The recent turbulence in the financial markets has contributed to the banks becoming more restrictive to lend to real estate financing. Deleveraging in Europe's banking sector has also contributed to banks reducing their leverage and increasing capital adequacy to meet the new requirements. Loan-to-value ratios in real estate loans have fallen while banks' interest margins have increased, which has made property investors to look for alternative sources of funding in the capital markets. The two most interesting forms of financing for real estate right now is bonds and preferred shares as they fit property companies that generate stable and predictable cash flows. A bond is an interest-bearing debenture certifying that the purchaser has lent money to the company that issued the bond.

In a society where adults set the conditions for children?s play and generate modern and at times technically advanced products, fundamental characteristics like simplicity, opportunities for motor skills training and learning tend to be neglected. Owing to this, the Linköping-based company Time In wants to introduce a new multifunctional product, which differs from other products in shape and function and lives up to the often overlooked, basic characteristics in a toy.With Time In as the assigner, the purpose of this master thesis has been to use simple means to produce a "learning by playing" concept. Since Time In sells toys and products suitable for children in nurseries and preschools, the development of the products has therefore included a study of nursery and preschool environments.The thesis has been carried out within the Product Design subject area at the Department of Management and Engineering at Linköping University. Concept development has been done in three phases: the Preparation phase, the Design phase and the Presentation phase.

An increased awareness about the global warming has created a demand for more information on how the climate is affected by different activities.This master thesis was initiated by Tricorona, a Swedish company that offers its customers analysis and calculation of their climate impact. Tricorona also supplies climate neutralisation with CERs, in accordance with the Kyoto protocol and controlled by the UN. This work demands updated emission factors for greenhouse gases. An emission factor gives information about the greenhouse gasintensity of a service or a product [kg CO2-eq./ functional unit].The purpose of this thesis is to examine how electricity, district heating, hotels, taxis, food and materials affect the climate and how emission factors for these areas can be calculated.This was done by reviewing and comparing different studies and by interviewing experts. The information was evaluated and recommendations on calculations and emission factors were made.The consumption of energy is the main source of greenhouse gas emissions for district heating, electricity, hotels, taxis and materials.

The purpose of this scientific essay is to evaluate if a continuous glucose monitoring system is something that can benefit Swedish animal health care. The study investigates if it is medically possible to use continuous glucose monitoring systems on dogs with an apparatus attached to their bodies. Furthermore, I try to establish whether this is possible in practice and how it could be done. The keywords used were diabetes mellitus, insulin, continuous glucose monitoring, blood glucose monitoring, dog, pet owner and animal nursing care. Furthermore, I wanted to find out if this system could be an alternative to currently established methods to measure the patient?s blood glucose level.

The metaphor has been among us since a very long time, but despite over 1.000 years of reflection it is still uncertain how one should understand the concept. There are few, if any, doubts how to understand the definition of metaphor, but is it possible to find a real distinction between the metaphorical and the non-metaphorical? In this essay I seek an answer to when a metaphor is a metaphor or when it is instead a generally accepted concept of how something actually is. I will use previous research on the topic from Aristotle, Friedrich Nietzsche, Paul Ricoeur and George Lakoff and Mark Johnson. These persons have given me a wide perspective and approach to the metaphor ? and when a word should be considered as a metaphor or not.

This study looks into the possibility, and profitability, of expanding a pilot project that has been put into action at GGP Sweden AB in Tranås, a manufacturing company that produces front mowers. The pilot project is meant to give GGP Sweden AB a more precise control of the flow of goods from their suppliers, and its essence has proven to be quite similar to the Japanese Just-in-Time philosophy.The study has been divided into four separate areas; mapping, supplier selection, supplier evaluation and cost analysis. These areas represent a holistic perspective on the expansion of the pilot project and cover topics varying from methods of finding suitable JIT-suppliers, constructing Key Performance Indicators (KPI) to reviewing costs and assessing profitabilities.In this report, the reader will initially take part in the works of mapping GGP?s manufacturing unit, pilot project and supplier base, which results in a list containing the most suitable suppliers for a Just-in-Time based collaboration. Afterwards, the reader will be led into the area of supplier evaluation, where five KPI?s are created with the purpose of ensuring that GGP will be able to evaluate their suppliers and pilot project in an effective way.

English title: Part-time work among women in Sweden ? what influences choice of working hours? In the 1960s and 70s a large growth in part-time work amongst women in the Swedish labour market took place. A net inflow of workers into the labour market has been suggested as the main source. However, part-time work is still a common phenomenon among Swedish women; in 2004 almost 40% of all women worked part-time, and women are clearly dominating the part-time sector. A gradual changeover from house work to market work is hardly a valid explanation anymore.

Denna rapport beskriver arbetet med utvecklingen av en ny modell för kaplanturbiner. Utvecklingen bygger på två kopplade differentialekvationer som under arbetets gång anpassats och implementerats i turbinmodellen.Modellen beskriver hur vattenflöde och turbinmoment påverkas av avvikelsen från den optimala kombineringskurvan för vinklarna på turbinens ledskena och löphjul, och är anpassad för ett referensaggregat med tillgängliga provdata. Även övriga enheter i vattenkraftaggregatet modelleras och sätts samman med frekvensregulator och elnät för att simulera aggregatets reglerstabilitet i önätsdrift.Verifieringen av turbinmodellen sker genom försök att återskapa de befintliga verkningsgradskurvorna med hjälp av modellen. Resultatet visar en god följning av de verkliga kurvformerna, dock med något lägre maximal verkningsgrad.Verifieringen av önätmodellen sker genom att prova stabiliteten i nätfrekvens och turbineffekt vid stegpålastningar. Resultatet ger en stabilare reglerstabilitet än i verkligheten, men uppfyller ändå förväntningarna på en fungerande modell.This report describes the development of a new kaplan turbine model.

The survey aims to investigate and analyze how the image of Sweden and "Swedish character? is produced in the correspondence between Swedish immigrants and family at home, compared to how the image of America and the U.S. is produced. The starting point is the concept of identity, which is shaped by the social group a person belongs, which can lead to stereotypes are formed. How does the Emigrant describe his new life in letters home to Sweden? What comparisons are made? What memories are passed from the time at home? How does the picture changes over time? How does the stereotypes change over time? The material used are remnants and secondary sources in the form of correspondence between emigrants and their relatives back home.

Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men. One type of treatment is internal radiation therapy, brachytherapy. This treatment requires the patient to lie completely motionless and in lithotomy position. The purpose of this study was to investigate the prevalence of pressure ulcers associated with brachytherapy in prostate cancer at the UniversityHospitalin Uppsala. Furthermore, the purpose was to identify the most common location of pressure ulcer and to examine whether there were any connection between risk factors and possible pressure ulcers.

To investigate adoptions are part of the social worker's duties. The aim of our study was to examine some adoptive parents, to internationally adopted children, experience of adopting, the time before the adoption, the adoption process, and the time after the adoption. The study is based on qualitative interviews with seven adoptive parents. Theoretical frameworks that have been used are a phenomenological perspective, the dramaturgical perspective of Goffman and the theory of rites of passage.The result of our study shows that the adoptive parents have tried ?everything? to be-come parents in a biological way before they came to the decision to adopt.

The purpose of this Master?s thesis is to evaluate three general query-based web search engines. The search engines chosen are Google, Yahoo! and Live Search. The topics, which where transformed into twenty queries, are based on real users? information needs, taken from an ask-a-question service.

AbstractPurpose ? The purpose of this study is to investigate possible reasons for long lead-time in a customer driven production, and how the lead-time can be reduced. To fulfil the purpose the study has been broken down into two questions.1. Whichfactorsaffectthelead-timeinacustomer-drivenproduction?2.

Most often when developing a new system there is a need get a functioning testtool up and running. Including time, cost and resources the solution isn?t always obvious, developing your own or buy one ?of the shelf?. The purpose of this thesis is to study how a general testtool for executing functional tests should be designed to be reusable, be based on recognized knowledge and be able to fast and simple be customized for different types of systems. Key functions from the litterature is presented and used in the design of a testtool prototype.

Syftet med denna undersökning är att undervisa i musik och ensemblespel på en anstalt och studera vilka effekter undervisningen har på internernas aggressiva beteende och destruktiva tänkande. Aktionsforskningen baseras på teorin om att ensemblespel även är en utmanande och effektiv gruppsykologisk övning. Situationen tvingar dig att ta ansvar för din uppgift i gruppen i realtid. Den negativa, kollektiva konsekvensen av en persons misstag är snabb och konkret. Studien vill se om musik och ensembleundervisning kan användas i såväl träningen av interners samarbetsförmåga och tolerans som ett verktyg för interners utveckling inom kognitivt beteendeterapi.