This thesis aims to investigate the information effects of fair value accounting in Nordic real estate companies. As a consequence of the mandatory IFRS adoption in the European Union in 2005, listed Nordic companies are allowed to recognize investment property at fair value in accordance with IAS 40. Theory suggests that fair value accounting should lower information asymmetry. Therefore, this study aims to examine correlation between fair value accounting of investment property and information asymmetry on the stock market. To investigate this, we use bid-ask spread as a proxy for information asymmetry and examine Nordic real estate companies before and after the implementation of IFRS.

The aim of the present study was to estimate the correlation between Euro NCAP pedestrian rating scores and injury outcome in real-life car to pedestrian crashes, with special focus on long-term disability. The study also surveyed most frequently injured body regions and risk differences for specific elements of pedestrians hit by cars. Another aim was to determine whether Brake Assist systems affect the injury outcome in real-life car to pedestrian crashes and to estimate the effect in injury reduction of a high Euro NCAP ranking score combined with Brake Assist.In the current study, the Euro NCAP pedestrian scoring was compared with the real-life outcome in pedestrian crashes that occurred in Sweden 2003-2010. The real-life crash data was obtained from the data acquisition system STRADA, which combines police records and hospital admission data. The medical data consisted of International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD) diagnoses and Abbreviated Injury Scale (AIS) scoring.

This report is written on commission by WSP Acoustics. The report studies the outdoor sound levels on school yards in Stockholm. The questions given by the company to be answered was what are the actual sound levels at diffrent school yards with low traffic noise and how can you construct a facade element that reduces the sound level from the outside and meet the indoor requirements. Mesurements for four hours was done at eight schools set north and south of the city centre. The measurement period included one school break and one lunch break.

The payment for produced grain is constantly going down in price. It is important for farmers to become more effective in cultivating more land in a shorter time perspective. At the same time we have to calculate with the risk of getting lowered subsidies from the EU. This is why I would like to find out the possibilities for establishing winter wheat without ploughing. I hope to find a difference in the number of plants due to different soil preparations. With this experiment I expect to find out whether I can establish winter wheat at a lower cost, with the same numbers of plants per square meter.

AimThe specific questions in the theoretic part were:What is contained in the terms "balance and balance skill" and how can this skill be measured?The specific questions in the empirical part were:How does balance skill in different age categories of children correlate with biological and physiological parameters such as age, gender, body height, weight and level of physical activity?MethodsLiterature search based on books and scientific papers related to the questions posed above. Selection was made at libraries and on?line through "Pubmed". Specific search words were used.

The purpose of this essay was to further develop the discussion around the street-level bureaucrats and the dilemmas that they meet in their work environment. The paper will try to accomplish this by putting the spotlight on the professional role, the organizational control of the street-level bureaucrat and the effect of society on the work environment. Something that also will be discussed is the well-known difficulty of implementation of new programs and methods, especially when street-level bureaucrats are involved. The street-level bureaucrats that this paper focuses on are caseworkers within Försäkringskassan and handle benefits and take decisions about the need for rehabilitation for people who are ill and unable to work.I have used a qualitative method for this study. The empirical material consists of six interviews at two different offices.The main cause of the dilemma of the street-level bureaucrat is that there is a conflict between the human side and the professional role.

Political marketing has changed the way political parties internationally behave in relation to the voters. The purpose of this study was to investigate how political marketing is conducted on a local level in Swedish political parties, and how the local and national level of the political parties coordinate the message they send out to the voters. An explorative study was performed by interviewing experts in the field in the form of politicians on both a local and a national level. Initially the local parties' methods were investigated, followed by a second stage where we researched the link between parties on the local and the national level. Marketing of parties on a local level turned out to a large extent to follow traditional methods.

The present Equality Project in the Swedish preschool has been studied according to its view on sex and equality. The purpose was to find out how the Equality Project is described, interpreted and implemented.The research questions focused the central concepts sex (gender identity, gender roles and gender patterns) and equality in the political level, the educational level and the executing level of the Equality Project. From each level some central texts were chosen and analysed.The results indicated that equality is interpreted as connected to an absence of gender patterns and gender roles. The concept of gender identity is differently understood in the different texts. The normative focus and the lack of psychology in the Equality Project are discussed..

The aim of this essay is to investigate how patrons, librarians and indexers use subject headings to describe and index fiction literature. We wanted to know if the groups concentrated on different levels in the text from a semiotic viewpoint, where words either can describe the manifest/connotative meaning or the latent/denotative. To investigate this we had four fiction indexers, four librarians working with fiction for adults and eight library users read and index four short stories. After that we did interviews asking them about how they were thinking when describing the texts, how they use subject headings, about their opinions on indexing and, in the interviews with the librarians and indexers, about their usual work assignments. The subject headings they listed were analysed according to the level they described.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how the traditional airlines' strategies are affected by the low-cost carriers emergence and their business model and in wich ways they can achieve profitability. Furthermore we also want to examine the factors that affect the airlines' efficiency and competitiveness.The results of this study shows that the growth of the low-cost carriers have affected the network airlines' strategies as they, among other things, had to also lower their fares. This has forced them to revise their cost and efficiency in their entire operation. The result has also shown that the network companies can not come down to the same level of low costs as the low-cost carriers, and must therefore examine their ability to increase revenues instead. .

Helsingborg has the intention to build a train tunnel south of Knutpunkten. This report investigates the hydro geological aspects of the project. Questions at issue that will be answered: 1. Which parameters affect the groundwater level? 2. How will these parameters change within 100 years considering climate changes and what will be the consequences on the groundwater level. According to SMHI climate analysis the climate can change causing increasing precipitation, temperature, and a rising sea level.

The research within the management control systems-field and more specifically performance management has been rather shallow and not much has happened the last decades besides the balanced scorecard. The researchers see a lack of studies focusing on the effects of an integrated performance management system and also how it affects the different hierarchical levels and the tasks to perform.We decided to perform an essay with case study-characteristics by looking at both the strategic and tactical level at Volvo Group, or more specifically Group Trucks. We performed three different interviews, one at the group level and two at the division level. The aim was to see what effect an integrated performance management system had on the tactical level (i.e. the divisions).Our findings and corresponding analysis suggested that Volvo was a rather centralized company in order to get the performance management system to work by enabling a ?weekly control?.

The study has shown that retailers in the mid-price segment differentiate their brand through developing a strong company identity around the brand. The personality involves store atmosphere, merchandise and advertising. Larger companies have chosen to lay the responsibility on management level, which facilitates on store level. By controlling the strategies on a central level the company can make sure that the stores are steered in the direction that the company wants them to be steered in, and also that they follow the positioning-concept. The company can also devote its efforts to working with its core value, which is service.

The market for biofuels from the forests have had a positive development and the job initiators for this master´s thesis wanted to examine the profitability of a method for harvesting forest fuel, which was unfamiliar to them. The method was the ?long tree tops-method?, here called the LT-method. The LT-method is characterised by the fact that timber is harvested as the only roundwood assortment while the rest of the stem, which in other cases would become pulpwood, is harvested as forest fuel together with the logging residues. The method is based on the assumption that advantages in handling of the forest fuel assortment such as increased load weights for forest hauling and truck transportation, should compensate for the lower price for pulpwood when sold as forest fuel. The aim of the study was to compare the profitability of the LT-method with the GROT-method (harvest of timber, pulpwood and logging residues) and conventional logging without any harvest of forest fuel, and aslo to try to identify factors affecting the profitability of the different methods.

Unemployment amongst Swedish citizens is higher within the group which falls under the designation foreign-born. The aim of this thesis is to examine which municipal factors that can explain the differences in unemployment amongst foreign-born relative to native born.The empirical models are examined with both cross-sectional data for the year of 2010 and panel data for the years of 2002-2012. The examination is implemented through a linear regression analysis of the type Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) and Fixed Effect regressions. A theory section will be presented where the theory on Non-Accelerating Inflation Rate (NAIRU), theories on discrimination and country-specific human capital are illustrated.The result from the cross-sectional data shows that the amount of foreign-born, the level of foreign-born immigrated from Nordic countries have a significant negative effect on unemployment amongst foreign-born. The general unemployment shows a significant positive effect on the unemployment amongst foreign-born.