This report was written by Sofia Ericson and describes the degree thesis with the title: ?Connections between the growing site of bio fuel, the chemical composition of bio fuel ash and the deposit growth in a bio fuel fired boiler.? The purpose of this degree thesis was to avoid melted deposit growth in the bio fuel fired boiler at ENA Kraft in Enköping. Potassium and sodium are known to lower the melting point of bio fuel ashes and are therefore not wanted in the trees in higher amounts than necessary for the growth. Silicon is also known to be important for the deposit growth but it is not possible to say in general if higher or lower contents of silicon is better. The relation between silicon and other chemical substances is more important than the total amount of silicon.

Research has shown that immigrants in the Swedish society often, when seeking jobs, don?t get the same opportunities as the rest of the population. This thesis is a qualitative research that examines the problematic situation of unemployment among immigrants in the municipality of Finspång. The purpose of this study is to analyze how civil servants in Finspång apprehend and describe the labor market problems surrounding the immigrant groups that live in the municipality of Finspång. The empirical material is build upon seven qualitative interviews with eight civil servants working in Finspång.

In this thesis, two studies with different drills were included. In one of the studies two drills were compared: Väderstad Rapid and Väderstad Spirit. In the other study various drills for direct drilling were compared. The study with Rapid and Spirit was placed in two locations with different autumn tillage; one on ploughed land in Uppsala and one on cultivated land in Västerås, both with relatively high clay content. Rapid drills have a single disc coulter, while the Spirit drills have a double disc coulter. Various aspects were compared such as aggregate distribution, seed placement, emergence, crop yield and economic outcome.

The degree project at hand investigates how large areas of older forest (80 plus years) suitable for clear cutting there is on the Swedish island of Gotland. Large areas of older forest on Gotland are situated on land with shallow soil depths which are economically uninteresting and often unsuitable for clear cutting forestry. Other forests hold big nature conservation values and should not, or cannot, be used for forestry purposes. The survey is made as a GIS analysis based on the old but carefully made ?Brief forest inventory? (ÖSI) made in the 1980s and early 1990s. A sample from the inventory is combined with studies of orthophotos, satellite photos and other GIS layers that display estimated soil depth and nature conservation values. Partly contrary to common belief, the survey shows that there are still large areas of older forest suitable for clear cutting forestry on the island.

The aim of this study is to try to explain the process using both an actor driven perspective as well as a structural perspective examining the reasons why the County Council of Värmland wants to merge with Region Västra Götaland. The answers to the following research questions are sought to shed light on the problem: What constrained the discretion of  the political actors in the choice of region to merge with? Which role did  different political actors play? Does the study provide Game Theory, from Rational Choice theory,  and Path Dependency, from Historic Institutionalism, a new perspective and strength especially  when bringing them together? The study is limited to two policy areas, health care and regional development policy. The structural background is drawn upon the Annual Report 2008 of the County Council Värmland, the Regional Development Program and Regional Transport Infrastructure Plan 2010-2021 by Region Värmland. The chronological order of decisions and events is drawn upon protocols from various regional political organs all linked to the municipal of Värmland and the correspondence between the officials of Värmland?s municipal and the Legal, Financial and Administrative Services Agency of the State.

Pollen analysis of a peat core was used to reconstruct the last 2500 years of vegetation history, with focus on the impact of anthropogenic disturbance, in Hamra National Park, central Sweden. In addition, analysis of pollen in soil samples was performed in an attempt to locate ancient cultivation plots in the National Park. The analysis of the peat core shows a development of the vegetation that can be divided into four stages of different degrees of human impact: A - virgin forest (c. 500 B.C.-A.D. 1300), B - grazed forest (c. A.D.

All over the world the waste from human society is causing problems. In developing countries, large cities are polluted through huge amounts of wastes and people are forced to live very close to open deposits. Lima, capital of Peru, is no exception. The countryside in Peru has also a great challenge to face concerning the waste issue. Children and adults suffer from infectious diseases and contamination of the nature occurs as well. One solution to handle organic waste is to compost, which means a controlled decomposition of organic waste under aerobic conditions at certain temperatures.

Forestry is increasing on an industrial scale where collection of logging residues takes a greater part. This has resulted in more machinery and heavy machinery driving in the clear felled area, this increases the risk of soil damage that will occur in the form of soil compacting and rutting in the clearings. This affecting on the nature in a negative way and especially in rivers and lakes that are affected by siltation and acidification leading to increased levels of heavy metals and methyl mercury. The purpose of this study was to investigate why there is damage to the ground when working with the slash in forest management from the forest officer point of view. A self-designed questionnaire was used and 45 questionnaires were sent out to various companies all over Sweden.

Nanotechnology, one of the most interesting sciences today will no doubt have an enourmous impact on tomorrow's society and industry. One of the most interesting nanomaterial that has been discovered is the semiconductor quantum dot (QD). This material shows interesting novel properties such as a size-dependent band gap, which is an effect caused by the quantum confinement effect in all three dimensions. Due to this phenomenon the absorption spectrum can be tuned to the desired value by adjusting the size of the QD.This thesis aims to investigate how the solvent ratio of H2O/Ethanol affects the optical and structural properties of copper sulfide QDs manufactured in a chemical synthesis way using modern microwave heating. The process of manufacturing QDs using chemical synthesis often involve a capping-agent to prevent the QDs from agglomerate into bigger structures.

The level of cadmium (Cd) in Swedish arable land has increased during the last century and the average concentration of Cd in the plough layer is today 0.23 mg/kg. The increase is mainly due to anthropogenic activities such as phosphorus fertilizing, liming, import of feed, and atmospheric deposition from industrial emissions. Cadmium in the soil will be taken up by crops and is thereby transferred to humans via food. Carrot is one of the crops of concern, both because it may contain quite high Cd concentrations and due to the large consumption in Sweden. In the body, Cd is stored mainly in the liver and the kidneys and may cause several diseases already at low concentrations.

Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka hur olika potentiellt skadliga faktorer påverkar nyetablerade stadsträd. För att göra detta utvecklas en metod för inventering av träd och ståndort, som sedan appliceras på ett urval på 94 stadsträd fördelade på 11 anläggningar i Uppsala och Stockholm. Faktorerna som framkom som resultatet av studien jämförs med skadliga och gynnsamma faktorer enligt uppgifter från trädexperter och litteratur. Uppsatsen inleds med en beskrivning av stadsträds situation idag och historiskt, samt nuvarande kunskapsläge. Därefter följer ett metodkapitel som beskriver metodutvecklingen. Metoden bygger på inventering och analys av ett antal punkter. Exempelvis behandlas vilken information stamomfång kan ge och hur det inventerats under rubriken Stamomfång.

The purpose of this literature review was to describe the paths of exposure and accumulation of organic pollutants into the tissues of farm animals. Organic pollutants can be spread in the environment by air and rainwater. Farm animals can be exposed to these pollutants for example by eating soil or contaminated plants. Many of the pollutants can then accumulate in the fat tissues of the body because of their lipophilic character. Brominated flame retardants and perfluorolated compounds are both pollutants of current interest.

When building a house or similar the stress on the ground increases and deformations can arise. The deformations create a foundation that the building is not constructed for and damages on the building arise. The increased stress on the ground can be derived back to the building, but it is possible that the increased stress may well derive from different sources such as other buildings or trees.       The building is an older property, built in the late 19th century alternatively early 20th century, and is today used for rental housing and has suffered severe damages due to subsidence. The goal of the thesis is to find possible causes for these subsidences. The thesis was executed as a combination between literature- and casestudie. After careful studies it has been found that a probable cause for these subsidences is trees. Through field- and lab studies it has been found that the trees has effected the ground through there accumulation of water.

The title of this thesis is ?The preconditions of the acquisition guarantee- hard to design working political reforms?. The acquisition guarantee (förvärvsgaranti) is a form of credit guarantee issued by the Swedish government to credit institutes that give out housing loans to debtors with poor credit history. The reform hasn´t been used in any substantial extent.The purpose of the study is to investigate whether you could identify any problems with the preconditions that the governmental agency BKN was given to implement the acquisition guarantee, and if so describe which these problems are.Two questions are answered:1.      What preconditions for a working implementation of the guarantee, in the form of rules, objectives and directives was offered by the government in their steering of BKN?2.      How did the structural preconditions for a working implementation of the guarantee look like?By doing a text analysis of central documents I find that the lack of outcome could to some extent be related to weaknesses in how the reform was formulated.

Bacillus anthracis is the causative agent of anthrax, a serious and globally distributed zoonosis affecting a wide range of wild and domestic animals, invariably also humans. However, although known to humans since biblical times, much remains to be elucidated concerning the ecology and transmission of this bacterium. Of particular interest is the Bacillus anthracis spore, the uptake of which is the predominant way to contract anthrax and which is legendary for its resilience in the environment and thus crucial for persistence and spread of the disease. Hence, the aim of this study is to review the natural transmission of Bacillus anthracis and investigate potential means by which soil persisting Bacillus anthracis spores reach concentrations sufficient to infect susceptible hosts. When reviewing the literature, three different theories can be distinguished. Firstly, ?the incubator area? hypothesis suggests that favourable soil factors, possibly in association with amoebas, may constitute an environment supporting repeated spore-bacterium-spore cycling, thus increasing the local amount of spores.