This study focuses on small scale hydropower in Sweden. This means plants with a capacity of up to 10 MW. The study has a special focus on plants with a capacity up to 2 MW. The study has three aims. It strives to describe the small-scale hydroelectric industry in Sweden.

This thesis project focuses on the need for better tools for analyzing competition for forest fuels in Sweden, in particular how policy measures may influence the market and involved actors in different regions of Sweden. Raw materials from the forest have for long constituted important inputs in the Swedish forest industry. Today some of these raw materials are increasingly used as inputs also in bioenergy production, largely driven by bioenergy promoting policies, and there are signs of increased competition for forest fuels which may have various and uncertain effects on the industries in question. The thesis project explores the possibilities to adapt previously used forest sector equilibrium models into a new model suitable for analysis of Swedish forest fuel markets, called the Swedish Forest Sector Trade Model (SFSTM). The approach takes into account regional differences in supply and demand for 23 types of products produced and/or used by eight types of producers, plus consumers, in five different regions (four Swedish and one international).

The forest industry is one of the most important industry branches in Sweden. Since the demand of high precision wood deliveries has increased, the demand on a well constructed forest road net also has increased. A good road net gives the wood-supplier competition advantages and also increases its service level towards its customers, lumber-mills and pulp-mills. In some parts of Norrbotten, the road net is still insufficient and not yet built out enough, and that is why it is important to know how to act and where to improve the road net in these areas. The purpose of this thesis was to create a work-model for long term road planning in areas with no road net or a not yet complete road net. The model has been created in an ArcGis environment, where a long chain of tools has been tied together with the program ?Model builder?.

Holmen Skog, region Norrköping, is located in an area with good potential for backhauling because a large number of geographically scattered mills. However, despite these factors there are many difficulties preventing the realization of this potential. The purposes of this study were twofold. First, from a hauling contractor perspective, to calculate backhauling profits and suggest a profit sharing scheme. Second, to identify and quantify obstacles and possibilities for realization of backhauls.The study required the use of three different types of methods.

Biodiversity can be described as the total variation of life forms, where diversity ranges from gene level up to the ecosystem level. The diversity can be calculated in a number of ways, and this study use one of these methods. In this study empirical food webs have been used and analyzed, where eleven characters are defined and used as parameters to calculate the Euclidean distances between food webs that describe the variation that may exist within classes of terrestrial, marine and freshwater habitats. The class who stood out and showed the greatest diversity at the ecosystem level was the marine food webs, which showed a high value of the average euclidean distance. The other networks were not as distinctive and the average of the euclidean distance in these classes was comparatively low..

Over the past 40 years 600 000 ha of lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta ssp. latifolia (Engelm.) Critchf.) has been planted in Sweden (280 000 ha on SCA's forest land alone which represents about 15% of the company's total forest land area). In the early 70's SCA situated a number of experimental stands in order to investigate different aspects of the exotic tree, primarily growth rate. To be able to compare the two species plots with scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.), this species was also planted at the same time and under the same conditions. A number of questions should always be raised when exotic species are introduced in an ecosystem. Invasiveness, the pathogen situation and purely ethical issues should be discussed.

The basis of road investments is to minimize the transportation cost. The forest industry wants roundwood to be available during the whole year. One way of determine which road to invest in is to do a cost/benefit calculation. SCA Forest lacks a uniform approach to determine the utility of a road investment. The goal of this report is to describe how the organization works today and find areas of improvement. The data collection was done through interviews.

The aim of this essay was to obtain an understanding about company owners thinking about the connection between having an own company, and the risks for an alcoholic abuse. The risk factor I was researching was stress, alcoholic culture, accessibility and rehabilitation.I have interviewed five owners of small companies, two women and three men, which represents four different kinds of branches. The theories I used in analysing the empirical findings where the theories of psychosocial work environment of Lazarus, Karaseks demand/control model, epidemiology- and culture perspective.I have found that the main stress factors for company owners where the economical stress and great load of work. The stress was also related to the fact that company owners of small companies often were alone with all the responsibility and problems.Women did not use alcohol very often as a tool to reduce stress. If individuals were using alcohol to reduce their stress, it also had to deal with their ability of coping and also what channels they had for coping..

To effectively manage a forest resource for both economic and other values good planning is required. The problem is complex since you want to know which forest to cut and when. Often a hierarchical planning structure is applied, including strategic (long-term), tactical, (medium-term) and operational level. Today SCA Forest is one of few forestry companies in the northern Sweden with an integrated forest wood supply and industry. The goals of the company are to supply their own industries with wood and to manage the resources of the forest through a long-term perspective with satisfactory profitability.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how students who study with Problem-based learning PBL in a distance learning course perceive the support from the university library. I first went into adult education, PBL and distance studies, one at a time, and then took a look at the combination of problem-based learning in distance studies. During the investigation, I conducted five interviews using a phenomenographic method to understand how the students perceived the support they received from the university library. The university library gives a lot of support but what I noticed while I was writing was that it is difficult to reach the students with the information regarding the help that is available to them. I give some example on how to develop the support and find that the students have a wide range of different needs for support from the library depending on their individual situation, social context, academic ability, location and course of study.

In today's society dogs have become more popular as pets. This increase may result in more dog owners with lack of knowledge on how to care for them. A major social issue is the societies viewpoint to fighting breeds and similar breeds with an aggressive behavior. We experience that there is an increasing problem with aggressive dogs and their owners in Sweden that needs to be taken seriously.The aim of our study is to find out if people in Sweden think there is a problem with aggressive dogs. The study has been carried out as a literature study and a survey.

To study and laborate at distance, its necessary that the coursematerial is accessible via internet. Teaching at more languages than swedish bocomes more common, why the information of courses needs to exist at several languages. As teacher, you need a way to publish and edit material of a course. It also has to be easy for the students to find the information. The distance laboratory have developed an administrative websystem that handles programme, courses and students, but misses the possibility for teachers to change content at the webpages and publish new coursematerial on a way..

The obesity problem in the world is growing bigger and today even our companion animals are becoming heavier. In this paper the importance of a balanced diet for the companion animal is emphasised. There are many disadvantages for the animal and for the owner if the animal becomes obese and it is important to stress the facts on what the consequences might be. There are several medical conditions connected to obesity and a short summary of these will be discussed. It is often easier to prevent obesity rather than loosing the overweight and some ideas of how to do this is looked in to. In many veterinary clinics today, the veterinary nurse is the first and sometimes the only person to see the animal.

The forest property Fagerdal 2:10 was donated to the Swedish University of Agriculture in 1995 by Erik Rönnberg. The dominating species is Norwegian spruce (Picea Abies) and the average age is high due to selective cutting. The aim of this study has been to analyze how the forest on the property should be managed and demonstrate how a better estimated forest data affects the future management. The impact of the management on the carbon stock of the property was also examined. A forestry plan established in 2009 by Skogssällskapet was used as a basis for the analyses.

When the storm Gudrun hit Sweden on the 8th and 9th of January, many recreational forests in southern Sweden blew down. For this reason there is a demand for new regeneration methods as to how these storm-felled areas should be regenerated and with what species. In this study the forest is divided into three areas: production, recreation/production and recreation. The first area is a forest with production as main goal and these kinds of forests are located a bit from the city. The second type ? recreation/production forest ? has two equal goals: production and recreation, and is located close to the city.