One of Sweden?s sixteen national environmental objectives strives to decrease the impact on the climate. By 2020, green house gas emissions should be 40 % less compared to the levels of 1990 and a minimum of 50 % of the energy consumption should come from renewable energy sources. Because of this there is a great need of increasing the production of renewable energy. This is where biogas comes in as a competitive alternative.

Since the turn of the millennium a sharp increase in the interest for bio energy has been observed. Important reasons for this growing interest can be due to the fact that fossil fuels are a finite resource. A net discharge of greenhouse gases occur when fossil fuels are burned. The discharge of greenhouse gases are considered to be the main reason to the greenhouse effect. Means of control to increase the use of bio energy has been introduced and, as intended, the use of bio energy has increased. As a result of the legal provisions the ability to pay for bio energy has increased, which the forest industry view as a problem.

Skanska is using work schedules that are specifically designed for employees in the production. These work schedules are called best practice. These are guides containing technical descriptions, design references, capabilities, etc. for work activities. This support function facilitates the work preparation and planning of future work.

A report has been made at a company in Borås at a company called ACG Nyström. Thecompany is today international and is marketing advanced equipment, systems and furthereducation to the manufacturing industry. A part of ACG Nyström?s production is a machinethey call Unimat. ACG Nyström doesn?t just stand for the actual production of the machine,but also for assembling and installation of the machine at the final customer.

In today's society, the availability of energy plays an integral part in our everyday lives. Unfortunately, the price of energy in Sweden has increased in recent decades. A large part of our energy consumption goes to heating modules for houses, where heating methods that depend on energy sources such as electricity, district heating, fuel oil, gas and biofuels are the most common ones. During the winter period, the increase in energy costs becomes significantly evident, especially for small property owners. This increase in energy cost is most noticeable for home owners with electric heating.This thesis is written at the Halmstad University, in cooperation with a company, which makes parts of this thesis confidential.

The aim of our master thesis is first and foremost to win the competition One Prize - mowing to Growing: Reinventing the American Lawn, announced in USA by the organization Terreform 1, the first of December 2009. Apart from winning the competition we have also tried to reach a deeper understanding of food production today and its future possibilities. Our ambition to present a winning design proposal has to a large extent decided the structure of the entire thesis. Our completed and submitted design proposal - growforgold.org - is a way of addressing urban food production in a creative way, keeping the sovereignty of the individual in mind. Instead of presenting a place-specific design solution our proposal aims to create incentives and possibilities for urban farming to take place anywhere and anytime. Our submission to the competition represents both a tool and a platform which, put in practice, could make landscape architecture happen through the hands of the individual.

The soybean can be used in multiple ways, and its high oil content makes it suitable for extraction. Soy bean meal, a by-product of the oil extraction, is a good source of protein with a high feeding value, and is therefore used in a number of different animal feeds. Further, soy bean meal has a low production price, which is one of the reasons for the extensive export of the product. There is a great demand for vegetable-based proteins, especially in the organic production where synthetic amino acids are banned. However, the current production of soy beans is not environmentally sound and that combined with the long transport distances amplifies the need of finding a locally produced protein source.

Livestock of pastoralists provide meat, milk, blood, dung and are useful for transportation purposes. In semi-arid and arid areas with very low precipitation the herder must often walk far distances to feed the livestock. This affects the animals? production, especially of milk. Previous studies have investigated how to improve milk production in terms of milking strategies in cattle.

Extended Producer Responsibility (ERP) is a form of product take-back regulation that requires the producers to manage their products at the end of life. By internalising the products? entire life cycle costs into the market price the ultimate objective of such regulations is to reduce the environmental burden from the products. This Master´s thesis seeks to examine if the total life cycle cost of a product actually is borne by the producer, and if not, predict who will then take this cost. This is done by analysing the market for take-back activities in three different categories of products; electrical and electronic equipment, cars and wind power stations.

 IAS 40 allows two methods of valuation for investment properties, fair value model and cost model. The purpose of this paper is to investigate what drive property companies to disclose their investment properties at fair value. In order to understand their choice, we use accounting choice theory and the three factors this theory describes, information asymmetry, allowing opportunism and agency costs. To answer our purpose, we have from a qualitative approach performed semi-structured interviews with respondents from five of the largest listed property companies in Sweden. The results suggest that firms have chosen the method that is most effective in the valuation of investment properties.

The release of green house gases and the environmental impacts humans have on the environment are huge and might cause irreversible changes to our earth. Meat is considered to have large impacts on the environment, especially beef meat and therefore there have lately been considerable discussions on the sustainable level of meat consumption and production. The main goal with this thesis is to study sustainable meat production and meat consumption in the county of Dalarna in Sweden. Indicators for sustainable meat production and meat consumption were developed and applied on three cases. Interviews were carried out with a municipality in the region that represents the consumer and three beef farmers that represents the producers.

This thesis treats Building Information Modeling, BIM, in the production stage. Brieflydescribed BIM is virtual model of a building object where all information about theobject is gathered. All the involved operators in the construction project have access tothe model and can gather or share information about the project. There are several waysto apply BIM in the production stage. This thesis primarily deals with visualization of theobject, preparation and planning, the ability to take amounts from the model andcoordination and clash control.The basic issue was highlighted by Byggdialog AB.

An important task for Region Skåne is to allocate resources to the health care districts. From 1999 to 2002 Region Skåne used needs-based resource allocation as a model for allocating resources. In a needs-based resource allocation individuals with the same socioeconomic and demographic characteristics are assumed to have the same level of need and are therefore allocated the same amount of resources. During the period of needs-based resource allocation a matrix model was used as a method. In the matrix model individuals were divided into cells after each combination of the socioeconomic and demographic variables.

The present study examines in a longitudinal perspective earlyspeech development in children with partial isolated cleft palate comparedwith children with unilateral cleft lip and palate and children with typicaldevelopment. The groups were compared regarding consonant production at18 months, 3 and 5 years. The results showed that speech development inchildren with isolated cleft palate did not differ significantly from that inchildren with typical development except for production of oral fricatives at18 months. The children with unilateral cleft lip and palate had significantlymore speech deviations at all ages. The children in both cleft palate groupshad significantly higher hearing thresholds at all ages.

This diploma work covers an investigation over the heat - and hot water systems of thetenant-owner's association, Bogården. The heat - and hot water needs of Bogården aresatisfied by both district heating as well as three heat pumps. Implemented investigationshows that the heat pumps are not used in a profitable way. Apart from that, the reservepossibilities are small. There is also a risk of the growth of Legionella bacterium in thehot water system.Since the heat pumps are already installed, HSB-Gävleborg (responsible for Bogården)has a wish to investigate possible proposed actions for optimization of existing plant.After completed investigation, a new proposed action is presented.