This paper replicates a test performed by Burgstahler and Dichev (1997), which identifies a kink in the frequency distribution of earnings for companies listed on American stock exchanges. Their claim, that the kink is evidence of earnings management, has however been dismissed as a methodical consequence. To address this concern, this paper not only replicates the test in general, but also performs tests on a split sample, where founding family-owned companies are separated from the others, since earlier research has shown that founding family ownership is correlated with less earnings management. The results are in line with the findings of Burgstahler and Dichev, with a significant kink in the frequency distribution in the general test. The findings also show that the significance of the kink increases in the non-family-owned sample, while it disappears in the family-owned sample.

This report reflects an examination work performed for Getrag All Wheel Drive AB during the spring of 2005. Among the companies range of products there exists some concern regarding the amount of clamping force and friction on bolted joints caused by the assembly torque.The aim of this project has been to determine if there is a simple way in which to identify and then practically apply testing methods for clamping force and friction through utilization of existing testing equipment.Three separate methods of clamping force and friction determination have been tested in rear drive unit, RDU, at a 30 Nm assembly torque. A fourth and final method, screw elongation with ultrasound, has been used as reference. The methods are:?Torque-Tension test.?Screw elongation with micrometer.?Joint stiffness test.?Screw elongation with ultra sound for reference.The results from tests can be viewed in table below.MethodTorque-TensionMicrometerCs=318 kN/mm Assembled with torque wrenchMicrometerCs=318 kN/mm Assembled on lineUltra-soundCS=311 kN/mm Ultra- soundCS=318 kN/mm Joint stiffnessTheoreticalClamping force-21,8 kN17,6 kN17,3 kN17,6 kN17,1 kN17,3 kNFriction-0,110,1470,1530,1470,1520,149.

In order to get a better understanding of the interaction between employees and their technical work tools one needs to know what factors influence the interaction. The purpose of this study was to examine if there is a correlation between the personality traits Extraversion (E) and Neuroticism (N), tested with Eysenck Personality Inventory (EPI), and experience of the new Intranet among employees at The Swedish National Transport Administration (SNTA), and also to gather information of employees? opinions about the new Intranet. A survey, containing questions about the Intranet and a personality test (EPI), was posted on SNTA?s Intranet for eight workdays (N = 88, females = 53, males = 35).

Year 1996 a new law was introduced in Sweden, the law of corporate restructuring, what purpose was to help companies in financial distress. Now, nine years later the procedure hasn?t been successful. This is what this thesis is trying to find out.This thesis main question is: What distinguishes the companies that have filed for a corporate restructuring, according to the financial position?The purpose of this thesis is to find out if key ratios can be used to distinguish the companies that filed for corporate restructuring.

Many of Europe?s day-living butterflies have shown decreasing populations during the last decades and many species are threatened. Many butterflies are dependent on managed semi-natural grasslands because of their richness in nectar sources and host plants for the butterfly larva. Swedish pastures are mostly managed through grazing. The number of cattle in Sweden have been decreasing while the number of sheep in the country increased by 30%.

Context. Performance and resource usage is often an important factor for database driven services. Depending on the purpose of the application, choosing the wrong type of database may require unnecessary hardware upgrades or replacements. Objectives. This study investigates the differences in performance and resource usage between different SQL- and NoSQL-databases. The study is a comparison that focuses on how the databases perform in different applications.

On July 22nd 2011, there was a terrorist attack in Norway. First a bomb exploded in the Parliament House, in Oslo; and shortly after that a man shot 69 politically active young people at a camp on the island Utöya. Throughout the weeks to follow, we could read about the victims' stories. They told of tears, fear and heroism. But who got to tell what? The purpose of this study was to see how the Swedish tabloids described the victims from a gender perspective.

This study, based on the socio-cultural theory of the book as a mediating tool, examines how four teachers say they work with the reader ABC-klubben. This is done with a focus on how they reason about choosing the level of readers for the pupils and about what compensation, if any, they make for pupils who read the simpler book and therefore miss the more difficult words and expressions. The result shows that all the teachers say that they take the pupils? motivation for and pleasure in reading as an important ground for the decision as to which reader a pupil should use, and that this decision is taken with a focus on the individual. When it comes to compensation for the pupils who read the simpler book, the teachers do not describe consistently focused work on this, but they describe a similar way of working whereby they nevertheless acquaint these pupils with the more difficult book and the harder words and expressions.

During late autumn/winter in the years of 2005/2006 and 2006/2007 a questionnaire study was made in Västra Götaland county in the south west of Sweden. Inspectors responsible of animal welfare answered the questionnaires during their routine visits to different horse stables in the county. The questionnaires contained questions about the number of horses at the farm, hoof condition, body condition, how often the horses were fed outside and the pasture condition. The purpose of this study was to investigate if a connection could be seen between environmental factors and health factors within the horses in this material. The connections that were analysed were between; hoof health and pasture condition, how many times the horses were fed outside and the body condition and between the number of horses in the pasture and pasture condition.

Neurography is the most objective and reliable measure of the peripheral nerve function, and it is used to diagnose both local and generalized neuropathies. Neurography can measure both motor and sensory nerve functions. The principle for sensory neurgraphy is to stimulate over the nerve and record proximal or distal from the stimulated electrode.At the Department of Clinical Neurophysiology, University Hospital Uppsala, a problem has been identified, in that young adult patients tend to show unexpected abnormal neurography values in relation to the expected, indicated by the reference limits, without clinical correlates. This concerns foremost the sensory amplitudes in median and ulnar nerves. The hypothesis is that the requirement of young adults? amplitudes is too high.

The following study examined whether similarities in motor speech deficits in Parkinson?s disease and in developmental stuttering could be observed. Furthermore, intelligibility was examined. Assessments of 16 people with Parkinson?s disease, 35 people with developmental stuttering and 49 matched controls were performed with the tests Dysartribedömningen and the Swedish Test of Intelligibility.

This report describes the design and construction of a prototype that automatically aims a microwave link towards a target. The link, that is located on a mobile aerial mast, is used by Saab Training Systems as a part of an infrastructure network. The report also discusses the development of a GUI that communicates with the control unit by Bluetooth.The control unit, called Pan/Tilt-controller, controls the position of the link by stepping motors. One motor controls the azimuth angle and the other one controls the elevation angle.By a GUI the operator enters the coordinates on its own position and the targets position. Hereafter a bearing is calculated and it will be sent up to the control unit.The control unit will sense its own direction by a magnetic sensor that works as an electronic compass.

In order to get a better understanding of the interaction between employees and their technical work tools one needs to know what factors influence the interaction. The purpose of this study was to examine if there is a correlation between the personality traits Extraversion (E) and Neuroticism (N), tested with Eysenck Personality Inventory (EPI), and experience of the new Intranet among employees at The Swedish National Transport Administration (SNTA), and also to gather information of employees? opinions about the new Intranet. A survey, containing questions about the Intranet and a personality test (EPI), was posted on SNTA?s Intranet for eight workdays (N = 88, females = 53, males = 35).

I got interested in this subject when I came in contact with Västtrafiks new paymentsystem myself during my visits in Gothenburg. I suspected problems with the informationmaterial regarding it and others seemed to share my opinion that the payment system wasdiffcult to understand. When I contacted Västtrafik and asked them about the paymentsystem they confirmed that some understanding diffculties had occurred. With thatconfirmation I decided to make it my project to look in to the matter.Some methods were used to identify the problems. The methods could again confirm thatthere were some problems with the payment system and that the information material wasa vital reason.

This thesis aims to investigate if peer-groups based on industry classification perform as well as, or better than, peer-groups based on other measures that represent factors affecting the price-to-earnings multiple. In contrast with previous empirical studies, a solid theoretical approach is used in defining which factors, according to valuation theory, affect the P/E-ratio. The factors identified as explanatory are accounting measures, risk and growth. Furthermore, we have recognized several measures that represent these factors. These measures are tested for accuracy of prediction in terms of the P/E-ratio for peer-groups based on these measures relative to an industry classified peer-group.