Water is our most important provision and its quality is above all dependent on the geological conditions in the area from where it is extracted. Due to geological properties there are certain areas with an elevated risk of high uranium levels in the ground water, which in turn constitutes a risk for human health. Consumption of water that contains a high concentration of uranium implies a health risk due to the chemical characteristics of uranium. Livsmedelsverket (The National Food Administration) and Socialstyrelsen (The National Board of Health and Welfare) therefore recommend that precautionary measures should be taken when the uranium concentration in ground water exceeds 15 micrograms per litre. In particular, drinking water collected from wells in areas with uranium-rich bedrock may have a harmfully high level of uranium. One of the wells of the Ärla water purification plant, located near Eskilstuna, Sweden, contains water that exceeds the guideline of 15 micrograms per litre. One interesting technique for removing uranium from drinking water is adsorption to reactive filter materials.

Finnhamn is a small group of islands in the Stockholm archipelago. At Stora Jolpan, the biggest island, there is a hostel. The main building was built in 1915 and is called Utsikten. The purpose of this project is to on behalf of the Archipelago Foundation (Skärgårdsstiftelsen) find alternative systems that can replace the existing heating system of Utsikten (an oil-fired boiler and electricity heaters) to a system with renewable energy. The alternative system that this project focuses on is a system of solar collectors combined with a wood chip boiler.

This thesis examines how a company can get an effective, high quality, maintenance of their computerized systems. After literary studies concerning the life cycle activity Maintenance we have studied how the maintenance at the department IT Supply of IKEA IT AB in Älmhult is carried out. What steps and measures in the analyzing of results of changes are carried out and if they have predefined processes for changes. Based on the facts we found most important in our literary studies we have created a model and theoretically applied this to the maintenance of a specific system to see what they can work with to further improve the quality and efficiency in their maintenance. The basis for our thesis is literary studies and the collected material has been used as a foundation for the research at the company, which was carried out through interviews.

Heart failure is an illness that requires life-long treatment and often affects everyday aspects of a person?s life. Self-care is a significant part of the treatment. Good self-care resources make it possible for people with heart failure to make the lifestyle changes they often need to maintain or improve their level of health. Self-care means having knowledge of and being able to recognize the symptoms and signs of deterioration that can occur with heart failure, so that the person can take appropriate measures ? and it also means knowing when it is time to seek professional help.

There's no doubt today that mankind has contributed to the changing climate byher use of fossil fuels. This must change in the nearby future. The Europeanleaders are expressing concern that renewable energy sources are not beingused to their full potential. The 2001/77/EC Directive on Electricity Productionfrom Renewable Energy Sources was accepted in 2001 to encourage thedevelopment of energy production from renewable sources, which isconsidered a step towards the fulfillment of the goal of the Union, that 12% ofthe gross energy consumption should come from renewable energy sources bythe year 2010.The objective of this thesis is to illuminate the common legislation of the EUregarding renewable energy with regard to goal fulfillment, judicial quality,conflicts with other goals of the EU and other faults. The objective is reachedby a hermeneutic study in which interpretation of written text is the mainmethod.

From a democratic point of view the existing organisation with municipality sections in the city of Malmö, Sweden will be examined. The matter of how an alternative organisation should be structured will also be discussed. Two incompatible models of democracy theories will be arranged: libertarian democracy and participation democracy. The intentions with the reform were primary to increase the civic participation. By applying those values that are used to characterize participation democracy it will be shown whether the local participation has actually increased.

This study investigates a method for identifying human capital and its effect on company valuation. We devise a measure for the efficiency of human capital based on the personnel cost. We include all companies listed in the financial and industry sector on Nasdaq OMX Stockholm in an attempt to examine human capital and its effect on firm valuation. Our results indicate that a higher efficiency of human capital has a positive effect on return on assets. However, we find that our measure can be interpreted in two ways; either as a firm?s level of human capital efficiency or its dependency on human capital, to achieve its net sales and revenue.

Heart failure is an illness that requires life-long treatment and often affects everyday aspects of a person?s life. Self-care is a significant part of the treatment. Good self-care resources make it possible for people with heart failure to make the lifestyle changes they often need to maintain or improve their level of health. Self-care means having knowledge of and being able to recognize the symptoms and signs of deterioration that can occur with heart failure, so that the person can take appropriate measures ? and it also means knowing when it is time to seek professional help.

The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of joint venture announcements on stock prices behavior and simultaneously to test the German stock market (Frankfurter Wertpapierbörse) for efficiency. We tried not only to analyze the general impacts of a JV-announcement but also to look for differences in the market response to announcements of different types of joint ventures, namely: domestic, international, horizontal and vertical. Our expectations of efficient market were confirmed during our paper, which employed the technique of the standard event study. The calculation of abnormal returns which are the signals for market efficiency or inefficiency respectively were based on the market model, establishing linear relationship between the return on the market and the return on an individual security. The parameters of the model were obtained through regression analysis..

An increasing number of heat pump producers have developed heat pumps that can be connected to solar panels. In this thesis we have examined the possibilities of connecting solar panels to existing ground source- and geothermal heat pumps that has not been adapted to solar panels. During the work process, a prototype plant has been built to compare our theory with the practical results and with our designed sizing tool. The work has rendered in knowledge that will be used to build a sun module that can be easily connect to the existing heat pump system. The existing heat pump, our test plant, has been supplemented by an advanced storage tank used to allow different operating modes.

In Stockholm, Johanneshov the Slaughterhouse area (Slakthusområdet) can be found. A number of companies have gathered there providing the Stockholmers with meat products. This area has a great need for cooling to supply large cold storages. To facilitate this, a central cooling system has been built, supplying the area with effective and safe cooling.The aim of this master thesis study is to give hints to energy efficient and reliable changes that can be put in place at a low marginal cost depending on the future activities in the area. The suggested changes will be presented to the company Bravida (managing the system), which also desires a deeper understanding of the energy flows through the central cooling system.Firstly visiting the site with proper guidance, we have then tried to understand the function of the system including which machines and media that are used.

Geothermal energy can be extracted from an aquifer, where the groundwater is used as heatexchange medium while heat and cold are stored in the surrounding material in the aquiferand to some extent in the groundwater. Application of aquifer storage for the use ofgeothermal energy is mainly used in large scale facilities and is limited to sites with suitableaquifers in the form of ridges, sandstone and limestone aquifers.Löwenströmska hospital in the municipality of Upplands Väsby, north of Stockholm, islocated nearby the northern part of the Stockholm esker. This means that it can be profitableand environmentally beneficial for the hospital to examine the possibilities of aquifer storagein the esker material next to its property.The purpose of this master thesis has been to investigate if geothermal energy storage with aseasonal storage of heat and cold can be applied within Löwenströmska hospital?s propertyarea using groundwater modeling. A hydraulic groundwater model was constructed inMODFLOW based on a simplified conceptual model of the groundwater system.

Allmänheten har en stor efterfrågan av produkter inom området för hemautomation. Den senaste bluetoothstandarden Bluetooth Low Energy skapar nya möjligheter för intressanta produkter som underlättar vardagen. Lösningar som IR och Wi-Fi ger inte de förutsättningar som krävs för att på ett energisnålt och praktiskt sätt erbjuda sådana produkter, något som Bluetooth Low Energy gör. I denna rapport diskuteras standarden i syfte att redogöra för hur den kan användas för att automatisera ett hem.För detta examensarbete implementerades en strömbrytarprototyp och en iOS-applikation, vilka användes för att unders öka och påvisa ett koncept för hur tekniken kan tillämpas för hemautomation. Resultaten visar att teknikens räckvidd är dess främsta begränsning.

As demand for renewable energy is increasing rapidly, the market for biomass pellets is expected to continue to grow in the near future. Most of the new raw materials that are discussed for pellet production have one thing in common; the production costs will increase compared to using traditional raw materials such as sawdust and planer shavings. The aim of this thesis is to investigate to what degree increased use of new raw materials for pellet production will affect the general pellet prices in Sweden and to survey what plans Swedish pellet producers have concerning new raw materials. To investigate the raw material situation of the Swedish pellet producers an industry survey was performed. Literature studies were also made on previous research in the subject field. Calculations of the production costs for pellets were done for the raw materials sawdust, wet sawmill chips and energy wood respectively. New raw materials are already used by the large-scale pellet producers in Sweden.

The report is about efficiency of a current production group where there is no clear production flow and there are some buffers between the operations. The efficiency is done with the help of a tool that is calledWork process of flow production which is used by Atlas Copco CTO. The most obviously results are that the lead time drops from 25 hours to 425 minutes and that the balancing loss decreases from 85 % to 8 %. The report focus on decreasing transports, decreasing buffers, more reliability in lead time and quality. And a more stimulating labour content for the workers is another result..