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Effektiv medverkan i expeditionära insatser ställer höga krav på förmågan att samverka med andra nationers förband på alla krigföringsnivåer och inom ett stort antal sakområden. Interoperabilitet betecknar förmågan att utbyta tjänster i syfte att nå gemensam effekt. "Expeditionär förmåga" ställer nya krav på Försvarsmakten avseende interoperabilitet med andra nationer och organisationer.

Denna rapport sammanfattar en studie i form av en kunskapsinventering som gjorts inom ramen för FoT temaområde Expeditionär förmåga. Avsikten med rapporten är att sammanställa befintlig kunskap inom området, att skapa en nuläges- och problemområdesbeskrivning samt att ta fram förslag till inriktning för det fortsatta studiearbetet. Studien sammanställer erfarenheter och kunskaper avseende begreppet interoperabilitet utifrån ett flertal infallsvinklar, bland annat kulturella, tekniska och organisatoriska. Inriktningen har legat på källor som har bedömts kunna vara av intresse för att bidra till att höja effekten av svenska expeditionära insatser. Kunskapsinsamlingen har baserats på öppna källor i form av böcker, rapporter, studier, uppsatser och artiklar samt intervjuer med svenska officerare.

Rapporten beskriver kortfattat begreppet interoperabilitet med utgångspunkt i befintliga definitioner, sakområden och organisatoriska nivåer. Vidare ges en nulägesbeskrivning som dels redogör för konkreta problem i den operativa verkligheten under insats och övning och dels för ett antal organisationers och nationers forskning och utveckling inom området. I rapporten läggs även vikt på att sammanfatta metoder och ramverk för att validera och mäta interoperabiliteten hos ett förband eller ett tekniskt system. Rapporten avslutas med en diskussion om praktiska vägar till "rätt" interoperabilitet samt slutsatser och rekommendationer för fortsatt studiearbete.

A case study approach, based on interviews and document reviews, was used to analyze the systems engineering processes of the SEP (Armored Multirole Vehicle, in Swedish) and the Visby class corvette cases respectively. The focus was on signature management. The result is a thorough investigation of what worked in the cases studied. The main conclusions can be summarized in three points. 1) A preferred workflow from mission analysis to sub system design has been derived from lessons identified; 2) The three main success factors identified were: building technology demonstrators, having an Integrated Product Team approach, and establishing stealth as a key system design goal; 3) Coherence and traceability between military needs on the battlefield and signature requirements need further research.

An analysis scheme and a mission system model were applied to the evaluation of the military utility of efforts to reduce infrared signature in the conceptual design of survivable aircraft. The purpose is twofold: Firstly, to contribute to the development of a methodological framework for assessing the military utility of spectral design, and secondly to assess the threat from advances in LWIR sensors and their use in surface-to-air-missile systems. The modeling was specifically applied to the problem of linking the emissivity of aircraft coatings to mission accomplishment. The overall results indicate that the analysis scheme and mission system model applied are feasible for assessing the military utility of spectral design and for supporting decision-making in the concept phase. The analysis of different strike options suggests that LWIR sensors will enhance the military utility of low emissive paint, at least for missions executed in clear weather conditions. Furthermore, results corroborate and further clarify the importance of including earthshine when modeling.

A concept called Military Utility is proposed for the study of the use of technology in military operations. The proposed concept includes a three-level structure representing key features and their detailed components. On basic level the Military Utility of a technical system, to a military actor, in a specific context, is a compound measure of the military effectiveness, of the assessed technical system's suitability to the military capability system and of the affordability. The concept is derived through conceptual analysis and is based on related concepts used in social sciences, the military domain and Systems Engineering. It is argued that the concept has qualitative explanatory powers and can support military decision-making regarding technology in forecasts, defense planning, development, utilization and the lessons learned process. The suggested concept is expected to contribute to the development of the science of Military-Technology and to be found useful to actors related to defense.

Ten technology forecast reports from the Fraunhofer Institute have been reviewed by staff at the Department of Military-Technology at the Swedish National Defence College (Note that there probably are other technology areas, equally interesting, but not included in this study). The task given by FMV was to assess the military utility of the chosen technologies in a time frame from 2025 to 2030, from a SwAF viewpoint.

The method used was first to make a summary of each forecast report. The technology was then put into one or more scenarios that are assessed to be the best in order to show possible utility as well as possibilities and drawbacks of the technology. Based on a SWOT-analysis, the contribution to SwAF capabilities and the cost in terms of acquisition, C2 footprint, logistic footprint, doctrine/TTP, training, facilities and R&D were assessed. Conclusions regarding the military utility of the technology were drawn.

We introduce our definition of military utility as being activities that efficiently and with the lowest cost in terms of lives and materiel lead to fulfilment of the mission objectives.

The technologies were grouped in three classes; technologies with a significant potential, with uncertain potential and with negligible potential.

The following technologies were assessed to have a significant potential for military utility;

• Augmented Reality

• Nano air vehicles
• Solid State Laser weapons

In the scenarios studied, Augmented Reality (AR) is assessed to have a positive impact on several SwAF capabilities, especially for C2 and intelligence. AR is a relatively mature technology, applicable in many different branches. There are examples where AR is already applied with great success, e.g. Head-Up-Displays, HUD. The technology has proven its value. However, there are well known drawbacks to the technology such as weaknesses regarding models, increased weight for dismounted soldiers, power consumption etc. There is also a risk that personnel will have problems solving their tasks when AR systems fail, not being used to fighting without supporting systems.

Nano air vehicles (NAV’s) have been assessed to contribute to a large range of capabilities, primarily intelligence. Their lifecycle cost has been assessed to be low, since development in this area is commercially driven, bringing down acquisition costs. Also, FAA has decided to allow NAV’s in controlled air space from 2015, which is expected to lead to an increase in civilian use of NAV’s. The technology is relatively mature even though there are obstacles concerning suitable materials, energy efficient propulsion systems as well as miniaturized microprocessors and software to control them.

In the scenario studied, High Energy Solid State Lasers are assessed to have a positive impact on SwAF capabilities to engage targets on surface and in the air. The technology can be used to protect 

vessels on the surface and thereby increase survivability. The development of SSL in the given timeframe is expected to lower cost per shot and avoid the environmental problems with use of chemical lasers. Neighbouring military powers are expected to use laser weapons in the future, therefore SwAF should monitor the development of the laser weapons technology and develop and purchase adequate countermeasures.

The following technologies were assessed to have uncertain potential for military utility;

• Metamaterial cloaking

• Electromagnetic gun

• Small satellites
• Ultra-violet communication

Metamaterial cloaking, if realisable in the future, is assessed to be firstly implemented in the acoustic spectrum, since manufacturing of small structured cloaks for the shorter wavelengths in the optic and radar spectra is believed to be more difficult. Cloaking of submarines is primarily assessed to increase the survivability against torpedoes having active sonar. The use of cloaked mines could pose a deterring threat, even to advanced amphibious operations against Sweden. The technological development in this area should be closely monitored and compared to existing, maturing techniques for countermeasures and for the development of broad spectrum active torpedoes. The greatest concern is that cloaking will have negative impact on submarine manoeuvrability.

The electro-thermal chemical (ETC) gun seems to be a first step towards a fully electrical gun such as the rail-gun or the coil-gun. The fully electrical guns have been a work in progress for some decades and there are still remaining challenges both concerning electrical power supply and design materials. When or if, they will be operational is difficult to say.

The military utility of small satellites is disputed, despite an assessed contribution to several of the SwAF capabilities. The main reason for this is that there seems to be other alternatives which provide the desired capabilities, at a lower cost. Furthermore, the realisability and performance of small productionline manufactured nanosatellites is uncertain. However the scenario has shown that there are benefits to the military utility not met by other resources, e.g. the capability to perform surveillance and reconnaissance in operational areas globally without risking violation of the territorial integrity of other states or the lives of military personnel. Since there is a great interest in the technology area and several programmes are ongoing internationally the knowledgebase is assessed to be significantly better in a five year period. Also, the Swedish in depth study of space exploitation is soon to report.

Ultra-violet communication has uncertain potential for military utility within the period, but the technology is assessed to have a positive impact on SwAF capability to maintain communications. The theoretical understanding of the area is low It is therefore uncertain if systems can be realized in the time frame. However, if commercial applications are developed, the prospect of military applications might change. In that case UV-communication could be a complement to RF- communication but is not foreseen to replace it. 

The following technologies were assessed to have negligible potential for military utility;

• Biomimetic unmanned underwater vehicles (UUV)

• Automated behaviour Analysis
• Evolutionary Robotics

Biomimetic UUV’s could be used for covert surveillance and inconspicuous naval reconnaissance missions at sea or in amphibious missions. Even though the report focuses on fishlike propulsion, the military utility of UUV’s is assessed to be mostly dependent on the development of advanced automation and learning systems. As of now, we assess other existing technologies as being preferable due to lower cost and less complexity. The performance of UUV’s needed for SwAF capabilities are assessed to be far off into the future. Simpler UUV systems could however be used by potential adversaries for monitoring our own base areas and hence the development should be monitored from a protection point of view.

Automated behaviour analysis may be of some relevance for increased security screening and surveillance. The primary military utility of the technology will however probably be for international activities and to a lesser extent for increased base security in Sweden. Generally the main applications for this kind of technology are assessed to be for civilian use in public spaces and close to high value areas like airports, important official buildings and other similar objects.

Evolutionary Robotics, here restricted to the sub domain Advanced Robotics, has uncertain potential for military utility within the period. In the scenarios studied the technology is assessed to have a positive impact on a broad range of SwAF capabilities. The area is large and inconsistent comprising sub areas that are assessed to have significant potential, but also those that are believed to have negligible potential or where technological obstacles might retard the development.

Our evaluation of the used method shows that there is a risk that the assessment is biased by the participating experts’ presumptions and experiences from their own field of research. The scenarios that were chosen do not cover all possible aspects of the technology and their possible contribution to operational capabilities. It should be stressed that we have assessed the ten technologies’ military utility in the presented scenarios, not the technology itself. The chosen definition of military utility clearly affects the result of the study. The definition is believed to be good enough for this report, but could be further elaborated in the future.

The greatest value of the method used is its simplicity, cost effectiveness and the trade off that it promotes learning within the working group. The composition of the working group and the methodology used is believed to provide for a broad and balanced coverage of the technologies under study. 

I ämnesplanen definieras militärteknik som ”den vetenskap som beskriver och förklarar hur tekniken inverkar på militär verksamhet på alla nivåer, strategisk, operativ och taktisk, samt hur officersprofessionen påverkar och påverkas av tekniken.”[1]  En militärteknikers uppgift brukar, utgående från definitionen, uttryckas som att beskriva och förklara den militära nyttan med tekniken. För att kunna göra detta behövs verktyg. Och många av dem kommer från den vetenskapliga disciplinen Operationsanalys.

Syftet med den här antologin är att introducera studerande i militärteknik på Försvarshögskolan till två av de mest refererade boktitlarna i operationsanalys – Methods for conducting military operational analysis editerad av Andrew G. Loerch och Larry B. Rainey samt Military Operations Research, quantitative decision making av N.K. Jaiswal.

Kapitlen utgörs av essäer skrivna av studerande på den högre stabsofficersutbildningen med teknisk inriktning, som examinationsuppgift i en fördjupningskurs. Essäerna är till del referat av kapitel i de två böckerna ovan, men kryddade med exempel satta i svenskt sammanhang och med de studerandes egen värdering av metodernas användbarhet.

[1]Försvarshögskolan, Ämnesplan militärteknik, 2007.

This new security development is expected to increase interest fromNorthern European states in supporting the development of conceptually newstealthy ground platforms, incorporating a decade of advances in technology andexperiences from stealth platforms at sea and in the air. The scope of thiscase study is to draw experience from where we left off. At the end of the1990s there was growing interest in stealth for combat vehicles in Sweden. Anambitious technology demonstrator project was launched. One of the outcomes wasa proposed Systems Engineering process tailored for signature managementpresented to SPIE in 2002.(Olsson et.al, A systems approach…, Proc. SPIE 4718 )The process was used for the Swedish/BAE Systems Hägglunds AB development of amultirole armored platform (The Swedish acronym is SEP). Before development wascompleted there was a change of procurement policy in Sweden from domesticdevelopment towards Governmental Off-The-Shelf, preceded by a Swedish ArmedForces change of focus from national defense only, towards expeditionarymissions. Lessons learned, of value for future development, are presented. Theyare deduced from interviews of key-personnel, on the procurer and industrysides respectively, and from document reviews.

The purpose of this report is to describe the Swedish Defence University (SEDU) Military Utility Assessment Method for Future Technologies (MUAFT). The report describes the actions taken in each step of the process and ends with references and a template for the technology memos used as basis for assessment.

Rapporten utgör slutrapport på FMV beställning ”förstudie angående DTAG-metodik”.

RTO har genomfört en studie för att utröna hur NATO bäst identifierar och nyttjar eller skyddar sig mot potentialen i s.k. ”Disruptive Technology”, d.v.s. teknologi som på kort tid signifikant förändrar genomförandet av operationer. Sverige har medverkat i studien. Den tillämpning av metoden DTAG (Disruptive Technology Assessment Games) som beskrivs i RTO studierapport är utvecklad till stöd för beslutsfattning på lång sikt, d.v.s. avseende FoT, konceptutveckling, förbandsutveckling- och materielplanering. Idén bakom den här förstudien är emellertid att undersöka möjligheterna att överföra metoden till erfarenhetsanalys och planering i ett kortare tidsperspektiv - med bibehållande av de rapporterade positiva effekterna för erfarenhetsutbytet mellan personal inom försvarsfamiljen av alla kategorier.

Rapporten inleds med en diskussion och beskrivning av möjliga anpassningar av DTAG för den nya föreslagna tillämpningen. Slutsatsen är att metoden har potential att effektivt återkoppla speldeltagarnas erfarenheter från uppdrag de deltagit i - dels från egen användning av tekniska system och dels från andra aktörers teknologi - till utvecklingen av de materielsystem som bedöms vara i drift inom en tidsperiod av ca fem år. En analys av identifierade styrkor, svagheter, möjligheter och risker leder sedan fram till ett förslag till implementering av metoden och förslag till fortsatt arbete. En positiv bieffekt med att arrangera en återkommande DTAG-aktivitet inom ramen för FHS, i samarbete med FMV och FM, är t.ex. en förbättrad erfarenhetsöverspridning till utbildningen av officerare.

Förstudien rekommenderar en studie till FHS under 2011 med uppgifterna att:

• pröva och uppdatera metodramverket till förstudiens DTAG-tillämpning
• planera och genomföra prov och försök med bemanning enl. förstudiens förslag till organisation
• genomföra en litteraturstudie och utvärdera den tillämpade DTAG-metoden
• med andra relevanta metoder och deras tillämpningar avseende: erfarenhetsåtermatning,
• konceptval och scenariebaserad analys, även i andra domäner än den militära.
• rapportera skriftligen med rekommendation om implementering av metoden i produktionsledningen av materielprocessen – inkl. lämpliga årliga återkommande tidpunkter för genomförande, m.h.t. rotationer och årliga avvägningar i materielplanen.

Ett förslag till organisation, aktivitetsplan och en uppskattning av kostnaderna presenteras.

The current focus in Swedish policy towards national security and high-end technical systems, together with a rapid development in multispectral sensor technology, adds to the utility of developing advanced materials for spectral design in signature management applications. A literature study was performed probing research databases for advancements. Qualitative text analysis was performed using a six-indicator instrument: spectrally selective reflectance; low gloss; low degree of polarization; low infrared emissivity; non-destructive properties in radar and in general controllability of optical properties. Trends are identified and the most interesting materials and coating designs are presented with relevant performance metrics. They are sorted into categories in the order of increasing complexity: pigments and paints, one-dimensional structures, multidimensional structures (including photonic crystals), and lastly biomimic and metamaterials. The military utility of the coatings is assessed qualitatively. The need for developing a framework for assessing the military utility of incrementally increasing the performance of spectrally selective coatings is identified.

Disasters are characterised by their devastating effect on human lives and the society’s ability to function. Unfortunately, rescue operations and the possibility to re-establish a working society after such events is often hampered by the lack of functioning communication infrastructures. This paper describes the challenges ahead in creating new communication networks to support post-disaster operations, and sets them in the context of the current issues in protection of critical infrastructures. The analysis reveals that while there are some common concerns there are also fundamental differences. The paper serves as an overview of some promising research directions and pointers to existing works in these areas.

Ämnet militärteknik utgår från att tekniska system är officerens arbetsredskap och att en förståelse för och kunskap om dessa verktyg är central för att kunna utöva professionen framgångsrikt. Denna nionde volym av Lärobok i Militärteknik, benämnd Teori och Metod, behandlar centrala begrepp, teorier och postulat samt metoder för värdering av teknik och består av ett antal texter författade av 16 forskare och lärare vid den militärtekniska avdelningen. Volymen riktar sig främst till de som inlett sin officersutbildning och utgörs till stora delar av ett kompilat av publicerade och opublicerade militärtekniska texter och kan sägas utgöra militärteknikens ”state of the art”.

Incidents are the key data for several of the statistical reports and analyses created within the military intelligence community. This paper discusses factors that affect the utility of quantitative methods in military intelligence analysis when used in a low intensity conflict. The first half of the paper presents the general critique of the use of quantitative methods. The second half applies this critique to the case of incident reporting in Afghanistan.

The anchoring effect is a well-studied subject. This article connects the effect with the rules-in-use within a military intelligence institution. Particularly the rules-in-use that dictate that an analyst takes his or hers starting point from recently conducted assessments of the specific area or threat. The threat assessment as well as the written assessment were affected. The results show that officers have an aversion to lower a previous given threat assessment. This gives that to understand risk assessment we not only need to understand the methods used, we also need to understand the institutions in which they are used. This is especially relevant for military intelligence as the assessments are conducted in an environment of high uncertainty.

Nowadays naval units are participating in international missions, where new and in many cases tougher conditions will affect their propulsion.

This essay deals with some of the now developed nanostructure coatings and gives a presentation of how the coatings could function on some exposed parts of the naval powertrain. The essay investigates the possibility that the coatings can be used as a protective layer that will reduce or prevent wear on selected parts of the naval powertrains. As a basis for the essay, nanotechnology is described, as well as different reasons that wear occurs and application techniques for coatings

The conclusion is that nanostructured coatings can be applied and provide a much better result on hardness and wear resistance as of naval powertrains compared to micro-structural coatings, both for manufacturing and renovation.

The essay presents a few examples of the military utility of the nanostructure coatings as well as suggestions for further research.

This paper reports on a novel method for manufacturing microscopic Langmuir probes with spherical tips from platinum bond wires by fusing for plasma characterization in microplasma sources. Here, the resulting endpoints, formed by droplets on the ends of a fused wire, are intended to act as spherical Langmuir probes. For studying the fusing behavior, bond wires were wedge bonded over a 2 mm wide slit, to emulate the final application, and fused with different voltages and currents. For electrical isolation, a set of wires were coated with a 4 μm thick layer of Parylene before they were fused. After fusing, the gap size, as well as the shape and area of the ends of the remaining stubs were measured. The yield of the process was also investigated, and the fusing event was studied using a high-speed camera for analyzing its dynamics. Four characteristic tip shapes were observed: spherical, folded, serpentine shaped and semi-spherical. The stub length leveled out at  ~400 μm as the fusing power increased. The fusing of the coated wires required a higher power to yield a spherical shape. Finally, a Parylene coated bond wire was integrated into a stripline split-ring resonator (SSRR) microplasma source, and was fused to form two Langmuir probes with spherical endpoints. These probes were used for measuring the I–V characteristics of a plasma generated by the SSRR. In a voltage range between  −60 V and 60 V, the fused stubs exhibited the expected behavior of spherical Langmuir probes, and will be considered for further integration.

Developers of tomorrow's command and control centers are facing numerous problems related to the vast amount of available information obtained from various sources. On a lower level, huge amounts of uncertain reports from different sensors need to be fused into comprehensible information. On a higher level, representation and management of the aggregated information will be the main task, with prediction of future course of events being the uttermost goal. Unfortunately, traditional agent modeling techniques do not capture situations where commanders make decisions based on other commanders' reasoning about one's own reasoning. To cope with this problem, we propose a decision support tool for command and control situation awareness enhancements based on game theory for inference and coupled with traditional AI methods for uncertainty modeling.

Inside armored vehicles, such as e.g. Hägglunds CV90 or Mowag Piranha, the possibilities for looking out are rather limited. That is especially true for the soldiers being transported inside the personnel compartment. Because of this, the soldiers are in effect expected to put themselves into harms way with very limited knowledge of what is happening outside the vehicle. One possible way to improve the situational awareness inside an armored vehicle is to have screens showing live images of the outside environment. The current investigation utilizes a set of carefully placed cameras connected to screens streaming live images inside the vehicle. It is found that this will significantly improve the situational awareness of the soldiers inside the armored vehicle. Field trials conducted in a realistic environment show that a careful placement of the cameras and the screens will increase the safety, and the efficiency, of the soldiers when they dismount the vehicle. 

Unmanned vehicles are being used in many conflicts around the world today. This report gives a broad overview of the field of unmanned vehicles, and includes suggestions of how a future research activity within the field might look like.

The overview is focussed on both systems and capabilities, as well as activities that are relevant for the Swedish Armed forces. By applying the capability areas defined in the armed forced development plan (FMUP) to both commercial systems and possible scenarios, we strive to limit the scope of the report to the most relevant topics.

The recommendations are based upon a review of the development documents of the Swedish Armed Forces, as well as visits to units operating unmanned systems today, and the overview described above. The suggestions are as fol- lows. Broad, cross-disciplinary projects focussing on system types, e.g. UAV, UGV etc, should be formed. These should be interacting with the procure- ment process, and different level of planning activities. They should also bring together competencies across FHS and FOI, survey current research state-of- the-art, through competitions, conferences and collaborations, and transfer the results to the armed forces through demonstrations and simulations of sys- tems and subsystems. Simulations in particular are well suited to illustrate the benefits and drawbacks of a particular unmanned systems, as the interaction with such systems is mostly carried out through the computers of the control stations, even for the real systems. In this way, participants from the armed forces can get a feeling for both threats and possibilities associated with the different future and contemporary systems, which will be of use to both tactic development and procurement activities.

Changing climate have a great impact on northern area of Pakistan’s environment and is more prone to environmental changes impacts than rest of the country due to its high elevation. However, the results of melting glaciers effect not only the local environment but also the whole country with frequent and heavy floods. Although recent technological development provided solutions of many problems to mankind, the pace of development in the field of environmental preservation technologies are much slower than needed.

Remote sensing (RS) from Satellites and Airplanes used in Geographical Information Systems (GIS) are technologies that can aid in understanding the ongoing environmental processes as it enable us to obtain information about vast area and help researchers to observe, understand, forecast and suggest response to changes that occur.

It can be natural disasters or man-made disasters and human induced factors. Still analysis accuracy issues are there which plays a vital role for the formulation of any strategy. To achieve better results, object based analysis methods have been tested in here. Various algorithms are developed by the analysts to calculate the magnitude of land cover changes but must be evaluated for each environment that is under observation as for example mountainous areas. Here we have tried object-based methods in comparison with pixel based. Landslides, soil moisture, soil permeability, snow cover and vegetation cover that change during certain period of time can, with those methods, be effectively monitored. The findings were in short;

1) Object based analysis shows better accuracy ratio as compared to the pixel based analysis.

2) Slow but gradual depletion of snow/ice cover was confirmed in the study area of Karakoram region, Northern Pakistan.

3) Snow and ice melting catalyses the floods, mudslides, landslides and lake outburst episodes in the area during last two decades could be clearly observed in the analysed images and survey data.

4) Massive landslide/mudslide phenomena was observed in the study area in 2010 and 2012 in Landsat imagery. The artificial lake on the River Hunza was clearly observable in TM and ETM 2010, 2011 and 2012 imagery.

5) Bare soil area increased due to glacial retreat therefore gradual increase in the vegetation can be observed from the year 1992 to 2011.

Malawi is one of the poorest countries in the world and one of the most densely populated in south-eastern Africa. Its major power source is hydro-electricity. During the past few years, the power generation capacity has been reduced, which has impacted negatively on the socio-economic development of the country. The country holds an enormous potential to generate geothermal energy due to the country’s position within the Great African Rift valley. This could contribute to economic growth, poverty reduction and technological development in Malawi. The paper presents findings of research on comparisons between silica (quartz and chalcedony) and cation geothermometers (Na–K, Na–K–Ca and K–Mg) of hot springs in the Malawi Rift, in order to deduce the temperature at depth of selected hot springs. The saturation indices of most springs have a bearing on the geology of the areas where these hot springs are found. The Na–K geothermometers are, in general, higher than the Na–K–Ca geothermometer and the K–Mg geothermometer shows temperatures that are too low to be considered. The difference in the results between the different geothermometers may indicate shallow conditions of mixing with groundwater. Results also indicate that some hot springs have sufficient heat-generating capabilities and warrant further exploration work to assess their suitability for energy generation.

Traffic noise pollution is a growing problem that highly affects the health of people. To cope with this problem one has to regulate traffic or construct noise barriers. In order to implement effective measures against traffic noise the information about its distribution – noise maps - is imperative. This paper presents our work in creating a noise calculator software package implementation that can create noise maps. The noise calculator is based on the noise model described in Nordic prediction method for road traffic noise. As a case study, the noise calculator was used to build both large noise maps for Skåne region in south of Sweden and detailed noise maps for smaller areas in the city of Lund.