This thesis is part of the evaluation of a development project in Serbia, where cooperativeshave been formed in order to make the members support themselves trough organic farming.The purpose of the paper has been to find out if the goal of making the current members andpotential new members able to support themselves on what the cooperatives produce, hasbeen reached. The goal is to be considered as partly fulfilled; according to the last annualreport from Odraz, ?the registered cooperatives have become fully functional and stable andthey have started making some modest profit.???the majority of the beneficiaries think thatthey are self-reliant??. In order to find out what is required in order to fulfil the establishedgoal entirely, (for example there are no reports of that new members have been recruited, andthe fact that most, not all, current members of the cooperatives (the beneficiaries) say thatthey are supplied from what the cooperatives produce), I have tried to identify the conditionswhich the cooperatives operate under. The basis of the paper consists of a literature review,interviews with the directors of the cooperatives, a questionnaire dealing with the businessenvironment and various external sources in Serbia..

Composting is a process in which organic matter is mineralized by microorganisms. In January 2005 landfilling of organic waste was prohibited in Sweden. With this prohibition composting has become an important alternative to handle the produced organic wastes. One problem with continuous small-scale composting is the production of organic acids that will inhibit a further composting process. The aim of these theses was to study what effects temperature and dry matter content had on the production of organics acids, and what effect the organic acids had on the mineralisation of the substrate as well as the stability during storage of the product.

GE Healthcare operates in Uppsala (Sweden) and develops systems, equipments and medium to purify medical substances. Discussions with the local authority concerning planed far-reaching changes and upgrades of the biological process techniques for sewage management, aroused the question about revising the terms of permit for the activity. Therefore it seemed necessary to evaluate a newly installed biological process technique, which is the background of this thesis. The evaluated biological treatment process was built in 2003 and consists of a biological reactor filled with moving bed carriers with a high surface area for biological growth. At the time of the project the biological wastewater treatment plant consisted of a flow equalization facility and two following parallel biological processes; a biological reactor with moving bed carriers and a tower trickling filter.The aim of this thesis was to survey the function of the biological reactor with respect to the reduction of organic matter.

Increasing attention is being given to acid sulphate soils wherever they occur. The problems that leaching sulphate soils gives with significant lowerings of pH and mobilization of heavy metals influence large spectra of our society from fisheries to agriculture to construction. Mapping these soils is consequently of great importance and the methods of doing this is very much lacking in function and precision. This study was therefore carried out to investigate whether conductivity in running water can be used as a simple instrument to identify acid sulphate soils in the catchment. 31 coastal streams in the county of Västerbotten were analyzed for different catchment properties such as occurence of marine sediments and basic water chemistry including conductivity and sulphate.

This study was made on former agricultural areas that had been planted with spruce or pine, in the county of Västerbotten. The goal of the project was to investigate suspected deficiency of boron in these areas. Several objects have been reported for possible deficiency and some of these have the characteristic symptoms of boron-deficiency. The hypotheses are that 1) Boron deficiency is present at several of the investigated objects. 2) Planting of forest on cultivated postglacial sediments leads to a successive podzolisation with a decreasing content of organic matter in the mineral soil, due to decomposition, and a decreasing pH in the soil, even on locations that have been added lime. To be able to confirm or reject the hypotheses a number of tests were performed.

Green manuring is a way of creating an organic fertilizer by growing a crop that is mowed down. Besides the fertilizing effect this method has been shown to have a positive influ-ence on soil organic matter as well as weed flora, and green manure is an important me-thod of weed control in organic farming in parts of Sweden. However, the release of nu-trients from the green manure varies and can therefore be difficult to control. Risks for losses of nutrients are also present. Although the area of organic farmland is increasing in Sweden, the use of green manure is decreasing.This report contains a literature study which compiles research on the functions of green manure in a cropping system and also how the crop can be used if harvested, for example to produce biogas.

The discussion about organic and fair trade products has been a big issue during the last few years. Despite an extensive knowledge about the environmental problems and a willingness to do something about it, the consumers are not always acting that way. Children do imitate their parents and other adults at an early age, so if the role models do not begin to act, think and dress ethically correct, neither will the children. Three problems have been identified out of the discussion. They relate to the questions of how older school children and parents of younger school children are taking sides regarding the organic/fair trade clothes and how existing trends in the society as well as those in fashion contexts influence their attitudes and consumer behaviour.

In a time when concern for the environment is a topic that is met with both love and hatred, organic goods and services become increasingly common on the market. Communication efforts with the purpose of increasing the proportion of organic products consumed are being conducted by both private and public actors. However, achieving attitudinal and behavioral change within complex areas such as this comes with many difficulties.Within public opinion change, a common way of achieving a change in behavior is to use fear appeals and scare tactics. Earlier studies have shown that messages prompting a low level of fear can be more effective than messages prompting a high level of fear, since a high level of fear tends to raise defense mechanisms in the consumer. The purpose of this essay is to examine whether fear and defense mechanisms is a problem when it comes to making consumers choose organic products, as well as studying whether messages prompting low levels of fear are more effective than those prompting high levels of fear.This quantitative study is conducted in the form of a questionnaire-based experiment, comparing the effectiveness of two messages prompting different levels of fear.

In the last years people has become more aware of issues regarding corporate social responsibility. This has led to a more thorough control of big multinational companies, which are often held account of violating social, ethical and environmental values. The term most often used for this is corporate social responsibility (CSR). H&M is a Swedish multinational company and the concept of H&M is fashion to a low price. The material most often used in producing clothes is cotton.

Green manuring is a way of creating an organic fertilizer by growing a crop that is mowed down. Besides the fertilizing effect this method has been shown to have a positive influ-ence on soil organic matter as well as weed flora, and green manure is an important me-thod of weed control in organic farming in parts of Sweden. However, the release of nu-trients from the green manure varies and can therefore be difficult to control. Risks for losses of nutrients are also present. Although the area of organic farmland is increasing in Sweden, the use of green manure is decreasing.This report contains a literature study which compiles research on the functions of green manure in a cropping system and also how the crop can be used if harvested, for example to produce biogas.

This thesis has been focused around the Diels Alder reaction with the goal to design an enzyme catalyzed reaction pathway. To achieve this goal computer aided enzyme design was utilized. Common traditional methods of computational chemistry (B3LYP, MP2) do not do well when calculating reaction barriers or even reaction energies for the Diels Alder reaction. New calcu- lation methods were developed and tested. This was the focus of the first part of the thesis, by choosing a small system, extensive and heavy calculations could be done with CBS-QB3.

The background of this work is the media discussion about the effect of cultivation on peatsoils on greenhouse gas emissions. It has been argued that row sown and intensivelycultivated crops such as carrots are more likely to emit carbon dioxide than for example grassleys. The association KRAV (an association promoting organic farming) shall, from this yearadapt their environmental policy to be more climate smart and have asked the question if thecultivation of some crops is more climate smart than others? Carbon dioxide emissions fromsoil are due to degradation of organic material and the rate is controlled by microbial activity.The microbial activity is determined by a variety of factors such as temperature, soil organicmatter quality and water content. I have measured the carbon dioxide emission from fourdifferent crops at two different farms.

This study examines the scholarly communication activities in two scientific fields, chemistry and economics, in a Polish context. The dissertation aims at investigating what characterises the publishing choices of researchers and what supplementary forms for the dissemination of research output are used by scholars. In addition, the paper is looking into what are the views and awareness of open access and institutional repositories within this scientific community. This thesis gives the results of semi-structured interviews and an online survey at two academic faculties at a Polish technical university. As its theoretical framework, the study uses Whitley?s theory of the intellectual and social organisation of academic fields and Latour and Woolgar?s study regarding various motivations for publishing.

Uranium (U) is a naturally occurring component in bedrock and under the "right" conditions it can dissolve and move into the ground water. Since many people in Sweden depend on drilled wells as their main drinking water supply, they may be exposed to the uranium in the water. Radioactive radiation is not the major concern associated with naturally occurring uranium. It is rather the chemical properties of uranium that make it a potential danger to human health. Uranium is proven to have toxic effects with respect to the functioning of the kidneys.

Changes in the environment are affecting the world market, and pressures from several stakeholders? are forcing different enterprises to adjust to the current situation. Farmers? difficult working conditions and environmental impacts of the conventional cotton production in India have been highlighted. The small-scale production that is characterising India?s cotton farmers implies an insufficient competition power.