The purpose of this study is to investigate the determinants of capital structure in Swedish small and medium sized firms. The study includes 24.859 Swedish firms which are further analyzed with regards to their financial characteristics. These characteristics consist of short term debt, long term debt and total leverage. The study compares the relationship between these characteristics and six independent variables.The result shows that profitability is the greatest determinant for capital structure in Swedish small and medium sized firms with regards to total leverage. When profitability increases the total leverage of the firm decreases.

Who has the ownership of a company´s long-term strategy, and who should have it? Is it the board of directors or the senior management? Swedish law and regulations seemingly point in one direction, whereas the findings of studying the relationship between CEO and chairman of the board in eleven Swedish listed large- and mid-cap companies, point the other way. In a majority of the companies the senior management have the ownership of the long term strategy whilst the board of directors merely hold a control function. The possible effects on the companies managed as well as the rules and regulations they are managed according to, are analyzed..

Sweden's drinking water quality is considered to be high partly due to a high quality of the raw water and a well developed sewage infrastructure. Despite this, there is water contamination that could be prevented by installation of a sophisticated early warning system. Some of the major players in the production of drinking water have already invested in different types of early warning systems to ensure drinking water of high quality. There are various forms of early warning systems where automatic monitoring of E. Coli is an interesting alternative.

In this thesis a transport system is sought after thatif realised in the city of Uppsala could provide bothwell-being to all its inhabitants and sustainability,here jointly refered to as liveability. It is found thatthe car dominated transport system that is inoperation today provides two fundamental values,namely accessibility in both time and space, whichsets it apart from other transport solutions. Thesetwo values are of immense importance for theliveability in our modern world. On the other handthe car dominated system decreases the liveabilityof Uppsala in several different ways. Some of theseproblems, it is argued, could be solved within thecar system, through the adoption of moreenvironmentally friendly cars etc., but otherproblems are inherent in the car system and willremain no matter what changes are made.

The single market is one of the underlying ideas of the European Union. Free movement of goods and efficient competition are central for the function of the union and are therefore carefully protected by the Treaty of Rome. Exclusive rights of trademarks in the EU can be seen as a method of dividing the common market, preventing the free movement of goods and to be anti-competitive. What comes out of this is that there is a conflict between exclusive rights of trademarks and the rules of both free movement of goods and competition. The aim of this work is to see in which kind of situations the exclusive rights of trademarks can be a part of this conflict but also to study how this problem is resolved by the European Court.

EW26 is a Bachelor thesis carried out by students, Jessica Blomberg, Sara Danielsson and Mikael Johansson, during the academic year 2010-2011 at the Innovation Engineering Program of Halmstad University. The project was conducted in close cooperation with Ergosafe AB.Ergosafe develops, manufactures and sells electric sliding windows. Due to the company?s current expansion phase they want to increase their product range. The company has identified a need for large windows that moves vertically.

This report deals with RFID systems and how to detect nearby tags with the Mifare standard using only a microcontroller and an antenna circuit.The aim was to investigate whether there was any possibility to continuously search for a nearby tag for a system operated with batteries without compromising   the lifespan of the battery. At this time the system would take too long time to wake up and look for a tag to give a satisfactory battery lifespan, which should be done a couple of times every second.The report has two issues, namely:Is it possible to direct the microprocessor to detect and identify a nearby tag after the Mifare standard?What hardware is required for this to be possible?As the research method to provide answers to the above questions an action research was used. This approach has meant that the group worked on information retrieval, examined existing solutions, tested their own solutions and documented the results.The group examined an existing solution that can search for nearby tags with minimal energy consumption. An antenna circuit was built that was connected to the processor.

Because of increasing demand of power on Malmbanan the capacity of the existing wires which supply the trains must be increased. This increases the stress on the existing poles and for this reason the system for supplying the loads along the railway is to be removed from the poles and be replaced by some other system. This thesis is a study on a two-level low voltage (1 kV and 0.4 kV) electrical system with the aim to investigate if it can be an alternative to the system used today taking into account the voltages, fault currents and costs.In this thesis the following tasks have been performed:? Gathering of data? Description of basic theory? Loadow and fault current calculations of the system with MATLAB? Life Cycle Cost estimate of the system? Analysis and conclusions from the resultsThe results show that the new system can be an alternative to replace today's system. The simulations and calculations show that the voltage drop is at an acceptable level and that the fault currents are large enough to supply a safe disconnection if a fault occurs at the far end of the system..

Syftet med arbetet var att undersöka hur olika reaktionsbetingelser skulle påverka syrgasdelignifieringen av en sur sulfitmassa. De betingelser som undersöktes var utbyte, slut-pH, viskositet och kappatal. Massan som användes kom från Nordic Paper Seffle och alkalit som användes var magnesiumoxid. Syrgasdelignifiering av massan gjordes  i autoklaver i ett PEG bad där tid, temperatur och alkalisatser varierades.Resultaten visar att alla utbyten låg mellan 90-97% och att även de mest aggressiva betingelserna bara gav en viskositets reduktion på 260 enheter, motsvarande 19% av den totala viskositeten.Slut-pH för syrgasavluten hamnade mellan 6,5-9,4 beroende på alkalimängd och temperatur under delignifieringen. Slut-pH minskade när mängden alkali hölls konstant men temperaturen varierades mellan 110-140°C.Kappatalet för massan kunde effektivt reduceras från ett startvärde på 23,4 till ett slutvärde på under 5 med en temperatur på 140°C, alkalisats på 10 kg/ODT och en tid på två timmar utan större förluster av vare sig viskositet eller utbyte.En ovanligt resultat som upptäcktes under arbetet var att delignifieringen tappade i effektivitet med ökad alkalimängd och detta samband gällde vid alla betingelser.En teori om detta kan vara att jonstyrkan i lösningen gör att fibrerna i massan drar ihop sig och att syrgasen får svårare att reagera med ligninet..

The high level of energy consumption that the industrialised countries have reached and thepollution that this brings has long been a cause for analysis and debate, development and usageof so called renewable energy sources is therefore more important than ever. The energy in theelectromagnetic radiation from the sun is an interesting alternative. One way of harvesting thisenergy is by using solar cells, devices that generate DC current when exposed to electromagneticradiation.The goal of this master?s thesis was to design a solar powered power supply to Syntronic AB?sMidrange platform. The envisioned application is a stand-alone distributed embedded system,for example a node-based temperature monitoring system.

The impact of computer programs in safety-critical systems has increased in the past decades and computer-based systems can now be found in a wide range of applications. A new approach for developing dependable systems is documenting all design rationale that affects safety using Intent Specifications. A recent approach for developing complex systems efficiently and in an upgradeable manner is Component-Based System Engineering. In this thesis, these approaches are combined in the development and upgrade of a Remote Robot Control Unit by using the tool SpecTRM. The case study showed that Intent Specifications and CBSE could successfully be combined.

The management of information is a significant competitiveness in companies. Companies stored and save information every day, and it is very common to save de information in different sources. This makes de management of information complex. To mange, monitor and analyze the information, companies can use a system called Business Intelligence. BI system is an analytical system that extracts and converts data into useful information that helps employees to make informed decisions.

A budget consists of figures showing how much a particular activity has access to during a given year. With a balanced scorecard, these figures and guidelines can be converted in to more easily understandable non-financial instructions for the employees. One of the most significant differences between the budget and the scorecard is that the budget focuses on short-term results while the scorecard focuses on long-term visions and goals. With a long-term thinking the leaders can  set more long-term goals and also make more well-planned investments which increases the possibility for the organization to evolve and become better in the long term. By combining the two instruments a good balance between short and long term perspectives can be achieved, which creates a more effective steeringIn the 1990s, many of the municipalities introduced needs budget, one of them was Gothenburgs municipality.

The gas turbines in the Swedish secondary reserve are reaching the end of their technical lifetime, hence alternative solutions need to be considered. One of the solutions thought to have the greatest potential is the use of so called consumptionreduction. By entering contracts with large consumers, agreements are made to reduce consumption in the event of major disturbances in the power system and thus being used as a secondary reserve. This thesis investigates the feasibility of consumption reduction as part of the secondary reserve. This has been achieved by developing a requirement specification for the disturbance reserve and by studying the technical and economic potential for consumption reduction among a range of consumers.The technical potential for consumption reduction that fulfils the requirements for participating in the secondary reserve are on average 750 MW in SE 3 and 98 MW in SE 4.

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.