Hedge funds? importance within the financial system has during the most recent years increased dramatically. These special funds are unique instruments that differ from traditional mutual funds in a variety of ways, however especially in how they expect returns. Due to the fact that hedge funds are able to hold short positions they possess the possibility to become market neutral investment vehicles.Because of this possibility to sustain positions neutral to market fluctuations, the concept of absolute returns became a unique selling point for hedge fund managers and promises of stable returns unchallenged by market conditions was assured. This research paper aims to examine the theory of absolute returns in hedge funds by examining hedge funds from the Nordic region during the last years of economic turmoil that has occurred by  analyzing the results from their strategies, partially by quantitative measurements as well as qualitative.  The results show that none of hedge fund strategies managed to deliver absolute returns over the chosen period..

The aim of this essay is to examine three separate Swedish public libraries and their respective websites on the grounds of the usability sciences. I firstly had to summarize the main properties of the usability-field in order to gain an extended knowledge of its purposes and possible usage for today?s library systems. I was then able to apply the extended knowledge in the examination of the three library websites and the purpose of determining whether or not they were designed according to the standards set by the usability-sciences.Usability is a rather new science that deals with the dissection and examination of computer-based systems, in order to find the key components that make systems user-friendlier. With user needs being the main focus of its research, usability tries to meet all the different needs of the modern user and construct systems that are less system-centered and more user-centered.

This study was performed in collaboration with Moelven Skog AB, Örebro district. The purpose of the study was to review existing literature in order to describe the current status of harvester based measurement technology as the way to provide information for calculating payment to the forest owners. In addition to this, a short survey was conducted to find out how a switch to harvester based measurement would affect the administrative workload on timber purchasers working for the district. The literature study shows that the harvester measurement technology is ready to use if it is combined with well-established routines for control of the harvesters, methods for automatic quality indexing of the timber and ways of creating pricelists specially adapted for harvester measurement. Pricing each stem seems to be the most promising method. Stem pricing has several benefits.

The aim of this study was to try to identify what young women see as typically female and how this affects them as individuals, focusing on the female body. How free or limited do they consider themselves to respond to prevailing ideals of beauty, to men and other women. Our questions are how young women construct femininity through the body and why? We do this by using a holistic gender perspective and with the help of key theoretical concepts; gender, normative femininity, heteronormativity, performance, freedom/power and the female body,. We have had a qualitative approach and we have done interviews with six girls in secondary school age.

Det här arbetet handlar om asfaltbetongblandningar och hur variationen av dessa vid projektering påverkar vägarnas dimensionering i överbyggnaden mer specifikt bärlagret. Arbetet är baserat på litteraturstudier av den senaste teorin kring dimensionering av asfaltbetongblandningar i väglager samt tillhörande kravskrifter både från svenska och amerikanska myndigheter. Den inledande delen i examensarbetet omfattar bakgrunden till vägdimensionering. Inledningsvis behandlas materialet asfaltbetong och derss egenskaper för att sedan gå vidare till allmänt om vägar, hur de utformas, vägens funktionella egenskaper och skador som kan uppstå. Detta ska ge läsaren tillräckligt med bakgrund för att följa med i resten av arbetet där man kan läsa mer ingående om deformationsskador och vilka parametrar som är till stor vikt när man studerar skador som uppstår i asfaltbetongen samt relationen till dem egenskaper bitumen har. Rapporten avslutas med att resonera kring eventuella problem kring dimensioneringsmetoder samt betydelsen av blandningens hållfasthetsegenskaper och hur de påverkar vägarnas tjocklek. Slutsatsen i rapporten är att asfaltbetongblandningen har en betydelse för dimensionering av bärlager och att det kan vara någonting att beakta oftare vid vägdimensionering speciellt vid blandningar som skiljer sig mycket från standardvarianterna..

The purpose of this project is to analyze and study the absorption of the substances ivermectin, spinosad and barettin to hydrophobic and hydrophilic surfaces, and to analyze and study if the barnacle larva are effected when they try to settle on the treated surface.Incubation tests with barnacle larva in Petri dishes were performed as well as absorption tests on hydrophobic and hydrophilic surfaces which were tested with ellipsometry. To determine the surface thickness.The barnacles were placed in hydrophobic as well as hydrophilic Petri dishes that had been incubated with ivermectin, spinosad or barettin. After four to six days the larva was counted to analyze the settling. From the results conclusions could be drawn about the adsorption abilities of the substances to the different surfaces.The barnacles were placed in hydrophobic as well as hydrophilic Petri dishes that had been incubated with ivermectin, spinosad or barettin. After four to six days the larva was counted to analyze the settling.

On today?s competitive market, it is difficult to achieve profitability trough high prices on manufactured products. Profitability must be obtained through low manufacturing costs, high quality and short lead times. One of the companies on the market is Sandvik Coromant, manufacturer of tools and chips for metal cutting. This master thesis investigates the methods of manufacturing for boring bars at the manufacturing unit GVH4 at Sandvik Coromant in Gimo, Sweden.

A study of paleomagnetic remanence and anisotropy of magnetic susceptibility (AMS) has been performed on the Öje-Diabase in Dalarna, Sweden, and on basic dikes associated with the alkaliquartzsyenite/granite Noran-pluton in central Sweden. Based on isolation of directions of characteristic magnetization in the basic rocks, a division into three different groups (A,B,C) has been made. Group Aconsists of dolerites of Jotnian origin, both dolerites from the Öje-Diabase and dikes associated with the Noran-pluton are included in this group, making them coeval. Group B is suspected to show a re-magnetization from the later part of the Svekonorwegian orogeny. Group C belongs to the Blekinge-Dalarna-Dolerites (BDD). Thermal demagnetization of dolerites revealed two different types of demagnetization behaviours, one where magnetite clearly was the source of the remanence, and an other with a linear decrease in magnetization intensity. The measurements of magnetic anisotropy reveals a magnetic fabric with an almost horizontal foliation and a lineation that indicates a fairly uniform NNW/ S-SE flow direction of the magma..

Hedge funds have the past few years become an increasingly popular investment alternative and in the last decade hedge fund assets managed have quadrupled to USD 2000 billion, a growth rate of around 25-30% per year. One explanation for this substantial increase is that hedge funds' minimum limits on capital invested has declined, which have made ??them available to retail investors. The recent turmoil in financial markets has also contributed to investors finding their way to hedge funds, whose goal is to generate stable returns regardless of how the market develops.Using Sharpe?s, Treynor?s and Jensen's performance measures, I have investigated whether hedge funds manage to generate higher risk-adjusted returns than traditional managed funds.

Evaluation of joint swelling is an important part of the orthopedic examination and can be used to follow a patient?s progress during rehabilitation and therapy. Usually a swelling is assessed by palpating the joint but a more objective, but still easy to use, method would be preferable.This study seeks to increase the knowledge in veterinary rehabilitation by validating four different measurement tools (three recognized and one novel) for the assessment of elbow joint swelling: palpation, tape measure (circumference and figure eight measurement), slide caliper (craniocaudal and mediolateral positioning) and tonometer. This was achieved by calculating the inter- and intra-rater reliability and correlating the results from the different measurements with each other.The methods with best inter- and intra-rater reliability as well as good correlation among themselves were shown to be slide caliper with craniocaudal positioning, circumference and figure eight. Additional studies, with a larger and more diverse material, ought to investigate these methods further..

 We have chosen to write our thesis within a transport company. The work was carried out at DHL activities in Uppsala. DHL is one of the leading transport companies worldwide. Our interest lies in more efficient and advanced transportation and terminals, as globalization and new trends require effective solutions.The aim of our work is to explain the need for information technology applications in road haulage and associated terminal operations. Furthermore, we analyses terminal and applied information technology.

Skanska is using work schedules that are specifically designed for employees in the production. These work schedules are called best practice. These are guides containing technical descriptions, design references, capabilities, etc. for work activities. This support function facilitates the work preparation and planning of future work.

Ribs from sheep, goat and pig are rarely assessed  to species due to the fact that they are very similar in their morphology and size. The ribs are instead considered unidentifiable although it is possible to see what kind of bone it is. If these ribs would be identified to species not only would species assessment degree of archaeological source material   increase, the relationship between meat-rich and meat poor regions would change.To find out whether there are morphologically measurable differences between sheep, goat and pig ribs, three measurement points on each rib has been defined and measured. At each measurement point two measurements were measured, one medial-lateral measurement and one cranial-caudal measurement. The ratio between the medial- lateral measurement and the cranial-caudal measurement was calculated for each point.

The aim of this essay is to examine three separate Swedish public libraries and their respective websites on the grounds of the usability sciences. I firstly had to summarize the main properties of the usability-field in order to gain an extended knowledge of its purposes and possible usage for today?s library systems. I was then able to apply the extended knowledge in the examination of the three library websites and the purpose of determining whether or not they were designed according to the standards set by the usability-sciences.Usability is a rather new science that deals with the dissection and examination of computer-based systems, in order to find the key components that make systems user-friendlier. With user needs being the main focus of its research, usability tries to meet all the different needs of the modern user and construct systems that are less system-centered and more user-centered.

This thesis presents the implementation of a knowledge base system for rough sets [Paw92]within the logic programming framework. The combination of rough set theory with logic programming is a novel approach. The presented implementation serves as a prototype system for the ideas presented in [VDM03a, VDM03b]. The system is available at "http://www.ida.liu.se/rkbs". The presented language for describing knowledge in the rough knowledge base caters for implicit definition of rough sets by combining different regions (e.g.