This paper describes and develops a trade off model of optimal capital structure by Bradley et al. (1984). The model is then tested to examine how changes in corporate tax rates affect the optimal capital structure of firms. Based on theoretical implications of the model, four hypotheses are derived stating that firms? optimal debt-to-value ratio is (1) negatively related to financial distress costs, (2) negatively related to non-debt tax shields, (3) negatively related to firm volatility and (4) positively related to the corporate tax rate.

AbstractThis paper discusses how system development methods today support communication between system developers and their customers and end users. Today there are many system development methodologies with different aims and emphases. It is difficult, however, to find among these methods those who promote good and effective communication with customers because so many of these are very technically rooted and not as much directed towards the soft aspects of systems development - i.e. Human aspects. Our own experiences tells that a simple interview can be initialized without us having an idea what to ask the customer about or how to structure it up - nonetheless it?s done, but the outcome is just chance.

Abstract P. Hed. (2011) What is health for men? Bachelor thesis. Gävle: University of Gävle, Faculty of health and occupational studies; 2011.

The aim of this study was to examine how women in a voluntary organization, KRIS (C.R.I.S. Criminals' Return Into Society) express their experience of help and support from voluntary and professional organized social work. This was an empirically based study with, qualitative approach. The methods of data collection were unstructured interviews and participant observation.The central question was which importance KRIS possible may have in the process of the women's return into society from involvement in crime and drug abuse. What can KRIS offer that the professional organization can't?The findings were that mutuality, mutual aid or mutual help based on shared experiences is hard to replace with support from professional organized social work.

The aim of this thesis was to use qualitative approaches to show how four preschool teachers experienced their start in the profession as a preschool teacher. The questions in the stydy were as follows: What kind of expectations did the preshool teachers have before the start in the profession? What did the preshool teachers experience as difficulty and opportunity at the start in the profession? How do they think now about their professional development during the early period in the profession? The empirical material, I got through a qualitative interview method. My theoretical starting point was to take the hermeneutic research perspective, aimed for interpreting and understanding. Theories of Socialization and socialization for teachers, socio-cultural theories and theories of tacit knowledge have been used to analyze the material.

The purpose of this study was to examine how the genrebased instruction applied in multicultural classrooms. My observations were carried out in three different classrooms, whit the educators constantly working on language development off the students. Two observations were carried out in Swedish, with a teacher of Swedish as a second language and the Swedish-teacher working with students together. In these two lessons in Swedish, I took away from Pauline Gibbons model, while the third lesson in civics I assumed from Eija Kuyumcu genre model. Both models are based on the Australian research around the genrebased teaching.

BACKGROUND: Several people die every year. The numbers of deceased in Sweden were 91449 in 2008. This often brings bereavement for the relatives and in hospital with end-of-life care it can be important for the health professionals to support and also take care of the relatives. AIM: The aim of this study is to illuminate relatives? experiences of the caring situation with end-of life-care when a close relative is dying METHOD: Literature review.

The purpose of this study is to identify a successful way of expanding a business on a global market, focusing on innovation products. An analysis was also made to see how internationalization theories are useful in businesses with innovation products. Four companies have been interviewed where two of them have innovation products (Proline AB and Q-Med AB) and the others are widely successful in exporting to a global market (Safegate Group and Weda Poolcleaners AB). Furthermore four interviews have been made with support organizations that have great experience in helping companies in this area (Svenska Uppfinnareföreningen, Almi Företagspartner AB, Exportrådet and The Swedish-American Chambers of Commerce).One of the results that can be identified is the diverse view and will to expand the business. The inventor often has a born global strategy in mind whereas the helping organizations rather expand step by step and only to one country at a time.

Chronic illness is associated with conditions that may result in psychological ill-health in the adolescence. Consequently there is a need for development of preventive psychosocial support interventions for this target group. The objective was to develop, implement, and evaluate the effect of supportive intervention group program for teenagers suffering from chronic illness - aiming at increasing quality of life and supporting mental and physical health. Method: Six different intervention groups were conducted between 2007 and 2011, age 13?17.

Purpose: The purpose of this work is to investigate teachers' professional attitude to homework as a method. The study will also provide answers to the purpose for which the homeworks are used in teaching and if the individual circumstances and needs are met by this method.Method: Qualitative research was conducted through interviews with four teachers from three different schools. In addition, published surveys were used in support of reasoning.Results: Neither the curriculum or the syllabus mentions homework. There are no directives for how much time should be dispensed with and the extent of a homework should be. In teacher training literature the homework is not discussed.

This study addresses mandatory non-trading periods for Swedish stock market participants which have implemented an open-market share repurchase program during the period 2000 until 2010. By locating the date of publication of interim reports, these mandatory non-trading periods called silent periods are examined. The result indicates that repurchase trading activity occurs despite the statutory prohibition. By studying the price support hypothesis assumptions about long- and short-term effect on share price and performance, this study tries to explain these tendencies. An average decline of share price and performance is shown among companies entering silent periods.

Forestry in Sweden is currently conducted in a manner aiming at equating the production objectives and the biodiversity. To ensure that biodiversity is maintained, patches that are considered to be valuable now or in the future is saved in final fellings. How the tree retention areas will grow into the future forest stands is yet unknown.The purpose of this study was to visualize how different scenarios of natural consideration taken at final felling will evolve in a long term perspective, for two rotation periods. Projections of the forest conditions were executed with the decision support system Heureka and its applications PlanStart and PlanWise. The information about the projected forests was then used for the visualizations which were created in the software Visual Nature Studio.

Denna rapport är resultatet av ett examensarbete inom Industriell Produktion vid KTH, utfört vid Avalon PLM AB. Syftet har varit att grundligt utreda vad som krävs för att sätta upp en "first line"-support för användare till Siemens Industry Softwares produktportfölj. Målet med examensarbetet var att ta fram en kravspecifikation för det system som ska hantera kundernas supportärenden, samt hitta och utvärdera ett befintligt system som lever upp till kraven. Vidare togs också en support- och ärendehanteringsprocess fram, vilken beskriver hur ärenden ska skötas.Inledande frågeställningar för examensarbetet var frågor som; Hur hanteras ett ärende? Hur många ärenden kommer supporten hantera per dag? Hur kan supportingenjören få hjälp om ärendena är för avancerade? Är kundsupport bara en kostnad för företaget eller vilka bieffekter kan det medföra?En litteraturstudie gjordes för att få grundläggande förståelse för olika typer av supportkällor, CRM, kunskapsförmedling, syftet med kundsupport och supportingenjörens roll.

Young men who commit sexual abuse is a complex topic. This study is based on litterature on the subject and the material is processed through a qualitative content analysis. The study aims to study how the litterature describes the reasons why young men commit sexual abuse. It also aims to explore what is described to be effective treatment of young men who committed sexual abuse. The study found that most of the young men who commit sexual abuse comes from families where violence and psycohological abuse occurs. Many have themselves been victims of sexual abuse.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the ways in which emotion regulation and mood affects risk taking when it comes to decision making competence. Emotion regulation is an essential part of the attachment process, the development of an autonomous self and functional stress coping systems. Research indicates that there is a relation between a distorted emotion regulation and some psychological disorders like depression, PTSD, anxiety disorders and borderline (or instable emotional personality disorder). There is a definite need to analyze the relation between emotion regulation and decision making competence since it is relatively unexplored. A digital questionnaire was distributed amongst the participants.