Umeå Energi are working towards a goal, that in the year of 2018, they will be completely climate neutral. As a part of this, one target is to reduce their grid losses by 4 % of the 2012 level, which corresponds to an overall reduction of the grid losses of just over 1.7 GWh. In many residential areas, the distribution grid is designed and rated for electric heating as the heating in the houses. As many of the houses later has been converted to other types of heating, their electricity use has decreased and the total power output from many of the secondary substations has decreased significantly. Because of this, many of these stations today are well oversized, which in turn means that the energy losses in these stations are unnecessarily high.In this degree project, 25 secondary substations have been studied, all located in residential areas in and around central Umeå.

According to the EC fuel regulations 2 % bio fuel has to be blended in all fuel by the year 2005, and 5.75 % by the year 2010, which means ethanol for gasoline driven vehicles, so there will be a substantial demand for ethanol. Brazil already has an established industry for producing ethanol and is the leading producer and exporter of fuel ethanol. My purpose with this paper is to investigate why Brazil decided to develop ethanol production on a large-scale operation and to find out today?s situation. Focus will mainly be on ethanol production with sugarcane as a feedstock.

To reduce emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technologieshave been developed. Chemical Looping Combustion (CLC) is a CO2 capture technologywith the CCS framework, and at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg,Sweden, a 100 kW chemical looping combustor has been built.This project aimed to investigate to what degree air can replace helium as the uidizinggas for uid dynamical studies in a CLC cold ow model of the above mentioned 100 kWfacility. Experiments were performed using air and helium separately as uidizing gas andpressure data were obtained, which formed the basis for the comparison. The project alsoaimed to investigate uid dynamics in the uidized bed and study when the risk of sluggingoccuring was greatest. The results were presented in the form of figures and tables dividedinto pressure, concentration and standard deviation of the pressure.The results obtained showed that air as uidizing gas did not create the same uid dynamicsas helium over the entire fuel reactor.

This master thesis is an in-depth study of an existing heating system at a household cooperative in Uppsala that has been converted from district heating to a bedrock heat pump system. The study focuses on an economical system optimisation of the building?s complete heating system. The aim was to determine how well a heat pump system in large buildings actually work, find out possible ways to optimize the existing system and point out important system parameters for new heat pump installations in larger buildings.The project points out a possible energy cost reduction of 45 % without investment and further cost reductions with equipment investments. A reduction by 30 % is possible by improvements in the regulation system and 15 % is possible by maintaining the brine system.

For the last 50 years the amount of available consumer goods has exploded in number, due to improvements in production and technology. The problem is that the overall sales of many categories are stagnant and retailers are unwilling to grant the categories more shelf space. Therefore many categories are crowded with products and hard for consumers to navigate in. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of an assortment reduction on several variables relating to assortment perceptions, customer satisfaction and store choice. The study was carried out as an experiment with 127 participants.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the possibilities for shore side electricity in the ports of Västerås and Köping. A technical solution to connect the vessels to the local grid is suggested and the investigation is also aiming at an understanding of how the environment is affected by the use of shore side electricity. Furthermore, the costs of shore side electricity are considered.The maximum power demand of a vessel visiting the ports today is relatively small, but the ships visiting the ports in the future might have a larger power demand. The suggested dimension for the system is 5 MW and the result shows that the shore side electricity requires the power distribution to the ports to be expanded. The most useful solution in the ports is to connect the ships with 12 kV from a connection box in a pit at the quay.The investigation of the costs shows that it is cheaper for the ships to use electricity compared to the marine fuel.

ABSTRACTBackground: Most cases of lumbar disc herniation are asymptomatic. When symptomatic, LDH may cause a significant physical and mental distress. Initially, most patients are treated conservative but sometimes operations may be required.Aim: The aim of this study was to provide a review of the scientific basis of physiotherapy, including behavioural therapy, as a treatment to lumbar disc herniation regarding pain, function and the size of disc herniation in people suffering from lumbar disc herniation.Method: Four databases were used in the searches of literature. Assessment of the validity of the studies was done with the PEDro-scale and valuation of evidence rate was made according to guidelines made by the Swedish Council on Health Technology Assessment (SBU).Result: Nine RCT-studies were included with a total of 713 participants. The scientific basis is moderate to support a pain reduction and limited regarding improvement of physical function when it comes to physical exercises, including MDT.

AbstractAimThe aim of the pilot study was to compare short- and long-term effects from group exercise in water with land-based exercise on pain at rest and pain with movement, along with the effects on function in daily life and practice of sports and leisure activities in patients with knee osteoarthritis. The aims were: Is there a difference in short- and long-term effects on pain intensity at rest and pain with movement after exercise in water or land in patients with knee osteoarthritis? Is there a correlation between the degree of pain intensity at rest and with movement, respectively and long-term effects from the two different exercises on function in daily life and practice of sports and leisure? MethodThe study was a randomized intervention study without a control group. Twenty patients with radiographic knee osteoarthritis were under a total of eight weeks treated with either land- or water-based exercise lead by a physiotherapist. The patients rated pain intensity at rest and with movement on a numerical rating scale (NRS) before and after the first training session, before and after the eighth training session, before and after the fifteenth training session and before the last and sixteenth training session.

Background: outsourcing is one of the most obvious and continuous trends that has been able to study during the past ten years and also has had a strong development in the industry. What consequences will follow from an extended outsourcing? Purpose: the study?s overall purpose is to investigate what possibilities and risks that can be connected to an outsourcing decision and how the order of the service will handle the risks. The study will also investigate what management philosophy that will be used and regulate the outsourcing relation and how the company?s strategy will affect the decision and how the process of outsourcing will look like.

It takes a very long time for ionizing radiation of used nuclear fuel toreturn to a natural background level, for this reason one of the requirements for theselection of the location of a repository was that the environment as well people'shealth would be protected from the harmful effect of radioactivity. This requirementmeans that the waste must be isolated in a geological formation. In Sweden therepository will be built in the crystalline bedrock. The location for the Swedish nuclearfuel repository at nearly 500 meters depth at Forsmark in Östhammar was decided 3June 2009. The repository will be located at Söderviken, close to the Forsmarknuclear power plant in a 1.90 billion year old bedrock that will accommodate 12,000tons of spent nuclear fuel.

Analyses of pollen and charcoal in peat cores, together with age-structure data of Pinus sylvestris from a Ledum-Pinus-mire in the Tyresta National Park (south-east Sweden) show the regional vegetation succession and fire history over the last 9000 years. Five major stages of mire development are identified: 1. Lake (c 7000-6400 cal BC); 2. Wet fen (c 6400-6000 cal BC); 3. Deciduous fen (c 6000 cal BC to c cal AD 700); 4.

It takes a very long time for ionizing radiation of used nuclear fuel toreturn to a natural background level, for this reason one of the requirements for theselection of the location of a repository was that the environment as well people'shealth would be protected from the harmful effect of radioactivity. This requirementmeans that the waste must be isolated in a geological formation. In Sweden therepository will be built in the crystalline bedrock. The location for the Swedish nuclearfuel repository at nearly 500 meters depth at Forsmark in Östhammar was decided 3June 2009. The repository will be located at Söderviken, close to the Forsmarknuclear power plant in a 1.90 billion year old bedrock that will accommodate 12,000tons of spent nuclear fuel.

This report is written on commission by WSP Acoustics. The report studies the outdoor sound levels on school yards in Stockholm. The questions given by the company to be answered was what are the actual sound levels at diffrent school yards with low traffic noise and how can you construct a facade element that reduces the sound level from the outside and meet the indoor requirements. Mesurements for four hours was done at eight schools set north and south of the city centre. The measurement period included one school break and one lunch break.

This master thesis has been done in cooperation with Sweco Viak AB in Sundsvall. The aimwith the project is to investigate the purifying effect of percolation filter due to iron andmanganese. The overall goal was to investigate how the parameters surface load,sandfractions, and burden time affect the purifying effect. The expectation is to optimize thedesign and find a demouldning of the filter that gives sufficient purifying with a highersurface load. As an attempt to accelerate the curing of the filter, experiments with a layer ofsand which surface has been covered with manganese ore (MnO2) on top of the filter havebeen done.As test filters 10 L bars were used and the experimental work was performed at thewaterworks in Hassela and Munkbysjön.In Hassela different sandfractions were tested.

This report is an inventory of the street lighting in half of the residential estates owned by Karlstad Bostads AB, a public housing company. The inventory was made to reduce the environmental impact of the street lighting. From the inventory an estimation of the total installed power and the energy consumption was made. The total estimated power of the street lighting was 125 kW and the energy consumption was 500 000 kWh/year with an estimated running time of 4 000 h/year. The dominating source of light was 125 W discharge mercury lamps.