The purpose of this essay is to apply Activity Based Costing on a Service and Support function in order to identify and allocate costs for providing support for IT deliverables..

Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to investigate whether abnormal stock returns could be identified as a result of a layoff announcement during weak economy.Method: An event study methodology.Theory: Efficient market hypothesis, signal theory.Empirical results: Quantitative data from observations of stock prices in thirty two companies listed on the Nasdaq OMX Stockholm, in the period 2008 -2012.Conclusion: The results indicate that the market reaction was negative because there were negative abnormal returns on the Stockholm Stock Exchange during the period 2008-2012 in connection with the layoff announcements. The market reaction was milder when staff reductions were carried out as a result of a restructuring and stronger when staff reductions were carried out as part of a cost reduction program.The layoff announcements elicited different market reactions depending on the company's industry affiliation. The most negative reaction was in the Healthcare industry. Negative abnormal returns were lower in industries Industrials, Consumer Services and Consumer Goods. There were no abnormal returns for shares of companies in the industry Financials.

The aim of the study was to compare productivity in first thinning of birch stands, when either energy- or pulpwood was harvested. The systems total profitability was also compared by including forwarding and chipping costs. A Gremo 950 HPVR harvester was used and the same driver was used under the entire study. During the pulpwood harvest a Logmax 4000b harvester head was used and a feller buncher head made by Silvatec was used during the energy wood harvest. Six study unit pairs were located in a birch dominated stand outside Ängelholm in Skåne.

Purpose/Aim: To investigate why people in the age group of 30-40 subscribe to the traditional morning newspaper even though they can get the same information at a much lower cost from for example TV, the internet or the free daily papers. The aim is to also look at possible future alternatives to the traditional morning newspaper.Material/Method: Focus group interviews were used to gather the empirical material. These consisted of a total number of twelve people, divided into three groups. The results from the focus group interviews were analysed with help from established uses & gratifications theories and two diffusion theories.Main results: This study shows that people read the traditional morning newspaper to get a good mixture of entertainment and local, national and global news. It is relaxing to read the newpaper on paper compared to reading it on the internet, mainly because you get a good overview which makes it a lot easier to find exactly want you want to read.

In today?s archaeology there?s a growing need for non-invasive prospection methods. However there?s a methodological gap and what?s missing is a method for locating human bones. In this study a specially trained German shepherd is put through scientific tests determining how good the dog is at telling the different between the scent of human and animal bones.

Bensinpriset i Sverige har den senaste tiden stigit kraftigt och åsikterna går isär om huruvida detta ska uppfattas som positivt eller negativt för samhället.Denna studie kartlägger de samhällsekonomiska effekterna av ett högre bensinpris och studerar skillnaden i resultat mellan en oljeprisbaserad bensinprisökning och en bensinprisökning som grundar sig på en högre bensinskatt.I en cost-benefit kalkyl har effekter av ett högre bensinpris identifierats och värderats. Resultatet visar att en oljeprisbaserad bensinprishöjning är att uppfatta som negativ för samhället. Även en skattebaserad bensinprishöjning är dock negativ för samhället. En oljeprisbaserad bensinprishöjning åsamkar emellertid samhället en betydligt större nettoförlust än en skattebaserad bensinprishöjning.En marginalkostnadsberäkning har utförts som ett alternativt beräkningssätt av det samhällsekonomiska resultatet av de två olika bensinprishöjningarna. Marginalkostnadsberäkningen uppskattar den samhälleliga marginalkostnaden av en liter bensin till cirka 9,31 kr och att marginalkostnaden ligger under prisnivån bekräftar slutsatsen att ett högre bensinpris är negativt för samhället, då det, vid en bensinskattehöjning, leder till en situation där bensinpriset hamnar längre från det pris som är optimalt för samhället.

Honey is a product that may contain pesticide residues due to contamination from bees pollinating various plants as well as elimination of vermin inside the hive. Different methods are needed for analysis of pesticides, since the term includes a wide range of different substances. National Food Administration lacks a validated method for determination and quantification of pesticides in honey using liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry, LC-MS/MS. The technique is especially important in analysis of polar and non-volatile pesticides, where gas chromatography is not functioning optimally. After investigating what pesticides could be found in honey produced in Sweden, a number of four pesticides suitable for analysis with LC-MS/MS was compiled; boscalid, impidacloprid, tau-fluvalinate and thiacloprid.

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..

This is a feasibility study that examines various aspects of building a wind farm on Malmön in Norrköping. The feasibility study deals with interests of conflict, park design, electrical connections, production calculation, financial calculations and operating- and timetable.The report is divided into two distinct parts. First a theoretical part, which deals with conflicting interests, park design and electrical connections. Second a part with simulations dealing with production calculations, and financial calculations.Opposing interests are mapped so that problem areas can be found, and help put focus on the right places at a future environmental impact assessment (EIA). There are a number of areas where planners have to assess on an EIA, this thesis point on the most important areas.

This thesis describes the new construction of a small house and it includes studies of three heating systems: geothermal heating, district heating and pellet. The purpose of this thesis is to project a small house which can manage Building Regulations, BBR conditions and then examine three possible heating systems for the small house. This thesis is a literature study which gives an understanding of the heating systems technical structure, properties and costs. An empirical study completes the literature study by giving a deeper understanding of district heating costs and pellet costs. The empirical study contains two interviews, one of which was conducted in a district heating corporation and the other interview was conducted in a pellet corporation.

Sweden has distinct seasons with cold winter and temperatures down to minus 25 ?C andpleasant summers with temperatures above 20 ?C. During spring and autumn there could becomechallenges with precipitation. The diverse climate in Sweden affects many homeowners. For thepeople living in leisure boats and permanent housing boats the seasonal changes are clearlyimpacting their economy and the indoor climate.

In this thesis, two real-time stereo methods have been implemented and evaluated. The first one is based on blockmatching and the second one is based on local phase. The goal was to be able to run the algorithms at real-time and examine which one is best. The blockmatching method performed better than the phase based method, both in speed and accuracy. SIMD operations (Single Instruction Multiple Data) have been used in the processor giving a speed boost by a factor of two..

Gliding and sealing functions in Öhlins shock absorbing systems sets great demands onthe contacting surfaces. In this particular case, the bushings and the sealings on acylinder piston. The surface wanted is a surface with both low frictional forces and smallleakage. This study was done with the goals of investigating and determining existingsurfaces due to the frictional force and leakage. How can we in an easy mannerdescribe these?A number of ten front forks were part of a main study.

Modern forest owners are very familiar with forest management and forest economics. Therefore they have high demands for quality in forest operations. Guarantee of quality in the shape of self-checking activities is an important tool to guarantee a well managed forestry operation. To meet the forest owners? demands on guarantee of quality and the entrepreneurs wish of an easy method for self-checking, the forest owners association, Södra skogsägarna, has developed a new method for thinning inventory. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the method that is used for self-checking and to find ways to develop and improve of the method. The data has been collected by inventory in a number of stands with circle-area survey and with strip survey, which is method that is used for self-checking. The results show that the strip survey does not diverge more than ±10 % in measuring values of basal area, number of stems, roads share, thinning quotient, outtake of basal area and total volume compared to circle-area survey.

Value stream mapping is a tool that is frequently used by many different companies. It is a great tool used to achieve the work that follows the theories of lean production. The tool is used, however, only frequent on the factory floor and the method is also designed based on this type of use.An interest of applying the method on administrative parts of the company has occurred lately. Administrative parts of the company refers to the part that does all the planning such as purchasing, receiving orders, customer contact, contact with factory floor and other work that is made around the actual manufacturing. But the knowledge about applying value stream mapping on the planning part of the company is lacking because the method is relatively new.In this work, a comparison is made between the introduction of value stream analysis on production and planning.