Predation is one of many factors that form the structure of the macroinvertebrate community in lakes, wetlands and watercourses. Earlier studies lack an examination concerning how fish- and waterfowl predation affect macroinvertebrates during shorter periods in the spring. I performed an exclosure study in the shallow eutrophic Lake Tåkern which is located in the western part of Östergötland County, Sweden. The experiment was performed during a three week period (1-21 April 2012) when the water temperature was low and the density of migrating diving ducks was high. The experimental cages used included three out of four different treatments; general predation (open cages), bird exclusion (net with mesh size 90*45mm) and no predation (net with mesh size 1*1mm).

Running water-pathways have played an important roll in Sweden and frequently been manipulated. One profound change was made during the period of logging when streams were cleared from obstacles as big boulders, sharp bends and side-streams. Dams and different constructions gave control of the stream water and the streams became channel-like with a homogen structure. This interference gave problems for many fish populations and resulted in a shortage of feeding habitat, over-wintering habitat, spawning habitat, unnatural flow regimes, sedimentation, unnatural temperature fluctuations. Many of these historical changes of the watersheds are now subjects for restoration, ie., bring back the streams to what we believed it was before the change. However, what once existed in terms of complexity is now gone and difficult toreplace.

The aim of this report was to investigate the economy of passive houses. The work was focused on economy in total and on the economy of different components such as windows, insulation, heat exchanger and the air tightness of the climate shell. No attention was paid on the comfort factor or to the impacts on the environment.Two houses, aspiring to be passive were chosen; A big one and a small one. Hence, comparisons considering the size of the building have been possible to do as well.The comparisons were made by calculating ?break even? between two concepts; passive and BBR- concept.

The aim of this report was to do a case study at a geothermal heating system which has been in operation for about 5 years, and study if its performance has changed during this period of time. A literature study about the processes involved was also done in purpose of background knowledge.The tenant-owner?s association Duvan at Petterslundsgatan in Uppsala installed year 1999-2000 a geothermal heating system. The purpose of this installation was that they hoped it would lead to a smaller usage of district heating which would lead to a reduction of the heating expenses for their buildings. The geothermal heating system consists of 19 energy wells and 4 geothermal heat pumps, and it is one of the first systems of that size in the region of Uppsala.

Agricultural drainage is widely used to manage the amount of water in the ground in order to improve conditions for cultivation. However the effects of drainage companies on water regimes are considerable leading to runoff changes such as altered stream flows, peak flows and water levels. In a greater extent this could imply an increased risk for floods along affected watercourses. This study analyzes the extension of agricultural drainage within the drainage basin of Trosaån in Sweden by ArcGIS mapping. In a statistical analysis, historical variation in streamflow in relation to mean precipitation and mean temperature are investigated for the study area.

Outdoor housing of horses? best fulfils the horses? need for physical activity and it is an alternative to the more cost and energy demanding indoor housing in stables. Furthermore, if outdoor housed horses have access to shelter they can generally cope well with adverse weather conditions such as high or low ambient temperature, heavy rain or strong winds. In this study, the daytime shelter-seeking behaviour of three groups of horses housed outdoors was studied during the summer. The aim was to evaluate whether shelter use is related to weather variables (e.g., ambient temperature and wind speed) and insect harassment. The shelter-seeking behaviour was studied for three different groups of horses: Group 1) eight individually housed horses in paddocks that had access to three different shelter types (C: closed on three sides with roof, R: open on three sides with roof, W: closed on three sides without roof), Group 2) 25 group housed mares with foals on pasture with access to shelters C, and Group 3) ten mares without foals on pasture without access to shelter. Each group was studied for eight days.

Cooling down the indoor air can be done in several ways. One way is desiccantcooling which will be used at the Stockholm Arena. This method is used in airhandling units that use temperature changes and moisture fluctuations in the air. Oneof the steps is to add heat during the cooling process in order to reduce the relativehumidity of the exhaust air. The air passes thru an adsorptions rotor which thenabsorbs moisture from the supply air.

This EEF-project is a part of a larger project at SLU, Division of Reproduction, Dept of Clinical Science, with the intention of developing and evaluating new methods for the assessment of stallion semen quality. Over the last 10 years there has been an increase in the use of artificial insemination with cooled semen in Swedish horse breeding. At the same time, foaling rates have decreased. This has lead to a need for new and better methods of assessing the quality of stallion semen. This EEF-project was based on an objective method to calculate motility, with QualispermTM, in fresh and cooled stallion semen, and after selection. Today sperm motility evaluation is mainly done subjectively by visual assessment with a light microscope, and the correlation between these motility results and fertility have varied.

This thesis is a study of humidity at Knauf Danogips external plasterboard. The study is performed at the building project Kv. Maskinen in Jönköping in cooperation with NCC Construction AB and Knauf Danogips. The measuring was performed during five winter/spring months to see how the weather influenced the plasterboard.The measuring was performed at a small two-storied building and a larger fourstoried building. From the buildings` placement were a couple of measuring dots selected and to get a good result was the dots located in the four cardinal points.

In this thesis we examine the relationship between board composition and firm performance in Swedish companies. The selection of companies includes all Swedish limited liability companies, with the exception of micro enterprises, that have been active between the years of 2009-2010. We develop hypotheses based on resource dependence theory, agency theory, and the resource based view, and test these with regression analysis against collected data. Specifically, we examine the effects of board diversity, outside directorships, and CEO duality. Our findings show that none of the theories provide sufficient explanatory power of the relationship between board composition and firm performance, and that further research is required to better understand the role and effects of company boards..

This thesis work has been performed at the department of diagnosis and dependability at Volvo Car Company, Torslanda. The background of this project is based on interest in ascertaining how different factors possibly can affect a diagnosis method, which has been developed to find leaks in the fuel tank and evaporation system. According to the OBD II requirements leaks with an orifice diameter larger or equal to 0,5 mm, must be detected. The idea of the diagnosis method is to create an over pressure in the system with an air-pump. The current through the pump is measured and correlates to the power consumed by the pump.

The aim of this study was to increase the knowledge about and deepen our understanding for people who are treated with dialysis in aspects of quality of life and coping strategies. The research questions were: How does the scientific literature describe quality of life and coping strategies from people?s perspective who are treated with dialysis? How does dialysis affect patients and their lives? How/what can the nurses do for people who are treated with dialysis to keep or improve their quality of life. The result is based on eight scientific articles and after interpretation of the result we found six themes that describes how patients have to restructure their lives to a new normal life, how they adapt to a life with dialysis treatment, how dialysis affect their physical condition, witch meaning does the family and others have, how they keep their self-esteem in relation to the dependence of dialysis treatment and which factors are associated with a long life with dialysis..

AbstractThe intention of our study was to examine the meaning of home of elderly women and men and how they experience their getting older. We also wanted to see how elderly women and men experience to receive home-help-service in their own home. The study was based on qualitative interviews with elderly women and men. The informants were five women and four men between the ages of 60-84 years. They all had everyday help from the home-help-service.

Ever since ABB has begun diecasting their rotors instead of permanent mold casting it,variation in the quality of the cast has arisen. Diecasting is performed in three differentmachines, M1, M2, M3 with 400, 660 respectively 800 tons of die locking pressures.The aim of this thesis is to answer the following questions:What is the ?right? cast quality? How is the right quality achieved?For sizes 160-180 solutions will be proposed that consider eccentricity between thelaminate and the short circuit ring as well as elimination of the thin Al film that appearson the outer periphery of the rotors.Through considering the statistic material the most often diverging rotor type has beenidentified and one of the actual rotors has been sent to a laboratory to be analyzed inorder to establish the current defects. The result of the analysis shows that there areplenty of gas- and oxide-porosity.It has been proved that every time the dies temperature decreased below 120°C thecontent of gas porosity increased. It is due to rapid solidification of metal that flowsthrough the ?cold? laminate.It has confirmed that enhanced porosity in squirrel cage causes high impedance in therotors.

Diabetes mellitus is characterised by persistent hyperglycemia in all species. Fructosamine is a glycated protein reflecting blood glucose concentration during the preceding weeks. It has become a valuable analysis to differentiate persistent hyperglycemia from transient stress induced hyperglycemia in cats. It is also used to evaluate current therapy in diabetic patients. Although fructosamine is a well accepted analysis, it is sometimes regarded with scepticism.