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.

Life Cycle Cost, often abbreviated as LCC, is a common tool for comparing the total cost of different alternatives, such as heating and cooling methods. Common heating and cooling methods in Sweden are geothermal energy, district heating and district cooling. This report aims to evaluate how different heating and cooling methods differ from each other while being applied on three different types of buildings, using selected LCC-models. Information about the selected LCC-models wasretrieved from each separate model and its website. Reports and agencies were used as sources for information about the heating and cooling methods.

Background: A company?s choice of capital structure is influenced by the access to internal and external capital but also by the opportunities and threats that the management perceives in the environment and the management?s attitude towards risk. How an individual perceives and interpret the environment depends on the cognitive structures, which are shaped by personality, background and earlier experiences. Accordingly cognitive structures can be expected to influence the choice of capital structure. Purpose: Out of a cognitive perspective we intend to study the relationship between the way a company views it?s environment and what capital structure it chooses to have, in order to contribute to an increased understanding about what lies behind a company?s capital structure policy.

Is the new technology always the best? This final project tries to determine if BIM is the melody of today, or if traditional 2D drawing is recommended. Perhaps a compromise is necessary, utilizing both methods.In order to answer this question, different views from the industry have been retrieved through reports, producers of software and users. The approach has consisted in building a 3D model of the school Råslättsskolan, house 01, along with interviews with people involved in the building process.When working in 2D it is hard to include the third dimension, mistakes are done and collisions happen that must be corrected, in most cases at the construction site. BIM is an incredible help since the model allows you to detect collisions and correct them.

Aim: The aim of this present study was to assess the dental caries prevalence in children and adolescents aged 3-19 in the Nordic countries, and to examine if the caries prevalence is affected by socioeconomic and cultural differences.Method: The study is a literature review based on 20 scientific medical reports based on the aim of this study.Result: Decayed missed filled surfaces (dmfs) of the 3-year-olds varies from 0.3 to 0.99 and from 0.9 to 7.3 in 5-year-old children. The Nordic 12-year-olds have similar numerical values. In Nordic 14-year-olds caries prevalence increases. In the late teens there is a reduction in caries prevalence. Children at Greenland have five times more teeth decayed than other Danish children.

The graduation essay has been carried out in co-operation with Kalmar Industries in Lidhult, Sweden. The purpose of our essay was to develop a complete construction solution on a hoist that could lift a laying wheel, lift it up and then turn it 90 degrees. After that the wheel shall be placed in a special holder.The background of the essay is a record of reports of damage wheels when they been incorrect lifted with a forklift. The hoist shall be used together with the same forklifts that manage the wheels today. Together with our instructor at Kalmar Industries we developed a requirement specification and from that we got free hands.However this was not the main task from the beginning, then a simular hoist should be develop but used directly in the assembly workshop without using a forklift.We started to find principle solutions that later was evaluated against the requirement specification.

The purpose of this thesis is to analyze the design and function of an engine production management?s control system and its intended function, and to contrast it with the present management control systems in use on an operational level. Interviews conducted with employees from all levels of the engine production are the main source of this study?s empirical foundation. Information has also been gathered from relevant written material such as annual reports, internal documents etc.

I have observed that hedges are not as prevalent in gardens in the north of Sweden as in the south despite a number of beneficial qualities attached to their use. Consequently, the primary purpose of this essay is to examine the potential for the use of ligneous or woody plants as hedges in a cold climate. The aim of this study is to provide information about the various varieties of ligneous plants that can be used for both pruned and unclipped hedges in the north of Sweden. Because the hardiness of the ligneous plants is a vital factor here, only plants that are hardy enough to survive in the Swedish hardiness zones V to VIII are included in this study. Roses, dwarf shrubs, conifers, bushes with a final height of less than 1 metre and plants that ?bleed? have been excluded.

This paper reports a study on the usability of e-commerce accessed through smartphones. There is much research in the usability of mobile interfaces and many sets of design patterns have been created but a few studies are available for specific domains, and in this report we focus on mobile e-commerce. In this study a framework is developed for how to design mobile e-commerce interfaces with a high degree of usability. Furthermore, the study also contributes a method to how other specific domain can develop a framework with general standards to work from when creating a web interface. By examining two sets of design principles and 14 design patterns, we evaluate which ones are critical in the design of a mobile e-commerce interface for achieving a high degree of usability.

What can make us identify ourselves with places? Why do we feel stronger for certain environments? Is it possible to change the identity and how can we do it? What exactly is building identity on a site, what elements it is safest to hang on to when the wind of change is blowing? In this paper, I?m going to discuss the subject identity in different ways and from different angles. Important questions I have had, has been how to analyze a site and what is the importance of identity and the possibility of changing it?The first part of the paper aims to provide an introduction to the concept of identity. I'm giving a short explanation of what identity is and how places relate to identity.

The view on which kind of fiction that should be mediated to the public through the Swedish public library system has since the late 60´s been dominated by what in this Master?s thesis is called: ´the discourse on quality of literary fiction´. The aim of this thesis is to examine to which extent this discourse still plays an active role in the Swedish public library system or if that discourse has been replaced by a more market-led, demand responsive view, where the features of ´quality´ and ´culture´ have been downplayed and replaced by a ´customer?s service view´ on how and why fiction should be mediated to the public. The methodological and theoretical perspective in this thesis is led by the understanding of the discourse analysis in Michel Foucault?s ´The Archaeology of Knowledge´.

This article presents a retrospective case study combined with a review of the current literature concerning canine gestational diabetes. A total of 14 cases have been collected from six different clinics in Sweden. There are few previously published reports on canine gestational diabetes. Gestational diabetes is a disease that rarely occurs in pregnant bitches. The condition is due to the rise of progesterone that occurs during the estrus cycle.

The purpose of this work was to research how baby nurses define the concept child maltreatment and how they conduct themselves to mandatory reporting.The central questions were; How do the baby nurses interpret the concept child maltreatment and which children do they consider comprehending the concept?What are the reasons that children are maltreated according to the baby nurses opinions?Do the baby nurses apprehend that they meet children that are maltreated in their work?How do the baby nurses interpret the mandatory reporting and what course of action do they use when they suspect child maltreatment?Nine baby nurses were interviewed. The material was analyzed with the help of a phenomenological method.The participators idea of the concept child maltreatment was focused on observing signs from the child and concrete actions from the parents. The outcome of this concept is that the participators categorization is neither or nor. The participators knew about the mandatory reporting and they did a further interpretation because they focused on the risk of the child.

Purpose: To explore the purchasing function, mainly the supplier selection activities, in the fast fashion apparel industry. The purpose is 1) to explore the criteria associated with supplier selection for fashion products, and 2) to analyze the purchasing activities in order to find characteristics and trends which are considered to be strategic for the buying company. Method: The empirics consist of qualitative interviews with employees with responsibility for the companies' purchasing activities, as well as information gathered from articles, annual reports, and company websites. Result: The study indicates that qualitative criterias have increased in importance, and have become an important part of supplier selection for fashion goods. A number of characteristics where identified as important for purchasing fashion goods, which can affect choice of supplier; examples are increased collaboration, increased re-buys and increased use of logistics services.

The recent development in several countries? legislation and best practice recommendations in relation to corporate governance in general and audit committees in particular have affected Swedish listed corporations in the form of the Swedish Corporate Governance Code and the coming EU-directive. This paper aims to discover what factors affected Swedish listed companies to form audit committees when this was entirely voluntary. We collected data from the annual reports of 121 Swedish listed companies and formed eleven hypotheses as to what factors we believed affected the voluntary formation of audit committees based on Agency Theory, economies of scale and circumstances specific to the Swedish environment. We then analyzed the data through the use of a multivariate logistic regression model.