Our common future involves many important challenges. People and nature need to improve the relationship in order to reach an ecologically sustainable development. In a society where consumption of products steadily increases, the consumer awareness about social and environmental issues connected to the products becomes an importent factor. More and more companies choose to work more actively with these issues and more and more products get labelled by some of the eco labelling organisations. From the cradle to the gate means that a study has been done on a part of a products life cycle.

The study focuses on the use of poetry in language teaching in the lower grades in the Swedish school. Poetry has a reputation of being an art form with such specific rules and structures that children and teachers think that it is something that they do not have the ability to work with.  The purpose of this study is to get an understanding of how poetry is used in educating children. My research is based on the following questions. To which extent is poetry being used in schools and how is it being used?Can you as a teacher see any effects on childrens language development by using poetry?As a part of my study I have met with and interviewed four different people, who in one way or another is involved in teaching children. Two working teachers in the lower grades, one pedagogical resource and one artist that work with teachers in reaching different goals through the help of aesthetic processes.

Swedish beef production has during the past year decreased while the consumption has increased. It´s imported beef that takes market shares. The purpose with this degreeproject is to investigate if the restaurants in Sweden are using imported or Swedish beef and the reason for their choice. The purpose is to find out if there is something the Swedish beef producers can change to increase Swedish beef in restaurants. My expectation is that the demand for Swedish beef will increase in restaurant and later even among consumers. I have interviewed ten chiefs in different restaurants and asked them the following questions: Is it the price, quality or something else that influences your choise? Does it matter to their customers if they serve Swedish or imported beef? How is the marketing of Swedish beef? It appeared both Swedish and imported beef on the restaurants.

Textilindustrin står inför stora utmaningar när det kommer till forskning, utveckling ochproduktion på ett miljöanpassat och socialt ansvarsfullt sätt. Ökat miljömedvetetande hoskonsumenten har lett till ökat intresse och möjlighet för företaget att arbeta mot ett hållbartföretagande.Examensarbetet är skrivet som en del av kandidatexamen i textilingenjörsprogrammet föruppdragsföretaget BlåKläder AB och utfördes för att även kunna fungera som ett underlag förandra företag i avsikt med att påbörja/utveckla sitt arbete med socialt ansvarstagande.I arbetet presenteras miljöpåverkan av en arbetsbyxa i bomull från råväv till distribuering.Fyra miljöbelastande kategorier har tagits med i undersökningen, där mängden av kemikalie,vatten- och energiåtgång samt koldioxidutsläpp räknades ut per arbetsbyxa av minimumorder. Sammanställning av resultat visar att det används 2,5 kg kemikalier, 10,3 liter vatten,756 Wh energi och det släpps ut 0,4 kg kodoxid vid tillverkning av en arbetsbyxa.Rapporten behandlar och beskriver produktion av en rå bomullsväv medflamskyddsbehandling. Processflödet för hela behandlingsförloppet analyseras i arbetet därbåde kemikalier, energi- och vattenåtgång tas upp vid varje delprocess. Koldioxidutsläppanalyseras som en särskild del av rapporten och omfattar de direkta utsläppen av tung lastbiloch fraktfärja.

Through a quantitative examination, 26 pedagogies in the pre-school activity answered a few questions in an enquiry about outdoor education. The purpose with this examination was to find out what pedagogies think and apprehend about outdoor education, and also if the "education plan" is in their minds during outdoor activities and if they see them self´s as competent in nature studies. They have also answered questions whether they think that they have good outdoor environment that stimulates children´s development and learning and if there´s any forest that they visit on regular basis.The pedagogies think that during time spent outdoor, it´s the motor skills that are best developed. All of the pedagogies mentioned above think that they need to get more educated in nature studies and also that pedagogies attitude towards time spent outdoors affect the children. They do not think about the goals and intentions of the "educations plan" all the time.

Construction waste from the housing industry includes all unnecessary consumption of building materials. The definition of construction waste is construction materials that has not been built in and becomes waste. Constructions waste can be divided into two types of contributions: operational and work site contribution. Some of the common construction materials in housing industry have such low usage level as 75 % and the rest becomes construction waste. Low usage of construction materials creates unnecessary costs and has a major environmental impact.

Problem: What attitudes do young adults have towards Functional food?Is there any relation between these attitudes and young adults behaviour towards Functional Food?Purpose: The purpose of our thesis is to understand young adults attitudes towards Functional Food and also examine the relation between these attitudes and their behaviour towards Functional Food. Method: The authors of this thesis have used a qualitative method for data collection, focus group interviews.  There were two focus groups interviews performed on high-school students at Alléskolan in Hallsberg. The interview questions and the analysis of the primary data have been based on the frame of reference. Conclusion: Our investigation shows similar results as previous studies about consumers attitudes towards Functional Food. Our respondents had mixed attitudes towards Functional Food.

This study is done on behalf of Södra skogsägarna in the autumn of 2012. The main purpose of the study is to get an explanation to why some of the members are passive in their forestry, and how Södra can stimulate them to become more active. To achieve this a questionnaire study was conducted on the members of Södra in the community of Gislaved. The result of the study shows that there are many different factors that influence whether the forest owner is active or not. Examples of those factors are timber prices, the forest owner's objectives and the forest owner's financial situation. The main goal for the forest owners in the survey was to obtain high economic result and to increase the standing timber volume for the next generation.

Avsikten med studien var att utreda viken inställning musiklärare har till betyg, utifrån de bakomliggande syften som brukar lyftas fram för att motivera betyg och att belysa hur lärare ser på sina möjligheter att värdera elevernas prestationer och sätta rättvisande betyg. Fyra musiklärare intervjuades och intervjuerna transkriberades. I resultatdelen redogjordes för det relevanta innehållet i intervjuerna och i diskussionen jämfördes slutsatserna med den forskning som redogjorts för i bakgrunden. Uppsatsens huvudresultat är att lärare i musik inte är i grunden negativa till betyg och att de har en god uppfattning om betygens syfte. De anser också att det finns goda möjligheter att utforma och individualisera undervisningen, även om resurser sätter hinder i vägen.

The subject of this study is factors that contribute to immigrants wellbeing in their new country. Our purpose was to describe and examine different factors that according to eight immigrants have contributed to their wellbeing in Sweden. Our main question was: Which factors have, according to our respondents, contributed to their wellbeing in Sweden.To achieve this, we have conducted qualitative interviews with eight different individuals. We also collected current documents and research related to the subject matter. We chose three different theoretical perspectives: Antonovsky´s Sense of coherence, Maslow´s Hierarchy of needs and Mischel´s CAPS-theory (cognitive-affective personality system) as models for the explanation of our analysis.The result of our survey was that we could detach six different categories which the respondents expressed had contributed to their wellbeing.

This project was conducted on behalf of the organization SABO (Swedish Association of Public Housing Companies). The aim of this project was to investigate which relevant environmental aspects and indicators there are for housing companies to present in their sustainability report. The project consists of three main goals: to decide if there is a need for common guidelines when conducting a sustainability report, determine appropriate environmental indicators and to create a simple model of how the companies can present them. This was done by a literature study, analysis of 13 sustainability reports and interviews with seven housing companies. The result of the project suggests that there is a need for common guidelines to, among other things, make it easier to make a comparison with other companies.

The purpous of this master?s thesis is to explore how the swedish public library evolved between 1890-1911, before the state implemented the library reform in 1912. The material used to cunduct the study concists mainly of texts published during the time frame of the thesis in the form of books, booklets and articles from Folkbiblioteksbladet, a journal dedicated to the subject of the swedish public library.Drawing upon Habermas theory of the structural transformation of the public sphere and Bourdieus theories about taste as social distinction and symbolic capital, the thesis seeks to show how the public participated in the evolvement of the public library and which aspects of society that contributed to the public library?s establishment as an institution. The findings are also discussed in relation to previous research of the history of the Swedish public library.

The purpose of this investigation is mainly to study if pupils have enough knowledge concerning the water cycle and the life of the plants?, and what kinds of household word they have, to discuss pollution within these areas. I also studied how the pupils? knowledge are holding up against what the course-plans says, since it have come to light by other investigations that knowledge are insufficient within the nature-oriented (No) subject in school.The survey has carried out on 28 pupils in a 5th grade, with help of a questionnaire survey. Their teacher has been interviewed and I have studied their local course-plans and also the pupils? schoolbooks in No.The result of the questionnaire survey indicates that the pupils had insufficient knowledge within the areas of plants? life and pollution, something their teacher had a presentiment about.The conclusion is that they need to go out more often in the nature and see how the plants and the environment are affected by different factors.

The objective of this work was to introduce measures to reduce energy and water demand at Gävle Söder 17:10. To succeed, this energy audit has been made. The work is based on collected statistics from the property owner Norrporten, measurements, literature review and through consultation with experts in the field. Two models, one for each building, have been created in the simulation program BV2 to estimate the potential of energy measures based on the collected information. The models in BV2 have been verified against the statistics of the energy consumption.With the help of calculations and simulations, seven cost-effective measures have been identified.

We are working on the development and design of an approach to agents that can reason, react to the environment and are able to update their own knowledge as a result of new incoming information. In the resulting framework, rational, reactive agents can dynamically change their own knowledge bases as well as their own goals. An agent can make observations, learn new facts and new rules from the environment, and then update its knowledge accordingly. The knowledge base of an agent and its updating mechanism has been implemented in Logic Programming. The agent?s framework is implemented in Java.