This is a bachelor essay in business and administration with concentration in accounting. The purpose of the essay is to describe and analyse how an auditor, who has had a close cooperation with a small owner-led company in several years, can obstruct the specific familiarity-threat and if it appears, secure that it does not affect the independence of the auditor.The conclusion of this essay contains two models which intend to describe how an auditor, as a suggestion, can obstruct the specific friendship-threat and if it appears secure the independence of the auditor..

Due to global climate change and the rising levels of greenhouse gases (GHG) in the atmosphere, the interest for seeking solutions for mitigation has increased. While much attention has been directed towards technical solutions such as carbon capture and storage (CCS), biogenic carbon sinks has also garnered significant attention. Previous studies have shown that coastal ecosystems such as seagrass meadows and mangroves have a much greater capacity for storing carbon (C) compared to terrestrial ecosystems. That raises the question if other coastal ecosystems, such as coastal wetland forests, that previously haven?t been considered as blue carbon habitats also contribute to coastal carbon sink capacity.

Cryptosporidium parvum is a protozoan parasite causing diarrhoea in many different animal species including cattle and man. It is an important enteric pathogen in neonatal calves and it is the second most common pathogen found in diarrhoeic calves in Sweden. Subclinically infected adult cattle have, in international studies, been shown to shed a low number of oocysts in faeces and this has been recognised as a potential source of infection for new-born calves. The detection methods used for diagnostic purposes are based on microscopic investigation of faecal smears. These methods have a fairly low sensitivity and samples from subclinically infected cattle have to be concentrated before analysis.

A patient simulator for testing anaesthesia machines has been developed at Maquet Critical Care AB, to reduce costly and time-consuming experiments on animals. The device simulates human lungs regarding lung dynamics and volume, uptake of anaesthetic agents and the production of carbon dioxide, heat and moisture. Further demands on the simulator are durability and size; the device shall be compact enough to be moveable.The resulting simulator fulfils the requirements and enables better repeatability and ability to test extreme cases than experiments on animals do.Uptake of the anaesthetic agent is achieved in a active carbon filter and controlled by regulating the flow. The flow is created by a regenerative blower and controlled using a proportional valve. The uptake can be set by the user or by a simple uptake model modified to recursively handle changes in the concentration of anaesthetic agent.Carbon dioxide is fed into the system from a tank by a mass flow regulator.

Today's society is facing major challenges. In order to reduce the climate impact fossil fuels should be replaced with fuels that do not contribute to the greenhouse effect. The growing population generates organic waste originating from industry and households so called organic fraction of municipal solid waste (OFMSW). Through anaerobic digestion, waste can be utilized to produce energy-rich methane gas. In this way, waste can be a resource instead of a burden on society.

In Sweden more than 400 000 private households have not yet sufficient wastewater purification. These effluent is considered as an increasing problem and many onsite purification methods have been studied. In this investigation, the method of reactive bed filters have been tested by column and batch experiments. Five different kinds of filter materials with reactive surfaces have been studied concerning their capacity to absorb ammonium and phosphorus from wastewater. The materials that were examined are Filtra N, wollastonite Filtra P, blast furnace slag and Polonite®.

The main purpose of this essay is to investigate if Latvia´s pattern of trade has become more similar to the mature market economies, after Latvia´s independence 1991.Today, the intra-industry trade (IIT) dominates the trade of mature market economies. One of the pioneers of intra-industrial trade is Paul Krugman, who was the first to emphasize the importance "of scale and consumers' desire for variety" in explaining the basis for modern commerce. Customers get more variety and usually cheaper goods when the market gets bigger. I mainly use the modern trade theories to explain the trade pattern in Latvia. To measure how Latvia has developed its intra-industry trade, and thereby is approaching the mature market economies´ trade pattern, I use the Grubel-Lloyd index (GL-index).

Background: Theoretical, it?s been questioned why dividends exists in companies based upon the fact that there is a separation between ownership and control. According to the agency theoretical perception, dividends is used as a manner to unify the interest of this separation, which in turn lower the agency cost, and increase the efficiency of companies.Purpose: The aim of this master thesis is to scrutinize and analyse the association between Swedish firms? owner structure and owner types and their inclination to dividend.Method: We attack the problem with a hypothetical-deductive research method by using the existence of a universal theory, the agency theory. From our theoretical framework we propose a set of hypotheses.

Nitrogen deposition leads to environmental damage in areas where the nitrogen deposition is high. Southwest Sweden receives an annual nitrogen deposition of up to 20 kg N/ha. Nitrogen that is not assimilated by the vegetation is accumulated in the soil, which may lead to nitrogen saturation and an elevated risk of nitrogen leaching. Nitrogen leaching from forest areas in southern Sweden has proven to be higher than from agricultural areas, which have been thought to be the main contributors to elevated nitrogen levels in rivers and lakes. The amount of nitrogen that leaches depends on the fraction of the total nitrogen in the soil that consists of nitrate, since nitrate is easily transported through the soil.

When performing studies that test the reactions of horses in different situations, important information may be available about the horse?s reactivity level. With information from these tests, accidents and dangerous situations may be prevented. When the behaviours from tests are compared with race performance it may be possible to evaluate if some behaviours are more desirable at the race track than others. The aim of this study was to see if behavioural responses correlated with physiological parameters (heart rate, cortisol), the trainer?s opinions and actual race performance.

The global climate change affects the Arctic region the most. The decrease in arcticsea ice is one of the reasons why, it accelerates the warm-up of the region.To understand the changes in the Arctic climate, knowledge about what affects thechanges in the sea ice is necessary. One of these processes could be the relationbetween the extent of the sea ice and the concentration of sea salt aerosols in thearea.This work studies how a variation in the arctic sea ice extent affects theconcentration of sea salt aerosols at Barrow, Alaska. To do this aerosoldata, icedataand winddata has been analyzed over the years 1998-2007. The results shows that aseasonally variation in the sea ice extent affects large aerosols (1-10 ?m) whilesmaller aerosols (<1 ?m) doesn?t seem to be affected as much..

This essay is about two areas called Hackås and Myrviken, situated in the middle of Sweden around the lake Storsjön. In Hackås we can see traces after an early agrarian settlement, and in Myrviken we find Jämtlands largest concentration of ironmaking sites from around 400 AD. There are no clear evidence of the agrarian settlement in Myrviken, and only two ironmaking sites in Hackås. These two economies functioned at the same time, but were clearly separated. My purpose is to discuss if it was the farmers of Hackås who made iron in Myrviken, or if it was somebody else..

GE Healthcare operates in Uppsala (Sweden) and develops systems, equipments and medium to purify medical substances. Discussions with the local authority concerning planed far-reaching changes and upgrades of the biological process techniques for sewage management, aroused the question about revising the terms of permit for the activity. Therefore it seemed necessary to evaluate a newly installed biological process technique, which is the background of this thesis. The evaluated biological treatment process was built in 2003 and consists of a biological reactor filled with moving bed carriers with a high surface area for biological growth. At the time of the project the biological wastewater treatment plant consisted of a flow equalization facility and two following parallel biological processes; a biological reactor with moving bed carriers and a tower trickling filter.The aim of this thesis was to survey the function of the biological reactor with respect to the reduction of organic matter.

During the past few years a vast amount of research has been done to increase the understanding of the complex ecosystem of the Baltic Sea. Modelling and simulations are important tools to increase knowledge of the system. A suitable model must be simple to use and the parameters and variables needed in the model must be easy to access.In this paper a dynamical mass-balance model, CoastMab, which is validated for smaller coastal areas, has been used to predict concentrations and transports of phosphorus in three large coastal areas - the Gulf of Finland, the Gulf of Gdansk and the Gulf of Riga. CoastMab uses ordinary differential equations to regulate inflow, outflow and internal flows. To reflect seasonal variations in temperature and different types of flows the model has a temporal resolution of a month.

The stability of railway embankment is essential for safe transport. In order to ensure safe transport, water should be allowed to freely drain. Furthermore, as the engine driver has to be able to see signs, and people working on the embankment are supposed to easily see flaws on the rails to ensure safety for the passing trains, plants should not be allowed to grow on the embankment. In Sweden there are 12 000 kilometers of railway tracks and 25?30 % of them are treated for weed control every year.