2007, Swedish television, ?Uppdrag granskning,? aired their story about ?Louise? from Vetlanda. A drug dependent father had gotten custody of his daughter and sexually abused her from the age of 10 to 15. The local social services got several notifications about Louise suffering of negligence, and did investigate the family several times without taking any actions to protect her. At one time, father and daughter were living in his trailer placed in a Gravel pit, and the police worried about her and called social services, because it was below cero degrees outside.

When the Swedish Forestry Act was changed in 1994, brushing of young stands became non mandatory. Since then the annual need for brushing in the country has increased by about 100 000 hectares per year. In later years the price for biomass energy has increased to the same level as pulp wood. The high price on biomass energy and the large areas of stands in the need of brushing has created a new market with its own technical, economical and environmental conditions. There is a development of various techniques to manage the forestry stands with late brushing.

Holmen Skog has in some places in their operation area access to timber trucks with centre mounted scrapers. They make transportation more flexible and reduce reliance on contractors for road maintenance. The trucks with centre mounted scrapers have a higher tare weight, making them less productive and therefore they receive compensation with a 0.75 % increase on transportation price. The purpose of this study was to investigate what actions a timber truck with centre mounted scraper can perform with acceptable quality in winter, and to examine if it is an economically profitable solution for the truck operator and charterer. The study was done in three stages; interviews, performance analysis of the transportations carried out and an economic analysis with the help of Sven Erik Gilles spreadsheet tool. The study included the districts Delsbo and Hudiksvall.

This thesis has treated a three-axis robot which task is to serve a larger test machine tomove the modules to be tested, from the storage to the test site. The robot is composed ofthree linear actuators; two standard components of ball screw type and a custom-builtactuator of trapezoidal type. The work has mainly focused on the custom-built device to seeif it could be replaced with a standard component. Part of the work has been to look into thepicking tool and to see if there are any possibilities to improve its function.The report presents two different proposals which I decided to call Robot 1 and Robot 2 andthey aim to address the problems arising in the purpose-built linear unit and the X-axislinearity problems. Robot 1 focuses on eliminating the problems that arise around therobot's X-axis, with such simple means as possible and without making excessive materialchanges.

Today, individual indoor stalls and individual outdoor paddocks are the most common way to house horses in Sweden. The way that we manage, house and feed the horses are not optimal for the species natural basic behavioural needs. However, the awareness of this grows in the context of research and the emergence of alternative housing systems. One of the alternatives to the traditional format in individual boxes is called group housing. Group housing systems allow horses to live in herds and they can choose how they want to distribute the hours of the day between movement, resting and foraging. The purpose of this study is to examine how frequently the young horses in a group housing system use the indoor lying area.

In a city sometimes conflicts arise between either to save the species-rich vacant lots where many species thrive, or to build new buildings. Green roofs can then serve as a refuge for plants and animals that have had their natural habitat destroyed or diminished. Today we know too little about green roofs contribution to the biodiversity in the cities. We also know very little about how various types of vegetation on roof can increase biodiversity and its ability to attract different species.The aim with this study was to examine how different types of vegetation on the roofs affect the biodiversity of the invertebrate and how species-composition and number of individuals differ between the roof- and groundlevel.This study has been carried out on Augustenborg Botanical Roof Gardens in Malmo, and in an area about 1.5 kilometers away from Augustenborg. Three different types of vegetation on the roof and ground floor were selected: sedum- ruderal and grass.

SUMMARY The interest of horses in the riding sector has increased the last decades. A large amount of horses are transported in a 1 or 2-horse trailer, which is pulled by a car. Today a large number of different products and designs of trailers can be found on the market. The difference in shaping of trailers depends on tradition and experience. There are no detailed directions on the demands for shaping of horse trailers today. The literature review contains a market analysis of both Swedish and imported horse trailers.

This final project includes an analysis and a programme proposal for the area Bergsbrunna södra. The area is situated along the railway between Uppsala ? Stockholm, just south of Uppsala city. A new railway station is planned here, which make the area attractive as residential area. There are several values to take into consideration when developing an area. An extensive analysis and valuation may define and protect different characters and values, and also find the places most suitable to build upon. The area consists of three separate characters of landscape: the wide open cultivated fields, the hilly wooden ground and the more varying little valley. There are visual, cultural, social and ecological values to preserve. The south part of the area is woods with high natural values that borders to a national park in the natural forest of Lunsen.

This diploma work, with the title Represent and Consume the Land ?I drove following the picture of a spruce through Sweden, is presented as a film and an essay and the aim is to explore the perception of an individual with the film as the medium. To reach this, it is necessary to destabilize my own reality, to explore myself at the same time as I study landscapes and representations of landscapes. The diploma work focus on representations of landscapes of Sweden, external pictures and internal images. The picture is a very strong medium that holds and comunicate myths, about the landscape and about the nation.

This Master thesis is made at the request of the local municipality of Uppsala in Sweden. The purpose of this work is to create a guiding management plan. Recreation, conservation of the cultivated landscape and the historical environment, conservation biology and the aim of the landowners are all considerd. The area is almost 34 hectares and located north of the centre of Uppsala. Landowners are the National Heritage Board, the diocese of Uppsala, the university of Uppsala, the local municipality of Uppsala and one private landowner.

Timber floating operations in Scandinavia during the 19th and 20th centuries has contributed to severe negative impacts on riverine ecosystems. Increase in water velocity and lack of stream bed heterogeneity as a result of stream channelization lead to increased bed load transport. Since availability and recruitment of new suitable spawning substrate in Scandinavian watercourses is sparse, spawning habitats for salmonids has become a scarce commodity. Lately, increasingly more attention has been given to the recreation and improvement of brown trout (Salmo trutta) spawning habitats in restoration projects. While much of the research on spawning habitat has been focused on evaluation of the influence that the constructed spawning grounds have on fish populations, few studies have been conducted to evaluate the persistence of these constructions over time. I evaluate erosion of constructed spawning beds as an effect of sediment transport attributable to water discharge.

In Sweden today many municipalities and sport clubs chooses to build artificial turfs becauseof the increased period of using the turfs during the year and less maintenance requirementsthan for natural grass fields. What could be problematic with artificial turfs is the rubbergranules used as infill material in the turf matt. The rubber granules are often made fromrecycled tires, which may contain for the human health and the environment, harmful substances.This was the reason why the Swedish Chemicals Agency commissioned a statusreport in 2006 which, among other things, concluded that the environmental and health risksassociated with granules made from recycled tiers in artificial turf fields were small, but thatthere could be a local environmental hazard. The purpose and objective of the risk assessmentwas to identify how artificial turf plans granules can affect recipients in the area closeto the pitches and provide input to reduce the spread of metals and substances harmful forboth human health and the surrounding environment. The work was divided into three parts:(1) the construction of artificial turf pitches and their material content, the spread of granulatesoutside the fields and disposal of artificial turf pitches.

The purpose of this thesis was to determine what materials should be used when creating a stimulating garden for intellectually handicapped people and whether there are materials that are better than others to use in this kind of environment. How the materials preferably can be used and how the environment should be designed to satisfy the need of each individual will also be discussed. Seriously intellectually handicapped people have the same level of intelligence as a normal 0-2 year old child. It is important to point out that these individuals can not be compared to a normal child in other aspects than the level of abstract thinking and perception of reality. As the grown up intellectually handicapped people have remained a lot longer on this stage of intelligence they have got more experience. (Kylén 1981) It is important with a lot of different experiences for the brain to develop normally, which implies the use of many different materials to achieve the best stimulation (Kylén 1981).

The subject of this project focuses on how Landscape Architects by their profession can explore and directly make a difference in the cityscape. This paper documents the process of art - based research practice. The purpose of installing temporary activities is to encourage people in the city to discover, participate and invite people to be more playful in the city. My experience of interaction in public spaces comes primarily from the education within landscape architecture, from site-specific art installations I have performed in different cities and from observations of landscape architecture, street art and urban life in the cities of Vienna, Berlin and Linköping. It is fascinating and inspiring to see how the urban space can invite and allow visitors to participate and therefore feel invited to the open space. As a landscape architect I wish to create urban spaces that are useful and inspiring for their visitors. The projects main question: How can you make temporary landscapes that encourage outdoorinspired activities at selected locations in the city? is answered by practice based research, an approach in which theoretical research are developed through practical experiments in the designing- and implementation process.

Unwanted vegetation on the land of electric transforming stations is a problem, in the sense that it contributes to higher fire risks and also constitutes an obstacle for people performing maintenance operations at the station. Such unwanted vegetation is controlled using herbicides and mechanical measures. Since the use of herbicides implies environmental hazards, there is a need to find alternative ways of fighting the unwanted vegetation. Investigation into suitable plants for ground cover, trials in the greenhouse, trials in the field, soil analyses and compilation of experiences from similar trials are parts of this work. The paper also contains analyses of possible environmental benefits and economical gains. There is also a final discussion of some proposals regarding alternative weed controlling methods.