A clean and affordable energy source for cooking is deficient in developing countries. People rely on fuels that contribute to environmental, social and health problems.Biogas is an alternative energy source and an increased investment in small-scale biogas production can in several developing countries be found. Several projects have started to use the technology in developing countries because of the benefits with biogas. Some cases in the establishment of biogas plants have succeeded and some have not. The study is a literature review supplemented by two field studies.

During its lifetime, a road goes through a number of different stages; pre-study,inquiry of the road, work plan, documenting stage, building stage and operatingstage. The operating stage is the one that takes the longest time and costs themost. Those have a tendency of becoming unnecessarily high because the projectengineers don?t always take the management and maintenance prerequisites intoconditions.To decrease the management and maintenance costs, the Swedish RoadAdministration SouthEast has been in need of a work procedure that makes theroaddesign engineers take the management and maintenance of the road intoconsideration. This shall be achieved by a checklist where the most commondesigns that lead to increased management- and maintenance costs are compiledand listed.Through interviews with project leaders in management, the most commonproblems have been identified, analyzed and summarized under the headlineswinter-road, vegetation, road equipment and road designs.To elucidate the problem from several points of view, interviews wereimplemented with project leaders in investment and roaddesign engineers.

The thesis aims to increase our understanding about parents reasoning about the elementary school choice by studying which factors parents perceive as important during the decision making process and also by giving meaning to Pierre Bourdieu?s concept of capital through the parents perspective. The empirical material comes from seven BNIM-interviews made with parents, which has been analyzed according to the thematic field analysis.The results show that the parents are not especially concerned about making an active school choice. Stability, closeness, friends, rumors, development and adaptability to the reality are the factors that are perceived as the most important in the decision making process. The school choice has a limited meaning as an investment in social capital, from Bourdieu?s perspective.

The sun is an endless energy source and the heat it produces can be used to heatup our homes. This technology is relatively old and was introduced in the late70-s. There are two kinds of solar collectors that are most frequently used todayand these are plain solar collectors and vacuum solar collectors. The plain solarcollectors are the once that are used the most but the vacuum solar collectorshave increased more as a percentage the last couple of years.The biggest question asked regarding an investment in solar heating is if theplant is economically profitable. This question has no direct answer because itis dependent on a couple of prerequisites.

Those who have invested in apartments, i.e. tenant-ownership, within the city centre of Stockholm have gained a higher than expected return on investment due to a buoyant real estate market. During the latest twelve-month period, the prices have risen more than 20 per cent in the city of Stockholm, resulting in an increased wealth together with a higher debt burden among investors. The aim of this thesis is to investigate which factors determine the prices from a micro perspective, and to what extent. An attempt is particularly made to estimate the degree of capitalization of the monthly fees; a factor which has turned out to be important according to other studies; but also to construct pricing models in order to set target prices for apartments.

The Swedish stock-market gives investors an opportunity to benefit from the global growth while financing companies invests and contributes to a socio-economic development. Parallel to the ownership of the funds also follows a responsibility as companies in the funds affect society and the environment. The growth of savings in funds, combined with an increased focus on sustainability has developed SRI (socially responsible investment). Therefore it is interesting to examine whether responsibility is an exception, which only concerns SRI-funds or a general principle, which includes the whole Swedish stock-market.The results of the survey makes it clear that all the Swedish major banks actively works to integrate sustainability within the respective bank's business to achieve a more sustainable financial system. Thus concludes the investigation that responsible investments are a general principle on the Swedish mutual stock-market.How responsibility is integrated in fund management differ between the banks.

This thesis explores how the concept of ?legal corruption? manifests itself within the European Investment Bank with a modern approach to the theoretical understanding of anticorruption efforts. This approach conceptualises the idea of complementing theories based on contextual applicability rather than focusing on their competing qualities. The European Investment Bank (EIB), as the world?s largest multilateral lender, is an underexplored yet vital organ of the European Union, which has recently faced criticism for its alleged lack of transparency and dubious application of policy.

This essay discusses the import of cod (Gadus morhua) in Sweden during the Middle Ages through isotope analysis of cod vertebrae. The isotope analysis is used to trace the cods origin to either the Baltic Sea or the Atlantic Ocean. The bones were subjected to d13C, d15N and d34S analysis; 64 of  the analyzed bones met the quality criteria. The isotop data showed that import of Atlantic cod was significant in medeval Sweden. The analysis suggests that there is no specific time or event that the sites start to import cod but this varies from site to site. .

This examination work brings up opportunities to invest in a construction for heating with grain or pellets on farm level. As example we have chosen Fröberga Gård which is a farm located in Östergötland outside of Söderköping. The farm`s residential buildings is to day heated with oil and electricity. The result of our investigation shows that heating with grain is the best alternative, partly because of economical issues but also because you can grow the grain on your own farm and by that you can get better economy in your seed cultivation. To grow 16 tonne of grain as is needed demand gives a insignificant increase of work. Further an advantage is that no investment in machines is needed because all the machines witch is needed already is in use on the farm. In a situation where a new investment is needed as in the case we studied, is it often profitable to invest in a integrated furnace. Because all the components are well adapted to each other, and because that gives a high efficiency. If you already own a well working furnace is it often most profitable to connect a burner to it. It is important to know that heating with grain need more work than heating with pellets, because the high contents of ash in grain. Even if you choose pellets instead of grain the calculation shows good results. Because peat is an excellent but fairly untested raw material for pelletsproduction we have chosen to watch little more on its quality and conductions. We discovered that peat has a high heating value which makes it possible to raise the heat value in pellets through mix up peat and wood. Or you can make pellets with only peat and get a pellet with high heating value. Even the calculation with peatheating shows good results..

A clean and affordable energy source for cooking is deficient in developing countries. People rely on fuels that contribute to environmental, social and health problems.Biogas is an alternative energy source and an increased investment in small-scale biogas production can in several developing countries be found. Several projects have started to use the technology in developing countries because of the benefits with biogas. Some cases in the establishment of biogas plants have succeeded and some have not. The study is a literature review supplemented by two field studies.

Foreign invested SMEs have recently become increasingly interested in China. The enterprises are in this report categorized as second wave companies since they follow the footsteps of previous pioneers, of which mostly were larger companies. The ambitions of the SMEs are either to sell products on the ever expanding Chinese market or to utilize the potential of low cost production for global markets. The existing literature is fragmented and solely based on the experience of larger companies. We believe that SMEs are facing new and different challenges, and thus a new generic theoretical frame work is desirable.

The interest for venture capital within the financial sector in Sweden has, according to earlier studies, been seen as a growing occurrence. Especially for what is known as informal venture capital. In modern times, private investors who engage themselves in small, unlisted companies, providing informal venture capital are to be known as business angels. They close equity gaps on the financial market by contribute financial capital to start-ups and are therefore an important participant on today?s market.

AbstractDate              2009-06-07Level             Master thesis in Information Technology and Business Administration, 15 hp, EIK024Authors        Anna Karlsson, akn05009@student.mdh.se                      Lena-Maria Lindström, llm05002@student.mdh.seTutor            Peter EkmanTitle              IT Governance with an IT investment focusKeywords     IT Governance, IT investments, IT decisions Problem       To control and manage IT and IT functions in the organization has been a big challenge for many businesses for a long time. In order to make the management of IT more efficient IT Governance is needed. If the organization is going to be successful IT Governance is necessary and this type of governance enables a more effective use of IT that supports the business and its operations. The problem questions for this thesis are: How is the company?s IT Governance built up? How are decisions regarding the company?s IT investments taken? How is the connection between the company?s IT investments and the company?s IT Governance?Purpose        The purpose of this thesis is to describe and analyze how a company?s IT Governance is built up and how the company uses IT Governance to reach the desired results from the IT investments.Method        The thesis is a qualitative study.

Title: A study about the purchasing process of ITLevel: Master thesis in Information Technology and Business Administration, 15 hp, EIK024Authors: Emelie Johanson and Mikael LindströmTutor: Peter Ekman, Mälardalens HögskolaKeywords: IT-investment, purchase, decisionProblem: In the last decades the amount of IT investments increased and has become an important resource within most organizations. IT gives the ability to compete and could also be a condition for many to be able to compete. In different businesses it could vary in where they put their focus when they choose an IT investment. This thesis examines how the purchase process of IT looks. How does processes differs in a bigger company versus a smaller company? From these two perspectives this study examined these research questions: Who makes the decisions whether or not an IT solution should be purchased? What aspects decide when companies are to choose between different IT solutions? Where in the purchase process do problems usually emerge?Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to describe and analyze the purchasing process of IT from a business perspective.

A study to optimize insulation thickness for stock-, industrial- and office-buildings for external walls and roof in an economical perspective has been conducted on behalf of DynaMate. DynaMate?s role is to maintain all Scania?s buildings. Analysis has also included other parts of the building envelope, such as windows, exterior doors and industrial doors. In this thesis, three different types of exterior wall constructions has been investigated, these are a sandwich design consisting of sheet metal and a another one consisting of concrete, as well as a wall of concrete with a coating of plasters.