Asset management in insurance companies differs from conventional asset management to the extent that respect has to be taken to both assets and the commitments the insurance company has towards its customers. A model that has proven to fit well regarding the matching of assets and liabilities is the Asset Liability Management Model (ALM model). In addition to the matching in the balance sheet, the ALM model can be used in a company's work with strategic portfolio allocation by applying it as a basis for analyzing investment strategies with expected risk and return. From this, the ALM model also becomes relevant for calculating key figures according to the legal framework Solvens II which includes laws and regulations regarding the demands on economical strength (solvens) of insurance companies.Hence, the goal of this masters thesis has been to, on behalf of Bliwa Livförsäkring, create an ALM model to support the asset management department of Bliwa in their work with defining a credible way of analyzing the future risk and return of Bliwa's asset portfolio and insurance undertakings.The ALM model generally consist of four submodels, the scenario model, the liability model, the asset model and the company model, where the scenario model often is named as the core of the ALM model. The course of action has been to develop these submodels individually, with focus on the scenario model.

Background: Different cultures meet to a greater extent than before as a result of the increasing globalisation. Therefore, international leaders have to count on greater differences in behaviour of their employees within organisations than they have experience from. It can consequently be difficult in an international environment to understand what motivate individuals of a different culture. Purpose: The purpose of this report is to make greater understanding for how national cultures influence leaders methods to motivate their employees in an international environment in Spain where two different cultures confront. Performance: The study has been made by 14 qualitative interviews with Spanish and Swedish leaders in Spain.

The aim of the thesis was to provide further understanding on how Swedish consumers use the Internet as an information source in their purchase decision process. The subject was investigated from different perspectives: gender, product type and information type. The authors used a quantitative approach, and a survey (n=120) was conducted. It was concluded that men and women are equally influenced by traditional word-of-mouth, but more men than women search for product information online and they are more likely to let their purchase decision to be influenced by it. Women tend more to trust commercial sources.

The main topic of this thesis is to evaluate the impact on the usability of web pages when using responsive web design, a concept for developing web pages whose design adapts to the screen size being used. This is done by creating a responsive prototype based on an existing web site. A number of usability tests are conducted on the two versions of the site in order to compare the time to complete the tests and to observe the behaviour of the test participants. The tests are conducted on desktop as well as on mobile devices with varying screen size.The number of test participants was relatively low, and so the quantitative result is not statistically valid. However, the conclusion is that the most effective combination is to use either of the sites on desktop format.

Zambia is a country in Southern Africa where poverty is widespread and the traditional keeping of local poultry therefore plays a crucial role in improving nutrition. Meat and eggs from poultry are important sources of protein but also of income. Improving the poultry production is thereby a method to fight poverty. For poultry, the access to light is an important factor for both growth and egg production. In this paper, the focus is on the traditional village chickens used for both egg and meat production, how they are kept, their health and welfare and if the use of a solar lamp will influence their behaviour, growth and egg production. Three studies were conducted in Chibombo and Choma Districts in Zambia were 17 farmers were interviewed regarding the village chicken management of which six farmers participated in a solar lamp experiment.

The company Sol & Energiteknik wanted to examine the possibility to make a standardhouse totally energy independent. Based upon this I have, during the spring of 2007,examined the possibilities available at the market today through litterature studies, contactwith several companies and reading reports at the internet.The first thing to examine has been to determine the energy consumption for a standardhouse, and find out if there are better technologies to be used for energy conservation.My conclusion in this matter is that there are possibilities today for building a house moreenergy efficient.When I had reached the point at which my design for the house was decided, I also hadto choose the different products to use to produce energy as well as to store that energy.To produce heat and electricity to the house I decided to use a wind turbine and a solarwater heater.The most difficult part of designing a house that is energy independent is that theproduced energy must be stored somehow. Storing the heat is relatively easy beacuse theheat can be stored in a large water tank. The electricity is a bigger problem beacuse itmust be stored in batteries, which today are too expensive to be used in a standard house.In the future producing and storing hydrogen might be used to produce electricity, buttoday that technology is both expensive and not tested enough.My final conclusion is that a standard house can not be built to be totally energyindependent today, unless it is very expensive to connect the house to the electricitynetwork. As an alternative solution I came up with a proposal for a house which isconnected to the electricity network and have some amount of own produced energy.This house prooved to be a good investment if you choose to build it today, and it couldbe a very good investment in the long run beacuse energy prices increase every year..

Tail-biting in pigs is an animal welfare issue and in Sweden during 2002 the producers lost tree million Swedish crowns because of tail biting. This economic loss depends on the pigs which are discarded at slaughter because of tail biting. Tail biting can be separated into two stages, "pre-injury" and "injury". The aim of this study is to investigate if tail biting depends on environment or genetic background.A lot of research on the environments effects on the behaviour of pigs but not so much on the genetic effects has been performed. The frequency of tail biting in pig farms influence among others of environment enrichment, ventilation, gender and breed of the pig.

African elephants (Loxodonta Africana) are kept all over the world in different kinds of enclosures. The enclosures are however often unsuitable for the elephants. Research has shown that elephants are nocturnal animals. Therefore it is important to keep elephants occupied, for instance by using enrichments, also at the night. Five elephants were studied at Borås djurpark, four elephants in one room and one elephant, named Nyoka, in one room.

Tail-biting in pigs is an animal welfare issue and in Sweden during 2002 the producers lost tree million Swedish crowns because of tail biting. This economic loss depends on the pigs which are discarded at slaughter because of tail biting. Tail biting can be separated into two stages, "pre-injury" and "injury". The aim of this study is to investigate if tail biting depends on environment or genetic background.A lot of research on the environments effects on the behaviour of pigs but not so much on the genetic effects has been performed. The frequency of tail biting in pig farms influence among others of environment enrichment, ventilation, gender and breed of the pig.

Practitioners of financial statement analysis are dependent on key ratios in a multiple number of situations, one in particular being equity valuation. A lack of historical benchmarks, and knowledge regarding the time series behaviour of such ratios, has been identified regarding Swedish companies. Therefore, this study sets out to provide such data and knowledge. Companies listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange are examined over the period 1979-2009 where the sample is divided into nine industry groups. Historical values for eight common key ratios are documented with regards to median, mean, standard deviation and percentiles.

The need for snow-free surfaces at squares, bus stops, platforms, car parks and sports facilities increases and at the same time energy price rise and the environment is becoming a hotter issue. The construction of the ground heating systems often lack thermal insulation under the heating pipes, which means that the heat from the pipes not only warm up the soil surface but also heats the surrounding soil. The insulation also has more features, by insulating the risk of frost damage is minimized. The goal of this report is to demonstrate the large heat loss and energy costs in the absence of insulation under the heating system.The report begins with a scientific way to study and treating the soil heating system uses, and the theory involved. Furthermore it also deals with different routing principles of heat pipes depending on the facility.All calculations are made with so called finite element method (FEM), in COMSOL Multiphysics 3,5a, where models are created with different conditions.

The essay concerns corporation?s usage and consumer?s attitude towards the phenomenon Big Data. The aim is to analyse whether corporation-management and future ambitions concerning consumer data coincide with attitudes and opinions of today's consumer, and how these opinions reflect consumer behaviour online. The essay is limited to focus on how companies use consumer data in order to better understand and improve the efficiency of their marketing. A self-composed analyse-model was created using previous studies concerning Internet-usage in Sweden, previous management analysis of corporations use of Big Data combined with theory of Cognitive Dissonance. A questionnaire was then created with the analyse model as foundation.

Companies that invest in e-learning have different expectations regarding the outcome of the investment. According to literature and articles it is common that companies see reduction of costs as the primary benefit with e-learning. Therefore we ask ourselves the question if companies have attained the expected benefit of the investment in e-learning and to what extent cost reduction have been a determining factor in the investments? The purpose of the thesis is to examine if companies that invest in e-learning have attained the expected benefits. We also want to examine what the reason for investing in e-learning is and if cost reduction is the primary reason for investing. The study is founded on a qualitative method that is based on a case study in eight companies.

Abstract Thou there are much written about management, are there, according to Mintzberg no simple definitions regarding how managers should operate towards other co-workers or employees. This essay outlines a perspective for study of managers, from an employees point of view. The study was preformed at one private company, and the empirical data was gathered from five employees. The methodological approach contained qualitative methods based on semi-structured interviews. By using this method, a deeper understanding regarding the questions was desired.

Interest in alternative energies is high in Sweden today, particularly in the agricultural sector. According to the Swedish lantbruksbarometern (2009), almost all respondents consider the use of some form of alternative energy from the farm. While interest in alternative energies is large, attention to the alternative energy straw has fallen and is almost nowhere mentioned in the literature today. Three years ago, in the Lantbruksbarometern nearly 44% of the farmers would be willing to invest in straw as heating system on the farm. How do the farmers decide to invest in alternative energies? With this information a problem is presented for this paper.