Common wisdom dictates that because payment of dividends decreases funds available for investment, a high payout ratio is to be associated with low earnings growth. This notion has been challenged in recent years by empirical research that has found a positive relationship between payout ratio and future earnings growth, both on the aggregated market level and the company level in different countries. This study investigated the aforementioned relationship on the Swedish market by statistically analyzing future earnings growth as a function of payout ratio on a large sample of publicly listed companies over the period 1980 to 2011. The results are in line with those found in previous research and indicate that companies with high dividend payout ratio tend to experience strong future earnings growth. The results are robust to the presence of mean reversion, the use of an alternative accounting measure of earnings, non-symmetrical earnings growth cycles and alternative practices for dealing with outliers..

Det sägs att en fjärils vingslag i Brasilien kan utlösa en storm i Texas. I vår alltmer globaliserade samtid ligger det troligen mer sanning i det sagda än någonsin tidigare. Föremålet för föreliggande uppsatsen är en rättsgrundsats ? en av Högsta domstolen etablerad rättsprincip ? betecknad påståendedoktrinen, närmare bestämt doktrinens betydelse i skiljetvister i allmänhet och i investeringstvister i synnerhet. Bakgrunden till de problemställningar varom uppsatsen handlar står att finna i Högsta domstolens avgörande NJA 2008 s 406, vari Högsta domstolen, med undanröjande av skiljenämndens dom, gjorde följande synnerligen intressanta uttalande: ?Det är en etablerad grundsats i svensk rätt att skiljemännen vid [behörighetsprövningen] skall tillämpa påståendedoktrinen.

AbstractThe urgency to find alternative fabrics to conventionally produced cotton is increasing as vast amounts of agrochemicals are used and a lot of irrigation is required. In this literature survey the potential of organic cultivation practices to produce highly qualitative hemp fibre, suitable for the textile industry, was investigated. The definition of a fibre in the textile context as well as of the qualities that are essential for a textile fibre was necessary as a base for the discussion in this thesis. The quality parameters looked at were fineness, strength, length, friction, and colour. The impact of external growth factors and plant development on these quality properties are discussed.

Given that the oil prices have risen and the environmental regulations has become more stringent, the interest in operating efficiency has increased. The project has investigated the possibility of producing electricity from waste heat generated in the diesel process. One technique to utilize and convert energy into electricity is the ORC (Organic Rankine Cycle). This process is based on the Rankine process (the steam process), the difference from the traditional Rankine process is that instead of water as a working medium, an organic substance is used. The main component used in the process is a evaporator, a turbine, a condenser and a pump.

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.

To make it easier for forestry planning the forest owners needs data which describe characteristics of the forest. Such data you usually get from some type of inventory. A relatively new technology which probably is getting more important in the future, is laser scanning because of lower costs. But because the laser technology is relatively new you need to compare it with conventional inventory technologies to get better understanding of the possibilities the laser technology gives. This work intends to estimate field measured characteristics of the forest from laser data with help of regression analysis and then see which of the field measured properties that best could be estimated and which laser variables that gave the best results. This study shows that heights has the best estimates, but biomass, diameter and volume also gives good estimates.

In this project a simulator has been developed (in C++) with the purpose of illustrating how changes in environmental regulations, tax levels and other policy measures affect the composition of an energy system. The aim of the project was to investigate how energy companies? investment strategies are affected when changes in economic and environmental conditions occur. A standard scenario has been created based on current Swedish conditions, but the user can create new scenarios and set parameters freely. The user is tasked with building power plants to supply the city/region with district heating and electricity during a pre-set number of years. When the simulation is finished the result is graded in the following categories: economy, environment and quality. To evaluate the simulator three scenarios were created (?early 20th century?, ?reduced environmental control? and ?future?) in addition to the standard scenario and these were compared with each other by examining how a select group of power plants perform under the given conditions.

Background: The hurricane in the south of Sweden in January 2005 was the worst storm in Sweden for the last hundred years. The storm named Gudrun has blown down forest that according to estimation is corresponding to one year of cutting down in the entire country.Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to describe how credit granters act when facing falling forest real estate mortgage and describe if they will make considerations due to the storm in the south of Sweden 2005.Method: With help of a qualitative method, we investigated how the credit granters act when facing falling forest real estate mortgage. Interviews were obtained with three credit granters, SEB, Landshypotek and FöreningsSparbanken in the county of Jönköping and Kronoberg.Conclusion: The conclusion is based upon the empirical study, the analysis and our own reflections and it shows that the credit granters do not change their policy concerning credit granting to forest real estate properties. The policy of the credit granters has proven to be valid even in this extreme situation..

The increasing complexity in the development of a configurable real-time system has emerged new principles of software techniques, such as aspect-oriented software development and component-based software development. These techniques allow encapsulation of the system's crosscutting concerns and increase the modularity of the software. The properties of a component that influences the systems performance or semantics are specified separately in entities called aspects, while basic functionality of the property still remains in the component. When building a real-time system, different sets of configurations of aspects and components can be combined, resulting in different configurations of the system. The temporal behavior of the system changes and a way to ensure the predictability of the system is needed.

This report investigates the possibility to use non-petroleum based adhesive (biobitumen) in asphalt. The main reasons for replacing bitumen are the fact that oil prices are rising, the threat of peak oil and the fact that the asphalt industry is becoming more environmentally friendly.The main purpose of this report is to investigate whether there are any non-petroleum based adhesives on the market. If so, how can they be used? The questions covered are:? Are there any other alternative asphalt coatings available?? Can bio-oils be used in asphalt?? If the bio-oils can be used, what are the details their properties?? How does a cold climate affect the bio binders?? What is the Swedish asphalt industry?s opinion about bio asphalt?The project was concluded through literature studies, consultations with people in the asphalt industry and through several interviews.The conclusion of this report is that there are some existing non-petroleum based adhesives on the market. They are mainly used for bike paths, sidewalks and parkareas.

Hedge funds? importance within the financial system has during the most recent years increased dramatically. These special funds are unique instruments that differ from traditional mutual funds in a variety of ways, however especially in how they expect returns. Due to the fact that hedge funds are able to hold short positions they possess the possibility to become market neutral investment vehicles.Because of this possibility to sustain positions neutral to market fluctuations, the concept of absolute returns became a unique selling point for hedge fund managers and promises of stable returns unchallenged by market conditions was assured. This research paper aims to examine the theory of absolute returns in hedge funds by examining hedge funds from the Nordic region during the last years of economic turmoil that has occurred by  analyzing the results from their strategies, partially by quantitative measurements as well as qualitative.  The results show that none of hedge fund strategies managed to deliver absolute returns over the chosen period..

For centuries, springs have played a significant role in our society as water supplies, reasons for where to settle down, and in folklore. There are different reasons why and where a spring forms, e.g. in what kind of soil it has its outflow. Geographic and geochemical surroundings have an influence on spring-water quality.For this project some of the springs in the Lagga perish, Knivsta municipality, Sweden, were selected for a closer study. Water samples were collected from springs for analysis.

The main focus of this essay is to analyze whether strict employment protection legislation has a negative effect on the labour market possibilities for youth in the EU or not. To empirically examine the labour market possibilities for youth, data for unemployment rates and incidence of temporary jobs are used. By doing simple correlations between the different labour market characteristics and OECD?s employment protection legislation index the effect of the latter is tested. The result is that a tendency for youth unemployment and frequency of youth with temporary employment to be higher when employment protection legislation is strict can be seen.

The aim of this thesis is to study different aspects of the public libraries' investment in public access computers connected to the Internet. What level of accessibility can be found at the surveyed libraries concerning the number of computers open to the public, as well as chat and email services? What activities have been taking place with the computers in focus, and what have the goals of these activities been? Is there any control of content, and what aspects of the Internet are, if that is the case, subject to censorship. And how do the governmental policies relate to the surveyed libraries' intentions and activities regarding the Internet? In order to answer these questions, each main library in the 42 largest towns of Sweden was surveyed response rate: 100 %.

This report describes the work of developing a specification of requirements for Waste Heat Recovery Units. The main part of the paper describes how the work with the specification of requirements has been performed. One specific question to be answered is:What are the customer?s demands in case of properties for the Waste Heat Recovery Units and how is that information collected as an order documentation to suit the business area Oil & Gas?The report begins with a description of the assignment and continues with the aim and background. A theoretical part describes the different areas and methods that have been important during the process.