Many companies have historically forced their interests through without any thoughts about the future needs of the humans and the society. In the last few years voices have been raised for a change, companies need to take their responsibility regarding sustainable development.The purpose of the report is to describe and explain possible relations between sustainabil-ity performance of companies and profitability, valuation, industry and size respectively.To be able to judge the sustainability performance of the companies Folksam (2006a) have been used. This is a solid investigation of the companies listed on the A- and O-lists of the Stockholm Stock Exchange by the end of 2005. The sustainability marks have been com-pared with the chosen key values for each hypothesis respectively. With this quantitative data as foundation, a quantitative approach and a deductive method have been used.In the first area of the investigation, profitability, the authors found correlation for the main hypothesis between sustainability performance and ?Return on Total Assets? through a statistical test.

A comparative thesis to study precious metals impact on a portfolio, during a long period of time, from the fourth quarter of 1986 to the third quarter of 2012. Five different portfolios are compared; three of the portfolios containing one of the following precious metals, gold, silver and platinum, the fourth portfolio contain all precious metals and shares, and the fifth portfolio containing only shares which is represented of OMXS30. This is done to determine the portfolio that generates the most return in relation to the least risk with the help of historical prices. Sharpe ratio is used to measure the profitability of precious metals by measuring the yield relative to the total risk. The study also measures precious metals correlation with shares..

AimThe main aim of the study was to investigate the difference in bilateral deficit between rowers and sprinters during maximal eccentric/concentric muscle actions.? Are there any significant differences in bilateral deficit between rowers and sprinters?? Do the amount of years in practice effect the bilateral deficit?MethodFourteen male subject participants divided in 2 equal sized groups (7 individuals in each group; rowers and sprinters) performed maximal unilateral/bilateral eccentric and concentric muscle actions in a leg press machine at a velocity of 0.2m/s. The range of motion in the knee joint was 70° ? 140°. Dependent t-tests have been performed within each group pre and post test.

This Masters Thesis includes a survey of recreational habits and the attitudes towards forests of the people of Sätra, a suburb of the city of Gävle. The study also includes the planning and design of a forest suited for education in the same part of the city. The thesis is a part of a project called Tätortsnära skog, commissioned by the Swedish forest agency. The project aims to survey the recreational habits of the general public in the regions of Dalarna and Gävleborg. Tätortsnära skog is focused on cities with a population of more than 20 000 inhabitants, of which Gävle, Sandviken, Falun and Borlänge all fall within the category.

The curious nature of humans has been the puzzle of psychologists, philosophers and scientists since the time we began to use those terms. Why are we curious? Why do we behave the way we do and why? The span of views on curiosity covers all. From being viewed as part of our animalistic nature and compared to instincts, to be viewed as a virtue to scientists and the reason behind why we explore space. Behaviorists tried to define it as an innate drive and some say that it has a crucial role in our ability to learn and understand.

The effects of Reindeer mechanical damages on the planted regeneration of Pinus sylvestris and Pinus contorta. Semi-domesticated reindeer can damage young trees. In late winter reindeer rub their antlers against young trees. The aim of this study was to quantify those damages. This study covered planted objects from three different areas in northeastern Sweden.

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.

The aim was to explore how the first page of a student newspaper has been changed over time since it was founded in the 1960´s.This thesis explores how the front page of the student newspaper Lösnummer has been changed since it was founded in 1966. It concerns the location and frequency of elements and it is based on theories of layout, the first page and visual communicationIn addition, the thesis develops a new kind of method for determining the location of elements on the type area. The method is based on the hexadecimal number system. It is formed as a grid which is placed on the first page to determine the location of the elements.It concludes that the frequency of elements had its peak during the 1970´s and has ever since decreased gradually. Image placement has gone from being scattered all over the front page to be centered and increase in size. .

Studien är främst till för att bringa klarhet i hur en butik bör arbeta med visuell marknadsföring för att nå konsumenten och skapa en positiv reaktion hos denne. Vi har dessutom undersökt vikten av relationen till kunden, och hur företaget arbetar med det genom relationsmarknadsföring. Vi har fått fram vårt resultat genom marknadsundersökningar och observationer inne i och i anslutning till en butik, samt genom en intervju med den ansvarige för butikskommunikationen i samma butik. Till vår hjälp har vi arbetat med Peak Performens Borås, det är kring denna butik hela studien kretsar.Den personliga intervjun med den person som är ansvarig för butikskommunikationen på Peak Performens Borås gav oss information om problem och utmaningar ur deras synvinkel. Materialet gav oss även bra bakgrundsinformation att jämföra resultaten från marknadsundersökningarna och observationerna med.

Due to excess precipitation that cause runoff, all soils in Sweden naturally leaches nitrogen.High leaching from arable land is an environmental problem when the runoff reacheswaters. In the international agreement, Baltic Sea Action Plan, the aim is to reduce therunoff of nutrients. Sweden has agreed to reduce its load of e.g. nitrogen to the Baltic Sea.One of the proposed measures is an increased use of site-specific N-fertilization, which hasbeen shown to increase nitrogen use efficiency and therefore also reduce the nitrogen runoff.Either yields are increased with the same total amount of nitrogen, or the total quantityof nitrogen is reduced with preserved yield levels, which is profitable for the farmers.The dynamics of nitrogen leaching differs between top dressing applications above orbelow the economical optimum. There is a consensus about a difference in the dynamics,but not about its magnitude.

The world economy of today is in an extensive financial crisis which has lead to the fact that people seek well placed investments and securing of capital, something that by many people can be found in forest investment. The price of forest estates has increased with 90 % during the last 5 years and marketing polls indicate a positive belief in the future among forest owners. The development of timber prices has not increased to the same extent as the forest property prices which implies that the property price not only reflect the yield value from the forest but also that the lumber value does not have such a meaningful role in the pricing of forest properties as proven earlier. This fact means that forest owners either invest their capital in forest in a speculative point of view or that the purchasers of forest properties invests in non monetary benefits that lacks a direct yield value. The purpose with this degree thesis is to increase the understanding of the pricing of forest properties with focus on the above mentioned fact.

During the last ten- fifteen years the Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx) population in southern Sweden has increased considerably. This area has a high density of both people and roads and have a higher roe deer (main prey of lynx) density than the rest of the country. Movement patterns such as how long animals utilize their kills and how far they travel from their kills between revisits is unknown for lynx in southern Sweden. The aim of this study was to examine how different factors affected the time lynx used their kills and the distances they travelled from the kill between revisits. The data was prepared and calculated using ArcGIS and the study is based on 98 ungulate kills and 12 lynx individuals.

Despite the fact that men dominate substance abuse research and that most programs to target substance abuse therefore are developed by and for men, very little is known about the fact that substance abusing men can also be parents. Mothers are up until today regarded as the most important parent even though society is changing and fathers are taken a more active part in childrearing. The average father today still spends significantly less time with his children than the average mother does and marginalised drug abusing fathers often disappear from their families altogether. The goal and purpose of this paper has been that through a qualitative analyses of written sources and qualitative interviews with healthcare professionals and social workers recognise how marginalised drug abusing fathers interests of taking part in their children's lives are met by healthcare, treatment and child protection agencies and how we can understand marginalised fathering as an extension of how we view ordinary fathering. I wanted to examine if there are any specific actions taken in involving these men as fathers and how we can understand their situation.

An Internet application, VEDAIR, for estimation of air quality in regions with small-scale combustion of bio fuel has been developed by Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute with financing from Swedish Energy Agency and Swedish Environmental Protection Agency. The model contains user interface and a coupled model concept where concentrations of atmospheric pollutions are calculated for regional, urban and local contributions. In this report the model is described and a first study of air quality considering PM10 (particles with a diameter less than 10 µm) in two Swedish municipalities, Vänersborg and Gnosjö, is introduced.According to the result, there are areas with poor air quality even in smaller Swedish municipalities, mostly due to high emission from buildings with older wood heating furnace without hydraulic accumulator.In Vänersborg three areas were analysed in VEDAIR for the year 2003: Vargön, Mariedal and the downtown district. In the whole municipality the upper evaluation threshold for PM10, which is defined as 14 µg/m3 for annual average, was exceeded due to background contribution of particles. In all areas, however, the concentrations of PM10 were less than the environmental quality norms.

The increasing oil prices during the last years have made it profitable to use cereal grains as a fuel. When compared with wood, cereals contain higher amounts of Cl, S and ash. The Cl and S content makes the gases from cereal combustion more corrosive than gases from wood combustion. The goal of this master thesis was to find out the variation of Cl, S and ash content for oat grain grown under different conditions. Oats was chosen because in Sweden it's considered as the cereal with the best fuel qualities.