According to many scholars America's soft power is in decline, a power resource whose importance has been increasing in world politics. This makes it interesting to examine if there is a difference between how Democratic and Republican administrations wield their soft power.This thesis is a hypothesis-testing study and the purpose is to test the hypothesis that Democratic administrations, to a greater extent than Republican, can create, utilize and defend soft power. My thesis is based on Joseph Nye's theory of soft power and the focus of this study is the aspects of the foreign policy resources. In order to measure this concept I have made my own operationalization where five different indicators serve as my guidance. I use the method of least likely-cases to select and motivate the administrations being tested, which gives me a comparative study of the Democratic administrations of Lyndon Johnson and Bill Clinton and the Republican administration of George H.

This thesis aims to open the Pandora?s Box of hedge fund styles through an index-based style analysis. This information asymmetry is due to both less strict disclosure requirements and inherent nature of hedge funds. We employ a multiple unconditional linear regression model wherein 23 Swedish hedge funds are regressed on 10 style indices. In addition to the increased interest in hedge funds and their performance drivers, our unique approach with regressing return on return motivates this study.

A comparative essay between the findings of research and practical methods in the English classroom conserning vocabulary learning in a foreign language..

Investment in hedge funds is a relatively new phenomenon for investors compared with other forms of savings. In recent years, the interest has increased among investors in investing their money in hedge funds, given the protection against declines in the market they are aiming for. Their main purpose is to generate a high return at a low risk regardless of market trends. This they can achieve by having fewer restrictions that offer more flexible investment strategies and freer investment opportunities.The purpose of this paper is to identify how the selected hedge fund strategies have performed during the recent economic downturn. We also want to clarify the claim that hedge funds exhibit a positive absolute return regardless of what the market is performing.In order to answer the purpose of the essay and its problems, we have used a quantitative method with a deductive approach in the processing of data.

A possible way to reduce pollution and slow down the process of global warming is to increase the usage of renewable energy sources. One of these renewable energy sources is solar power. With the aid of solar panels and solar cells the energy from the sun can be transformed into both heating and electricity. The requirement to use the sun in this fashion is a suitable surface, for example a big roof, an angle between 40-60 degrees and that the surface should be exposed to the south. Almost every farm meets these requirements.

In today's society it is becoming more and more important with direct marketing. Some of the direct marketing is done through e-mail, in which companies see an easy way to advertise himself. I did this thesis work at WebDoc Systems. They have a product that creates web documents directly in your browser, also called CMS. The CMS has a module for sending mass e-mail, but this module does not function properly and WebDoc Systems customers are dissatisfied with that part of the product.

Den här uppsatsen behandlar huruvida det går att mäta marknadsföringsaktivitet i sociala medier eller inte. Idag används Return of Investment (ROI) mätningar för att mäta vilken avkastning en marknadsföringssatsning ger. Syftet med uppsatsen är således att klargöra för de begrepp och mätmetoder som används, samt deras tillförlitlighet. För att besvara de framtagna frågeställningarna har omfattande datainsamling gjorts i form av skriven litteratur och intervjuer. Det har även gjorts egna observationer genom mätningen av en marknadsförd kampanj i de sociala medieverktygen Facebook och Twitter.

The purpose of this study has been to evaluate whether a Low temperature bio-mass dryer could be integrated with the local district heating system in Malå. The aim is to increase the thermal efficiency of the cogeneration plant in Malå, by lowering the temperature of the cooling medium. Another benefit that comes from this is improved combustion efficiency at the power plant, since drying the fuel causes an Increase of the heating value.Simulations has been made in Excel, and with use of linear regression, to find out if it is profitable. Data for this purpose has been supplied by the power company Skellefteåkraft and furthermore SMHI.The result of the Calculations shows that a very efficient bio-mass dryer is needed, if yield of investments should be made possible. An Investment of 4,27 Mkr, in a dryer, could at a such criterium return 60000 kr/year, if the price of the biomass is 190kr/MWh.

Today?s globalisation has opened up borders between countries as can especially be seen with the opening of the European Union. This has increased possibilities of communication and transportation, which has provided companies with greater expansion opportunities throughout the world. However, difficulties may occur when companies choose to establish abroad, for instance when French companies establish in Sweden through subsidiaries, the lack of knowledge and understanding, when it comes to the business culture, customs, and values within the host country, as well as the culture and the structure within the company, may contribute to misunderstandings and inability to work in an amalgamated manner. These barriers are a cause of unsuccessful penetration within foreign markets.

Recently there have been a lot of talk a about the financial crisis and recession. This is understandable since the crisis, which initially was limited to the U.S. now has spread its concern globally in form of bankruptcies, less investment and lots of people have lost here jobs. The purpose of this thesis is to examine how the financial crisis have affected the construction industry relating to market and personnel, but also examine what measures the construction companies have taken. The examination was carried out by information received from the majority of construction-related websites which then was followed up with interviews in the various construction sectors.

Biogas mainly consists of methane and carbon dioxide, where methane is theenergy-rich gas, and is naturally created when organic matter breaks down in absenceof oxygen, also known as anaerobic digestion. A biogas plant re-creates the anaerobicconditions inside a digester where the organic substrate is fed into and digests toproduce biogas. The gas is then used to produce energy by combustion and can beseen as a completely renewable fuel.Today, energy from biogas is used primarily by major stakeholders such asmunicipalities and thus the plants become very large with high investment- andconstruction costs. There are currently few small plants in Sweden, even though thepotential for agriculture and medium-sized to smaller farms to become self-sufficientin terms of electricity and heat is great. Farms have a natural stock of digestibleorganic material in form of manure or crops for example, which are constantlyavailable.

The Swedish cooperative Lantmännen Ekonomiska Förening has initiated a project labelled "Operation Blåljus" that includes an extensive program for closing down elevators. The number of elevators will be reduced from 92 to approximately 15 after harvest of 2007. The objective of Blåljus is to increase the price of grain with 10 öre/kg. A project has been initiated at the Lantmännen Grain division where the purpose is to provide the farmers with support in their decisions and practical advice how they can load a 35 ton grain truck on 30 minutes. The result from the project will serve as a support system to the farmer in his ambition to achieve cost efficient systems to load a truck with grain on the farm.

In Uppsala CHP Plant, there are six pressure reducing valves to reduce the pressure from 15 to 3 bars, before six absorption heat pumps. During the process the energy is conserved but losses occur in form of exergy. The aim of this thesis is to reduce the losses of exergy. This can be done by letting turbines replace the pressure reducing valves.In this thesis an investigation has been done of the conditions today, the conditions after the change from pressure reducing valves to turbines and a comparison of three different types of turbine solutions. The three examined solutions are one turbine, several helical screw expanders and several small turbines in parallel with asynchronous generators.The six absorption heat pumps have been divided into two groups; one group of four and one group of two absorption heat pumps.

The background of this research is that Swedish food products have hard to compete at the home market, depending on imported food products that increase more and more for every year that pass by. The ethic values LRF associate with Swedish food products, many customers have hard to put in relation with condition of foreign agriculture. Most customers today inquire high quality, safety and convenience in the food which they are eating. The source of their food seems to have less meaning. Many restaurants and bigger households appreciate Swedish food products and wants to buy them but price differences against foreign wares are to high. We have done oral interviews with wholesale dealers, restaurants, public purchasers and with different market organisations, there we have discussed buying strategies, the way they see the primary producer, the conscious of guests, choice and attitudes to Swedish and foreign products, distribution of power in the food market chain and to what position and suspension, they want the ranks of suppliers to have. The result shows the share of imported wares within restaurants and bigger households are at a high level and will continuing increasing. Within these sectors the final consumer in many cases put less effort in the origin of the raw source of food.

2013 a decision was made that all projects at the Swedish Transport Administration shoulduse BIM (Building Information Modeling) to some extent from 2015. BIM is an approachthat allows for streamlining of projects by the use of a 3D-model created in an early stage ofthe project. The 3D-model can carry information about the facility throughout its life cyclefrom planning to management. The use of a 3D-model can help the project to detect errors inearly stages of the project when it is easy and cheap to fix the error instead of finding theerror in the construction phase when it is costly and time consuming to fix it. 3D-models alsolead to improved communication both within the project groups and with the public.