The effect of methyl jasmonate on resistance against the large pine weevil (Hylobius abietis) in Scots pine and Norway spruce seedlings. A field experiment was conducted in order to determine the dose-response effects of methyl jasmonate (MJ) on growth and defence to pine weevils in Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) and Norway spruce (Picea abies) and to compare the effect of MJ between pine and spruce. In addition a complementary greenhouse experiment was conducted with the same aims as above and to determine the amount of resin ducts and their correlation to the feeding of pine weevils. The field experiment was conducted on a fresh clear cutting in Garpenberg, southern Dalarna in central Sweden. The experiment consisted of 30 blocks with three kinds of containerized seedlings: 2-year old spruce, small pine (before shoot elongation) and 1-year old pine (already shoot elongated). They were all exposed to 4 treatments 14 days prior to the experiment: control, 25 mM/L MJ, 50 mM/L MJ and 100 mM/L MJ. Data on weevil damage and seedling growth were collected after the first and the second growing season. The seedlings in the greenhouse experiment were of the same kind and were exposed to the same treatment as the ones in the field experiment.

The enormous expansion of knowledge society has lead to a path away from the industrial enterprises toward the more knowledge-based entrepreneurship companies. This development has also meant that intellectual capital now can be seen as the core of the new business structure. However the growth has not been reflected in either the legal or the economic regulations in relation to what could have been expected, which means that there is thus a gap between de lege lata and de lege ferenda. This can specifically been seen regarding the prohibition of adding property other than cash applied in payment for shares or regarding issue of new shares when it comes to work and services. The prohibition may therefore be considered to stand against the knowledge companies? advancement.

AbstractThe purpose of this study was to see if there is a connection between smolt length from Brattfors salmon cultivation and temperature. Climate changes are expected to give a higher temperature that could result in a longer growing season for the fish.Cultivated smolt is today bigger than it was before, it is also bigger than the wild salmon. The growth season of salmonids depend on the water temperature, salmonids need 6-80C to grow. Water temperature has been surveyd since the late 50´s in Brattfors. The result shows that it?s now considerable more days per year with higher temperature.

Incubators have grown more popular in recent years. Studies have shown that companies that have been part of an incubator grow faster and have a higher survival rate. The Swedish government realizes that this benefits the economy. Therefore they have started different funding programs in order to support the incubators. The thesis aims to explore the underlying reasons for why companies that have been part of an incubator often experience high growth.

Många ekonomiskt intresserade människor tror fortfarande att de finansiella marknaderna är effektiva såsom Fama:s (1970) hypotes om effektiva marknader förutspår. Insikten om att insatta nationalekonomer idag har en helt annan uppfattning och att forskningen mer och mer visar på en annan bild, har dock svårt att spridas.I denna uppsats ges en grundlig beskrivning av var forskningen står idag. Dessutom görs en empirisk momentumstudie på den svenska aktiemarknaden, vilket visar sig bli ännu ett bevis på att marknaderna inte alltid är så effektiva som det påstås. Resultatet bekräftar att man genom att köpa tidigare vinnare kan tjäna riskjusterad överavkastning på de finansiella marknaderna..

The overarching goal of this paper is to explain the intensive occurrence of partnerships ? regarded as a specific organizational structure ? in the formulation and implementation of Regional Growth Programs.By using theoretical concepts from new institutionalism, the paper tries to examine the explanatory capacity of this theory in the specific case of partnerships. The basis is a skeptical stance towards the conventional interpretation that views partnerships as rational organizational tools. Hence, the purpose of the paper is also to compare our own institutional explanation with the conventional.The paper finds that the occurrence of partnerships can be understood as the effect of an intensive institutional pressure. The government has, in what we regard as the institution for regional development, prescribed the partnership as a rational solution ? a rationalized myth - to the regional growth problem.

Swedish clubfootball of today involves more money than ever before. This developmentdepends on the higher interest for football in Sweden which generates more revenues fromaudience and TV-contracts, which leads to more money from sponsors and an increasingmarket for selling souvenirs. Despite the fact that the increasing interest has generated morerevenues, we can still see reports in the media about economic problems in some clubs. Whatis the reason for this? Do the clubs have the ability and knowledge about economic controlthat it takes to run such a business as the clubfootball in Sweden has become?Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine the economic control in a number of clubsplaying in the two Premier Divisons of the Swedish Football League.

Antidumpning är ett aktuellt ämne som ökat i omfattning under senare tid och som sedermera påverkar handelsflödet mellan länder i världen. I denna uppsats skildras EU:s antidumpningspolitik, från anmälan om dumpning till slutgiltiga åtgärder, problem och tänkbara effekter. Vidare kartläggs EU:s antidumpningsåtgärder mot asiatiska cykelproducenter samt vilka effekter dessa resulterar i. De länder som ingår i undersökningen är Kina, Taiwan, Vietnam, Indonesien, Malaysia och Thailand. Resultatet överensstämmer med de antaganden om importminskning, handelsomfördelning och prisökningar som tidigare forskning kommit fram till även om de inte är generellt applicerbara på alla länder i undersökningen då stora variationer förekommer..

This thesis deals with past and present political attitudes towards the Öresund bridge. It describes the decision making process which preceded the construction of the bridge, and has a short historical introduction to it. It then presents the attitudes towards the bridge of five different political parties, all represented by regional politicians. This empirical information was obtained through interviews with politicians and literature studies. The author then analyzes the empirical information with the help of the human ecological triangle developed by Steiner, and the center-periphery theories of Wallerstein and Persson.To conclude, the author describes what the central problem is in the case of the Öresund bridge from a human ecological perspective and analyzes the empirical data collected..

The prevailing urban migration is a worldwide process. This results in growing cities and a diminishing proportion of people living in the countryside. As the urbanization continues a large amount of the world?s population is expected to live in urban settlements of informal character by 2050. Green Belt has for many years been used to control urban growth and to secure the sustention of larger green areas around towns and cities.

In May 2007 a committee called ??Ansvarskommittén??, assembled by the Swedish government, came with a proposal of changing the Swedish regional structure. The committee which consisted of representatives from all the sitting parties in the parliament proposed that the present regional structure consisting of 20 county council districts and 21 counties would be reduced to between 6-9  regions called ??regionkommuner??.The purpose of this study is to analyze how the committee?s proposal balances democratic and economic values by using a qualitative method. The committee?s proposal is analyzed by a comparison in five political areas with two differentiated regional theories called old and new regionalism.

Lifelong learning (LLL), a concept dating back to the 1920s, is much used both by the OECD, UNESCO and the EU. But while intergovernmental think-tanks and supranational organisations often use the term in a positive sense, many (not least scholars) are critical of the term. The critique either deals with the lack of a universal definition, that the implicit responsibility for LLL has shifted onto the individual, or that the meaning of the term has shifted from a humanistic one linked to the personal development and a better society to a neoliberal one that involves growth, competition, globalisation and human capital theory. This study is based on interviews with nine trade union representatives on their understandings of lifelong learning. The results showed that while LLL was positively viewed by most, there was virtually no communication vis-à-vis members on the topic, most trade unions have no policy regarding LLL, and responses from representatives were sometimes self-conflicting..

The prevailing food and energy crisis of the world, due to the declining reserves of fossil energy and a never ending rise of consumption, forces us to look into new fields to supply our energy demand. The boom of bio energy is criticized, as food crops are used to provide biodiesel and ethanol and the volumes are ridiculously small to supply world demand. Algae are one of the world?s oldest life forms and exist in many different phyla, providing a great variety to choose from, for different purposes. Cultivating microalgae offer a way to produce energy at great volumes without competing with food production and at the same time the algae offer a way to use our expensive nutrients in a more efficient way, besides this the algae are carbon dioxide neutral since their carbon source can be supplied by the atmosphere and the additional energy required can be supplied by algal oil or other renewable sources.

Introduction/Background: Economic evaluations help decision-makers to make informed decisions regarding resource allocation. Information generated from CEA can support evaluations of a new intervention with current praxis. The evaluations also provide information as to whether an intervention is cost-effective, both in economic terms and in health gains. Objective: The aim of this thesis is to investigate the use of economic evaluations in public health, with a focus on CEA. Use of economic evaluations is regarded as both a method for evaluation and as support for informed decisions.

This thesis gives an introduction to securitization in general and the tranching of collateralized debt obligations in particular. It does this by using a firm-value model to simulate the underlying portfolio via monte-carlo simulations.The simulations in turn give a loss-distribution from which the various tranchings of the CDO?s are derived. To get an understanding of the influence of different variables involved in the tranching the simulations are repeated several times where the portfolio variables are changed to generate different tranchings. This to give a understanding of the influence different variables have on the tranching and consequently risks involved in CDO?s in particular but also general risks and problems of securitizations..