Pigs are often mentioned as relatively intelligent animals when compared to other nonhuman species. Despite this knowledge, the vast majority of pigs are kept under conditions that lack opportunities to satisfy their cognitive needs. Therefore, a need to evaluate the present scientific studies about pig cognition was acknowledged, in order to evaluate to what extent the knowledge is applied in the husbandry of finishing pigs. If a considerable lack of application was determined, suggestions about how to use the obtained information to improve pig welfare were also to be made. A synthesis of the present literature was made, and it could be concluded that a considerable amount of studies had been carried out in the present area. The pigs of today appear to have the same behavioural and cognitive needs as their ancestor, the wild boar.

The Swedish ostrich production started about thirteen years ago and still there are no Swedish recommendations regarding ostriches? space requirements. The European Council give recommendations and the Swedish Board of Agriculture (SJV) has a proposal, but so far the producers follow Danish regulations regarding space requirements. The Swedish Animal Welfare Agency are about to set standards for the ostriches? space requirements, and therefore the Swedish ostrich producers, together with The Federation of Swedish Farmers (LRF) ask for a scientific background to these decisions. This thesis is a preliminary study at the prospect of a future experiment on which factors important for ostriches? space requirements and welfare will be examined more thouroughly.

This study aims at examining if abnormal returns have existed on theSwedish stock market surrounding the ex-dividend period between the years2002 and 2006. The ex-dividend period that is studied is the ex-dividend dayplus the following five days. The stocks that have been studied are the thirtymost traded stocks which together constitute the index OMXS30.Furthermore, the study investigates if the size of the dividend has an effecton the size of the abnormal returns.Previously performed studies on both the Swedish stock market and foreignstock markets have shown that abnormal returns exist during the ex-dividendperiod. However, the results from these studies are not unambiguous, why itis interesting to follow up these studies with a new study.The method used for investigating the existence of abnormal returns aroundthe ex-dividend period has taken its starting point in the previouslyperformed studies. However, some changes have been made in order tocalculate for differences in risk between different stocks (using beta) whichhas been neglected in the previous studies.The results of our study are that abnormal returns have existed for four outof six days in the ex-dividend period when calculating a mean value over allfive years.

The environmental issues have during the last decenniums gained an increased role in both the political arena and in the market economy. The society is therefore more knowledgeable about the environment and our impact on it. Through this enlightened state, stakeholders tend to put pressure on the organizations of today. They, more or less willingly, incorporate this responsibility to be a part of their business. Entrepreneurs in the environmental area have seen this rising market as an opportunity to gain market shares and other positive outcomes.

The Energy Performance Certification in Sweden was developed as a tool to achieve the Government's target to reduce Sweden's energy consumption by 20 percent by 2020. The Energy Performance Certificate has previously received some criticism for not fulfilling its purpose. Questions that formed the basis for this report is how the energy performance certification provides support to buyers of single-family houses and if the energy performance improved in terms of reliability. The report begins with a background description that describes how the energy declaration works and some of the findings of previous evaluations and surveys. A survey to investigate the broker's position to energy performance have been conducted as well as interviews with buyers and sellers of houses. An investigation whether the energy performance can vary between different calculation programs, depending on various assumptions made by the energy declarant, has been made.Brokers and sellers have proved negative attitudes towards energy performance, particularly brokers.

The economic prerequisite to many farmers in Sweden after the EU membership and the new agriculture policy has generated large demands on the farm management. Until year 2004 you got a grant based on what you had produced and not on consumer demand. In 2005 a new economic aid (Mid Term Revue) was introduced and the conditions has changed again. Due to this I have chosen to do a cost-benefit analysis on a case, to investigate if the present production is sustainable in the future. My conclusion is that the profitability is acceptable even if the farm has a high debt. But to make the production more profitable the products produced should be refined as much as possible at the farm, to get maximum economic return.

Societal expectations of responsible corporate conduct are currently a fact. It is manifested ina corporate need for limiting and managing external effects, such as environmental impact.An environmental management system is a tool for organizations to structure theirenvironmental work and increase their efficiency. Managing the corporate operations toaccommodate to environmental objectives requires an organizational understanding of theobjectives as well as the procedures. A condition for a successful implementation is the coworkers´ willingness to participate and collaborate.A study made on the co-workers attitude towards the ISO 9000 standard (i.e. qualitymanagement system) reveals that the earlier positive findings are not completely true.

SUMMARY Several studies have shown that weaning pigs are in great need of heat. The reason for this is mainly because the pigs are given very little feed just after weaning. Some of the pig producers of today have tried to get along with these problems by building some kind of hut for the pigs. Some of these pig houses have been included in this study.The study has shown shortcoming functions for the pig cottage. The expected heat increase has not occurred.

This thesis has been carried out at the Building and Civil Engineering Programme at Chalmers University of Technology in cooperation with NCC Technology. The study aims to investigate the optimal design of a library of standardized structural solutions for in-house multi-family buildings and what benefits it brings. Today NCC use technology platforms to improve efficiency and simplify the construction process. The platforms provide the constructors guidelines on how construction details should look like, but the details are not complete. NCC Technology started in the spring of 2013 a project to investigate what benefits there are to create a library of standardized structural solutions for the constructors, with more detailed solutions than in the platforms.

Risk management is a key competency that is constantly being researched how it can be improved within project management. The risk management process consists of four major steps: identify risks, assess the risks? significance on the project, evaluate and address the key risks and follow up.The majority of companies seem to neglect certain identified risks, and decide not to mitigate if the risk does not cause adverse effects to the business. To counteract undesirable consequences and help organisations to become more effective at managing risks an initial work has been conducted for a risk repository.The project develops a proposal on the design of a risk repository which aim to effectively support a database implementation. The study includes literature studies which resulted in a relational model for database implementation.

Today there are over 100 000 stray cats in Sweden and of these 10 000 are found in Gothenburg. There are several instances that try to reduce the number of stray cats. The problem for stray cats is primarily the suffering they may face in hunger, cold, predators, diseases, parasites, accidents, etc. The cats receive no veterinary care and may die from a simple infection that easily can be cured with antibiotics. Stray cats also can spread diseases to domestic cats, be a sanitary problem and compete with other small predators on prey. Authorities working with stray cats are the Country Administrative Board and the police authority.

Lean is one of the recent years most popular methods for organizations to use in order to increase efficiency, productivity and quality. Despite Lean's increased popularity, Lean is still difficult to define and can be explained and described in different ways. Previous studies have also shown that Lean is difficult to implement and challenging to maintain successfully. Knowledge of Lean is viewed as a necessity in the implementation of Lean, which leads to that organizations often chooses to bring in this knowledge through external consultants or other experts in order to implement Lean in their organization. Thus, it is interesting to examine the consultants view on Lean and the implementation process of Lean.

This thesis is a feasibility study into how Fresenius Kabi may rationalize their destruction process in regards to cost, recycling, and work environment. The two main objectives are to identify scrap flows and the possibility to improve or replace the equipment that is now carrying out the physical scrapping. The flow has been visualized by a flow chart of the material and communication. A chart of the problem established to visualize where improvements are necessary. Based on the problems proposals are presented on how to improve the flow thru the plant.During analyze of the physical scrapping equipment it was also necessary to take a deeper look at how they are carrying out there work today, how does the procedure look like, working environment and where are the weaknesses.

Denna studie handlar om den fartförlust och därmed den ökade energiförbrukningen som drabbar fartyg på grunt vatten. Syftet var att ta reda på hur mycket kortare en grund passage behöver vara för att den ska vara ett bättre alternativ än en lång och djup rutt med hänsyn till bränsleförbrukning och tidsåtgång. Resultatet av detta blev att det inte går att dra några generella slutsatser som gäller för alla fartygstyper men att det går att se tydliga tendenser. Studien hade även som målsättning att skapa ett underlag som skulle kunna användas av nautiker vid planering av resor, detta presenterades i form av en sammanställning av de resultat som erhållits vid beräkning av fartförlust i öppet vatten. Någon sammanställning gjordes inte för begränsat vatten eftersom exempelfartygen där fick likadana resultat vilket skulle ha gjort en sådan överflödig.

Syftet med studien var  att  kartlägga, belysa och förstå  hur måluppfyllelseprocessen fungerar på en gymnasieskola med yrkesförberedande program. Med  måluppfyllelse-process  menar vi alla aktiviteter där lärare  tolkar  och  förmedlar  kursmål, bedömer prestationer samt förmedlar denna bedömning. Vidare är syftet att studera  elevernas delaktighet i och reaktion på denna process.  Studien genomfördes med en kvalitativ ansats med faktaintervjuer och fokusgrupps-intervjuer.  Vi har tagit utgångspunkt i Vygotskijs teori om den proximala utvecklingszonen och begreppen formativ och summativ bedömning.