The aim of this thesis is to investigate how a valuation of a company preceding an acquisition can be affected by the fact that a strong brand is attached to the target company. Techniques to value a company and theories of brands are well developed, but the link between them is partially missing even though the needs to value brands have increased. A case study of five Swedish acquisitions is conducted to identify possible complicating and simplifying factors and how these are handled in the context of a valuation of an acquired company with a strong brand. Important findings are that a decreased volatility of future earnings can lead to more accurate prognoses and valuations due to the existence of a strong brand. A strong brand can, on the other hand, also make the valuation of the target company more difficult due to the fact that it is a subjective asset which increases the overall risk of the company.

Swedish school children exhibit deteriorating knowledge results in terms of reading comprehension. Previous research shows that a method to increase the level of knowledge is the use of evidence-based learning techniques. Test based learning generates what is commonly referred to as a test effect, which proved to strengthen the relationship between learning and memory, as well as being applicable to various test formats. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether test based learning, in terms of learning english words leads to increased performance in a reading comprehension test, more specifically a cloze test. The study was based on a within-group design and was conducted three times over four weeks.

The first ad was published in Sweden 1645. Advertising itself is not a new phenomenon, it's just the conditions that has been changed. Today, advertising is a matter of course in our daily lives, every day we are exposed to thousands of messages that wants to persuade and convince us to consume. In this paper, we have looked into the semiotic and rhetorical tricks that are used for this particular persuasion, and we have investigated whether they have changed in the last 60 years or if the same tricks are still being used today. Our two hypotheses is: A) the rhetorical and semiotic basis of an ad looks the same today as 60 years ago.

This thesis considers the use of an oldrock cavern as thermal energy storage.With a large system of differentchillers a model was created to find anappropriate future system. There aremainly two trajectories to take. Eitheran installation of chillers needs to bemade or the rock cavern can be used tomeet the future demand of districtcooling in Solna, Sweden. Additionallythis thesis investigates the possibleuse of different techniques to utilizethe phase change energy of water.Simulation shows that it?s possible toutilize the phase-change energy of afluid; however it?s not economicallyfeasible due to the thermodynamiceffects on the Carnot cycle.

S2 CRM is a Customer Relations Management system built in classic ASP that runs on a web server servicing customers with varying needs. The purpose of this thesis work is to convert parts of the system to the web development environment ASP.NET. The purpose is also to gain knowledge of the framework itself. The ASP.NET environment is compared with another framework, JBoss Seam, in order to understand the differences and to evaluate the possibility of using another framework than ASP.NET, when building the new system. The outcome of this comparison is that although JBoss Seam is just as good, and in some aspects better than ASP.NET, the use of ASP.NET simplifies the continuation of development on the S2 CRM product.

This work is about presenting the weave in a new and different context, by bringing textile and glass together. The work is characterized by material and shape experiments with silver and copper weave and hand blown glass. From experiments and sketches, the work has resulted in four sculptures, symbolizing four selected stages in a lifecycle; the birth, the development, the maturity and the death. One important part of the work has been to combine different materials and techniques.Studies of literature, sketching, handweaving and integration of silver and copper weave in the glass have been important methods in the working process. Inspired by the flower, the human being and the universe, a story about the life cycle has taken shape.The paper describes the working process with choices and analyses.

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has the potential to be used for the diagnosis and study of osteoarthrosis in the equine tarsal region. In the development of new diagnostic MRI techniques cadaver specimens are often used. To allow the use of cadaver legs for these types of studies it is important to know the effect of time after death on the MRI image. Since the relaxation times are temperature dependent, it is interesting to examine whether the time after death and the temperature of the cadaver may play a role in the image appearance and quality. The radio pulse sequences that show the different types of tissues are also important to know when pathological evaluation with MRI is used.

The different aspects of each individual construction project such as the general conditions, design and economic restrictions as well as many more factors mean it is difficult to standardize building processes or plan in detail based on past experiences. As a result operational efficiency is often reduced, and unnecessary waste is generated. To make an organization more efficient and therefore reduce waste production everybody involved needs to appreciate and understand the improvements that can increase the organization?s efficiency. To investigate these improvements a time study was performed on two different construction sites, both of which involved buildings being constructed of prefabricated steel and concrete elements.

The different aspects of each individual construction project such as the general conditions, design and economic restrictions as well as many more factors mean it is difficult to standardize building processes or plan in detail based on past experiences. As a result operational efficiency is often reduced, and unnecessary waste is generated. To make an organization more efficient and therefore reduce waste production everybody involved needs to appreciate and understand the improvements that can increase the organization?s efficiency. To investigate these improvements a time study was performed on two different construction sites, both of which involved buildings being constructed of prefabricated steel and concrete elements.

Under höstterminen 2013 har Stefan Erlandsson och Louise Andersson, designingenjörsstudenter på Högskolan i Skövde, utfört ett produktutvecklingsprojekt i samarbete med entreprenören Lars Willebrand. Målsättningen för projektet var att utveckla ett lyftverktyg som ska komplettera Willebrands produktserie bestående av; travers, svängkran, plåtbyrå och lyftverktyg. Lyftverktyget ska vara anpassat för att användas i kombination med en plåtbyrå, vilket innebär att det kommer användas till att lyfta material från höga och låga höjder. Lyftverktyget måste därmed konstrueras i syfte att underlätta för användaren och undvika arbetsskador som kan uppstå vid dessa lyft. Lyftverktyget ska även kunna anpassas till kunder som endast avser att lyfta skivformade produkter i midjehöjd.Projektet inleds med en förstudie där mycket fokus läggs på ergonomi och användaren.

The purpose of this project was to invite a changed perception of active sitting, to introduce a more active way of sitting in office environments and destigmatize an active sitting posture such as straddling by giving active sitting products conscious aesthetics based on environment and positive associations. The goal with this project was an active sitting product for office environments with aesthetics considered encouraging to movement in a relaxed way, regardless of age and gender, and connect to materials and aesthetics related to activity, experience and recreation. Horseback riding, retro style surfing and skateboarding was an entry of investigation. The project was based on existing active sitting products, their function and production techniques. It was not a part of the project to investigate new models of sitting.

This paper investigates the possibilities to construct automatized portfolios based on optimizations strategies that could outperform comparable indexes. The study is based on time-series of Swedish stocks dating from 1986 to 2006. In the research four different portfolio optimization techniques were studied. These were: the Classical Markowitz Approach, Mean-Absolute-Deviation, Minimum-Regret and Conditional Value-at-Risk of which the three latter are based on generated scenarios. The behaviour of these models was studied for different choices of parameters such as backward time-horizon and targeted average return.

This paper is based on a literature review and interviews made with managers in small-scale nurseries for pot plant production. The review helped to identify the worst occupational hazards in pot plant production. The interviews provided a way to investigate how the nurseries act so as to avoid the worst hazards and what they do to even out work intensive periods during the season in order to get a more even distribution of work over the year. According to available statistics problems with back and shoulders are the most common of the physical disorders and the risk for occupational accidents are high for greenhouse workers. Most of the occupational injuries are connected to musculoskeletal problems. The handling of material is often manual and involves frequent lifting and carrying of heavy loads, the strenuous work postures and static muscular tensions these repetitive tasks are associated with causes straining and overloading.

Abstract Heléne Slivka (2013). Kvalitetsarbete ur ett specialpedagogiskt perspektiv ? en fallstudie. (Quality assurance process in the elementary school from a special education perspective ? a case study.) The research This essay investigates the language in the school´s quality assurance documents. An important aspect of this is the way in which language structures and informs how we think about, and work with, students with special needs. Aim The aim of this essay is to problematize how students with special needs are represented in the quality assurance documents of the school. The writer intends to point out how the ways in which the language used to describe students informs governing processes.

 This paper evaluates the effect of exchange rate risk on the sum of bilateral trade. To distinguish the effect between different types of countries, two groups are defined: advanced and developing economies. Economic theory on exchange rate risk and trade proposes ambiguous effects of increased volatility. However, the ex ante hypothesis is that developing economies are more sensitive to volatility. Contrarily to the hypothesis, the empirical results suggest that advanced economies would benefit up to twice as much from a removal of exchange rate risk.