I denna uppsats beskrivs och implementeras tre alternativa metoder för att skatta kovariansen mellan finansiella tillgångar. De utvärderas sinsemellan och jämförs med stickprovskovariansen. Utvärderingsmodellen innebär simulering av en aktiv portföljförvaltare i en verklighetstrogen miljö. Då kovariansen mellan finansiella tillgångar beräknas med stickprovsskattning blir skattningsfelet stort. Detta fel, eller brus, försämrar portföljförvaltares resultat och alternativa metoder eftersöks.

Background: When companies decentralize their operations into profit centers, transfer pricing often becomes an integral part in intracompany trade. A profit center may affect both revenues and costs and seek to maximize profit. Transfer Pricing is a complex subject because it is affected by a large number of factors including the profit centers will to generate profits. This leads us to the subject of decision-making in a transfer pricing-systems. On what grounds are decisions made? Are transfer pricing purposes, factors and interests taken into consideration? What type of information is used in such decisions, how is the transfer price issue perceived and how is it used?Aim: The purpose of this thesis is to analyze which type of information that is makes up transfer prices, how the transfer price is perceived by different parties and how it is used for decision-making.Completion: A qualitative study has been performed with current theory as a starting point.

Användbarheten av IT-system förbättras ständigt och företag har fokus på att förbättra sina IT-system som företagets kunderna använder då det leder till fler och nöjdare kunder. Annorlunda ser det ut för interna IT-system, alltså datasystem som används av medarbetare och som ska förenkla arbetsuppgifter, effektivisera arbetet eller även möjliggöra att utöva arbetsuppgifter vid en arbetsmiljö på distans. Användbarheten av interna IT-system står inte lika mycket i fokus som användbarheten av kundcentrerade system och istället för att åtgärda brister i användbarheten tvingas medarbetarna att lära sig hantera IT-systemets brister.Utgångspunkten för arbetet var funderingarna över vilken betydelse användbarheten har för ett företag när det gäller interna IT-system vid en arbetsmiljö på distans. Ansatsen var att undersöka om användbarhetsproblem i praktiken leder till att användarna upplever ett IT-system som dåligt i den särskilda situationen av ett arbetsmiljö på distans. I en fallstudie utvärderades ett IT-system som används av försäkringsombud som arbetar på distans med hjälp av en enkätundersökning och användarintervjuar samt hierarkiska uppgiftsanalyser.

I denna rapport har vi undersökt hur utvecklarna tagit hänsyn till användbarheten för slutanvändarna vid utvecklingen av ett säkerhetskritiskt system. Resultatet erhölls genom en empirisk fallstudie på två företag som utvecklar säkerhetskritiska system. Datainsamlingen bestod av intervjuer med personer som varit delaktiga i och har kunskap om utvecklingen av systemen som ingick i vår fallstudie. Sedan analyserades insamlad data mot teori inom Människa ? Dator ? Interaktion (MDI) samt teori om säkerhetskritiska system.

In this essay I examine the causal relationship between confidence in institutions and growth in Sweden 1989-2002. By examining the causal relationship between these two variables, valuable indicators of the causal relationship between trust and growth can be obtained. The institutions which are used in this essay are chosen according to the theory on institutions for public administration building trust and social capital. The chosen institutions are primary schooling, the police and medical service. A Granger causality model is used to measure the causal relation and the results from the tests show that there is no causal relationship between growth and confidence in institutions.

This study presents a methodology that enables the annual average power of a wind turbine to be increased by automatically optimizing it?s airfoil, twist and chord dis- tribution. As a part of the study the software SiteOpt has been developed. This software connects the open source software XFOIL with the blade element momen- tum theory. XFOIL gives lift and drag coefficients which enable the blade element momentum theory to predict the power of a wind turbine at different wind and ro- tational speeds.

Denna rapport tar upp problem med revisionskontroll i realtidsbaserade kollaborativa system. Enligt Fan & Sun (2012a); Fan & Sun (2012b) behöver man bryta kraven som definerar realtidsbaserade system för att uppnå detta.Den stubbaserade lösningen som beskrivs i rapporten lyckas minska antalet fel i testfallen som utförts i fallstudierna. Genom att implementera personliga editeringsflikar och stubbar är det möjligt att ha revisisionskontroll i ett realtidsbaserat system. Dock för att detta ska vara effektivt och användbart bör detta endast användas i specifika fall och med noggrann granskning.Fallstudien som genomförts visar inte på några imponerande siffror men en förbättring är fortfarande möjlig vid specifika fall..

In this research paper I have interpreted and analysed how it is possible for a Radical Right Populist Party such as FPÖ (The Freedom Party) to obtain electoral success in the end of the last millennium. In 1999 they were elected into the national legislative parliament with 26.9% of the votes and participated in the Shüssel government from February 2000. I believe this is an extreme case study and my method is the so called Disciplined-configurative case study. I?ve conducted this study by using earlier published research and than dividing these old theories into to three analytical categories.

Carbon sequestration through restoration of degraded pastoral soils is an advocated way of mitigating global warming, and simultaneously alleviating poverty. An often proposed rehabilitation strategy is fencing of pastures, a method that was introduced to the farmers of Chepareria by the Vi-Agroforestry organization in 1987. The landscape of Chepareria changed from eroded, over-grazed grasslands, to a mixture of open-grazed commons, pastoral enclosures and cultivations. The aim of this study was to investigate (1) if the soil organic carbon (SOC) is higher inside the enclosures than on the open-grazed commons, (2) if SOC is affected by duration of fencing and (3) what effect cultivation of pastures has on the SOC. Estimations of vegetation cover and deep profile (100cm) soil sampling was performed on six clusters containing; (1) open-grazing (OG) (2) 1-5 years of fencing (FENCED(1)), (3) 7-10 years of fencing (FENCED(2)), (4) 15-23 years of fencing (FENCED(3)), (5) maize from OG (A(OG)), (6) maize from fenced pasture (A(FENCED)).

This essay focuses on the term usability while conducting a user centred system design. Usabilitymeans to what extent a user can use a product to achieve effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction.Development using a user centered system design means that knowledge about the end-users andit?s opinions becomes a crucial part of the development process. The question of this essay is if usinguser centred system design will lead to good usability.We used methods from a user centered system design point of view while developing an applicationfor a Swedish bookstore company called Bokia AB. This included user and task analysis following by aclose relationship between the developers and end-users by using sketches and showing themprototypes of the system while collecting feedback.After concluding our case study we determined that using methods from user centered systemdesign could be used as a great tool to further improve the usability and to improve an applicationssuccess chances..

This paper describes the evolutionary development of an information system for a small company. The company performs overhaul of forklifts and cleaning machines. The company has already an information system that handles the reports from these overhauls but it needs a supplementary tool that assist the chief planner to plan forthcoming overhauls.It should be able to display coming overhauls in a timetable and eventually print them, either to a PDF file or to a document. The timetables this function produces will help the chief planner and the assemblers to get a good overview of their day-to-day work.The tool needs to be intelligent in that way that it takes into consideration were in the country different assignments will be performed. So that time consuming travels over great distances can be avoided.

In this essay I want to investigate how the poodle strategy affects a person?s credibility when he or she uses it. The poodle strategy is a strategy, which someone uses when he or she is scrutinized by the media. It?s primary purpose is to suppress further media coverage but it is also a strategy for defending oneself and hence rescuing one?s reputation either as a private person or as an official.The essay?s research questions are:How has the strategy been applied for defensive purposes and what are the results?To which extent can the Stasis theory and Benoit?s theory on Apologia be connected to the strategy?Does the strategy affect the user?s credibility?To answer these questions four cases from the political sphere in Sweden where persons have been said to have ?done a poodle? have been analyzed.

The species in the genus bumblebees (Bombus) are important pollinators. In the world there are 250 bumblebee species and there are 34 species in Norway. The purpose of this study is 1) to assess changes in the species composition of bumblebees in twenty different places in Norway that have been inventoried first one time between 1939-1960 and the second time in 2012, and 2) to relate species richness and distributions to current landscape composition with the aid of orthophotos. In this study, I have used regression analyzes on the different bumblebee species that were present or absent at the inventory, using the premises of the following variables: low or high altitude, latitude, longitude and seven different types of land use (farmland, building/plots, open land/pasture, forest, wetland and open or snow-covered ground above the tree line) to see if there was any relationship between each species and the different variables. I have not analyzed what the landscape looked like at the first inventories and therefore we cannot say whether it has changed and if that is why species number has decreased. This would be interesting to study further and to see if there is any relationship between landscape changes and bumblebee?s species decline.

This thesis investigates if privatization of the Swedish healthcare system influences our view on the meaning of equality. This system is based on the principle that all people are equals and that healthcare should be provided on the basis of need. I apply critical ideology analysis to investigate how our view of equality might change because of the evolvement of society. A critical view may be explained as an interest in exploring things that seem obvious to many. Important questions to answer are why equality is regarded as such a natural concept in the society and how healthcare is actually provided.

In order to respond to a more complex community planning with increased cooperation and public participation, a common language and a common model to be used as a base for the communication process is needed. The thesis behind this dissertation for a master's degree is that a virtual 3D planning portal would respond to this need. Why and how are explained and described through studies of communication- and perception theory as well as technology and recent research. The introduction concludes that a broad participation and a transparence towards underlying information are important foundations for the coming work with the model. The first four chapters of the theory part show the benefits of using natural signs in our mixed cultural society, instead of the more arbitrary symbols. Using visual landscapes for storing information is motivated by the flexibility of our visual memory and its ability to understand complex connections.