This thesis was carried out to give some background information to a report of SLU (Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences) for the Swedish National Rail Administration (Banverket). The requested information was to provide basic data for an environmental impact assessment of the construction of the tunnel through Hallandsås. The aim with the thesis work was to discuss and quantify the leaching of nitrate and the emission of nitrous oxide from the soil at the groundwater level established through the tunnel project. The nitrogen related processes that could be affected were described and discussed. The different areas where a decreased groundwater level can cause changes in the nitrogen processes are the wet and moist areas.

Scania?s discount rate - the return requirement of investments - refers to Scania?s WACC or weighted average cost of capital. The capital markets return requirement on equity and the credit market interest cost of borrowing is weighted to become the single discount rate, the WACC. The purpose of this study is to investigate which asset pricing model of APT and CAPM Scania should use in their WACC calculations. The company now uses a group WACC of 11 percent which is used in all company levels.

Shock absorber units play a key role in establishing the driving dynamics and performance of automobiles. Öhlins Racing has manufactured high-tech automotive shock absorbers for over 30 years. Öhlins Racing?s advanced technology has contributed to over 200 world championships in automobile racing. Öhlin?s manufacturing process has long utilized automated fluid filling equipment during the final shock absorber unit assembly stage. The filling process consists of vacuum pumping the shock absorber unit and subsequent transfer of fluid. Vacuum pumping is necessary to remove residual air from the shock absorber unit prior to initiating the liquid filling stage. The presence of undesirable gases drastically compromises the performance of a shock absorber. The filling degree, defined as the final ratio of air to oil, is determined by the specific filling protocol as well as the specific equipment utilized.The current investigation aims to develop a viable technique to accurately determine residual air content in shock absorber units. If the filling degree can be appropriately quantified for a specific manufacturing process, then the air/oil ratio may be quantitatively related to shock absorber performance. The utilized measurement method must be completely integrated into the manufacturing process to guarantee shock absorber performance specifications according to the manufacturer?s standards. By utilizing the measurement method developed in this work, the manufacturing process, manufacturing equipment and product specifications can all be tailored to provide improved filling conditions.The developed measurement method provides accurate quantification of the filling degree under a wide range of processing conditions. The method establishes the relative quantity of air in the shock absorber unit by performing in-situ compressibility tests. The fill ratio can be controlled and varied by manipulating the vacuum pressure exerted during the filling process. Performance tests, however, indicate no correlation between filling degree and unit performance..

The aim of this thesis is to investigate how a valuation model of a Private Equity firm is interpreted into a management control system within the company's different organizational levels. A case study was developed based on the infra-net company Eltel. The management control systems developed by Malmi and Brown (2008)(1) was used to characterize the control systems at each organizational level. The building blocks of this system are planning, cybernetic, reward/compensation, administrative and culture. Miller and O'Learys (2007)(2) theory of mediating instruments and technology roadmaps was applied to analyze the mediating process of the valuation model.

Since January 1st 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). The intention of the introduction of IFRS is to achieve international harmonization of accounting rules in order to make financial reports more comparable between companies from different countries. The purpose of financial reports presented in accordance with IFRS is to provide information that is useful to the users of the information. The aim of this paper is to investigate whether the information regarding goodwill and the goodwill impairment test, presented in accordance with IFRS, in fact is useful to a specific group of accounting information users, namely equity analysts. An empirical study is conducted, based on interviews with seven Swedish equity analysts.

SummaryThe purpose of this thesis is to examine what effect the IFRS 2 has on earnings, equity, financial strength and return on equity for listed Swedish companies with active stock option plans. The purpose is further to investigate the companies? attitudes towards IFRS 2 and to find out if companies tend to deviate from stock option plans due to the changed accounting rules. We also want to examine the view of IFRS 2 from an auditor?s perspective.We have used a deductive approach and a mix of quantitative and qualitative research methods with a view to get a completely clear picture within the field of study.

This thesis examines underpricing and the long run performance of IPO firms on the Swedish equity market during 1994-2010. We further investigate whether any correlation exist between underpricing and post-IPO performance during 36 months. We use a sample of 80 IPO firms. To examine the aftermarket performance we compare total return of each firm with a matching industry index. In order to strengthen our analysis, we run a second test, comparing actual return for each firm with expected return, adjusted for firm specific risk.

Harmonics are a well-known problem that has to be dealt with in the design of thegenerator. Internationally accepted standards limits the amount of harmonics allowedin the no-load voltage. These limits can be difficult to fulfill with integral slot winding,where the number of slots per pole and phase is an integer. The presence of thedamper winding often makes the problem with harmonics even worse and harmonicswith frequencies of order 6q±1 arise with significant amplitude. How the damperwinding is designed affect the content of harmonics in the no-load voltage and the aimwith these ? has been to investigate in which extent design of the damper windingaffects the contents of harmonics.Simulations with the 2-D finite element method have showed that if the damper barsis centered in the pole shoe, the amplitude of the harmonics of order 6q±1dependsboth on the ratio between the stator slot pitch and damper bars slot pitch and if thedamper bars are connected between the poles or not.If the damper bars is displaced with ¼ stator slot pitch alternately, the amplitude ofthe harmonics of order 6q±1 is reduced and the influence of the ratio between thestator slot pitch and the damper bars slot pitch will vanish.

Housing cooperatives in Sweden practice very long depreciation times for their buildings and assets, subsequently depreciation costs are very low. This study aims at addressing issues relating to potential upward revisions of these costs and the revenue levels needed by housing cooperatives to address these changes, while also providing a detailed summary of some chosen financial ratios under different circumstances. This study's results are based upon recent (2015) market data within the Stockholm region, collected through a manual process and analyzed quantitatively. On average, housing cooperatives EBIT do not cover their financial costs and have low profit margins. The average depreciation time is considerably above what a technical evaluation by other sources may state.

This study aims to measure the effect of accounting conservatism and to identify thebusiness activities causing firms to undervalue owners? equity. To estimateaccounting conservatism, we have followed the hypothesis that no firm over time cangenerate a return greater than its cost of equity, i.e. CAPM. Thus, if a firm in factgenerates an excess return over time, we assume that the excess return is an estimateof accounting conservatism within that firm.The hypothesis originates from the corporate valuation model ?Economic ValueAdded®? which tries to adjust for accounting bias.

AbstractTitle: The ?Investigator? and the ?Updater? ? new patterns of news use among young adults.Number of pages: 48Author: Anna StrinnholmTutor: Amelie HössjerCourse: Media and Communications, D- levelPeriod: Fall of 2005University: Division of Media and Communication, Department of Information Science, Uppsala UniversityPurpose/Aim: The aim of this essay is to provide an description of how daily newspaper, TV, radio and the Internet are used by young adults in order to contribute to Lennar Weibulls model ?a typology of the Swedish mediasystem from an audience perspectiv?.Method/Material: The method of gathering of empirical material has been conducted by interviewing eight people of how they use daily newspapers, TV, radio and The internet to inform themselves of the daily news. The empirical material has then been analysed by applying a two step method, of first making a summary of the interviews and secondly making a comparison with a model of Lennart Weibull ?a typology of the Swedish mediasystem from an audience perspectiv? .Main results:Two different types of ideal media users can be drawn from the empirical research, the ?Investigator? and the ?Updater?. The updater search for news to stay updated and relies on the Internet as main source of information.

AbstractTitle: The ?Investigator? and the ?Updater? ? new patterns of news use among young adults.Number of pages: 48Author: Anna StrinnholmTutor: Amelie HössjerCourse: Media and Communications, D- levelPeriod: Fall of 2005University: Division of Media and Communication, Department of Information Science, Uppsala UniversityPurpose/Aim: The aim of this essay is to provide an description of how daily newspaper, TV, radio and the Internet are used by young adults in order to contribute to Lennar Weibulls model ?a typology of the Swedish mediasystem from an audience perspectiv?.Method/Material: The method of gathering of empirical material has been conducted by interviewing eight people of how they use daily newspapers, TV, radio and The internet to inform themselves of the daily news. The empirical material has then been analysed by applying a two step method, of first making a summary of the interviews and secondly making a comparison with a model of Lennart Weibull ?a typology of the Swedish mediasystem from an audience perspectiv? .Main results:Two different types of ideal media users can be drawn from the empirical research, the ?Investigator? and the ?Updater?. The updater search for news to stay updated and relies on the Internet as main source of information.

Abstract: The fashion industry is perhaps the most unpredictable one where change occurs very rapidly. In order to be attractive and interesting in this competitive industry, a brand must constantly be up to date and differentiated from other brands to attract the consumers. This has given rise to an increasing growth of brands that cooperate for marketing reasons and more specifically, clothing retailers that perform designer collaborations with exclusive designers to create limited collections.Studies describing the effects of those collaborations on the retailers brands are rare and especially from a consumer perspective. Since H&M has been a pioneer in designer collaborations and has done it more times and for more years than any other retailer we have conducted our study on their case. Our intention was to investigate how the designer collaborations have affected the brand equity and image of H&M, if the collaborations have increased the willingness to pay for H&M's other ranges and if they have affected H&M's ability to extend its brand to higher price segments, through an experimental study.

Studien handlar om reciprocitet i parförhållanden. Den teoretiska grunden hämtas från anknytningsteorin, equity-teorin och sociala utbytesteorin. Studiens syfte är att undersöka hur reciprocitet hänger samman med ovillkorlig självacceptans och relationsrelaterad ångest samt hur ovillkorlig självacceptans och relationsrelaterad ångest korrelerar sinsemellan. Deltagarna (n = 97), 15 män och 82 kvinnor, rekryterades via Internet, där de fick besvara en enkät, sammansatt av tre skalor som mätte konstrukten: reciprocitet, relationsrelaterad ångest samt ovillkorlig självacceptans. Korrelationsanalyser visar en positiv korrelation mellan relationsrelaterad ångest och underläge i utbytet i parförhållanden samt en negativ korrelation mellan relationsrelaterad ångest och ovillkorlig självacceptans.

One of Sweden?s sixteen national environmental objectives strives to decrease the impact on the climate. By 2020, green house gas emissions should be 40 % less compared to the levels of 1990 and a minimum of 50 % of the energy consumption should come from renewable energy sources. Because of this there is a great need of increasing the production of renewable energy. This is where biogas comes in as a competitive alternative.