This thesis aims to contribute to improved functional procurement of photovoltaic systems, PV systems. Functional procurement means that criteria concerning a function are set rather than specifying technical details or products. Possible advantages and difficulties in using functional procurement have been analyzed by interviews, simulations and a case study. Electricity production and surplus production for different scenarios have been simulated via MATLAB. The MATLAB script was also used to generate rules of thumb on feasible solar fraction for six different load profiles; a church, a farm, a car mechanic, an office, an industry and an apartment building.

The Baltic Sea is threatened by eutrophication that largely is due to nutrient leaching from farmland within the catchment area. To solve this problem the surrounding countries cooperate within various configurations such as HELCOM and the EU-financed project Baltic Compass. Poor manure management in Russia has been discussed frequently the last couple of years. A literature review of different types of reports and legal acts is the core of this degree project which has been performed in connection to two ongoing research projects financed by EU (Baltic Compass) and SIDA. It is supplemented with interviews with Swedish agricultural consultants and travel reports from two occasions when I had the opportunity to discuss with Russians active within the agricultural sector. Different hypotheses were investigated and discussed. The environmental debate in Russia is quiet and there is a widespread approach that economic profit always trumps environmental concern ? a Soviet heritage that influence the Russian agriculture considerably. The Russian legal acts on stable manure management focus mainly on sanitary questions and only secondary on nutrient leaching.

The environmental requirements and laws on combustion engine emissions are very tough today andthey will become even more stringent in the future. To achieve these requirements there are highdemands on the control systems for these engines. An improved precision in the measurement of anengine's speed and position gives the electronic control system an even better timing when it comes tofuel injection and ignition. This makes the engine more fuel efficient, reducing the emissions. This thesisis part of a collaborative project between Hoerbiger Control Systems and subsidiaries.

The aim of this master thesis is to evaluate the performance of the content-based image retrieval system ImBrowse from a semantic point of view. Evaluation of retrieval performance is a problem in content-based image retrieval (CBIR). There are many different methods for measuring the performance of content-based image retrieval systems, but no common way for performing the evaluation. The main focus is on image retrieval regarding the extraction of the visual features in the image, from three semantic levels. The thesis tries to elucidate the semantic gap, which is the problem when the systems extraction of the visual features from the image and the user?s interpretation of that same information do not correspond.

Analysarbetet av finansiella data i samband med prognostisering blir snabbt omfattande, både ur ett teoretiskt och ur ett empiriskt perspektiv. Prognosteorierna står mot varandra. Är marknaden starkt effektiv eller finns det prognosmöjligheter? Att genomföra en empirisk prognosstudie resulterar snabbt i krävande beräkningsintensiva prognosmodeller. Då prognoser för flera tidpunkter behövs så måste beräkningarna upprepas och använda olika delmängder av tidsserierna som beräkningsunderlag.

In this paper I argue that the development of innovation ideas within the financial system of scientific research might have a counterpart within the financial system of the social sciences and the arts. The ideas of innovation share a common way to evaluate science in terms of how well it can contribute to economic growth. In the past two decades a similar development can be observed within Riksbankens Jubileumsfond (RJ), one of the largest external financiers of the social sciences and the arts in Sweden. The idea of evaluating research used by the innovation ideas has grown popular within RJ, only it seems they evaluate research in terms of how well it fits into an international research community rather than how much it can contribute to economic growth as is the case within the innovation ideas. By examining the different ways of financing research that RJ has used during the last 2 decades, this paper aims to introduce a new perspective in which it is possible to understand the development within this type research funding as a part of a bigger system of development..

Sammanfattning Syfte: Diabetes är en växande folksjukdom och år 2000 rapporterade Världshälsoorganisationen (WHO) att 171 miljoner har diagnosen diabetes mellitus. Syftet med uppsatsen är att undersöka en diabetikers val av utbildning, yrke, pension, fritid och investering av hälsa. För att få en förklaring till om valen är olika för diabetiker och ickediabetiker undersöks möjliga bakomliggande faktorer, framförallt effekten av den individuella hälsoinvesteringen. Metod: För att utreda diabetikerns val analyseras besluten utifrån Michael Grossmans teori om efterfråga på hälsa och effekten av individens egna hälsoinvesteringen. För att ta fram eventuella bakomliggande faktorer används Gary Beckers ekonomiska teorier om humankapital och Follands (et al, 2004) framställning av försäkringsteorin.

This study investigates communication and data in information systems. The paper deals, more specificly, with communication in a CRM-system implemented in a Swedish-founded company in Beijing, China. It discusses cultural, political, linguistic and gender based dilemmas that can arise from the use of a CRM-system in an international and bilingual environment. Fifty-nine interviews were conducted in Sweden and in China, either in Swedish or English. The result of this study shows that communication in the information system is affected by factors, that are not originated in technical shortcomings of the system, but rather from cultural, political, linguistic and gender based pre-knowledge among individuals.

Certification systems, that assess companies? work with social and environmental issues, have emerged in an increasing number of industries. Today, there are environmental certifications for the food industry, the forestry, the fisheries sector and several more. In apparel industry, certification for sustainable working conditions has been of major impact. The property sector is no exception from other industries.

In past decades information technology has changed the conditions of organizations, not at least within the industry. Advanced IT systems have become a fact in order to cope with rapid changes in the market and to effectively manage an organization?s knowledge. When organizations became more flexible and customized expectations from customers and stakeholders also become higher. These expectations and guidelines are documented in a company?s management system, which can be designed differently depending on what standards the company chooses to implement.

The projects objective is to find an alternative method of heating (the current method being via electric heating) the sewage treatment plant on the island Utö in Stockholm?s archipelago in order to reduce the energy consumption and ultimately the cost for heating the plant. The project is given by ?Skärgårdsstiftelsen? (The Archipelago Foundation) and is a part of the larger EU-project ?Green Islands?.A model for the plants total heating demand is established in order to get a good perception of how much money can be saved using alternative heating methods. The heating demand model gives an annual heating demand of approximately 32 500 kWh and a maximum heating power demand of around 24,7 kW.

Chapter 1 defines the aim of the project and gives a general orientation about ground heat extractors. In chapter 2 physical processes that could be expected to be involved in the heat transport around a ground heat exchanger are discussed. It is shown from a literature study what amount of moisture transport due to thermal gradients there could be expected in a ground heat exchanger. The conclusion is drawn that the moisture gradient (Sr) is of same magnitude as the driving temperature gradient (°C). At the expected amount of increased moisture around the pipes the moisture transport could be considered to have a little effect on the brine temperature.

Internet and information technology today has a rather obvious role in the activities of companies and organizations. All cash transactions within and between companies is digitized, communication within the company is done via e-mail, sales and marketing is done largely with marketing and ads on the Internet. This has resulted in economic benefits for companies and organizations, and facilitated the work for them. However, this has also led to new threats have emerged. Companies and organizations is well aware that there are numerous threats that comes with using the Internet and Information Technologies but exactly what those threats are for a mid-sized company in Sweden is not clarified anywhere.

This study aims to examine the effect the evaluation system used by the Stockholm County Council, has on how the healthcare providers themselves conduct the evaluation regarding their own operations. This is done through a qualitative case study of the evaluation systems of the Stockholm County Council and of four primary healthcare producers concerning one primary healthcare contract. The evaluation systems were analysed using Merchant and Ver der Stede's (2007) framework for different types of control. In order to give a more detailed picture this framework was complemented with different types of performance measurement. The evaluation that the Stockholm County Council conducts was found to have little influence on the providers own evaluation with the exception of the quality indicators that are rewarded with a monetary bonus..

Denna uppsats använder branschvis sysselsättningsförändring i Sveriges 21 län mellan åren1995-2002 som ett mått på regional tillväxt. Alla branscher i ett län delas in enligt SNIsystemetsbranschklassificering. För varje bransch beräknas enligt Economic-base modellenen lokaliseringskoefficient som visar branschens sysselsättningsandel i länet i förhållande tilldess sysselsättningsandel i riket. Den bransch som i respektive län uppvisar högst värde påkoefficienten benämns basindustri. Sambandet mellan sysselsättningsförändringen i varje länsbasindustri och länets totala sysselsättningsförändring undersöks genom en paneldatastudie.Förutom basindustrins sysselsättningsförändring används den länsvisa befolkningsnivån somförklarande variabel.