Abstract In order to make the modern agriculture less dependent on non-renewable external inputs, it has to rely more on ecosystem services. The agricultural system produce not only food, fiber and fuel, it also generates other ecosystem services such as e.g. photosynthesis, recycling of nutrients, influencing local microclimate, pollination, biological control and detoxification of noxious chemicals. This study is an attempt to get a better understanding about the interaction among different ecosystem services and different habitats capacity to generate them. An evaluation of eight different methods is done. The ecosystem services studied are the ability to absorb solar energy, biomass production, botanical diversity, decomposition and natural predation of aphids.

Approximately ten people die every year at building sites in Sweden. Every year TheWork Environment Authority (Arbetsmiljöverket) receives 3200 accident reportsfrom the construction sector. The Swedish building contractor Skanska has the vision:?Zero accidents?. Only at Skanska Sweden, where this diploma work is preformed,350-520 accidents and mishaps are reported every year for the last 5 years.

The last decades the populations of wild boar (Sus scrofa) has increased rapidly over the species? entire European range, including Sweden. This is followed by increasing human-wildlife conflicts as a result of the wild boar foraging behavior, causing damage to agricultural crop fields due to trampling and feeding. To be able to minimize damage we need more knowledge of where in the fields the risk of damage is high and what features in the landscape that affect this risk. I analyzed damage distribution in relation to the distance to six different landscape features; forest, road, ditch, building, game field and bait station, in the study area, the Island Mörkö in eastern central Sweden.

Increased trade and eased policy restrictions have brought markets closer together. Prices at different locations are much likely to affect each other to a certain extent. Since the adaption of Common Agricultural Policy in 1995 the Swedish wheat market has been exposed to the world market and Swedish farmers are facing new challenges. A broader knowledge about market integration and price transmission will facilitate Swedish farmers, banks and politicians in making rational decisions. Therefore the aim of this research is to explain how global wheat prices are transmitted on Swedish wheat prices.

Every day we make numerous decisions. Some are better than others. Intuitive decisions usually results in less good decisions when we do not reason about our choices. Research has been interested about the process that is behind how we make good decisions. Decisions we face every day, such as when we shop, determined using various mental shortcuts that we use unconsciously.

Threats and violence, or the risk of being subjected to threats and violence in the workplace, is a major health and safety problems that exists in many professions. To be exposed to threats and violence can have serious consequences for the employee's health but also for the organization in question. The aims of this study was to investigate the prevalence of threats and violence at the Swedish Migration Board detention, and to examine whether there were health problems among employees who may be exposed to threats and violence. A web-based questionnaire was answered by 29 employees (response rate = 51 percent). The results showed that more employees had been exposed to verbal threats (66 percent), compared to physical violence (10 percent), and they showed a greater tendency to report physical violence, as opposed to verbal threats.

The purpose of this thesis is, from a self directed learning perspective, to investigate the support of public libraries and genealogy associations of genealogists' own research, i.e. their search for ancestors as well as their possibilities to broaden their history outlook. Accordingly, five public librarians and five genealogy representatives in the west of Sweden have been interviewed regarding the support that can be offered to genealogists. The investigated support to genealogists in their own research is about working environment, literature and material, activities and the cooperation between public libraries and genealogy associations. In this thesis conclusions are merely drawn from a self-directed learning perspective, a perspective where also different forms of support are being recommended by scientists.

Calcareous fens constitute a specific habitat which is uncommon in Europe and protected by the EU habitat directive due to its importance to several threatened species. Hagebyhöga in Östergötland is a calcareous fen habitat included in the Natura 2000 Networking Programme. Adjacent to the existing fen, a degraded fen area is situated. The area has been used for agriculture for several years but is now going to be restored to its former state by the county administrative board of Östergötland.When working with restoration of degraded fen areas it is important to aquire knowledge about the chemical soil conditions. Plant growth limited by phosphorus and low fertility are characteristic conditions for calcareous fens, whilst arable land usually is highly fertile and limited by nitrogen.The purpose of this study is to bring forth useful knowledge for restoring the degraded calcareous fen of Hagebyhöga.

In Halland, agriculture is the major source of eutrophication of water. In the study, synoptic sampling were performed in the three watercourses Nyrebäcken, Skintan and Vinån all located in the county of Halland. Sampling occurred during the period February to May on three occasions with different flow rates: high, low and base flow. Samples were taken in the mainstream and tributaries with intention to show how big the impact of eutrophication it is in the water and  to assess the impact of the tributariesThe results show that all watercourses are affected by eutrophication. Nyrebäcken has the highest concentrations of nitrogen and phosphorus in the mainstream, then Skintan and last Vinån.

Wavecraft AB develops medical equipment for heating of organic synthesises. The heating is done with microwaves, which improves the process in both speed and accuracy compared to the more traditional methods where heating elements are used. This report discusses the developement of an automatic lid mechanism for one of Wavecraft's product prototypes. The company assumes that the final product will be integrated by customers into fully automated systems, and the upgrade from a manually to an automatically controlled lid is therefore an important step in the product's developement process.The first stage och the project was an idea generation process. The ideas generated here were organized into five different concepts of which the best one was selected through the use of a concept matrix.

There is little doubt that the digital technology has played a major role in reshaping the ways in which we experience the world. In a few decades the Internet has become a vast repository for knowledge and ideas. New arenas where people may meet and fraternize have emerged, and with the help of various digital tools and websites, the production of new material has increased to an almost unfathomable level.But all is not well on the digital front. As the Internet has become a crucial part of our everyday life, certain skills in handling digital media has become very important to master. A well-developed ability to navigate through this ocean of information is needed, and knowledge in managing the risky nature of the internet is critical.

The purpose of this essay is to describe the organization of the Swedish Animal WelfareAgency during the time it was in operation. The Swedish Animal Welfare Agency was established in 2005 by the government who saw it as necessary in order to strengthen the protection of cruelty to animals in Sweden. However, the agency was shut down already in2007 and its responsibilities as an agency was moved back to the government and the department of agriculture. During its time in operation, the Swedish Animal Welfare Agency, received much criticism, among other things because of its interpretations of the law which were seen as too focused on details and thus ?bureaucratic?.

 AbstractThis study is performed by studying seven livestock businesses in the agricultural sector. The focus of the essay has been put on the structures that limit and enable the lives of the farmers in this study. One of these major structures that affect everyday life is the gender structure and to this day the housewife role exists where the women are responsible for the home, family and domestic pets while the men are responsible for the production, machinery and the heavier tasks on the farm. This is grounded in the history and the development that agriculture has gone through, but also in the strong patriarchal power structure that exists in this industry. In this essay I also show how the life form analysis of Liselotte Jakobsen and the independent life form can not be fully applied to the farmer as he is not completely independent in his work.

Biogas is an expanding sector within the broad field of agriculture and animal production. Small-scale biogas offers local combined power and heating production and the substrate is transformed into high-quality biological fertilizer. This bachelor thesis focuses on a pig farm in south-western Sweden, where biogas is produced from pig manure, evaluates and suggests ways of optimizing the process and investigates whether investing in an upgrading plant would be a feasible and more cost-efficient option. The results show that the biogas plant is working well, although the production differs from the original plans. This shows in turn that planning and examining the basic conditions before making the investment is of great importance, as well as monitoring and keeping detailed statistics of the running process.

Sweden?s forestry legislation was updated in 2010 and a new definition of forest land was introduced. This definition was adapted to the one used by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) for international statistics on the state of the world's forests. It is in short based on the lands ability to grow forest that reaches 5 meters, 10 % canopy closure and has a continuous distribution, according to FAO at least 0.5 hectares. A country-wide laser scanning is now carried out for the production of a new national elevation model; the laser data also provides information on forest height and density.