Affective states of animals are emotions with positive or negative valance. Positive and negative affective states affect animal welfare, and can bias interpretation of information positively or negatively, respectively. Judgement bias tests measure affective states based on responses to ambiguous cues, intermediate to cues with learnt positive and negative outcomes. Responses closer to those of positive cues indicate positive affective state. However, animals need extensive training to learn initial associations to reference cues. Therefore, I here aimed to validate an alternative affective state test based on instinctive avoidance of patterns resembling eyespots. Responses to ambiguous eyespot cues similar to responses to full eyespot cues could indicate negative affective state. To test this, behavioural responses of red junglefowl (Gallus gallus) chicks to ambiguous cues from a validated judgement bias test were compared to responses to cues resembling eyespots. In a second cohort of birds, I developed simplified tests with only one ambiguous cue in each tests. I predicted that responses in both tests would correlate positively. In the original tests, shorter distance and latency to approach ambiguous cues correlated positively with latency to approach one of the eyespot cues, a full eyespot cue. This pattern was only observed in females. In the simplified tests, at 4 weeks of age, shortest latency to approach cues correlated among tests. This pattern was not observed when chicks were tested at 2 weeks of age. Overall, the eyespot test is a promising alternative affective state test, but further studies exploring sex- and age-effects, are needed.

Mastitis is an inflammation that is caused in the udder tissue of cattle and which annually causes high costs within productions and the profitability of farms. The purpose of this study is to determine if udder inflammation affects both the amount of milk that produces and investigate how the protein and fat -content are affected. To be able to implement the study, I have used data from a farm in Värmland where mastitis is a common disease affecting the cows, and which reduces profitability annually. From the year 2015, a total of 134 cows on the farm where the study occurred were treated with antibiotics by a veterinarian, where up to half of the cows were affected by a clinically visible infection. Two groups have been used in the study where 45 cows affected by mastitis have been examined through test milking results and then compared with a control group consisting of healthy individuals where I have used cows that have not been visibly affected by mastitis. The results for the study of how the milk volume is affected showed a significant difference for a decrease in the quantity last year (P =0,036). Based on the results, it is concluded that clinical mastitis reduces the amount of milk and the content of the milk. / Mastit är en inflammation som orsakas i juvervävnaden hos nötkreatur och som årligen orsakar stora kostnader inom produktionen och lönsamheten på gårdar. Syftet med denna studie var att fastställa om juverinflammationer kan påverkar en nedgång inom den mängd mjölk som produceras samt undersöka hur protein- samt fetthalten påverkas eftersom innehållet är en viktig del av lönsamheten. För att kunna genomföra studien har jag använt mig av data från en gård i Värmland där mastit är en vanlig förekommande sjukdom som drabbar korna, och som årligen drar ner på lönsamheten. Från år 2015 har totalt 134 kor på gården där studien genomförts varit behandlade med antibiotika av veterinär där uppemot hälften av korna drabbades av en klinisk synlig infektion. Två grupper har använts i studien där 45 kor drabbade av mastit har undersökts genom provmjölkningsresultat och som sedan jämförts med en kontrollgrupp bestående av friska individer där kor som ej har varit synligt drabbade av mastit använts. Resultatet för undersökningen av hur mjölkmängden påverkas visade en signifikant skillnad för en minskning av mängden sista året (P=0,036) men ingen signifikant skillnad över fett och proteinhalten kunde ses. Utifrån resultatet dras slutsatsen att klinisk mastit minskar mjölkmängden medan innehållet av fett och protein förblir opåverkat.

Syfte: Studien tar sin utgångspunkt i hur elever på Hippologigymnasiet ser på hästen som moti-verande faktor i deras lärande. Syftet med denna undersökning är att beskriva och försöka skapa bättre förståelse för på vilket sätt hästen direkt eller indirekt betyder för motivationen till lärande. Med utgångspunkt i Antonovskys (2007) teori om KASAM, känsla av sammanhang, kopplat till stallets sociala arena, samspelet med hästen och målinriktning studeras faktorer som har betydelse för elevernas motivation till lärande. Metod: Studien baseras på kvantitativ och kvalitativ data från 49 enkäter (svarsfrekvens 74 %) samt på en gruppintervju med fyra elever. Resultat: Studien visar att egenskaper som disciplin, ansvar, handlingsförmåga och ledarskap utvecklas i stallmiljön. Regler och normer i stallet utgör en fostrande social arena som präglar de som vistas där sedan tidig ålder, av betydelse för den egna motivationen till lärande. Motivation-en till lärande stärks då eleverna känner ett sammanhang när egna erfarenheter tillsammans med nya kunskaper gör att de klarar av utmaningar man ofta ställs inför i stallmiljön i samspelet med hästen. Detta skapar meningsfullhet som ökar graden av elevers känsla av sammanhang, KASAM, och därmed en viktig faktor för motivationen till lärande. Studien visar även på samband mellan målsättning och motivation med hästen som utgångspunkt, eleverna är mycket målinriktade och redan i samband med val av skola vet majoriteten (92 %) inom vilket område de studera efter avslutat gymnasium. Dessutom visar resultatet att de som har egen häst planerar sin studietid i högre grad än de som inte har egen häst. Slutsats; Hästen är en betydelsefull faktor för motivationen till lärande direkt eller indirekt.

Den negativa attityden kring palmolja har uppkommit för att industrin ur ett hållbarhetsperspektiv brister i sociala, ekonomiska och ekologiska aspekter. Produktionen finns i utvecklingsländerna, främst i Malaysia och Indonesien. Intresset för palmolja har ökat i Liberia, som tillsammans med Sverige är studieländer i den här undersökningen. Industrin har en stor miljöpåverkan, det förekommer dåliga arbetsförhållanden med låga löner och brist på rättigheter. Palmoljeindustrin har samtidigt i utvecklingsländerna gett möjlighet till ökad välfärd, då industrin är det som primärt ger inkomst för lokalbefolkningen.Studiens resultat visar att en uteslutning av palmolja i produkter inte är en lösning på problemet. En möjlig lösning till problemet är istället att samarbeta och jobba för hållbar odling av palmolja. / The negative attitude towards palm oil has arisen because of the sustainability of industry in social, economic and ecological aspects. Production is in developing countries, mainly in Malaysia and Indonesia. The interest in palm oil has increased in Liberia, which together with Sweden are study countries in this survey. The industry has a major environmental impact, there are poor working conditions with low wages and lack of rights. At the same time, in the developing countries, the palm oil industry has provided an opportunity for increased welfare, as the industry is the primary source of income for the local population.The study results show that an exclusion of palm oil in products is not a solution to the problem. A possible solution to the problem is instead to cooperate and work for sustainable cultivation of palm oil.

Den domesticerade kaninen (Oryctolagus cuniculus) är idag ett vanligt sällskapsdjur världen över. Sällskapskaniner framhålls som det tredje mest populära sällskapsdjuret i Sverige, efter hund och katt. Trots detta behandlar endast en mycket liten andel av den övergripande forskningen inom ämnet hälsa- och välfärd just kanin. Den här studien har undersökt inverkan på sällskapskaninens välfärd av kaninägare med eller utan tidigare erfarenhet, sjukdomsbild, samt kaninägares preferenser - och om detta är faktorer som påverkar sällskapskaninens välfärd i Sverige. Studien genomfördes som en enkätundersökning, besvarad av 147 deltagare bosatta i Sverige. Enkäten publicerad i nätverkstjänsten Facebook och fanns tillgänglig under tidsperioden 23:e April - 7:e Maj, 2021. Mer än 50 % av deltagarna saknade erfarenhet och kunskap om kaniner innan de skaffade sin första kanin. Över 37 % höll sina kaniner ensamlevande, och mer än 21 % inhyste sina kaniner i bur. Behovet av veterinärvård utgjordes totalt av nästan hälften av kaninerna, och de kaniner som hölls inomhus eller frigående hade störst behov. Det fanns en skillnad i behovet av veterinärvård hos olika raskategorier, där kategorin små raser var högst representerad. Antalet kaniner som drabbades av olika typer av hälsorelaterade problem varierade, men sjukdomar kopplade till avelsrelaterad problematik utgjordes av nästan 1/3 av alla sjukdomar. Den vanligaste raskategorin att hålla var dvärgraser som hölls av nästan 60 % av alla deltagare, och den vanligaste orsaken till att välja just den raskategorin utgjordes av dess storlek. Den här studien visade att det finns faktorer i kaninägarens djurhållning som kan kopplas till sällskapskaninens välfärd i Sverige. Avgörande parametrar till detta har lyfts fram som kaninägarens erfarenhet och kunskap om kaniner, hållning och inhysning, samt val av raskategori. Nyckelord: Oryctolagus cuniculus, sällskapskanin, djurhållning, djurvälfärd, djuravel, djuretik / The domesticated rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) is today a common pet worldwide. Pet rabbits are highlighted as the third most popular pet in Sweden, after dogs and cats. Despite this, only a very small proportion of the overall research in the subject of health and welfare deals with rabbits. This study has examined the impact on the companion rabbit's welfare of rabbit owners with or without previous experience, disease picture, and rabbit owners' preferences - and whether these are factors that affect the companion rabbit's welfare in Sweden. The study was conducted as a survey, answered by 147 participants living in Sweden. The survey was published in the network service Facebook and found available during the period 23 April - 7 May, 2021. More than 50% of the participants lacked experience and knowledge about rabbits before acquiring their first rabbit. Over 37% kept their rabbits alone, and more than 21% housed their rabbits in cages. The need for veterinary care accounted for a total of almost half of the rabbits, and the rabbits kept indoors or free-running were most in need. There was a difference in the need for veterinary care in different breed categories, where the category small breeds was most represented. The number of rabbits suffering from various types of health-related problems varied, but diseases linked to breeding-related problems accounted for almost 1/3 of all diseases. The most common breed category to keep was dwarf breeds held by almost 60% of all participants, and the most common reason for choosing that particular breed category was its size. This study showed that there are factors in the rabbit owner's animal husbandry that can be linked to the companion rabbit's welfare in Sweden. Decisive parameters for this have been highlighted as the rabbit owner's experience and knowledge of rabbits, posture and housing, as well as the choice of breed category. Keywords: Oryctolagus cuniculus, companion rabbit, animal husbandry, animal welfare, animal breeding, animal ethics

In today's highly competitive industries, engineers are driven to not only design a better product to fulfill users' needs but also demanded to develop a product in a short time to occupy the market. With the development of data collection and visualization technology, the application of data visualization into product development to enhance the ability of better product design is a significant trend.  Data visualization becomes more and more important since it could illustrate the valuable information, such as tacit needs and patterns which hidden from data, in a communicated way to help engineers get more inspiration for the conceptual design.   It is not hard to collect data; however, the challenge is to visualize the valuable information from a large number of data concisely and intuitively. In recent years, there are some visualization techniques available for product design, while, most of them are implemented in the later stage of product development, few methods are applicable for conceptual design. Therefore, this thesis is carried out to explore appropriate visualization techniques to provide support for conceptual design.   The aim of this thesis is, in an engineering environment, to investigate ways to visualize complex data legibly and intuitively to enhance engineers’ ability for conceptual design from better understanding the current machine. In order to achieve the objective, a conceptual design case of the improvement of wheel loader fuel consumption is applied, which consisted of plenty of data sets within various parameters, to explore how to reveal the hidden information of complex data for engineers.   As the result of this thesis, a prototype contains a series of visualization techniques is proposed to demonstrate data information from a wheel loader under several visualization situations. The final prototype has the functions of visualizing different operations separately; visualizing the overall fuel consumption in one operation; cluster's patterns visualization; visualizing the impact of one variable on the whole value.

Antimicrobial resistance is a major global health challenge. It threatens the achievement of multiple SDGs with disproportionately negative consequences for LMICs. AMR is associated with the misuse of antibiotics, which is especially dominant in livestock farming. On-farm biosecurity has been identified as an effective way to prevent diseases. This requires a change in the daily behaviours of farmers. While the application of social-psychological models gained immense popularity in veterinary and agricultural research, these models lack predictive and explanatory character, leading to the so-called intention-action gap. The emerging field of behavioural sciences likely offers a better explanation of human behaviour, however, studies published often lack use of an explicit theoretical framework. Therefore, this exploratory study aims to address this gap by using Kahneman’s Dual-Process Theory as a theoretical framework for behaviour science studies. To this end, a qualitative study with 15 smallholder poultry farmers in rural Ghana was conducted. The findings suggested the presence of cognitive biases and heuristics that hinder farmers’ uptake of biosecurity measures, such as temporal discounting, social cues, cognitive overload, psychological inertia and habits. However, all factors must be considered, including knowledge gaps, as well as practical and economic constraints. It is clear from the study that farmers are not a homogenous group and that any promotion of biosecurity is destined to fail if they do not take farmers' psychological and contextual reality into consideration. Therefore, this thesis concludes that additional insights and hypotheses can be generated using behavioural science and that it offers a better and more holistic theoretical framework than currently used behavioural change models. Suggestions for further work include more empirical study in farmer decision-making related to on-farm biosecurity from a behavioural lens. Specifically, the use of quantitative and experimental methods to investigate and confirm the hypotheses that emerged from this study.

The primary sector is of high importance to the economy and wellbeing of many countries. This is especially true for Ecuador, where 51 percent of the population living in rural areas earn their living through agriculture, livestock and fishing activities. Unfortunately, inequality has been growing between the rural and urban population, most noticeably in rural small-scale farmers that have less social capital and access to resources. Therefore, this study focuses on small-scale farmers, in a small town called Alluriquin, and how their way of farming can contribute to sustainable livelihoods. The empirical data has been collected through semi-structured interviews, where eleven different individuals have been interviewed. Previous research together with the theory of Amartya Sen will serve as the framework for this study. In Alluriquin, the results show that crops such as sugarcane, yucca, cacao, plantain and bananas as well as the big interest in both cattle raising and dairy farming, helps the locals to maintain a sustainable livelihood. It can be learned from the results of this study and previous research that farmers are facing a lot of different challenges on a daily basis, and even though they had different methods of dealing with these issues, the challenges seem to be manageable. The outcome of this study shows how these eleven individuals are able to maintain a sustainable livelihood, and how this way of farming is influenced by both internal and external factors that might be harmful if they are not considered. This way of life does provide the local community with a blueprint to follow so that they can guarantee their immediate wellbeing and prepare themselves and their families for any unforeseen circumstances, achieving sustainable livelihoods inside rural communities.

This thesis explores the application of machine learning techniques, a type of artificial intelligence that enables computers to learn from data, in hydroponic systems for predicting basil plant height. Hydroponics is a method of growing plants without soil, using nutrient-rich water instead. Conducted at Devoteam, an IT consulting firm in Malmö, the study involved the implementation of two hydroponic systems: Deep Water Culture and Nutrient Film Technique, focusing on monitoring and collecting data such as electrical conductivity, pH levels, water temperature. Utilizing five distinct machine learning models, namely Linear Regression, Decision Tree, Random Forest, Support Vector Regression, and K-Nearest Neighbours, we analyzed their performance in predicting basil plant height. Data were collected using a system equipped with a microcontroller unit, EC sensor, and water temperature sensor, supplemented by data from the open dataset, OpenAg. Our findings indicate that the Random Forest model consistently outperformed other models across datasets, demonstrating superior accuracy and predictive capability. This research provides insights into leveraging machine learning for optimizing hydroponic cultivation practices.

This thesis is an analysis of the use and definition of the concepts health, well-being and welfare within the field called “the science of animal health and welfare”. The materials used are a literature survey of the field, qualitative interviews with Swedish veterinary surgeons and a study of the concepts in legislation concerning animals in England, Germany and Sweden. The main emphasis has been on theoretical definitions explicitly stated in the different texts or in the interviews. Two ways of distinguishing between animals are used: according to species and according to the role that animals have for humans. As a result it becomes salient whether the definitions have limits with regard to species or role. In the thesis a great number of definitions of the three concepts are interpreted, compared and criticised. As a result a limited number of definitions have been categorised and collected into clusters which fulfil minimal requirements of consistency and practicability. The analysis supports the use of all three concepts – health, well-being and welfare – since they are all needed for making crucial distinctions in the science of animal health and welfare.