The purpose of this study was to illustrate a parental perspective of children´s participation and quality of live through personal assistance. Important aspects of parents' experiences were highlighted based on how they experienced participation and quality of life for their children. We chose to use a qualitative approach in the form of four individual interviews with parents from different municipalities in central Sweden. The study was conducted with a narrative approach in which we used a holistic perspective. Parents' experiences were highlighted over time to create a complete picture.

The aim of this study was to investigate how seasonal variations affect the quality of logging residues. The study was hosted by VIDA Energy. Logging residues can be processed and transported within different systems. Today the dominant systems are chipping at landing and bulk transportation of logging residues. In these systems the handling of the logging residues are carried out in the same manner up to the landings. Moisture content at the time of chipping is the primary quality parameter. Fine fractions of logging residues are strongly dependent on moisture content in storage.

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.

The European Council agreed in 2008 on a climate and energy package to combat global warming. This package is valid for each EU member country and means that greenhouse gas emissions must fall by at least 20% and the EU's energy use to 20%, consisting of Renewable Energy in 2020. The Swedish Government has set stringent climate and energy with the intention to set an example for the rest of Europe. For example, renewable energy sources account for at least 50% of energy use and our climate emissions to fall by 40% by 2020. A combination of these goals and a steadily rising oil price has led to an increased demand for wood fuel in the form of such branches and tops.

The spread of digital photography has created major changes in the previously stable Swedish photofinishing market. We investigate how companies act to survive in the face of technological change, through our research question: What strategies have actors in the photofinishing business chosen during the changeover from analog to digital photofinishing? Using a deductive method, we have conducted semi-structured interviews with 11 actors in the photofinishing business. Innovation management studies innovation from a number of perspectives, describing effects of innovations on the competitive ability of established actors, and on the value of their resources. The companies were not prepared for the speed of the change.

Denna uppsats undersöker huruvida ett antal aktiemarknader på Balkan tillfredställer den svaga formen av marknadseffektivitet under perioden 2003-2007. Svag marknadseffektivitet innebär att priset på en finansiell tillgång reflekterar all historisk prisinformation. Om en marknad är svagt effektiv leder analys av historisk kursinformation inte till överavkastning eftersom all historisk information redan är diskonterad av marknaden. För att pröva den svaga formen av effektivitet för Kroatien, Makedonien, Montenegro, Serbien och Slovenien genomförs olika statistiska tester såsom autokorrelationstest, runs test, varianskvottest och regressionsanalys.Samtliga tester i studien genomförs på dagsavkastningar. Resultatet av undersökningen visar att samtliga avkastningsserier lider av positiv autokorrelation, vilket innebär att den historiska avkastningen i viss mån kan användas för att predicera den framtida avkastningen.

Parallel import in the European Union is the perfectly legal activity under Art. 28-30 EC of buying goods in a low-price country in order to ship and sell them in a high-price country. The pharmaceutical market in Europe is subject to the subsidiartiy principle of Art. 5 EC and heavily characterised by national regulations that lead to significant price differentials between – generally speaking – Northern and Southern Europe. This incites the activity of parallel traders in the first place, who act as arbitrageurs.

The aim of this thesis is to map important strategies and factors that a firm, in this case Gunnebo Lifting AB can use when establishing themselves at the Russian market. The Russian market is today considered to be an emerging market. Within this study several areas of theory connected to entering new markets have been touched upon. These areas are market analysis, relationships and networking, internationalization processes, distribution chains, export issues and finally cultural distances. The empirical data for this thesis were collected through qualitative interviews.The results that arose when analyzing the theories combined with the empirical data pointed towards five strategies and factors of importance.

This study concerns paratransit service in a relatively small municipality in Sweden. The aim of this study is to describe the user's experience of paratransit service. The question formulation is mainly built around the user's experience of paratransit service and their view on what impact paratransit service has on their lives. The empirical data consists of ten interviews with ten different paratransit service users with ages ranging from 25-95 years. The data has mainly been analyzed through concepts of independence, empowerment and trust. The result of this study shows that paratransit service in many ways can be described as a crucial part of the users' lives.

Organisation and market orientation of elderly careThis comparative literature study is intended to describe how elderly care is organised and financed in Germany and Sweden. Furthermore, it analyses the degree of competition and market orientation in both countries' care systems. Important aspects in this context are the kinds of measurements which are used on the two markets and the question if there are quasimarkets.The theoretical backgrounds of the study are Esping-Andersen's "Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism" and Harold Wilensky's convergence theory. Esping-Andersen's theory describes Sweden as a social democratic and Germany as a conservative welfare regime which means that there are different conditions for the development of welfare. The use of Wilensky's theory shows that both welfare systems are converging since the end of the 20th century.

Background: As a result of the financial markets ever ongoing product innovation a new derivative was introduced in the USA in 1997. A derivative that derived it's value, not from the price of an underlying asset, but instead from a climate factor. It's been known for a long time that revenue in certain industries are affected by weather conditions. The suppliers of weather derivatives claim that these weather sensitive businesses can user weather derivatives in order to lessen weather risk. Purpose: To do a critical evaluation of how weather derivatives can be used by companies as a risk management tool.

In the era of urbanization and globalization, many small, rural and post-industrialcities struggle for growth. The competition for citizens and visitors is intense, andone commonly used strategy is to promote the city to a target audience. Placemarketing, however, is homogenized to a great extent. Marketing thus seems likea useless approach, yet almost every city does it.By using discourse analysis and institutional theory, this essay aims to explainwhy the city of Kramfors markets itself. There are several problems arising due tothe marketing of places, especially concerning the discrepancy between the city?simage and identity.

EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) är en av de olika tekniker och metoder som finns för att etablera e-handel. Trots att tekniken erbjuder en rad fördelar, exempelvis automatisk överföring av information utan mänsklig inblandning, är utbredningen inte så stor bland små och medelstora företag. Anledningen till detta är främst för att det är för dyrt och komplext att införa. Syftet med detta arbete är att undersöka om implementeringen av EDI har gett förväntad lönsamhet i små och medelstora företag.För att söka svar på frågeställningen har enkäter använts som metod. De slutsatser som kan dras från enkätundersökningen är att de flesta små och medelstora företag införskaffade EDI av andra skäl än lönsamhet, då främst krav från kunder.

The purpose of this paper is to examine and analyze past development of mutual funds in large and small mutual fund companies and see if there are any differences between these two segments. Limitations on the number of funds have been made by choosing Nordic mutual fund companies that invest in emerging markets over an 11-year period. The study is made on 66 mutual funds managed by 13 mutual fund companies in which the segment of small fund companies includes seven fund companies with assets under management less than 100 billion SEK and the segment of large mutual fund companies includes six fund companies with assets under management more than 400 billion SEK. In the comparison of the segments the Sharpe ratio has been used to calculate the risk-adjusted return. The study shows small differences of the risk-adjusted return between the segments.

The last few decades the development in the field of electronics has been huge. The components performance gets better at the same time as the manufacturing cost decreases. Many of the design moments that have to be done, are done automatically today, but it can get better. Especially for analog circuit design.At Electronic System in Linköpings universitet, research is in progress to develop a tool that can design analog circuits in reasonable time. It means that it has to size the components (transistors, resistances, capacitances etc), so that the circuit can fulfill the performance requirements.