Transformation of inorganic mercury (Hg) to methyl mercury (MeHg) is a biotic process that is proposed to be conducted primarily by sulphate reducing bacteria (SRB). The formation of MeHg is of great interest because it is the mercury species that biomagnifies to the greatest extent in the aquatic food webs; about 90 % of all Hg in fish is MeHg. Our understanding of factors involved in the production of MeHg is very important for making a reliable risk assessment. The purposes of this study were to investigate the different factors that control the solubility of Hg and the production of MeHg in a contaminated lake sediment. The lake Ala-Lombolo, Kiruna municipality, is well-known to be contaminated by mercury from different sources. Sediment cores were sampled at three different locations (N, SW and SE) in the lake and divided in three different layers; 0-5, 5-10 and 10-15 cm.

The ongoing change that characterizes the landscape as a result of the development of the society as a wholeis the basis for this thesis. Even though the Scanian landscape still is dominated by arable land, other valuessuch as biological diversity, cultural heritage and economical aspects, has all been ascribed the landscape asmore and more important factors and in some respects, compete with the farming industry about the right tothe landscape. Our demand of more and more space, will of course also affect the landscape. Huge amountof land are used to build external malls and single-family houses, which gives rise to an increasing need foran extended transport system that also is land consuming.It all comes down to: how the municipalities deal with non built areas - the green structure. Do themunicipalities have separate programs describing their vision and objectives concerning the green structure?Literature studies, an inventory made of the municipality programs in the west and south west of Scaniaand interviews with employees at the municipalities clarifies the use of the green structure concept, both intheory and in practice.The green structure concept seems to be derived from the environmental debate.

During the last decades, brand equity has been a priority topic for both practitioners and academics. In accordance with the structural changes in the economic settings caused by the so-called "new economy", corporations being confronted with a shift on perceived business value structure from tangible assets to intangibles. On the other hand firms increasingly are adopting more responsible behaviour towards their societies. In this context, one critical question is to understand how corporate conduct may affect brand equity. The purpose of this study was to find how brand equity (BE) measurement methods embrace corporate responsibility (CR), based on a literature review.

This work has been made in cooperation with the municipality of Eslöv and the inventory area is a part of the deepening of the municipality plan of east Eslöv. The aim of the work is to test the principle of balance in the overall planning. Later in the detailed planning process a more detailed calculation is made and a suggestion of suitable measures for compensation is made. Then the method with green area factors can be used. The goal is to balance the negative influence on the environment from the planned impacts to gain a sustainable development of the city. The principle of balance means that the one responsible for the development also has to compensate for the negative impacts on nature and landscape that comes with the development.

The increased interest in relationship marketing and the potential of the Internet as a platform for relationship building activities have given rise to new ways for companies to interact with their customers, such as services based on a freemium pricing model. Based on the premise that relationships are processes consisting of interactive moments of value-creating activities, value is considered subjective, relative and dependent on the context in which the activity takes place. Value is therefore variable given its context and cannot be pre-defined without nuances being lost. Despite the Internet's given role in societal development, our understanding of what contributes to customers' intentions to build relationships with online services is yet to mature.As the music industry is well established on the Internet, alongside the change in how music is consumed, it is thus appropriate to examine activities in accordance with a freemium based service that distributes music online, since it still lacks in academic understanding.This study aims to provide insights about virtual relations and how online services that provide cultural content should relate to there users as well as contributing to the ongoing academic discussion regarding value and how it is manifested by highlighting contextual impact on relational activities. For a rapprochement of relations to online services in cultural industries, this study assumed a practice perspective.

Hälsofrämjande arbete är ett perspektiv som växt sig starkare under de senaste åren. I störreorganisationer med interna företagshälsor är det HR och förstnämnda som utgörexpertresurser för att arbeta med hälsofrämjande insatser. Studien har sin utgångspunkt i att vifick möjligheten att studera hur två olika professioner samarbetar över sinaverksamhetsgränser och uppfattar ett hälsofrämjande arbete i en organisation med 50 000medarbetare.Syftet med uppsatsen är att undersöka samarbetet mellan HR och Hälsan &Arbetslivet inom Västra Götalandsregionen samt vilka uppfattningar som finns kring etthälsofrämjande arbete.Den kunskapsöversikt som tidigare forskning ger inom området berör HR:sförändrade roll i organisationer genom konceptet HR-transformation. Vidare lyfter avsnittetfram företagshälsovårdens pågående resa som under de senaste årtiondena har skaffat sig ettvidare helhetstänk och inkluderar fler yrkesgrupper än tidigare. Kapitlet avslutas med enframställning av det hälsofrämjande arbetet, dess ursprung och utbredning samt vilka centralaaktörer som omfattas av perspektivet.

Running water-pathways have played an important roll in Sweden and frequently been manipulated. One profound change was made during the period of logging when streams were cleared from obstacles as big boulders, sharp bends and side-streams. Dams and different constructions gave control of the stream water and the streams became channel-like with a homogen structure. This interference gave problems for many fish populations and resulted in a shortage of feeding habitat, over-wintering habitat, spawning habitat, unnatural flow regimes, sedimentation, unnatural temperature fluctuations. Many of these historical changes of the watersheds are now subjects for restoration, ie., bring back the streams to what we believed it was before the change. However, what once existed in terms of complexity is now gone and difficult toreplace.

Denna rapport ingår i ett examensarbete på avancerad nivå inom ämnet produktutveckling.Arbetet innefattar en fallstudie som genomförts vid RTGA, Scania CV AB i Södertälje.Examensarbetet omfattar 30 högskolepoäng och har genomförts av undertecknad,teknologstudent från Mälardalens Högskola vårterminen 2015. Rapporten har upprättats i tvåversioner, en för Scania CV AB respektive en generell version där känslig företagsspecifikinformation har censurerats.I takt med att utvecklingen av motorprestanda fortskrider, med avseende på ökademotoreffekter samt teknikutveckling för emissionsreglering, så ökar också kravet på prestandaför kylsystem som måste klara av att kyla bort högre effekter. Fordonskombinationer medkraftfulla laddluftkylare löper dock stor risk att drabbas av utfälld kondens som fryser till is iladdluftkylaren vid låga omgivningstemperaturer. Isen medför ett tryckfall i laddluftkylarenmed prestandabortfall som följd. Scanias lösning till problematiken är en så kallad kylargardinsom syftar till att reducera kylluftflödet genom laddluftkylaren till den mån att isbildning intesker.

The housing sector of today represents for almost 40% of the energy consumption, an energy consumption of which the major part consists of non-renewable energy sources. This is not sustainable and utilization of new energy-efficient technologies in buildings can be a step in the right direction, towards a sustainable energy society.This report has been made on behalf of and in cooperation with Älvstranden Utveckling AB in Gothenburg to examine how future energy-efficient technologies can affect the energy demand in energy-efficient multi-dwelling buildings.The report is based on Älvstrandens passive house, Hamnhuset, a house whose energy consumption is far below the BBR's requirements. The report looks at the opportunities for improvement within windows, insulation, solar energy technologies, as well as white goods. Computer simulations are then made to apply the selected technologies into a reference building. Technologies are selected from an energy efficient perspective and no account has been taken of other aspects such as the economy.

The purpose of this master thesis is to investigate the influencing factors on the businesspotential of products with health claims, using PrimaLiv as an example. And togive recommendations on how a dairy producer, which is present in the Swedishmarket, could improve the sales rates of products with health claims. We have chosento put a main focus on the consumer, as he or she determines the business potential.This is an unusual approach since most studies cover the producer?s perspective. Wethereby wish to contribute with new knowledge on the area in question.

How the renovation of the vast Swedish existing building stock with renovation needs will be performed is considered as decisive in order to achieve the target set by the Swedish government of reducing the energy use by 20 percent by 2020. Consequently, the challenge of the building sector consists in reducing the energy use in the existing building stock but at the same time ensuring that the indoor environmental quality is improved and the cultural values are maintained.So far, there have been a few renovation projects which strongly have reduced the energy use and at the same time have taken into account the environmental aspects and the cultural values. The main reasons are that there have been few incentives and a lack of routines in order to steer efficiently a ?sustainable renovation?.The participants in a Nordic project on sustainable renovation thought that it would be a strong advantage to link the concept of sustainable renovation to the Miljöbyggnad certification system. Indeed it is trusted by the Swedish building and construction sectors and can provide sustainability targets in order to steer renovation processes.The objective of the master thesis is to show how the Miljöbyggnad certification system could be integrated in practice in the renovation process of Riksbyggen, an organization which administers housing associations (Bostadsrättsföreningar) and build houses.

Since the early 1940s in Sweden, subsidies have been a recurring feature in housing politics.Throughout history, these have been used as a management measure to control theconstruction of housing and to promote the Swedish welfare state. The political parties aretoday disagreeing on how much responsibility the state should carry for citizens housing. Tosolve the conflict, the dwelling has to be defined. Is the dwelling to be considered a socialright, like education and healthcare or is the dwelling to be considered a product for the freemarket, driven by supply and demand?The positive population growth in Stockholm has lead to an increased demand for dwellings.The supply of dwellings has not been growing at the same rate, which has implied higherhousing prices and longer wait for rented apartments.

The building sector accounted for around a fourth of the total energy usage in Sweden in year 2010 (Energimyndigheten, 2012). Therefore it has become very interesting to achieve a lower energy usage in residential buildings. One way to achieve that is to build so called passive houses. By being very well insulated and have low leakage through the walls, they can reduce the energy usage for heating with a substantial amount. The first passive house was built during the 90?s in Germany; and in Sweden the first passive house was built in Gothenburg 2001.

This study is a value chain analysis for timber in East Africa. It was commissioned by Vi Agroforestry, a nongovernmental organisation registered in Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda and Tanzania engaged in a rural development program that involves promoting tree planting and enterprise development (Vi Agroforestry, 2012). The purpose of the study was to identify and describe common value chains for timber in the countries where Vi Agroforestry operated. Value chain is a concept and a framework describing how to structure information regarding activities included in satisfying a certain customer need, e.g. procurement, logistics, transactions, production and marketing.

Due to an increasing global market with a growing competition and an escalating technologydevelopment the demands on companies today are increasing. To maximise the output fromtheir recourses they need to be more efficient. The research on product development and how toensure the efficiencies in the process are extensive and companies could by adapting andimplementing the result of this research use its benefits.This master thesis is made for Knightec AB with the aims that through interviews anddiscussions with three companies investigate, collate, justify and give proposals for productdevelopment process together with supporting methods and procedures for technical projectmanagement. Besides Knightec AB three other companies located in Sweden has beenparticipating in this study. Through semi structured interviews and discussions in focus groupsinformation from the three involved companies were obtained.