Livestock animals affect their environment in a number of different ways, mostly through grazing and trampling. This study focused on the effects of Gotland pony grazing on forest structure and diversity, and the impact on ground cover. To compare the fenced and grazed area with a reference area outside the enclosure a number of transects were used. The study showed that there was no significant difference in height structure and diversity between the compared sites; however, there were a significantly higher proportion of damaged trees inside the enclosure. The ground cover variables showed a higher amount of bare soil, plant litter and wood-rush (Luzula sp.) inside the enclosure whilst grass was more frequent in the reference area.

BarnOPAC is a Swedish library interface for children. It was launched in public libraries in Sweden in 2001 and has now become a part of library software equipment in several public libraries. The purpose of the thesis is to investigate the interface BarnOPAC on the basis of the childrens perspective. The questions raised consider: how children experience and handle this interface, how library staff experience it and what viewpoints librarians have on childrens use of it. For this purpose we implemented a user study including eight children using the interface in a school library.

A real option model is developed to examine the crucial factors affecting the agricultural firms? decision to quit the production and rent out the land to a company building a PV power plant. The public policies in support of investments in renewable energies have created the conditions for a market regarding investments in PV installations in agricultural areas.The decision to switch offers to the agricultural firm and to society several economical, social and environmental benefits, representing sustainability. However, PV installations in agricultural areas require the allocation of a certain land area. By assigning a part of land to PV installations, thereby the area of land allocated to agricultural production decreases.

SAAB Aerotech division FGR in Arboga builds and develops equipment and components used in both military and civilian applications. To build a test system for a specific project that SAAB is responsible for requires a simple signal generator that can provide a pulse modulated signal. The need to buy a new advanced signal generator for example from Agilent is not as profitable as the instrument is expensive and contains features that SAAB does not require in their applications and test systems. That was the reason why SAAB offers two students a thesis where the goal is to construct a signal generator in accordance with what SAAB requests.This thesis contains several different phases. The first step was a meeting with our supervisor Mats Bergman and by reading the data sheets for components to be used in the project, with these information and specifications that we have received from SAAB we started to construct the signal generator.What we did during the construction work was to simulate and draw a schematic to be able to design the circuit board.

Fuel pellets are a refined bio fuel mostly consisting of residues from sawmills and wood industry. At Rindi Västerdala AB's combined bio energy plant in Vansbro fuel pellets are produced, while the waste heat from the process is used for district heating. The pellets are produced from sawdust, wood shavings and dry wood chips that is dried, milled and pressed into small cylindrical rods. The advantage of refining the wood material in this manner is that the energy value is greater per unit volume and unit weight, thereby the cost of transportation per energy unit is reduced. Also, less storage space is needed.Pellet manufacturing is a complex process since many parameters affects the final results.

This master thesis was conducted in order to investigate the effects of the browsing species Yeheb on animal tissues in Swedish landrace goats and to make a literature review in order to increase the knowledge of the importance of this plant for livestock production in Somalia. The evergreen Yeheb bush is a very important feeding source for grazing and browsing animals in Somalia during the dry period. Yeheb contains cordeauxiaquinone that stains the bones of the animals red/pink, which has been an increasing problem when exporting meat to foreign countries. In an experiment, two goats were fed dry and fresh leaves from the Yeheb bush for one and two months, respectively. The goats did not feed the intended amount of dry leaves, since the supply and palatability was not as high as estimated.

Structural rationalizations and regionalization of the agricultural sector in Sweden has lead to unevenness in thedistribution of plant nutrients. Nutrients are lost from crop producing farms as harvest products are sold, whilefarms with animal production often have manure in excess of their needs. In addition to this the retention ofwater and nutrients in naturally occurring wetlands has decreased due to a reduction of wetlands in number andsize in the agricultural landscape. This increases nutrient levels in agricultural run-off and causes eutrophicationas well as nutrient losses from arable soils. One potential solution to both problems would be to store nutrientrichsurface water from agricultural areas and use it for irrigation of agricultural crops.

This study is an evaluation of the runtime watch function in a OEE software, knownas ProTAK. OEE stands for Overall Equipment Effectiveness, it?s a way to measurethe factories process efficiency. The runtimewatch function allows the user to setup and monitor certain critical objects that are of importance for the pulp and paper process at the mill. The data from the runtimewatch can be correlated towards the suppliers specification for the components.

When a company in the manufactory industry makes costly investments, it's important that these are used as much as possible. The company in this case claims that their invested robot cell, with CNC machine isn't used enough. The questions here are: How can we improve the use of the robot cell? Which products are appropriate for the production in the robot cell? As a method to come to a conclusion, an analysis has been made over the manufactured products. And also interviews with machine operators and the production management.

Volvo Trucks is the second largest manufacturer of heavy trucks, with factories in several countries and with around 21 000 employees. At the plant in Tuve, trucks have been built since 1982 and the activity mainly consists of producing side members and to assemble and packing kits of trucks. In 2005, the factory in Tuve launched the ambition to be the first carbon dioxide neutral vehicle factory in the world. This will be implemented by streamlining and investing in renewable energy. The aim of this degree thesis is to map the usage of energy within production, and also to prepare a method to measure key figures (use of energy per produced unit).

Invasive alien plant species have historically caused major damage to ecosystems and are considered to be amongst the greatest threats to biodiversity globally. The lurking threat of harm to well functioning ecosystems has led to the development of global and regional goals and regulations which seek to stop the spread of invasive species. The Swedish Environmental Protection Agency has proposed a list of species that are specifically harmful to the Swedish flora and fauna, which includes (amongst others) garden lupin. The management of invasive species is however largely dependent on local actions, making municipal public servants key players. This qualitative study uses interviews to investigate how municipal public servants who are responsible for managing invasive alien species view this work.

The last hundred years humans have drastically changed the amount of available nitrogen in nature. Today human activities release twice as much available nitrogen as all natural processes are doing together. We also have degraded nature´s possibilities to take care of nitrogen through the draining of wetlands and straightening of rivers. In order to regain the potential of nitrogen retention in the water systems there now requires a reshape of the landscape we live in. A planned expansion of the mining activities in Garpenberg, Dalarna, would double the content of nitrogen in the waters below the mine.

The aim of this study was to examine the current and historic mercury(Hg) load of the lake Storjuktan due to its recent exposure to a local potential source of Hg in form of the Sulphide mine Blaikengruvan(2006) and an earlier potential sources of Hg-load, the damming of the lake(1960s). Sediments were extracted using a HTH-sampler, freeze-dried, and analyzed for tot-Hg, LOI and activity of 210Pb and compared to samples extracted prior to the opening of the mine(2006). Constant initial concentration (CIC)-dating model was used for dating the samples. Low levels of Hg (100ng/g) were found throughout the lakes sediment. The highest levels of Hg(220ng/g) was detected at a depth of 4-5cm dating back to the mid 1970:s, suggesting that increased levels of atmospheric Hg rather than damming of the lake has caused the increase of Hg.

This thesis work was made to optimize the writing of the construction specificationsat FKA. These construction specifications are created before each plant modificationsthat is started because requirements from the Swedish radiation safety authority(SSM) and internally on Forsmarks nuclear group as constructions / implementationdocumentationThe study was done through seven interviews of two people at three different groupsinvolved in the construction specification and an interview from the group accreditedverification. The four selected groups were selected through an extensive analyticalwork resulted in an elimination matrix where these four groups was considered to bemost involved with the construction specification.The questions asked to these individuals were based on the instructions and sampletext that are described in the construction specification. To ensure the quality of thethesis were to limit itself to the chapters that were considered most relevant toimprove. The analysis revealed a number of points that should be improved, partlyinto the routines when writing the construction specification and when ether sampletext or suggestions should be changed and complemented.

Being a patient in intensive care can be experienced terrifying. Studies have demonstrated the link between unpleasant memories of hospitalization in the ICU and the development of posttraumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety, and perception of quality of life in its aftermath. Placed on a ventilator, the patient is exposed to multiple invasive procedures. The aim was to describe critical care patients' experience of being intubated or tracheostomated. Method: Literature review using conventional content analysis.