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.

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.

In the beginning of this century United Nations expressed their concern about the lack of female participation in politics through a number of resolutions and conventions. To ensure sustainable development and democracy, United Nations argued the importance of women?s participation in every level of politics within a state.Burma is a country that is in the middle of an ongoing democratization process and women are not considered to participate in this process. The purpose of this thesis is therefore to analyze the experience of politically involved Burmese women in their political participation progress.This study has been realized through semi-structured interviews with nine Burmese women, in both Thailand and Burma. The questions that have been asked are about what societal and cultural barriers women meet when they are, or want to be, political involved, both from the society and within their own political organizations.

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.

In this thesis, the conditions of using the maintenance method live work at the Swedish TSO, Svenska Kraftnät has been analyzed. The study is limited to only include live work on 220 and 400 kV. The live work method is a type of maintenance that can be done, on lines or stations, even though they are still energized. The purpose of this thesis has been to map the present live work situation at these levels in Sweden. The study is based mostly on interviews with people who have specific field competence with in live work but also with personnel at Svenska Kraftnät.

The purpose of the study is to analyze what conditions the specific company provides employees to enable organizational learning. To clarify the framing of the study a few quastions has been specified to narrow the issu. The questions that has been used are: what opportunities does the company creat to enable organizational learning and how does the emplyees contribute to organizational learning.In the search of knowledge to the previously questions this study becames a qualitative study with an ethnographic approach based on observations and interviews. This method gives the knowledge that makes us understand the actions that takes place in the oraganization and the shared image the oraganization provides. An understanding for the employees and the organization has been achived after compiling the empirical material from observation notes and transcripts from the interviewsIn the work whit the analysis the empirical material based on transcripts and observation notes has been the main material.

The differences between the sexes when it comes to land and property ownership are enormous. This paper deals with issues concerning women's land and property rights. The aim of the study is to investigate what general factors are effecting women's access to and control of land. In addition, this paper aims to explore the effects of liberal formalism in relation to gender equality and the distribution of land. Formalism and formalization of women's land rights alone won't lead to equality in land distribution or women's emancipation.

Business development is to bring forth the entirecompany and through effective, market renewalprocesses to create sustainable profitability.1 This mightbe difficult, especially for smaller companies who lackthe experience and also tools to make correct forecast.2The purpose of my thesis is to investigate andexplain how a small business can remain flexible andcreate products in new markets by making the brandappealing and credible.In my thesis I have investigated how a company canextract benefit from its brand and identify the benefitswhich are the most unattended in a new market. Bydoing so, the company can systematically developconcepts for new business opportunities. I hopethat my thesis may provide tools and ease businessdevelopment process for smaller businesses.The purpous of my thesis I have studied theories ofbusiness development, brand and brand extension. Inthese theories I have used existing methods and I havecreated my own methods of business development.Through this thesis I have worked with AvelutionAB (a small that produce products for recoveryand comfort). I tested the theory and methods withAvelution which has resulted in a business developmentstrategy as well as two concepts that show howAvelution in the future might develop its business basedon the benefits Avelution and its products create..

In recent years the construction industry has been exposed to increased time pressure which has resulted in a higher amount of wastage. Today 35 % of all construction projects in Sweden is "wasted". Time pressure has risen due to increased competition on the market, with more actors entering the construction business, therefore profit margins decreased which has led to a more pressing need for decreasing the amount of wastage.Bravida is Scandinavia's largest supplier of installations and provides specialist services in electrical installations (heating and sanitation), and ventilation. Mahdi Bawaqneh's task was to investigate where, how and why wastage occurs in the company's projects and how to prevent such wastage. The thesis covers the subjects of lean production, communication in projects and planning of projects.

The world is getting smaller. Global markets, political processes and communication technology bring people together. Even though many of these processes are dynamic and constructive, they have also resulted in a need for better and more effective ways of international conflict resolution. This thesis investigates central issues connected to the concept of humanitarian interventions in relation to current and future legislation of the European Union. The overall question is whether the rapid globalization process has resulted in a change of international law towards more liberal view where authorization of the security council is not always needed? And, if there has actually been such a liberalization, how does that affect the legal possibilities for the European Union to carry out armed operations without the consent of the global community?The conclusion of the thesis is that international law has been modified mainly in two aspects: First, the concept of sovereignty is no longer seen merely as a right of the nation, but also as a responsibility.

A large amount of our time is spent indoors in an artificial climate. To make the experience pleasant there are requirements on the ventilation and the heating system. At the present time the most common form of heating is a radiator system complemented with a ventilation system. A ceiling heating system with combined heating and ventilation can replace the two separated systems. The benefit with a ceiling heating solution is that it saves space since the radiator system is no longer needed.

In the 10th of April 2010 the Polish Presidential plane crashed outside of Smolensk in today?s Russia. 88 passengers and 6 crewmen died a tragic death, among them the President of the Republic of Poland, Lech Kaczy?ski. A national week of sorrow was proclaimed and citizens all over Poland went out on streets and markets to honor the newly deceased President.

A change has occurred in terms of recruitment to teacher education. From having been an educationof high status and reputation, a reduced application rate has led to lower admission requirementsand thus that students with much lower educational qualifications entering, which in turn means thatthe education status and reputation have been reduced significantly. Mathematics, on the other hand,has always been a topic of high status and reputation. Although there are few students who chooseto study to be a mathematics teacher. By conducting a survey of students on teacher educationtoday, both with mathematics and other approaches, I wanted to get answers to my questions aboutwhat influences students' choice of education: who are the students studying to be teachers inmathematics? Do they distinguish themselves from the student teachers who studies to be teachersin other subject specializations? Pierre Bourdieu's sociological ideas about cultural capitaltransmitted from parent to child constitute the theoretical framework of the study.Early in the study, I noticed that there is a difference between students studying to be a teacher inpreschool, primary or middle school and them studying to be a teacher in secondary and highschool, especially in terms of the mathematics student teachers.

This report is the result of a master thesis carried out by the author, student at the Royal Instituteof Technology(KTH). The task was performed as a product development process at a companycalled Ameibo AB, located in Stockholm. It is the final task of the studies at the Master'sprogramme Design and Product Realization. The report is structured in a chronological order anddescribes the methods used, the implementation of these methods and a presentation of theresults given from these studies.Ameibo is a company located in Stockholm, distributing films on the internet. The aim of thismaster thesis was to investigate the possibilities of entering the market for portable devices.