In the middle of Australia there is a city called Alice Springs. The city has one of the highest amounts of daily sunshine hours and sun irradiation in the world. The Australian Government runs a project called Solar Cities, and Alice Springs is one of the participators. The main part of the goal with the Solar Cities project is to increase the amount of electricity generated by solar power and by doing that lower the impact on the environment. This thesis examines the possibilities for construction of a large scale solar power plant in Alice Springs. This is done to determine the potential of creating a more sustainable energy system in the city.

Society today is characterized by the transforming effect IT has had, the majority of the activities we perform on a daily basis involves one way or another digital technology. One area which has not yet seen the positive effects of IT is education. Despite the progress of technology, the school education has barely changed since it first saw the light of day. Our goal with this study is to investigate the possibility of implementing Gamification elements in educational environments and examine whether it could increase our young students learning motivation. We believe that this kind of implementation will have a positive effect for these young people since they have been interacting with games since they were small and are familiar with the driving force of a reward system.With this study we want to examine the opportunities and challenges that Gamification implementation brings out in a learning environment and therefore encourage and motivate our young ones to study even harder..

Vi har valt att undersöka hur nyemissioner påverkar aktiekursen. Detta eftersom det den senaste tiden genomförts ett antal nyemissioner på stockholmsbörsen. Undersökningen genomfördes genom en kvantitativ eventstudie av ett antal nyemissioner genomförda på stockholmsbörsen mellan åren 2000-2007. I undersökningen delades de identifierade bolagen upp efter storlek och bransch för att därigenom försöka finna eventuella mönster. För att kunna dra konkreta slutsatser beräknades, med hjälp av ett t-test, konfidensintervall för de olika kategorierna fram.

Forest streams and the associated riparian zones are sensitive to disturbances and changes that occur within these riparian areas. Particularly sensitive are small streams of low order, which will have large impacts down-stream. The disturbances that occur in the riparian zones are reflected quickly in the stream. Driving with forestry machines in the riparian zone will have detrimental effects to the soil and water. Driving the machines will lead to changes in the mineral soil composition, resulting in the reduction of porosity, less infiltration, compaction, and an increased bulk density.

The purpose of this study was to determine if wellness benefits led to any changes in exercise habits among employed postmen. The study was a cross-sectional study carried out by a quantitative method. The collection of data took the form of a questionnaire. The sample consisted of 30 postmen employed at a post office in northern Sweden. The results show that of the postman who use health care benefits, there has been a relatively small change in exercise habits.

The main purpose of this study is to investigate the needs of pre-commercial thinning on private owned forest properties, which is considered to be increasing. The reason is believed to be the high cost of labor that pre-commercial thinning brings. Furthermore thinning is costly, the revenue created through pre-commercial thinning are post-poned until the first thinning. The study was made through a survey among members of Mellanskog forest owners association. The survey was distributed by e-mail. The time to answer was set to two weeks. The answers indicate that the most common reason why the pre-commercial thinning is delayed, or not done at all, is the forest owner?s lack of time.

To get an optimal print result with rotogravure on improved newsprint, MF-paper, knowledge aboutwhat adjustment that should be done through the whole production is needed. This degree project investigatesthe reproduction?s effect on the final print result.A test print is done at Quebecor World Nordic Interprint´s regular print unit. The evaluation of theprint shows how important the use of a unit adjusted ICC-profile is for the print quality. A comparisonbetween the two separation methods GCR and UCR shows that Interprint´s present ICC-profile, usingUCR as separation method, gives less missing dots.

In this degree project I write about how the farmers who grows carrots in Sweden get influenced by different rules, investments and demands. The Swedish agriculture are heading towards a harder time, and then you have to find new things to do. Now its hardly no profit to grow grain so you have find other crops. This paper is not a comparison between the contract cultivation to Findus and the cultivation where the farmer maked his products by a own company on the farm. If you have a small processing company on the farm, you have to increase the standard with different certificate. The farmer binds a lot of capital in machines, both field and in the process.

Ett flertal studier pekar på att en växande andel av revisionsbyråernas intäkter härrör från konsultuppdrag. Samtidigt debatteras det kring huruvida en revisionsbyrå bör tillåtas att utföra revisions- och konsultuppdrag i samma bolag. I Sverige finns i nuläget inget förbud mot att revisionsbyråerna i samma bolag utför konsultuppdrag parallellt med revisionsuppdrag, till skillnad från USA där det är striktare reglering. I Sverige finns en bolagsstyrningskod vid namn Svensk Kod för bolagsstyrning som infördes år 2005 och denna kod har inget förbud mot att bolag anlitar samma revisionsbyrå för både revisions- och konsultuppdrag, vilket vissa ser som ett problem. Syftet med denna studie är indelat in i tre delar.

The purpose of this thesis is to ascertain the main determinable factors of Swedish SMEs capital structure decisions and to investigate whether existing capital structure theories are applicable on Swedish SME financing. We have used panel data to run regressions of various capital structure determinants on three measures of capital structure; short- term debt, long-term debt and total debt. We found that growth opportunities, profitability and age are the most important capitalstructures determinants for our sample. Firm size shows a small explanatory result but the effective tax rate and the asset tangibility do not seem to explain the capital structure at all. Thematurity matching principle is considered significant..

Through interaction with customers, companies can acquire knowledge about- and satisfy the needs of customers. In retailing, the ranges of products are standardized and staffing numbers are scarce. How do companies in retailing deal with adaptation towards their customers given the small staffing numbers? The purpose of this study is to examine if and if so, how companies in the Swedish retailing industry are making adaptations towards their customers and also why these adaptations are being made. To answer this purpose, observations in the retailing industry are conducted and the results show that companies adapt to customers? needs.

This study was performed to investigate the possibility to use ultrasonography as a diagnostic tool for sub-clinical mastitis in dairy cows. Five cows with high cell counts, and four cows with low cell counts were selected as cases and controls, respectively, and their udders examined with ultrasound during a 5 week period. The image of the udders of cows with high cell counts exhibited small, hyper-echoic, rounded foci, approximately 1 cm in diameter, near the milk cisterns and the base of the teats. These changes were not found consistently in all cows with high cell count, however. Ultrasonography may be a valuable complementary tool in the diagnosis of sub-clinical mastitis in dairy cow, but more cases need to be monitored before its full value can be ascertained..

The thesis has been written as a part of the Bachelor degree in Industrial engineering and management at the School of Engineering in Jönköping. The work is focused on the part of Husqvarna AB?s supply chain that is associated with the lorry transports to Italy. Husqvarna AB has approximately ten Italian customers, whose delivery patterns have been studied from January 2007 to July 2008. Some of the customers have a low delivery frequency and small amounts of goods that they therefore have not been fully analyzed in this report.

Modern sawmills are using the raw-material and the production-capacity more efficiently today, due to rising raw-material prices and higher production costs. Log sweepness has a negative effect on the sawn yield, for sawmills with straight-sawing. It is desirable that these logs could be sorted based on more criteria, if it increases value-yield and consequently the utilization of raw-material. Bow-heights over 1 cm have a negative effect on sawn yield, since the surface of the mantle cuts down in the sawn pattern. Some of these small bow-heights reduce the logs yield of value which affects the production planning negatively. Nearly half of all the Swedish logs have a bow-height over 1 cm.

At the Skoghall pappermill, sulphatepaper pulp is produced in a continuous digester originally from 1969. To be able to maintain a high level of production there is a need for a process with few disturbances. Variations in how well the wooden chips are packed in the digester is one form of disturbance. Today there are no available measurements on how well the chips are packed. Instead this is regarded as being constant.