Comparison of Single-Grip Harvester Productivity in Clear- and Shelterwood Cutting

An increased interest in the use of shelterwood stands to promote regeneration has led to an interest in how singlegrip harvester productivity is affected by shelterwood cutting compared to clearcutting. A comparative time study of a large singlegrip harvester was made in a spruce stand in northern Sweden. Three treatments were used. Shelterwood cutting leaving: 1) a sparse stand, 2) a dense residual stand, and 3) clearcutting. Each treatment was replicated three times. Results show that productivity decreases from 64 m3 per effective hour in clearcutting to 54 and 41 m3 per effective hour when shelterwoods with 259 and 381 stems ha1, respectively, were retained

Frivillig redovisning av humankapital

Syfte: Undersökningen har för avsikt att undersöka skillnaden i den frivilliga redovisningen av humankapital mellan kunskapsföretag och varuproducerande företag. Uppsatsens mål är att kartlägga och beskriva hur redovisningen görs; vad som redovisas och hur man redovisar informationen. På så sätt vill vi skapa en förståelse för vilka faktorer som påverkar redovisningen av humankapital i en svensk kontext, samt om någon utveckling har skett under perioden 2003 till 2012. Vidare avser vi undersöka vilken typ av upplysningar som generellt redovisas i syfte att skapa underlag för en diskussion om eventuell framtida normbildning inom redovisning av humankapital i Sverige. Metod: En innehållsanalys har gjorts på 72 årsredovisningar från 18 företag. Informationen har kvantifierats för att kunna analyseras med hjälp av korrelationsanalys och deskriptiv statistik. Teoretiska perspektiv: Här definieras kunskapsföretag, varuproducerande företag samt humankapital. Årsredovisningens intressenter presenteras. Vidare beskrivs teori och tidigare studier om frivillig redovisning. Avslutningsvis presenteras resultat från tidigare studier samt teori om frivillig redovisning av humankapital, eventuella incitament att redovisa humankapital samt effekter av att redovisa humankapital. Empiri: Här presenteras undersökningens forskningsresultat i form av diagram och tabeller. Slutsats: Kunskapsföretag redovisar mer information om humankapital än varuproducerande företag gör. Vi har inte hittat någon annan variabel än branschtillhörighet som förklarar skillnader i mängden redovisat humankapital. En svag ökning har skett sett över hela den undersökta perioden, dock är den inte linjär. Detta kan dels bero på införandet av IFRS år 2005, men även att företagen gått från att vilja framhäva deras humankapital till ett ökat fokus på det strukturella kapitalet. Båda företagstyperna redovisar mest humankapital i kategorin Personalhälsa och trivsel. De parametrar som redovisats i störst antal årsredovisningar är Allmänt om kompetens, Personalomsättning, kommentarer om personalomsättning och arbetsmiljö. Vi ser att det finns ett visst underlag för normbildning men ser också svårigheterna i att normera hur information om till exempel kompetens skall tas upp då detta är ett abstrakt begrepp som är svårt att kvantifiera

Frysdisketiken : Vikten av att kommunicera Corporate Social Responsibility inom livsmedelsbranschen

The purpose with this essay is to explore the importance of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) within the food industry. We have decided to focus on how five different ethical labels are communicated towards students and the standpoint of the study is the students understanding of the communication. The labels that we have chosen to examine in the study are KRAV, Fairtrade, Svanen, Ekologiskt Jordbruk and Rainforest Alliance. The primary research question in the study is ” How are the students purchase behavior affected by ethical labels in the food industry?”. Throughout the study we will refer to CSR-products as products are stamped with one or several of the named ethical labels. The study also contains one sub-question that will help to support the main research question and provide the study with a broader base. You will find the sub-question below. ”To what extend does the students understand the communication of the ethical labels?” The theories that we will use in this essay are ”Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)”, ”Brands”, ”Social Identity” and ”Encoding/Decoding”. CSR will be used as the main theory for this essay. The reason for this is that not only is it a theory but also the main topic that we investigate in this essay. We use branding as a theory because we want to examine if the communication from the labels affects students.  Social Identity is used to explore if the students at Karlstad University chose products with ethical labels because of trends and a feeling of belonging with specific groups. Encoding/Decoding is used to analyze and understand the communication of the ethical labels between the ethical labels and the students. We have chosen to use a Webb survey in our study to gather empirical data. The survey has been available for the population on Karlstad universities study platform “It’ s Learnings” homepage during two weeks. The result of the survey displays that the area of concern that the respondents believe is the most important is the environment and labor conditions.  The link that we see here is that KRAV, Fairtrade and Svanen all have high demands on environmental and labor condition-initiatives if a product should be allowed to carry their label. This means that this two area of concern is most important for the students. We can also see from the result that KRAV, Fairtrade and Svanen are the labels that are most visible in commercials and food stores. The research displays that friends together with social media are the channels where the students understand the highest amount of communication from ethicals labels work. We can also see in the result that quality is the most valued feature regarding products in the food industry. Quality is also one of the most important features for the products that are approved by the ethical labels presented in this study. The most notable result is that the students valued the labels but the ethical values did not always lead to a direct purchase. The result also pointed out that the reason for not always leaded to a purchase is different kinds of difficulties. The communication reaches the students but sees as deficient and has to develop to reach its full potential.

Vulnerability Analysis of Socio-Technical Systems: Addressing Railway System Vulnerabilities

The paper presents some ideas and modeling approaches that are feasible for the study of socio-technical systems. The emphasis in the paper is to discuss two approaches concerning modeling of social and technical systems, and how they can be integrated in order to assess the vulnerability of a socio-technical system. The Swedish railway system will serve as the example of a socio-technical system throughout the paper. The first approach deals with a systematic structure of how to analyze the organizational aspects of the railway system, with the focus of identifying the response system and its relation to the technical railway system by introducing the concept of response curves. The second approach deals with a model of how to analyze the vulnerability of interdependent technical systems, and the utilization of response curves for this type of analysis. It is concluded that the approach, although at present being at a theoretical level and not yet empirically tested, can be advantageous in the vulnerability assessment of socio-technical systems