Managing credit risk might be the single most important business area for any commercial bank. The assessment of "good" and "bad" corporate clients is a important task for a creditor. A bad debtor is a corporate client with hardships in meeting the continous claims (interest payments) that a creditor requires. One way of evaluating or separating a "bad" client from a "good" client is to assess the propensity for the client to file for bankruptcy. This thesis examines 226 firms in the Swedsh market in the quest of predicting corporate bankruptcy.

With increasing wine consumption and a growing assortment at available to Swedish consumers, there is an interest in understanding the decision making process of Swedish wine consumers. In this thesis the expert phenomenon is studied with respect to wine through wine critic reliability: grading objectivity, understanding the process of wine criticism and possible critic influence on consumer behavior. Two studies were performed; a qualitative in-depth session of interviews with industry connoisseurs and a quantitative analysis of 589 online wine reviews. Our results indicate that wine reviews are highly subjective and defy Prediction through analysis of external variables. Critics are likely to judge differently based on what information they have at hand, suggesting that expectations affect grading.

Bankruptcy is a problem for the society in form of high costs for including suppliers, customers, employees, investors, banks, insurance companies etc. The purpose of this study is to confirm or dismiss a bankruptcy Prediction model that has been developed in a previous Swedish study, in order to predict bankruptcy with help of specific key figures. The model has only been tested in a larger perspective where the population consisted of all small firms in Sweden, in this study the model´s reliability is tested by that it instead been applied to a minor perspective, where the population only includes Stockholm. With a quantitative approach of 12 different key figures from a total of 60 Swedish smaller registered companies in Stockholm between the years 2005-2007, has been studied. The companies are divided into two groups, companies with good financial health and companies that have ended up in bankruptcy.The results shows that the model is applicable in a smaller population, but some of the key figures do not generate essential or any type of information about bankruptcy, but the majority of the key figures in the model did.

This thesis aims to investigate if peer-groups based on industry classification perform as well as, or better than, peer-groups based on other measures that represent factors affecting the price-to-earnings multiple. In contrast with previous empirical studies, a solid theoretical approach is used in defining which factors, according to valuation theory, affect the P/E-ratio. The factors identified as explanatory are accounting measures, risk and growth. Furthermore, we have recognized several measures that represent these factors. These measures are tested for accuracy of Prediction in terms of the P/E-ratio for peer-groups based on these measures relative to an industry classified peer-group.

The main purpose of this study is to investigate the productivity effects of multiple tree handling in thinnings. Other important elements have been to investigate in which extent multi-tree handling is used in stands with different stem volumes and the impact of collecting partially delimbed fuelwood assortments has on harvesting performance. The study is based on data from thinnings in Sydved and contractors' operating activities. Collection and compilation of operating schedules, number of stems and surveyed volumes from several contractors and a large number of executed orders underlying the results. Multiple tree handling is used to a much greater extent at lower average stem volumes. Prediction models for productivity of the multiple-tree handling harvesters in the study differ from the productivity models for single-tree handling. In the model developed in this study productivity is not as dependent of stem volume as reference models.

The storm Gudrun in 2005 led to massive windthow damage in forests in southern Sweden. Since then there has been a growing interest in factors influencing wind damage in above all Norway spruce (Picea Abies) stands. Although many other interesting areas still need to be examined. In 2005 there where a lot of stands that suffered different degrees of damage, a lot of these stands weren?t cut, but instead left to grow. The future development of these stands is uncertain and the guidelines are unclear.

Purpose: To investigate if Altman´s Z´-score model, which calculates financial distress, can be applied on companies established in Sweden and if the financial crisis in 2008 made previously healthy companies go bankrupt.Methodology: Quantitative studies with a positivistic foundation. Empirical data will be collected in order to examine if there is generalizability among the studied objects. Conclusions will be made by comparing the empirical data with the theoretical foundation. Financial distress in firms will be measured.Theoretical perspectives: Altman´s Z´-score model, designed to predict financial distress in private firms.Empirical foundation: A selection of 93 private firms that have gone bankrupt in the years 2008, 2009 or 2010. The firms selected all have a turnover that exceeds 20 million SEK.

If customers respond differently to a campaign, it is worthwhile to find those customers who respond most positively and direct the campaign towards them. This can be done by using so called incremental response analysis where respondents from a campaign are compared with respondents from a control group. Customers with the highest increased response from the campaign will be selected and thus may increase the company?s return. Incremental response analysis is applied to the mobile operator Tres historical data.

Objective: In recent years there has been an increasing interest within the clinical (medical) science in measuring people?s health. When estimating quality of life, present practise is to use the EQ-5D questionnaire and an index which weighs the different questions. The question is what happens if the individuals estimate there own health, would it differ from the public preferences? The aim is to make a new Prediction model based on the opinion of patients and compare it to the present model based on public preferences.Method: A sample of 362 patients with unstable coronary artery disease from the Frisc II trial, valued their quality of life in the acute phase and after 3, 6 and 12 months.

Bakgrund: Under senare år har flygbolagens prissättningsmodeller blivit allt mer invecklade. Detta har lett till att flygresenärernas möjlighet att ta hänsyn till flygbolagens prismönster har minskat. För att möta denna asymmetriska information har flera studier på den amerikanska marknaden genomförts. Samtidigt som studierna fastslår att det finns stora skillnader mellan flygbolagens prissättning, lyser bristen av dessa studier på den västsvenska marknaden med sin frånvaro. Syfte: Att öka konsumenternas förståelse för prisförändringar på den västsvenska flygmarknaden.

Background and aims: The population of older people in our society is increasing. Agerelated changes in the skin results in a diminished perception of pain and pressure and a decreased microcirculation in the skin affects its ability to adapt to injury. Occurrence of pressure sore on geriatrikal clinics are 5-10%, witch means that between five and ten thousand patients gets daily treat for pressure sores. When the patient gets a pressure sore the need for help increases. A common apprehension is that if the patient?s affects with pressure sores it?s because of deficiency in care.

This master thesis investigates the possibilities of using GPS-information from trains to create a model of a railway system, register the routes of the the trains and predict how the trains will travel in the railway system.The thesis work was done at Icomera AB which is a company that specializes in internet connected vehicle solutions.We describe how the GPS-information is sent from the trains in the form of samples and investigate limitations and possibilities with the available information. About three million samples from 83 SJ-trains were analysed and the samples were filtered with the intent of removing erroneous information. We here found that about 30 % of the samples from the trains were unreliable.A solution for how the samples from the trains can be used to create a model of the railway system traveled by the trains is presented. We use a large set of historical samples and use cluster nodes and Hermite curves to generate a graph that represent the railway system with stations, nodes and the railway itself. A fully automatic solution is not presented since it did not fit into the time frame of the thesis; instead we created a simple tool which can be used to manually finish the model of the railway system.Furthermore, we describe how the railway system and the samples from the train can be used to register the routes the trains travel.

This master thesis investigates the possibilities of using GPS-information from trains to create a model of a railway system, register the routes of the the trains and predict how the trains will travel in the railway system.The thesis work was done at Icomera AB which is a company that specializes in internet connected vehicle solutions.We describe how the GPS-information is sent from the trains in the form of samples and investigate limitations and possibilities with the available information. About three million samples from 83 SJ-trains were analysed and the samples were filtered with the intent of removing erroneous information. We here found that about 30 % of the samples from the trains were unreliable.A solution for how the samples from the trains can be used to create a model of the railway system traveled by the trains is presented. We use a large set of historical samples and use cluster nodes and Hermite curves to generate a graph that represent the railway system with stations, nodes and the railway itself. A fully automatic solution is not presented since it did not fit into the time frame of the thesis; instead we created a simple tool which can be used to manually finish the model of the railway system.Furthermore, we describe how the railway system and the samples from the train can be used to register the routes the trains travel.

There exists a great need among companies and other organizations to be able to visualize statistics. It?s also increasingly common to ask for web-based solutions for increased flexibility and accessibility for users. This paper describes how large amounts of geovisual data, for a large number of regions, can be visualized in an interactive and well-presented manner. The paper let?s you walk through two application scenarios, developed in a Flash environment, using the GeoViz component library for visualization. The first application has been developed for Statistics Sweden (SCB), to give a solution on how to visualize statistics for Sweden?s zip code regions.

The end of the 20th century brought a dramatic change to the music industry. The then predominant models for music consumption and sales were forever altered when the possibility to distribute music over the internet emerged. It has now become evident that it is virtually impossible to stop the distribution of digital music files. Music has turned into a non-excludable and non-rival product, which in economic terms is described as a public good. Public goods theory serves as a starting point for this study, which explores some of the factors that might explain why some consumers pay for music, while others choose to download music illegally.