The agricultural sector is characterized by larger crop farms and more extensive livestockproduction. The efficiency improvement is partly a result from a stronger competition in theglobal market. The agricultural products need to be produced at a lower cost than competitorsin order to survive as a farmer. The solution is larger firms that benefit from economies ofscale. This brings large investments that create a greater need for leverage and closer relationto the credit agency.

The purpose of this Bachelor Thesis is to investigate whether the introduction of IFRS, and in particular IAS 40 regarding fair value accounting of investment property, has lead to increased financial risk for Swedish real estate companies. Financial risk is measured using several financial risk ratios during the period 2000-2009, effectively covering the period before and after the introduction in 2005. The financial risk is found to actually have decreased significantly in comparison with the control group. The relative decrease supports the notion of a factor unique to the real estate companies at least partially driving the change, possibly IAS 40. However, this change is, due to the statistic method employed, only an indication of the direction of change, and consequently interpretations of the magnitude of change cannot be made.

Hedge funds have the past few years become an increasingly popular investment alternative and in the last decade hedge fund assets managed have quadrupled to USD 2000 billion, a growth rate of around 25-30% per year. One explanation for this substantial increase is that hedge funds' minimum limits on capital invested has declined, which have made ??them available to retail investors. The recent turmoil in financial markets has also contributed to investors finding their way to hedge funds, whose goal is to generate stable returns regardless of how the market develops.Using Sharpe?s, Treynor?s and Jensen's performance measures, I have investigated whether hedge funds manage to generate higher risk-adjusted returns than traditional managed funds.

The securities market was to undergo a major change with the entry of MiFID I in November 2007. EU´s establishment if the directive sets high standards for investment firms to establish internal guidelines in accordance with MiFID I. As right now, the securities market is facing further change with the proposal for MiFID II.MiFID II seeks to overcome MiFID I´s shown deficiencies. The greatest need for change are the rules that secure investor protection, with specific focus on regulation on information service from investment firms to customers. This essay deals with the rules on information service enacted in MiFID I compared to the changes presented in MiFID II to investigate whether the changes could strengthen investor protection as desired.MiFID II is a more detailed framework than its precursor.

In the year of 2005 the international standard IAS 40 came in to use in Sweden, this lead to an opportunity for the corporations to choose either to evaluate their investment properties according to the historical cost accounting principal. The model contains the obtaining price with reduction for the planned writing off. The alternative that IAS40 offers is the fairvalue principal, which evaluate the investment properties by consideration of the income versus outcome and surrounding factors for every accounting periodSince the fairvalue is buildt on numbers the corporations them self choose what to publish and for how long the value depreciation should be lasting before it should be taken up as an unrealized value change in the reporting material. This means that there is a big chance that the evaluation can be distortedSince we just recently have had strong cyclical variation and are on our way from an excess boom into a weak economic climate, this will be the first study performed about fair value in a weak economic climate since the adoption of IAS40.The purpose of the essay is to find out how well the booked value of investment properties owned by corporations listed on the Swedish stock market accord with the fairvalue that the market and the Swedish property index indicates on. To be able to test this connection we gathered information from the corporation?s annual reports which we compiled to see how the market comprehends.

The increasing holdings by institutional investors have raised concerns about the institutions passive Investment strategies and the implications for corporate governance. A way for investors to address moral hazard and opportunistic behaviour of management is to demand conservatism in accounting practices. This paper analyses the relation between institutional ownership and accounting conservatism in the Swedish market by studying firms on the Nasdaq OMX Stockholm over a three-year period. Furthermore, the study investigates whether ownership by institutions with high probability of monitoring managers leads to higher conservatism in financial reporting. To measure accounting conservatism this study uses the asymmetric timeliness measure developed by Basu (1997).

In this thesis a method for evaluating investments in small scale hydro power is presented. An analysis of the future position that small scale hydro production will have on the Nordic electricity market is also carried out. This is done by an inventory of technology and economic and environmental aspects. The inventory is also a guide as to how the project should be implemented.Hydrolyzer is the name of the Excel tool developed to evaluate investments. The tool requests input data from the user and then evaluates the investment and generates a sensitivity analysis.

This paper is a literature review that examines how good mental calculation skills benefit pupils, which could work as a valuable learning tool for future teachers. The study addresses four key questions: ?What are the advantages of proficient mental calculations??, ?What strategies exist for mental calculation skills??, ?How can teachers accommodate their teaching to develop pupils? mental calculation skills?? and ?What has arithmetic looked like in different eras and what algorithms have been used??. Through literature searches in search engines, scientific articles were found, which formed the basis for the result segment. This was divided into two parts: A historical and a didactic overview.

Theories about exposure and risk-taking in an everyday environment show a connection between parental strategies, parent-child relationship and exposure on the Internet. In the present study, the Internet is presented as an everyday activity. Negative exposure is seen as an outcome of risk-taking. The purpose of the study was to examine in what way parental strategies together with the parent-child relationship were related to the teenagers? negative experiences on the Internet, which consisted of three categories: 1) Exposure to pornographic sites, 2) Exposure to upsetting and violent material, 3) Digital bullying.

The purpose of this thesis was to examine how two different groups use information strategies in their Facebook group activities. A qualitative study was made using interviews and a qualitative observation method. The observation groups consisted of two selected groups on Facebook and I interviewed three chosen participants of each group; a Gatekeeper, a Gateopener and a Lurker. Through the information strategies I examined the selected groups? information environments.

AbstractThe aim of the research presented in this thesis is to study how interactional strategies are used by children and what these strategies mean or imply in the preschool cultural context. The theoretical point of departure in the study is the socio-cultural perspective (William Corsaro, Roger Säljö, Jim Wertsch). The study is a contribution to the field of research that focuses upon contextual issues and an overall way of seeing the child. This is in opposition to the strong traditional psychological perspective in the development of the child, where a focus upon the individual dominates in special education. This ethnographic study aims to answer the following research questions; What interactional strategies are co-constructed by the children in preschool play? How do the interactional strategies influence the creation of culture in preschool play? The children, 3-5 years olds, and their play situation were in focus.

My purpose in this paper is to study teachers' work in reading and writing in primary school and special school. I want to find out if they use the same methods, strategies and materials to help students learn to read and write. I will find out the answer to my purpose by performing two qualitative observation and two qualitative interviews. Lundberg (2010) is the researcher I relate to during my study. Through observation, I see how teachers work with students in the classroom during a lesson in the Swedish language. During the interviews, I received answers to how teachers work with language, the materials, methods and strategies they use. I found out that teachers use specific strategies when they help their students. They use a work material that is tailored to curriculum in Swedish language and it is based on the phonics method. .

The ability for companies to anticipate the future and stay in the forefront of the competition is essential for successful business. The tool of Environmental Scanning is basics in the process of developing prescriptive strategies as well as vital in evolving emergent strategies. The complexity lies in gathering relevant information and transforming the information into adequate data, which can be utilised by management to optimise strategies. The purpose of this study is to scrutinise how successfully operating Swedish manufacturing companies, listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange?s ?Large Cap?-list, organise their Environmental Scanning actions and how this affects the development of strategies. Prior research on the subject has been used as foundation to presenting relevant theories.

This is a qualitative study based on two focus group interviews with a total of six social workers who work with assessing financial aid in two municipalities. The study aims to examine how the social workers experience and handle their ambiguous professional role, on the basis that they are expected to support and control the client. The theoretical framework is the theory about discretion and role theory. The results show that social workers find it difficult to combine these different approaches. Two different groups of strategies that social workers use to manage their professional role have been distinguished, the first is used to combine the different approaches (combination strategies), which are: empathy, to be distinct and to "blame" the organization.

The basis of road investments is to minimize the transportation cost. The forest industry wants roundwood to be available during the whole year. One way of determine which road to invest in is to do a cost/benefit calculation. SCA Forest lacks a uniform approach to determine the utility of a road investment. The goal of this report is to describe how the organization works today and find areas of improvement. The data collection was done through interviews.