This report is a B.Sc. Forestry thesis work at the school for Forest Management, SLU. The work was an assignment from the forest owners? association Mellanskog. The aim of the work where to investigate the economical result of removing undergrowth trees before first thinning, and a follow-up of the contractors and their compliance with Mellanskog standards. This thesis work was divided in three parts: The first was to find a relation between the net volume from the first thinning and the cost of cleaning undergrowth trees. Secondly there was a follow-up in the field, to investigate whether the contractors have done the undergrowth cleaning according to Mellanskog?s directives.

The forecast ability of four well-known exchange rate models for theSwedish krona is tested in this thesis. The models that are tested arethe purchase power parity, the real interest differential model, thesticky-price model and a productivity model. In addition to thebenchmark, the random walk, they are also compared to each other.They are all tested on three different horizons one quarter, two quartersand four quarters. The mean squared forecast error criteria and thedirection of change criteria are used for evaluation of the forecastability. Only in a couple of cases are the forecast ability of thetheoretical based models significant better than the random walk..

The Swedish Armed Forces tend to ask themselves if it is sufficiently multinational interoperablefor participation in international operations. An equally valid question today should be whether theSwedish Armed Forces are sufficiently nationally / internally interoperable, between their branchesof service, to be able to conduct independent operations based on the joint warfare theory.The lack of ability to joint warfare in the armed forces in general and the Swedish Armed Forcesspecially constitutes the essay´s fundamental problem. By using Codners and Sjöbloms custominteroperability theory, the Swedish Armed Forces documents were analyzed to highlight anyweaknesses related to joint warfare and national interoperability between Ground and Air Forces.The survey shows weaknesses linked to the custom theory and Swedish Armed Forces governingdocuments. The ability of a national interoperability is limited between Ground and Air Forcestoday, mostly because of weaknesses in the Swedish Armed Forces strategic concept which doesnot describe the importance of joint warfare at all levels sufficiently. This leads to deficienciesreflected in doctrines, regulations, technology, techniques and exercises.

Tjörns kommun har planer på att bebygga Almön, en halvö belägen på nordöstra Tjörn intill Tjörnbron. Projektet är avgränsat till området som benämns Almöstrand, vilket är Almöns västra strand, en kuperad sluttning med kraftigt lutande partier som idag till största del består av skogsmark. Syftet är att undersöka hur man på olika sätt kan planera vägsträckningen i området, samt placering och utformning av hus, med hänsyn till en rad olika parametrar. Undersökningen visualiseras slutligen i 3D, i form av renderingar från Revit Architecture samt en fysisk modell.Initialt genomfördes en utredning för att ge beslutsunderlag till projektet. Vidare gjordes en fallstudie vilken har använts som referens och inspiration till arbetet.

Abstract The purpose of writing this thesis was to improve methods during requirements engineering phase. Usercentred system engineering has some problem areas, which are examined and verified to create a new guideline for developers. This guideline tends to make requirements engineering more effective and help developers create more concrete requirements. It is not uncommon that system development projects ends up with unsatisfied users or delay in deliveries. The reasons are different kinds of communication problems between users and developers during verification of requirements.

Livestock animals affect their environment in a number of different ways, mostly through grazing and trampling. This study focused on the effects of Gotland pony grazing on forest structure and diversity, and the impact on ground cover. To compare the fenced and grazed area with a reference area outside the enclosure a number of transects were used. The study showed that there was no significant difference in height structure and diversity between the compared sites; however, there were a significantly higher proportion of damaged trees inside the enclosure. The ground cover variables showed a higher amount of bare soil, plant litter and wood-rush (Luzula sp.) inside the enclosure whilst grass was more frequent in the reference area.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate Komm-A, a model for usingcommunication books in clinical practice for people with aphasia. The studyconsisted of two group studies and one case study. One of the group studies had apretest-posttest design and consisted of nine couples; a person with aphasia andhis/her communication partner. The material used was Quality of communicationlife scale (QCL), Communicative effectiveness index (CETI), Goal attainmentscaling (GAS), and a questionnaire to the communication partner. The other groupstudy consisted of seven speech-language pathologists who worked with thecouples according to the Komm-A model.

Three years after the Bosman case, it was decided that a socio-cultural approach on sports be introduced in Europe. EU presented a formulation for the same purpose ? The European Model of Sport. The purpose of this formula was to maintain the socio-culture and traditional ap¬proach to all kinds of amateur and professional sports in Europe. If we were to com¬pare this model with the American model of sport, it shows many different ways of thinking in terms of organised sport.

Due to recent legal enactments regarding carbon dioxide emissions, the car industry is facing higher demands. An effective way of reducing these emissions is to minimize the weight of the vehicle. This thesis constitutes a feasibility study on whether or not it is applicable for the car industry to utilize an inner floor structure comprising composite materials. The principal was the projectSåNätt, in which the main participant was Volvo Cars Corp. In consultation with a reference group, consisting of delegates from the industry and KTH, a specification of requirements was produced.

Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) is an unconventional model of agriculture expected to contribute to a more sustainable food supply and a sustainable landscape; the development of rural areas; a stronger relationship between producer and consumer and a healthier diet. This study, with a focus on food production and the link between the producer and consumer, describes the origin and current development of CSA in Sweden, including the prerequisites for CSA in a Swedish context. Organizations and entrepreneurs working with CSA and related projects are identified and interviewed. The notion of CSA in Sweden is still in its infancy, but a rapidly growing interest currently can be detected. The fact that the identified CSAs are found in different Swedish regions with variations in degree of urbanization and intensity of agriculture indicates that the prerequisites are there for the concept to grow, both in rural as well as urban areas.

This study analyses the economic consequences due to ethanol production in Eastern Sweden. The analyses consider the cooperative and the farmers as one vertically integrated company. The area that found the market in this study is illustrated in figure 1. The analyses assume that all members act jointly with the objective of maximizing joint profits at the farm level as well as at the cooperative firm. A mathematical model is created to calculate the optimal use of arable land.

This thesis work has been performed at Volvo Aero Corporation in Trollhättan, at the department of ?hot structures? involving aircraft engine GP7000. The purpose with the study was to investigate the possibility to reduce size of the forging of flanges on the rear turbine frame when purchasing. Thereto examine the parameters that affect the flanges motion during the manufacturing process. The goal was to provide Volvo Aero with foundation to later bring in slimmed forgings.

Tjörns kommun har planer på att bebygga Almön, en halvö belägen på nordöstra Tjörn intill Tjörnbron. Projektet är avgränsat till området som benämns Almöstrand, vilket är Almöns västra strand, en kuperad sluttning med kraftigt lutande partier som idag till största del består av skogsmark. Syftet är att undersöka hur man på olika sätt kan planera vägsträckningen i området, samt placering och utformning av hus, med hänsyn till en rad olika parametrar. Undersökningen visualiseras slutligen i 3D, i form av renderingar från Revit Architecture samt en fysisk modell.Initialt genomfördes en utredning för att ge beslutsunderlag till projektet. Vidare gjordes en fallstudie vilken har använts som referens och inspiration till arbetet.

The dependency of continuous electricity supply is high in the Swedish society today, at the same time no one is willing to pay for a too costly or over dimensioned power distribution system. The owners of the distribution systems are the ones responsible for this balance act of maintaining a high quality of electricity delivery to customers at a reasonable cost.In this master thesis a limited part of the primary distribution system (10 kV), owned by Mälarenergi Elnät AB and located in the city centre of Västerås, was chosen for a deeper analysis of its reliability. Its ability to handle outages of system components (N-1 and N-2 contingency analysis) was investigated to find out potential weak spots and parts of the grid that showed signs of being overdimensioned.The results of the performed simulations showed that in 74 % of the studied N-1 contingencies cases, consisting of outages of a bus bar in a distribution substation, the system could handle this without causing outages in other parts of the grid. For the N-2 contingencies 61 % passed the test. It was also found that one of the two included high voltage substations could alone supply the investigated part of the grid.

The purpose with the paper is to theoretically investigate how sensory experience and positive affect in contact with outdoor environment can promote health by 1) develop a model of the sensory and emotional processes based on multiple code theory (Bucci, 1997) and 2) examine if this model can increase understanding of the processes that takes place in outdoor recreation, the way this is described in environmental psychology research and theory. The paper starts by introducing research and perspectives concerning outdoor recreation. Different theories of nature?s health promoting effects are described. These include the restoration theories of Roger Ulrich and Steven and Rachel Kaplan, theories more concerned with outdoor activities and a theory combining these two perspectives called instorative theory. After this sensory and emotional information processing is examined through the works of Wilma Bucci and Jean Ayres. Antionio Damasio?s theories of emotion and Daniel Stern?s concept of vitalityaffects are than introduced to extend this reasoning.