performs only marginally better than a good flat plate collector if considering the gross area, the margin being greater for larger solar fractions. For 30 m2 collector a solar faction of 49% and 67% were achieved for the Stockholm and Madrid base cases respectively. The average annual efficiency of the collector in Stockholm (12%) was much lower than that in Madrid (19%). The thermal COP was simulated to be approximately 0.70, but has not been possible to verify with measured data. The annual electrical COP was shown to be very dependent on the cooling load as a large proportion of electrical use is for components that are permanently on. For the cooling loads studied, the annual electrical COP ranged from 2.2 for a 2000 kWh cooling load to 18.0 for a 21000 kWh cooling load. There is however a potential to reduce the electricity consumption in the machine, which would improve these figures significantly. It was shown that a cooling tower is necessary for the Madrid climate, whereas a dry cooler is sufficient for Stockholm although a cooling tower does improve performance. The simulation study was very shallow and has shown a number of areas that are important to study in more depth. One such area is advanced control strategy, which is necessary to mitigate the weakness of the technology (low temperature lift for cooling) and to optimally use its strength (storage).

Supervision as control system : the design of supervision as a regulatory instrument in the social services sector in Sweden

In this article, the prevailing official view of supervision as a regulatory instrument is examined as it applies to the social services sector in Sweden. The study is based on a comparison of the views expressed on the design of supervision as a regulatory instrument by two government commissions, the Supervision Commission and the Commission on Supervision within the Social Services (UTIS), and on the positions taken by the Government regarding the definitions of the concept of supervision proposed by these commissions. The view of supervision as a regulatory instrument expressed in these policy documents is analysed with the help of a theoretical framework describing the components, their functions and the governance characteristics of control systems. In the framework separate interrelated characteristics of the components are identified and summarized into two models of control systems. The analysis shows that supervision in the Swedish social services sector can be described in terms of both a disciplinary and non-disciplinary system. By its system theoretical basis and the identification of interrelated characteristics the study contributes to a broadened understanding of the construction and functions of supervision as a regulatory instrument and of how supervision within the Swedish social sector is meant to be designed.

A fuzzy rule-based decision support system for Duodopa treatment in Parkinson

A decision support system (DSS) was implemented based on a fuzzy logic inference system (FIS) to provide assistance in dose alteration of Duodopa infusion in patients with advanced Parkinson’s disease, using data from motor state assessments and dosage. Three-tier architecture with an object oriented approach was used. The DSS has a web enabled graphical user interface that presents alerts indicating non optimal dosage and states, new recommendations, namely typical advice with typical dose and statistical measurements. One data set was used for design and tuning of the FIS and another data set was used for evaluating performance compared with actual given dose. Overall goodness-of-fit for the new patients (design data) was 0.65 and for the ongoing patients (evaluation data) 0.98. User evaluation is now ongoing. The system could work as an assistant to clinical staff for Duodopa treatment in advanced Parkinson’s disease.

Demonstration of Solar Heating and Cooling System using Sorption Integrated Solar Thermal Collectors

Producing cost-competitive small and medium-sized solar cooling systems is currently a significant challenge. Due to system complexity, extensive engineering, design and equipment costs; the installation costs of solar thermal cooling systems are prohibitively high. In efforts to overcome these limitations, a novel sorption heat pump module has been developed and directly integrated into a solar thermal collector. The module comprises a fully encapsulated sorption tube containing hygroscopic salt sorbent and water as a refrigerant, sealed under vacuum with no moving parts. A 5.6m2 aperture area outdoor laboratory-scale system of sorption module integrated solar collectors was installed in Stockholm, Sweden and evaluated under constant re-cooling and chilled fluid return temperatures in order to assess collector performance. Measured average solar cooling COP was 0.19 with average cooling powers between 120 and 200 Wm-2 collector aperture area. It was observed that average collector cooling power is constant at daily insolation levels above 3.6 kWhm-2 with the cooling energy produced being proportional to solar insolation. For full evaluation of an integrated sorption collector solar heating and cooling system, under the umbrella of a European Union project for technological innovation, a 180 m2 large-scale demonstration system has been installed in Karlstad, Sweden. Results from the installation commissioned in summer 2014 with non-optimised control strategies showed average electrical COP of 10.6 and average cooling powers between 140 and 250 Wm-2 collector aperture area. Optimisation of control strategies, heat transfer fluid flows through the collectors and electrical COP will be carried out in autumn 2014.