A great number of empirical researches show that hedging is associated with higher firm value, particularly hedging interest rate and exchange rate. However, there is no clear support for value-added risk management hypothesis in the case of producers of commodities. Moreover, according to Shrand and Unal (1997), there are two types of risks, core business risks (or core risk) and homogeneous risks (or non core risks), which are based on a firm's comparative advantages with respects to the source of risk. Firm can earn economic profits for bearing core risks in which it has a comparative information advantage. Firm earn a zero economic rents for bearing non-core risks, where it has no advantage information than its competitors.

The measuring of logs is important in the sawmills process to the sawn products. The technology of automatic wood measurement is continuance developing. This study has the purpose to see how the different techniques and the routines works of measure frames for determining of wood value and sorting in sawmills. The study is performed as a literature study and a survey. The survey includes some of the Swedish sawmills that produce more than 10 000 cubic meters sawed products per year.

This thesis deals with the legislative problem of thin and thick capitalization of subsidiary companies situated abroad. This kind of companies are often used for tax planning purposes, as means for transferring company profit from a high tax state to a low tax state. Today, the legislative flora around the world mainly focuses on the question"how low/high can the capitalization level of the company be, before thin/thick capitalization can be considered to be at hand?". Instead, this thesis raises the question"how far from the optimal capitalization rate is a probable capitalization level for a company, and can this be an alternative approach to legislation?".

This quantitative study aims to investigate whether there is a difference in the effect of the policy rate on the price per square meter for condominiums between small and large cities in Sweden. The study encompasses a total of seven Swedish municipalities, of which three located in large cities and four in small cities. Data regarding housing sales and additional variables have been collected for all municipalities, and the price per square meter is the dependent variable in the regressions performed on the dataset, which constitutes the empirical basis of the study. The aim is further to contribute to an increased understanding of how the effect of the policy rate might differ between Swedish cities and why. The results of the study show significant differences in how the policy rate affects the price per square meter in a small city compared to a large city, with the effect being greater in the latter.

Over the past few years the Swedish forestry industry has become increasing interested in direct seeding. Although, in practice, this interest has been restricted to pine seed, the knowledge and techniques that have been developed for pine seeding can readily be transferred to spruce. Direct seeding is a method that is of interest to the forestry industry since it can lead to lower regeneration costs, denser stands and better root development than the more conventional planting method. This study evaluated experiments that focused on direct seeding of spruce in the northern Sweden. Skogforsk set-up the experiments in Gideå and Sävar in 2003.

This report discusses a method to detect divers in harbour environments usingpassive acoustic detection. The goal was to achieve as high detection as possiblewithout having too high false alarm rate. A short execution time was also desirable.By using the characteristic of an inhalation a band-pass filter was applied to the signalto improve the signal to noise ratio. After the filtering an energy estimation of thesignal was made. This energy estimation was later used in a frequency analysis, whichcould tell us if there were enough energy in the frequencies that correspond to adivers breathing frequency.

AimThe purpose of this study is to compare the level of activity between playing wii Sports Tennis and wii Sports boxing, and the usual sports, and to see how the two variants are perceived.Issues:- How much strain ratio and energy consumption it gives to exercise wii sports compared with the playing of sport for real?- How do the test participants experience the different tests?- How are the two wii sports games against each other in terms of activity and fitness in the school environment?MethodThis is an experimental study in which 10 test participants (5 men and 5 women) have carried out four different physical tests. The tests consisted of either playing an exergame or playing a sport for 25 minutes. Physical activity was measured during the test using a heart rate monitor. All test participants completed all tests in the same order.

The purpose with this report was to compare three commonly occurring methods for measuring plant available nitrogen in soils. The methods extraction, incubation and Plant root simulator (PRS) probe - an ion exchange membrane (Western Ag Innovations, Inc., Saskatoon, Canada) method were used and comparison between these methods were conducted. A full factorial experiment were set up in northern Finland with the treatments excluding herbivores, warming and fertilization to see how the inorganic nitrogen content in the soil was effected by the treatments. Soil cores were taken and from them a subsample was incubated for 18 days and thereafter analyzed for inorganic N in laboratory. PRS- probes were in the ground for 1 month.

Rabbits carry a high risk of anesthesia related death. This study was part of a project to develop a form of total intravenous anesthesia (TIVA) with minimal effects on cardiac, respiratory and metabolic parameters. In the study, TIVA with sufentanil and midazolam (group TIVA, n=9) was compared with inhalation anesthesia with sevoflurane (group SEVO, n=9) in female rabbits undergoing surgery (ovariehysterectomi). All rabbits were pre-medicated with medetomidin and carprofen before anesthesia induction. Anesthesia was induced with TIVA (2.3 ?g/ ml sufentanil, 0.45 mg/ ml midazolam) at a rate of 4 ml/ kg/ h and the mean induction dose was 0.4 ?g/ kg of sufentanil and 0.1mg/ kg of midazolam.

Background: Mental ill-health among adolescents is one of the most increasing public health problems in Sweden. Particularly girls suffer from mental and psychosomatic symptoms. The National Board of Health and Welfare recommend the DISA method as a preventive measure. Problem: Investigations has been done of the DISA method, but further investigations needs to be done. Aim: The aim of the study was partly to investigate how participants in DISA groups in two counties understand the method and its eventual effect and partly how their mood change, to contribute with knowledge to the development of the DISA method.

AbstractBackgroundParkinson?s disease is a chronically not curable progressive disease that leads to different degrees of disability. Controlled studies on how patient education influences subjective health in Parkinson?s disease are lacking.AimThe aim of this study was to examine the influence patient education had on drug requirements and on subjective health status of persons with Parkinson?s disease.MethodologyA short form of Health Survey, SF-12, was used to measure perceived health. SF-12 was administered before and one month after patient education (intervention group; n= 48), and in waiting list control (n= 48).

Good physical, psychological and social health is pursued both at work and at home. There is no current research into the health of ski instructors despite the physically demanding nature of skiing and high injury rate. The purpose of this study is to map out ski instructors physical and psychological health and see if there are common injuries amongst them. This study is a descriptive and correlating study including a survey of ten questions with self reported data from the instructors. Five ski schools from Sweden participated in the study and 86 surveys got sent out to the ski school directors.The result from this study shows that ski instructor´s physical, physiological, well being at work, stress level and self efficacy is good.

This report discusses a method to detect divers in harbour environments usingpassive acoustic detection. The goal was to achieve as high detection as possiblewithout having too high false alarm rate. A short execution time was also desirable.By using the characteristic of an inhalation a band-pass filter was applied to the signalto improve the signal to noise ratio. After the filtering an energy estimation of thesignal was made. This energy estimation was later used in a frequency analysis, whichcould tell us if there were enough energy in the frequencies that correspond to adivers breathing frequency.

In Sweden the climate makes it impossible to feed fresh herbage to cattle during many months of the year. During periods when preserved forage must be supplied it is important that this forage is stored in such a way that high quality is retained, both nutritionally and hygienically. Furthermore, it is essential that losses occurring when handling and storing the forage are kept as low as possible. This study compares storage in tower silos, bunker silos, big bags and bales,estimating dry matter losses as well as losses in metabolizable energy and crude protein that occur during storage. The results show that tower silos, bunker silos and big bags, the systems with the largest amount of forage and a long feed out period involve larger losses than bales, which are fed out immediately after being opened. As the feed out rate influences the losses, tower silos and bunker silos should be used during the period of the year when the feed out rate is as high as possible, i.e.

Biogas is a gaseous fuel, rich in methane, produced through a biological route in an anaerobic digester. A gas engine generates combined heat and power, which can be used at the farm to reduce energy cost. The process also generates a digestate, with better utilization of nutrient compared to cattle manure. The aim of this study is to analyze the profitability of a farm-scale biogas plant for combined heat and power (CHP) at Wapnö. Wapnö is an agriculture company located in the southern part of Sweden.