The numbers of mergers and acquisitions have increased significantly in the last period of time. Although this popularity for mergers and acquisitions, most of the mergers and acquisitions fail to create value. One explanation to this failure of value creation is, according to several studies, how companies treat integration of information systems in the pre-merger evaluation. The research within the field argues that information system integration should have a proactive role in mergers and acquisitions, meaning that information system integration should support the organizational change and normally be considered in the premerger evaluation. The aim of this thesis is to study issues that affect whether companies choose to consider information system integration proactively, when involved in mergers and acquisitions.

Denna uppsats har sin utgångspunkt i den tekniska evolution som har skett i affärssystemens värld. Syftet var att undersöka och beskriva implementat-ionsfasen av ett Enterprise Resource Planning System som tillhandahålls som en tjänst via internet. Fokus var att identifiera framgångsfaktorer för implementationen med hjälp av ett fallstudiebaserat tillvägagångssätt där tonvikt legat på intervjuer och andrahandsmaterial. Undersökningen visade att bland annat valet av ett för organisationen passande system, en omfattande verksamhetsanalys, implementeringshjälp av konsulter samt anpassning av affärsprocesser är viktiga faktorer för en framgångsrik implementation. Därtill såg vi att en tydlig projektplan, en Project Champion och dedikerade resurser också var viktiga faktorer för framgång..

Today evidence exist that environmental chemicals deteriorate male sperm quality and that testicular cancer is increasing. Bisphenol A (BPA) is a chemical with estrogenic effects used in the manufacture of polycarbonate plastic and are found in, for instance, plastic boxes, feeding bottles and food containers. Much of the research on how men's reproductive ability is influenced are performed on rats. This review article complies how male rat reproduction is affected by BPA as a model for humans. Studies have investigated how sperm are affected, hormonal changes during reproduction and how reactive oxygen species (ROS) affects sperm.

Process standardization is a topic that has generated a lot of research and literature. At first, the focus was on production; today processes are used in all different kind of business areas.The aim of this study has been to analyze how processes can be applied on development businesses and how IT systems affect the result of the process. To accomplish this, we have asked questions such as what standardization is in a development process? Why are the processes standardized? What difficulties can appear with standardization? And how the IT-systems affect the result of the process?To answer these questions, we have preformed a case study on Saab. Saab is a well know Swedish company who are working with a project called the GMS-project, where they develop processes to cover the whole company´s business areas.The literature gives the reader an understanding of processes and standardization.

This thesis is about Swedish and Serbian teachers and their views on how literature should be taught to students in high school. The twist is that these teachers live in two different European countries, and work under two different educational systems. Three of them work in Stockholm, Sweden and the other three in Belgrade, Serbia. The purpose of this thesis was to find similarities and differences in the practice of teaching literature among teachers in these two different educational systems. The teachers were interviewed separately and spoke freely about their views and methods when teaching literature.

The aim of this thesis is to investigate how a valuation model of a Private Equity firm is interpreted into a management control system within the company's different organizational levels. A case study was developed based on the infra-net company Eltel. The management control systems developed by Malmi and Brown (2008)(1) was used to characterize the control systems at each organizational level. The building blocks of this system are planning, cybernetic, reward/compensation, administrative and culture. Miller and O'Learys (2007)(2) theory of mediating instruments and technology roadmaps was applied to analyze the mediating process of the valuation model.

Hormonersättningsterapi (HRT) används för att lindra vasomotoriska och urogenitala symtom associerade med klimakteriet. Eftersom behandling med enbart östrogen förknippats med endometriell hyperplasi och livmodercancer, tillsätts progestagener till östrogen-beredningar i HRT hos kvinnor med intakt livmoder för att motverka den proliferativa effekten av östrogen och förebygga cancerutveckling i livmodern. Sådan kombinerad HRT har emellertid associerats med ökad risk för bröstcancer. Vid kombinerad HRT används olika typer av progestagener och olika behandlingsregimer (kontinuerlig eller sekventiell tillförsel).Syftet med detta arbete var att undersöka vad som ökar risken för bröstcancer vid kombinerad HRT: valet av progestagen-typ eller vilken behandlingsregim (kontinuerlig/sekventiell) som används.Metoden som användes var en litteraturstudie som omfattade sju studier om HRT och bröstcancerrisk, vilka hämtades från databasen PubMed.Utifrån undersökta studier kan man dra slutsats att ökad risk för bröstcancer associeras med kombinerad östrogen-progestagen HRT jämfört med HRT med enbart östrogen och framför allt om man jämför kontinuerlig kombinerad HRT med sekventiell kombinerad HRT med ett dos-responsförhållande som bakomliggande grund. Progestagen-typ kan ha effekt på risken för bröstcancer men detta behöver undersökas ytterligare..

This thesis aims to contribute to improved functional procurement of photovoltaic systems, PV systems. Functional procurement means that criteria concerning a function are set rather than specifying technical details or products. Possible advantages and difficulties in using functional procurement have been analyzed by interviews, simulations and a case study. Electricity production and surplus production for different scenarios have been simulated via MATLAB. The MATLAB script was also used to generate rules of thumb on feasible solar fraction for six different load profiles; a church, a farm, a car mechanic, an office, an industry and an apartment building.

The aim of this master thesis is to evaluate the performance of the content-based image retrieval system ImBrowse from a semantic point of view. Evaluation of retrieval performance is a problem in content-based image retrieval (CBIR). There are many different methods for measuring the performance of content-based image retrieval systems, but no common way for performing the evaluation. The main focus is on image retrieval regarding the extraction of the visual features in the image, from three semantic levels. The thesis tries to elucidate the semantic gap, which is the problem when the systems extraction of the visual features from the image and the user?s interpretation of that same information do not correspond.

SammanfattningSyftet med den här litteraturstudien var att ta reda på vad det finns för möjligheter och svårigheter att producera ål i fångenskap. Med nya hållbara metoder att föda upp konsumtionsål skulle utfiskningen av glasålar minska i världen och man skulle kunna fortsätta äta den goda rökta ålen med gott samvete.Det finns välutvecklade metoder för att inducera könsmognad hos han- och honålar. Detta utförs genom att injicera hormoner och man kan därför fråga sig om det är hållbart i en produktion för framtiden. Efter kläckning av larverna finns flera viktiga faktorer att ta ställning till, så som utfodring och optimal hållning av ålarna. Även ägg- och mjölkekvaliteten spelar en stor roll när det gäller att hålla ålarna vid liv.Abstract The aim with this study was to find out how far we have come to develop reproduction strategies in eel culturing.

This study investigates communication and data in information systems. The paper deals, more specificly, with communication in a CRM-system implemented in a Swedish-founded company in Beijing, China. It discusses cultural, political, linguistic and gender based dilemmas that can arise from the use of a CRM-system in an international and bilingual environment. Fifty-nine interviews were conducted in Sweden and in China, either in Swedish or English. The result of this study shows that communication in the information system is affected by factors, that are not originated in technical shortcomings of the system, but rather from cultural, political, linguistic and gender based pre-knowledge among individuals.

In past decades information technology has changed the conditions of organizations, not at least within the industry. Advanced IT systems have become a fact in order to cope with rapid changes in the market and to effectively manage an organization?s knowledge. When organizations became more flexible and customized expectations from customers and stakeholders also become higher. These expectations and guidelines are documented in a company?s management system, which can be designed differently depending on what standards the company chooses to implement.

The projects objective is to find an alternative method of heating (the current method being via electric heating) the sewage treatment plant on the island Utö in Stockholm?s archipelago in order to reduce the energy consumption and ultimately the cost for heating the plant. The project is given by ?Skärgårdsstiftelsen? (The Archipelago Foundation) and is a part of the larger EU-project ?Green Islands?.A model for the plants total heating demand is established in order to get a good perception of how much money can be saved using alternative heating methods. The heating demand model gives an annual heating demand of approximately 32 500 kWh and a maximum heating power demand of around 24,7 kW.

Chapter 1 defines the aim of the project and gives a general orientation about ground heat extractors. In chapter 2 physical processes that could be expected to be involved in the heat transport around a ground heat exchanger are discussed. It is shown from a literature study what amount of moisture transport due to thermal gradients there could be expected in a ground heat exchanger. The conclusion is drawn that the moisture gradient (Sr) is of same magnitude as the driving temperature gradient (°C). At the expected amount of increased moisture around the pipes the moisture transport could be considered to have a little effect on the brine temperature.

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.