Sydkraft Vattenkraft AB owns and operates the Traryd hydropower plant, located in the river Lagan in the southern part of Sweden. The gravity dam is classed according to RIDAS guidelines (Hydropower Industry Dam Safety Guidelines) as a class 1B dam. This means that the dam must discharge a class 1-flow which has a return period of 10 000 years. The inflow into the dam has been calculated in an earlier report to 495 m3/s, with a waterline at an elevation of 126, 3 meters above sea level. The gravity dam has a discharge system with two rectangular weirs, which results in a smaller discharge than the necessary 495 m3/s.

This paper studies the research foundations created in 1994 from the former wage earners? funds out of a portfolio management point of view. Firstly it describes the seven largest foundations and their different portfolio management structures. Secondly it analyses the performance of these foundations measured as the intercept, Jensen?s a, in a linear regression of the excess returns of a portfolio versus a proxy for the market, as well as the Sharpe-ratio.

More elderly, fewer hands: The way forward Sustaining the care workforce as a political challenge ? A case study of?elderly care in Kalmar Municipality This study examines how Human Capital Theory and New Public?Management are reflected in the governance of eldercare in Kalmar?municipality. Based on document analysis and interviews with politicians?and senior officials, the study shows that investments in staff competence?and well-being coexist with efficiency-oriented management practices.?Rather than being contradictory, these approaches are often combined in?everyday governance. The study concludes that the main challenge is not?funding, but capacity and that sustainable eldercare depends on aligning?national goals with local conditions and strong human capital.

Many media buyers annually spend money on advertising which will not be of benefit to their own brand; the fact that consumers confuse from which brand they have heard or seen commercials, comes as news to nobody. The phenomenon of media confusion has however earned much less attention. As a greater part of the total marketing budget is being spent on the media investments, on behalf of the actual advertising production, the more interesting it turns out to maximize the effects of the media expenses. The search for optimization is somewhat practised today by brand managers who are daringly adding a few more media channels to support their TV-campaigns. Buying ad space in TV is nevertheless much more expensive than the radio equivalent.

This paper is based on a quantitative survey. The study aims to answer the questionwhich media young people rather use to take part of the news. The results showthat young people today in Kalmar preferably and often read newspapers on theInternet and mobile phone.The questions asked was about which media they usually use, the level ofconfidence they had in various media, how interest was in different newscategories, willingness to pay for online news and background issues relatedsubjects. The survey was aimed at high school students in Kalmar and weredistributed and collected on-site at the schools. What was remarkable among theresponses was that young people largely had access to a morning newspaper athome and said that they would consider subscribing to one in the future.

This study examines the link between the individual and social network, what social forces and social mechanisms involved in the interaction between individuals and groups and how we can explain and consider this relationship with the aim of understanding this connection. Through qualitative interviews, based on interviews of six active members in the organization Young KRIS (Young Criminal?s Return in the Society) examines the active social processes that the young members undergo, and motivates those who have been outside the expected conformed and regular society, to be included in the regular community and how this can be explained. The study shows that the organization through high availability, openness, knowledge of the needs of young people, good treatment, range of meaningful activities, has created a great venue for the young to develop and thus regain their place in the society..

There are many different forms of financing for small businesses and two common financing options mentioned in the study, bank loans and Venture Capital.Venture Capital is a form of risk capital financing, investing in unlisted stock market. The feature of the arrangement is that those people are trying to find companies that can offer unique, attractive and in demand products on a strong growing market. Since VC-firms are taking a big risk in cooperation with the investment, the VC-company strong demands while assessments are made on the company will generate a return in the future.Bank loans are the most common form of financing for companies in the market. Requirements and assessment under the law is hard especially for small businesses because financing entails high risks. Banks require that the liquidity management in the enterprise should be stable because the bank's main objective is to repayment of debt and the interest payable on the capital.The purpose of this study is to examine the requirements and assessments VC-firms and banks make use of the financing of small businesses. .

In this Master's thesis, a direct-conversion receiver front-end has been designed in a 0.18um CMOS technology. Direct-conversion receivers (DCR) have obvious advantages over the heterodyne counterpart. Since the intermediate frequency (IF) is zero, the problem of image is circumvented. As a result, no front-end image reject filter is required and the channel selection requires only a low-pass filter, which makes it easy to integrate directly on chip. However, the DCR also suffers from several drawbacks such as extreme sensitivity to DC offsets, 1/f noise, local oscillator (LO) leakage/radiation, front-end nonlinearity and I/Q mismatch.

This report contains a study of replacing nuclear power with biofuel. The nuclear plant, OKG north of Oskarshamn in Sweden has been chosen and an extensive literature study about the nuclear plant has been implemented. The main aspect of this report is the availability of biofuels and whether it would be economically sustainable. Sweden?s most common biofuels are examined with regard to scope of use and potential.

The Swedish alcohol policy has by tradition a restrictive composition, with high taxes and the Swedish Alcohol Retailing Monopoly as important elements. The Moderate Party has been powerful critics of the alcohol policy and has advocated a reformation. However, today the Moderate Party seems to have changed the attitude towards the alcohol policy and it even supports the Swedish initiative to create cooperation about alcohol matters at the EU level.This thesis examines why the Moderate Party has changed its attitude towards the restrictive alcohol policy. Three aspects have been considered: the rise of a European public policy, strategic choice, and the influence of the political environment. The paper discusses the problem from a strategic perspective, which means that the political change is viewed as a result of strategic considerations.The party has indeed been affected by all of the three aspects, although to different extent.

During the last decade, there has been an increase in the use of technology-based self-services within the retail sector. The increase is particularly noticeable within the grocery market. The reason behind the increased use of these systems is partially due to the fact that companies within highly competitive retail markets continually look for ways of decreasing costs while upholding efficiency. The problem is that it is difficult to understand the true economical implications of investments relating to these machines. The purpose of this study is to investigate and contribute with new insights regarding the cost-structures of the stationary self-checkout systems and traditional cashier desks, within the retail grocery market.

The agricultural sector accounts for about 13 percent of the total load of greenhouse gas emissions from Sweden (Swedish Environmental Protection Agency, 2007). The Swedish objective to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions with 40 percentage units to the year of 2020, based upon the year of 1990, might imply stricter regulations for Swedish farmers. A regulation or other forms of economic incentives is probably necessary to reduce the emissions originating from the agricultural sector. This study aims to investigate the economic and managerial impact on two agricultural firms with differing production system given that a constraint on green house gas emissions is introduced. Gases included in this study are carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide.

The aim of this thesis is to explore how librarians approach to and knowledge of young people can be seen in their work methods and in activities arranged for young people. I also want to investigate other factors that librarians think can affect how they work. Five interviews were carried out with five librarians who worked with young people at public libraries. The literature review covers; young peoples needs and leisure activities, young peoples attitudes to libraries, activities arranged for them and towards departments for young people at public libraries. Literature dealing with librarians` attitudes and knowledge of young people was also included.

When the Soviet union collapsed at the beginning of the 1990s, a democratization began to develop. During the Jeltsin years, democracy in Russia was developing steadily, but since Putin became president at the turn of the century it has started to move back towards authoritarian rule. The purpose of this study is to explore the reasons for why the democracy in Russia never became consolidated and to understand why the country again has moved towards an authoritarian rule, like the one during the Soviet union.In order to fulfill the aim of this study, two theories were used. These were Linz and Stepan's consolidation theory, about the five arenas that have to be developed, and Samuel P. Huntington's theory about authoritarian nostalgia.

During the past year it has been made possible to buy back a company?s outstanding stock. This is done in order to change the capital structure towards a situation with less equity. A change in capital structure means a change in the cost of capital for a company and by that a change in the value for the stockholder. This Master Thesis studies the relation between capital structure and business risk.