With a larger awareness of the climate changes and increasing electricity prices, energy efficiency measures in the industry have become more common. By rationalize the activity and by the same time decrease the emission of greenhouse gases the company can both save money and reduce negative environmental impact. For the Swedish industries the electricity price have traditional been relative low, which has resulted in a considerable larger usage than other European countries. By a deregulation of the European electricity market the electricity price will level off between the countries, which will cause a higher electricity price in Sweden than we are use to. To prevent that the Swedish industry don?t lose competitiveness against the other European countries, it will require energy efficiency activities in all different forms.ABB Sweden has decided to decrease their total energy usage with five percent in two years.

Automatic rumination measuring can be applied as a health indicator in dairy farming but is also highly desirable for research purposes. This study aimed to validate the technical functionality of the product RuminActTM, which employ acoustics to monitor rumination duration. The time budget of high yielding cows was studied and possible differences in rumination time between 13 rations were interpreted. Further the study examined what affects daily rumination and rumination efficiency. The validation was performed with direct observations that were compared to the automatically recorded rumination durations.

SUMMARY Several studies have shown that weaning pigs are in great need of heat. The reason for this is mainly because the pigs are given very little feed just after weaning. Some of the pig producers of today have tried to get along with these problems by building some kind of hut for the pigs. Some of these pig houses have been included in this study.The study has shown shortcoming functions for the pig cottage. The expected heat increase has not occurred.

This report describes an investigation of the indoor climate in two different workspaces. Since we a big part of our lives are staying indoors in artificial environments, and more particularly in our workplaces, we think it would be interesting to do this investigation. The technical solutions for air treatment systems began with simple natural systems without fans and where the thermal rise of the air applied. In modern time is technical air treating systems used to take care of the fresh air supply. This type of units can supply filtered air with the right temperature to the building. Well-functioning ventilation is essential to bring clean fresh air to the room and effectively remove impurities without sound- or draught problems. The indoor climate is relevant for the output capacity.

A titania-supported nickel catalyst was prepared and tested in methanation in order to evaluate its catalytic properties (activity, selectivity and specially, activity loss), and compare it with an alumina-supported nickel catalyst.The titania-supported catalyst did not only show higher stability than alumina, but also presented a different cause of deactivation, carbon formation. In addition, a kinetic model was obtained for the titania-supported catalyst, and a study of the effect of different operating conditions (temperature, composition and partial pressures of synthesis gas and water) on the deactivation rate and carbon formation of this catalyst was performed.

VAV (Variable Air Volume) system has been studied in a newly constructed office-building. The goal for the study has been to evaluate how the ventilations system work in practice, if adjustments can be made to achieve an more energy efficient system and to evaluate if other alternative ventilation systems is to be preferred in the further.The degree project has been executed at Helenius Engineering Firm who is working with the environment, media systems, HVAC and energy in buildings. The building that has been studied is owned and operated by Akademiska hus.Literature studies, visits at site, inventory, review of system documentation, energy analyses, interviews, key figures, LCC, sand energy- and indoor climate simulations has been made to study the building. Where appropriate some tools from Six Sigma have also been used.How to achieve an energy efficient system and a pleasant indoor climate is studied with human health and well-being as base for the indoor climate requirements. Technical support systems such as ventilation systems have to be designed so that an acceptable indoor climate can be achieved.

For a long time Lean has been a well-known concept among manufacturers. Theinterest of understanding Lean and the ability to implement it is common amongcompanies. The concept of Lean, used in the right way, can help companies to reducetheir lead times, their complexity and increase the efficiency of the working processes(Hyer och Wemmerlöv, 2002). Unfortunately the work towards increased efficiencyhas primarily been focused on manufacturing and plant work, resulting in that Leanhas been adjusted to these areas. The conclusion of this is that companies don´tprioritize to improve processes such as administrative ones.

The forestry companies? operational planning process is these days dependent on reliable, efficient and user-friendly computer-based support systems. This study is an evaluation of Holmen Skog's current computer-based systems. The aim of this study is to: ? investigate the work pattern of the production managers when using the information system to plan the harvesting operation; ? investigate the efficiency and user friendliness of the information system with the different work patterns and to find the strengths, weaknesses and bottlenecks in the current system; ? find out if the type of object, the volume, the area of the harvesting object affects the time and work pattern; ? examine how this type of study is met by the employees and what factors that is critical to avoid feelings of intrusion. The conclusions of the study were: ? there is a large variation between the work patterns of the production managers and the time spend to perform the operational planning; ? the mainframe computer system used by Holmen Skog is clear, has short response times, is robust and conveys relevant information; ? the computer systems are however divided in many subsystems.

A common perception is that fungicide treatments increases yield, but that the nitrogen of the particular grain is diluted so that the overall removal of grain nitrogen from the field remains unchanged. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate that a healthy crop reduces the risk of nutrient loss from agricultural land. The results from genotype and plant protection trials often show constant nitrogen content in the grain, although the yield has been increased. Results from such experiments are therefore processed in order to confirm this and show that it is no statistically significant difference between the protein content (and also nitrogen content) in crops which have undergone fungicide treatment compared to crops which remained untreated. The trials processed have been carried out in the southernmost part of Sweden and are distinguished to concern winter wheat production.The explanation to the results is that a healthy crop is able to maintain the biological functions of the plant in a more efficient way than a crop damaged by a fungal infection.

Because of new emission and on board diagnostics legislations, heavy truck manufacturers are facing new challenges when it comes to improving the engines and the control software. Accurate and real time executable engine models are essential in this work. One successful way of lowering the NOx emissions is to use Exhaust Gas Recirculation (EGR). The objective of this thesis is to create a mean value model for Scania's next generation EGR system consisting of a poppet valve and a two stage cooler. The model will be used to extend an existing mean value engine model.

In a time when concern for the environment is a topic that is met with both love and hatred, organic goods and services become increasingly common on the market. Communication efforts with the purpose of increasing the proportion of organic products consumed are being conducted by both private and public actors. However, achieving attitudinal and behavioral change within complex areas such as this comes with many difficulties.Within public opinion change, a common way of achieving a change in behavior is to use fear appeals and scare tactics. Earlier studies have shown that messages prompting a low level of fear can be more effective than messages prompting a high level of fear, since a high level of fear tends to raise defense mechanisms in the consumer. The purpose of this essay is to examine whether fear and defense mechanisms is a problem when it comes to making consumers choose organic products, as well as studying whether messages prompting low levels of fear are more effective than those prompting high levels of fear.This quantitative study is conducted in the form of a questionnaire-based experiment, comparing the effectiveness of two messages prompting different levels of fear.

By exposing their products in blogs, companies have the opportunity to reach out to hundreds of thousands of consumers daily. Instead of using conventional Internet advertising such as banners and ads, some companies chose to make use of product placement in blogs. By choosing to expose their products in blogs, companies use a medium that blog readers are familiar with and can relate to, and can thereby solicit customers for their products and brands.We will examine whether product placements in fashion blogs are an effective way for businesses to market themselves and their products. We measure this efficiency, by keeping a record of the sales of ten product placed garment and accessories that we have selected from four of the largest blogs in Sweden. The stores we examine sales of product placed goods in are volume brand stores such as Zara and H&M etcetera.

Stormwater run-off from surfaces such as roads or rooftops is often polluted with heavy metals and nutrients. Many of these substances can cause great damage in biota if they end up in the recipient. In Sweden constructed wetlands and ponds for treatment of stormwater are frequently used, since research has shown that these treatment ponds are reducing stormwater pollution considerably to a low cost. The knowledge of these pollutant removal mechanisms and how follow-up and assessment of the ponds should be performed is still limited.To determine the pollutant removal efficiency of the stormwater ponds it is recommended that flow-weighted water samples are collected from both the inflow and the outflow of the pond. This method demands considerable resources of time and money for installations and analysis.

Lokala investeringsprogram was a subsidy program which supported environmental reforms during the years 1998 to 2002. The subsidies were given to Swedish municipalities. Most of the evaluations of the subsidised projects have now been completed and included in a database. The purpose with this thesis is to analyse whether the instrument has been effective with respect to carbon dioxide reductions and costs. These calculations have focused on subsidy and cost efficiency. The analysis has been compared with a previous report called "LIP ur ett samhällsekonomiskt perspektiv". The result shows that the reduction cost for one kg CO2 has been almost one SEK, which is twice as high as the cost reported in a previous report, half a SEK.

In this study the spawning migration activity, habitat choice (depth and temperature), foraging activity, duration of stay in the spawning site and homing-behavior was studied for anadromous pike (Esox lucius) in the wetland Österby myr, Gotland.The spawning migration was concentrated to dusk and dawn, a homing behavior was confirmed and there was no significant difference between sexes with respect to duration of stay. A difference in habitat choice and small variation in foraging activity between individuals was established..