Ever since it was first introduced in an article in the Journal of Finance 1952, Harry Markowitz? mean - variance model for portfolio selection has become one of the best known models in finance. The model was one of the first in the world to deal with portfolio optimization mathematically and have directly or indirectly inspired the rest of the world to develop new portfolio optimization methods. Although the model is one of the greatest contributions to modern portfolio theory, critics claim that it may have practical difficulties. Partly because the Markowitz model is based on various assumptions which do not necessarily coincide with the reality.

In recent years the elderly care in Sweden has gone through several structural changes with the main purpose of delivering a more efficient service. The aim of this study is to compare the management control system in a privately and a publicly managed elderly home. A qualitative study was conducted which included interviews, observations of meetings and reviews of relevant documents. To be able to identify possible differences the framework of Hood consisting of seven dimensions was used. An analysis of the selected dimensions showed that the differences in management control were minimal and Brunsson's theory of politicization and 'company-ization' were used to explain why..

This report describes the manufacture and control of a flying platform. The report describes the basic and fundamental theories required to get the platform flying. It touches on subjects such as A/D-conversion. PWM-control and PID-control. The sensors used in the platform are a gyro and an accelerometer.

On some occasions it may be inappropriate with a cameraman behind the camera. In somecases there is no cameraman available or it is a smaller event, like a family celebration, to befilmed. It can also be difficult for a cameraman to shoot from certain angles. One solution forthis kind of situations can be to remotely control the camera movements. There are thosekinds of solutions on the market today but they either address professional filmmakers or thefunctionality is limited, for example by the absence of wireless remote control.This project aims to develop a solution to the problem with absence of wireless remote controland also a solution with more flexibility and less complexity than today?s solutions.

The aim of this study is to analyze the justification of a financial incentive that rewards students who rapidly finish their studies within the language education ?Swedish for immigrants? (sfi). Thereby, we want to see what assumptions are made about the students, and relate this to experiences of the education at a local level. We applied a text analysis on a government bill about the incentive, which showed that the deficiencies in the education are said to be caused by the students? lack of effort.

BACKGROUND: The isolation facility is an important ward in veterinary hospitals. This is where infectious patients are treated in order to reduce the risk for cross-contamination between the infectious patients and other patients and humans in the hospital. But it can only function in a safe manner as long as adequate precautions for infection control are adhered to. This has shown to be a problem in many isolation facilities in veterinary hospitals in Sweden. AIM: The aim of this paper was to examine which factors that can affect the quality of the infection control in the isolation facility. The aim is also to stress the importance of adequate infection control practices. METHOD: Two interviews were conducted with staff from two veterinary hospitals.

This thesis studies private equity firms' implementation of management control systems in their portfolio companies and whether the systems are affected by cross-national differences. A comparative case study examines five different private equity firms to derive if there are any differences between the private equity firms' management control systems in the United States, Europe and China. The empirical observations are categorized according to the framework developed by Merchant (1985) and further developed by Merchant and Van der Stede (2003). Theory on the effect of multinationality on management control systems, also developed by Merchant and Van der Stede (2003), are used to explain possible findings. The applied theory includes the cultural dimensions developed by Hofstede (1984) and Hofstede and Bond (1988).

Background: 2009 it has occurred a crisis in some of the member states of the European Union: Spain, Portugal, Italy, Ireland and Greece. Despite, some major banks in the world had begun to recover from the financial crisis that occurred from 2007 until 2009, there were still banks who found it difficult to survive. Greece is one of the countries that suffered from the financial crisis. The high budget deficit and the unsustainable debt are underlying the crisis.Banks as financial intermediaries have important function in a nation?s economy.

This paper examines how individual social welfare officers argue about the conditions in foreign aid. The paper is a qualitative interview study there nine social welfare officers from four local governments have been interviewed.The results are divided into two areas. First, the client's responsibility over their own lives   and self-determination. These two areas are then analyzed separately.The analysis assumes an aletisk hermeneutics where the basis for the attribution of the result is Max Weber's vocation ethics and the more recent research about foreign aid.The conclusion of the study was that social workers believe that the client's responsibility for their own self-sufficiency outweighs supply. Financial assistance must be justified in order to be paid regardless of whether this causes rejection of application for financial aid..

This master thesis has been carried out at Scania R&D at the department for Powertrain Control System Development during the winter of 2010/2011. In the thesis the writer examine and evaluate the existing method for collecting information from the tests carried out during the development of the Powertrain Control Systems software. It also contains suggestions for how a new method that enhance the validation elements could look like.The master thesis uses Vicentes theories of the ecological approach and theories of how knowledge sharing of tacit and technical information works within an organization and between the organization and its customers. First a workplace analysis at Scania R&D is carried out to see how Powertrain Control Systems work and how they test their software. Second a control task analysis, where the aims decided on after the interviews, is compared to the existing method.

Women ledaers and profitability, is there a correlation? Earlier research show different outcome on the correlation between women leaders and profitability. A Swedish consultant firm, Caran has a belief that more women leaders would create more financial profit, we ask us if that is the true situation. Using two different IC measurement methods we have shown the difficulties in calculate intagible resources, which methods that can/ can not be used and if women leders create financial value. We found the women leaders in Caran to add more value per dollar spent on the woman leaders than the value added per dollar spent on men leaders.

I denna studie undersöktes om känsligheten för stress varierar mellan olika ångestsyndrom. Respondenterna utgjordes av 36 män och 47 kvinnor, samtliga medlemmar i Svenska ångestsyndromsällskapet, som fick besvara 15 bakgrundsfrågor samt PANAS, SE-formuläret och Locus of Control. Några skillnader i stresskänslighet kunde inte påvisas. Dock uppvisade kvinnor högre grad av extern Locus of Control än män, medan män hade fler sömnproblem än kvinnor. Bortfallet i undersökningen är betydande eftersom del av respondentgruppen föll bort.

The purpose of the study is to investigate the possible effects of an unstable ventilation system and its influence on energy use and thermal comfort. The report also explores how qualified personal working with HVAC view and handles system control.In order to meet the requirements in energy efficiency and a comfortable indoor climate control regulation is a prerequisite. With optimized increased complexity of the climate systems, it becomes more challenging to control the system and the risk of unstable control increases. No previous studies about what affect an unstable system can have on energy use and thermal comfort have been found.The report is based on several tests were the controlling variable has been increased until the system becomes unstable. Two different types of unstable systems have been investigated.

This report describes the construction and development of a control box, which is a tool for testing and verifying a certain model of Rapid?s built in staplers (model A6102). Basically the function of the control box is to interpret any errors that may occur in the stapler and to make it possible to test fire the stapler.The control box should be able to communicate with the stapler using a specialized communication protocol. The different data such as errors, firmware etc. from the stapler is presented in plain language on a display.

This essay presents a business plan for the idea of a Pet Shop in Stockholm. The initial purpose of the essay was to investigate weather the company would be financially profitable or not. During the process we encountered problems and pitfalls that we felt contributed to the fact that our business idea is yet not realized. Therefore the second purpose of describing the process that an entrepreneur goes through when starting a new business came about. Besides the business plan for Pet Shop we present a selection of the theories that we found relevant for our situation, among others behaviour of entrepreneurial teams, network theory and execution.