Male piglets have been castrated for centuries to avoid contamination of their meat with boar taint, a strongly unpleasant odour that makes the meat inedible. Today boar taint can be prohib-ited by vaccination against gonadotropin releasing hormone (GnRH) using Improvac®. The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficiency of vaccination on growth performance and behaviour of vaccinated male pigs compared to surgically castrated male pigs. The effect of two feeding regimes, restricted (SLU-norm) and semi ad libitum, was also included in the study. At birth, pigs (n=206) were randomly allocated to the two treatment groups; surgically castrated and vaccination.

Outdoor recreation habits in metropolis and rural areasThis study aims to examine the perception of nature and outdoor recreation habits from an urban-rural prospective. The urbanization process continues in Sweden and the populations of the cities are growing continuously. Trends to build more compact and ?climate smart? reigns and with this a risk that green areas and areas where outdoor recreation can be practiced are situated further and further away from the urban population. Analyzing the responses from a survey made by the research program Friluftsliv i förändring 2007 we have examined if and which differences exists between urban and rural areas regarding their perception of nature, outdoor recreation habits and factors influencing the practice of outdoor recreation.

Different methods for shelterwood cutting have been used in differ-ent parts of Europe since the middle ages. The use of shelter wood cutting in Norway spruce (Picea abies (L.) Karst.) forests in Sweden met a revival in the early 1990s as an alternative for the dominating clear-cutting system when silvicultural costs increased dramatically for the latter. Shelterwood cutting systems involve some possible problems but also a lot of positive effects. Among the problems are increased risk of wind throw and damage of the remaining shelter trees caused by the cutting operation. Positive effects are for example a valuable growth in the remaining trees and increased biological di-versity. This study is based on a total of 79 trees from 4 different treatments in a spruce shelterwood, cut in 1994, in the middle of Sweden (62,4º N).

Miljöbron is a non-profit organization; their main purpose is to merge companies and students into different environmental projects. The projects can be an assignment, practical vocational training or degree thesis. Miljöbron is expanding and the demand from students and companies is rapidly growing. Because of the expansion, a large amount of information needs to be stored and managed in a structured database. Also the need of a interface that is structured and easy to use when managing information and Miljöbron?s statistics, for Miljöbron?s staff.

The Swedish Cellulosa Companiy, SCA, has today 280 000 ha planted with lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta var. latifolia) (?C?) which is equivalent to 14 % of its total forest area. Exotic lodgepole pine has in previous experimental stands shown a superior growth than the native Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) (?S?).But also the comparison could be questioned because stand histories were was unknown and also differences in age between C and S existed.

With growing economies and better living standards in many parts of the world today, there is a need of expanding the capacity of generating electricity. The alternatives for renewable energy technologies are not fully developed and have still some problems to conquer.The company Minesto has developed a technology that is called Deep Green. It is designed to gain electricity from tidal currents. Deep Green works in a similar way as a kite that is attached to the seafloor with a moving wire. It contains of a wing that moves due to the water current.

In recent times statistical findings suggesting a deteriorating mental health among teenagers, have been published. Not only did I find the lack of an all-inclusive analysis problematic, but also the fact that the studies themselves where often insufficient. Thus my purpose has been to chart these statistical studies, and then scrutinize the results.My method has been inspired by critical theory, where an interpretive starting point, self-reflection, and the idea that man and society interacts as a whole, is of great importance. Aside from the above mentioned studies, I have also employed secondary empirical data from TV, newspapers and the Internet. My own experience as a social worker has also been an important resource for this paper.

The prevailing food and energy crisis of the world, due to the declining reserves of fossil energy and a never ending rise of consumption, forces us to look into new fields to supply our energy demand. The boom of bio energy is criticized, as food crops are used to provide biodiesel and ethanol and the volumes are ridiculously small to supply world demand. Algae are one of the world?s oldest life forms and exist in many different phyla, providing a great variety to choose from, for different purposes. Cultivating microalgae offer a way to produce energy at great volumes without competing with food production and at the same time the algae offer a way to use our expensive nutrients in a more efficient way, besides this the algae are carbon dioxide neutral since their carbon source can be supplied by the atmosphere and the additional energy required can be supplied by algal oil or other renewable sources.

Uganda is one country with fastest growing populations in the world and with more than 25% of the population living in poverty. There is a rapid rural urban migration with increasing demands for food for low income earners especially in these areas. One way to mitigate food insecurity is to increase milk and meat production efficiency, and thus reproductive performance of cows is crucial for good production. A well-documented strategy for improving dairy cow productivity through faster genetic improvement is to breed dairy cows using proven semen via artificial insemination (AI). AI has been used in Uganda for over 60 years but only less than 10 %, a small population of the country?s herd has been bred that way. The aims were to study knowledge, attitude and practices factors influencing cow fertility results on dairy farms around Kampala using AI and to propose ways of promoting increased use of AI in Uganda.

Background:Investments in different forms have always been popular to every human being. For the most common investments, such as stocks and bonds, there are loads of information to gather for the investor. Historical data like risk, return, dividends and fundamental data like annual reports are often very easy to find, regarding these kinds of investments. The background of this thesis is the lack of market information in residential real estate investments. A problem with this investment is that there is lack of information regarding risk adjusted return for real estates, which this thesis intends to present.Objective:The objective with this thesis is to study which alternative, directly-owned residential estates or stocks, who generates the highest risk adjusted return.

Wounds on horses are common and sometimes difficult to treat. The wounds are often big and could be discovered too late for primary sutures, which have to be applied within 8 hours from time of accident, before bacteria has been able to infiltrate the surrounding tissue. The healing is often complicated by delayed healing and wound infection with consequences like phlegmone, fistulation and proud flesh formation.To avoid these consequences, the traditional practice has been to administer systemic antibiotics alone, systemic antibiotics in combination with topical antibiotics or topical antibiotics alone. Because few antibiotics can be used in horses, is it important to household with the few substances that are available. In veterinary medicine today, the increasing resistance amongst pathogenic microbes such as MRSA presents a growing problem.

Flexible working conditions is used extensively in organizations today as a way tocreate flexibility for the employer. Recently we?ve been reading in the newspapersthat this approach is a growing problem and the EU has warned Sweden twice thatabuse of these forms of employment must be stopped. The Government has recentlysubmitted a proposed rule change to reduce the possibility of stacking one temporarycontract after another. Borlänge kommun makes themselves more flexible with theintermittent employments.

Since the Chinese economy?s reform in 1980, it has been attracting enormous foreign investments. Many Swedish firms from different sectors such as technology, manufactory production, consumer, service industries and so on, had started their investments in China. China has become the first choice for global manufacturing due to the huge market, continuous economic growth, stable political situation, sound investment environment and the WTO membership. In addition, China's enormous potential in finance, service, infrastructure, telecommunications, wholesales and retail industries will also attract a great deal of foreign capital.

The subject for this paper is the Class Action against Skandia Association, a civil organization formed in 2003 with the aim of claiming compensation for some 1.2 million life insurance customers. The background to its formation was one of the largest financial scandals in Sweden in recent times, involving a number of questionable affairs within the insurance corporation Skandia and its subsidiaries, most notably the life insurance company Skandia Liv. The interests of both the stake- and stockholders of the company seem, in certain ways, to have been grossly misrepresented. The scandal, as well as the reaction it spawned, pose a number of questions. In this study, we focus on two: a possible, and in many ways apparent crisis in the representation of interests in Swedish society, and the role of civil society in upholding the balance between these interests.We argue that what is often held to be the ?greed? or ?immorality? of individuals in scandals such as Skandia is, to a great extent, a mere reflection of the ?rational? underpinnings of modern-day capitalism.We find that trust has been a key mechanism of control in the relationships between consumers and agents in pension and life insurance markets, and that ?the Swedish model? that distinguished post-WWII Swedish society was a model heavily based on trust towards existing models of bureaucratic governance.

As a result of my fascination for nature I have chosen to study the possibilities to introduce natural environments on schoolyards. Too many schoolyards are lacking vegetation and many of them look like sterile asphalt deserts. The master thesis consists of two parts. The first part is based on literature studies and the second part in which findings from part one are put into practice. Five examples are presented; four schoolyards in Malmö; Kryddgårdsskolan, Kirsebergsskolan, Rörsjöskolan and Lindängeskolan and one in Kalmar; Åbyskolan. Malmö Naturskola has been working with the chosen areas on the schoolyards in Malmö.