To purchase a house or an apartment is often one of the major personal financial commitments for a person. In 2005, 84% of the homeowners sold their homes using a estate agency. During 2006 several new opportunities appeared on the market, giving the homeowners more of a choice in what way to sell their homes. Media describes the alternatives in general ?as the agents on the Internet?.

Emissions of insufficiently treated wastewater, mainly blackwater (i.e. wastewater from toilets), contributes to the eutrophication of lakes and seas. At the same time, blackwater is a fraction with a low content of heavy metals and, after sanitization, it can recirculate plant nutrients to arable land using the liquid composting treatment method. Liquid composting means that organic material is degraded under aerobic conditions. For sanitization, the blackwater needs to be treated together with energy-rich complementary material.

Previous research has found an increased transmission of stock movements in Europe, partly caused by the establishment of institutions as the EU and the EMU. The purpose of this paper is to find the possible impact from the EU and the EMU concerning the evolution of international transmission of stock market movements, on four Scandinavian markets, Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. The research is based on primary data, existing theories and earlier studies regarding international transmission of stock market movements. The examined method is a VAR (Vector autoregressive model) including a 10x1 vector of variables. Furthermore the tests considered are correlation, granger-causality, variance decomposition and impulse response.

The Rya power plant in Borås produces district heating, district cooling and electricity. The plant is owned by Borås Energi och Miljö AB and is run by Dalkia Facility Management AB.In order to get the best heat exchange from the district hot water a pair of twin pumps and a turbine circuit pump are used as return pumps. Turbine circuit pumps are used to increase the pressure through the heat exchangers at the power plant. The pumps are in use when the flow is over 2 000 m3 h-1 and during the summer when re-cooling is used to improve the effectivens of the heat boilers.Since the pumps, that are parallel connected, rotating at a fixed rate per minute, the pressure is regulated with regulating valves. This report shows that during the 4,300 hours that the pumps where in use, energy corresponding to 590 MWh was wasted.

Since 2005 all companies listed on a regulated stock exchange within the European Union are required to present their financial reports in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and International Accounting Standards (IAS). The purposes of these standards are to accomplish international harmonization of accounting rules to make financial reports more comparable. However, recent research has shown that some firms tend to use goodwill strategically in a business combination by manipulating the acquired assets and consciously allocate the intangible assets to goodwill to reduce the depreciation in the income and decrease costs. This phenomenon may reduce the comparability between financial reports and thus has an opposite effect on the purpose of IFRS and IAS.The aim of this study is to show how the companies involved in this study allocate goodwill strategically. Furthermore, the introduction of the new standards has contributed to that goodwill now is a subject for impairment test, therefore we want to show whether this affected the comparability of the companies in this study.An empirical study was conducted, based on interviews with four Swedish managers.

When drivers overnight in the truck lots of electric energy is consumed by heaters, fans, lights and other extra equipment. If the engine is not running, this energy is taken from the lead/acid batteries of the truck which then needs to be recharged during operating hours. The fact that the charge acceptance of the lead/acid batteries is dependent on the temperature makes it hard to fully recharge the batteries at lower temperatures. A negative charge balance can lead to starting problems within a few days use in cold climate.In this thesis work, the effects of different battery charging concept are evaluated on the most common Scania battery (175Ah). A battery model is implemented in Matlab and some simulations of charging are made.

The crucial factor for successful municipal climate work is that there are driving forces. Most importantly is that the senior officials and politicians in the municipality are dedicated to the cause considering that they have the power to influence and make a change. Besides proactive and committed individuals, it is necessary that the work is organized and anchored by clear and concrete documents and control systems. It is also important that the work is continuously monitored and evaluated. To collaborate with other municipalities, authorities or participate in various networks is another factor contributing to the improved climate work in the form of exchange of information, knowledge and experience.A major driving force for municipalities to improve themselves is the distribution of state aid and grants.

The company Olofsfors AB manufactures drive belts for forest machinery, known as ECO-Tracks, and abrasion-resistant steel and cutting edges for graders, excavators and tractors, known as Bruxite and SharqEdges. Manufacturing these products requires the steel to be heated and molded, then submerged in water and hardened. The water used in the hardening of steel is pumped to the process from pits below the floor and then pumped back to the pit after it?s been used. Since the temperature of this water rises after being used to harden the steel the temperature of the pumping pit needs to be adjusted to maintain its setpoint of 21°C.

The environment became an established issue on the international political agenda after World War 2. How to preserve natural resources became an issue that concerned several powerful participants, affected by changed conditions in the environmental legislation. This paper is a study of the growing environmental work within the multinational Swedish corporations Boliden, IKEA and SAS and how it was affected by the globalization. The material studied is environmentally related information produced by the companies and also interviews with the Environmental Managers. The information provided has been analyzed and compared with well-known opinions of globalization, trying to find out how the process of globalization has affected the handling of environmental work within the companies.

The aim of this thesis is to study young people's views on support, knowledge and change. The eight participants in this interview study are between 14 and 19 years old and they share the experience of growing up in a family where a parent is a substance misuser or mentally ill.Childhood sociology has been used as a theoretical framework. The main finding is that emotional and practical support based on the young person's needs and knowledge based on the ideas of empowerment and agency promotes change. The four most important insights according to the young persons are: My parent has got a problem. It is not my problem.

The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights is probably the world's most known andinternationally most respected document. The purpose of this study is to examine if the UDHRreflects universal values and norms and to assess its moral and juridical relevance today, 60 yearsafter the adoption. The literature used in this literature-based critical study is mainly written bythe academic elite of the discourse on Human Rights. By comparing these sources I have reachedthe conclusion that the UDHR is still today an important document because of its continuinginfluence on international lawmaking and because of the encouragement and aspirations tomankind in the never-ending struggle for the rights it represents..

This thesis aims to identify the building integrated photovoltaic solutions available in the market with respect to general pros and cons of different systems and a technical description of there attachment system. Investigate and provide examples of various building integrated photovoltaic solutions in Sweden and describe the experiences and results of these projects.The methods used to obtain relevant information are interviews with individuals involved in significant projects and a thorough search of different solutions from solar suppliers.The conclusion is that solar energy is needed for a sustainable society. There are endless opportunities regarding BIPV, with many companies with different products and individual solutions. But so far it?s not so customary in Sweden.

The purpose of this study was to find possible explanations to why the studied herd had an increased incidence of abomasal displacements. The incidence of abomasal displacement in the herd was three times higher than the incidence of an average Swedish herd. The cows in this study were fed a total mixed ration. The different parameters studied were: energy content in food, nutritional content in food, body condition scoring, concomitant other diseases, and blood parameters of glucose, fructosamine, cholesterol, insulin, betahydroxybutyrat and free fatty acids. The author?s suggestions to decrease the problems are to decrease the energy content in the TMR to lower the cows? body condition scores in the dry period and changing the content in the TMR to increase the amount of NDF and adding structure in the form of chopped straw.

The purpose of this thesis is to study to what extent the UN millennium development goals have influenced Sweden?s development policy. The research method that I have used is a qualitative text analysis and I have studied the ideas in governmental texts and millennium development goals reports from 1995-2008.My hypothesis is that the basic ideas that has symbolized Sweden?s development policy has not changed much since the adoption of the millennium development goals in year 2000. This hypothesis is based on different ideas that the basic perspectives in international development policy are rather constant.My conclusion is that many of the areas that are affected by the millennium development goals already are prioritized areas within Swedish development policy, for example poverty reduction and gender equality.

A large amount of our time is spent indoors in an artificial climate. To make the experience pleasant there are requirements on the ventilation and the heating system. At the present time the most common form of heating is a radiator system complemented with a ventilation system. A ceiling heating system with combined heating and ventilation can replace the two separated systems. The benefit with a ceiling heating solution is that it saves space since the radiator system is no longer needed.