The need of raw material does of course fluctuate but the long term view is an increasing demand due to the growing consumption of sawn timber products, pulp, paper and lately also biomass. This has led to a keener competition for wood. At the same time there is an ongoing structural change of a significant part in the Swedish wood supply market, the private forest owners. In 1992, 22 % of Sweden´s 335 000 private forest owner lived apart from their forest. In 2007 this figure had risen to 36 %.

During the twenty-first century the price of forest land in Sweden has increased heavily. Buying forest land has become more common and the stakeholders have grown in number. The countries around Sweden have through the globalization become connected in the market of round wood and wood products. The price of forest land and round wood are also close connected. The goal with this report is to make a comparison of forest land prices between Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Estonia and Latvia and to see how the prices have developed in the period 2000-2011. The prime factor in the comparison, except the direct price difference between the countries, is the round wood prices. The round wood prices give information about the economic situation in the countries and play an important role in the return on the forest land. The prices of forest land shifts heavily between the countries.

Fuel pellets are a refined bio fuel mostly consisting of residues from sawmills and wood industry. At Rindi Västerdala AB's combined bio energy plant in Vansbro fuel pellets are produced, while the waste heat from the process is used for district heating. The pellets are produced from sawdust, wood shavings and dry wood chips that is dried, milled and pressed into small cylindrical rods. The advantage of refining the wood material in this manner is that the energy value is greater per unit volume and unit weight, thereby the cost of transportation per energy unit is reduced. Also, less storage space is needed.Pellet manufacturing is a complex process since many parameters affects the final results.

In inhalation anesthesia life-support systems are used to provide gases to the patient and to monitor important parameters. These systems are used in dynamic and stressful situations where the information-load on the operators often is significant. This thesis presents a design concept of an anesthetic system. The design goal has been to keep the information-load on the operator low with the objective to minimize confusion and error.A number of contextual inquiries were made in the operating room during surgery at four hospitals in Sweden. The goal was to understand the actual use-situations when anesthetic systems are employed.

The main purpose of this M. Sc. thesis is to increase the knowledge about managing urban forestry for recreational use. The analysis is focusing on differences between visitors? experiences in the north and south of Sweden, represented by Nydalasjön and by Härlanda tjärn.

Landscape architects has many ways of transforming our cities and landscapes. Traditionally, most attention has been put to visual qualities. Pen and paper are well established as the way to present proposals and to analyse in the landscape architects profession and training. But are we perhaps missing out on other ways of seeing the landscape? The purpose of this paper is to present sound as a tool of transformation. Sound in public spaces has long been treated just as noise and therefore unwanted.

Storage of biomass is often associated with problems such as heat development, dry matter losses and reduction of fuel quality. The rise in temperature can potentially cause a risk of self-ignition in the fuel storage. Moreover, emissions from storage piles can cause health problems in the surrounding. The dry matter losses and reduction of fuel quality can have economical effects. The aim of this thesis project is to develop guidelines on how to store large amount of biomass at Vattenfalls heat and power plants in an optimal way.

Low stumps represent on their own up to 80% of the dead wood remaining on clear cuts and therefore supply suitable habitat for saproxylic insects i.e. insects depending on dead wood for their survival. Recent stump harvesting activities threaten this substrate of ecological importance and increase the anthropogenic negative impacts on these species. Because of technical and environmental reasons (nutrient leakage, erosion) guidelines for stump harvesting recommend to retain stumps standing in wet parts of clear cuts. However, stumps in wet positions might not be a satisfactory substrate for saproxylic insects and therefore might not be as much used as stumps in dry positions.

Old hollow trees of oak contain a large amount of wood mould. Unfortunately, these trees have in the last century been greatly reduced in numbers. It has resulted in that species that depend on these habitats, saproxylic species, have become at risk to decrease in numbers or die out regionally. Previous studies have shown that the volume of wood mould is an important factor for occurrence and population size of saproxylic organisms. The aim of the present study was to examine how the volume of wood mould varies among ash (Fraxinus excelsior), lime (Tilia sp.), maple (Acer platanoides), aspen (Populus tremula) and oak (Quercus robur).

Old hollow trees of oak contain a large amount of wood mould. Unfortunately, these trees have in the last century been greatly reduced in numbers. It has resulted in that species that depend on these habitats, saproxylic species, have become at risk to decrease in numbers or die out regionally. Previous studies have shown that the volume of wood mould is an important factor for occurrence and population size of saproxylic organisms. The aim of the present study was to examine how the volume of wood mould varies among ash (Fraxinus excelsior), lime (Tilia sp.), maple (Acer platanoides), aspen (Populus tremula) and oak (Quercus robur).

This report is a bachelor's thesis of two students from the Energy and Environment degree at KTH Stockholm. Grinda is an island situated Stockholm archipelago. Skärgårdsstiftelsen is landowners and manages the area. Grinda Wärdshus, a guest house located in the island, currently uses an oil-fired boiler as a heating system. The aim of this thesis is to investigate whether wood chips or pellets is, from a sustainability standpoint, a suitable heating method for the guest house.

SCA has today almost 300 000 hectares of their forest land planted with lodgepole pine(Pinus contorta var. latifolia). Due to initial extensive planting in the 1970ies the area oflodgepole pine forests in the thinning age has grown rapidly from the end of the 1990ies.During the years 1996-2005 first commercial thinning of lodgepole pine at SCA took place.The goal of the hereby presented study was to investigate the growth and stability in thosefirstly-thinned lodgepole pine stands a few years after thinning. Furthermore, the objectivewas to investigate the relationship between stand stability and different stand parameters.Additionally, lodgepole pine stem quality was estimated.The study is mainly based on the data collected during an inventory project carried out atSCA in 2008. Altogether 91 lodgepole pine stands in northern Sweden were measured afterthe first thinning.

With a new digital world that runs parallel with our physical one, we are also facing a new type of architecture and new materials that this new architecture is built on. In this thesis I examine pixels and vectors, two of the digital materials used to create pictures. By approaching them as digital materials, I have mapped their different qualities, when and where one or the other is more or less applicable and the reason behind it. My main research question asked was the following: Are the (digital) materials challenged outside their primary fields of application, and in that case, in which way? With this question in mind, I carried out a semiotic picture analysis on four pictures, later on dividing them into four different categories, based on their different qualities and their ability to deliver information.

Wood has always been an important material for people, and it is used for many applications. As for example, fuel for cooking and heating houses, construction materials and for constructing means of transport. Since wood also is a material that with time biologically degrades due to activity by micro organisms and wood fungi it is important to find ways to protect and further lengthen the life span of the material when in service. One method is to decrease the amount of water in the material by impregnation with an hydrophobic oil. The Linotech method which uses only pure linseed oil is one such possible method. The aim of this study was to investigate the possibility to at the same time impregnate and stain/colour wood samples of pine and spruce by using the Linotech method.

This master thesis consists of an investigation of the profitability per hectare in privatly owned forest land. The investigation is based on data collected from Skogsstyrelesen, Riksskogstaxeringen and Skogsforsk. During the last twenty years the prices on pulp wood and saw log have substantial decreased, but during the same time the the volumes from final felling have increased and the cost for felling has decreased, this investigation shows how the netprofit per hectARE after final felling has changed between year 1980-2005 This investigation shows that that the netprofit has stayed on a stable level during the years 1985-2005 even though prices pulp wood and saw log decreased. Much indicates that the demand of swedish pulp wood and saw log will continue to be strong or even stronger wich will give increased prices and an higher netprofit after final felling in the future.