This paper discusses the advantages and disadvantages of using different benchmarking models to measure and compare the efficiency of Swedish gas distributors. It also discusses to which extent the results of a benchmarking study should influence the revenue-cap which will be implemented in the gas distribution sector in Sweden from year 2011. The discussion is based on arguments from both theory and practical applications of benchmarking. The results suggest that benchmarking Swedish gas distributors against distributors in another country using a parametric model is most favorable, but the reliability will be increased if non-parametric models are used also. Partial and total productivity measures could be used to confirm results of other benchmarking analyses.

The accident frequency in the construction industry has shown a downward trend every year but this trend was broken 2010th. It is often lack of precautionary measures within work environment and safety that is the cause of accidents. The big construction companies understand the importance of precautionary measures within work environment and safety, as they spend a lot of money and time on that matter. By examining the work environment and the safety of the small construction companies you can see how they work. The report will presents how these small companies work with work environment and safety, and also how they follow the safety instructions that are available and how they make use of safety equipment.

Denna utvärdering av Umeå universitetsbiblioteks (UB) övergång till RFID-teknik (radio frequency identification) tar upp hur personalen har upplevt konverteringstiden och övergången. Syftet var att undersöka den involverade personalens åsikter och attityder kring omställningen och de eventuella konsekvenser och effekter som RFID-övergången fört med sig.Undersökningen genomfördes med korta uppsökande intervjuer vars frågor utformats i samråd med Umeå universitetsbiblioteks projektledare för RFID-konvertering. Frågorna resulterade i kvantitativa svar men respondenterna gavs möjlighet att utveckla sina svar med egna reflektioner. Av de totalt 17 respondenterna var nio män och åtta kvinnor i åldrarna 32-64 år. Resultaten visar på en till stora delar nöjd respondentgrupp, majoriteten tycker att övergången till RFID har fungerat bra, de flesta känner sig opåverkade i sin yrkesroll efter införandet och endast ett fåtal har lämnat konverteringstiden med några bestående men som drabbat deras arbete eller de själva. Bland respondenterna finns det en generellt positiv inställning till RFID-teknikens framtid på arbetsplatsen och ett flertal hoppas på en vidareutveckling och utbyggnad av tekniken..

The aim of the thesis is to highlight external factors to explain why the EMU was created. The external factor considered here is the monetary policy of the United States, which often conflicted with European interests. The statistical data in the thesis, as well as previous research, show that even though the EU economically in many ways had become an equal partner of the US during the second half of the 20th century, the union still faced US influence and dependence.The results of the thesis can be explained with neorealist theories on power measured as an actor's distribution of capabilities and balancing of power. An actor that is equipped with the world's leading currency is more independent from others. Other actors, on the other hand, become increasingly dependent on the major currency and the policy of its owner.

The political landscape is constantly changing and influenced by outside forces. The strong connection to the traditional media has evolved to include a new important part, social media. A good way for the politics to utilize social media is through their youth associations, whose main purpose is to engage young people and spark their interest in politics. Due to the increasing influence of social media, the politicians, parties and various actors have to adapt to its demands, to be able to gain visibility on these platforms. One way to adapt is to become more entertainment driven, because these platforms are a safespace where people find time to relax and have a good time. With a growing emphasis on simplified, engaging and more fun political massages, political communication has changed its form. This phenomenon is referred to as ?politainment? and encapsulates the merging of politics and entertainment. The purpose of this study is to examine and measure the frequency of politainment in Swedish political youth associations political communications.

In today?s horse keeping, there is an increasing awareness of the importance of movement and activity for the horses comfort and tenability, while tradition has it that horses should be kept in boxes and small paddocks. In order to develop housing systems that fulfils and optimizes the horses needs regarding movement and activity, we need to know more about factors that influence the activity patterns of horses. A first step is to be able to record and analyze the gaits in horses with an automated system. This could be done by use of accelerometer data.In this pilot study, existing accelerometer technique was used to characterize the different gaits in horses (walk, trot and canter) by studying how their respective signal patterns differ and how this is influenced by the size of the horse.The accelerometers being used in this study measures the movement in three different spaces; horizontal, lateral and vertical.

Bakgrund: Musikindustrins tillväxt under det senaste decenniet har varit starkt influerat av digitaliseringen över internet. Nedladdningen av musik, övergången från en konkret produkt till en immateriell tjänst och ständigt förändrade beteendemönster hos musikanvändare i den digitala miljön har resulterat i en hel del problematik för leverantörer och distributörer samt föranlett stora ekonomiska förluster. Men förändringarna har också gynnat och bidragit till nya affärsområden och möjligheter för musikindustrin. Internets genombrott och den snabba teknologiska utvecklingen har skapat en hårdare konkurrens inom branschen, och företagen måste därför hitta nya sätt att omfamna webben som en ny och kraftfull marknadskanal samt dra nytta av de möjligheter som det innebär för försäljning och distribution av digital musik.Forskningsfrågor: Hur arbetar musikindustrin med digital marknadsföring och vilka digitala plattformar används för att marknadsföra sig på?Hur har den digitala reformen inom musikbranschen påverkat marknadsföringen för de olika aktörerna i branschen och hur arbetar de idag för att nå ut till konsumenterna?Syfte: Syftet med studien är att beskriva och analysera hur den teknologiska utvecklingen har påverkat den digitala marknadsföringen i dagens musikindustri.Metod: Studien är genomförd i kombination av en flerfaldig forskningsmetod där ett kvantitativt betraktelsesätt har använts för att styrka kvalitativa resultat och tvärtom.

By reading earlier research on Generation Y, content marketing and on social media during the working process the problem has gradually changed, in accordance with an abductive research approach. The study focus has developed from examine marketing methods on marketing towards Generation Y to include on what social media platform Generation Y is most susceptible for content marketing.The purpose of this study is to help companies whose target market is Generation Y to aim their content marketing through the right distribution channels, to save time and money. To meet this objective and to answer the main question of this study, empirical data was collected through a web based, quantitative survey which was completed by a total of 301 respondents, all of them belonging to Generation Y. The collected quantitative data was contrasted with existing theory and was analysed.The study concluded that Facebook is the social media channel where Generation Y feel most susceptible for content marketing, followed by YouTube. .

During test flights SAAB uses the data acquisition system COMET 16. The part of the system that receives the signals from the sensors and converts them is called KSM 15. The purpose of this thesis is to develop a data acquisition module on stacked PC/104 modules with a lower production cost. Our work has been divided into one part about analog signal conditioning and a second part with digital filtering and memory management of the sampled data. The analog part, designed of regular components like instrument amplifiers, voltage references, operational amplifiers and multiplexers, adjusts the sensors signal levels for the ADC?s that converts the signals.

The aim of this thesis was to investigate the possibility of integrating an item tracking systemwith a monitoring system currently under development at Fifth Generation Technologies (P) Ltd.A literature study of RFID technology and the networks ZigBee and MiWi was done. Based onthe literature study a concept for a distributed system was developed.The concept is to have several RFID readers placed in the area where tracking is to be performedand allow them to communicate with each other through wireless communication. The RFIDreaders shall be able to form zones and filter the data that is forwarded from the zones to theservers and thus perform some of the work that the server would normally have to do. Theconcept has been evaluated by prototype development and testing. The prototype uses an ultrahigh frequency RFID reader and a MiWi network.The test indicated some limitations with the selected technologies.

This thesis is   focused on identifying and documenting all   electrical equipment, such as devices, power lines / cables, and connectors in the facility and also on presenting a brief   technical description and information of the systems around the reactors.   Furthermore there will be a brief description of LabVIEW - which is a   graphical programming language- and which devices / elements   are programmed. For further notification, I am not   responsible for the programming of the devices in LabVIEW   which I have only used as a tool in my work. The plant   for production of biogas consists of four reactors   of which the third reactor (Lakbädden)   is connected to another reactor (UASB)   where they cooperate with each other.   The reactors are used for producing   biogas in the form of methane gas.The reactors I and II are   connected to, various electrical devices as, flow meters, temperature   sensors, frequency converter and   more.

The purpose of this essay is to study the film culture in South Africa in a national cinema-context, focusing on the relationship between anti-apartheid film from 1974-1994 and the film in South Africa today. By pitching the South Africa-specific works of Lucia Saks and Jacqueline Maingard against the over-arching debate on national cinema as formulated by, amongst others, Stephen Crofts and Andrew Higson, this study aims to find whether or not a specific South African national cinema have existed, and exists today, or not. The study finds that an underground culture of documentaries and short films made by and for the black population has been in place since the apartheid, and the distribution method on video and television is still being used to reach the black population today. By re-examining the concepts of both the national, and of national cinema to also include film on video and television, the study shows that South Africa has indeed a film culture that can be called a national cinema..

The purpose of this essay is to examine the origin of generalized trust. We compare existing theories on trust to determine what approach is more fruitful in explaining the prevalence, or absence, of trust. Our conviction is that trust should be viewed as an interaction, rather than a disposition or a rational choice. The sample is based on the countries of the OECD. In total, five different hypotheses are tested: i) that generalized trust is created by equal distribution of income, ii) that generalized trust is created through monitoring of the state, iii) that generalized trust is created through rule by law; iv) that generalized trust is created when the welfare apparatus is guided by principles of universalism; or iv) that generalized trust is created when the state integrates trust networks.

In this Master's thesis, a direct-conversion receiver front-end has been designed in a 0.18um CMOS technology. Direct-conversion receivers (DCR) have obvious advantages over the heterodyne counterpart. Since the intermediate frequency (IF) is zero, the problem of image is circumvented. As a result, no front-end image reject filter is required and the channel selection requires only a low-pass filter, which makes it easy to integrate directly on chip. However, the DCR also suffers from several drawbacks such as extreme sensitivity to DC offsets, 1/f noise, local oscillator (LO) leakage/radiation, front-end nonlinearity and I/Q mismatch.

Denna utvärdering av Umeå universitetsbiblioteks (UB) övergång till RFID-teknik (radio frequency identification) tar upp hur personalen har upplevt konverteringstiden och övergången. Syftet var att undersöka den involverade personalens åsikter och attityder kring omställningen och de eventuella konsekvenser och effekter som RFID-övergången fört med sig.Undersökningen genomfördes med korta uppsökande intervjuer vars frågor utformats i samråd med Umeå universitetsbiblioteks projektledare för RFID-konvertering. Frågorna resulterade i kvantitativa svar men respondenterna gavs möjlighet att utveckla sina svar med egna reflektioner. Av de totalt 17 respondenterna var nio män och åtta kvinnor i åldrarna 32-64 år. Resultaten visar på en till stora delar nöjd respondentgrupp, majoriteten tycker att övergången till RFID har fungerat bra, de flesta känner sig opåverkade i sin yrkesroll efter införandet och endast ett fåtal har lämnat konverteringstiden med några bestående men som drabbat deras arbete eller de själva. Bland respondenterna finns det en generellt positiv inställning till RFID-teknikens framtid på arbetsplatsen och ett flertal hoppas på en vidareutveckling och utbyggnad av tekniken..