Modern forest owners are very familiar with forest management and forest economics. Therefore they have high demands for quality in forest operations. Guarantee of quality in the shape of self-checking activities is an important tool to guarantee a well managed forestry operation. To meet the forest owners? demands on guarantee of quality and the entrepreneurs wish of an easy method for self-checking, the forest owners association, Södra skogsägarna, has developed a new method for thinning inventory. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the method that is used for self-checking and to find ways to develop and improve of the method. The data has been collected by inventory in a number of stands with circle-area survey and with strip survey, which is method that is used for self-checking. The results show that the strip survey does not diverge more than ±10 % in measuring values of basal area, number of stems, roads share, thinning quotient, outtake of basal area and total volume compared to circle-area survey.

This thesis of 15 hp has been implemented at Halmstad University, in collaboration with Saab Dynamics in Linköping. Saab Dynamics is a company operating in the defence industry where competition is tough. This necessitates new ways to increase efficiency in the company, which is the basis for this thesis. Saab Dynamics wants to introduce simulation driven design. Since Saab Dynamics engineers have little experience of simulation, required a user methodology with clear guidelines.

Today there are many applications of digital terrain models (DTM) and the requirements of low uncertainty increases. Most of the DTM are produced with Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS), terrestrial laser scanning (TLS), airborne laser scanning (ALS) and total stations. Guidelines for the preparation and verification of DTM are found in Swedish Standards Institute ? Technical Specifications (SIS-TS) 21144:2007 and SIS-TS 21145:2007. These were defined in collaboration between Swedish National Rail Administration, Banverket, and Swedish Road Administration, Vägverket, to satisfy the needs of requirement formulations in the production of DTM planning, design and construction. The purpose of this paper is to produce and control DTM over Åkermans kulle, located west of the University of Gävle, according to SIS TS 21144:2007 using GNSS with network-RTK, TLS and ALS.

Generally, the economic health of Swedish roundwood truck transport companies has not been good. Profitability is important for maintaining the stability in the transport business, which is a condition for long-term transport planning in the forestry sector. The scope of this study was to identify probable factors influencing the profitability of roundwood truck transport companies and quantify the influence of these factors on economic results. The study was carried out at a major roundwood truck transport organisation in mid-Sweden and was implemented in four steps. In the first step economic results from the haulage contractors were collected and a random sample was taken from Accounted net margin for the Account year 2005/2006. In the second step hauliers were interviewed to identify probable success factors. At the third step data for identified factors were gathered through a questionnaire.

This study includes several purposes which are to describe the concept of working environment, explain who is responsible for its functioning and how the working environment should look like. Other purposes the study have is to investigate how the working environment is in both Swedish and the two investigated companies construction sites and to share some operators proposing measures for the shortcomings and problems that exist in the construction sector working environment. To achieve these purposes was a qualitative study made with unstructured observations, interviews and survey where three construction sites were observed. The result shows that the concept of the working environment cover many aspects and is essentially about the environment we live in and experience in our work and this environment can be both an indoor as an outdoor environment. In this work, the concept is divided into four areas; it is the physical, the ergonomic, the psychosocial and the chemical.

As emission legislations across the world continuously pushes engine development forward,engineers constantly need to come up with and implement fuel saving technologies. During thelast decade, variable cam phasing has become a popular solution to increase gas exchangeefficiency. This configuration is typically mechanically constrained by camshaft limitations, anda solution to circumvent this problem would be to use a different valve actuation principle.One example of this is to use pressurized air controlled by electrical solenoids. Such a systemhas been developed byCargine Engineering and this provides the starting point for this work. Tobe able to operate the valvetrain on an actual engine, a control system is needed.

This thesis of 15 hp has been implemented at Halmstad University, incollaboration with Saab Dynamics in Linköping. Saab Dynamics is a companyoperating in the defence industry where competition is tough. This necessitatesnew ways to increase efficiency in the company, which is the basis for this thesis.Saab Dynamics wants to introduce simulation driven design. Since SaabDynamics engineers have little experience of simulation, required a usermethodology with clear guidelines. Due to lack of time, they chose to assign thetask to students, which resulted in this thesis.The aim of the thesis is to develop a methodology in mechanical design, wherethe designer uses the FE analysis early in the design process to develop thestructures' mechanical properties.

During the period 2009-2013, investments in the Swedish national grid increase by a factor of ten compared to previous years. In order to fulfil their mission to manage the national grid in a safe, efficient and environmentally sound way, Svenska Kraftnät (Swedish National Grid) needs to take all these perspectives into Account while planning new investments. To compare and relate perspectives of technology, economy and environment the same yard stick must be used. That yard stick is commonly money. A problem arises however as environmental issues are difficult to price.The purpose of this master?s degree project was to develop a tool for evaluation of environmental impact related to investments in the Swedish national grid.

The European Water Framework Directive (WFD; 2000/60/EC) was incorporated into the Swedish legislation in 2004 through the ordinance Förordningen om förvaltningenav kvaliteten på vattenmiljön (SFS 2004:660). The objective is that all water bodies shall reach a good status by the year 2015. In Sweden the comprehensive plans of the municipalities can play a large role in reaching these goals. A comprehensive plan deals with the long term water and land use of the municipality, which can facilitate an early consideration of water management in the planning process of the municipality. In Sweden five river basin districts have been established in accordance with the Water Framework Directive.

The research group Soil and Water Management at the department of Soil and Environment at theSwedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Uppsala are studying greenhouse gas emissions fromcultivated peat soils. To measure carbon dioxide emissions from peat soils in the field the researchgroup are now using two portable carbon dioxide meters (Vaisala GMP343). For practical reasons,they plan to acquire a new type of automated field meter. The aim of this study is to evaluate thepresent meters to see how environmental conditions and instrument settings affect the results,which is meant to facilitate the introduction of the new field meter when the meters needs to becompared. As a part of the study the relationship between groundwater level and carbon dioxideemissions from peat soils will be investigated.The evaluation of the two carbon dioxide meters was made by connecting them to one single airtightsystem, with the aim of creating identical measurement environments.

In order to optimize calf welfare and health it is important to know the behavior of cattle in free ranging conditions. When the cow is about to give birth to a calf she will leave the heard about 12 hours before. It is then rather obvious that isolating the cow about calving time in a single pen is imitating the cows? natural behavior. To save space and minimize building cost it?s common that the farmers build calving pens for four of five cows especially at larger farms.

The fallout from the Chernobyl nuclear accident resulted in large deposits of caesium, iodineand strontium as well as noble gases in various parts of Sweden. 137Cs has a radioactive halflifeof about 30 years and is therefore one of few radio-fission products remaining inmeasurable quantities in the Swedish soil. Radiocaesium behaves similarly to potassium insoil-plant systems and is easily absorbed by plants. It is important to understand how 137Csbehaves in different ecosystems in order to minimize the risk toward humans.The aim of this study was to determine how potassium fertilization influences radiocaesiumcontent in different forest plants and fungi. Potassium fertilizer was spread once in 1992 withapproximately 200 kg KCl per ha.

AbstractPurpose ? The purpose of this study is to examine the challenges that exist within thematerial handling process, to and from a department for service and maintenance at a hospital, and how the challenges can be managed to achieve a more efficient material handling process. In order to fulfill the purpose the following two questions where formulated:1. What challenges exist within the material handling process, to and from adepartment for service and maintenance at a hospital?2.

There are about 3 500 churches protected under the Heritage Conservation Act in Sweden today. These churches still belong to living congregations that want to be able to adapt them to the needs of today, just like people have done throughout history. But since the churches are protected, the congregations have to apply for a permit and that is not always given. This can lead to frustration, and you can sometimes hear representatives of the church express the view that antiquarian authorities are enemies that oppose the church. On the other hand we have the antiquarian authorities that, in a way, have to act as advocates for generations to come and make sure that there is a cultural heritage preserved for them when they grow up.

Background: Since the early 60?s, the CAPM or Capital Asset Pricing Model, has been an invaluable tool for assessing an asset's expected return, assuming that the asset is added to an already well-diversified portfolio of assets. CAPM theory assume that the unsystematic risk can be diversified and that the systematic, market-specific, risk is determined by the Beta value, from the Greek ?. An investor who takes big risks expect higher returns.One of the CAPM?s basic assumptions is that disruption in the market is not taken into Account.