Forest enterprises have always searched for ways to improve efficiency. For the past few years there has been an emphasis on stock-keeping levels. Increased demand for fresh round timber and the need to decrease the amount of tied-up capital has made the forest industry reduce its inventory levels. This has brought on a higher demand on the timber supply from the forest management districts concerning both delivery in time and assortment output. As a result, the flow of timber has fluctuated a lot with serious consequence for the timber supply during 1994.

Computers together with Internet have been growing enormously, during the last decade and the area of information technology has been growing in the same speed. As long as the surrounding environment evolves, the business models must within the IT-area, keep the same pace. So, how do business corporations handle this change to attract customers? How do the dominant business models look like? In many cases, they are apparently much the same. But what differences can we see and what areas can be improved? We have showed that the IT area isn?t just one, it consist of several segments.

In part this paper is a contribution to the ongoing Swedish discussion about our public structures. The discussion has picked up speed in the last years thanks to a government backed committee trying to come up with a suggestion to make our public sector more efficient. A big part of the debate is about the independence and work of our municipalities, what they should do, what they shouldn?t do and when the state should step in and take over. I make a theoretical investigation into one of these issues, the one about job creation.

Insecticides will be removed from Swedish forestry, at present insecticides are used to treat our seedlings to avoid them from being attacked by pine weevils. With the forthcoming ban on insecticides alternative protective measures will have to be tested. Holmen Forest Ltd has aimed to find an alternative and have developed a mechanic pine weevils protection accessory as well as a new concept on planting pipes. Studies have been conducted on the behalf of Holmen Forest Ltd to see how planting with the newly developed mechanical protectors and plant pipe stands up against the conventional methods used today. The study was conducted over a three week period. Three factors were compared regarding planting quality including i) pressure around the plant, ii) the depth the plant ended up in, iii) plant angle. Mechanical plant pipes were used in the study, and where tested like a one-handed and a two-handed pipe. The study concludes that further development is needed for the mechanic plant protector to live up to the speed and quality of conventional methods.

This thesis deals with different methods for measuring moisture-related dimensional changes ofwood. Typically relative humidity is measured to determine if the ambient climate around anobject is harmful to it or not. Values between 40 to 65% RH are recommended for hygroscopicmaterials. To know how a wooden object actually reacts to changes in the surroundingenvironment requires methods that involve the object itself. Because of the wood anisotropy,differences in wood structure, finishes and other restraints, it is not always possible to predict themovements.This paper addresses various measurement methods, primarily methods that have been testedin the field of conservation, with examples of their use.

The study evaluated the Mutant Prevention Concentration (MPC) of Pradofloxacin on three Escherichia coli (E.coli) strains, 2 wildtypes and one first-step gyrA resistant mutant. We also measured the value of AUC (Under the Concentration)/MPC that prevents growth of resistant mutants. It is of importance to reach a concentration above MPC that prevent E.coli from developing resistance against the antibiotic.We used an in vitro kinetic model where we added bacteria? and antibiotic. The culture flask was attached to a pump with an adjustable pump-speed.

This essay examines pull-out strength of threaded rods fixed into glulam timber. The technology is intended to be used in hidden joints between glulam components. The work began with a study of literature focusing on current research within the topic, mainly to create a base of knowledge before the testing was initiated. Studies of scientific articles reveals a lack of research within this area, which makes it difficult to develop standards and calculation models for these joints. The drill holes in the tests have a diameter of 7 mm.

This paper is about employees' opinion towards libraries. The target group consists of employees at industrial research institutes in Sweden. Libraries offer several more services today than they have done before. I think many people do not recognise all of them and I also think the knowledge and the opinion about libraries have to do with use of them. Since I am curious about if this is true or not the purpose of this essay is to find out, through an attitude research, the employees', at industrial research institutes, opinion about library service.

How capital structure influences corporate performance and value has been in the interest of researchers and scholars for more than half a century, but an answer is yet to be found. The main objective of the present paper is to contribute with data for this cause and hopefully help to clarify this mystery. The method that was used was by analyzing the impact of debt on profitability and market valuation through linear regression. The study examined 17 Swedish property companies listed on Nasdaq OMX Large Mid and Small Cap over a 6 year period (2007-2012). The authors found a slightly negative relationship between debt-to-equity and profitability measured by return on equity (ROE) as well as by return on assets (ROA).

Examensarbetet använder generaliserade linjära modeller för att identifiera och analysera enhetsspecifika egenskaper som påverkar risken för operativa förluster. Företag exponeras sällan mot operativa förluster vilket gör att det finns lite information om dessa förluster. De generaliserade linjära modellerna använder statistiska metoder som gör det möjligt att analysera all tillgänglig interndata trots att den är begränsad. Dessutom möjliggör metoden att analysera frekvensen av förlusterna samt magnituden av förlusterna var för sig. Det är fördelaktigt att göra två separata analyser, oberoende av varandra, för att identifiera vilka enhetsspecifika egenskaper som påverkar förlustfrekvensen respektive förlustmagnituden.

I det här arbetet har linjär regression använts för att undersöka omolika sociala faktorer påverkar om elever får gymnasiebehörighet. Undersökningen gjordes med kommunvis aggregerad data och faktorerna somundersöktes var utländsk bakgrund, försörjningsstöd, utbildningsnivå, arbetslöshet, disponibel inkomst, lärartäthet, andel lärare med pedagogiskexamen och skolornas kostnad.Statistiskt signikanta resultat erhölls för utländsk bakgrund, försörjningsstöd, utbildningsnivå, disponibel inkomst och lärartäthet. Enligtundersökningen påverkar utländsk bakgrund och försörjningsstöd gymnasiebehörigheten negativt. Utbildningsnivå och disponibel inkomst påverkarden positivt. Lärartätheten påverkar gymnasiebehörigheten positivt omandelen lärare i svenska som andraspråk och modersmål inte överstiger10,4 %.Resultaten för resten av de undersökta faktorerna var inte statistisktsignikanta och därför kan inget sägas säkert om dem utifrån den härundersökningen.Observera att inga slutsatser kan dras på individnivå.

This thesis is written at WSP management and investigates the practice of pre-project planning and feasibility studies at Swedish construction companies, through the study of the ongoing feasibility study of the mall Sturegallerian in Stockholm, and through interviews with experienced project managers in the construction industry. There is currently a big span in the way Swedish construction companies plan the pre-project phase and the aim of this thesis is to present a more generic and standardized way that helps minimize project risks and maximize efficiency and profit. The result is a generic model which can be used in pre-project planning. The model describes the phases in the preproject planning process and the activities that span these phases. Is also describes the categories of professions that need to participate in the preproject planning group and which activities that each profession executes. The other result is a list of factors that need to be considered for a well performed pre-project phase, as found during the interviews. Among others the thesis stresses the importance of involving the client as a key participant in the process.

Micronic Laser Systems AB produces and develops machines for the photo mask production market. One of their products is the Omega machine which exposes photo masks using 5 laser beams simultaneously. It is important that the distance between the each laser beam, the x-separation, is the same. The x-separation is today measured by exposing a photo mask with a certain pattern and thereafter measured with a metrology system. This takes to much time and it is desired to find a faster method to measure the x-separation without loosing precision.The task for this master thesis is to improve an existing measurement method which uses a calibration mask.

The technical development is advancing at high speed and now the turn has come for the traditional paper to digitalize into the so called e-paper. The newspaper industry has started to investigate the future possibilities of publishing the traditional newspapers on e-paper. Today?s newspapers are mostly financed by advertisement incomes, which makes the advertisers important players, who must be taken into consideration at an introduction of the e-paper. Since the e-paper does not exist as a finished product in the market today, in this essay we look into what kind of functions or services that can attract advertisers to the e-paper on the basis of the experiences made with the breakthrough of the web-newspapers.

This paper studies the research foundations created in 1994 from the former wage earners? funds out of a portfolio management point of view. Firstly it describes the seven largest foundations and their different portfolio management structures. Secondly it analyses the performance of these foundations measured as the intercept, Jensen?s a, in a linear regression of the excess returns of a portfolio versus a proxy for the market, as well as the Sharpe-ratio.