Abstract D Level Essay in Political Science, Spring Semester 2010 by Sangrid von Zedtwitz-Liebenstein. Tutor: Malin Stegmann McCallion. ?Democratic Accountability in Networks? The aim of this study is to highlight the problem of the democratic deficit in the private-public partnerships in Sweden. This is a comparative case study with four ideal types.

The purpose of the set of regulations as regards to accounting and auditing within the Union, is primarily to ensure a high quality of the large public companies financial reporting and hence protect the capital market investors. As the set of regulations also applies to the small companies, these are burdened by administrative costs that are disproportionate. To increase the competitiveness of the European companies, the European council has stated that it is essential to reduce the companies? administrative costs. The main principle is that all companies are under an obligation to statutory audit, however Member States may make audit exemptions for small companies.

This study addresses the issue of mergers between consulting firms. Previous research has shown that there are specific factors that determine the outcome of a merger and that success is more likely if companies are more similar. The purpose of the study is therefore to define relevant factors and understand when resemblance matter and under what conditions disparity may cause problems. Furthermore, the aim of the study is to find a pattern of which factors are more important in a successful merger. The problem of the study is addressed through a qualitative research approach and is conducted on six different mergers.

The response to many on-going or emerging conflicts since the beginning of the 21st century has been different forms of multinational complex peace operations. Civil-military relations are a commonly studied field that traditionally has its focus on nations. This study intends, in the context of organisations, to test the correlation between a civil-military approach and outcome in complex peace operations. A hypothesis has been deduced from researcher Robert Egnell?s theory on complex peace operations, that states that: UN peace operations with an integrated civil-military approach are more successful in achieving their goals than peace operations with a divided approach.

This thesis is a comparative analysis of language policy in the Post-Soviet states Ukraine and Kazakhstan, wherein the states are seen as rational actors using language as an instrument in the nation-building process. With a take-off point in an underframe of theories on the nation, national identity, instrumentalism, power and the particular role of language in the nation-building process, this thesis shows that language is a key instrument used by the two states.The Ukrainian and Kazakhian language policies create and put across a certain image of the nation, by emphasising the titular languages as symbols of the new states. The line of argument in the language policy is a balance act between large-scale promotion of titular languages and a careful and inclusive attitude towards the Russian language. The biggest differences are that Ukraine, compared to Kazakhstan, has a more comprehensive and consequent language policy with a deeply rooted historic rhetoric. The most obvious instruments of the states in language policy is censuses, corpus-planning and the state choosing one official language..

Aims: Patient associations have been around for some time and research has shown that such associations can influence society, politics and how diagnoses are thought of. This study is a comparative analysis of two patient associations in Sweden. The first association called Attention represents people diagnosed with neuropsychiatric disorders such as ADHD. The other association called RSMH represents people diagnosed with mental illness such as depression. The aim of this study is to explore the social and political agenda of these associations and to explain their relation to biological, psychological and social models of explanation.Method and theory: The method used was a qualitative document analysis using documents produced by the associations themselves as well as documents from media and politics.

The purpose of this study was to examine how food managers of Östergötland County disucss around their possibilities of reaching the government´s orientation towards 25 per cent of the food - procured, prepared and cooked in the school meal - coming from certified organic production. The study was a cross-sectional study in wich a qualitative approach was used. The sample consisted six food managers in Östergötland. Data processing was done through a semantic content analysis.  The result showed that involvment and intrest were significant factors for the introduction of organic food in the school meal. The three municipalities with the highest percentage of organic food used the SMART - concept.

This paper investigates the internal product costing system in one of the Swedish banks with the purpose to evaluate the quality of its product costs and possible implications on decision making. The study shows that the current system distorts product costs by, among other things, using relative allocation of costs and time and by allocating all costs to individual units of products. We therefore propose an alternative product costing system, which mainly draws on ABC theory but is also adapted to the specific needs of service companies and of the Bank. This proposal is intended as a solution in this particular case and not to be generalized in other contexts. We hope however to add to the understanding of why more complex costing systems, such as the ones based on ABC theory are, according to previous studies, not widely used in practice.

ITT Flygt is a world leading company that mainly manufactures submersible pumps. A problem of ITT Flygt is that product development projects rarely manage to hold the estimated project time. It shows that something unexpected occurs in projects quite often, which results in delays. The delays can both be due to an optimistic time plan of projects and risks in product development projects which are not discovered at an early stage. This added with unforeseen delays makes it difficult for ITT Flygt to estimate the duration of their projects.The goal with the Master thesis is to examine a suitable method for simulation of project time.

Because of increasing demand of power on Malmbanan the capacity of the existing wires which supply the trains must be increased. This increases the stress on the existing poles and for this reason the system for supplying the loads along the railway is to be removed from the poles and be replaced by some other system. This thesis is a study on a two-level low voltage (1 kV and 0.4 kV) electrical system with the aim to investigate if it can be an alternative to the system used today taking into account the voltages, fault currents and costs.In this thesis the following tasks have been performed:? Gathering of data? Description of basic theory? Loadow and fault current calculations of the system with MATLAB? Life Cycle Cost estimate of the system? Analysis and conclusions from the resultsThe results show that the new system can be an alternative to replace today's system. The simulations and calculations show that the voltage drop is at an acceptable level and that the fault currents are large enough to supply a safe disconnection if a fault occurs at the far end of the system..

Although research on gothic fiction has given limited attention to children?s fiction, the last two decades have witnessed an increasing interest. To date the focus has been mainly on English literature with a recurring tendency to define children?s gothic fiction as a text corpus separate from gothic fiction in general. As a result, children?s gothic fiction has become isolated and is not considered as part of the gothic genre, neither the literature nor its adaptations.The aim of this study is to view children?s gothic fiction as an integral part of the gothic genre.

As a consumer often chooses product or service to satisfy the specific needs or desires. However, there is more often than not several brands that manufacture the same product, which means we also have to choose between these brands before we can calm our needs. This choice is usually an active decision. We choose a brand that we are familiar with, or a brand whose identity appeals to us. The brand thus has a major impact on both consumers' decision-making in connection with the purchase, but also for business success.

In Sweden, the demand for bio energy has increased in recent years due to the current energy and climate debate. In 2008, the energy supply of Sweden was 612 TWh, biofuels accounted for 123 TWh of these. Stumps have been highlighted as a potential fuel in recent years and the Swedish Forest Agency expects a technically and biologically feasible potential of 20.7 TWh annually between 2010 and 2019. The idea of utilize stumps is not new. During the 19th century stumps were used for tar production and during the 70?s and 80?s attempts were made to use stumps in the pulp industry.

The traditional airlines exist on a market that is distinguished by an increasing competition. They are often partly or completely owned by the government and are characterized by slow decision making. Because of their existing structure and old business culture the traditional airlines find it hard to use price as a means of competition. Consequently the traditional airlines need to create loyalty amongst their customers. The purpose of this essay was to analyze and evaluate SAS long-term marketing strategies through a comparative study of the companies? management, employees and customers.

The background for my thesis is the fact that with rising electricity and oil prices it becomes interesting to calculate on alternative heating systems. I have chosen to calculate upon my parents? farm, which today heats the dwelling house with wood. This is very time-consuming work, time which could be spent on other work. The main objective for this study is to compare three different heating systems to decide how they differ considering effort and cost. The result from the calculations was that grain-heating system demanded the least amount of work, but the total cost was a little higher compared to chips heating. Chips heating required half as much work as today?s wood heating and had a little lower total costs compared with the corn heating. Which system to choose largely depends on how the own work is valued.