Hedge funds have the past few years become an increasingly popular investment alternative and in the last decade hedge fund assets managed have quadrupled to USD 2000 billion, a growth rate of around 25-30% per year. One explanation for this substantial increase is that hedge funds' minimum limits on capital invested has declined, which have made ??them available to retail investors. The recent turmoil in financial markets has also contributed to investors finding their way to hedge funds, whose goal is to generate stable returns regardless of how the market develops.Using Sharpe?s, Treynor?s and Jensen's performance measures, I have investigated whether hedge funds manage to generate higher risk-adjusted returns than traditional managed funds.

Evaluation of joint swelling is an important part of the orthopedic examination and can be used to follow a patient?s progress during rehabilitation and therapy. Usually a swelling is assessed by palpating the joint but a more objective, but still easy to use, method would be preferable.This study seeks to increase the knowledge in veterinary rehabilitation by validating four different measurement tools (three recognized and one novel) for the assessment of elbow joint swelling: palpation, tape measure (circumference and figure eight measurement), slide caliper (craniocaudal and mediolateral positioning) and tonometer. This was achieved by calculating the inter- and intra-rater reliability and correlating the results from the different Measurements with each other.The methods with best inter- and intra-rater reliability as well as good correlation among themselves were shown to be slide caliper with craniocaudal positioning, circumference and figure eight. Additional studies, with a larger and more diverse material, ought to investigate these methods further..

Ribs from sheep, goat and pig are rarely assessed  to species due to the fact that they are very similar in their morphology and size. The ribs are instead considered unidentifiable although it is possible to see what kind of bone it is. If these ribs would be identified to species not only would species assessment degree of archaeological source material   increase, the relationship between meat-rich and meat poor regions would change.To find out whether there are morphologically measurable differences between sheep, goat and pig ribs, three measurement points on each rib has been defined and measured. At each measurement point two Measurements were measured, one medial-lateral measurement and one cranial-caudal measurement. The ratio between the medial- lateral measurement and the cranial-caudal measurement was calculated for each point.

This thesis presents the implementation of a knowledge base system for rough sets [Paw92]within the logic programming framework. The combination of rough set theory with logic programming is a novel approach. The presented implementation serves as a prototype system for the ideas presented in [VDM03a, VDM03b]. The system is available at "http://www.ida.liu.se/rkbs". The presented language for describing knowledge in the rough knowledge base caters for implicit definition of rough sets by combining different regions (e.g.

This thesis is the result of the author?s interest in music and electronics, namely the design and manufacturing of a stereo sound system with an active crossover. In short it can be stated that an active crossover has many advantages over its traditional passive counterpart. The active design naturally results in a more complex system comprised of a multiple number of components. This report deals with the theoretical aspects of preamplifiers, crossovers and power amplifiers as well as power supply and control.

Six different Digital Proofing Systems from three different techniques have been evaluated as totechnique, printing quality, economy and usability. Digital proof from two paper qualities, coatedand uncoated, has been compared with references printed in offset, to see how good they match eachother. Only two Proofing Systems manage to print on reference paper. The other Proofing Systemsuse special paper for digital proof.Measurements and visuell judgement show that the Digital Proofing Systems visualise referencepictures with quite good quality. Proof optimised for coated paper visualise the colours with goodresult.

The aim of this literature review was to suggest suitable index traits to use in the Swedish Sheep Recording Scheme for fertility and maternal traits. Since fertility and some of the maternal traits are not normally distributed advanced methodology is needed to calculate genetic parameters. Breeding is a tool to improve the economy of the farm and for the selection of breeders estimated breeding values (EBV) for important traits are of high value. In sheep breeding both lambs born and lambs weaned should be taken into consideration as well as the ewe?s maternal ability, which includes lambing ease, lamb survival, ewe behaviour as mother and the early growth of the lambs.

Ten colic horses and seven healthy horses were included in a prospective study aiming to evaluate acid-base disturbances in colic horses. Traditional acid-base methods and Measurements of lactate were used to study prognosis and changes before, during and after surgery. Strong ion gap, anion gap and base excess were compared to evaluate their ability to predict lactate. Of the ten colic horses that went through surgery, seven survived, two were euthanised and one died. Significant differences in plasma lactate levels were seen between the group of survivals and non-survivals, p=0,000025. No differences were seen in pH and base excess between the two groups.

Preventive Measurements as well as clinical caries diagnostics are vital to retain a good dental health in the population. In order for optimal caries diagnostics radiographs are used. There is a great intra- and intervariation regarding cariesprogression. A large number of tools for cariesprevention at home or in the clinic are today used. The aim of this journal study was to compare the progression of carieslesions in the approximal area, diagnosed on radiographs, and preventive measures used to reduce cariesprogression between two examine dates on two dental clinics.

This report describes a study, description and testing of parts to an application adapted to the operating system Android. The application is supposed to measure the distance to a car ahead. Apart from distance Measurements the ability of the application to calculate its own speed with the help of GPS is tested. From these two parameters, speed, distance and some constants the theoretical stopping distance of the car will be calculated in order to warn the driver if the car is too close to the car ahead in relation to its own speed and stopping distance.Tests were conducted on the different applications that were programmed and the result showed that the camera technique in the mobile phone itself limits the maximum distance of the distance measurement application. The max distance the tests in this thesis revealed was approximately 5 meters.

Today?s wind power plants are only compensated for their reactive power consumption at no-load. As the wind power plants grow bigger the amount of reactive power they need also increases. This is no longer a problem that can be ignored, especially as the net owners are beginning to charge the reactive power they transport.In this thesis a couple of different methods of compensation and their prices will be discussed and evaluated. Problems, such as self-excitation, that can occur if one fully compensates the wind power plant will also be brought to surface.

Today?s wind power plants are only compensated for their reactive power consumption at no-load. As the wind power plants grow bigger the amount of reactive power they need also increases. This is no longer a problem that can be ignored, especially as the net owners are beginning to charge the reactive power they transport.In this thesis a couple of different methods of compensation and their prices will be discussed and evaluated. Problems, such as self-excitation, that can occur if one fully compensates the wind power plant will also be brought to surface.

ABB Motors and Generators manufacture large AC machines with oil lubricated plainbearings. The machines have occasional problems with oil leakage from the bearings. aproblem that ABB wants to be solved.In this thesis the cause of this leakage were investigated, with focus on the bearingseals.The purpose of this work was also to suggest amndments for preventing thisproblem. , and to suggest improvements that can prevent this. The first step was todo a literature survey of earlier work on this problem, study the theory ofhydrodynamic bearings and different types of seals and their properties.

The aim of the present study was to evaluate the effects of large amounts of straw in the farrowing pen on thermal regulation of the newborn piglet in different weight classes. 20 sows were given 15 kg of straw in the farrowing pen 2 days prior to until 7 days after parturition. A control group of 18 sows had no straw in the pen. 6 litters from each treatment were observed. Measurements of piglet body temperature were made at 0h, 2h, 4h, 8h and 24h after parturition. At ?8h? the body temperature of the piglets in the Straw group were significantly higher (P=0,0149) than the piglets in the Control group.

Today?s wind power plants are only compensated for their reactive power consumption at no-load. As the wind power plants grow bigger the amount of reactive power they need also increases. This is no longer a problem that can be ignored, especially as the net owners are beginning to charge the reactive power they transport.In this thesis a couple of different methods of compensation and their prices will be discussed and evaluated. Problems, such as self-excitation, that can occur if one fully compensates the wind power plant will also be brought to surface.