Each year 225 million pigs are transported within the European Union (EU) for slaughter, fattening and breeding. This results in poor animal welfare due to the fact that animals are exposed to several numbers of stress factors in the vehicle during loading, transit and unloading. Animal welfare can be defined as how well the animal attempts to cope with its environment and during transport there is often severe difficulty for the pigs to cope properly. There is a growing societal concern for animal welfare. This resulted in that the European Union enacted a law called the EU-regulation with certain directives of how to improve the welfare of the animals during transport.

This study aims at examine if an Europeanization is affecting the bilateral diplomatic relation between Sweden and Italy as managed by the national embassies. The questions asked to pursue the aim are; how the bilateral diplomatic work is managed between the countries, are there any signs of Europeanization within this relation or is it still contingent on intergovernmental principles? In this study an analytical model is created and used to analyze how the bilateral diplomacy between Italy and Sweden is managed through the embassies. The discussion on top ?down Europeanization by Tanja Börzel is central to the development of the analytical model.

To establish sustainability reports is an increasing trend for more and more companies. This has led to a spread of the international framework Global reporting initiative, GRI, guidelines to make a sustainability reports. This trend has got a lot of critics from various stakeholders who believe that companies in these reports communicate the information in a way of window dressing. Both negative and positive information has to be represented according to GRI: s principle of balance.  Window dressing is created by adding a greater emphasis on the positive information. The researchers review the context of the negative information to study the extent to which it is reported and whether there are patterns and variations in the reported information.

Den här uppsatsen behandlar huruvida det går att mäta marknadsföringsaktivitet i sociala medier eller inte. Idag används Return of Investment (ROI) mätningar för att mäta vilken avkastning en marknadsföringssatsning ger. Syftet med uppsatsen är således att klargöra för de begrepp och mätmetoder som används, samt deras tillförlitlighet. För att besvara de framtagna frågeställningarna har omfattande datainsamling gjorts i form av skriven litteratur och intervjuer. Det har även gjorts egna observationer genom mätningen av en marknadsförd kampanj i de sociala medieverktygen Facebook och Twitter.

Several surveys indicate that corporate leaders still consider the aligning of IT and business functions as a top management issue. The aim of this thesis is to illustrate how coordination emerges between IT and business departments and how formal structures intended to coordinate are influenced by human action. To deepen the understanding of this phenomenon we seek to analyze IT/business coordination from a perspective based on practice theory. A field study was conducted where observations and informal interviews were carried out at the IT department of a global company. The empirical analysis indicate that coordination problems between IT and business departments is in part affected by embedded factors such as different goals and perspectives on how IT is to be used in the organization or how to design IT related processes.

The value investing philosophy, which can be traced at least to the teaching of Graham and Dodd in the 1930?s, entails identifying and investing in potentially under valued stocks with a potential for extraordinary returns. The focus of this thesis is to identify patterns and characteristics in financial accounting data preceding creation of shareholder value. The authors of this thesis utilize a multivariate discriminant analysis in order to identify indicators of value creation and subsequent extraordinary returns in value stocks. A discriminant function is derived which successfully identifies which value stocks will eventually become growth stocks.

The county hospital of Dalarna has for the last couple of years carried through a process of digitalization. The result is that within the county it exists image plate systems from two different manufacturers. In an attempt to create a tool for dose optimization and dose surveillance the county of Dalarna would like to investigate if the exposure index from Agfa and Fuji is suitable as a dose indicator. An investigation of the exposure index, S, from Fuji has already been done. This thesis has been continuing the investigation by evaluating the stability of the exposure index, lgM, from Agfa.

The main purpose of this essay is to identify opinions of masculine and feminine language in a written text. The aim is to examine whether the reader of a text can define the anonymous author?s sex, judging only by elements such as choice of words or sentence structure. Are there any differences between the sexes as they appear in written language, and is the common man able to make this distinction? The essay is based on several studies on people?s ideas on masculine and feminine language, as well as studies on actual differences.

The purpose of this study is to assess the state of health of the individuals living in Löddeköpinge during the middle ages, whose remains were excavated by Chintio, H., 1975-80. The location is thought to have been a trading community that ceased to flourish towards the end of the Viking age. The main focus of the essay is to examine the occurrence of osteoarthritis (sv. artros), trauma, and analysis of stature, in order to understand population health during this time period. Osteoarthritis has never been researched in Löddeköpinge and the analysis showed that, of the 60 skeletons examined, 68,3% demonstrated some change in the skeletal joints, which is much higher than in the comparative material obtained from Lund and Sigtuna.

The xenophobic attitudes in Europe are stronger than even. Never before have the member states had as many right-wing parties in action. The aim with this report is therefore to consider whether the Schengen cooperation has had an influence on the development of xenophobia in the member states of EU. The Schengen cooperation became a part of the European Union in 1997, with the aim to abolish the internal border controls for citizens and strengthen the external boarders towards non-members. The intention is furthermore to investigate whether the distance to Schengen ?s external boarder has an impact on the xenophobic attitudes.Three countries are compared: Italy, Netherlands and the United Kingdom.

This essay is about the tactical basic principles as they are mentioned in the Swedish Doctrine for land based operations (2005) and the German side during the battle of Verdun 1916. The purpose of this essay is to clarify whether the used doctrine is appropriate to use on future attrition battles.        This is done by a case study of the German side during the battle ofVerdun. In this case study indicators of the basic principles are then identified and analysed with the starting point at the two questions that the essay is based around. The essay starts with an introduction where above is attended, in the second part the basic principles, the background to the battle and the battle itself is described. Finally the tactical basic principles are analysed and discussed based on the questions that the essay is based on.In the analysis and the discussion the conclusion is drawn that the tactical basic principles were present on the German side during the battle of Verdun and that they are of a general character and may be applied on both attrition warfare of 1916 and modern battles of attrition..

Background: Companies often invest in foreign subsidiaries and that gives rise to translation exposure. Translation exposure arises with the consolidation of the foreign subsidiary and depends on the rate of exchange that are used for translation of the foreign subsidiary. In time several different methods of translation and recommendations has been developed. Companies listed on OM Stockholmsbörsen shall follow RR8. According to RR8 a classification of foreign subsidiaries as indipendent or integral to the parent company determines which method of translation that should be used.

This study is based on previous research concluding that sub-national actors now function on a complex arena where the nation state is not the sole and self-evident channel to the European Union. Based on that assumption, the thesis is intended to create understanding of the nature of the relationship between the West Sweden regional office and its Värmland commissioners in the case of regional action.The relationship between the regional office and its members was examined in a case study of open consultation around the EU?s new EU 2020 strategy. The questions posed in the thesis are answered by interviews with representatives of West Sweden and certain Värmland members of that organization. The results of the interviews were then analyzed based on a fusion perspective, which addresses various indicators for regional action.The results of the study show that the West Sweden regional office can assume a clearer role in regional influencing, but also that Region Värmland plays an important role in influencing the EU.

Syfte: Studien undersöker om det finns ett samband mellan ekonomiska indikatorer och den årliga aktieavkastningen ett år framåt på den svenska marknaden för företag som genomfört nyemission och jämförs med en benchmark som består av företag som inte genomfört nyemission.Metod: Uppsatsen utgår från en kvantitativ undersökning där multipel regressionsanalys används för att undersöka sambandet mellan indikatorer och aktieavkastningen vid nyemissioner under tidsperioden 2002 ? 2010.Slutsats: Utifrån resultaten kunde vissa signifikanta samband konstateras mellan indikatorerna och totalavkastningen för nyemissionsgruppen. Det visade att totalavkastningen sjunker det året företag genomför nyemission jämfört med totalavkastningen året innan nyemissionen. Det kunde konstateras att marknaden är ineffektiv till en viss utsträckning i samband med nyemissioner. För benchmark kunde resultaten dock inte säkerställas på grund av att statistisk felkälla förekom i regressionsmodellen..

Over the last decades there has been a steady increase in the representation of women on the political arena. Despite of this there are still fewer women in comparison to men in political organs particularly at the municipal level. It is therefore of great importance to examine which different factors that tend to effect the female representation at this level. Doctor of philosophy at Umeå University Jessika Wide presented in a study from 2000 that the share of women in the municipal councils tended to depend upon cultural, socio-economical and political factors. Other scholars also mean that women have specific interests and therefore are more represented in some areas.