This paper is an assessment of whether the Nordic countries constitute an optimum currency area (OCA) or not. Hodrick Prescott-­?filtered data of real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and rate of employment are used to investigate the similarity of business cycles between the target countries through a series of correlation analysis with Sweden as the base reference country and also by using a linear regression model. Additionally there is an evaluation of trade volume and labour mobility between the countries. Our results indicate that Iceland had the least similar business cycles within the Nordic countries and that the area should therefore possibly comprise Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. .

In recent years, several scandals have been revealed where public employees been involved. Some researchers argue, moreover, that the NPM's rampage has led to an increase in the risk of corruption in public administration. The Regulation on Internal Control shall, according to the government, lead to adequate protection against corruption by analyzing and managing risks. However, Riksrevisionen have criticized the authorities' protection against corruption to be too unstructured and unsystematic. In addition, they questioned whether the regulation really has significance in the work against corruption.

The aim of these two studies was to investigate the possible physiological, behavioural and emotional changes that appear after human-horse interactions and also to find an explanation to why they occur. One aspect that is discussed is whether the wellbeing of humans can be coupled to interacting with horses and of how the animals respond to the interaction. The first study was performed on 9 horses and their owners, both parts being subjects to registrations during 4 different interaction treatments. The second study was performed on 6 horses with registrations only being performed on the horses during 2 different treatments. Nine horses underwent 3 different treatments all performed by their owners (H = stroking of the horses forehead, B = brushing and M = stimulation of the withers) in addition to a control round (K). Each treatment lasted for 4 minutes but observations were performed until after 45 minutes from start.

This report is an inventory of the street lighting in half of the residential estates owned by Karlstad Bostads AB, a public housing company. The inventory was made to reduce the environmental impact of the street lighting. From the inventory an estimation of the total installed power and the energy consumption was made. The total estimated power of the street lighting was 125 kW and the energy consumption was 500 000 kWh/year with an estimated running time of 4 000 h/year. The dominating source of light was 125 W discharge mercury lamps.

Speech disorders are common in children with 22q11-deletion syndrome, but there is limited knowledge about speech in adults with this syndrome. The aim of this study is to describe speech and voice in adultswith 22q11-deletion syndrome, and compare the results with a control group.Ten adults between 19-49 years participated in each group. The study wasbased on the Swedish dysarthria assessment, Dysartribedömningen. Thetested abilities were respiration, phonation, oral motor function, velopharyngeal function, articulation, prosody and intelligibility. Communicative participation was examined as well.

The purpose of this study is to achieve an understanding of how a CE- marking process is conducted and to identify the relevant factors that must be considered in such a process. We have conducted our study at Lo?vhults Svets & Smide AB (Lo?vhults) in Skruv, Sma?land Sweden, which are manufacturing brackets for small covering constructions.To understand how a CE-marking process is conducted several documents and provisions have been reviewed to achieve a basic understanding and insight of the subject. It thus led to that guideline ETAG 015 were studied and the factors to be considered in the CE-marking of brackets were identified. Together with Jan-A?ke Johansson at Lo?vhults we agreed on four different brackets to investigate for a potential CE-marking.

Background: In Sweden and Norway planned home birth is not included in the health care system. In Denmark women with expected low risk birth have the right to choose home birth. Registrations of home births in the Nordic countries are not completed and women?s experiences of planned home birth in Scandinavian context are not earlier described.Objective: The aim of this study was to describe women?s experiences of planned home birth in the Scandinavian countries.Design: Inductive content analysis. Fifty-three Scandinavian women who have experienced planned home birth have replied an open question in a questionnaire.

Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka hur en grupp typiskt utvecklade, svenska barn, i åldrarna fyra till tio år presterar på tre deltest i VMPAC, för att därmed skapa ett underlag för en referens för svenska barn i bedömningen av avvikande utveckling. Studiens frågeställningar är: 1. Hur presterar en grupp typiskt utvecklade, svenska barn, i åldrarna fyra till tio år, på tre deltest i VMPAC (Focal Oromotor Control, Sequencing Maintenance Control och Connected Speech and Language Control)? och 2. Förekommer det några skillnader mellan en grupp typiskt utvecklade, svenska barn, jämfört med den amerikanska normeringen i VMPAC och barn med verbal dyspraxi (CAS) undersökta inom ramen för en magisteruppsats (Björelius-Hort, 2009)? Oral- och talmotorisk förmåga hos 23 svenska barn i åldrarna fyra till tio år, som åldersmatchats mot barn med verbal dyspraxi (Björelius-Hort, 2009), testades med deltest två, tre och fyra ur VMPAC.

Today?s media consumption and viewing behavior has led to an expansion in the marketand resulted in a media convergence. The competition gets fiercer with each player andthe outcome for the linear TV channels has to be to change in some way. This is aqualitative interview study with producers at Sweden?s leading children channel?Barnkanalen?, how they experience the adoption to this new media landscape.

AbstractTitle: Relevant factors that affect three small and midsize enterprises during an ERP-system implementationAuthors: Fredrik Dreimanis and Thomas JylhäTutor: Peter EkmanKeywords: ERP, implementation, SMEProblem: Which factors has relevance for small and midsize enterprises during an ERP-system implementation?Purpose: The purpose with this essay is to describe and analyze what distinguishes an implementation for small and midsize enterprises.Methodology:The authors have answered the problem with help of theories and articles within the subject of IT and economics and five interviews with companies in different areas of business.Theoretical framework:The most difficult part with adapting a new ERP- system is the implementation phase. (Muscatello et al. 2003) The reason is that the standardization and changing of business processes is a common occurrence during an implementation. (Gattiker and Goodhue.

GPS is perhaps the future in agriculture. The next years will show it but the precision becomes only better and better and the number of users becomes only more and more. This work shows experiences from today's users and how the profitability can be improved on a farm with normal plant cultivation. The aim is to show how big the actual advantage can be to have a GPS and how good precision there is with the equipment. John Deere and Trimble are the big producers of GPS equipment to the agriculture.

This thesis studies whether private equity owned firms within the Swedish welfare sector distinguish themselves in terms of tax planning and short-termism from a control group consisting of other privately owned welfare firms. For the first time, the comparison is made on the entire welfare sector, between 14 matched pairs within education, health care and elderly care. We use financial metrics associated with tax planning and short-termism in sign tests to examine whether the private equity owned firms differ from our control group. The financial metrics tested are actual and paid tax rates, level of interest, book-tax gap, investments, personnel expenses per employee, and cash earnings. We find that the private equity owned firms in terms of tax planning only differ in the level of interest, while no notable differences are found in terms of short-termism..

In this master thesis work, a new method called MultiScat, is compared with the conventional method with alfa-correction, for computing concentrations from intensities in X-ray spectrometric analysis. The conventional model is a linear model, which only takes the photoelectric effect into consideration. It doesn't consider Rayleigh and Compton scattering even though it has a great impact on the measured intensities. Here MultiScat differs a lot. MultiScat is based on a solution of the Boltzmann transport equation.

This thesis is basically a design project aimed to find a safe and reliable automatic safety device, which is designed to be suitable for highly automated industrial situations. This device fits with ABB / Jokab Safety?s fence systems. These are built up around machines to create safety distances. The automatic protection device assist the operator in situations when loading or going in and out of the danger zone.

Studenter i Sverige har visats vara en utsatt grupp för stress i samhället. Tidigare forskning har påvisat att en lägre stressupplevelse kan prediceras av individens kontrolluppfattning (locus of control), tillgång till socialt stöd och fysiska aktivitetsvanor. Studiens frågeställning gällde om kontroll-uppfattning, socialt stöd eller fysiska aktivitetsvanor var den starkaste prediktorn för en lägre stressupplevelse hos högskolestudenter. En enkät-undersökning mätte 119 högskolestudenters stressupplevelse, kontroll-uppfattning, sociala stöd och fysiska aktivitetsvanor. Enkla- samt multipla regressionsanalyser visade att kontrolluppfattning var den starkaste prediktorn för en lägre stressupplevelse hos studenter.