Sitka spruce (Picea sitchensis) is not considered to be a native species to Swedish forests. It´s origin is the pacific coast of Northern America, an area that is dominated by a coastal climate which makes it likely to believe that it would be well suited for growing in the south-west of Sweden. This study aims to investigate the gain in production that can be reached by growing sitka spruce instead of Norway spruce (Picea abies) in the county of Halland. A regression model based on data from forest experiments was produced to explain the gain in production. This model was based on elevation and annual precipitation. The model was then used to create a map layer in arcGIS that shows the gain of volume in comparison to Norway spruce in percent. An analysis was carried out to find what share of the forestland in Halland county that fell into four different classes of production gain.

To be competitive in the corporate climate of today it is important to have effective logistic activities. A common resource within the internal logistics is forklift trucks, which are used to lift and transport material. It becomes more and more important to decide whether to buy, lease or rent the forklifts to obtain an optimal economic situation. Many companies have issues with internal pricing. It is difficult to price products and services correctly. It is common to price the overall instead of what it really costs.The purpose of the thesis is to present a model for the acquisition of forklifts for internal logistic operations, regarding financing and internal pricing, to obtain economic effectiveness and an optimal forklift fleet size. The study focused on a specific research question, and for this purpose interviews with experts were held, observations were made and a literature study was done.

The aim of this investigation is to explain present and historical differences in the Swedish and Danish unemployment rates between 1976 and 2005 with a broad framework, making use of neoclassical and post-keynesian economic theory. The influence of the rate of investment to GDP, and various institutional factors are assessed in quantitative analysis. It is suggested that the crude answer of the question asked in the title, ?What is it that Denmark does that Sweden does not??, is that Denmark invests. This investigation suggests accordingly that the main reason of the relative labour market success during the 90?s in Denmark was a rising, and rapidly recovering, rate of investment to GDP, and perhaps not primarily its flexible labour market institutions.

China is considered as one of the world?s fastest growing economies and the future of China looks promising. Even though the Chinese market attracts many new foreign companies to enter the market there are entry barriers which companies may encounter as obstacles, which will aggravate the market entry in China. As a result companies loose business opportunities and therefore it is of great importance for Swedish companies, which are planning a Chinese market entry, to identify which entry barriers that are considered to be the most difficult obstacles to overcome.The purpose of the thesis is to examine which entry barriers that are generally considered to be the most difficult obstacles for Swedish companies to overcome when entering Chinese markets and to rank the five most difficult entry barriers to overcome.Information about these entry barriers have been gathered from Swedish companies, which have carried out successful market entries in the Chinese markets, through an e-mail questionnaire.The result generally shows that the most difficult entry barriers to overcome in China were: bureaucracy, property laws, language, cultural differences and difficulties finding local partners. The ranking of the entry barriers? result shows that bureaucracy is the most difficult obstacle to overcome, followed by cultural differences, language, relations and access to distribution channels.We conclude that companies experience different difficulties overcoming these entry barriers, which depends on the companies? size, years in China, markets and if the entry barriers were considered controllable or uncontrollable.

Abstract The purpose of writing this thesis was to improve methods during requirements engineering phase. Usercentred system engineering has some problem areas, which are examined and verified to create a new guideline for developers. This guideline tends to make requirements engineering more effective and help developers create more concrete requirements. It is not uncommon that system development projects ends up with unsatisfied users or delay in deliveries. The reasons are different kinds of communication problems between users and developers during verification of requirements. There is a therapy model, called solution-focused therapy, used in family and individual therapy. The model focuses on solutions for the future instead of problems in the past.

The interest in harvesting wood fuel in conflict stands has grown in recent years as a consequence of the increased demand for biofuel. Conflict stands are young forests that have not been cleaned and have a large number of stems ha-1with a great height and diameter distribution. This means that traditional field measurements in conflict stands are difficult and very time consuming. Therefore, the forestry sector is in need of new, more efficient inventory methods. In this study, the Lidar data from Lantmäteriet?s (the Swedish mapping, cadastral and land registration authorities) new national height model was used in combination with plots from the Swedish national forest inventory from 2009 to create functions for; height, volume, diameter and number of stems.

The Swedish consumption of lamb a increasing, and today we yearly eat a kilo of lamb per person each year. As a consequence the Swedish degree of self production according to lamb is steadily decreasing, and is today about 39 %.Today Swedish Meats is now cooperating with the Swedish lamb breeders organisation to raise that percentage. At the same time the European Union presents a new agricultural reform, the MTR (Mid Term Review). The shape of this new reform is not yet fully known, but the general policy has been more or less outlined. The new reform is split into three propositions: the farm model, the regional model and the mixed model.

With the ambitions to rehabilitate individuals with different kinds of work disabilities through work, the government owned Samhall AB has a long history as labour market measure in Sweden.To show Samhall AB its importance, the company has requirements to fulfill the goal that around 5 percent of their employees, at Samhall AB, every year shall be transferred to an employment outside the company, which is called transition. Unfortunately since this goal was introduced it also created several dilemmas. One dilemma is the long lasting female under representation in transitions from Samhall AB to the regular labour market.The essays main task is to investigate the factors behind the female under presentation in transition from Samhall AB through a genus perspective and by using quantitative and qualitative method.The main conclusions are that female under representation in transitions from Samhall AB are basically caused by structural factors. Samhall AB?s strong industrial tradition and particularly the strong segregation between female and males on the regular Swedish labour market may inhibit females in their transitions.

The amount of mergers and acquisitions between international and Swedish actors increased due to the Swedish entry in the European Union. In many cases, conflicts between manage-ment and employees made visible the cultural differences between nations and organisations. As a result of these conflicts many companies experience difficulties in operating on the Swedish market and in some cases they have even been forced to leave it.The starting point of this study is analysing how the management at a foreign company in Sweden, that has undergone a merger, has been affected in the meeting with the Swedish business culture. The analyse has got three different perspectives as a base; management, market knowledge and culture.This study is accomplished on the basis of a deductive approach. It is a case study where the empirical foundation derives from five interviews.

We acknowledge the lack of empirical studies of the performance of analyst target prices in the Swedish stock market by examining the profitability of target prices for stocks publicly traded on the Stockholm Stock Exchange. We use consensus target prices issued between 2006-2010 and create two different strategies to observe the abnormal returns generated during this period. Going long in the top decile stocks with the best target prices and going short in the bottom decile stocks with the worst target prices generates a statistically significant abnormal buy-and-hold return of 8.9%. An active strategy with daily portfolio rebalancing and a timely response to target price changes generates a less significant monthly alpha of 1.4% against CAPM. The results show to be robust against the size effect discovered by Fama and French.

By surveying conceptions of SLU Alnarp?s resources and competence among its students and personnel, this thesis has the purpose of inventing identity, positioning and image of SLU Alnarp. The underlying idea is that the analysis of the opinions of the students and the personnel will provide the SLU management with new ideas and general advice for an innovative strategy for success. Four quantitative interviews with selected representatives from different staff groups were performed. In order to obtain a differentiated view of the employee thoughts and opinions on the university, five persons were selected to be interviewed ? all with different types of responsibilities.

This study investigates the value relevance of goodwill impairments for equity investors in Swedish listed companies. We provide insight on whether goodwill impairments are value relevant before as well as after the implementation of IFRS 3 and IAS 36. We express market value of equity as a function of book value of equity; net income excluding goodwill impairments and goodwill impairments, using the Ohlson valuation model and Hellström's price regression. Our findings suggest that goodwill impairments are statistically value relevant for equity investors. Prior to the implementation of IFRS 3 and IAS 36, our findings imply that equity investors respond negatively to goodwill impairments.

Syftet med vår uppsats var att med hjälp av Model Confidence Set (MCS) finna de bättre presterande modellerna bland de mest ?kända? och undervisade volatilitetsmodellerna. Vidare har vi även rankat dessa modeller inbördes. Eftersom prognoser om volatiliteten är mycket viktigt vid prissättningen på derivat, i detta fall ett räntederivat, är ämnet ständigt intressant. Med Model Confidence Set fann vi ett set av bättre presterande modeller utifrån vårt urval av ursprungliga modeller.

There exist several known methods for calculation of radio coverage for ground-based systems. As far as we know there are no equivalent methods for the case of flying platforms when the altitudes and speeds are significantly different to those of ground-based systems. This thesis describes the theoretical concepts behind calculations of radio coverage for flying platforms. An investigation is made to sort out what is important and possible to employ in a model for simulations. A method is described and implemented in a program for evaluation of flying radio systems.

Bakgrund: Utvecklingsländernas obligationsmarknad har under de senaste fem åren genererat en avkastning i nivå med aktier. Detta faktum kombinerat bristen på tidigare forskning inom detta område har gjort det intressant att undersöka utvecklingsländernas obligationsmarknad närmare. Syfte: Syftet är att analysera effektiviteten på utvecklingsländernas obligationsmarknad. Genomförande: Med hjälp av informationskvoten och Treynorkvoten undersöks om någon av de tre fonderna i urvalet genererat systematisk överavkastning jämfört med marknadsindexet JP Morgan Emerging Market Constrained Index. Ett signifikanstest på 5 % görs för att utreda om avkastningen är skild från 0.