The insurance industryis challengedby major changesthrough internationalizationand thusgrowingcompetitionwithmore optionsand greater availabilityfor customers.Solvency II, a new regulatoryframework and anew standard forinsurance companies,is therefore implemented in a steptowardsa more competitive Europeaninsurancemarket. Solvency II will result in extensive structural changes for many insurance companies. Newstandards andinternal models must also be implemented by the companies. Solvency IIhasa tightening effect on thesolvency capital requirements forinsurance companies. At the same time it also leads tomajor changesandincreased demandon risk management andinternal control, alongside with demands fordisclosure of informationto the market.

The purpose of this master thesis is to map and analyze the appropriate valuation approaches used for Intellectual Property rights and develope a model for valuing patents. This project has been executed on behalf of Electrolux?s Group Intellectual Property and is intended to be used for managerial purposes.Project limitations include patents that doesent concern technology oriented products and services, real option methods, financial forecasts, decisions concerning patents taken by the R&D division, patent applications in general and taking into account unexpected future management decisions regarding patents.Electrolux?s Intellextual Property team applies, manages and protects the groups Intellectual Property rights including patents, designs and trademarks. With an increased globalization and the rise of emerging markets, incentives have increased further to protect and safeguard the group?s innovations.Mainly there are three different valuations approaches for valuing intellectual property rights, these include the income based approach, cost base approach and market based approach.

Torstensson, Niklas (2012): Anledningar till olikheter mellan Svenska kommuners skolkvalitet (Causes behind the differences in Swedish municipality´s quality of school) Örebro University.This essay is an explorative case study that will compare four Swedish municipalities quality of local school system against the municipality ´s backgrounddata and a governing document: Skolplan. This study begins in a previous benchmarking study made by one of Sweden?s teachers unions Lärarförbundet. This is a statistical study that ranked the Swedish municipalities against each other?s according to their accomplishments in a number of areas related to their school systems.

Peritonitis is a potentially life-threatening disease in horses. With no published work from Sweden, the objective of the study was to describe the occurrence and demographics of horses with peritonitis and to evaluate the outcome of treatment in terms of short-term survival during a ten-year period in a large clinic in Sweden. Data were examined in a retrospective manner in 69 horses diagnosed with and treated for peritonitis at Universitetsdjursjukhuset (UDS) in Uppsala between 2002-2012. Demographic data examined included age, breed, gender, history, duration of illness before arriving at UDS, reason for seeking veterinary care, initial clinical findings (general state of health, heart rate, respiratory rate, mucous membrane appearance, rectal temperature, abdominal sounds, rectal examination, nasogastric tube results), abdominocentesis results (abdominal fluid analysis including visual inspection, leukocytes and protein, cytology, bacterial culture and sensitivity pattern), complete blood count (CBC), Serum amyloid-A (SAA) upon presentation and a follow up, plasma fibrinogen, plasma protein and albumin, treatments, length of hospitalisation and outcome. All medical records with the diagnosis of peritonitis were extracted from the medical records system Trofast. All records with any other diagnosis code referring to trauma such as rectal tear or ruptured uterus, recent abdominal surgery, external trauma or rupture in the gastrointestinal tract were excluded. To be included in the study, the peritoneal fluid should contain more than 20.000 cells/?L, have a peritoneal protein value of >30 g/L; or have a significantly changed peritoneal fluid sample (orange with increased turbidity or worse) in cases where no data on cells or protein were available. The horses were divided into two groups; one where the peritonitis was deemed to have an idiopathic aetiology (primary peritonitis) and the other group where the peritonitis had a possible aetiology such as intestinal parasites, impaction etc.

There are records of lowering of the water level in a lot of the Swedish lakes from the middleof the 1700th century. The aim was gaining more areable land to meet the needs of more foodto support the expanding population. In areas with top soil which contents of clay or loam asin the southwest of Scania in southern Sweden this was proven to be a successful wayexpanding the total outcome of the harvest.The studied area in the northeast of Scania, though, consists of morain with a lot of mires -much less nutritious conditions. When the water level is lowered the atmosphere gets accessto the peat. The dissolving of the organic matter that has been suppressed by the lack ofoxygene below water level continues.

The business potential of software defined radio (SDR) technology is studied by evaluating whether or not its characteristics correspond to those particular to a disruptive technology. The maturity of the SDR technology concept is illuminated by analyzing the opinions and perspectives of a selection of representatives for different stakeholders in the wireless communications market. Characteristics as, for example, the degree of consensus about the utility of SDR technology and the awareness of features and limitations are studied by application of the theory of technological frames. This theory helps us understand how and when technology evolution takes place. Finally we describe the value network structures of some potentially viable application areas for SDR and suggest some possible business opportunities based on SDR technology.This thesis is carried out as a case study and the research data is obtained from secondary sources, such as literature and Internet publications as well as interviews with people well experienced in the field of wireless communications.

Torstensson, Niklas (2012): Anledningar till olikheter mellan Svenska kommuners skolkvalitet (Causes behind the differences in Swedish municipality´s quality of school) Örebro University.This essay is an explorative case study that will compare four Swedish municipalities quality of local school system against the municipality ´s backgrounddata and a governing document: Skolplan. This study begins in a previous benchmarking study made by one of Sweden?s teachers unions Lärarförbundet. This is a statistical study that ranked the Swedish municipalities against each other?s according to their accomplishments in a number of areas related to their school systems.

Dairy farms have during a long time been under pressure and this situation was aggravated during the spring and summer of 2009, when profitability declined to historically low levels. Lower milk price and relatively high input prices have caused Swedish dairy farms great liquidity concerns and profitability problems. For a long time, Denmark has been identified as a leading country for the agrarian development with a leading structural rationalization and willingness to grow. In 2009, it was shown that the Danish agriculture, which is generally more leveraged, has difficulties in maintaining profitability and when market price of land started to fall, the proportion of technically insolvent agricultural enterprises rose dramatically. In light of this prevailing situation, this study highlights differences between Denmark and Sweden with the hope to learn from each other.

Urban trees have very little in common with trees on natural sites, such as forests or pastures. Trees in urban environments are often planted in packed soil and in small volumes. This can lead to decreased availability of water and oxygen, as well as deteriorated ability for the soil to store nutritional elements. Also above ground the tree usually have limited space in cities. Regulations on free height over roads and cycle tracks demands high stems at an early stage of their development.

The Republic of Moldova, situated in eastern Europe and a former part of the Soviet Union, is now experiencing a phase of transition in both society and landscape. They have hardly any fossil depots and are currently dependent on Russian gas, with 97% of their energy needs imported. The new elected government wants to move towards the EU and this is generally seen as the way to grow and reduce poverty. Security in the energy sector is important and one tool is to increase the use of renewable energy sources. Through interviews, texts, and visits I have studied the implementation of renewable energies (RE) in Moldova through a society development perspective. The study has aimed to investigate the sociotechnical complexity of this subject and to discuss the potentials and way of dealing with the subject in the specific cultural context of Moldova.

This bachelor thesis is intended to gather the knowledge and experimental data on the winter wheat crop production relevant for Swedish conditions, with focus on sowing time, row spacing and seed rate. This essay is a literature study with a minor component based on interviews with farmers producing winter wheat. The work is divided into a background part where basic knowledge of winter wheat physiology, development and environment interactions are described and one part where results of field trials studies are presented. Optimal date of sowing winter wheat depends on annual weather variations. Because it is difficult to forecast the weather the choice of sowing date should be based on weather statistics, production experience and previous results depending on sowing date.

Oilseed rape is an important crop in Sweden and is grown on about 90000 ha today. The interest in oil seed pro-duction is increasing because of growing demand and high prices for oil seed both in Sweden and Europe. However, an increased intensity in the oil seed production can bring higher risk of yield losses due to fungal diseases. The purpose of this study was to investigate what different fungi are associated with oilseed rape under field conditions and if their incidence is correlated to crop establishment problems. This study was carried out in three parts: 1) investigations on fungal community structure in roots and rhizosphere soils from young spring- and winter rape plants sampled in failed respectively good establishment patches in four fields, 2) investigations on the pathogenicity of fungi isolated from oilseed rape in controlled environment and 3) investigations on the effect of different fungicide seed treatments on germination and early plant development in a field soil naturally infested with damping off- and Verticillium wilt pathogens. The studies on community structure using a combined approach of standard fungal isolation techniques and DNA based methods revealed a high fungal diversity in three out of four studied fields of spring rape and winter rape. For some unknown reason, very few fungal species were identified from the fourth field.

The cattle production in the world has been questioned in Sweden due to its negative impacts on the environment. The use of imported soya bean meal as a protein feed for Swedish cattle results in the cutting of rainforest and an extensive use of pesticides in the countries were the soya beans are produced. As a consequence, the environmental impacts caused by cattle production increases. A production of protein feeds in Sweden would decrease the transportations and the cutting of rainforest. For organic beef producers the possibility to produce home-grown protein feeds is important since organic protein feeds can be difficult to obtain in another way.

At SLU, Divison of Reproduction, Dept of Clinical Science, there is an ongoing project on the development and evaluation of new methods for the assessment of stallion semen quality. This EEF-study, which is a part of that larger project, has focused on the effects on motility and fertility of stallion semen of two different extenders and selection. Both an objective method and a subjective method for analysis have been used and compared in the study. The increase in the use of artificial insemination with cooled semen in Swedish horse breeding over the last decade is thought to play a part in declining foaling rates (Kareskoski et al, 2006, Kuisma et al, 2006). This calls for better evaluation methods of semen quality since cooling and transportation put higher demands on semen quality in order to maintain fertility (Aurich, 2005).

SAMMANFATTNING När man i tidigare undersökningar studerat betesgång för mjölkkor har klimatet på betet inte beaktats. En höglakterande ko producerar mycket värme som hon måste avge till sin omgivning för att kunna bibehålla sin kroppstemperatur. De sätt som djuret kan avge värme på är begränsade och påverkas av flera klimatfaktorer samt djurets genetiska och biologiska förutsättningar. Antalet dagar som registreringar gjordes under denna studie blev av flera olika anledningar få, 18 dagar. Klimatet utomhus under studien registrerat som globtemperatur varierade från 22,4 till 34,7ºC. Då djurskyddslagen skall främja djurens hälsa och djurets naturliga beteende fick en grupp 126 höglakterande kor möjlighet att välja uppehållsplats under tiden 26 juli till 11 augusti. 2004. Korna fördes ut på betet vid niotiden på förmiddagen och var därefter fria att gå in och ur stallet efter egen vilja tills de togs in för kvällsmjölkning omkring klockan tre påeftermiddagen.