Every year approx. 110 billion SEK is being used In Sweden to finance research. The government contributes with 22 percent, i.e. approx. 25 billion SEK.

With rising energy prices and the threat of climate change, energy costs and energy savings havebecome a central and important part in building. Therefore it is interesting to explore different andnon-conventional methods of energy conservation. Building Earth sheltered houses is such a method.Earth provides good insulation and provides the ability to both reduce the total heating needs and toreduce the maximum power demand. The aim of this study was to construct a house in Malmö and seeif Earth sheltered houses can be a cost effective alternative for the construction of sustainable andenergy-efficient houses.Previous studies have shown that Earth sheltered houses have reduced their power requirement with upto 25% and their use of energy with 10%. Numerical calculations in Comsol Multiphysic 4.2, wasperformed on a house with different degrees of earth covering.

An analysis of a specific application of anaerobic wastewater treatment at a pulp and board mill, Stora Enso Skoghall, was carried out. A literature study was done and effluent wastewater from CTMP pulp production was analyzed. The analysis consisted of a broad constituent analysis and an anaerobic treatment trial. Results from these test where used to calculate the treatment effectiveness and resulting energy potential at the mill.The literature study and constituent analysis showed that toxicity of the water to be treated, due to wood extractives and sulphur content, was of concern. Detoxification chemicals targeting these constituents where used in the anaerobic treatment trial.

It has become popular for political scientists to discuss the transformation from government to governance and the networks? greater influence on public policymaking. However, this debate lacks methodological, empirical and theoretical research about the relationship between governance networks and representative democracy. The main objective of this essay is to understand the relationship between governance networks and representative democracy through a case study of the governance network Leader Linné. The theoretical framework includes four analysis models about the relationship between governance networks and representative democracy that are analysed by five factors connected to representative democracy.

This thesis provides a good introduction to the American environmental certification system LEED, Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, and trough compar-isons between Sweden and the United States an explanation to the systems design is given. The work is closely linked to a LEED Core & Shell project in Stockholm, Swe-den, where the goal is to reach the second highest rating in LEED - Gold.This thesis gives a broad description of the LEED system and a more profound study of the energy sector, Energy and Atmosphere. Here, for example, an analysis has been made of how the energy consumption of an imaginary building designed according to the requirements of the BBR (Swedish building code) performs in comparison to the Baseline building in LEED.The existing model of Borgarfjord 3, which served as a case study in this work, has al-so been modified to investigate the energy savings that could have been achieved by adding extra insulation to the building. A description of the problems, regarding how the Swedish district heating system (DES) is treated in LEED, is given as well as the suggested modifications. This is an issue that will be pursued during the process of shaping a new, international, version of LEED due to be launched 2012..

Today, maintenance is a big part of the daily life on board ships. It is also one of the bigger expenses a shipping company has and without any loss of quality tries to run as economically advantageous as possible. In the hunt for economical savings the shore-based industry has subsequently applied the use of condition based maintenance, CBM, were a component is maintained according to its actual state. This leads to a reduction of maintenance costs since no parts are unnecessarily replaced. However, within the maritime sector a periodical maintenance is still the most commonly used maintenance system.The purpose of this paper is to chart the factors that are the reason for the low implementation of CBM on board the Swedish merchant fleet's ships.

The purpose of this Master?s thesis is to study if teenage fiction, published in Swedish during the course of one year, matches what boys in eight grade claim they want to read about. The background for our work is a survey initiated by Lärarnas Riksförbund, Läsa för att lära, in 2005. The conclusion drawn in Läsa för att lära is that many children, especially boys, lose their interest in reading when they become teenagers. Information on fictional books for teenagers has been collected from Bibliotekstjänst.

Executive SummaryThis final thesis has examined the effects of an increased centralization and better coord­in­ation of the distribution logistics at ABB in Västerås. The company is today strongly decent­ralized and there is a minimum of collaboration between the 20 business units. This is why the questions were raised; how could the business units coordinate outbound logistic activities and what effects would that provide. The obj­ect­ive of this final thesis is to provide basic data for a future decision-making which desc­r­ibe these effects.The report has mapped out the factors that are important to ABB in an evaluation of their logistic activities and how the outbound logistics work today. The four factors are cost efficiency, delivery service, environmental impact and logistics capability.

The question of excessive global energy use needs to be solved. All energy production and usage have negative environmental impacts, which are best solved by reducing energy consumption and by using energy more efficiently. A large part of the Swedish energy use is concentrated to the building sector and to reduce the total energy consumption real efforts need to be made to make buildings more energy efficient.The aim of this study was to investigate how energy is used in one of Göteborg University?s buildings and to find measures that can be taken to improve its energy efficiency. The chosen building Zoologen, is used for research and education.The main method of the study is computer simulations of the present building and of possible energy reducing measures to be made in the future.

Today there is a shortage of skilled IT-technicians in Sweden. It is approximated that Swedish companies can hire 31 000 IT-technicians in 2015 and the need seems to increase in the coming years. One proposed solution to this problem is to make programming more desirable to youths. In this study we attempt to investigate the effects of an introductory course in computer science on youths? (16-17 years old) in a classroom setting.

As energy prices skyrocket and the environmental issues become more frequently debated, interest in energy-efficient buildings has increased sharply in the past decade. Because of this, the interest to achieve high air tightness in building envelopes have once again awakened, due to a good air tightness contributes to lower energy consumption in several ways and to a healthier indoor environment.As the regulations for energy consumption and controls of achieved air tightness has tightened considerably in recent years, the work regarding sheets for air tightness changed significantly for construction contractors. This thesis includes a study that aims to detect what kind of manuals, recommendations or instructions contractors working according, and how a number of randomly selected construction companies in Halland, Sweden, are dealing with the matter of high air tightness of the building envelopes. The study also includes a knowledge inventory of supervisors, site managers and skilled workers, and what their opinions and attitudes are like towards work regarding the sheets of air tightness. The results have been compared with a similar survey dated to 2004, conducted by the SP Technical Research Institute of Sweden in collaboration with Chalmers University of Technology.

The free choice of upper secondary school?A study of the meaning of the information channels for the choice of upper secondary schoolAuthors: David Fridner & Rikard ZeilonMentor: Ingela WadbringQuestionnaire studyDate: 2008-08-11AbstractThe choice of upper secondary school is a very important choice, both for the school and for the ninth grader. In Göteborg, the free choice of upper secondary school has generated several new information channels apart from the traditional counselor, daily news and the acquaintance. Today it is harder than ever to reach the pupil through the constant media noise and new forms of communication such as events appear. The fight for each pupil gets more and more important every term and it has now become real big business.Today?s youth is imprinted by a growing individuality and everyone knows that equableness is something very important.

This essay is about integration of theoretical subjects and practical subjects at the vocational training education in a Swedish Upper secondary school. The purpose of the essay was to examine if integration of the subjects increases the students` motivation for, interest in and knowledge of the subject Swedish. Other purposes were to examine how the teachers organize their teaching of Swedish in order to adjust it to the students? interests and to examine the students? attitude towards Swedish as a subject.The essay also describes the recent development of the vocational training education of Swedish Upper secondary school and presents theories about learning and other examinations about teaching of theoretical subjects at the vocational training education.The examination carried through with a questionnaire which was distributed to the students at three programs at the school and interviews with the headmaster and two teachers. The result of the study showed that a small majority of the students believe that integration increases their motivation in and knowledge of Swedish.

Thesis purpose: The main purpose of this study is to empirically verify the applicability of Kozinets´ model on an interest, activity or lifestyle based online community, in order to develop an adaptive segmentation approach for segmenting online communities. Methodology: This research is deductive by nature, cross-sectional by design and undertakes a quantitative approach using self-completion questionnaire as a part of a web survey to collect the empirical data needed. Theoretical perspective: The main theories guiding our work and supporting the findings of this study include: market segmentation (descriptive and behavioural) and communities (consumer communities and online communities). Empirical data: A web survey with self-completion questionnaire used to gather empirical data from members of interest, activity or lifestyle based online communities. Conclusions: This study took the specific characteristics of online communities into more consideration than previous research and literature has done and also recognized that an adaptive segmentation approach is needed, depending on the communities of study.

The purpose of this study was to examine how small-scale private forest ownersmake decisions regarding pre-commercial thinning. In 2015 it is ten years agosince the storm Gudrun hit the southern parts of Sweden and now large areas arein need of pre-commercial thinning. This study is built upon qualitativeinterviews with seven small-scale private forest owners with forest properties inthe county Kronoberg. The respondents were chosen by the modelSKOGSÄGARPROFILENTM (forest owner profile).The results of the interviews showed that five categories: ownership, the stormGudrun´s impact, silviculture, forestry contacts and driving force was important.How will their purpose and aim affect the pre-commercial thinning? Personalinterests, and expectations of the next generation to take over, are purposes thisstudy has found.