Increasing volatility and less political intervention from the CAP in the market price of wheat is making it more difficult than in the past for Swedish farmers to determine the price at which they should sell their wheat. In the past, the Swedish farmer-owned company Lantmännen has traditionally set a guideline price for Swedish wheat every year to which farmers could adapt, but ceased doing so last year. Therefore this study sought to identify the parameters on which the price of wheat is dependent on by using a reduced form model. The perspective adopted was that of farmers. The model proved able to identify the main factors determining the annual price fluctuations in wheat, with all variables included having an impact on the wheat price, except export quantity in the previous year.

The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of joint venture announcements on stock prices behavior and simultaneously to test the German stock market (Frankfurter Wertpapierbörse) for efficiency. We tried not only to analyze the general impacts of a JV-announcement but also to look for differences in the market response to announcements of different types of joint ventures, namely: domestic, international, horizontal and vertical. Our expectations of efficient market were confirmed during our paper, which employed the technique of the standard event study. The calculation of abnormal returns which are the signals for market efficiency or inefficiency respectively were based on the market model, establishing linear relationship between the return on the market and the return on an individual security. The parameters of the model were obtained through regression analysis..

Agricultural soils constitute the base in human food production and soil content of organic matter and plant nutrients together with soil microbial activity are all important parameters for high crop yield of good quality. These parameters are dependant on proper fertilization.Anaerobic digestion of organic wastes for biogas production generates a liquid residue called biogas residue (BR). It contains organic material and plant nutrients which makes ita potential fertilizer for arable cropping. However, it also contains heavy metals and toxic organic compounds and it is therefore in need of evaluation before usage.Microbial tests were performed aiming to evaluate the agronomic traits of four different BR and to find a viable procedure for evaluating slurry fertilizers. Two experiments where soil respiration and soil potential denitrification activity (PDA) was measured at fertilizer addition were performed.

In this thesis proposals for different designs of a borehole thermal energy storage (BTES) have been developed for the building DN-huset in Stockholm, Sweden. To build a BTES results in savings in energy costs by approximately 44 %, i.e. 2 million Swedish crowns annually. Furthermore, a BTES would reduce the annual environmental impact with roughly 75-157 tonnes of CO2 equivalents per year, depending on how the electricity consumption?s environmental impact is estimated.

This paper investigates the possibilities to construct automatized portfolios based on optimizations strategies that could outperform comparable indexes. The study is based on time-series of Swedish stocks dating from 1986 to 2006. In the research four different portfolio optimization techniques were studied. These were: the Classical Markowitz Approach, Mean-Absolute-Deviation, Minimum-Regret and Conditional Value-at-Risk of which the three latter are based on generated scenarios. The behaviour of these models was studied for different choices of parameters such as backward time-horizon and targeted average return.

In this thesis work a Geographical Information System (GIS) based methodology to identify locations suitable for the installation of wave energy converters has been developed. Parameters of importance have been identified and a GIS-database has been set up, containing data about the marine environment. In a case study of the Swedish west coast the methodology has been applied, resulting in a number of maps showing possible areas. The results show that large areas are suitable for installation of wave energy converters, from a technical and economical point of view. When consideration is taken to other interests in the area, such as navigation, fishing and environmental protection, the size of the suitable area diminishes considerably.

The aim of this study was to describe how body language of humans affects the domestic dog (Canis familiaris) and how it can be implanted in the stressed situation that occur at an animal hospital. The subject is brought to notice because the author has experienced that dogs can get more stressed when a stressed and nervous owner is attending. Humans affect each other through posture, facial expression, voice and movement, and are often driven by their emotions, which can differentiate the verbal communication from the non-verbal communication. This occurs both consciously and unconsciously. Every human uses body language but not everyone knows how it is used or how to understand it.

The aim of this thesis was to examine if it is possible to keep nitrogen in the form of nitrate(NO3-) in ponds from one season to another by keeping a high concentration of oxygen in thepond water. This hypothesis was tested by doing a lab experiment where two systems werecompared according to nitrate concentration. One system had high concentration of oxygen inthe water and one had low concentration of oxygen. Before the main experiment wasconducted I did a pilot study to test the system setup and included parameters. The result fromthis study and the main study did not show the same result.

Stabilization of subgrade is an internationally common technique to improve the characteristics of a soft soil. Improving the stiffness and bearing capacity of the subgrade enables the pavement to be designed with reduced depths of subbase and basecourse aggregates. This makes the stabilization technique both economically and environmentally interesting. Both natural and stabilized soils have high inherent property variability that should be considered when the characteristic value is derived. By analyzing the spatial variability in stabilized and natural subgrades it is possible get the parameters needed for reliability?based modeling of soil properties.

Academic research concerning how to determine the power situation in a supply chain where an investment product supplier is involved did not exist. Therefore new models has been developed that analyses the power relations and maps out the power situation in a supply chain. In the future these models can be applied on similar cases by modifying the included parameters. The new models show that case company FAS should focus on the big producers of garbage bag which are Trioplast, Rullpack and Miljösäck. By strengthen the brand FAS can make more money in these relations.

E.ON Elnät has in their project Operational Performance developed a priority tool forconstruction and operation. The tool will help the users to increase the capability to prioritybetween new development projects and removal of faults. The tool can be seen as a measuringfor different bay?s reliability, size and the community usefulness. The result of the priority isdirectly connected to which calibration that is chosen in the tool.The priority tool is still under development and there is therefore an uncertainty about howsensitive the tool is for changes in the calibration.

I dag är det vanligt förekommande att företag använder sig av kändisar i sin marknadsföring. De hjälper till att stärka igenkännandet och får konsumenter att välja just den varan de marknadsför framför konkurrenternas varor. Men är det verkligen så bra att använda sig av kändisar? Finns det andra karaktärer som skapar större igenkännande?Vårt syfte är att ta reda på vilken typ av karaktär som skapar starkast igenkännande till ett varumärke. De karaktärerna vi har undersökt är kändisar, egenskapade fysiska karaktärer och egenskapade animerade karaktärer.Studien har genomförts med en kvantitativ ansats.

Swedish farmers have the possibility to be subsidized by EU rural development programme for grazing animals on pastures to promote the biodiversity of flora and fauna. The environmental remedy sometimes does not allow supplementary feed and at the same time the Swedish Animal Welfare Act and the Swedish Agricultural Board?s regulations for animal welfare and protection states that animals, in this case horses, shall be fed with food of good quality and adapted for the species. The regulations also state that they should have an individual feeding regime that enables them to maintain a normal body condition. The aim with this master thesis has been to investigate if it is possible to keep Gotland ponies on extensive pastures, during late spring and summer and still maintain animal welfare. The horses were assessed every fourth week using a welfare assessment protocol developed in line with the Welfare Quality® project (submitted, Viksten et al) where physical, behavioural and resourcebased parameters were observed. Twelve one-year old stallions of the breed Gotland ponies purchased from different breeders were used in the study.

The focus of this project has been on the drainage tank of the reheater on Ringhals 1. This tank has on two previous occasions received such a high water level that the system automatically emergency stopped. For this reason, events and various readings from these two occasions has been specifically studied and analyzed. In order to prove theories about what causes these problems a model of the system was created in the program Dymola. Using simulation results from the model, we have been able to demonstrate how the system's measured values should look likeunder normal conditions with respect to flows, pressures, temperatures, valve positions and water level in the drainage tank.

It has in a broader extent become important for companies and other organizations with large organizations to have a properly functioning web platform where content management is an essential part. Polopoly is a web content management system developed in Sweden, used by several European corporations but foremost Scandinavian such working in different media related business areas.Our aim has been to analyze this tool and render a report which hopefully will assist the initiator of our thesis; a consulting enterprise called Qurius, in their negotiations with future customers, when to suggest Polopoly as a suitable content management solution.By using case studies at companies currently using Polopoly, our goal is to define which characteristic makes the product a competitive publishing tool. To put our analysis in perspective, we will compare the most important aspects of Polopoly with a similar product.According to the results of our investigation we consider Polopoly being a beneficial choice with regard to a number of important parameters. Finally we have summarized these properties in a list of examples explaining in which cases Polopoly is a preferable alternative as a web based content management platform..