Students? performance in school is dependent on the indoor climate. This report studies four schools regarding air quality and thermal environment. A survey was made at the schools as well as measurements of carbon dioxide, dampness, thermal climate and, as an indicator for the furniture?s capability to collect dust, shelf factor and fleece factor.

The aim of this essay is to try to gain understanding and to get a more profound knowledge of suicide. The questions at issue were 1) What empirical factors are mentioned in the research as possible to explain suicide. 2) Which theoretical perspectives are discussed in research concerning suicide. To answer our questions at issue we carried out a selective research overview with a qualitative perspective. The primary documents that has been the foundation of this essay is constituted by nine of the leading researchers publications in the area of suicidology.

The market risk premium is one of the most important parameters in finance. Its value and the ways to calculate a risk premium for the market is a widely debated subject. This thesis examines numerous ways of calculating a risk premium for the Swedish market with regard to how good an estimation they make of a real risk premium. Estimations based on historical periods ranging from 20 to 85 years is calculated as well as a premium based on forward-looking estimates. The real risk premium is solved out for a selection of companies and an index with the help of CAPM.

People with certain types of disabilities have the legal right to ask for an individual plan. The idea is that the plan should be a tool for the disabled to get more power and influence over the planned actions that involves their lives. The aim of this thesis was to study the individual circumstances of interpersonal power and influence in the work of individual plans. The study was done with a qualitative approach, where three executing officers and three individuals were interviewed. The results show that the conditions for the individual?s influence are far more complicated than at first glance.

Increasing volatility and less political intervention from the CAP in the market price of wheat is making it more difficult than in the past for Swedish farmers to determine the price at which they should sell their wheat. In the past, the Swedish farmer-owned company Lantmännen has traditionally set a guideline price for Swedish wheat every year to which farmers could adapt, but ceased doing so last year. Therefore this study sought to identify the parameters on which the price of wheat is dependent on by using a reduced form model. The perspective adopted was that of farmers. The model proved able to identify the main factors determining the annual price fluctuations in wheat, with all variables included having an impact on the wheat price, except export quantity in the previous year.

Haptoglobin is an acute phase protein with important biological role because of its capacity to bind to haemoglobin. Haptoglobin exists in three major genetic polymorphism types: Hp1-1, Hp2-1 and Hp2-2, the distribution of which has been associated with abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA), an asymptomatic aortic disease common among men older than 65 years.    Five different electrophoretic methods were tested according to their ability to separate the haptoglobin phenotypes. The detection was based on a produced hemolysate of blood in which haemoglobin binds to haptoglobin thereby forming a complex that can be detected by specific haemoglobin staining using TMB-dihydrochloride and hydro peroxide as substrate resulting in an azure-green color of the bands. Samples from 15 patients who had suffered surgery for not broken AAA, that is more than5.0 cmaortic diameter, and 15 samples from matched controls were analyzed.    Among the five tested electrophoretic methods best migration and separation was seen on the pre-cast agarosgel Hydragel HR on the instrument Hydrasys. The other four methods gave less successful results.

The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of joint venture announcements on stock prices behavior and simultaneously to test the German stock market (Frankfurter Wertpapierbörse) for efficiency. We tried not only to analyze the general impacts of a JV-announcement but also to look for differences in the market response to announcements of different types of joint ventures, namely: domestic, international, horizontal and vertical. Our expectations of efficient market were confirmed during our paper, which employed the technique of the standard event study. The calculation of abnormal returns which are the signals for market efficiency or inefficiency respectively were based on the market model, establishing linear relationship between the return on the market and the return on an individual security. The parameters of the model were obtained through regression analysis..

The prime aim of this thesis was to investigate whether high or low iodine intake during certain periods of life was, or was not a strong risk factor for the development of canine lymphocytic thyroiditis (CLT). And secondly, if a high or low selenium intake in a combination with high or low iodine intake also may have an influence on that risk factor. To investigate this, a dietary questionnaire was sent out to dog owners. The dogs were selected from an ongoing genetic study of CLT. The questions investigated brand and type of feed during different life stages (puppy, junior and adult) and also if there were any use of dietary supplements.

Agricultural soils constitute the base in human food production and soil content of organic matter and plant nutrients together with soil microbial activity are all important parameters for high crop yield of good quality. These parameters are dependant on proper fertilization.Anaerobic digestion of organic wastes for biogas production generates a liquid residue called biogas residue (BR). It contains organic material and plant nutrients which makes ita potential fertilizer for arable cropping. However, it also contains heavy metals and toxic organic compounds and it is therefore in need of evaluation before usage.Microbial tests were performed aiming to evaluate the agronomic traits of four different BR and to find a viable procedure for evaluating slurry fertilizers. Two experiments where soil respiration and soil potential denitrification activity (PDA) was measured at fertilizer addition were performed.

In this thesis proposals for different designs of a borehole thermal energy storage (BTES) have been developed for the building DN-huset in Stockholm, Sweden. To build a BTES results in savings in energy costs by approximately 44 %, i.e. 2 million Swedish crowns annually. Furthermore, a BTES would reduce the annual environmental impact with roughly 75-157 tonnes of CO2 equivalents per year, depending on how the electricity consumption?s environmental impact is estimated.

This paper investigates the possibilities to construct automatized portfolios based on optimizations strategies that could outperform comparable indexes. The study is based on time-series of Swedish stocks dating from 1986 to 2006. In the research four different portfolio optimization techniques were studied. These were: the Classical Markowitz Approach, Mean-Absolute-Deviation, Minimum-Regret and Conditional Value-at-Risk of which the three latter are based on generated scenarios. The behaviour of these models was studied for different choices of parameters such as backward time-horizon and targeted average return.

In this thesis work a Geographical Information System (GIS) based methodology to identify locations suitable for the installation of wave energy converters has been developed. Parameters of importance have been identified and a GIS-database has been set up, containing data about the marine environment. In a case study of the Swedish west coast the methodology has been applied, resulting in a number of maps showing possible areas. The results show that large areas are suitable for installation of wave energy converters, from a technical and economical point of view. When consideration is taken to other interests in the area, such as navigation, fishing and environmental protection, the size of the suitable area diminishes considerably.

The aim of this thesis was to examine if it is possible to keep nitrogen in the form of nitrate(NO3-) in ponds from one season to another by keeping a high concentration of oxygen in thepond water. This hypothesis was tested by doing a lab experiment where two systems werecompared according to nitrate concentration. One system had high concentration of oxygen inthe water and one had low concentration of oxygen. Before the main experiment wasconducted I did a pilot study to test the system setup and included parameters. The result fromthis study and the main study did not show the same result.

Stabilization of subgrade is an internationally common technique to improve the characteristics of a soft soil. Improving the stiffness and bearing capacity of the subgrade enables the pavement to be designed with reduced depths of subbase and basecourse aggregates. This makes the stabilization technique both economically and environmentally interesting. Both natural and stabilized soils have high inherent property variability that should be considered when the characteristic value is derived. By analyzing the spatial variability in stabilized and natural subgrades it is possible get the parameters needed for reliability?based modeling of soil properties.

Academic research concerning how to determine the power situation in a supply chain where an investment product supplier is involved did not exist. Therefore new models has been developed that analyses the power relations and maps out the power situation in a supply chain. In the future these models can be applied on similar cases by modifying the included parameters. The new models show that case company FAS should focus on the big producers of garbage bag which are Trioplast, Rullpack and Miljösäck. By strengthen the brand FAS can make more money in these relations.