Uppsatsens syfte och tema var att undersöka cykelrelaterat företagande utifrån ettschumpeterianskt synsätt. Metoden var longitudinell och materialet utgick både frånuppgifter från Sveriges Handelskalender 1889/90 – 1965 och annan litteratur.Undersökningen följde Lennart Schöns referenscykel för historiska förlopp. Cykelnkunde kategoriseras som en konsumtionsvara i utvecklingsblocket för transporter.Materialet visade hur cykeln som innovation fick ett mycket snabbt spridningsförloppi Sverige. Den introducerades av några få entreprenörer, som följdes av en hel svärmav tillverkare - imitatörer. Världsutställningen i Paris 1867 fick stor betydelse förvelocipedens spridning. I Sverige uppstod snart agglomerationer av cykelföretagandesom utgick från Stockholm och det mellansvenska industridistriktet runt Uppsala ochGävle. Föredagsdöden visade sig vara högre hos nya företag, Liability of Newness,och mindre företag, Liability of Smallness. Ett ökat strukturellt tryck medförde flerafusioner från och med 1932. Bilismen åstadkom ett förändrat efterfrågemönster runt1955, vilket inledde cykelbranschens nedgång. Importens frisläppande 1960 innebaren dramatisk överlevnadskamp för företagen. År 1996 fanns det bara tre svenskaföretag kvar i branschen av totalt 185 gjorda etableringar under perioden 1867-1965.

<p>Syftet med arbetet är att få kunskaper om hur energibehovet löstes inom gruvbrytningen från 1200-1300 talen fram till början av 1900 talet. Jag har studerat tekniken som användes vid gruvorna runt Åtvidaberg. Anledningen till detta är att här finns flera olika energikällor representerade. Dessutom startade gruvbrytningen tidigt, kanske redan på 1200 talet och har därför satt sin prägel på det samhälle som växte fram runt gruvhanteringen. </p><p>Energibehovet har hela tiden ökat inom gruvbrytningen. Främst beroende på, att då schakten blev djupare, ökade vattentillrinningen. Detta krävde allt effektivare pumpar för vattenuppfordringen. Utvecklingen har gått från att muskelkraft varit den största energikällan till att vattenkraft, ångkraft, turbiner och elektricitet utnyttjats för det ökade behovet av energi.</p>

<p>Denna uppsats, vars första frö såddes vid ett studiebesök på Skokloster slott för två år sedan, behandlar barockens stoppningshistoria och en rekonstruktion av Skoklosterstolens stoppning. Målet med uppsatsen är att skapa ett intresse för historiska stoppningar och dess tekniker för både privatpersoner och yrkesmän.</p><p>Undersökningar av litteratur, inventarielistor och Skoklosterstolarna själva ger anledning att tro att Skoklosterstolarna tillverkades 1708 till slottets dåvarande ägare Abraham Brahe. Som tidigare publicerats av Johan Knutsson finns det skäl att tro att stolarna tillverkats lokalt. Nya analyser presenteras i uppsatsen som styrker denna hypotes. Vidare redovisas vilka material som använts i originalstoppningen, identifierade bland annat med mikroskopering. I största möjliga mån har dessa material använts vid rekonstruktionen.</p> / <p>This article came out of a visit to Skokloster castle two years ago. It comprises of a written part on 17th century upholstery and a reconstruction of the Skokloster chairs' upholstery. The aim of this article is to awaken an interest for historical upholstery and the techniques that were used.</p><p>The investigation of literature, possessions lists and the Skokloster chairs themselves give me the reason to believe that the chair was made in 1708 for the current owner Skokloster castle, Abraham Brahe. As has formerly been published there is reason to believe that a local joiner made the chair. New analyses introduced in this article support this hypothesis. Furthermore, the article shows on the upholstery material used in the chairs, identified in part by microscopy. Whenever possible these materials have been used in the reconstruction.</p><p>It is important that readers of this and any other article on the subject matter read with a critical eye. The history is full of exceptions and universally accurate conclusions are difficult to make.</p>

Denna uppsats, vars första frö såddes vid ett studiebesök på Skokloster slott för två år sedan, behandlar barockens stoppningshistoria och en rekonstruktion av Skoklosterstolens stoppning. Målet med uppsatsen är att skapa ett intresse för historiska stoppningar och dess tekniker för både privatpersoner och yrkesmän. Undersökningar av litteratur, inventarielistor och Skoklosterstolarna själva ger anledning att tro att Skoklosterstolarna tillverkades 1708 till slottets dåvarande ägare Abraham Brahe. Som tidigare publicerats av Johan Knutsson finns det skäl att tro att stolarna tillverkats lokalt. Nya analyser presenteras i uppsatsen som styrker denna hypotes. Vidare redovisas vilka material som använts i originalstoppningen, identifierade bland annat med mikroskopering. I största möjliga mån har dessa material använts vid rekonstruktionen. / This article came out of a visit to Skokloster castle two years ago. It comprises of a written part on 17th century upholstery and a reconstruction of the Skokloster chairs' upholstery. The aim of this article is to awaken an interest for historical upholstery and the techniques that were used. The investigation of literature, possessions lists and the Skokloster chairs themselves give me the reason to believe that the chair was made in 1708 for the current owner Skokloster castle, Abraham Brahe. As has formerly been published there is reason to believe that a local joiner made the chair. New analyses introduced in this article support this hypothesis. Furthermore, the article shows on the upholstery material used in the chairs, identified in part by microscopy. Whenever possible these materials have been used in the reconstruction. It is important that readers of this and any other article on the subject matter read with a critical eye. The history is full of exceptions and universally accurate conclusions are difficult to make.

In the late twentieth century, science and technology facilitated exploration beyond the Solar System and extended human knowledge through messages comprised of pictures and mathematical symbols, transmitted from radio telescopes and inscribed on material artifacts attached to spacecraft. ‘Interstellar communication’ refers to collective efforts by scientists and co-workers to detect and transmit intelligible messages between humans and supposed extraterrestrial intelligence in remote star systems. Interstellar messages are designed to communicate universal knowledge without recourse to text, human linguistic systems or anthropomorphic content because it is assumed that recipients have no prior knowledge of humankind or the planet we inhabit. In addition to tracing and examining the history of interstellar communication during the period 1957-1977, I present an overview of scientific research on ‘interplanetary communication’ with the supposed inhabitants of Mars and other planets in the Solar System during the first half of the twentieth century. I show that it was not until the late 1950s that space exploration research provided the resources for humans to engage in systematic attempts to contact extraterrestrial civilizations in other star systems. My thesis focuses on two interstellar messages incorporated on specially designed material artifacts –NASA’s Pioneer plaque and Voyager Record—dispatched from Earth on board space probes during the 1970s. I critically examine how scientists designed and mobilized interstellar messages both to convey meaning and simultaneously support rhetorical claims about the universality of science and mathematics. I analyze how situated practices, craft skills and graphical technologies associated with scientific research on interstellar messages were deployed by scientists to produce and disseminate knowledge and support the claim that science and mathematics are universal. I examine the histories of technologies linked to space exploration including radio astronomy, television, communication satellites and space probes, tracing how knowledge practices and discourse associated with these technologies are enmeshed with the history of interstellar communication. In particular, I explain how and why television and other display technologies were appropriated by researchers working on interstellar communication to create visual representations of knowledge. I argue that televisual displays and radio telescopes constitute graphical technologies or ‘inscription devices’ deployed by scientists, media producers and others to translate natural objects, agency and culture into legible forms constituted in and through inscriptions, predominantly pictures and mathematical symbols, that convey knowledge within communication networks.

In 1937 the Manchester Engineering Firm Metropolitan Vickers (Metrovick) were awarded a development contract by the Air Ministry to develop a gas turbine for aircraft propulsion in conjunction with the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough. Over the next decade and a half, the company developed a number of gas turbine designs for a variety of applications in the air, at sea, and on land. This thesis examines the gas turbine work of Metropolitan Vickers, and how the company interacted with a variety of partners across both the military and the civilian realms. These included government research establishments such as the Royal Aircraft Establishment and the Admiralty Engineering Laboratory; commercial partners, such as the aero-engine manufacturer Armstrong Siddeley, Yarrow Shipbuilders, and the Great Western Railway, and state institutions such as the Ministries of Aircraft Production and Fuel and Power. It argues that Metrovick’s technical style was formed by the company’s existing heavy engineering plant business, which privileged design over development and production engineering. Compared to competitors such as Power Jets and Rolls Royce, Metrovick’s progress on aero-engine work was hampered by the lack of a development organisation; though technically advanced, its aircraft engines took a long time to be developed and would not reach production; a factor which was influential in the post-war sale of Metrovick’s aero-engine designs to Armstrong Siddeley. Metrovick did use its gas turbine experience to gain post-war contracts for both naval and civilian gas turbines. The Royal Navy adopted gas turbines for two roles: as lightweight powerplants for short-ranged fast-attack craft, and as part of major warship propulsion systems that were intended to overcome the perceived flaws of the Navy’s interwar steam plants. Metrovick was selected as a development partner because of the company’s existing naval business, as well as its gas turbine expertise. In the civilian realm, the company produced gas turbines for a wide range of applications ranging from railway locomotives to electrical power generation. Most of the customers for these designs were state or quasi-state institutions; this thesis argues that the postwar British state’s support for the civilian gas turbine shows that it was seen as a crucially British technology that could help improve industrial efficiency, as well as utilising indigenous energy resources. However, again Metrovick was content to rely on development contracts rather than commit itself to large-scale production. The company’s gas turbine designs were somewhat marginal to the wider heavy electrical business, and Metrovick never committed the kind of development resources to the gas turbine division that would have been required to produce successful products, nor did it attempt to sell its designs widely to relevant markets.

More than half of the land area in Sweden is covered by forests and therefore forestry is, and has been, a huge part of the Swedish culture and economy. In just a few generations the forestry methods have developed from a man with a saw to using computerized forest machines. Especially in the early 1960s the development of forestry methods due to mechanization were rapid. But this was not only the forestry methods that developed, at the same time the environmental movement took its first steps. This led to a situation of many conflicts about the forestry methods used from an environmental perspective and in this study these conflicts are studied between the years 1960-1980. The conflict is studied through a social constructivism of technology perspective in purpose to give a new perspective on how the debate created a context where the development of the forestry methods took place. In order to do this the main topics in the environmental forestry debate are identified and the values that the groups involved in this debate see in the forestry. In conclusion it is possible to see how the debate changes topic over time, and also the values seen from the groups. In summary  the environmental debate goes from being strictly centered around anthropocentric values in the 1960s, to also being focusing on biocentric values in the late 1970s. One can also see that the debate topic in the early 1960s is mainly about saving biotopes, to being centered around clear cuts of forests and chemicals in the 1970s. This insight could contribute to an environmental and sociotechnical perspective of the development of forestry in Sweden during this era.

Hydraulisk spräckning – i debatten omnämnd som fracking – är en kontroversiell energiteknik som väckt starka känslor. Genom att borra horisontella cementrör i skifferformationer och sedan påföra en kemikaliespetsad vattenblandning under tryck har bunden gas kunnat utvinnas. Fracking medför en rad miljörisker och adderar ett nytt fossilt bränsle i en tid när världen står i behov av att lämna den fossila eran. Tekniken har mellan åren 2010-2013 påverkat den globala energisituationen i allmänhet och den amerikanska marknaden i synnerhet. EU:s strävan att kopiera the US shalegas-revolution innebar att en komplicerad teknikdebatt tog fart under 2012. Energisystem är bärare av en bred uppsättning värderingar varpå samhället vilar och utvecklas. Med hjälp av aktörs-nätverksteorin (ANT) har jag kartlagt aktörer och aktörsnätverkens utveckling i EU kring fracking under år 2013. Studien gör en fördjupning av utvecklingen i Sverige och jämför med Polen och Frankrike. I Sverige och i synnerhet Frankrike har de lokala mikro-aktörerna varit framgångsrika i att bilda aktörsnätverk och lyckats beskriva teknikens negativa påverkan. I Frankrike finns ett nationellt förbud mot fracking som åtnjuter brett stöd. I Polen där ett nationellt energioberoende är avgörande på nationell makro-nivå är stödet för fracking solitt. Utvecklingen av aktörsnätverken i USA har haft stor påverkan på den europeiska utvecklingen. I EU lyckades inte de aktörsnätverk som stred för en hårdare reglering att övertyga kommissionen att föreslå ny lagstiftning. Kommissionen föreslog, i strid mot Europaparlamentet, endast icke-bindande rekommendationer för fracking i EU. I Sverige har de lokala aktörerna lyckats med många översättningar och de har expanderat sitt aktörsnätverk så mycket att fracking sannolikt inte kommer i fråga. För utvecklingen av samtliga aktörsnätverk har vatten varit den artefakt som alla aktörer har tvingats förhålla sig till. Fracking kräver stora volymer vatten, förorenar vatten, påverkar det omkringliggande vattentäkterna och kräver transport av vatten. Vatten är en tydlig obligatorisk passagepunkt för fracking. / Hydraulic fracturing – fracking – is a controversial technology that generates strong feelings. Hydraulic fracturing is horizontal drilling and fracturing of shale rock by a pressurized liquid with water, sand and chemicals. Fracking involves a number of environmental hazards, and adds a new fossil fuel at a time when the world needs to leave the fossil fuel era. Fracking has between 2010 and 2013 affected the global energy policy in general and the U.S. market in particular. A complex technology debate took off in 2012 when European Union desire to copy the U.S. shale gas revolution. Energy politics is a carrier of a broad set of values upon which society is based and developed. With the help of the actor–network theory (ANT) I have mapped the development for actors and networks in the EU on fracking in 2013. The study describes the development in Sweden and compare with Poland and France. In Sweden and especially France, the local micro-actors have been successful in developing networks which has spread knowledge of the negative impacts of fracking. France got a broad support behind the national moratorium against fracking. In Poland, where the national energy dependency is of crucial macro importance the support for fracking is overwhelming. The development of actor-networks in the U.S. has had a major impact on the development in EU. In Europe the network who fought for stricter regulations failed. The Commission only enforced non-binding recommendations on fracking against the will of the European Parliament. In Sweden, the local actors succeeded with many translations and expanded its network which implies that fracking is not likely to expand. In all networks, water has been the artifact that all actors have had to address. Fracking requires large volumes of water, pollute the water, affects the surrounding water sources and require transportation of water. Water has become an obligatory passage point for fracking.

This thesis treats the historical development of the marine industry worldwide and its relation to risk analysis during the 60 year period of 1950 to 2010. The relation between the two is found through analysis of what risks connect the two and drive the development of technology and legislation during different time periods. There is little to no previous research on this particular subject particularly using a risk perspective of complex systems. To do this it became necessary to write a summary of the development of the maritime industry in technological and legislative terms, in modern time, while at the same time revealing clear insights in how this development works. The summary is based on a wide variety of different sources, and therefore gives a reasonably accurate description of the development given the period and scope looked at. Generalizing the development is found to be that risks force legislative changes, and that technological development is sometimes responsible for causing the risks. That said, many technological developments also help reduce overall risk. The major conclusion drawn is that when a risk is acknowledged there is a conscious effort made to minimize or eliminate it, which in turn is a development, a system change of sorts that might have generated new risks. Overall the evolution of the maritime industry has led to a system that is resilient towards risks, yet that still responds to risks actively and often rather efficiently once they become apparent.

Even though the disintegration of block four at the nuclear power plant in Chernobyl happened a long time ago, the question of how this disaster could have developed is only insufficiently answered. Common interpretations with their emphasis on constructional and operative as well as regulative mistakes are not wrong, but describe instead only the symptoms and not the causes of the accident. The Technocratic-Culture-Analysis points out that the causes are rather to be found in the socialisation and the societal-cultural peculiarity of the relevant actors. It is shown that the key problem was the strife for legitimacy by the Communist Party in the shaping of the Soviet society – not only in the 1980s, but instead since the USSR was founded. Furthermore, key actors behaved from a safety point of view in many instances detrimental. This behaviour was crucial to the development of the disaster and cannot be solemnly explained by pointing out constructional and operative flaws. In this sense, the study at hand contributes to a more thorough understanding of the motives these key actors had in order to understand important features of the Soviet nuclear industry.