The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between Earnings Management (EM) and certain characteristics of management forecasts, among a sample of Swedish listed companies. The forecast characteristics studied are: 1) Forecast venue: How explicitly is the forecast presented? 2) Forecast precision: How detailed is the estimated number? 3) Forecast measure: Which measure(s) are forecasted? We use a sample of 68 annual management forecasts, obtained from year-end reports between the years 2007-2011. EM during the forecasted year (2008-2012) is estimated using the cross-sectional modified-Jones model. The forecast characteristics are then related to the degree of EM during the forecasted period.

In the past, the meaning of marriage has been an agreement between two people to live together and have children in a legitimate manner. The marriage was not just to form a couple; it was also to merge two families together. From the early 1900s until today the allegation of marriage and its influence got a significant change compared to early societies which have aroused my interest to perform this into a research paper. My study is focused on marriage and social changes during the 1900s. Thoughts that arise now is that why there was a remarkable change in the marriage rate during the 1900s and whether there were any social changes had to do something with it.

This Master of Science Thesis was a complement project to the PIEp study MENTOL, carried out at a Swedish midsize medical device company.. PIEp nationally works for a long-term increase of the innovation capability of people and organizations. The purpose of this study was to find measuring parameters of innovation that fit medium-sized technological companies and organizations, Another purpose was to evaluate an innovation investment at the company, consisting of external consultant?s education of key personnel in innovation, and a two day innovation seminar with all personnel at the company participating. The methods used during this Master of Science Thesis were: feasibility and literature studies about innovation and innovation measurements, quantitative and qualitative interviews, surveys and workshops.For an accurate measure of innovation it is crucial to a have full understanding of what innovation is, and clarity of the purpose of the measurement itself.

The translation of financial records of foreign subsidiaries gives rise to currency translation adjustments that affect total group equity. If unwanted, fluctuations in translation adjustments can be avoided using net investment hedges. This study aims to find the extent of net investment hedging in Sweden today and in a short historical perspective, and find explanations to varying levels of hedging and firms' decisions to hedge. Based on annual reports, we determine Swedish firms' net investment hedging policies and their level of hedging. The 32 largest companies listed on the Stockholm stock exchange in the years 1993, 2004, 2006, and 2009 are studied.

The aim of this master thesis is to measure library service quality in two groups of libraries, newly developed and well established, and to see if there are any differences in the users perception of the dimensions in LibQUAL+. The thesis also examines the different perception of quality for the user groups: undergraduate students, graduate students, and faculty. Another approach is to test the Swedish translation of LibQUAL+. Different theories on service quality are presented but the main theories are from the marketing perspective. The grounding and development of LibQUAL+ is described as well as the use of the instrument in different libraries.

Purpose:Only 60 percent of the newly started companies survive their three first years. The purpose of this report is to obtain a deeper understanding regarding how newly started companies work with their positioning and if there are some kind of a relationship between positioning and the survival rate of newly started companies.Research questions:Do newly started companies know what position is? Do they incorporate positioning in their day to day marketing?Approach:We have used a hypothetical-deductive way of reasoning and a qualitative study to gather the information needed. We have through interviews asked our questions to six newly started companies in three different cities.Findings:In our essay, we reached the conclusion that newly started companies do not spend sufficient time or energy on positioning their products. The companies interviewed only market their product as a good product.

BackgroundPolitics in some ways has always been about communication and marketing. In Sweden some people believe that communication and meaningful relations with the voters are of no value, instead it is the political content that is of importance. Media evolution has changed the conditions of political marketing; this has meant that the choices of the right communication channels in political marketing have become more important today than ever. Political competition in Sweden has become more even in recent years, this has called for political communication and marketing to be more planed and well thought out. Political parties have therefore begun to spend millions on marketing themselves.

This paper discusses the advantages and disadvantages of using different benchmarking models to measure and compare the efficiency of Swedish gas distributors. It also discusses to which extent the results of a benchmarking study should influence the revenue-cap which will be implemented in the gas distribution sector in Sweden from year 2011. The discussion is based on arguments from both theory and practical applications of benchmarking. The results suggest that benchmarking Swedish gas distributors against distributors in another country using a parametric model is most favorable, but the reliability will be increased if non-parametric models are used also. Partial and total productivity measures could be used to confirm results of other benchmarking analyses.

Hydropower is an important source of energy in Sweden and accounts for about 46 % of the total energy production. Sweden has about 1 200 hydropower plants and with the intention of raising the pressure head of the water and to store water, dams are built by the power plants. The storage reservoirs make it possible to adjust the energy production by demand and season. Dams in connection to the reservoirs are subjected to additional loading during periods of high floods or when an icecap in the winter is formed on the reservoirs. In order to maintain the dam safety, the power companies in Sweden are working with guidelines for dam safety from RIDAS.

Chunks and Tasks is a programming model based on the C ++ programming language. This programming model is used for electronic structure calculations, among other things.The purpose of this project is to improve the CHT-MPI software library for Chunks and tasks, so that calculations of matrix-matrix multiplications are performed more efficiently than they do with the existing software library. The software library is based on the work stealing method, which is a method the software library for Chunks and Tasks uses for the distribution of the calculation work. The considered way to improve the software library is by modifying the work stealing method in a way that makes the distribution of calculation work happen in a more efficient way , which will lead to calculations performed faster than before.Two different modifications of the work stealing method were tested and it led to two new methods, Method 1 and Method 2, which distributed the calculation work differently. Method 1 did not give results that were compatible with the theory, since the calculation time with this method was much longer than the previous method.

Background and problem: Corporate Governance is a well-known phenomenon which has been the focus of plenty of research where the board of directors and the CEO have been regarded as important actors. What's affecting decisions regarding these actors has been debated whereas media has been pointed out of having an impact. To decide whether or not media can affect Corporate Governance have shown to be problematic whereas it exists divergent views regarding this. At the same time this relationship is more explored in other contexts than the swedish one, although this one is considered suitable for this. Consequently there is a motive for examining medias impact on Corporate Governance in Sweden. Purpose: The purpose of the thesis is to explain if media has an impact on Corporate Governance at an overall level.

Individual cellulose ?bers were studied to identify the transport and absorbtion phenomena as well as the in?uence of drying. A Chalmers University of Technologydeveloped method within ESEM (Enviromental Scanning Electron Microscope) has been used in this study. The results from the laborations gave the following conclu-sions: The transport of water occurs in ?bers in the ?ber wall surface and the lumen.

A new type of forest tree seedling, called mini seedling, has been developed by the University of Dalarna in Garpenberg, Sweden. Compared to traditional containerized seedlings that are grown for 1 ? 2 years, mini seedlings are grown for only 10 weeks. The mini seedlings are small, easily planted, cost effective, and reduce the amount of chemicals used in the nursery. Research has shown that mini seedlings tend to have higher overall survival rates than traditional container seedlings.

Milkability or ease of milking, has higher importance today for Swedish dairy cattle producers after the introduction of milking parlours and automatic milking systems. Milkability is the cow?s ability to quickly milk out and be completely milked. There are several measures of milkability available. Today the farmer measures the traits subjectively in relation to the conformation scoring of the cow 30-270 days after her first calving.

The student project Elba at KTH started in 2011 and is a project where a battery driven prototype car is developed. The vehicle competes in Eco Shell Marathon in Rotterdam, Holland. In this competition the vehicle that travels a certain distance including several starts and stops with the lowest energy consumption wins. To minimize the consumption is therefore very important, which requires knowledge of the vehicles energy losses.A vehicle's energy losses depends on several factors and can be divided into the powertrain efficiency and the driving resistance. The driving resistance can then be divided in to rolling and air resistance, if smaller losses like vibrations are ignored.