This paper replicates a test performed by Burgstahler and Dichev (1997), which identifies a kink in the frequency distribution of earnings for companies listed on American stock exchanges. Their claim, that the kink is evidence of earnings management, has however been dismissed as a methodical consequence. To address this concern, this paper not only replicates the test in general, but also performs tests on a split sample, where founding family-owned companies are separated from the others, since earlier research has shown that founding family ownership is correlated with less earnings management. The results are in line with the findings of Burgstahler and Dichev, with a significant kink in the frequency distribution in the general test. The findings also show that the significance of the kink increases in the non-family-owned sample, while it disappears in the family-owned sample.

The project was carried out with SwedSafe AB, engaged in hearing and manufacture of earplugs. Since the company is a world leader in the sale of these products, it is important that they keep a higher level of quality of these products.Production of earplugs is currently a automated manufacturing process that is divided into four conveyor belts and one of the conveyor belts is what will be affected in the project. The belt affected during this process is exposed to various elements such as filling, closing, fermentation and extraction of products. Because the belt gets dirty, degraded products and the work environment is affected. To increase the quality of products and improve the working environment requires an automatic cleaning process, which collects dirt from the belt.The aim of the project is to design a machine that prevents the belt from becoming dirty, preserve molds clean and improve the working environment without disrupting production.

The goal of this study is to examine how the market reacts when information about the exchange of a CEO becomes public. It also examines factors such as gender and whether the departure was voluntary or not, discerning if the market behaves differently concerning any of these aspects.To achieve this, the study was performed using an event study. The selection consisted of 48 companies on the Stockholm Stock Exchange, who had during the years 2005 to 2008 underwent a change in leading management. These units were submitted to hypothesis tests, to determine if an abnormal return was attained during the event window. The tests were performed on the units as a whole, and divided up after gender and whether the departure was voluntary or not.The results of the study show no statistically significant abnormal return caused by the announcement of a CEO exchange.

The purpose of this study is to investigate librarian?s opinions concerning literature with state supported distribution and how to mediate and market these in the library. The types of mediation and marketing that have been studied are positioning, labeling and oral mediation.The study is qualitative with interviews at seven main public libraries in central Sweden. The respondents of the study were responsible for the literature with state supported distribution within the library.The study is based on a theoretical frame of reference containing theories from Jofrid Karner Smidt, regarding librarian?s mediation in libraries, and François Colbert?s theory on marketing planning for arts and culture.The results of our study showed that librarians have both positive and negative opinions when it comes to the literature with state supported distribution.

The purpose with this thesis is to demonstrate that other factors than the existing set of rules could influence the Management Group?s decision in regards to depreciation of goodwill. We have explained the conflicts between the management group and the stakeholders by using the Agency Theory and the Stakeholder Model. We have used the Positive Accounting Theory to describe how the management group?s opportunistic behaviour decides which accounting method to use.

What is located on the bottom in the water outside of Birka? Remains of a water palisade or jetties and other constructions.Birka a Viking Age town that existed between AD 750 and 975 was located on the northwestern part of the small island of Björkö, in the Mälar archipelago of the Baltic Sea in Sweden. The Town was protected onshore by a hill fort and a town rampart. It is a widely spread assumption that Birka had a water palisade as a part of its defense. There are logs and other remnants on the bottom of the lake dating back to the Viking age.

Children's need of a good environment of playing outdoor at schoolyards is, both from a perspective of commonly public's health and from the children themselves, indisputable. Children who have a good and varying playground develop physically, psychologically and socially. As an instrument of pedagogic a playground also is valuable for example in teaching the round, periodical successions and understanding of democratic processes. The conception playground means here in my work the environment outdoor for children at schools up to about twelve years old. What is a good playground then? How is it possible for a landscape architect to contribute improvements? The purpose of my work has been to enlarge my knowledge about playgrounds, understand more of the profession as a landscape architect and apply a perspective of children in the planning. To sum up, the shaping of playgrounds has great importance for the activities of the children and if the teachers make use of it, the teaching. A good playground gives the delight, the excitement and the curiosity free spaces and stimulates new challenges.

Recent studies show that manufacturing companies to a larger extent use historical cost accounting in their internal accounts, at the expense of calculated costs. The explanation behind this is claimed to be that firms are subject to careful scrutiny by the stock market. Consequently, top management stresses the need of evaluating all parts of the firm from external accounting. However, lower management levels express a general concern that the incentive to invest in machines will decrease. This master thesis aims to investigate whether or not there is an objective reason behind this concern.

Background: The Swedish population is aging [1] and malnutrition is a common problem among elderly people [2]. A method called food registration is used to monitor the patients? nutritional intake, with the purpose of reducing the risk of patients deteriorating in nutritional status during hospitalisation. However, the current method is not satisfactory and many food registration lists are incomplete. [3-6] Thus, patients do not receive a qualitative nutritional care since the assessment of the patients? nutritional status is based on incomplete documentation.Purpose: The purpose of this master thesis is to increase the quality in the nutrition monitoring process in the geriatric units B72 and B74 at Karolinska University Hospital in Huddinge, Sweden.

In the year 2010 a transition will take place here in Sweden from the present rules how to dimension buildings in to the common rules with have been developed in Europe, the Eurocodes. Eurocode is the term for a collection standard that contains calculation rules in how to dimension constructions and buildings. They are developed by the European standardize committee.The purpose with this examination work is to get an insight of what changes this will contribute to, and how it will affect the dimensioning. Are there going to be any differences in the dimension you finally chose?To investigate these possible differences two constructions will be calculated first in the present Swedish rules, and then in the coming eurocodes.One of these two constructions will be build completely in steel, while the other will be build completely in concrete.

This thesis is carried out at Portsystem 2000 AB who manufactures and markets industrial doors and docking systems. The background to this thesis is that the company?s management considers that their follow-up process of cost accounts is not fully functioning.The aim with this report is to investigate and describe the present procedure of the follow-up process concerning the time of operations and come up with suggestions for improvements. This thesis is performed within the range of the following areas: Information systems, quality, processes and cost calculation. The main method we used were semi structured interviews with a fairly opened framework.

This thesis explores some issues regarding estimations of the cost of capital on the Stockholm Stock Exchange through reverse engineering of the Residual Income Valuation model and through usage of the Capital Asset Pricing Model. Previous studies are in conflict of whether the risk premium changes considerably over time or not. Furthermore, the risk premium estimated by CAPM tends to be fairly stable. In this study, reverse engineering of the cost of capital implied by analysts? forecasts shows a significant difference in the risk premium over time.

Since January 1st 2005 all companies listed on a regulated stock exchange within the European Union are required to present their financial reports in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). The intention of the introduction of IFRS is to achieve international harmonization of accounting rules in order to make financial reports more comparable between companies from different countries. The purpose of financial reports presented in accordance with IFRS is to provide information that is useful to the users of the information. The aim of this paper is to investigate whether the information regarding goodwill and the goodwill impairment test, presented in accordance with IFRS, in fact is useful to a specific group of accounting information users, namely equity analysts. An empirical study is conducted, based on interviews with seven Swedish equity analysts.

This paper seeks to investigate whether there is a positive relationship between bonus as a part of total executive compensation and lower accounting quality among Swedish companies. In this study, accounting quality is defined as the degree by which a company's earnings are subject to earnings management. To detect earnings management accrual-based modified Jones model is applied to companies listed on the Large-, Mid- and Small-Cap lists on the Stockholm stock exchange during 2011. We find a statistically significant positive relationship between bonus as a part of total executive compensation and lower accounting quality. Thus, in line with prior research, our results suggest that managers, interested in maximizing their bonus, will select income increasing accruals to manage earnings upwards.

This is a report founded on a project by Atlas Copco called NYSTAB.  The application Nystab is a calculation program that can calculate the stability of the rockdrill-rigs made by Atlas Copco. The original version of Nystab is stored in a database from 1997 and the code is made in an old version of Visual Basic. My assignment was to develop the application in to a newer programming environment and make it last better in the upcoming years. The software I decided to use to accomplish this project is C# .NET in Visual Studio and Microsoft Access 2010. All the code is written in C# with some insertions from ADO.NET which helped me to easier connect the code with the database.The coding part was split into two pieces; the first was to develop the application scale done with Windows Forms, the second was to write the code for calculations in the application.