Approximately 4000-5000 hectares, of SCA´s forest land area in Västerbotten, are in need of pre-commercial thinning (PCT) every year. Within the management district, the areas annually treated with PCT must increase, in order to decrease the area with an urgent need for PCT. This can be done by employing more forest workers or entrepreneurs, by mechanized PCT or by an extended season for PCT. Positive experiences from a private forest owner, who started to carry out PCT when the first snow came and then continued for several months, gave an idea to investigate the possibilities to prolong the season of PCT. The purpose of this experiment was to compare PCT carried out when there was snow on the ground with PCT performed when there was no snow on the ground.

The Third International Assessment of Educational Progress (TIMMS) and the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) during the last decades regarding the results of mathematics teaching shows that China have a better performance than Sweden?s.Swedish teacher-guidelines focus on developing student?s individual interest and confidence for mathematics. In the Chinese teaching-guidelines for Mathematics Curriculum Standards, Ordninary Senior Secondary, the focus is given on: Elevate their mathematics literacy necessary for future citizenship and Development of citizen´s qualities (s.3).Teachers are the primary factors that impact teaching and learning of mathematics. Two teachers from Sweden and two from China were interviewed and their methods were compared in my study. The aim of my study was to understand mathematics teaching in China and Sweden.

Companies in the apparel industry are becoming increasingly responsible with regards to the social and environmental issues related to textile production. Despite these tendencies, there are great insecurities surrounding the concept of CSR and the effects on consumers of CSR communication. There is currently no model for breaking the concept of CSR down into smaller elements, specific for the apparel industry. In the first part of this thesis, we create such a model, applicable in a consumer communication context. In the second part, we investigate the effects on consumer attitudes and intentions of communicating the different elements of CSR presented in the model.

In subsequent to Post-colonialism the African nations have dilated into different political directions. While some nations have established well-functioning democracies, others are still under authoritarian regimes. The aim of this thesis is to examine if civil society has an impact on democratic development in West Africa. Therefore the theoretical starting point is Putnam?s theory of social capital, but this study will also examine other possible causal explanations for democratic transition.This study will be based on a comparative analysis of Ghana and Guinea.

Dead wood is important for many species. The amount of coarse dead wood (diameter >10 cm) is much lower in managed forest than in unmanaged forests. Stumps constitute the largest proportion of the volume of coarse dead wood in managed forests. Since stump harvest for biofuel may increase, the amount of dead wood will decrease even more, which may threaten biodiversity. The first aim of this study was to compare the amounts of fine woody debris (FWD, .

There is an increased pressure for firms to provide the financial market with additional information. Such disclosure is attached with different kinds of costs. In spite of these costs, and in spite of increased mandatory disclosures, firms choose to voluntary disclosure financial information to analysts and others. This indicates that firms also benefit from providing additional information. The subjects of this study is 431 annual reports from firms listed at the Stockholm Stock Exchange for 2002 and 2005 and the objective is to survey factors that can explain variations in firms? voluntary disclosure.

Companies today are facing more and different kinds of demands from the society and their stakeholders. It is no longer enough to just deliver the products, and not just the quality of the products that matter. The consumers are getting more conscious about the many ways in which companies affect the society and the environment in which we live. The financial sector, that among others includes stakeholders such as insurance companies, banks and fund companies are starting to realise the importance of the non- financial issues that companies are encountering. Analysing the companies sustainability when it comes to social and environmental issues, has become an increasingly important factor when for example choosing companies to invest in.

The eighth of august the Olympic games in Beijing started. The chinese regime promised to improve the human rights situation in the country if awarded the Olympic games 2008. The decision to place the games in Beijing arouse severe critique and many questioned how the International Olympic Committe could place the games in a country that so obviously violate basic human rights.The main purpose of this essay has been to analyse what consequences the Olympic Games has given the human rights situation in China. In order to accomplish this I have studied some specific human rights, which I consider to be directly linked to the games. I found that the situation for these human rights has infact worsened since 2001 when China was awarded the games.

Modern forestry requires a high degree of machine traffic for clear felling and scarification operations. The machines most frequently used are big and the traffic often results in tracks on the forest ground. There are many small streams running through a forest, in connection to logging operations, machines might cross these frequently. These crossings could result in the erosion of fine particulate inorganic matter, which ends up in the stream. The aim of this thesis was to give a general description of small forest streams of order-one in the county of Värmland and to determine the frequency of machine tracks in small streams.

My intention with this study is to evaluate, as a singer and a voice teacher, a number of routines for daily vocal practice through practical application. Seven different routines are presented, five of them originating from interviews with Swedish vocal teachers and singers and two chosen from literature. These routines are then tried out and evaluated. Using the results of these evaluations as a basis, I make an attempt at formulating my own personal practice routine, optimal for my own needs. I will also try to address motivational issues related to practice with hints acquired through the interviews.

Sambandet mellan samhällsutvecklingen och de växande miljöproblemen kom i slutet av 1980-talet att få en allt mer framskjuten roll på den politiska agendan i Sverige. I och med att energianvändningen står för en stor del av miljöproblemen har allt fler kommit att inse vikten av att uppnå en hållbar situation för energianvändandet. För att se hur arbetet mot en hållbar energianvändning fortskrider har International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) tagit fram en modell för detta. Studiens övergripande syfte har varit att analysera huruvida Sverige går mot en mer hållbar energianvändning med hjälp av IAEA:s indikatorer. Teorin i studien har baserats på grundläggande miljöekonomiska resonemang.

This project is focusing on a future park that will surround Hyllie water tower in the outskirts of Malmö. The water tower will be located in the central part of the new building area Hyllievång. The park will function as a town park with a special focus on water. The water council of the municipality, Va-verket, has for the last 7 years built up and been in charge for a pedagogical programme in the water tower, were schoolchildren come to learn about the cycle of water and how we use water in our daily life. In the park they want to build a new part that gives experience of water, as a compliment to the information in the tower. What will that park look like, and what shall it be constructed of? How do you bring water to the surface in a park? How can landscape architecture work to enhance the presence of water and make people more interested in water issues? In the search to find the answers to all my questions I have meet with people, read books and visited different places.

The awareness regarding environmental issues is increasing and as a result a large number of products are eco-labeled. This enables the consumers to make enlightened environmental decisions when purchasing products. Eco-labeling is no longer for products only, but also for services like hotels. It?s difficult to determine what it actually means to eco-label a hotel and what kind of benefits it includes.

This paper exposes the problems and challenges organizations face when integrating aged systems, web based systems and web services. The paper focuses on how people with different titles in an organization experience systems integration and the factors that contribute to project failure or success. The research methodology used in this is Grounded Theory and the resulting theory of this paper has taken form through the coding of transcribed interviews, which have gone through a constant comparing to other theories in the area of interest, mostly articles about success factors in system integration. The resulting outcome is a success model aimed to describe the underlying indicators to achieve project success.The success model consists of three factors that contribute to success in integration projects. The factors are: globalization, governance and balance.

Regionalisation has become an increasingly important phenomenon in a globalized world. As models of regional integration, the European Union (EU) and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) are two prominent examples. This thesis seeks to explore through a comparative analysis, the different mechanisms and institutions for handling breaches against fundamental values within the two regional organizations. Inter-linked with the issue of the legal-institutional framework is that of what values the mechanisms are designed to protect. The method used for the analysis is first and foremost that of public international and European law, but the thesis also attempts to give a broader picture of the issues presented.