Chemicals are everywhere in todays society, in humans, animals as well as nature, and they are difficult to avoid. The chemical industry is regarded to be the fastest growing industrial sector, accounting for ten percent of the global economy. A large amount of chemicals are used to produce hygiene products and cosmetics, products that in Sweden only are consumed in quantities of 110 tons per day. Researchers find it increasingly difficult to determine which chemicals that are dangerous and which that are safe, and how they might affect us in the long run. Correlations have been found between chemicals, diseases and other health effects such as cancer, allergies, reproductive and endocrine disorders.

There are several man-made environmental problems in today?s society. Tourism gives a lot of people serenity, creates jobs and better social circumstances but also has a dark side, a dark side that is harming our environment. Mass tourism creates large amounts of harmful gasses through transportation of tourists, littering ends up in pollution and acidification and the list goes on. Ecotourism has during the latter part of the last decade been marketed as a counter pool to the harmful kind of tourism and offers connectedness to nature.

Semi-natural grasslands are threatened biotopes in the landscape and without conservation measures high values of nature will be lost. Meanwhile, the biological values associated with cultural values of the traditional agricultural landscape in Sweden. Studies of land use history may help to understand how today biological diversity has evolved and how it can be preserved. Färsna farm in Norrtälje has left some of the old heritage of biological diversity in the form of nature - forest and grassland, which hosts an unusual herb-rich flora. Through the study of historic maps and från1673/1767/1801/1901 1952 and orthophoto of the area has a picture of how land use has changed over time emerged.

Animals in zoos live in more barren environments than their conspecifics in nature. In nature, elephants spend more than 75 % of the day foraging and have been observed lying down two hours during night. Stereotypies are common in many different species in zoos. Stereotypic behaviors may constitute up to 50 % of the daily activity budget of zoo elephants. Modern zoos try to reduce stereotypic behaviors by means of environmental enrichment.

The purpose of this essay is to analyze and show possibilities how a city can grow into the scenery of a oak dominated landscape and how this encounter can add values to the city. The city in focus is Linköping, a city that is approaching one of Sweden?s largest oak dominated cultural landscapes. To this landscape high ecological and cultural values are connected. The recreational values are also of importance especially because of its urban location also because the city is mainly surrounded by flat agricultural land.

We are daily using the public space to move throughout the city. The public space is an important part of our city and it?s where a lot of social activities occur and a lot of different events take place. The outdoor environment in the city should offer the residents nice and varying places for staying. In this essay I will try to understand how the physical environment works and how people moves and behave in the public space.

Yeast and Clostridia is a problem in silage for farmers as contaminated silage may result in poor animal health and milk quality. Clostridia can produce toxins that, when consumed, acts as neurotoxins, it may also cause blown cheeses if the Clostridia contaminates milk. The purpose of this study was to investigate the cause, effect and interaction of yeasts and Clostridia in silage. Clostridia are microorganisms which are strictly anaerobic and consume carbohydrates and protein in the silage. Yeast is a fungus that is facultative aerobic and feed on carbohydrates in the silage.

The purpose of the essay was to investigate the way four different educators, at a pre-school with a bilingual profile, work towards strengthening the children?s bilingualism as well as their identity. The research questions concern which guidelines are being used, the educators perceptions concerning children?s bi- and multilingualism and in what way they believe that their pre-school distinguishes itself from others.Qualitative individual interviews and observations were conducted and the empirical data was analyzed using a theoretical framework, constructed of theories concerning language development, ethnicity and identity.The result presented in the study shows that the pre-school not only follows the national curriculum but also their own guideline. The guideline states that there should be both Spanish- and Swedish speaking personnel and that they are ?responsible? for the education in their own language.

The biodiversity of the Swedish forest has degenerated since the beginning of the 19th century when fire suppression and large scale logging first occurred. Together with a changed land use, these actions today have had a negative influence on many forest dwelling species, due to gradual reduction of natural processes, successions and different structures from the forest ecosystem. The Swedish Forest Act, together with different environment certifications, have today encouraged private persons and forest companies, among them Holmen Skog, to work actively to improve nature conservation. The aim of this study was to, by field inventories of already existing nature values, literature studies, recommendations from scientific reports and ecological gap analysis as a basis, make a management plan, for a non-production area, to conserve or improve the prerequisites for biodiversity. ?Storskogsberget? is located in the coastal area of Västerbotten County, 35 km from the city of Umeå.

Studies have shown that air pollution, as well as bark fissure depth and sun exposure of a tree can have an effect on lichen growth as well as abundance of lichen species. The aim of this study was to find out the relative importance of these factors. 211 oaks in south eastern Sweden were surveyed for presence of 17 lichen species, as well as the total number of lichen species. Half of the trees were situated in urban areas and half in the countryside. For each tree the bark fissure depth was measured and the sun exposure of the trunk was estimated.

This essay highlights the Swedish retail companies? engagement in ethics and environment issues as a part of the business concept. The Customer is today more aware about what is going on in the world than ever before. Two of the main reasons are the Internet and the globalization. In relation to the customer being more aware about the situation in the world today, the demand for products which have been produced in consideration of ethical and environmental values has increased.

The practice of landscape architectural involves forming the space in our cities and suburbs, as well as the landscape surrounding. The need of exploiting green environment leads up to, among other issues, flood problem during heavy rain and overfed water environments. The problem is partially caused by the shortage of knowledge, how the environment is responding of the innovations made by the city- urban planning and how to get sustainability. Research and knowledge how to take care of our environment, in a natural way, is increasing. The object of the thesis is to propose control and balance in urban wetlands, and discuss the difference a plant design can do. The thesis deals with discourses in the field of landscape architecture, biological diversity, dam construction, limnology, planting design and management, pollution of the environment and urban design practice.

This thesis is a study of residential environments and a design concept for a proposed housing area in Tierp. The industrial era created a need for the central planning of housing. The confined environments that arised in cities during the 19th century, together with modernistic and democratic ideas, led to regulations in planning and housing. Though the overall goal has been the same: to create a good standard in living, the ideas of how to achieve that have varied. The starting point for following generations has been to attend to the insufficiencies of the earlier planning periods.

The purpose with this study is to map the research front and the research base in information science, by using the bibliometric methods bibliographic coupling and author-co citation analysis. The research questions are: 1. What is the nature of the research front in information science, regarding which areas that are being studied? 2. What is the nature of the research base in information science, regarding which authors who are most cited, and how they can be grouped? The data used in the study were gathered from articles published in the journal Journal of the American society for information science and technology, published between 2004-2006, respectively 1986-2006.

This study aims to discover pedagogues perceptions of children?s sedentary behavior linked to the school and its activities. Questions that the study sought to answer was: What do pedagogues think of when they hear ?sedentary children?. How do the pedagogues look at their own and the schools responsibility? Advantages and disadvantages with sedentary behavior? Relationship between physical activity and sedentary behavior and the impact of environment connected to sedentary behavior? The study is qualitative and implemented through seven interviews with pedagogues in the schools earlier years.