Two field experiments were conducted in central Sweden in order to: 1) Determine a relationship between the number of approaching pine weevils (Hylobius sp.) and the number of attacks by pine weevils, in relation to the size of seedlings of Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris). 2) Determine if application of methyljasmonate (MJ) on seedlings of Scots pine will result in higher resistance towards attacks by pine weevils and/or have any effect on the number of approaching pine weevils. The field experiments were designed with two separate parts in close vicinity on the same clear cuttings: a) pitfall traps placed in patches of scarified soil that caught approaching pine weevils at 2.5 cm from the bait, which consisted of different sized seedlings of Scots pine some of which were subjected to application of MJ and b) the same type of seedlings planted out in patches of scarified soil. The first field experiment was conducted on a 1-year old clear cutting outside Uppsala in east central Sweden and the trapping part of the experiment consisted of 8 blocks with 6 treatments: 1) control, 2) small over-wintered seedling, 3) medium sized seedling, 4) medium sized seedling treated with 0.5 ml 100 mmol MJ 4 days prior to start of experiment, 5) large seedling, 6) vial with 9.5 ml of ?-pinene. The trapping experiment lasted for 6 weeks in the early summer.

The production of cheese is in continuous development with objectives to in-crease productivity, achieve changes in shelf life and functional properties of the products. One concept in the development is to substitute milk fat with vegetable fats and oils in the manufacture of cheese. The objective of this study was to investigate effects on cheese yield and cheese quality of 4 different semi-hard analogue cheese products produced by substituting milk fat with vegetable fat, each analogue cheese with a specific mixture of vegeta-ble fat. As reference a cheese produced with anhydrous milk fat was used. The yield and recovery of fat and protein were determined by recording the weights of each cheese direct after press and after 20±2 days of storage and analysis of the composition of the cheeses after 20±2 days of storage. The cheese was fur-ther subjected for texture profile analysis in a TA-XT Plus Texture Analyser and analysed with Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) to examine whether the fat behaves similar in the cheese as in pure form in respect to its thermal properties. The cheese yield was not significantly different when using different fats. Differ-ent amounts of water were absorbed during the water cooling.

The most suitable method to answer the issues of this study was to do a combined literature- and questionnaire study. The literature part of the study was based on Original Research articles, Review Articles and books with a list of reference literature after each chapter and the purpose was to answer the questions ?What feed items should be given to rabbits in different life stages? and ?Which problems may develop from an inadequate diet?? Two questionnaires were constructed. One was sent by e-mail to small animal veterinary hospitals to be answered anonymously by veterinary nurses. The other was linked to from two internet forums, that with rabbits as their focus.

Today therapy dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) service people more than ever and different categories of work places use therapy dogs to help their caretakers. Many studies have been made on the positive effects in patients when they are given contact with a dog, but very little have been done on how the dog experience its situation and what kind of behaviour a therapy dog shows during its working days. This work was made to investigate the behaviours that educated therapy dogs in Sweden showed when they were in contact with a caretaker and to find out if the dogs showed any signs of stress or some other kind of discomfort. To do this a survey was sent out to 17 educated therapy dog handlers in Sweden that together had 18 educated therapy dogs. The survey contained 39 questions about the daily work of the therapy dogs when they were together with caretakers and some questions about the therapy dogs spare time. A question about what kind of dog breed the therapy dog handlers had were also in the survey to investigate if some breeds were more usual as therapy dogs.

Purpose: To examine how video-game releases affect the share price, and if video-game reviews have any impact on the share price of gaming corporations. Method: A quantitative deductive research approach is applied with event study methodology used as basis. The investigated companies were the five largest gaming companies listed on the U.S. NASDAQ exchange. A total of 29 video-game launches and 85 reviews where examined.  Theory: The study is based on The Efficient Market Hypothesis, Agent Theory, Public Relations Theory, Nextopia and previous research.Results: The result contains 114 observations in five companies.

The purpose with the study was to find a pattern in the behaviour of dairy cows which could be related to their social rank. A behavioural study was conducted at the University Cattle Research Centre (Kungsängen) in Uppsala, Sweden. The study included 12 lactating dairy cows, 6 high ranked and 6 low ranked. The cows were housed in a loose housing barn with an automatic milking system (AMS) to which they had access 24 hours a day. During the experiment the total number of cows in the barn was 46.

The standard housing of farmed mink provides little opportunities for them to behave naturally and abnormal behaviours such as stereotypic behaviour and tail biting may occur. To prevent abnormal behaviours animals in captivity are often provided with different kinds of enrichments. The aim of this study was to investigate what kind of enrichment farmed mink use when they have several kinds to choose from and to observe if abnormal behaviours can be decreased with a larger cage and a more multifaceted environment. Totally 20 silver blue, 10 months old female mink were kept in traditional cages (80x30x40 cm) for 7 days and in larger cages (195x80x40 cm) with several types of enrichments for 7 days. The enrichments were wire net- and wooden shelves, wire net- and plastic cylinders, water bath, plastic ropes, branches, straw and tennis balls. One-zero scan sampling on behaviour and choice of place were performed during 3 hours and 20 minutes prior to feeding during 7 days per treatment in April 2004.

Personalen är företagens viktigaste tillgång är ett vanligt förekommande uttryck och kompetens anses idag utgöra en förutsättning för goda resultat och framgång (Björklund & Holmqvist, 1999; Johansson & Johrén, 2011). Det kan dock vara svårt att konkretisera ökade kunskaper i samband med utbildning, vilket kräver en diskussion angående hur verksamheten och medarbetare påverkas. Få organisationer har idag strukturerade system att spåra och upptäcka det värde och de positiva effekter som en investering i kompetensutveckling kan medföra (Chong et al., 2000). GKN Aerospace Sweden AB arbetar aktivt med ett utbildningsverktyg för kompetensutveckling som benämns "Training Days". Syftet med dessa utbildningsdagar är att med hjälp av interna lärare utbilda personalen för att höja kompetensnivån och för att uppmuntra till kunskapsutbyte.

Developments in milk production are heading towards fewer but larger herds where the milking process is often fully automated. Automatic milking systems were launched in the 1990?s and in the year 2010 the Automatic Milking Rotary (AMR) was introduced. As a rule there are no supervision personnel present during the milking event in systems with automatic milking. This means that there is a risk that cows can be incompletely milked in one or more udder quarters, for example if the robots fail in attaching the milking cups or if the cow kicks off the milking unit.

Due to exploitation of the world?s rivers, the upstream migration of anadromous species is frequently delayed or even prevented. To mitigate these problems and allow fish to migrate past obstacles, structures such as fish ladders have been developed. However, recent studies show that many of the present fish passage facilities are deficient. Monitoring and evaluation of passage facilities is therefore crucial to enable necessary adjustments.

Habituation to an automatic milking system (AMS) for cows in their first lactation differs from habituation to other milking systems. In AMS the cows are supposed to visit the milking station (MS) voluntarily. The milking takes place individually during the whole day, except when the milking system is cleaned. Milking is carried out without any human survey. The aim of the study was to describe the cow?s introduction in AMS in their first lactation.

To produce fine fibre wool as a complement to lamb meat production, Merino and Svea sheep are currently being crossbred in the county of Jämtland. The aim of this study was to evaluate growth and wool quality of the first crossbred lambs. In addition, a literature study about nutritional effects on wool production has been carried out. The literature study showed that fine fibre wool should foremost be achieved through directed breeding. Nutritional requirements of the sheep at different stages of production should determine their feeding.

Product development is a risky business; many products never yield profit, but it is also ne-cessary for a company?s survival in a competitive business where the costumers change their requests constantly. Consumer-led product development is developed from the wish to fill the consumer?s needs and expectations and thereby be more likely to succeed. Lindell?s Gårdsslakteri AB is a local slaughter and meat processor in Västergötland.

Bringing back the nutrients from the city to the country is becoming increasingly important, as the world?s stores of nutrients get more exhausted. Sewage sludge is an unapplied resource, rich in plant nutrients, which could replace parts of the commercial fertilizers used in Sweden today. Sewage sludge may contain large amounts of pathogens, such as Campylobacter and Salmonella, why use can cause severe spreading of infections, both to animals and humans. These pathogens have the ability to survive for a long time in soil and water and therefore some sort of treatment of the sludge is recommended before use.

When establishing a groundwater protection area it is of great interest to be able to estimate the transit time of the groundwater from different places of the aquifer to the withdrawal well. These estimates can be uncertain due to heterogeneities in the aquifer. As a part of the work to develop methods for a more certain delineation of protection areas, a tracer test was performed in an esker located 25 kilometres NW of the town Uppsala.The purpose of this master thesis was to perform, describe and evaluate the tracer test. Travel times from the tracer test should then enable comparison against stochastic simulated travel times of the groundwater in the area.Three dyes (rhodamine WT, uranine and naphtionate) and a salt (NaBr) were used in the tracer test. The tracers were injected in four different wells located 25 meters from a pumping well.