Thinning is the partial removal of trees in a forest stand prior to final harvest. The term can be divided in pre-commercial thinning where little if any volume is removed from the stand and commercial thinning where removals are intended to provide a positive economic result. From a silvicultural point of view, the goal of thinning is to enhance future crop tree quality by removing low-quality stems and providing sufficient space for the accelerated development of retained ones (Huuskonen & Hynynen, 2006). The goals of this study was to see if commercial thinning could positively affect the short and medium term timber supply (MTTS) in the Interior regions of British Columbia (BC), and whether or not Scandinavian forestry practices could be adopted in the BC context. The mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae Hopkins) has created significant forest planning problems in BC. The annual allowable cut (AAC) was raised to capture beetle-killed timber while still merchantable.

This empirical work and base has been to analyze the new high school reform that the Swedish government introduced as a statement 2008/09:199 about: Higher demand and quality within the high school. This statement became legal through the government vote in spring 2010. But above all it is the investigation (SOU 2008:27) that is the central piece for these new examination changes for high school students that will come into effect 1 of July 2011. The purpose and questions asked in this analyze has been if the reform takes its base in a modernistic (traditional) way or a late modern scientific perspective. And also to find out how these new quality amendments in the investigation makes visible about the high school and what the purpose are about the changes. When scientific theories in these analyze is placed against the reform, the result shows that the modernization process reflects more of a late modern aspect, which constantly reappraise in a changeable society.

Abstract Heléne Slivka (2013). Kvalitetsarbete ur ett specialpedagogiskt perspektiv ? en fallstudie. (Quality assurance process in the elementary school from a special education perspective ? a case study.) The research This essay investigates the language in the school´s quality assurance documents. An important aspect of this is the way in which language structures and informs how we think about, and work with, students with special needs. Aim The aim of this essay is to problematize how students with special needs are represented in the quality assurance documents of the school. The writer intends to point out how the ways in which the language used to describe students informs governing processes.

AbstractThis master thesis was performed at Scania transmission department in Södertälje, where the manufacturing of gears is done. Today a large amount of manual handling is performed between the machining and the hardening process. Most of the manual handling is done at the heat treatment department. The purpose of this master thesis is to give a suggestion on how to reduce or eliminate the manual handling at the heat treatment department. The possibility to use the same packaging throughout the processes will also be investigated.

In this thesis I have chosen to study the use of crowdsourcing in Swedish archival institutions as well as the influence this methodic platform has on the work of modern archivists. This also raises the question whether the nature of the platform is in any way influenced by the attitude working professionals might have towards crowdsourcing as a legitimed working method. This investigation is based on case studies and interviews with archivists from select Swedish institutions and also the methodology of two now ongoing crowdsourcing projects.The theoretical framework on which this composition is based comes from the work of Gregory Asmolov and his work on crowdsourcing platforms and their functionality as tools of governing. Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) is applied to analyze how the method of crowdsourcing is utilised by archival institutions and influenced by their daily routine in conjunction with Governmentality as the chosen way of studying how these platforms might control their users.From the results of the performed case studies, two discourses emerged based on the view on quality concerning gathered information amongst the involved subjects. The first of these discourses places it´s trust and faith in users themselves where validity is of a lesser concern than the actual availability of information through the concept of ?wisdom of the crowds?.

Construction companies in Sweden have for recent years seen an increase in the numbers ofwarranty complaints associated with the market of resident buildings and the cost for this hasbeen measured to over 1.2 billion SEK per year. Working with poor quality cost as a way ofcreating insight about defects within the company?s processes is a method developed and usedby the manufacturing industry for decades, but have not yet reached the construction industry.This study has been performed in collaboration with a Swedish construction company, wherethe author has been stationed at the aftersales division for residential buildings. Owing tocircumstances, this published report has been made anonymous regarding the company whowill further on be namedthe Company. The Company is aware that warranty claims producegreat costs and has requested a way of putting cost and cause to specific claims in order ofreceiving a more specific cost view and to make the reuse of knowledge more efficient.

The project is a practical and theoretical test of IP telephony with Skype in order to form a base for a comparison between IP-Telephony with Skype and the Public Switched Telephony Network (PSTN). PSTN is the common standard that most of us use for telephony today. The objective for the study is to simplify the choice between PSTN and IP-Telephony for the Swedish private customer user group. The project is supposed to answer the following questions. - How easy is it to start using IP-telephony with Skype? - How is the quality of IP-telephony compared to PSTN? - Are all services provided by PSTN available and accessible using the IP-solution? - How are the usability and the availability of support with IP telephony? - Is IP-telephony a cheaper solution and in that case under which circumstances? Within the project a collection of practical and theoretical tests have been performed to be able to form an opinion on the IP-solution in the following areas, installation, function, quality, usability, costs, accessibility and security.

Stump wood is a hot alternative when the heating plants demands more and more forest fuel. The aim with the study has bean to calculate the costs in four different systems for transportations of stump wood, examine if there are any differences in fuel quality for the stump wood in the different systems, analyse if the fuel quality in stump wood is affected with the time it lays by the road side and how much space the stump wood demands on the road side. To calculate the costs for the different systems a system analysis was carried out, where some of the costs were collected through field studies on Holmen Skog stump experiment and other costs were collected from literature and contacts. Data for the fuel quality study was collected from Eons heat plant in Norrköping. Data for the study of how much space stump wood takes along a roadside was collected from field studies.

This thesis concerns how the power quality in the grid is affected by the connection of wind power plants. As things are at present, Fortum Distribution AB has a number of wind turbines and wind parks connected to the own grid. As the pressure on building and connecting additional wind power is increasing, so is also the interest of how the already existing wind power generation affects the power quality in the nearby distribution grids. The study is performed by direction of Fortum Distribution AB and is limited to the 10 kV/40 kV-grid in Bohuslän, Sweden. The methods for calculation of power quality are compared to the results of a number of measurements.

The group of elderly people in Sweden will increase significantly in the future and science point out that the future elderly people will not accept today?s standards and offers of assistance in today?s public elderly care. Therefore public elderly care stands before a significant challenge in terms of development that has to be sustainable. New research also points out that middle managers can be a great strategic resource, and a founder of success, in the challenge of sustainable development. The aim of the report was to increase the knowledge about what middle managers in public elderly care think sustainable development has to embrace, when it comes to quality and personnel administration, in order to meet the needs of the future elderly people.

 This bachelor?s thesis purpose is to examine how library staff experiences the meeting with non-Swedish speaking users of public libraries, and how they solve different situations. Today there is not much research on this subject but we find these questions important to study because we think it is good to be aware of the situations that can arise and discuss how to solve any problems. To have a basis for this qualitative study we conducted group interviews with library staff, where they are asked about their experiences with non-Swedish speaking users. In the analysis the results of the interviews are compared to previous research and related to communication theory, which is the theoretical framework for this study.

There is considerable variation between stallions in semen quality and fertility due to the fact that selection of stallions for breeding is not based on fertility or semen quality but on performance. The increasing use of cooled semen for artificial insemination has resulted in decreasing pregnancy rates. Therefore the equine breeding industry needs new methods for evaluation and development of sperm quality and fertility. This study is a part of such a project and is performed by SLU in cooperation with Flyinge AB. Ten stallions at the Flyinge National Stud were used in the study and three ejaculates were collected from each stallion.

Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) is a quality control system created by the European Union (EU) to protect integrity of certain food and drinks that are produced in a specific area in a unique way. By protecting these products, the EU can certify that the traditional region-specific methods of food and drink production are preserved. The EU countries that follow such a system are mostly from Southern Europe. For instance in France, the PDO system has helped improve the income for farmers, boosted the rural development and assured protection for farmers against the abuse of their brand and the selling of their products by outsiders. In Sweden, there are no PDO products yet, instead there is Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) and Traditional Speciality Guarantee (TSG) that are not as protective as PDO.

Various problems with nail disorders have been noticed in the Swedish population of Giant Schnauzer, but the frequencies of these problems are unknown. This could be due to the fact that bad nail quality has several differential diagnoses and lack of diagnostic criteria and diagnostic codes for nail disorders. The main purpose of this study is to review different types of claw defects and diseases of the nail bed in dogs, and to classify and evaluate the proportions in the Swedish Giant Schnauzer population. The nail is a specialized part of the skin. The quick will strengthen and protect the third phalang against the surrounding.

Human - Technology - Organization (HTO) is a well-established, general unifying concept in the Swedish Accident Investigation Authority (SHK) that represents an approach, knowledge and use of various tools regarding interactions between people, technology and organizational factors. The HTO-perspective is well described in literature but there are few studies on how SHKs staff experiences working according to this method in their investigations. The aim of this study was therefore to describe their HTO-perspective, examine how it is used in the investigations at SHK and describe the investigators experience of working with the HTO-perspective as well as the method's usefulness compared to old methods in accident investigations. A literature study has been conducted in the areas of HTO, Theory of planned behavior (TPB) and safety culture. TPB and safety culture are described in this paper since they highlight the different aspects of a HTO-perspective.