Over the last decade, the private insurance market has undergone a stable growth in turnover and growing demand for insurance products in all Member States of the European Union. Therefore, the creation of a single market in insurance will enable consumers to have access to wider choice of insurance products, and insurance companies to gain access to markets in various Member States and compete effectively. The EU legal framework for the insurance industry embraces the Treaty freedoms of services, establishment and capital, the EC Directives and the ECJ case-law. The present thesis identifies numerous factors that hinder the Community insurance market integration and offers possible remedies. The summary of the market obstacles is all-inclusive and reflects the responses to the questionnaires and the Commission surveys.

Handling of animals during anaesthesia is an important field in the profession as a veterinary nurse and in which intubation is an essential part. Hence, adequate knowledge is necessary for the Welfare of the animal. The objective of this literature study was to make it useful and trustworthy for veterinary nurses. It is intended to describe and summarize existing scientificity with its benefits and disadvantages within the different areas of intubation techniques and alternative methods of inhalation anaesthetic supplementation for general anaesthesia in rabbits. Endotracheal intubation in rabbits can be complicated and technically demanding due to the anatomy of the oropharynx including the narrowness of this structure, a relatively large tongue, large incisors and a limited mobility of the temperomandibular joint. The obstructed visualization of larynx and the rabbit?s tendency to develop laryngospasm contributes to the difficulty of intubation. Rabbits are susceptible to tracheal injury and multiple intubation attempts can cause tracheal lesions due to repeated damage to the tracheal mucous membrane, although damage can occur after a single intubation attempt as well. An ETT (endotracheal tube) with or without a cuff can be used during orotracheal intubation in rabbits.

Barren rearing environment and early weaning of piglets can lead to a high level of distress, behavioural disturbances and reduction in weight gain. The main aim of this thesis was to study the effects of potential enrichment objects on piglet?s behaviour and weight gain during the pre- and post-weaning period. The second aim was to examine what type of object stimulated the highest frequency of interaction. The study was carried out at the Swedish Livestock Research Centre in Lövsta where a batch of litters from 10 first-parity Yorkshire sows were used.

Aggression between laboratory mice is a common problem and can result in Welfare issues such as mice hurting or killing each other and also stress. Swedish laws and regulations clearly states that mice must be housed with a companion due to their natural social structure. Many studies have investigated the effect off enrichment, group size, cage size and other potential changes in in their environment on the occurrence of aggression. Even with these changes aggression can exist and therefore a new solution was tested in this paper. The proposed solution was to house an intact mouse with a castrated one and thus fulfill laws and regulations while still maintaining the physiology of one of the mice for the purpose of medical experiments.

The standard housing of farmed mink provides little opportunities for them to behave naturally and abnormal behaviours such as stereotypic behaviour and tail biting may occur. To prevent abnormal behaviours animals in captivity are often provided with different kinds of enrichments. The aim of this study was to investigate what kind of enrichment farmed mink use when they have several kinds to choose from and to observe if abnormal behaviours can be decreased with a larger cage and a more multifaceted environment. Totally 20 silver blue, 10 months old female mink were kept in traditional cages (80x30x40 cm) for 7 days and in larger cages (195x80x40 cm) with several types of enrichments for 7 days. The enrichments were wire net- and wooden shelves, wire net- and plastic cylinders, water bath, plastic ropes, branches, straw and tennis balls. One-zero scan sampling on behaviour and choice of place were performed during 3 hours and 20 minutes prior to feeding during 7 days per treatment in April 2004.

Over the last decade, the private insurance market has undergone a stable growth in turnover and growing demand for insurance products in all Member States of the European Union. Therefore, the creation of a single market in insurance will enable consumers to have access to wider choice of insurance products, and insurance companies to gain access to markets in various Member States and compete effectively. The EU legal framework for the insurance industry embraces the Treaty freedoms of services, establishment and capital, the EC Directives and the ECJ case-law. The present thesis identifies numerous factors that hinder the Community insurance market integration and offers possible remedies. The summary of the market obstacles is all-inclusive and reflects the responses to the questionnaires and the Commission surveys.

The study was carried out at the Kungsängen Research Centre, Department of Animal Nutrition and Management, Swedish University of Agriculture Sciences, Uppsala. The technical development in dairy production has resulted in a housing system where feeding and milking is done automatically without human contact, a so called automatic milking system. The motives for utilising an automatic milking system, is to increase the animal Welfare and to decrease the need for manual labour. However, the system does involve a change for the animals, among the effects is the deprival or the diminishment of a chance for synchronous behaviour and the animals have to agree among themselves in which order they use the feeding stations and the milking unit itself. How and if this affects the animals well-being and production is yet to be solved. A possible way to form an opinion on this, is to study the animals ranking order along with hormone profiles and production. The purpose of this work was to study the effect of low- vs.

In Sweden, there has been a continuous increase in the volume of housing construction for dairy cattle. Since 2004, the number of new, rebuilt and extended dairy cow houses undergoing preliminary inspection by the authorities has grown. The livestock farms have mostly focused on cow units instead of calf and heifer sheds; which has led to a need for information in this area. The purpose of the study was to improve advisors? knowledge about bovine building construction and function; to enable them to provide more qualified advice to conventional and organic milk producers who sustain larger herds.

The incidence of many of the most common diseases in dairy cattle has been proven to be highest during the time closest to calving. It is possible that the current breeding strategy with 12 month calving intervals increases the risk for disease in dairy cattle, which is problematic concerning both animal Welfare and for economic reasons. The economic incentives behind a calving interval of 12 to 13 months have mainly been based on milk- and feed- costs and no costs due to diseases or fertility disturbances have been included.The aim of this study was to see if a lengthening of the calving interval would result in lower disease frequency. The hypothesis is that cows with a planned calving interval of 15 months have a lower disease incidence than cows with a calving interval of 12 months due to less number of calvings. Therefore the difference in disease frequency should be larger when compared over a long period of time, such as over lifetime, since cows with a longer calving interval experience fewer calvings.The study was performed between August 17th, 1994, and January 24th, 2007.

According to TCO (The Swedish Confederation for Professional Employees) the worst threat to the Swedish Welfare is that so many people because of bad health and unemployment are not a part of the labour force. If Sweden could make the number of people with health and unemployment problems half the size as today, the GDP would increase with more than five percent. In real money this means 110 billion Swedish kronor a year. According to SCB (Statistics Sweden) the difference between women?s and men?s absence owing to illness should be investigated more closely in order to get at better understanding of the problem.

Sub Saharan Africa has during the last decade become the world?s fastest urbanizing region. This change is concentrated to a few metropolitan areas one of them being Dar es Salaam, the largest city of Tanzania. Since the 1960s Dar es Salaam has grown from being a relatively small coastal city of approximately 300 000 people to become a bustling urban centre of four million inhabitants. This development has had a major impact on the city structure, which in turn has affected people?s Welfare and the surrounding environment. One such consequence is the detrimental loss of urban vegetation and open areas in the city.

Water is our most important provision and its quality is above all dependent on the geological conditions in the area from where it is extracted. Due to geological properties there are certain areas with an elevated risk of high uranium levels in the ground water, which in turn constitutes a risk for human health. Consumption of water that contains a high concentration of uranium implies a health risk due to the chemical characteristics of uranium. Livsmedelsverket (The National Food Administration) and Socialstyrelsen (The National Board of Health and Welfare) therefore recommend that precautionary measures should be taken when the uranium concentration in ground water exceeds 15 micrograms per litre. In particular, drinking water collected from wells in areas with uranium-rich bedrock may have a harmfully high level of uranium. One of the wells of the Ärla water purification plant, located near Eskilstuna, Sweden, contains water that exceeds the guideline of 15 micrograms per litre. One interesting technique for removing uranium from drinking water is adsorption to reactive filter materials.

A cattle producer that buys calves that are younger than six months to the herd should have a starter stable to prevent infection spreading in the herd. According to the Swedish animal Welfare regulation there has to be a starter stable if more than 50 calves that are younger than four months are bought in yearly to the herd. The aim of the study was to improve the knowledge about bovine buildings and management of starter stables to obtain optimal weight gain and health of the calves. The hypothesis 1) The younger the calves are when purchased, the higher the calf mortality and 2) Purchasing calves from a high number of herds involves a higher risk of calf health problems and calf mortality were tested in the study. The objective of the study was to give advices by way of presenting ideal solutions of how a starter stable should be constructed and managed. A field study was done during June to September 2008 to collect knowledge and experience from existing starter stables.

In Kenya the Maasai pastoralists have based their livelihoods on dairy production and the production goal is to maintain a sufficient milk supply throughout the year. The pastoral dairy production has two vital characteristics; breeding and milking. Traditionally, breeding is the men?s responsibility, while milking is the duty of women. Depending on this partition of chores between men and women, they also have different management routines, ambitions and strategies regarding the milk production.

Inom hästvärlden har det länge pågått debatt angående ridhästars välbefinnande i samband med träning. Speciellt dressyren har fått utstå mycket kritik då kritikerna menar att hästarna tvingas genomföra rörelser i en onaturlig form. En av formerna som ofta debatteras är rollkür. Där är hästens nacke hyperflekterad och den går med nosen mot bringan, vilket många menar är stressande för hästen. Även dagens tävlingsform får ibland utstå kritik, då man på tävlingsplatser kan se hästar som uppvisar konfliktbeteenden.