The sun is essential to life on earth and no matter where you are, there is a constant need ofenergy. Nearly 800 000 years ago man learned for the first time to use fire in a controlled way.Since then, fire has given us the opportunity to inhabit places despite a cold climate. In Swedenthe resident sector accounts for a major part of the total consumption of energy. In a time whenenvironmental issues and greenhouse effects are increasing, we also see a future of rising energyprices. With this perspective, we have in this bachelor thesis in the Building Environment at theRoyal Institute of Technology, KTH, in Stockholm decided to focus on the renewable energysource, solar energy.The energy from solar radiation is a free resource and does not have any negative effects uponthe environment.

Public concern and the need of responsible way of doing business have brought forward the issue of sustainability at the forefront of discussion in the last decade. Even though, food retailers are playing an important role in the economy, they are exposed for criticism by media and consumers for any socially and environmentally irresponsible business practices because, the potential environmental and social impacts from their operations are significant. These impacts need to be recognized and properly addressed. The main objective of this study was to assess the sustainable business management of a cooperative food retail business in Sweden, known as Konsum Värmland (KV). The necessary data and information on history and status of KV, and its practical activities concerning the implementation of sustainable development programs as well as the motivation and challenges encountered by KV during the implementation were gathered via reviewing different documents, research papers and press releases; interviewing decision makers and other personnel in KV and other researchers from Swedish University of Agricultural University who have investigated KV.

The purpose of this Bachelor thesis is to examine how user-friendly the OPAC of the Märsta public library is considered to be.Theoretical basis are HCI and Allwoods definition of usability. Issues are: Is the OPAC suited to its task? Is the OPAC user-friendly? How well does a user accept the OPAC? and What degree of competence is shown by users of the OPAC? The source material consists of six interviews in the form of .avi files. The method I have chosen is qualitative semi-structured interview form. The result is that, based on Carl Martin Allwood?s defini-tion and with exception for the using of help-resources, the usability of Märsta?s library OPAC can be considered less good..

As companies grow, their need for computing power will increase, which traditionally resulted in companies having to invest in more IT resources. Now, with cloud computing, companies can easily hire computer power over the Internet, on-demand. Cloud computing offers a highly scalable environment where companies can store data and host their services. This paper employs a qualitative study with interviews and literature studies to explore opportunities and challenges associated with cloud computing from a system developer perspective. The aim of the paper is to find out how cloud computing changes the conditions for system development. The paper contributes with four different opportunities and challenges that the system developer must handle to succeed in the world of cloud computing.

Incubators have grown more popular in recent years. Studies have shown that companies that have been part of an incubator grow faster and have a higher survival rate. The Swedish government realizes that this benefits the economy. Therefore they have started different funding programs in order to support the incubators. The thesis aims to explore the underlying reasons for why companies that have been part of an incubator often experience high growth.

This is a tale about energy and power. It describes the geographer Halford Mackinder?s geopolitical theories and compares them with current views outlined by Zbigniew Brzezinski and Michael T Klare, among others. With a critical approach it also provides a historical account of a Europe that stands in front of an energy struggle so severe that the current world order seems destined to fall. Oil and natural gas, has since the beginning of the 20th century, been used as a geopolitical tool in order to create dependence, control and even sometimes overthrow empires.

The purpose of the project is to determine the impact of solar cells and electrical vehicles on the future electricity grid and distribution network. Future electricity grids will be affected differently than it does today. Therefore, it is important to determine the impacts so that the current electricity distribution system can be developed and redesign to achieve the future demand. In Sweden, government has changed rules and laws in order to make it easier for private sector to invest in renewable energy sources. Our project focused on the impact of the solar cells and electric vehicles on the low voltage electricity distribution.

The aim of the study is to investigate how a teacher uses multimodal resources with an interactive whiteboard while teaching reading and writing. The aim is also to investigate what view the teacher has on using an interactive whiteboard while teaching reading and writing. Video-recorded observations and audio-recorded interviews are the methods used to collect data. The analysis was performed from a multimodal perspective and is also inspired by interaction analysis. The result of the analysis showed that the teacher uses several multimodal sign systems in combination with those found on the interactive whiteboard.

The Swedish Migration Board has during a long time had problems with long processing times for persons that apply for asylum. The government has set targets that investigation should not exceed 6 months although it is done in almost 70% of cases.The study's aim has been to examine if steering can be linked together to long processing times and, if so, explain why. The intention has not been to provide a comprehensive picture of the problem but has defined itself to ensure steering impact. The study has been carried out by studying relevant governing documents, previous research and by interviews with administrators and decision-makers in two of the Migration Board asylum units.The analyses of the study show that a combination of inadequate steering and inadequate resources have contributed to aggravate the implementation, which has lead to long processing times..

Abstract The objective of our study was to get knowledge about how teachers think when they make purchases to preschool. Do they consider making environmentally conscious purchases? Do they work actively to transfer environmental consciousness to the children?We chose to interview nine preschool teachers and one cook in two different local municipalities. Our investigation showed that there was a very low engagement in these issues. The teachers said that they were very strictly bound to already existing public contracts and did not see any possibilities to influence the preschools consumption.The teachers hade no idea that not only their work could result in environmental savings in the school, but also result in attitudes changes among the children, their parents and, in the long term, society in general.

Companys usually have intern communication platforms where employees can gather information and communicate with eachother. These networks are not public which leads to less resources spent on development. If this network is also used as a work tool may inadequate usability decrease work effeciency. Thats why we, by using known design principles, evaluated an already existing network of this kind along with interviews and think out loud tasks for users. Four users had to do some tasks while they explained how they went through step by step to solve those. This report culminates into a couple of guidelines which can be used to create a user friendly network. The problems that prevented users to feel in control when working resulted in the following guidelines: Create shortcuts of frequently used functions.

Death can be seen as a sensitive subject and can by that be difficult for many people to talk about. Working as a nurse can imply caring for severe ill and dying patients, which can be regarded as a task that makes great demands. The aim of the present literature review is to illustrate nurses' experiences of problems in association with the care of dying patients to be aware of these. Nine scientific articles were analysed and the result showed that the problems the nurses experienced could be related to four different categories: problems related to organisa-tion/resources, to the nurse herself, to the patient and to family members. The literature review also illustrates consequences of these problems for nurses, and which components that could simplify the nursing care of dying patients..

This Master of Science thesis was completed at the Department of Machine Design at the Royal Instituteof Technology in Stockholm in collaboration with Lund Faculty of Engineering, Luleå University ofTechnology and Stanford University. At Stanford University a global product development project wasrealized as part of the course ME310. The project was initiated by the American company ImmerseGlobal whose vision was to develop a new type of Atmospheric Water Generators, a machine that absorbsthe moisture in the air and via a water system transforms it to pure drinking water. The project was partlyfinanced by the Product Innovation Engineering program, a Swedish research and development programfor increased innovation capability in organizations.In parallel with the global project in the ME310 course the product development process was studied inorder to compare it with a product development course at the Royal Institute of Technology, IPU. Thetwo courses are similar to each other in several aspects.

Since the 19th century the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere hasincreased by 40 percent as an effect of the use of fossil energy sources.Increased concentration of CO2 will likely lead to increased temperature,changes in precipitation, rising sea level and increased frequency of extremeweather like storm events. A step to reduce emissions of CO2 and mitigateclimate change, for the property of Tagel, can be to adopt new silviculturalstrategies and analyse which is the most effective. As a result of that, threescenarios was produced, business-as-usual (BAU), increased set aside landand energy. An introduction of windpower at Tagels estate (property) andeffects on carbon balance was also examined. By using the Heureka systemand LCA-analysis in this study, it showed that the scenario of increased setaside land was the most efficient way to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2)emissions for the analysed period of 100 years.

City of Malmö has ambitions for the district Hyllie to become a demonstrative area ofsustainable urban development. As a part of this the following report aims to investigate the potential in using noise barriers combined with photovoltaics along Annetorpsvägen to generate solar electricity. To quantify the losses that shadows from buildings along the roadmight cause, a 3D-model of the area was constructed in SketchUp. This digital model made it possible to simulate shadows and how they change over the year. A reference model of a photovoltaic noise barrier (PVNB) was constructed and used to find the dates on which the solar cells are shadowed depending on building heights and positioning of the barrier.The results show that two lengths with a total distance of 400 meters is appropriate for applying photovoltaic noise barriers.