In the middle of Australia there is a city called Alice Springs. The city has one of the highest amounts of daily sunshine hours and sun irradiation in the world. The Australian Government runs a project called Solar Cities, and Alice Springs is one of the participators. The main part of the goal with the Solar Cities project is to increase the amount of electricity generated by solar power and by doing that lower the impact on the environment. This thesis examines the possibilities for construction of a large scale solar power plant in Alice Springs. This is done to determine the potential of creating a more sustainable energy system in the city.

Systems development methods has always been an important part of the systems development process. It affects not only the product, but also the organization itself. Today more and more companies are abandoning the more rigid traditional methods for the more flexible agile ones. A transition like this is bound to affect the product and the organization, but in what ways? Is it a difficult transition to make, and how does it affect social environment and dynamics? Does it change how people communicate information to each other? This study was conducted at a local branch of a larger international IT-company.

Insufficient intake of vegetables is a reason for micronutrient deficiencies and malnutrition in developing countries. With urbanization, globalization and a growing world population it is of major importance to secure sufficient food supply for the world?s population. Part of the solution to increased food security among the world?s poor could be the introduction of vegetable home gardens, plots for small scale vegetable production which can provide households with sufficient vegetables as well as serve as an extra income source. The study Improving peri-urban home gardens aims at examining the existence of vegetable home gardens in the peri-urban areas of Hyderabad, India.

This report is a result of a bachelor thesis at the school of Architecture and the Built environment (corresponding to 15 HP) and is written during spring 2012 at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm. The Bachelor's essay is based on the design and dimensioning of a house which is located at a predetermined site in Malmo, Sweden.The idea is to construct a house that is appropriate to use for an average Swedish family of four family members. The house is designed in a modern way with respect to ease of access and disabled facilities. The installation that have been considered are heating, ventilation, sanitation and electricity. Construction calculations and material selection are also discussed.Furthermore, a study about photovoltaic cells has been done.

The EU Council adopted in 2007, environmental and energy goals with the aim of them must be met by 2050. This, in combination with those of the Swedish government 15 enacted environmental goals is supposed to lead the way for the Swedish environmental work.This report has examined measures in properties in the Swedish Cooperative Housing Society (SKB) stocks.The report discusses a range of measures that might be appropriate to apply on the properties to make them more energy efficient.One of the measures discussed, the vent whose primary purpose is to create a good indoor environment for the residents but is also where the most energy is lost.Another measure discussed is insulation of the building envelope on the estate to make it more energy efficient. To put extra insulation on the building envelope is important because of the large amount of energy that is lost through the walls, ceilings and floors.Future actions that may be implemented is individual billing of heating and hot water. This system has been used in European countries since the 70's and today the EU wants to increase the own individuals control over their electricity costs. This has led to a discussion whether to implement the system in Sweden or not.However, there are a number of equitable measures to be sorted out before the system can be used in any great scale.Finally, it is important to remember that environmental measures should be the primary and the pursuit of cost reductions the secondary otherwise you risk the environmental work to be counterproductive..

Deep litter is a system for animals kept in separate stalls, loafing and bedding in wind shelters. The litter can consist of different bedding, like straw and peat. The system is allowed to build over and to ensure optimal proportions it is necessary to add new straw regularly and to have good conditions. Important conditions are aerobic state, humidity, amount of organic substance and acceptable temperatures in the litter. The micro organisms are depending on temperature for their living conditions and to get the bottom layer in the litter to start burning.

This study shows how to plan a pond with an ecosystem which although it will have turtles living in it will not need to be cared. I will also demonstrate how this pond would be designed to work in the natural landscape on Mallorca. The background to the study is that I am interested to investigate how plants that we in Sweden are using as indoor plants are growing in their natural landscape and how to build a land-scape with them. The study highlights different cleaning-systems that can be used to clean a pond in a natural way. A comparison will be made between the conditions of an exterminated turtle-species which will live in this environment and a species that is easier to care for.

Smallholder farmers in Uganda suffer from declining productivity. With a rapidly increasing population, marginal land is taken into production and the current land management leads to loss in soil fertility and escalation in soil erosion. There are studies indicating that the use of agroforestry increases soil organic carbon (SOC) compared to systems without trees. Soils which are high in carbon have many advantages, for example better water holding capacity, which can reduce stress on crops during drought. The aim of this study was to determine the effect agroforestry has on SOC concentration in small-holder farming systems in Uganda. The intended system to study was farms practicing agroforestry methods or not in intercropped plantain (cooking banana) fields.

This thesis is about a part of the marquetrytechnique, scorching. Scorching is made by heating up something, put a veneer into the heated substance and make a controlled burning. This technique is old but still used today and have according to me great potential for development. In my work I wanted to give the scorching greater room then I earlier have seen. I wanted the scorching to be the dominant ingredient for a decorative element in a piece of furniture or an interior.

Hemmasittare is a new term for children and youths with a history of long term truancy. As the term indicates these youths spend most of their time in their homes. This often results in them being socially alienated and the loss of their earlier social network. The consequences of hemmasittande and social alienation are many and include not only a deficient social network but also psychological and physical problems. Research has shown that many of these problems follow on through into adult life.

Intercropping involving trees is called agroforestry and makes it possible to get higher production for every area unit. The trees can function as food, fodder, fuel, medicine; prevent mark erosion and much more. Agroforestry can also be combined with animal husbandry. The aim of this study was to document the animal production systems used by rural small-scale farmers maintaining ruminants and using agroforestry in the northern province of Rwanda. The farmers using agroforestry is expected to have higher milk yield than average due to homegrown protein. The method used during the study was semi-structural interviews with booth open and closed questions. In order to get in contact with farmers that matched the criteria; small-scaled rural farmers with ruminants and using agroforestry, the ?Vi Agroforestry Programme? (Vi-Life) in Kigali were contacted and the staff worked as supervisors, translators and contact with the farmers throughout the study. During the study nine individual farmers, two cooperatives breeding sheep and one group interview were conducted.

The objective of this work was to introduce measures to reduce energy and water demand at Gävle Söder 17:10. To succeed, this energy audit has been made. The work is based on collected statistics from the property owner Norrporten, measurements, literature review and through consultation with experts in the field. Two models, one for each building, have been created in the simulation program BV2 to estimate the potential of energy measures based on the collected information. The models in BV2 have been verified against the statistics of the energy consumption.With the help of calculations and simulations, seven cost-effective measures have been identified.

Linux is a growing operating system in embedded systems. Today, Linux is not only in heavy servers but also in cell phones, PDAs, cameras and other devices running on battery power. While current technology is more energy efficient, more and more technologies are implemented into a single unit resulting in an overall increase of power consumption.Low power consumption is an increasingly important feature of a system today. Lower power consumption means lower costs, less environmental impact, and longer life for applications that runs on batteries.This work compiles methods to reduce power consumption of Linux systems. The work includes examining whether the available opportunities are platform-specific or of a more general nature.

This master thesis was performed at Scania Research & Development. The given mission was to see where the department Systems Development should focus to improve their development work. Thus the purpose was to map the product development processes in which the department works today and within them identify improvements. To fulfil the purpose a theoretical study of relevant terms, such as improvement work, product development and processes, initially was formed. The mapping method used is called "walk trough" and meant to let the people working in the processes be guides in their own process.

Scandinavian Biogas is involved in the planning of a combined ethanol and biogas factory in Karlskoga, Sweden. Besides biogas and ethanol large amounts of digester residues will be produced, about 450 000 liquid tonnes residue (~7,3 % Dry Substance( DS)). The objective of this thesis was to investigate possible uses of the residue from the biogas production process ScandgasEthanol developed by Scandinavian Biogas, and to derive a methodological approach how to evaluate and compare handling systems. Three systems where proposed and compared in this thesis; spreading of the untreated residue as fertilizer (system 1), dewatering to a higher DS content to reduce transportation before spreading as fertilizer (system 2) and production of a solid fuel by dewatering and drying the residue (system 3). The general conditions for the proposed systems were investigated in terms of practical viability, economical aspects, environmental impact and energy inputs/outputs.