Soils in a metal contaminated site on Stångberget in Gusum in southeastSweden were investigated and compared to relatively unaffected soils a fewkilometres away. Pollution came from historical release of untreated flue gasesfrom a brass mill. The objective was to find information on how high the metalconcentrations are, if metals from the polluted soil affect the surroundings andif the metal contamination affects the microbial community. The soil wasinvestigated using several different methods, such as field XRF measurements,chemical analysis of metal, carbon and nitrogen content, pH, acid neutralizingcapacity, texture, soil depth, field leach tests, sequential extraction and microbialfunctional profiles. The study showed that copper and zinc concentrationswere above Swedish Environmental Protection Agency guidelines for lesssensitive land use on the entire investigated area.

Intangible assets are often a significant part of Swedish companies? assets. Most of these are accounted for as goodwill, arising from acquisitions. After EU:s decision to adopt IFRS as the new accounting standard, intangible assets will to a larger extent be recognized separated from goodwill. This thesis aims to quantify this change and to analyze what specific intangibles are affected most by the transition to IFRS.

Bakgrund: Det rådande pensionssystemet i Sverige består av sex så kallade AP-fonder. Genom åren har pensionssystemet flertalet gånger kritiserats för dess låga avkastning.Problem: Vår huvudfråga är att jämföra AP-fondernas risk och avkastning med aktiemarknaden som helhet, detta ska ske med hjälp av två jämförelseindex: MSCI World och SIXRX.Syfte: Syftet med uppsatsen är att jämföra de fyra första AP-fondernas risk och avkastning med aktiemarknaden som helhet under åren 2002-2010.Metod: Vi har använt oss av en kvantitativ metod, genom att samla in information från AP-fondernas årsredovisningar och hemsidor. Vi har samlat in historisk data, som vi sedan har bearbetat och analyserat.Slutsats: De studerade AP-fonderna har presterat sämre än aktiemarknaden..

Syftet med vår uppsats är att undersöka om det finns ett hot för revisorn vid självgranskningen av en apportemission att hamna i en beroendeställning. Samtidigt vill vi undersöka hur revisorns oberoende upplevs och uppfattas i olika situationer vid apportemission, samt om detta kan leda till en exploateringsrisk för nyägare och minoriteten. För att uppnå vårt syfte genomförde vi intervjuer med revisorer, gamla ägare, nya ägare och minoriteter.Ur agentteori härleds våra tre modeller. Vi tittar på revisorn dels som agent åt principalen och dels som en oberoende yrkesutövare. Dessa modeller är: självgranskningshot, nyägarexploateringsrisk och minoritetexploateringsrisk.Empirisk fakta från de tio intervjuerna analyserades och vi fann att det kan finnas en risk för självgranskningshot då revisorn granskar sin egen granskning vid årsbokslutet.

Syfte: En komparativ studie och beskriva möjligheterna för att skapa en effektiv portfölj av olika aktieportföljer, där det undersöks om faktorerna som företagens omsättningsstorlek, branschen de är aktiva i och valet att ha utländska aktier, har betydelse eller inte för att skapa en effektiv portfölj med hänsyn till dess korrelation, avkastning och risk. Metod: Uppsatsen utgår från en kvantitativ studie, som sträcker sig från april 2008 till april 2010, då historiska aktiekurspriser används för olika sorters uträkningar, som baseras på uppsatsens huvudteorier; CAPM, Sharpekvot och portföljteori. Utgångspunkten är deduktiv, där slutsatserna har dragits från teorierna.       Slutsats: Utifrån uträkningarna, kunde det inte dras generella slutsatser där de undersökta faktorerna inte utmärkte sig i något mönster. Däremot visade sig att det blev högre avkastning till liknande risk eller lägre risk till liknade avkastning när man väljer aktier som är olika varandra, då korrelationen inte samvarierar. Det bästa resultatet är när utländska aktier blandas in i portföljen.    .

Bakgrund: Tidigare studier har identifierat flera riskfaktorer, såsom kost, fysisk aktivitet och BMI, gällande kolorektal cancer. Att analysera kost utifrån kostmönster istället för enskilda livsmedel har visat sig vara effektivt för att undersöka risker för kolorektal cancer. Datamaterial samlades in med hjälp av en fall-kontroll studie med 257 fall och 805 kontroller.Syfte: Identifiera faktorer som ger en höjd eller sänkt risk för kolorektal cancer utifrån områdena kost, fysisk aktivitet och BMI.Metod: Faktoranalys användes för att upptäcka kostmönster. Logistisk regression användes för att skatta oddskvoter och 95 % konfidensintervall.Resultat: Tio stycken kostmönster erhölls från faktoranalysen. Kostmönstren ?Läsk, juice och mjölkprodukter? (OR=1,288; ORQ4=2,159), ?Te, men inte kaffe?(OR=1,228; ORQ3=1,891; ORQ4=1,668) och ?Fågel, rött kött och fisk?( ORQ4=1,724) gav alla en ökad risk.

The market for management consulting services is changing with an increased level of competition and more specialized service providers. At the same time there is a high level of companies that fail in their efforts to establish themselves on the market. This thesis sets out to give the reader an increased understanding of the complex characteristics of the market for these services, focusing more specifically on which factors that have an effect on the strategy development for companies within the industry. The thesis is also aimed at providing the reader with a deeper understanding of how developing consulting companies can tackle the specific challenges facing them. In order to meet the purpose of the thesis, we have applied relevant theories to a generic strategy model in order to develop a model that is applicable for the management consulting industry.

Background: During the 2000s, there has been an increased interest in studying business management and strategy implementation with customer focus in public organisations. To achieve business goals it is important to continuously work with strategies to meet customerdemands for increased efficiency and service. Purpose: The aim of the essay is to examine how to work on strategy implementation in a municipal real estate company from a management perspective in order to achieve overall goals. Method: The study?s methodology is a case study based on qualitative telephone interviews that were conducted with representatives in managerial positions from various levels of the company. The choice of the qualitative data was considered relevant in relation to the chosen topic of the thesis. The empirical data was then compared to the theoretical framework of the thesis. Results: Strategies guide the company to achieve the overall goals, which are later on broken down into operational targets.

This paper studies the option market?s implied dividend as a predictor of future equity market returns. We introduce this variable in the simple total return framework and discuss some complications of using it as a proxy for the expected dividend. We construct some regressions using the price-dividend ratio and the implied dividend growth, and test them on six years worth of data on the EURO STOXX 50-index. The main result is that implied dividend growth exhibits some forecastability over two-year horizons, but that the dataset is too short to draw any definitive conclusions about long-horizon forecastability.

We were assigned to do this master thesis by Husqvarna AB who at the time for this thesis just had implemented a new material and production planning system called Replenishment system. Husqvarna AB wanted us to examine the effects of their new planning system to see if it was profitable or not. Husqvarna AB had for a time considered their delivery and supplier service to bee their biggest problem and they wanted to solve this problem by improving the communication with all involved actors in the logistic chain, which they hoped would result in a better mix of products in their warehouses. The aim of this report was therefor to analyze eventual effects for Husqvarna AB when changing from a traditional material- and production planing system to a more information intensive one. The result of this report showed effects on decreasing administrational routines and improved flexibility and lead-times.

The number of students in the program for pupils with intellectual disabilities has drastically increased over the last decades. Most of those pupils, but far from all, are attending special classes. Today approximately 22 % are attending classes in compulsory school. The purpose of this paper is, from a social psychological perspective, to increase the knowledge and understanding of how pupils with intellectual disabilities, partly or fully attending the compulsory main-stream school, experience their school-days. This paper is composed of two case studies for which the empiric material has been collected through interviews and observations.

Problem: How is management accounting change understood via the duality perspective in the field of alternative management accounting research?Purpose: The purpose of this essay is to develop a tool for analysis aspiring to provide understanding for how differences and similarities with regards to the duality perspective may have different consequences for understanding management accounting change.Contribution: This paper aspires towards a theoretical contribution through an in-depth review of existing conceptual literature. This is done to gain clarity in definitions and uses of concepts, with related terms, referring or relating to duality. Through clarifying different meanings of duality, consequences for how to understand management accounting change, and the different approaches to using a duality perspective, the tool for analysis which is developed in this essay aims to contribute to a movement of alternative management accounting research towards increased comparability as well as increased insight into how management accounting change is currently understood through this type of research.Method: Literature reviews based on Booth et al.s SALSA-framework. Creation of a tool for analysis for usage when reviewing material based on a duality perspective.Conclusions: The duality perspective differs, and affects understanding of management accounting change, in accordance with the following five themes:Theme 1: The duality perspective is affected by differences in the use of definitions/descrptions.Theme 2: The duality perspective is affected by different purposes of the agent and different credit given to the agents power/ability to alter change.Theme 3: The content of the duality perspective is affected by the existence and purpose off being inspired by different theoretical approaches.Theme 4: The duality perspective affects the idea and understanding of the form and expression/process of management accounting.Theme 5: Different duality perspectives have the ability to lead science against increased pluralism and/or synthesisIn order to increase understanding for and comparability between scientific contributions through a duality perspective there is to some extent a need for more and better definitions and a more problematizing when combining theoretical approaches.

In 1993 Sweden introduced a new Forest policy, with a larger freedom of action for the forest owners, but in the same time the forest owners are expected to take greater consideration of the forests and the environment, that is required by the law. This is necessary to be able to obtain the goals of the new policy. Therefore the demand for competence and guidance is larger than before. At the same period of time organisations where slimmed and trimmed during a economic recession and the question is how this has affected the number of employees on different levels in the organisations, the competence of the employees and their internal education and if these changes affects the possibility of implementing the forest policy. This study contains three points in time where measures were made, 1990, 1995 and 2000.

To encourage and increase the motivation to physical activity by using new information and communication technology, in order to change our behaviours into a more healthy lifestyle, could be one approach to promote public health. In our study we examine how gamification, which is about implementing classical game design elements from the computer world in a non-gaming context, can be a tool to increase the motivation for physical activity. Since similar studies already have been done we chose to focus on analyzing how different player types from Bartle?s taxonomy can be affected by the usage of a gamification application. A group of students were therefore picked and during a two weeks? period they used the application Fitocracy where they logged their daily excercise.

The use of Internet by children and teenagers has become a special field of interest. Certain risks are associated with young peoples use of this media and national and international measures have been taken to assess and counter these risks.Library and informationscience have approached the subject of risks by looking at different software´s, so called Internet filters, that is used to control and censor the access to Internet based resources. In the USA, where public services and institutions that provide Internet resources to children and youth have started to require censorship of the Internet, a debate has arisen concerning the use of so called Internet filters.The theoretical basis of this master´s thesis is related to the conception of risk, gender and childhood. The focus of the paper lies on young peoples use of information and communication technology (ICT) and how risks associated with young peoples use of the Internet is constructed by different parties involved in supplying Internet resources. By means of a case study at a primary school in Skåne and at the company Netscan in Malmö.