The purpose of this essay is to study the impact of different factors on corporate capital structure. The factors studied in relation to corporate debt ratio are industry affiliation, size and profitability. The study involves all 252 companies quoted on the Stockholm stock exchange and cover a time period from 2007 to 2011. The result shows that branch affiliation has a significant impact on corporate debt ratios. Regarding size and profitability, however, these factors do not have an evident impact on corporate debt ratios..

The aim of this Master's thesis is to study how generational identities are conveyed in the reception of two debut novels, Jack by Ulf Lundell and Allt by Martina Lowden. Both novels have been considered literary and social expressions of their generations. The empirical material consists of 14 reviews in Swedish daily press from the time of publication of Jack and Allt, respectively. The thesis revolves around the following questions: How is the generational identity defined in terms of lifestyle practices, milieus and other social circumstances? To what extent are structured factors such as gender and class considered? How are the critics considering the reflexive project of the self? I base the theoretical framework on Anthony Giddens' theories about identity creation in the late modern society.

Sweden?s energy consumption is divided into three major sectors. One of them is the industry sector. One third of Sweden?s energy consumption is converted in the industries.

A wastewater treatment plant has the task to refine the wastewater from substances that should not be released into the environment. The decomposition process can, in a simple way, be described as follows: micro-organisms breathe oxygen and eat unwanted substances. The environment in which the micro-organism lives is known as sludge and the correct amount of oxygen available in the sludge is important for the decomposition to be effective. The oxygenation of the sludge alone stands for about 30% of the plant?s energy consumption.

The Swedish population is getting older and more elderly will continue to be in need ofsupport from the community to meet their everyday lives. As the population gets olderdementia also increases the spread in the country. Because of this more people withdementia will be in need of help in their everyday lives. This will increase the demandson elderly care in the municipalities where they have to offer good care. As moreindividuals suffering from dementia will be in need of help in their daily lives aid officers'encounters with people suffering from dementia and their relatives or any representativesbecome more common.The study had as objective to study aid officer's reasoning on the treatment of dementedindividuals in need of help.

This thesis aims to examine why women are prevented from attaining high positions in organizations. By executing a case study through qualitative interviews with employees from the Human Resource Department at the agency for Swedish Armed Forces, this study presents eight general and specific explanatory factors that hinder women from making a vertical career. The general factors include that women are discriminated against, women are perceived as less competent, men have created organizations and it is easier to recruit men. The specific factors include that a hierarchical organizational structure is correlated to inequality, that both the agency for Swedish Armed Forces and leadership are associated with masculinity and that women with civil competence face double misfortune. The division between general and specific factors indicate that the explanatory factors vary between organizations, which among other things implies that equality work should be tailored for the specific organization.

The aim of this thesis is to describe how to work with the development of language by reading aloud. I have chosen to look at the reading aloud project "Boksnurran" Book Wheel to see if it has influenced the daily work with reading in preschool. My questions are: How do they work with reading in preschool? Is the reading environment suitable? How do the staff describe their booktalks? What problems do they encounter? What can be improved? The thesis is based on qualitative interviews. Those interviewed have participated in "Book Wheel".

The society of consumption exposes us to a lot of information, where advertisement constitutes an extensive part. Due to its expanding, advertisement receives a natural and obvious space in our everyday life. This study aims to investigate how social and cultural values can be mediated in advertisement. The focus has been put to ideas related to health and fitness in the advertisement of power drinks. The thesis takes social constructionism as a starting point, and combines image- and critical discourse analysis in purpose to analyze the pictures.Sociology of consumption, construction of identity, lifestyle and everyday life all constitute an essential part of my analysis.

In this study we try to focus on the costs for wear parts on different type of soil tillage machines and at Väderstad Rapid drilling machine. We have studied some of the leading types of cultivators and disk harrows. Among the cultivators we have investigated Väderstad Cultus, Dalbo Dinkomax, Horsch Tiger and Terrano. At disk harrow we have looked at Amazone Catros and Väderstad Carrier. We have made more detailed study on costs for wear parts, working depth, driving speed and diesel consumption.

The world?s population reached more than 6.9 billion people in July 2011. It is expected that the population growth during the next 40 years will take place mostly in low-income countries and the population increase will be 2.3 billion people during 2011-2050. A rapid urbanization is also expected to result in 57.7 per cent of Africa?s population living in urban areas in 2050.

This master's theses was carried out on assignment from Stockholm Vatten AB as a part of a project developing new waste water treatment techniques. The goal of the theisis has been to evaluate an anaerobic membrane bioreactor for treatment of waste water from Hammarby Sjöstad. The bioreactor has not been heated and the main interest has been to study the gas production, power consumption and the reduction of organic matter and nutrients.The system has been completed with a reverse osmosis unit and a total of four batch runs have been made with good results. The use of reverse osmosis allows nutrient in the waste water to be reintroduced into circulation as the reverse osmosis concentrate can be used as crop nutrient.The membrane unit is of VSEP ("Vibratory Shear Enhanced Processing") type and an extensive membrane test has been conducted. This so called L-test helped determine the most suitable type of membrane for the system to allow a higher ±ux and thus lower power consumption.

This thesis investigated the possibilities to resume cultivation of an old manor house built of timber and what this would mean from an energy and moisture perspective. The building in this case study is named Sofiedals mansion and was built in 1858 in Valbo 11 kilometers west of Gävle.The structure of the house was documented and used as a starting-point for carrying out calculations focused on energy and moisture aspects. With the help of a number of computer programs and a conducted air tightness test, the buildings energy consumption were calculated and compared with the current building regulations.In addition, the building was analyzed considering energy retrofitting and what it meant for moisture problems. The energy retrofitting consisted of additional insulation, decreasing the buildings permeability through air sealing; window and door replacements. When a building is equipped with natural ventilation it is difficult to know its precise performance and how an energy retrofitting affects it.

One of the essential needs of human beings is to be involved in a social context. The intention of this study was to see if the opportunity to have an iPod Touch, could make it possible for students with literacy difficulties to participate in the regular classes and if the implementation of iPod Touch in the school setting would result in informal learning outside the school. In this case study two pupils with literacy difficulties have been using an iPod Touch in their daily school activity. The pupils as well as their teachers have been interviewed about their experiences of implementing iPod Touch as a tool in the regular classroom teatching. The results indicate that iPod Touch can help students to be in inclusive education and that they use the iPod Touch outside school.

Lately, alarming reports have appeared regarding the work environment and work situation of social workers. Research focusing on the promotion of health and well-being in the workplace among other professionals show that factors such as social relationships, ability to influence their work situation and leadership are important. A quantitative study was conducted focusing on the work climate for social workers employed by some of the district administrations in the City of Malmö. A questionnaire with questions and statements on various factors in the work environment was sent to 34 social workers. They were asked how important these factors were for their well-being, as well as to what extent they felt that these factors were present at work.

Given the turbulent situation in the Swedish media industry few researchers have turned towards the view of the situation from the perspective of the journalist who is in many ways under pressure. This study therefore aims to take this perspective by combining recent research in the media field with proven theories in the field of motivation. Through deep interviews with eight journalists active in the general news reporting area, the most important factors in terms of their motivation have been suggested and analyzed. There is a distinction between different types of motivation including intrinsic and extrinsic aspects. The intrinsic factors include investigational journalism and the social part of doing research.