The rise in prevalence and severity of obesity and related diseases imposes increasing costs on society. The objective of this thesis is to discuss and estimate the possible effects of a so-called fat tax as a tool for minimizing these costs. Two alternatives for differentiation of the value-added tax (VAT) on food are compared. The first alternative is an increase of the VAT levied on food containing saturated fatty acids. The second alternative is a subsidy on fruit and vegetables in the form of a VAT at zero percent, instead of today?s twelve percent.

AbstractThe control of quality standard ISO 9001 has made the internal audit to be experienced as police authority and paragraph control. Because of that, motivation for internal auditors is low. To counteract the experience, there is a possibility to integrate internal audit with improvements in company?s processes. Theory has shown that a qualified and competent auditor can provide information that can help the organization's managements to make the right decisions that will improve product quality and result in new customer contracts.An opportunity to observe an internal and external audit at one of the case companies gave rise to this study.

Data retrieved from airborne laser scanning represents a new source of forest data. Today, the technology has matured so that it can function in an operational environment. The aim of this study was to compile areas of application of laserdata in forestry. Moreover to analyze costs and accessibility of laserdata. The goal was to provide private forest owners information to support assessments of possible benefits of laserdata.

In order to produce grain in an economically rational manner numerous decisions have to be made. One of these decisions is what tillage system to use. The cost of the tillage system is a large part of the total cost in grain production. Different tillage systems result in different distribution of fixed costs, operating costs and timeliness costs. The price of the produced grain and cost of inputs also affect the best way to produce grain.

Background: It has been a common perception in the media in recent years that external shopping malls extinguish the trade in Swedish downtown areas. Factors that promote external shopping malls are that customers become more and more indolent and more people buy cars. Despite this fact, downtown areas have a great deal to offer when it comes to creating a pleasant atmosphere. Furthermore, customers are becoming more demanding and want something extra while doing their shopping. More and more shopkeepers therefore realize the importance of events as an instrument to offer experiences to the customers.Purpose: To investigate whether shopkeepers in downtown Linköping consider the external shopping mall in Tornby a competitor or not and, if so, in what ways the trade in the downtown area has been affected by Tornby.

The aim of this study was to quantify the productivity and the costs of different harvesting systems (teams), containing harvesters equipped with accumulating harvester heads and forwarders, in first commercial thinnings were an integrated harvest of pulpwood and energy wood were performed. In the beginning the plan was to study and measure 20 sites before and after harvest. Due to storms during the summer of 2010, complete data could only be obtained from 8 of these 20 sites. Seven of these sites were privately owned and one was owned by UPM, all of the sites had been pre-commercially thinned. The mean stem density before harvest was 2578 stems per ha and the mean stem volume was 0.074 m3solid over bark.On average 1518 stems/ha was harvested.

Purpose ? The purpose of this thesis is to develop a total cost model for container transports and create a tool that calculates a suitable transport quantity from an economic view, which fulfills the demands on delivery service. To achieve this purpose the following questions will be answered:Which costs are affected by the decision between the two transport alternatives LCL and FCL?   How does the decision of sending product LCL or FCL influence the delivery service?  How can a tool be constructed to simplify the decision-making process regarding the choice of sending products LCL or FCL?  Method ? A total cost model was developed. This model is supported from existing literature.

With the globalization, companies in the West chose to shift production to developing countries to cut down costs. This had a major impact when child labor and very poor working conditions in these factories were discovered and led many companies to take responsibility for their suppliers and the employees by adopting voluntary so-called Codes of Conduct.There is a subtle balance to enforce improvement of working conditions for employees at suppliers´ factories and to keep costs down. On the one hand, companies would like to conduct extensive audits at their suppliers to ensure code of conduct compliance and thus protect their legitimacy. On the other hand, audits are expensive so companies would like to minimize audits to keep costs down. Companies thus have to strike a delicate balance in relation to how many and what suppliers they choose to audit.

Master's thesis, Master of Business Administration program, School of Business ofEconomics at Linnaeus University, Management, Course code, 4FE10EAuthors: Anton Milemo and Christoffer WideénTutor: Magnus ForslundTitle: Focus on employee turnover - an ethnographic study on the insurance companyTrygg-Hansa?s outbound department in VäxjöBackground: The costs of losing employees, recruiting new people, making a selectionof potential employees and training them are all high. The costs often exceed onehundred percent of the annual salary for the otherwise vacant position. In addition to thedirect costs of employee turnover troubles, things such as work confusion, loss oforganizational memory along with strategic skills can arise. The employee turnover rateof Trygg-Hansa?s outbound department in Växjö is too high according to the officemanager.Purpose: Understand the causes of high employee turnover in a Swedish insurancecompany.Methodology: This thesis consists of an ethnographic study of a Swedish insurancecompany.

Otitis externa is a disease regularly encountered in veterinary practice. It is estimated to be the most common disease in the external ear canal of dogs and treatment is often delayed due to unfortunate pet owner ignorance. Owners tend to assume that scratching of the ears and head shaking are natural behaviours in their dog and may be neglecting the problem unknowing of how severe it actually is. A literature study has been carried out to examine the causes of otitis externa in order to present a collection of measures that can be used in the treatment and prevention of the disease. In turn these measures can be advised to the dog owner and used in the home environment to make the best qualifications for healthy ears in the dog. The causes of otitis externa have been divided into predisposing, primary, secondary and perperuating causes.

This report shows methods and workflow when exploring the potential to change Outotecs HCD Silver Electrolysis machine to a module type. It?s done as an attempt to lower the workshop and installation costs and to give customer a more accurate prize directly. To do this a concept was produced which was set to a stress test. Additional objectives were to investigate freight and installation procedures, pneumatic connections and to calculate the difference in cost.Once the concept, a reinforced type of the original frame, was chosen stress tests in computer simulations were made and appropriate alterations were made.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine how investments are justified in the Swedish data center industry, with a focus on cooling equipment. This is achieved through semi-structured interviews with 20 different interviewees. These interviewees represent different facets of the industry and facilitate an understanding of which factors, such as: investment costs, operating costs, reliability, environmental impact and the influence of external and internal actors, come into play and to which degree they impact the investment decision-making process. The results show that primarily low operating cost in the form of low energy consumption is the driving factor when it comes to the procurement of new equipment. A lower environmental impact is a positive side-effect of lower energy consumption.

Since some years Linköping has invested in biogas production, mainly from offal's, residuals from food industry and manure. The municipality goes for biogas in the local traffic and in all transportation. It is also possible for private car owners to run their cars on biogas. The purpose of this essay is to perform a cost-benefit analysis and examine if the project has been beneficial from a social point of view. The effects have been identified, measured and monetarily valued. The essay is limited to include the year of 2006 only.

Investment costs for eight different type housing systems for dairy cows has been calculated in order to compare the building costs as a function of herd size, shelter type and automatization. A commercial calculation programme for building was used and complemented with prices of equipments specific for dairy cow building. Herd sizes were 120, 250 and 400 cows. The milking equipments were automatic milking system (AMS), parallel parlour with 32 stalls (2x16) and rotary parlour with 24 stalls. Shelter was either insulated equipped with automatic cable driven scrapers on solid alleys, automatic feed wagon on rails, or uninsulated with manual manure handling and a tractor driven mobile mixer wagon on a drive-through feeding table. Building cost per cow or per kg milk was calculated using an average life time and 6 % interest rate and annual milk yield is 9 500 kg/cow and year. Structure effect 3-4 % higher for an insulated structure than in an uninsulated for 400 and 120 herd respectively. This is much lower compared to what is normally argued.

In this study we try to focus on the costs for wear parts on different type of soil tillage machines and at Väderstad Rapid drilling machine. We have studied some of the leading types of cultivators and disk harrows. Among the cultivators we have investigated Väderstad Cultus, Dalbo Dinkomax, Horsch Tiger and Terrano. At disk harrow we have looked at Amazone Catros and Väderstad Carrier. We have made more detailed study on costs for wear parts, working depth, driving speed and diesel consumption.