Since 2005 all companies listed on a regulated stock exchange within the European Union are required to present their financial reports in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and International Accounting Standards (IAS). The purposes of these standards are to accomplish international harmonization of accounting rules to make financial reports more comparable. However, recent research has shown that some firms tend to use goodwill strategically in a business combination by manipulating the acquired assets and consciously allocate the intangible assets to goodwill to reduce the depreciation in the income and decrease costs. This phenomenon may reduce the comparability between financial reports and thus has an opposite effect on the purpose of IFRS and IAS.The aim of this study is to show how the companies involved in this study allocate goodwill strategically. Furthermore, the introduction of the new standards has contributed to that goodwill now is a subject for impairment test, therefore we want to show whether this affected the comparability of the companies in this study.An empirical study was conducted, based on interviews with four Swedish managers.

The purpose of this study is to investigate a loyalty card and its relation to accompanying promotional benefits, and their linkages to grocery retail service loyalty. Also, the aim sets out to find relationships between demographic variables and proneness towards the promotional benefits, the loyalty card, and loyalty. A quantitative approach has been assumed and empirical data has been collected through the use of questionnaires. The data has been analyzed through descriptive statistics, correlations, and regression analysis. An operationalization used to measure satisfaction of the loyalty card and attitudinal loyalty is also presented.

In today?s world urbanisation is an on-going process, cities are growing and becoming denser, and places for recreation gain value. Therefore, urban parks are much appreciated by people living in cities. When the first public parks where planned, their main function was to increase health, hygiene, education and social life. In the middle of 19th century the meaning of public parks to people?s wellbeing gained attention and parks were planned to provide space for lively activities. This paper focuses on parks? activities.

The purpose of this essay is to analyse how the leadership and the structure of the organization affect the process of changes within a specific department in Lunds kommun socialdepartment, from the director of social work to the co-workers at Utredningsenheten för ungdom och familj. We aim to answer the following questions;How does the structure of organisation affect the process of change?What do the co-workers and the leaders believe is the best way to engage the co-workers in the change?How does the leaders view their own leadership in the process of change?How does the co-workers view the leadership in the process of change?How does the leadership affect the process of change?To develop an organisation and to make it a functional, change is a necessity. The leaders are they who create the change but the co-workers are they who make it happen. In the process of change, leadership and the leaders capacity to create motivation for the co-workers, is therefore a matter that is decisive to its success.This is a study based on a qualitative method, where the interview is the main source of empirical material.

The aim of the study was to explore the methods used in horticultural therapy gardens in rehabilitating people suffering from fatigue syndrome. Nine horticultural therapy gardens were contacted of wich three chose to participate. Using case study as method e-mail interviews was carried out with the participants about their establishment and what kind of theories they based their methods upon. The material collected from the interviews was complemented with additional data from the establishments web pages and information pamphlets. Collected data was processed trough content analysis and then formed as background for the development of a program theory for horticultural therapy.

This study analyzes how civil society contributes to the democratic development in a Nicaragua governed by the sandinist party FSLN. The empirical focus lays at the relationship between state and the civil society. By using a conceptual framework outlined by Caroline Boussard, the civil society is being analyzed as an actor with a democracy-building potential that is supported or constrained by a political context.The civil society is divided between traditional social movement and more newly borned NGOs. Social movements tend to approach the government comparatively to NGOs, which adopt a highly critical attitude. In contrast to NGOs, the traditional social movements are improving their democratic functions as a counterpart while NGOs confine its democratic potential to an agenda setter drawing attention to democratic deficits.

This thesis aims to respond to the need of adjust GMO politics for meeting the demands of the late-modern society and the changed condition that follows from an accelerating complexity. The central objective for this study is to contribute with a narrative understanding of Sweden?s GMO politics with the purpose of examine an alternative possibility for formulating and assessing the politics of biotechnology. This is done by investigate Sweden?s politics of GMO through a narrative approach.

This thesis is a study of residential environments and a design concept for a proposed housing area in Tierp. The industrial era created a need for the central planning of housing. The confined environments that arised in cities during the 19th century, together with modernistic and democratic ideas, led to regulations in planning and housing. Though the overall goal has been the same: to create a good standard in living, the ideas of how to achieve that have varied. The starting point for following generations has been to attend to the insufficiencies of the earlier planning periods.

Regnbäddar, eller Rain Gardens, är växtbäddar som både fördröjer och renar dagvatten och är ett sätt att efterlikna naturens eget sätt att rena vatten. Regnbäddar kan finnas i gatumiljö och samsas med fordon och trottoarer. Det kan även vara en vacker detalj i en villaträdgård. Klimatförändringarna ger oss kraftigare nederbörd under kortare perioder och kommer framöver att ge oss blötare vintrar och torrare somrar. Det traditionella dagvattensystemet som snabbt leder bort vatten från staden är omodernt och ineffektivt. Regnbädden tar hand om vattnet på plats och tillsammans med gröna tak, svackdiken och genomsläppliga markbeläggningar skapas ett uthålligt dagvattensystem.

Alfa Laval?s strategy is to focus on modularized product platforms. Several benefits areforeseen, reduced lead-time, less costs, shorter Time To Market and better quality.Development and verifying will be carried out on block level. Today the separators arebeing tested as a complete unit. A number of factors affect the test results and problemsthat are encountered can be hard to identify.

AbstractThe beginning of the 20th century gave birth to quantum physics. Within years it revolutionized material science and converted the theoretical foundations of modern chemistry, and to some extent even biology, to physics? new branch, molecular physics. Merger of relativistic and quantum physics soon led to the development of quantum field theory and a deeper understanding of the elementary constituents of matter. Part of this development found its way into high school textbooks as early as in the 1950s.

This Master Thesis has been carried out as a new product development project in collaborationwith G-Man Tools AB located in Edsbyn. The purpose of the project was to construct a newpruning saw there the blade is integrateble in the handle, thus a foldable pruning saw.The work has been performed on the occasion of G-Man Tools AB wanted to improve theirproduct range by creating a saw that complement their range of quality saws. They have a similarproduct today, but they do not manufacture this product by them selves and it is not directlytargeted against garden use, which is a disadvantage when it is one of their major markets.Even though almost the entire chain from the requirements of the users to drawings has beentaken into consideration, emphasizes has been put on generating ideas. However the first thingthat was carried out was to establish a productspecifikation from interviews with users and thecompany?s experience.

About a year ago, Göteborgs-Posten, one of Sweden's largest daily newspapers, decided it was unprofitable to continue producing their feature-style weekend magazine, Två Dagar. Standing at a crossroads,not wanting to stop producing the weekend magazine altogether, they decided to outsource. Spoon Publishing AB, a content agency with strong ties to Göteborg, were assigned with taking over the production.Going forward, Spoon has taken over a majority of the responsibility for the conceptual work and actual production, all with the main purpose of reducing cost and increasing efficiency.Normally Spoon does content marketing for a wide range of customers in an equally wide spectra of channels, from print to radio, television and web.The main purpose of this essay has been to investigate and establish whether the journalistic integrity and quality has in fact been maintained despite the weekend magazine being outsourced. We have analyzed selected editions of the magazine, first and foremost inarticles under the vignette fashion, using a qualitative method for content analysis, scrutinizing everything from the denotation of single words to the big picture. This specific vignette contains the most frequent contributions by in-house, or at least reappearing, journalists.Perusing the material in Två Dagar, we have come to the conclusion that the magazine has indeed retained its level of quality and still reflects the same core values as before being outsourced..

The purpose of this master thesis is to examine how Dublin Core corresponds to the findings in the IFLA report Functional requirements for bibliographic records FRBR, and what consequences this correspondence has on the usability of Dublin Core as a bibliographic standard. While the study describes the conceptual model of FRBR and the entities work, expression, manifestation and item, its main focus is the mapping of attributes and relationships to the user tasks defined, namely to find, identify, select and obtain entities. The study makes a comparison between data that FRBR rates as highly important for any user task, and the elements defined in DCMI Metadata Terms. The outcome of the comparison is then analyzed as to how it affects Dublin Core's possibilities to assist in the different user tasks, and common problems are discussed. The results show that problems in expressing attributes and relationships through Dublin Core elements concern all of the four user tasks.

Rapid urbanization causes competition over land use between green area preservation and urban development in cities and greatly affects ecosystems as well as human well-being. This conflict is significant all around the world as many cities are now replacing existing green areas with new developments. The area around Dag Hammarskjöld's väg in Uppsala is currently experiencing the same conflict, as the need that the city has for new housing represents a threat for the many valuable green areas that are in the site. The purpose of this project was to understand how the need of urban development and the preservation of green areas could be balanced. This understanding would thereafter be used to make a design proposal for the area around Dag Hammarskjöld's väg.