Ett viktigt ämne i dagens samhällsdebatt är miljo?frågor och visionen om en hållbar utveckling. En fjärdedel av svenska hushålls klimatutsläpp kommer fra?n maten vi äter och följaktligen kan en förändring av svenska hushålls konsumtionsmönster bidra till en mer hållbar utveckling (Livsmedelsverket, 2013). Det är dock svårt att uppnå en bestående förändring i människors beteende i vardagen.

It is a well-known fact that textiles and carpets have benign sound-absorbing properties. It is desirable to have quantified values of these properties ? especially for architects and interior designers. They often need to be able to giveaccount for the acoustic properties of their designs at a relatively early stage and sometimes have strict acoustic classifications imposed upon them by their contractor. A product with documented acoustic properties would aid when prescribing interior elements.The purpose of this thesis is to develop a wall-mounted panel in hand-tufted material ? aesthetically pleasing and versatile but also having documented and quantified acoustic properties.

One step towards a more sustainable energy system is to create a more flexible electrical grid, where increased demand response among electricity consumers can play an important role. A distribution grid owner can encourage their customers to use electricity more evenly distributed during the day by introducing different types of grid fees such as time-differentiated power tariffs. In this master thesis, the theoretical economic impact of a flattened load profile for a distribution grid owner is investigated. Different factors that impact the distribution grid owner?s economy are identified and two are chosen to be quantified; losses in the grid and the fee to the feeding grid.

In this thesis, the flows of reactive nitrogen (Nr) in Scania were investigated and quantified. The thesis was also intended to form a basis for comparison between the urban nitrogen flow and other flows of nitrogen within Scania. The management of nitrogen in society has disturbed the natural nitrogen cycle. This is linked to a series of environmental problems such as eutrophication, acidification, global warming and smog. The method used was Substance Flow Analysis (SFA) for Nr. For calculation and flow charts Scania was divided into three subsystems; air, water and society.

The aim of this thesis is to interpret and discuss the weapon-graves of Viking Age Birka. The weapon-grave phenomenon is deemed differential in relation to the rest of the grave-material of the site, and thus the questions that motivate the thesis is: who was buried with weapons and why? Further questions arise regarding the social aspects of individuals who were buriedalong with weapons. The theoretical approach will be to evaluate any differences in 'social class', 'social age' and 'gender' between the weapon-grave contexts. By conducting qualitativeand quantified analysis of the grave-goods, this thesis adresses both overall and detailed patterns in correlation and constellations between weapons, other grave-goods and terms of burial..

This thesis aims at studying the development of the party cohesion in the Swedish national parliament, riksdagen, after the introduction of preference voting in the election of 1998. The party cohesion has been measured during parliamentary sessions before and after the reform. The result of the cohesion during each of the sessions has then been compared towards each other. The cohesion was measured between the members of parliament viewed as a whole, and within the party groups during the different sessions. The research method being used has been a quantified statistical voting analysis, making the comparisons of party cohesion during the different parliamentary sessions as easy as possible.

The Swedish do-it-yourself (DIY) market has expanded in recent years and is today a SEK90 billion market. Competition is fierce, however, and the DIY retail chains compete over market share with extensive marketing campaigns. Advances in computer technology have made it possible to acquire and compile huge quantities of point of sale data. However, due to a lack of economic theories and statistical methods, this data cannot be effectively utilized and the effects of the campaigns are not measured in any detail. In this study a new method was used to examine the effects of marketing campaigns in the DIY consumer market.

The biodiversity of the Swedish forest has degenerated since the beginning of the 19th century when fire suppression and large scale logging first occurred. Together with a changed land use, these actions today have had a negative influence on many forest dwelling species, due to gradual reduction of natural processes, successions and different structures from the forest ecosystem. The Swedish Forest Act, together with different environment certifications, have today encouraged private persons and forest companies, among them Holmen Skog, to work actively to improve nature conservation. The aim of this study was to, by field inventories of already existing nature values, literature studies, recommendations from scientific reports and ecological gap analysis as a basis, make a management plan, for a non-production area, to conserve or improve the prerequisites for biodiversity. ?Storskogsberget? is located in the coastal area of Västerbotten County, 35 km from the city of Umeå.

Nuts of all kinds are common ingredients in food. For nut allergy sufferers the frequent use of nuts cause problems and "hidden" nuts in food products may elicit allergic reaction when such foods are consumed. Methods for detecting and quantifying walnut (and other nuts) with high sensitivity and specificity are therefore very important.The objective of this project was to verify the specificity of a rabbit antiserum against walnut with immunodiffusion and to determine the size of the dominant walnut antigens with Western blotting. In addition, a commercial sandwich ELISA for walnut quantification was validated and compared with a qualitative real-time PCR.The rabbit antiserum proved to be less specific but after absorption with cross-reacting nuts and seeds it showed high specificity. The ELISA kit reacted, except for walnut, with pecan and slightly with other nuts and seeds tested.

This thesis aims to study the indirect effects of the Europeanization on national parties and the presence of an established national opposition towards the European Union (EU) and its effects in Sweden, as a result of the so-called conflict of Vaxholm. The questions asked were whether or not it existed an established national opposition towards the EU, and if so, what the opposition consists of substantially. The research method, which was used, is a quantified text analysis on the chamber debates of the Swedish Riksdag and the party congresses of Socialdemokraterna. The study shows that there is an ambivalent opposition towards the EU and its effects in the aftermath of the conflict of Vaxholm.  Socialdemokraterna presented resistance, but did not manage to present apparent alternatives, which left the party with a rather indistinctive opposition. In contrast to the right-wing party, the left-wing party had some profound difficulties in positioning itself in the new and globalized economy. I therefore suggest, that it might be more providing and exhaustive to introduce Azmanova?s ideal-type analysis, which instead of positing parties on a left-right continuum, posit parties after respective party?s opinions concerning the risks or opportunities which the EU and the internal market?s effects. .

With today´s power uprates in BWR reactors the bundle lift force has become aproblem. The lift force is calculated using a best estimate approach and the resultfrom the calculation should pass the existing lift force margin. Lift force margin isdefined so that the lift force may not exceed 80 % of the fuel weight. The margin issupposed to cover all the uncertainties that exist in the lift force calculations.However, no uncertainty analysis has been conducted to quantify the uncertainties.In this report the uncertainties in the lift force model have been quantified. Each inputparameter to the lift force model which has been assumed to have an uncertainty isassigned a probability distribution.

The Private Equity industry has over the past years been booming and major external environmental changes have made the industry transform rapidly. Increased competition between Private Equity firms is one of the reasons why the industry has been and is being forced to focus more on addition of value through increased operational management. Consequently, the focus of value addition is by some said to be transferred away from deal making and financial skills, and into active operative management. This case study investigates how the portfolio management, and more specifically the measuring and management of performance, is carried out in a number of leading Swedish Private Equity funds with investments in the biotech sector. The biotech sector is characterized by extensive research and development, and many biotech companies often lack income and other measurable financial parameters in the initial phase.

Restoration projects are planned and carried out in order to reduce the impact due to anthropogenic influence and to achieve at least good ecological status according to the EU Water Framework Directive. The resilience effort of such restorations is however ambiguous. The aim of this study was to evaluate the potential of follow up restoration measures in Swedish lakes and streams. In particular, we visualized the geographical spread of restoration measures in Sweden and quantified the different types of measures that were implemented so far. Further, we evaluated the extent of sampling of biological factors before and after the restoration measures have occurred. For the purpose of our study, we used the recently compiled national database of restoration measures in Swedish lakes and streams.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how theoretical investment appraisal techniques are applied in an investment driven company, regarding investments in fixed assets. The aim is also to investigate on what grounds the choices of techniques are justified, and what consequences these choices have on the overall investment appraisal. The study is designed as a case study of Divisionen, a production unit of a market leading company in Sweden, which is kept anonymous in this thesis. The empirical data consists of interviews with company employees and internal documents, including decision support for seven approved investment projects. The interviewees were chosen based on their role in the investment decision making process.

Three methods of sensitivity and unceartainty analysis have been applied to the operative stormwater- and recipient model StormTac. The study area is the watershed of lake Flaten in the municipality Salem. StormTac?s submodels for stormwater, pollutant transport and the recipient are cosidired. In the sensitivity assessment, the model parametres and inputs were varied one at a time by a constant percentage according to the ?one at a time? (OAAT) method and the response of the outputs were calculated.