Intense competition among companies and luck or unavailability of certain resources in country of company?s origin force last to cross the borders, and start to hunt for new markets and cheaper inputs. However, by investing abroad the company is not only facing and dealing with cultural differences and new regulatory framework, but also becomes dependent on decisions and actions of different and to large extend unknown government. Moreover, the majority of the investments? flows are directed to developing countries, where power and capabilities of state authorities are considered to be more extensive than in countries of developed economies.

The aim of this study is to find a method to incorporate the energydemand of a building in the investment cost estimate.The study is based on an actual apartment block. The significant energyaspects are identified, and changed to more energy efficient options.These are then simulated using the energy calculation program VIP+.The calculated energy need is used in the investment cost estimate, andthe simulated alternatives are compared in regards to their economicalprofitability.Depending on the focus, different alternatives are the most advantageous.Since this study aims to show which alternative is the mosteconomically profitable, the annual profit is the parameter of mostimportance. This means that individual measuring of heating and hotwater use is the recommended change of the original house. A changeof the windows to new ones with a U-value of 1,0 as well as 0,8W/m2K also results in a positive change of the annual profit comparedto the original house..

According to Swedish tax legislation, investment funds are taxed differently depending on if the are Swedish or foreign. The difference between the investment funds lies within the taxation of received dividends and the opportunity to shift the liability of tax of received dividends on to the funds shareholders. This measure is only available to Swedish funds. The question in this thesis is whether this difference is discriminatory against foreign investors and therefore constitutes a forbidden restriction against the free movement of capital stated in article 63 EUF Treaty.The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has given several preliminary rulings on this type of legislation and its compatibility with the principle of free movement of capital. It is not compatible with the free movement according to the court.

The Swedish energy company Vattenfall is currently the owner of the district heatingsystems in Nyköping and Motala. To be able to also offer cooling solutions tocustomers are becoming more and more important. This report describes the resultsof an investigation of the cooling market in the two cities and the potential needs forcooling today and in the coming 20 years. The total potential for the coming 20 yearsis estimated to be roughly 17 MW for Nyköping and 9 MW for Motala.Two possible district cooling systems for each of the two city centers was modeledand a comparison was made between different cooling techniques namely absorptionand compressor chillers.Absorption chillers driven with district heating during the summer is one way ofincreasing the load in a combined heat and power plant and thereby the possibleelectricity generation. The cost of heat production must be low for absorption chillerto be able to compete as an alternative.

This paper examines the customer relationships of a telecom operator and how their customer accounting is done. The aim is to use the framework developed by Lind & Strömsten (2006) to categorize customer relationships and see to what extent the framework predicts which type of customer accounting method is used for each customer relationship. A case study was made at Telenor Sverige AB where different customer relationships are identified and linked to the customer accounting techniques that are used for financial measurement of the customers. Findings include that all but one of the customer relationships described in the framework were recognized at Telenor and that most customer accounting techniques mentioned in the framework were in fact used and associated with different customer relationships. The results of the case study also highlight that some differences exist between the predictions of the framework and the observations at Telenor..

The web has made an incredible amount of unorganized information available to anyone. There are search engines that help us structuring the information, but it is still difficult to find what you search for on the web. The purpose of this master's thesis is to investigate whether the already existing techniques for automatic indexing are suited for the new information retrieval context on the web and how the choice to support these techniques, or not, affects the search results. This is examined through a literature study on automatic indexing and other related concepts, such as information retrieval and information searching on the web in order to get a theoretical frame to the work and by an observation of the search engine HotBot to approach the purpose of the thesis. The observation is carried out by searching HotBot's database and investigating the search results in order to try to identify patterns that can reveal something about how HotBot's automatic indexing is done.

In Sweden, the most common way to castrate a bitch is by midline approach. In this study, flank and midline approaches are compared in order to evaluate incision by the flank as an alternative technique for ovariohysterectomy in the bitch. The study was performed on straydogs in the central part of Thailand under field conditions. 32 bitches were included in the study. The castration technique was by flank and midline approach, alternating with every other bitch.

There are various investments to suit different investors, what affects the investor is the risk he/she takes with the investment and also the awareness  the investor has. According to different theories a higher risk gives even a higher yield to compensate for the extra risk the investor takes.In this paper, we discuss and compare two different forms of savings, Swedish closed-end funds and Swedish mutual funds to examine what alternative that generates highest returns in relation to the risk.To help, we use different evaluation measures that adjusts the different investments risk so that you can compare how well the investments have performed regardless of the risk they have. This will give us an answer about what investment form that have performed the best between 2002.01.01-20010.12.31. Five Sweden mutual funds and five closed-end funds have been selected to participate in the survey.To evaluate this, it is primarily quantitative data, analyzed in the evaluation measures. The results obtained in the survey show that Swedish closed-end funds have performed far better during the selected time period.

The new accounting standards IFRS and IAS was implemented in January 2005, the purpose was to harmonize accounting standards world wide. As a result of these new rules the real estate companies are allowed to appraise real estates assets at market value. It has long been debated whether this appraisal fulfils the requirements for relevance, reliability and comparability.The paper attends to how banks control the information given by the real estate companies in the process of credit granting. As an introduction we describe the purpose of accounting and the problematic´s about appraisals with market values. Further on there is a discussion on which factors are taken into consideration when banks grant credits.The study is built on interviews at three different commercial banks.

The phenomenon of social gaming is essentially an IT-service that people worldwideuses on a daily basis. This particular market is also young and generates tremendousamounts of data, which, from a data managing perspective, makes it naturallyinteresting. Throughout this thesis the social gaming market is described from the datamanaging and different actors perspectives. This is done by using literature reviewing,interviews with companies and analysis based on that information. The thesis initiallypresents important and central terms as well as different techniques.

The study aims to investigate the feasibility of small-scale electricity production with solar electricity systems, also known as PV (photovoltaic) systems, in Australia. Due to the global warming, sustainable energy has in recent years become an increasingly important issue, both internationally and in Australia. With one of the largest dependencies on fossil energy sources in the world, the country's abundant solar radiation is a possible solution to this issue.Both the technical and the economic feasibility of small-scale PV systems were investigated. On the technological side, the electricity generation, distribution and consumption systems were studied. On the economical side, the parameters that drive the profitability of a PV investment were investigated.

This study explores Environmental Storytelling techniques and whether these can beused in combination with each other to lead a player through a game scene in aspecific pattern, affect the player?s narrative and exploratory view and explorewhether Self-paced Exploration can be combined with these techniques.It is a qualitative study conducted by six gaming sessions with accompanyinginterviews in which six people get to play one of three versions of the same gamescene. The only differences between the scenes are the different guidance techniquesused. The informants' movement patterns are identified and interviews recorded byaudio, as well as screen recording. The results shows that Environmental Storytellingtechniques can very well be used to control the player's exploration patterns, bothnarratively and navigation purposes and Self-paced Exploration can be utilized to agreater efficiency in combination with these..

The aim of this study is to examine the market reaction when information about a company?s foreign direct investment is announced and how that affects the shareholder?s value. Also of interest is whether the market reacts differently depending on which country the investment is established in and which mode of entry is used. This will be achieved by using an event study approach. The selection that was used consisted of 206 companies registered on the Nasdaq OMX Nordic homepage, which had during a time period stretching from 1999 to 2009 established a foreign direct investment in the regions BRIC, Europe or the USA using the mode of organic growth, joint venture or acquisition.

According to Barclay (2001), behavioral interviews yield higher quality information, than other interview techniques. This study focused on whether the quality and quantity of information differ between structured interview and behavioral interviewing. Two headhunters held 16 job interviews with the two techniques, 9 behavioral interviews and 7 structured interviews. Both headhunters and candidates have evaluated the interviews quantitatively. Initial and concluding interviews have, as well, been held with the headhunters.  No definitive answers were found in the quantitative analysis, but the qualitative results suggest that behavioral interviews give, because of the headhunters opinions, more and higher quality information.

This study explores the different effects on attitude and behaviour three frequently used advertising techniques have. The techniques compared are social influence and egoistic and altruistic benefit-appeals. The results showed that ads featuring social influence had statistically significant higher mean values regarding attitude towards the ad compared to both the other ads, and significantly higher mean values regarding brand attitude compared to the ad appealing to egoistic motivations. Though, all advertising effectiveness measures used in this study - that is, attitude and intention variables - indicated that social influence was more effective than the other advertising messages. Thus, in accord with earlier studies, it can be stated with confidence that social influence is an effective tool to use in marketing communications..