The purpose of this thesis is to investigate if vacuum insulation panels are a competitive alternative to traditional insulation.Vacuum insulation has been used as insulation in buildings in Germany and Switzerland for a few years. In Sweden the high-performance insulation material is mainly used in refrigerators, freezers and vacuum thermoses. The development is proceeding well and vacuum insulation is becoming more common in the construction industry. Since it is a relatively unexplored material on the market there are many flaws and problems with the material.The questions we have chosen to answer in this report include an increased knowledge of vacuum insulation, various problems that may arise when handling/installation and the pros and cons of vacuum insulation compared to standard traditional insulation.The methods we have chosen to use in this report is a literature study, interviews with various suppliers and manufactures and calculations to show the differences between traditional and vacuum insulation. Vacuum insulation is 5-10 times better insulation than standard traditional mineral wool insulation, mainly at the beginning of its lifetime.Vacuum insulation panels (VIP) have a service life of approximately 50 years, whereas traditional insulation has a service life of approximately 100 years.

Hammarby Sjöstad is a new district in Stockholm with high environmental standard. Stockholm Water Company evaluates a local wastewater treatment plant with cutting edge technology. The first step is an experimental treatment plant (Sjöstadsverket) with four parallel lines of treatment, each with a capacity to treat wastewater from 150 persons. Within the membrane technology subproject the possibility of using reverse osmosis (usually called RO) to regain nutrients is examined.Reverse osmosis separates the incoming water in a clean permeate and a concentrate that, as the name indicates, is a more concentrated version of the incoming water. Using this method in wastewater treatment, a solution high in nutrients can be obtained without the use of chemical precipitation agent and with no production of sludge.

Dagens grafikkort är uppbyggda av kraftfulla multiprocessorer som gör dom ypperliga för att hantera parallelliserbara problem som skulle ta lång tid att utföra på en vanlig processor, så som exempelvis level-of-detail eller raytracing.Denna rapport presenterar en parallelliserbar level-of-detail algoritm för terränghöjdkartor samt implementerar denna för användning på grafikkort användande Nvidias CUDA API. Algoritmen delar upp den totala höjdkartan i sektioner som ytterligare delas upp i mindre block som beräknas parallellt på grafikkortet. Algoritmen räknar ut vertexpositioner, normaler och texturkoordinater för vardera block och skickar datan till applikationen som skapar vertex och indexbuffertar och renderar sektionerna. Implementationens prestanda och förmåga att reducera trianglar analyseras med två olika sorters culling-metoder; en metod som gallrar trianglar på sektionsnivå och en metod som gallrar på blocknivå.Resultaten visar att det är mycket fördelaktigt att låta grafikkortet hantera level-of-detail beräkningar på detta vis även om minneskopiering över grafikkortsbussen är ett problem, då det tar upp ungefär åttiofem procent av den totala tiden för att hantera en sektion. Beräkningarna i sig tar väldigt lite tid och det finns gott om utrymme för utveckling för att uppnå en så bra fördelningen av trianglar över terrängområdet som möjligt..

Wood for commercial use is harvested from forests using forest machines like harvesters which folds, branches and cuts trees and forwarders which transports logs to a landing area for further transport to a processing facility. Future forest machines have to be much gentler to the machine operators and forest soil than today's machines. Hence new machine solutions must be developed and tested. A practical way is to develop a physical scale model which can be used as a test-bed to incorporate different types of solutions for suspensions, cabin damping, tires and tracks, crane and overall architecture. The aim of this project was to develop such a 1:5 scale model of a forest machine, named as ?Skogbil.A scaling strategy was employed to arrive at important scale dimensions and specifications ofSkogbil which would be comparable to the full scale model.

The present thesis is about how preschool children develop their language skills. The purpose is also to discuss how library and preschool can collaborate and in different ways together help the children to achieve different skills and to use their first and second language in a more appropriate way. The main problem identified from literature and own observations is why library and preschool dont collaborate to help young children to develop their language skills? Which reasons are behind a lacking collaboration? What can be done to increase collaboration between the library and the preschool? How can librarians and preschool teachers use their different professional skills in the best manner to be able to help the children to develop their skills in language acquisition? Is it possible to measure childrens language skills and how can one decide what characterizes a good collaboration? We started with a literature review and continued with collecting qualitative data by means of interviews with people who worked as librarians and preschool teachers, who were supposed to collaborate in a language oriented project. We have chosen different language theories by well-known scientists and we have only picked a few of them, which we considered relevant for the chosen topic.

Several studies have analysed the relationship between Normalised DifferenceVegetation Index (NDVI) and radiative surface temperature. A main goal for moststudies have been to find the best method for carrying out land cover classificationsand to study land cover changes, based on a combination between the twoparameters. Since atmospheric components have a significant influence on bothparameters, most applications were based on multi-temporal data. The quality of theindividual values in such a combination is improved, but the biophysical justificationis uncertain. This study presents a different method, based on only the combination ofvalues that have been registered the same day and about the same time of the day.125 daily images of NDVI and 250 images of radiometric temperature were used inorder to analyse the relationship between (1) NDVI and radiative temperature and (2)NDVI and relative temperature difference between early morning and mid-day.Results between NDVI and radiative temperature show a significant negativecorrelation on areas where a distinct growing season develops, and a strong positivcorrelation where vegetation is abscent throghout the season.

This report describes a study of how educationalists, from one preschool group, approach to and respond to children ?s creative activity in preschool. To answer the survey ?s purpose I used four research questions, which is the following:-What function do the educationalists give the creative activity in the working?-How do they see the importance of thecreative activity for thechild and its development?-How doeducationalists considerthat theyrespond to the child's creative activity?-Is thereany norms surrounding creative activity in preschool?The theoretical base of the study is rooted in the sociocultural perspective, where creative activity and visual arts can be seen as mediating cultural tools. The method is a qualitative interview of five preschooleducationalists.

Marine heatwaves (MHW) have become increasingly common in recent decades due to greenhouse gas emissions that have caused climate change. A marine heatwave is when the sea surface temperature rises, which damage many different ecosystems in the sea. One ecosystem that is sensitive to temperature changes is tropical coral reefs, which are at risk of bleaching during marine heatwaves. Coral bleaching is when its symbionts leave the coral and they lose their color, while also starving to death as they lose their food source. The purpose of this report was therefore to investigate what the connection between marine heatwaves and coral bleaching looks like, and to see if there are any geographical differences.

Resulting from anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions, average surface seawater pH is estimated to decline from today's approximately 8.05 to between 7.78 and 8.03 towards 2100. For ionisable organic pollutants, changes in pH can lead to a change in the degree of ionisation, which could influence the ecotoxicity of a compound by altering its bioavailability. In this study, potential changes in ecotoxicity of ionisable organic compounds resulting from ocean acidification are examined. This is achieved partly by conducting a literature review, analysing existing literature that investigates this relationship. Potential changes are also evaluated by examining marine ecotoxicity data for ionisable organic compounds on the watch list pursuant to Directive 2008/105/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council, as well as on the list of priority substances according to the 2022 proposal for amending the Water Framework Directive (2000/60/EC).

Biogas is increasingly used for fuel in for example vehicles and it´s produced in a biogas processconsisting of the steps of pretreatment, digestion and gas cleaning. The pretreatment is a method usedto increase the gas production and / or destroy pathogens. The digestion is the stage when anaerobicmicroorganisms convert bio-mass of a substrate to a raw gas containing about 65% of methane. Thegas cleaning is used to increase the methane content to about 97% so the gas can be used for motors invehicles. The biogas part of the Ekeby sewage plant in Eskilstuna is using multiple substrates.

This paper aims to broaden the discussion on how press freedom can be a powerful tool in the war on corruption. Previous studies have shown a significant relationship between more press freedom and less corruption, it also shows that the causal link runs from press freedom to corruption and not the other way around. There are quite a few studies on the impact of a free press on corruption and therefore there is a lot more to be published on this issue.This paper looks at press freedom as one of the most important parts of a democratic society and that it plays a vital role in reducing corruption as both an informant on key issues and also as a ?watchdog? on society. But press freedom cannot be seen as an ?easy fix? in a country or the international community's struggle to reduce corruption.

The purpose of this study is to examine how Viking Line, Tallink Silja and Birka Cruises work with economic and environmental sustainability, and also to see how they work with new environmental legislations. In 2015 a new environmental legislation will be introduced, by the name Sulphur directive. The Sulphur directive entails a reduction in Sulphur dioxide emissions from ships where the emissions cannot exceed 0,1 percent. There are three alternatives to achieve the new environmental legislation, the use of Marine Gas Oil, LNG or scrubbers. All three alternatives will lead to increasing costs for the shipping industry.

Flooding events are no longer rare, floods occur all over the world. Accordingly, it is vital for the society and different authorities to work with flood mapping. To meet the goal of Uppsala kommun to map the risks of floods in Uppsala län, a map of the different areas around Funboån which are inside the area of risk for flooding have been developed.In the work, cross sections and the water flow have been measured. Moreover, an echo-sounding have been carried out in Funboån to map the bottom topography. From the bottom map and laser scanned data covering the study area, a terrain model was created.

The continuous process of urbanization results in demands on research and development for ecological and sustainable city development. Because of this, the current systems for wastewater treatment may have to be improved. In order to evaluate new technologies for municipal wastewater treatment, a development project has been initiated for the new district Hammarby Sjöstad in Stockholm. The project is lead by the company Stockholm Water. High environmental standards have been put up for the district, as it must be twice as good as an ordinary new district.

Today?s society is one where technological advances are made daily, which increases the need to stop and assess the risks against users? integrity when integrating new technology in contemporary systems all the greater. We have taken two technologies, Near Field Communication and Certified Wireless USB, whose envisioned area of use is to be integrated into mobile phones, and evaluated what security threats are revealed for the respective technologies. The threats against security have been identified through research of the standards and existing reports for each technology. Practical experiments have not been conducted on account of us not having access to any equipment to run such trials.