In recent years, the Swedish railway track system has been neglected in terms of capacity and maintenance. To adapt the existing system to current traffic load there is a great need for extensive improvement and maintenance. Shortcomings are especially occurring on older embankments running over soft subgrades. To select the most suitable method for reinforcement of the embankment, it is important to evaluate different solutions from a life cycle cost perspective. In Long-term perspective, it is often shown that a method with low investment cost causes a higher maintenance cost and a shorter technical lifetime.

The purpose of this paper is to compare two different portfolio strategies consisting of insider transactions and stock recommendations and examine whether they posses any information advantage.  The portfolios are balanced once every three-, six- and twelve- months in the period of 2007-2009. Our results show a pattern for these investment strategies. The portfolio consisting of insider transactions generates a positive return in equity in a negative market environment and the opposite reaction in a positive environment. The result for the portfolio consisting of stock recommendations show a positive return of equity in positive environment and the opposite effect in negative environment. The pattern that has been observed can be classified as an anomaly.

Problem discussion: Long-term supplier relationships have become more common. Hence, supplier evaluation is a critical activity for many companies. However, making a relevant supplier evaluation is time consuming. Therefore, it is important to decide which of the suppliers to put an extra effort on. Should all suppliers be evaluated in the same way? Previous, focus has been on purchasing of direct material.

Construction production always contains different disciplines whose priorities andinterests can be very diverse. Good communication and coordination are essential tominimize misunderstandings and achieve good quality in the end result. This makesplanning a central part of the production management. In a world where conditionscan change as often as daily, being well prepared increases the opportunities to stayflexible and decrease negative effects of the changes.This study has been done in association with Skanska Foundations district North inStockholm in order to investigate how visual planning can be used in the productionmanagement to optimize the coordination and the quality.The history of Lean started at Toyota, but the concept are now spread over theworld and are used wide outside of the car industry nowadays. What?s challengingabout Lean in foundation projects is to embrace a Long-term perspective and invest insolutions that are profitable in the longer term, instead of solve problems by onlytreating the symptoms.A holistic perspective is crucial in order to truly understand Lean.

The high incidence of cranial cruciate ligament injury in dogs results in both suffering and significant costs due to treatment and care of affected dogs. Today there are several different technics for surgical treatment in dogs with ruptured cranial cruciate ligament. At University Animal Hospital (UDS), SLU, in Uppsala two fundamentally different methods; TPLO (Tibial Plateau Leveling Osteotomy) and external fixation with suture material are practiced. The aim of this study was to estimate if the different surgery technics result in any difference regarding the function of the dog in a long term perspective. Since motion and function are very affected by arthritis, was the purpose also to determine if there are any differences in developing arthritis between dogs surgical treated with external fixation respectively with TPLO. Development of arthritis is common after surgery or traumatic injuries in a joint, such as cruciate ligament rupture. Unfortunately was the number of dogs in the study to small to achieve two comparable groups.

The purpose of this paper was to examine the inflation hedging capabilities of property shares. A common notion is that property is a good hedge against inflation. Indeed, positive correlations have been found for direct investments and inflation. However, property shares are generally perceived as a perverse inflation hedge. This discrepancy has often been quoted as evidence of property shares divergence from the development of the underlying property market.

This paper is an event study on Initial Public Offering?s return behavior after the dot com bubble. Cumulative Abnormal Returns are used to measure the performance against a market index. The results suggest that the market correctly prices IPOs in the long run thus upholding the Market Efficiency hypothesis. Moreover, value weighted CARs show that large IPOs are more likely to outperform smaller IPOs, however in the long run there is an unpredictable pattern.

The object of this bachelor thesis is to examine how publiclibraries are working to reach out to boys in their early teens,and from a relationship marketing perspective see howlibraries are using marketing as a tool in creating long-termrelationships with this user group. The following questionsare asked: How do public libraries market themselves toboys in their early teens? How are children?s and youthlibrarians working to create long-term relationships with thisuser group? How do children?s and youth librarians viewmarketing as a way to create long-term relationships with theuser group? The theoretical framework of the study is EvertGummesson?s model of relationship marketing. Interviewswith five children?s and youth librarians make up theempirical data.

Technology based self-service (TBSS) used in supermarket self-scanning checkouts is a relatively new phenomenon in Sweden. Studies on TBSS as a self- checkout device have been formerly carried out but with focus on the customer perspective. The authors therefore saw a challenge in covering the self-scan checkout concept, from a company perspective. The purpose of this research paper is to investigate, through a management perspective, the changes brought about by implementing an innovative TBSS system in Swedish supermarkets, and its effect on the competitiveness of the company. This is done by presenting and linking the theoretical framework and empirical study in the research.

Vattenfall hedge its future electricity production in order to decrease fluctuations in theresult. Hedging can in a simplified way be described as selling the future electricity deliveriesin long-term contracts so that the future price of the delivery becomes fixed. The contractsused are electricity forwards traded at the Nordic electricity market Nord Pool. Animbalance between buyers and sellers can lead to a situation where the forward price notequals the expected spot price. The difference between the forward price and the expectedspot price is referred to as the market risk premium.

The purpose of our study is to see how the interaction between the social services and police work when a child under 15 years is suspected of crimes.What happens to the child from an agency perspective? How is the experience for the child and how do they get their voices heard? How is the professional perspective for a child when a child is suspected of a crime? What do the various authorities for short-term and long-term measures for the child?We have chosen to do a qualitative study using semi-structured interviews. The study includes six interviews with two police officers, three field secretaries and a social worker in two different municipalities. A medium sized municipality, and a larger community.The people we interviewed think differently about collaboration. The municipality have different workforms.

Background: It has been shown that companies that lived under protected conditions for a long time have had difficulties to adapt to major changes. With that in mind an even more extensive low-cost competition in the Swedish grocery market will make a threat for the traditional grocery stores' long-term survival. The question then becomes, which strategies will be successful and lead to higher customer loyalty.Problem: Are the traditional grocery stores using strategies that can compete in addition to pricing and will those strategies lead to long-term survival?Objective: Is to analyse and evaluate two traditional grocery stores' strategies and to examine whether these are consistent with customer demand.Approach: First we have created a more fundamental understanding of the situation in the Swedish grocery market. Then we have implemented two interviews in each grocery store.

Traditional financial management has lately been criticized, since it gives inadequate and unilateral information for decisions and strategy of the operation. The purpose of this essay is to investigate if a balanced scorecard is able to work together with a budget and become a stronger control system for the management. Essential theory underlies the gathering of data as well as the analysis, and the empirical investigation is based on personal interviews. The conclusions drawn from my analysis are that two parallel control systems could complement each other?s weaknesses.

In total 249 horses surgically treated for colic in Sweden during 2002 until 2005 were studied. The horses was identified by the animal insurance company Agria. Survival was studied with respect to age, gender, breed, diagnosis (small intestinal problems, caecal problems, large intestinal problems, incarceration in nephrosplenic ligament, unspecific colic and other colic problems) and treating hospital. Different survivals were calculated. For short-term survival proportions was used and for long-term it was done using Kaplan-Meier technique and log-rank testing.

Short-term-fostercare has a huge burden of work, hence they get harder and harder cases since placements in institutions decreases and short-term-forstercare increases. We wanted to study short-term-fosterparents experiences of their work, since they makes an important effort. The aim of the study was to describe the teamwork with them and the groups: the social care, the children/youth and the biological patents, from a short-term-fosterparent perspective. We´ve also been interviewing two fostercare-secretaries, hence we wanted to get an insight in the organization of short-term-fostercare. The study is a qualitative attempt and we´ve done six interviews with short-term-parents.