The competitiveness and profitability of swedish farm enterprises is frequently discussed in agricultural media. Increased exposure to the surrounding world with greater competitive pressure and considerable price fluctuations in the agricultural markets demand new ways of acting to secure the agricultural sector?s long-term survival and profitability. Structural change and/or diversification leads to increased numbers of stake-holders around the farm enterprise and thereby also the expectations of the farmers ability to lead and coordinate resources. Lean is the name of a management model developed by Toyota, influenced by the lack of resources in Japan during the post WWII period.

Thesis completed by Johan Arvidsson, Alex Rasooli and Pontus Winroth, students at master program Product development and Design at the School of Engineering in Jönköping Sweden. The project comprises 30 ECTS credits and was carried out during the semester in the autumn of 2007.It was carried out in cooperation with Eksjöverken AB, subcontractor within the truck industry with special knowledge within the area of complicated machinery construction work. Job initiators at Eksjöverken were Mats Svanberg and Kjell Nygard. Dag Holmgren was acting as a tutor from the university. The task was to develop tools for trucks, primary toolboxes but in case of time also under run protection.

A couple of hundred years ago half of the earth?s surface was covered by forest. Today, only half remains and every year an area the size of Nepal is disappearing. Deforestation, together with the burning of fossil fuels, is also one of the reasons for the increasing greenhouse effect. Another relatively unknown problem for the world?s forests is the trade with illegally harvested timber.

Ortolansparven (Emberhiza hortulana Linnaeus) är en fågelart som finns över stora delar av Europa i olika öppna biotoper, främst jordbruksmark. Den har minskat dramatiskt i Europa de senaste 30 åren och är en av de fågelarter vars population minskar snabbast. Även i Sverige ses denna förändring och populationen har minskat med cirka 80 % sedan 1975. I Sverige finns arten numera främst på hyggen i Norrland. Trots att huvuddelen av den svenska populationen lever på just hyggen, så är det ett ganska outforskat område och man vet ytterst lite om vilka faktorer som är viktiga för ortolansparvar på hyggen.

Clearcutting systems have been the dominating silvicultural approach during the last decades in the Nordic countries. While economically rational, it is also leading to a trivialisation of the flora and fauna, and may result in negative reactions of people in urban settings. As a consequence of this, and a more diversified view on which goods and services forests should deliver, there is an increasing interest in broadening the range of silvicultural methods that are used. The term continuous cover forestry (CCF) represents a suite of methods that have gained increasing interest in the Nordic countries. In CCF a considerable amount of the trees are left after harvest to favour values that require a continuity of tree-covered areas. There are thus hopes that this method will meet the needs for maintaining biodiversity and satisfy social and cultural values.

South Africa has been among the top ten wine producing countries for at least 20 years. Even though the land under grapevines is decreasing globally it is still increasing in Africa. The awareness of environment has strengthen the last years and South African producers experience a high demand of environmentally friendly produced wine, especially from the European market. This demand was the driving force behind the development of the world unique sustainability certification, Integrated Production of Wine (IPW), which is inscribed in the South African legislation. What makes this certification unique is that consumers can trace their product all the way back to the farming practices owing to the identity number specified on the IPW Integrity & Sustainability seal on certified products.

Humanity?s increasing consumption has resulted in an increasing use of resources and thus an increasing environmental impact. Hence, the environment has become an important political issue. The increasing demands from stakeholders on companies to "green" their products and work internally with environmental issues makes it more and more important for enterprises to address these issues. Small enterprises constitute the majority of all enterprises and therefore they have a significant impact on environmental problems.

Aspen (Populus tremula L.) and goat willow (Salix caprea L.) are two important tree species in the aspect of nature conservation. Due to the elimination of forest fires, a former negative attitude towards deciduous trees in forestry and a strong herbivore pressure, these tree species have been negatively affected during the last fifty years. The aim of this study was to investigate whether the occurrence of aspen and goat willow could be related to either human impact or to site properties, such as ground moisture and vegetation type. A side study included an inventory of a number of cyanobacterial tree lichens on aspen and goat willow in order to try to relate the occurrence of these lichens species to stand history and stand properties. The study was performed in Hamra State Forest in northern Dalarna. Nature reserves were compared with stands in managed areas.

A severe profitability decline in sugar beet production in all of Europe is one of the consequences of the latest reform of the EU sugar regime. In south of Sweden, sugar beets is the crop that has been the most profitable by far for the last decade. The high profitability has contributed to the high rate of increase in the price of land and has restrained the structural change towards a more effective agriculture. Because of the reform, all sugar beet producers are facing diminishing income and must find ways to compensate this. The aim of this master thesis is to study how Swedish farmers adapt to the sugar beet reform. A questionnaire was sent to 354 randomly selected sugar beet producers.

People have utilised and influenced the boreal forest for many centuries. Prior to the industrial revolution during the 19th century, however, human use primarily only had a low impact on the forest. When the timberfrontier swept over the country, the Swedish forests came to change for ever. The study site for this thesis is situated in the northern part of the county of Västerbotten, Sweden, and has previously been a National forest. Today the area is an ecopark and the land is owned by the forest company Sveaskog.

Leopard (Panthera pardus) räknas som ett av de fem stora kattdjuren inom släktet Panthera, och är den art av de vilda kattdjuren som har störst geografisk spridning i världen. Med avstånd som sträcker sig från Afrika i väst och delar av Ryssland i öst, är det inte så konstigt att flera skilda underarter uppstått. Som helhet är arten leopard klassad som nära hotad av IUCN, International Union for Conservation of Nature, men flera av dess nio underarter är starkt eller akut hotade. Genom litteraturstudier och statusrapporter från IUCN ges i denna undersökning en kort sammanfattning av hur distributionen av leopardens underarter ser ut i världen, samt vad som utgör deras största hot mot en fortsatt överlevnad. Generellt sett har leoparden många egenskaper som talar för en positiv framtid.

Sahlgrenska Academy at University of GothenburgDepartment of Internal Medicine and Clinical Nutrition3AbstractTitle: How does isoflavones in combination with soy protein impact cholesterol levels in hypercholesterolemic postmenopausal women relative to milk protein?Author: Emma Edberg och Emma NilssonSupervisor: Lena HulthénExaminer: Anna WinkvistProgramme: Dietician stydy programme,180/240 hpType of paper: Examination paper, 15 hpDate: 2014-05-26Background: Hypercholesterolemia is a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease and the number one cause of death among women in Western countries. Declining levels of estrogen at menopause could be a contribution factor. Isoflavones is a vegetable substance, with structural and functional similarities to the human estrogen. This is a potential reason for possible cholesterol-lowering effects.

During the last decades, brand equity has been a priority topic for both practitioners and academics. In accordance with the structural changes in the economic settings caused by the so-called "new economy", corporations being confronted with a shift on perceived business value structure from tangible assets to intangibles. On the other hand firms increasingly are adopting more responsible behaviour towards their societies. In this context, one critical question is to understand how corporate conduct may affect brand equity. The purpose of this study was to find how brand equity (BE) measurement methods embrace corporate responsibility (CR), based on a literature review.

Höggeröd på nordöstra Orust är ett vackert fritidsområde med en tidstypisk karaktär från sextiotalet som är värd att bevara. Ett problem som uppstått på senare år är att husägarna vill flytta in permanent i sina fritidsstugor och bygga ut dessa till större och mer funktionella villor, men detta godkänner inte detaljplanen. Samtidigt finns en önskan om att kunna lösa detta ändå och göra alla delaktiga parter nöjda. Syftet med rapporten är att uppmana till en fördjupad diskussion om Höggeröds fritidshusområde och frågan om hur dessa skall utvecklas och samtidigt bevaras. Frågan om vilka krav och lagar som gäller kring ombyggnationer har även besvarats för att kunna göra ett så bra underlag som möjligt.För att kunna bevara detta kulturarv så kommer ett underlag till en bevarandeplan att tas fram med hjälp av den här rapporten.

The management of water resources and waste water varies between the countries of the EU. For many years, a large part of the water in Europe has been contaminated by, among other things, insufficiently treated waste water and emissions from agriculture. The EU Water Framework Directive 2000/60/EC and the Urban Waste Water Directive 91/271/EEC are intended to harmonize fresh-water management and waste water management within the whole EU, aiming at safeguarding drinking water of good quality and a high quality of all water within the EU today and in the future. There are however some problems concerning the waste-water directive. One problem is the huge investment needed in Slovakia to fulfil the demands of the waste-water directive for waste-water management in larger communities (with more than 2000 inhabitants).