This master thesis concerns whether Swedish non-financial listed firms act in accordance with the optimal capital structure theory and/or pecking order theory. The examined period is 1998-2004 and we discover that Swedish companies neither follow optimal capital structure theory nor pecking order theory. From our results we conclude that there exists no single point of the capital structure which is optimal. Rather it seems as if the optimal point lies in-between an interval from 0 to the industry average, where firms tend to be indifferent to their debt-ratios. Our results show that Swedish companies prefer internal financing followed by equity and as last choice debt issuance..

The purpose of this Master?s thesis is to examine what role the new city library in Halmstad has for its users. The questions posed in this study are: What do the users actually do at the library? What roles are the most significant according to the users? Have the politicians succeeded in their intention of realizing a modern library according to the users? The theoretical starting point is Andersson?s and Skot-Hansen?s theory of four different roles of public libraries. In order to extend the model we added a fifth function; the one of aesthetical experience.

The main purpose of this master thesis is to identify guidelines for a sustainable production that can provide useful information concerning the establishment of a biodiesel production. These guidelines concern the surrounding production environment, such as infrastructures and industries.The thesis is based on theoretical grounds surrounding industrial symbiosis, biodiesel production and how sustainable development should be designed. A study of an already established producer in a similar business area has been used to provide a picture of similar projects. The thesis has with the supervisor's consent focused on the production conditions that are affected by location.The production conditions selected are heating, raw material market, residual and sustainable profile. These are then evaluated through an Excel-based sensitivity analysis.

Overall aim of this master?s thesis is to describe and identify perceived barriers in Swedish businesses within solar energy field and analyze, based on four theoretical viewpoints, how these barriers can be handled. In other words how can the barriers be overcome or eliminated to better succeed in the commercialization process? The method applied is qualitative in which data has been collected through phone interviews originated from seven Cleantech businesses which operate within solar energy. Furthermore this thesis has a descriptive- and an explorative purpose.

This Master thesis studies how a diversified institutional care organisation can optimise its collective knowledge resources so to manage and distribute this knowledge to different parts of the organisation with help of the organisations intranet. The purpose of the study is to examine if knowledge management and the organisations intranet can be used to create, store, transfer and better use the knowledge within the organisation. Through a case study the thesis will look at different knowledge processes and their relation to the organisations intranet. The case study includes a questionnaire for the whole organisation and qualitative interviews with seven persons from different levels of the organisation. The theoretical framework of the study approaches knowledge management and intranet through four knowledge processes.

For my master thesis in Archival Science, I have arranged and catalogued the archives of the Uppsala InternationalShort Film Festival. The materials consisted of approximately 160 binders and filing boxes and some banners.Additionally, there was a large amount of photos from screened films. Some of the material was in good order whilesome was not. The archive was catalogued in Visual Arkiv. After cataloguing the material, approximately 30 binderswith routine records such as reciepts, tax forms et cetera were removed and destroyed.

The aim of this master?s project is to explore ways to perform piano music conceived dramatically. I do this through performance of Beethoven?s Appassionata Op. 57 and of Scriabin?s Piano sonata no.

The purpose of this Master`s thesis is to examine if the pur-chase of media in public libraries reflects the library's role in society. Two questions have been posed: ? What view of public library's role in society is reflected in the purchase of media? ? What principles guide the selection of media in public li-braries in Sweden? In order to investigate these questions, we used a question-naire that we sent out to a sample of 120 public libraries in Sweden. The analysis is based on a theory of three ap-proaches to the role of the library developed by Douglas Raber. The three approaches are the conservative approach, the populist approach and the social approach.

This master thesis is aiming to find out how school libraries work towards children in school years 1-6. The mainfocus is how the school librarians and teachers work with literature and reading. The theoretical viewpoints aremainly the sociocultural theory and the child perspective.The study was conducted with participants from five different schools in Uppsala, in the form of qualitativesemi-structured interviews. The results show that schools work with literature first and foremost in a pragmaticway, with reading-strategies and activating discussions. Very little time is spent on reading for its own sake.

Man?s impact on the environment is something that increasingly becomes topical in today?s society. Because of this, several companies have started to take interest in the effects they?re responsible for, not least considering their image. Emissions of carbon dioxide generated from goods traffic are accountable for a large part of the total emissions of greenhouse gases in the world.

The purpose of this Master?s thesis is to examine what role the new city library in Halmstad has for its users. The questions posed in this study are: What do the users actually do at the library? What roles are the most significant according to the users? Have the politicians succeeded in their intention of realizing a modern library according to the users? The theoretical starting point is Andersson?s and Skot-Hansen?s theory of four different roles of public libraries. In order to extend the model we added a fifth function; the one of aesthetical experience.

Sabermätsystem är ett mätsystem som gör det möjligt för fastighetsägare att hålla koll på sin energiförbrukning. Mätsystemet består i princip av en centralenhet (Saber) som via ett antal hårdvaruinterface kan samla in data från olika förbrukningsmätare och sensorer. Det data som samlas in skickas upp till en server där det används för att skapa grafer i en webbportal. Genom att logga in på webbportalen kan fastighetsägaren på ett enkelt sätt hålla koll på sin energiförbrukning. På portalen finns också rådgivning för att minska energiförbrukningen, samt möjlighet att styra viss utrustning i fastigheten.

Uppsala universitet The aim of this master?s thesis is to investigate, through text analysis, the role of copyright in development, with particular interest of how the concepts knowledge and access to knowledge are used in Access to Knowledge Draft Treaty and WIPO Development Agenda. The definition of the concept knowledge, as it is used in copyright, is based in a Western historical and philosophical context and therefore excludes knowledge created in another type of society. The consequences of this exclusion have effects on development. Further it is stated that knowledge according to the global copyright scheme will be reduced to a commodity, which will have consequences not only in societies in the global South.

The population growth and urbanisation in low-income countries bring issues of poor living standards and miserable sanitation conditions onto the agenda. If well-functioning waste management systems were developed, this could master some of the problems. The already existing local informal waste handling system that is common in many low-income countries, needs to be developed with proper sorting and composting solutions to decrease the environmental burden and improve the overall situation in the dense cities. This master?s thesis project is performed with the intention of developing functional decentralised waste management units in the city of Pune, India.

Modern air battles are very dynamic and fast, and put extreme pressure on pilots. In some unpredictable situations, like new discovered threats or mission plan deviation because of enemy aircraft, the pilots might need to replan their predefined flight route. This is very difficult, if not impossible, to do since numerous factors affect it. A system that can help the pilots to do such a thing is needed. Previous work in this field has involved methods from artificial intelligence like A*-search.