The aim of these two studies was to investigate the possible physiological, behavioural and emotional changes that appear after human-horse interactions and also to find an explanation to why they occur. One aspect that is discussed is whether the wellbeing of humans can be coupled to interacting with horses and of how the animals respond to the interaction. The first study was performed on 9 horses and their owners, both parts being subjects to registrations during 4 different interaction treatments. The second study was performed on 6 horses with registrations only being performed on the horses during 2 different treatments. Nine horses underwent 3 different treatments all performed by their owners (H = stroking of the horses forehead, B = brushing and M = stimulation of the withers) in addition to a control round (K). Each treatment lasted for 4 minutes but observations were performed until after 45 minutes from start.

All companies face risk in their daily business. Internationalised companies tend to experience higher risk due to for example unfamiliar business environment than companies that act only on the national market. Estonia became independent as late as in 1991 and is therefore a new interesting market for many companies in neighbouring countries like Sweden. Risks that are most apparent for an internationalised company are political risk, currency risk, capital and interest rate risk, business risk and credit risk. Our intention of this study was to find out how Swedish companies acting on the Estonian market faced the different risks when entering the Estonian market and how they value the risks today.

The probiotic bacteria Lactobacillus reuteri DSM17938 was evaluated as a starter culture in cheese production, with the intention to produce a new interesting product within the functional food market. Growth and acidification rate in milk subjected to different heat treatments, as well as supplementation with growth promoting factors or support cultures was measured during controlled fermentations. The results showed that the weak proteolytic activity of L. reuteri could be compensated for by supplementation with 1% casamino acids or 5% MRS broth. Furthermore, a decrease in growth and acidification rate could be seen when using yoghurt culture or Lactobacillus delbrueckii as adjunct cultures.

The aim of this review was to examine scientific literature to determine what kind of physiological and psychological benefits derive from human-dog interaction, as well as attempt to uncover a possible mechanism behind these benefits and whether or not they are mutually beneficial. A growing body of research indicates there are physiological and psychological benefits associated with human-dog interaction. Significant cardiovascular benefits have been linked with human-dog interaction, as have lowered blood pressure, cortisol and heart rate. Interaction with dogs is often associated with a feeling of social support and well-being, and dogs also seem to facilitate social interaction between people. Dogs? ability to buffer and reduce stress is also well documented. A strong indication was found regarding a relationship between physical contact and benefits associated with human-dog interaction.

Orust Kretsloppsakademi is a nonprofit organisation, with a goal of annually generate the same amount of electrical energy that is consumed. Orust is an island on the west coast of Sweden, north of Gothenburg. The population of 15 000 reaches 40 000 during summer, due to the large amount of vacationer. The total electricity demand is 174 GWh a year with a maximum power need of 32 MW. This report presents an analysis for the plausibility of their plan and from a power system stability perspective, the effects on the electrical grid.The conclusion is that the restraints for development of power generation from wind, solar and wave generation, are the power systems capability to transfer power, primarily in the transformers of the grid.

The climate changes and the global warming have a great impact on the Arctic environments. This partially depends on that the albedo is getting lower when snow and ice is melting and exposes more and more dark surfaces of the land and sea. This leads to a feedback effect; the melting accelerates because dark surfaces attract more sun radiation. Because of the heating the glaciers in Arctic retreat. The purpose of this report is to obtain an eventual change in elevation on the glacier Lomonosovfonna that is located on Svalbard by comparing elevation data collected by NASA and GPS data from 1996-2012.

The purpose of this study is to examine which factors played an important role in the food price crisis of 2007-2008. Theories used are Microeconomic theory, explaining changes in supply and demand, and Macroeconomic theory, explaining the impact of changes in exchange rate on prices. A theory regarding speculation is also used to explain the impact of speculative activities effects on price. The method used is multiple regression analysis in order to determine the effects which ethanol production, oil price and dollar exchange rate had on the surge in the price of corn, rice and wheat.The data used is in monthly observations during the period 2005-2008. However, other factors are taken into consideration during the study, such as production quantity, stock size, economic growth, speculative activity and population growth.

Sverige avsätter idag över en miljard kronor på att hjälpa arbetslösa att starta eget och därmed bli entreprenörer. Hög self-efficacy är en grundförutsättning för att lyckas som entreprenör och våra erfarenheter av att lyckas är den enskilt största källan till self-efficacy. Miljön som arbetslös är både fysiskt och psykiskt påfrestande och ofta kantad av motgångar, något som i teorin skulle kunna leda till sänkt self-efficacy. Studiens syfte var att undersöka om arbetslösas self-efficacy förändras med tiden de förblir arbetslösa. En enkätundersökning med 107 arbetslösa från en arbetsförmedling i Mellansverige genomfördes.

Uppsatsen undersöker vilken av den indirekta och den direkta metoden som bör användas vid prognostisering av den svenska inflationen baserat på kvartalsdata för perioden 1993:1-2005:4. Ytterligare en aspekt med uppsatsen är att ge ökad förståelse för hur inflationen i Sverige i allmänhet ska prognoostiseras. Prognoserna skapas med de respektive metoderna och jämförs därefter med faktisk inflation för att utvärdera vilken metod som ger minst prognosfel. De slutsatser som dras från undersökningen är att det inte är en av metod som strikt föredras vid prognostisering av den svenska inflationen. De metod som är bäst av den indirekta och den direkta beror på prognoshorisonten.

Under de senaste 30 åren har Kinas ekonomi utvecklats snabbt, vilket hänger väl ihop med landets fastighetsutveckling. Sedan den marknadsinriktade bostadsreformen 1998 har Kinas bostadsmarknad haft en snabb tillväxt med en kraftig prisökning under de senaste fem, sex åren. Denna uppsats har syftet att undersöka de kinesiska bostadsprisernas utveckling och utforska de faktorer som drivit bostädernas prisutveckling. Med insamlade årliga data från Kinas National Bureau of Statistics för perioden 1995-2010 genomfördes grafiska analyser och ekonometriska analyser. Studiens grafiska resultat visar att bostadspriset har en stabil utveckling under perioden 1995-2004.

This study is an evaluation of the runtime watch function in a OEE software, knownas ProTAK. OEE stands for Overall Equipment Effectiveness, it?s a way to measurethe factories process efficiency. The runtimewatch function allows the user to setup and monitor certain critical objects that are of importance for the pulp and paper process at the mill. The data from the runtimewatch can be correlated towards the suppliers specification for the components.

The purpose of this report is to examine what will happen with the financial control of a company if changes from a family owned company to a public company listed on a stock market. The expectations were that the control would have a more short-term focus with more financial measures. The result shows that the changes were experienced as minor. The rate and the work in the finance department showed to be the major changes due to the change of owners..

I denna uppsats undersöks samspelet mellan ersättningsnivå i arbetslöshetsförsäkringen och investeringar i aktiv arbetsmarknadspolitik och hur detta är kopplat till arbetsvilja i ett urval om 21 länder. Metoden som används är en beskrivning av arbetsmarknadspolitik i olika länder samt analys baserad på flernivåregression. Data är hämtad från ISSP och OECD. Uppsatsens slutsats är att en hög arbetsvilja har en tydlig koppling till ett lands kombination av arbetsmarknadspolitik och att denna koppling antar olika former med samspelet mellan ersättningsnivå i arbetslöshetsförsäkringen och ett lands investeringar i aktiv arbetsmarknadspolitik. Detta är relevant för diskussionen om hur välfärdsstaten kan överleva på längre sikt genom motverkande av de negativa incitament som skapas av vissa av dess beståndsdelar..

The thesis aims to investigate the farmer?s perception of currency hedging and interest rate bonds and to investigate the farm size of companies categorized by number of acres, has no effect on this. The work also aims to gain an insight into what active farmers consider to be important what to consider when they choosing a bank and a personal banker. The work is based on the survey and has been supplemented by a literature review on the subject. For the survey were selected out randomly 50 farmers with Agriculture and Rural Management education. The requirement of the farmers was that they should be farmers by profession, and also made sure that the farmers of various sizes came with. We got a total of 32 responses within the set response time we said, which was better response than we expected. When the final result came we ranged the farms in a size range. We found out that all farmers in the study diligently follow the market and are easy to assimilate new ideas, providing opportunities to profitability of their business with the different instruments that are available on both the financial level and farm level. The investigation revealed that the major in favor of having a personal banker. They think it´s good to have a special plug to turn to who has knowledge and experience of how the agriculture sector operates.

Combustion of fossil fuels is today the dominating source of energy. During combustion,carbon dioxide is formed. The carbon dioxide accumulates in the atmosphere,which raises the global average temperature on earth through the so called greenhouseeffect. The only way to reduce the emissions of carbon dioxide from combustionin a coal fired power plant is through carbon capture and storage (CCS).Post-combustion capture is a technology to separate carbon dioxide from the uegas after the combustion for efficient transport and storage. The steady state operationof coal fired power plants with post combustion capture has already beenthoroughly investigated on a pilot scale, however much work remains to investigatethe plants dynamic operation.