Dairy cows transform grass to milk with help from ruminal microorganisms that can digest indigestible fiber in their feed. The digestive system of the cow is adapted to a diet consisting of forage and disorders like acidosis, laminitis and abomasal displacement can occur if the feed contains too much starch. To achieve the highest production possible the cow has to be given a high amount of concentrate or grain as the difference in milk yield is significant, approximately 1000 kg energy corrected milk per cow and year between conventional and organic cows that are fed a lower versus a higher share of forage. If the cow shall be able to eat the same amount of energy from forage as from grain or concentrate the eating- and rumination time gets longer and she might not be able to eat enough, which will result in a lower milk yield and will make it harder for the cow to recover from the negative energy balance that originate from the beginning of the lactation. Fat and in a sense protein content differs also depending on if the cow is given a high or low share of forage..

Ytvattenfärgen i barrskogsbältet har sedan industrialismen på mitten av 1900-talet förändrats noterbart. Orsaken till detta är brunifiering och innebär att organiskt material från barrskogen samlar sig i sjöar. En påtaglig effekt av detta fenomen är förändringar i vattenfärg, ju mer löst organiskt material (dissolved organic matter, DOM), desto mörkare vattenfärg. Löst organiskt kol (dissolved organic carbon, DOC) kan komma från två olika källor som visat sig påverka vattenfärgen olika. Alloktont DOC är producerat utanför sjön i de omgivande markerna och ger mörkare färg än autoktont som är producerat inom sjön.

The big change is a project where I created patterns on fabric. It is a collaborative project with Lotta Niemi. She studied fashion and textile designers and tailors from the Swedish School of Textiles in Borås and University of Technology in Sydney. The collaboration was to create designs on fabric for her upcoming clothing line for women, Fall / Winter 2013. The clothes will be sold online, in stores in Sweden and Japan.For Lotta Niemi?s clothing line, I wanted to create exclusive designs, rich patterns that worked out handmade and digital.

Folk blir mer och mer medvetna om den påverkan som bekämpningsmedel har både på människan och på miljön och väljer därför ekologiska alternativ i större utsträckning. Detta leder till att efterfrågan på ekologiska produkter stiger och antalet restauranger som väljer att erbjuda ekologiska produkter som vin ökar. Det innebär också att serveringspersonalens kunskapsnivåer om ekologiska viner och dess olika märkningar måste öka för att man skall kunna svara på gästers frågor.Syftet med studien är att jämföra två restaurangchefers inställning till ekologiska viner och vilka faktorer som påverkar restaurangernas val av vin, samt vilka faktorer restaurangcheferna tror påverkar gästens vinval. Genom en kvalitativ studie av semistrukturerade intervjuer med två restaurangchefer blev resultatet att ekologiska viner och konventionella viner i samma prisklass anses vara likvärdiga i smak och kvalité. De faktorer som påverkar restaurangens val av vin är personalens personliga inställning, gästens val samt det övergripande miljötänket restaurangerna har..

During the spring semester of 2009 I have participated in what was to become the project The Allotment Plot; a collaboration between the Swedish University of Agriculture and the Wanås Foundation. As one of six students in landscape architecture I have experienced a group based learning process with the point of departure in the designing of an organic and experimental kitchen garden at Wanås, a sculpture park for contemporary art. The project came out as neither us nor any other of the people engaged could have guessed. What was meant to be a garden turned out to become an entire cultivation movement. As students, we have gained a lot of experience through praxis; experience that will be valuable for our future profession. The project has also opened up the possibility to question and reflect upon what our profession and education could or should be about. This thesis focuses on the role of communication and the production of communicative tools in design processes and landscape architectural practice. It discusses how communication may be used in an exploratory and ?un-securing? way, and how this may dislocate the professional role, especially in situations where the design action, as in the case of this study, demands a high degree of transdisciplinarity and collaboration. .

Solid waste management is one of the most essential functions in a country to achieve asustainable development. In India, it has been one of the least prioritized functions during thelast decades. The most common ways to treat waste in India today are open dumping anduncontrolled burning. These methods are causing severe environmental pollution and healthproblems. India is one of the world?s largest emitter of methane gas from waste disposal.Since methane is a strong greenhouse gas, even small emissions have large impact on theclimate.

The aim of this paper was to study fourteen pottery sherds found at the site of Ayia Irini in northern Cyprus using Gas chromatography- Mass spectrometry. Ayia Irini has by the archaeologists of the Swedish Cyprus Expedition been interpreted as a sanctuary, with activity spanning from the Late Bronze Age throughout the Cypriot Iron Age.The results showed traces of vegetable lipids in almost all samples, and traces of lipids from terrestrial animals in all but two. One sample showed traces of resin. Several samples were contaminated by different components found in plastics, such as plasticizers. No obvious common denominators were found for samples of similar pottery type or similar dating.

The aim of this thesis is to form a theory of the green consumer power and to distinguish whether this phenomenon could indicate a movement toward the ecological citizenship. To do so, scientific theories regarding the responsibility of companies have been used, as well as the public choice theory, to link individuals as citizens to individuals as consumers. The motives of corporate environmental responsibility, along with consumers ability to bring pressure in different dimensions, are later drawn on as indicators applied to empirical information. The largest producer of ecological products in Sweden, Arla Foods, is employed as case study to explore if the green consumer power can and does exist. The ecological citizenship uses the ecological footprint, to define in what ways we can minimize our part of environmental degradation.The study seems to strengthen the theory, consumers do have a power to make companies go green and they tend to use it increasingly.

This study was carried out in Jordan with the purpose to investigate the bacterial microflora of egg shells from cage systems and from deep litter floor systems. Another aim wasto get a general impression of the hygiene, at farm level, of egg production in Jordan andthe factors affecting it.Eggs from two cage systems and three floor systems were analyzed, regarding bacterialcontamination of the egg shells. Egg samples were taken from the storage room, the eggcradle in the cage system and from the nest and floor in the floor system. To get a generalimpression of the hygiene at the farms, swab tests and air tests were performed. Swab testswere performed with a sterile cotton swab at the same units as the eggs were sampled andair tests were performed by opening petri dishes where the hens were staying.

The purpose of this thesis was to develop and optimize a method of analysis for combustion of organic chemical products, followed by an ion chromatographic quantitative analysis. This was to be achieved with the decomposition equipment IKA AOD 1. The aim was to receive a precise and repeatable method that would be able to be applied to the process of qualification and technical marking of chemical products at the company, OKG AB in Oskarshamn. A complete instruction for the decomposition equipment and the method of analysis was written. A number of parameters were chosen from the general method of the combustion equipment, which then was tested parallel with a simultaneous development of an appropriate ion chromatographic method.

This thesis is about sustainability within chemistry, the so-called, green chemistry. With this work  I seek to combine green chemistry with sustainable  development  and find methods for teaching green chemistry in a laboratory environement.  I have designed  and tested two labs with ingredients of green  chemistry and sustainable development in my study. I wanted to determine if my design model  leads to conception for the students. The students have through forms and interviews declared their perspective on the education and their conception. In a laboratory environment the pros of a laboratory way of work should be recognized.

Författarna har haft ett samarbete med Panduro Hobby i samband med deras årliga miljökampanj. Syftet med examensarbetet har varit att med hjälp av befintliga produktutvecklingsprocesser och livscykelanalyser (LCA) ta fram en hållbar textil produkt med växtfärgning. Tanken var att konsumenter sedan själva skall kunna ta fram och växtfärga denna hållbara textilprodukt. Miljömedvetenhet och hållbarhet inom textilindustrin är ett aktuellt ämne. Trots det saknar dagens konsumenter förståelse för textilindustrins påverkan på miljön och har bristande kunskap om textila material för att kunna göra miljövänliga val ute i handeln.

Hammarby Sjöstad is a new district of southern Stockholm built with focus on reduced environmental impact by recirculation of materials and sustainability. The environmental goals aim to cut the water consumption by half and a separate storm water treatment. Thus, the wastewater will be more concentrated and will originate from the households only. The Sjöstad project includes the idea of a local treatment plant for the household wastewater. To evaluate this possibility, Sjöstadsverket, an experimental treatment plant was constructed.

Burnt alun shale and lime is the residual product that was formed when alun shale was used as fuel to convert limestone to quick lime. The material contains arsenic, vanadium, molybdenum, cadmium, nickel, lead, and uranium among other elements. The aim of this paper is to examine the uptake of trace elements in vegetables grown on burnt alun shale and lime to determine whether or not the surrounding environment and humans are exposed to these elements by eating plant products. A cultivation trial was carried out where onion, carrot, and lettuce were grown on three mounds of burnt alun shale and lime in the Falköping area in Sweden. The treatments were burnt alun shale and lime mixed with peat, only burnt alun shale and lime, and a reference soil. The reference plots were natural soil mixed with peat adjacent to the mounds.

Fossil fuels are affecting our climate negatively and there is a limited amount of them in the world, which leads to the importance of finding alternative fuels. One alternative is biogas, which is produced though a digestion process of different organic materials in a biogasreactor. Organic substrate that comes from farms has the biggest potential to increase the production of biogas in Sweden. Primarily crops from farms, but also waste products like manure are of great importance.Today there is a calculated theoretical potential for biogasproduction of 14TWh per year, which is around ten times larger than Sweden?s production today.