This paper analyses how Swedish fine-art oil paintings sold at auctions has performed as a monetary investment during the period autumn 1985 until spring 2006. An average price technique as well as a hedonic regression technique, applied to a sample of 19 213 auction sales, is used to construct price indices. The indices show somewhat different results, which is explained by the inability of the average price model to adjust for relative differences in quality between periods. The hedonic regression model on the other hand captures this effect, why the hedonic index is applied in a financial return model. By adjusting for transaction cost, the financial return of an average investment in paintings is calculated.

Lärarkåren är en yrkeskår vars status är omdiskuterad. Yrket är inte professionellt i samma utsträckning som t.ex. läkaryrket, utan är istället att betrakta som semiprofessionell. Yrket har under 1900-talet genomgått en professionaliseringsprocess och har under historien rört sig närmare eller längre ifrån att uppfylla kriterierna för att räknas som en profession. Denna studie utforskar denna professionaliseringsprocess genom att undersöka diskussioner av elevproblem i lärarförbundets medlemstidning under perioden 1950-2010 och det är diskussionernas diskursiva grund som analyseras och detta med fokus på vilka som uttalar sig, hur påståenden legitimeras och med vilken blick problemen betraktas.

Little attention has been paid in the literature to libraryassistants in Swedish public libraries. In this bachelor thesis,the professional role, work duties, career prospects and statusof library assistants are examined at two public libraries.Because of a scarcity of published information on thedevelopment of this profession in Swedish public libraries,retired library assistants, as well as currently employedlibrary assistants, librarians and a library head wereinterviewed.Since the ?80s, work duties of library assistants havechanged, with a reduction in some of the more manualaspects of library work, the development of new duties and,overall, an increasing similarity in the duties performed bylibrary assistants and librarians.Additionally, the public perception of library assistants as acategory distinct from librarians was investigated bydistributing questionnaires to library patrons. Contrary toexpectations prompted by statements in the literature, asubstantial portion of visitors was found to be aware of thetwo separate categories.Library assistants at Swedish libraries have no careerprospects, unless they undertake studies in their own freetime and at their own cost, and obtain a librarian degree. Adifference between the situation of library assistants inSweden and corresponding professional categories in a fewother countries is that, at present and for several years, noformal education for library assistants has been available inSweden.

This study aim to investigate the conditions framing the professional development situation for physical education teachers (PE) in a small municipality in the south of Sweden. The Swedish National Agency for Education declare that "focus must be directed towards strengthening the teachers' profession", and that "schools need well-trained teachers and good teaching to help students achieve good results". The study focuses both the schools? contribution and the way in which the teachers take own initiative and are motivated to develop their professional skills. The investigation is all based on teachers' perspectives.

Variations in fertility have caused a problematic situation in Sweden among other European countries. According to the Council of Europe we are facing an economic and demographic challenge, when the baby boomers of the 1940?s are retiring. Economists have for a long time studied the connection between economic factors and fertility, and several studies have found a correlation between business cycles and birth rates. This connection is again of current interest 2008, when a financial bubble bursts at the same time as a baby boom occurs.

This thesis discusses the attitudes versus methadone assisted rehabilitation ad modum Dole Nyswander in Sweden during the period 1972-2004. This is done by means of a Foucault inspired discourse analysis applied on the directions issued by the Board of Health and Social Affairs. The context in which these directions were created is also described, in which scientific achievements on methadone treatments during the period, and the main actors struggling to establish and define the discourse on narcotics and narcomania, are juxtaposed to the effects of the work of the Board. It is stated that the directions were largely affected not by scientific results and knowledge on methadone, but by the symbolic connotations of narcotics in Sweden established in the discourse already in the mid 1960´s. Also during the end of the studied period, after the occurence of AIDS had begun making methadone more broadly accepted, the findings of this thesis showed that the legacy of the 1970´s symtomtheory and its severe antagonism against methadone, was still present, in effect, in the discourse around methadone and subutex assisted rehabilitation, and so in the directions issued by the Board of Health and Social Affairs..

This report is a study in voltagelevel in connection with regeneration of brake energy from the tramtype M31 in Gothenburg.In the act of braking, the tram M31 uses electrical braking where the electrical motors generates energy and if possible send it back to the overheadline, where other trams in the nearby can use this regenerated energy for its own driving force. In cases where no other energyconsumers are located in the same section, there is a resistance witch task is to convert this energy into heat. The regulation of this resistance appears to cause an increase in the voltagelevel into far too high levels.Investigations of the trams regulationequipment and its construction have been done. Further have measurements on the overheadline been performed in order to map the voltagevariations during a longer period of time.The result have been showing that the voltagelevel during regeneration often is as high as 880V-920V, more extreme values have not been observed in a large scale. The values are especially high compared to the nominal voltagelevel.

The purpose of this study was to examine how school counselors in a specific municipalityviewed their work situation, if they experienced stress and how they would handle that stress.Five school counselors out of eight in the specific municipality participated in qualitativeinterviews where they could describe their feelings and thoughts. Their experiences wasexamined and analyzed with the theories of coping and empowerment. The results showedthat there were unhealthy levels of stress in the profession amongst the five counselors. It alsoshowed that the uttermost reason for the experienced unhealthy stress was the feeling of notbeing able to give as much time and help to the pupils as they want and need. The reason forthis was that an increasing number of pupils were, and are, experiencing unhappiness and arein need of seeing the school counselor.

From a new perspective, this paper will examine the artillery and the pike role in the period 1700-1712 and the battalion´s battle formation in the Caroline combat tactics. Carolinian battle tactics were practiced during the period 1700-1721. The results from my study will be compared to existing research opinion regarding the selected subject areas, if the result confirms the thesis or question the existing research opinion. The source material used consists of eyewitness accounts from the period consisting of diaries, memoir, biography, general muster rolls and historical literature covering the subject. The analysis shows that the Caroline artillery took part in 12 battles during the period of 1700-1712.

The piglet mortality rates have become a major issue in today?s pig production. While other production traits such as number of born piglets or produced piglets per sow have been improved, the mortality rate has escalated. High mortality rates before weaning does not only affect the economy but must also be looked at as both an animal welfare problem and an ethical issue. The background to this problem has been addressed many times, and its salvation has also been addressed by breeding.

Many tropical rain forests has been lost or degraded as a result of human activities and environmental factors. Since the level of biodiversity is high in the tropics, maintaining these areas is of great importance. Forests like these are often assumed to benefit from forest restoration and rehabilitation. The INIKEA project area in Eastern Sabah, Malaysian Borneo, aims to improve biodiversity and/or species richness in the degraded forest through enrichment planting with indigenous species. The objective of this thesis was to evaluate how different treatments (liberation, gap-cluster planting and line planting) affect the biodiversity of natural regeneration in different forest types in the Rain forest Restoration Experiment, located in the INIKEA project area.

The purpose of Älvdalens besparingsskog is to develop the district and most of all the forestry in Älvdalen. It's owned by about 2 300 private forest owners who's landed properties are located in Älvdalen. Every year the besparingsskogen gives out a lot of its profit in form different types of subsidies for agriculture and forestry. The owners can apply for subsidies for several of the costs that occur in forestry. During the period 2000-2003 the owners are offered forest management plans and pcSKOG-gård at no cost for their private forest properties. The purpose of this master's thesis was to find out if the activity in the forestry changed when the forest owners got new forest management plans and the computer program pcSKOG-gård.

The decrease in the number of dairy farms in Sweden has been ongoing for a longer period of time. But the fact is that this has previously not had any big effects on total amount of milk produced in Sweden. The main reason is that the remaining dairy farms get larger. However, during the past year, there has been a decrease in the total amount of produced milk, because the decrease is faster than the increase within the farms that are left. During the same period of time the supply of milk on the global market also has decreased. In spite of the fact that the global supply have decreased and the fact that the milk price increases, there are dairy farmers in Sweden who chose to exit the market.

Automatic rumination measuring can be applied as a health indicator in dairy farming but is also highly desirable for research purposes. This study aimed to validate the technical functionality of the product RuminActTM, which employ acoustics to monitor rumination duration. The time budget of high yielding cows was studied and possible differences in rumination time between 13 rations were interpreted. Further the study examined what affects daily rumination and rumination efficiency. The validation was performed with direct observations that were compared to the automatically recorded rumination durations.

An increasing number of heat pump producers have developed heat pumps that can be connected to solar panels. In this thesis we have examined the possibilities of connecting solar panels to existing ground source- and geothermal heat pumps that has not been adapted to solar panels. During the work process, a prototype plant has been built to compare our theory with the practical results and with our designed sizing tool. The work has rendered in knowledge that will be used to build a sun module that can be easily connect to the existing heat pump system. The existing heat pump, our test plant, has been supplemented by an advanced storage tank used to allow different operating modes.