This essay discusses and evaluates the international currency market in regards to efficiency. To prove the theory that, the difference between expected and actual exchange rates is explained by the difference in expected and actual interest rates and the difference in expected and actual inflation between countries, a model was developed. This model was inspired by the paper of Sebastian Edwards (1982), and is based on three theories; UIP, IS/LM and the Efficient Markets Hypothesis. The model uses 16 regressions estimated from three pairs of curriencies: $/SEK, £/SEK and ?/SEK.

Genom litteraturstudier samt praktiskt arbete med förbättringar av programvaran File Secure har ett antal lämpliga designmönster för konfigurationshantering i Java identifierats och applicerats. Den typ av konfigurationshantering som här avses innefattar inläsning från en databas till en objektrepresentation, samt ett grafiskt gränssnitt som låter användaren modifiera datat. Det antas att mängden data är förhållandevis liten, vilket har gett upphov till vissa förenklingar. Resultatet av arbetet presenteras i form av ett mönsterspråk för konfigurationshantering, innefattande designmönstren Domain Model, Active Record och det befintliga mönsterspråket Model - View - Controller. Detta kan appliceras i många olika sorters system..

In December 2004 an earthquake coursed waves that hit Thailand. Over 5000 people died, and Sweden was the tourist country that has been effected the worst. The catastrophe precipitated Sweden in crises and the demand became high for Swedish government to act. Swedes followed the development via media, why media became the crucial element for how the public perceived politicians? acting.

Value-at-Risk (VaR) is among financial institutions a commonly used tool for measuring market risk. Several methods to calculate VaR exists and different implementations often results in different VaR forecasts. An interesting implementation is historical simulation, and the purpose of this thesis is to examine whether historical simulation with dynamic volatility updating is useful as a model to calculate VaR and how this differs in regard to type of asset or instrument. To carry out the investigation six different models are implemented, which then are tested for statistical accuracy through Christoffersens test. We find that incorporation of volatility updating into the historical simulation method in many cases improves the model.

Due to the forest industry downsizing, many communities in rural forest regions in Canada and Sweden are facing problems to survive. In order to create community sustainability, resilience and well-being in remote forest regions, the view on the forest resources has shifted towards multiple use, through the concept of sustainable forest management (SFM). Beside the economic and ecological elements of sustainability, the social forest values are needed, contributing to the human well-being, local participation, stakeholder collaboration, human rights and cultural connection. In this thesis the embodiment of the social component of SFM within Prince Albert Model Forest (Canada), and Vilhelmina Model Forest (Sweden) will be examined. Being partners and facing similar challenges as rural boreal forest regions, the two model forests are compared through analysis of projects and activities, conducted interviews and organization documents. Looking at projects mentioned as successful by the interviewees, they all have elements from the social values of SFM. The direction can be explained by the introduction of the Forest Communities Program in Canada, demanding the Model Forests to work towards community stability and resilience, the Model Forest organization concept itself and the way global focus are increasing around social forest values. In the future, it may be important that the role of the MFs enable some kind of political authorization and legitimacy in order to improve conflict solving and indigenous rights equality.

Making accurate predictions of private consumption expenditures is a difficult task. This thesis examines if consumer confidence can be used to forecast consumption. Using regression analysis, the link between consumer confidence and private consumption expenditures is analyzed for Sweden between the years 1994 and 2005. Two different models are estimated. In the first model consumption is regressed only on consumer confidence, while model two is extended to contain more variables.

During the past few years a vast amount of research has been done to increase the understanding of the complex ecosystem of the Baltic Sea. Modelling and simulations are important tools to increase knowledge of the system. A suitable model must be simple to use and the parameters and variables needed in the model must be easy to access.In this paper a dynamical mass-balance model, CoastMab, which is validated for smaller coastal areas, has been used to predict concentrations and transports of phosphorus in three large coastal areas - the Gulf of Finland, the Gulf of Gdansk and the Gulf of Riga. CoastMab uses ordinary differential equations to regulate inflow, outflow and internal flows. To reflect seasonal variations in temperature and different types of flows the model has a temporal resolution of a month.

Background: Diabetes is a common disease where the degree of self-management is of paramount importance. Individual factors influences both cooping and general wellbeing among diabetic patients. Glycemic control is known to be important but other factors ought to be considered. Aim: The aim of this study was to describe how individual self-management influences the general wellbeing among adult diabetic patients. Method: This literature study is based on scientific articles.

Tron på den egna förmågan (self-efficacy) och upplevelsen av kontroll (locus of control) påverkar människors agerande och bedömningar av sina möjligheter. Syftet med undersökningen var att öka förståelsen för hur studenter från psykologlinjen i Stockholms Universitet bedömde sina chanser att få ett arbete direkt efter utbildningen. Fyra studenter deltog i undersökningen och data samlades genom kvalitativa halvstrukturerade intervjuer. Resultatet visade att möjligheterna till att få arbete efter examen ansågs vara goda men att den praktiska tjänstgöringen för psykologer, PTP, sågs som en flaskhals. Erfarenhet, kontakter, ålder, kön och utbildningsinriktning ansågs kunna påverka möjligheterna till att få en PTP-tjänst och påverkade också deltagarnas bedömning av sina chanser.

As an amateur it can be difficult filming from several angles at the same time as this requires several cameras. It´s also hard to film at occasions when it´s not appropriate to manoeuvre the camera manually. Systems for solving these problems already exist, but it´s either more expensive, professionalsystems or cheaper systems with limited functionality.The purpose of this project is to develop a cost efficient solution to the problem above that offers a better functionality then existing commercial systems. The biggest difference from existing products is the wireless video feedback from the camera to the remote unit.The result of the project is a system consisting of two units, a manoeuvre unit with a cradle for the video camera and a remote unit from which the operator can control pan and tilt of the video camera.Communication between the two units is wireless.On the remote unit there is a joystick and a display mounted. In addition to this, there is also an IR receiver that is capable of reading the signal from the cameras own remote and sending it to the manoeuvre unit.The manoeuvre unit is equipped with one motor to control the tilt function and one motor to control the pan.

This thesis project has focused on studying ÅF?s business concept Energy Collaboration, which is their way of selling energy efficiency services. Thereforeongoing projects have been analyzed. The purpose was to determine achieved energy efficiency, costs and profitability for the studied projects. It was concluded that the Energy Collaboration is a good way of selling energy efficiency services, since the customer takes no risk and energy savings of about 15-25 % can be achieved with simple measures.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine how the Management Control System is affected by a change in the owner structure from family owned to not-family owned. The study also tries to identify explaining factors behind the possible effects to the Management Control System. The study is based on a comprehensive case study on the company Alcro-Beckers which, in year 2001, was acquired from the owner Lindéngruppen fully owned by Ulf G Lindén. The acquirer was the non-family owned company Kemira OY, a Finnish stock listed group. The empirical foundation mainly comes from interviews conducted with people who were/are directly connected to the company, either as employees or as representatives for the owner.

Enligt Carlsson och Rönnqvist (2005) och Frayret et al. (2007) blir det allt viktigare att arbeta med supply chain management inom trävaruindustrin. En utmaning är att finna ett arbetssätt för att hantera variationen i kundens efterfrågan. Idag hanteras variationen oftast genom onödigt stor lagerhållning (Lee et al., 1997b; So och Zheng, 2003).                                                                               Syftet med studien är att utreda påverkande faktorer som bidrar till en varierande efterfrågan inom trävaruindustrin samt föreslå hur uppkomsten av dessa kan undvikas. För att svara på syftet har tre frågeställningar tagits fram och en fallstudie genomfördes på ett hyvleri.

The ISO standard ISO/IEC 17799/SS-627799-2 is a guidance for organizations to realize their information security goals. In spite of this standard, studies show flaws regarding information security in organizations. In particular flaws regarding overall view, knowledge and clear roles and responsibilities have been observed. The ISIT (Information Security Integrated Three level) model and its guidelines, developed in this thesis, help organizations to identify the required processes and procedures as well as the logical process flow. The thesis is based on theoretical studies and a case study within a multinational company.

The environmental demands are increasing when it comes to product development. EcoDesign isabout minimizing the environmental impact of a product, considering the entire life cycle of it,without compromising other qualities like function or cost. In this master of science thesis amobile phone has been analysed with Ten Golden Rules in EcoDesign regarding production, useand End of Life. Also a functional and an environmental profile were made. The goal was tomake a new concept phone, based on the previous analysis, which communicates userfriendlinessand sustainable development.