AbstractTitle:The Impact of Management Control Systems on the Purchaser Function - A study of Scania and Sandvik Authors: Mohammad Reza Akhbari and Johanna Sullivan Svensson Published: 2011 Keywords: Management control, purchasing function, impact, control, control instruments, Key Performance Indicators, measurement, communication and organizational structure. Background and problem formulation: In order for a company?s business idea or vision to be fulfilled, the management of a company needs assistance from various means to intentionally affect the operation in the desired direction. Management control concerns activities of both financial and non-financial character in order to implement the strategy of a company and to reach profitability. Since the purchaser function is responsible of spending 50 percent of a company?s total revenue, the function has an optimal starting point to be a key actor in the shaping and execution of a company?s strategic plan.

The equine hoof is often manipulated in purpose to achieve a better stride or to reduce the weight on damaged tissue. The living tissue in the hoof can?t store energy as glycogen and is therefore depending on a continuous supply of glucose for its energy production. The purpose of the study was to determine if wedging (i.e. elevating) the heel could influence the hooves glucose and lactate consumption/production. Five standardbred horses were trained to trot on a treadmill without getting physical or mentally tired.

This thesis tries to explore how different strategies of internal communication are used in actual situations within an organization. Specifically, the purpose is to investigate how the internal communication within the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) has been carried out during their work to change their organizational structure, and, how this can be understood in terms of existing theories for strategic communication. The research questions explored are:What are the chosen strategies used to communicate the changes internally?How can these strategies be understood in terms of existing theories?What are the views of the employees on the communication and what are the relations between their views, the chosen strategies and existing theories?The theoretical ground work chosen is mainly the work by Cornelissen (2008), Dalfelt (2005), Johansson (2011) and Larsson (2008). The method chosen for the empirical part of the study is semi-structured qualitative interviews.

Inclusion body disease (IBD) affecting boas and pythons is a serious and common disease. Boas can be clinically healthy carriers, which makes control of the disease difficult. The causative agent has not yet been confidently identified, and therefore there are no serodiagnostic tests available. Today, histopathologic examination of tissue biopsies is the recommended antemortem diagnostic method, but there are several disadvantages. The objective of this study was to compare the sensitivity of two diagnostic methods ? liver biopsies and blood smears, and to evaluate ultrasoundguided needle biopsy of the liver.

Background: With the increased globalization food prices went down for a while, only to skyrocket to new levels. Prices of organic food, which already were more expensive than conventional, are now even more expensive. The current financial crisis results in reduced consumption which creates a threat to the smaller grocery stores. Globalization and the increased competition have had a negative impact on the environment but at the same time the desire to solve these issues has increased appreciably. The environmental aspect has been given higher priority by the individual, which led to a wider range of organic products and dramatically increased the number of stores selling organic products, leading to a greater competition among the stores selling organic food.  Problem definition: What factors are important for organic retail business long term survival?Purpose: Trough case studies analyze and evaluate the organic niche retail companies? strategies of marketing.Methods: This study is based on both qualitative and quantitative research methods.

This study aims to explore purposes of daily workshops for persons with disabilities. The method used was qualitative interviews. An inductive research strategy was used. Half-structured interviews with six managers of daily workshops were carried out, wherein they expressed their intentions with the daily workshops and the reasons for people to participate. The interviews were analysed with Antonovsky´s salutogenetic perspective, in which Sense of Coherence, SOC is a main concept, and with the normalisation principle.

The future of the forest owners? associations are intimately coupled to the development in family forestry. Forecasts have been made that predicts that the number of forest properties for sale on the open market will increase as the interest among the children of the property owners is considered to decrease. The associations are also affected by continuing individualism in the society which may affect attitudes to as well as interest in membership. The objective of this study was to study the attitudes among grown-up children of members in a forest owners association towards overtaking the forest property as well as membership in a forest owners association.

This Master Thesis within Marketing and Strategy investigates the values customers perceive within the Real Estate market in the inner City of Stockholm. The dependent variable is customer satisfaction, and it could be explained by 1) the feeling of light and uniqueness of the apartment, 2) that the apartment is of a satisfying size, 3) the address of the apartment, 4) and the economics, the common areas of the building, and the bidding process. The feeling of light and uniqueness, combined with the number of square meters, and the monthly fee of the apartment, are also identified as the price driven functions of this market. A quantitative method is used to investigate the market, where 107 apartment buyers completed a survey..

The chow-chow breed is considered to have a low fertility and this report is an in depth study of the reproductive functions of this breed in Sweden. Only 53 % of the Chow-chow matings results in litters. Previous studies of other breeds in commercial kennels shows mating results around 85-90 %, but this has not been investigated in hobby kennels and most Chow-chows which are bred from in Sweden, are kept as family pets. Contrary to most other breeds, Chow-chows show a seasonal reproductive pattern and most litters are born in the autumn. The influence of the month of mating on pregnancy rate and litter size was found to be not significant, but can be considered a trend. Thirty-nine females with previous known fertility problems where studied. Some of them had reached puberty extremely early, at an age between 4-5 months, and many of the bitches showed great fluctuations in intervals between oestrus cycles. Some of the females showed abnormalities such as very short oestrus intervals of only 2-3 months, probably without ovulating.

Objektorienterade mönster och omkonstruktion är två olika designstrategier som har ett gemensamt mål: att göra mjukvarusystem mer förändringsbara och mindre komplexa. Mönster tillämpas för att förebygga utvecklingen av komplexitet i mjukvara. Omkonstruktioner görs för att reducera komplexitet som redan uppstått i mjukvarans inre struktur. Denna rapport identifierar fyra grundläggande strukturproblem som gör mjukvara onödigt komplex och svår att förändra: duplicerad kod, villkorslogik, långa metoder och bristande inkapsling. Rapporten visar hur objektorienterade mönster kan införas i mjukvara genom omkonstruktion och göra mjukvara mer förändringsbar genom att reducera de fyra nämnda strukturproblemen.

During the twentieth century, mergers&aquisitions have occured in waves where times of low activityfrequently has turned into periods of high activity. M&A:s have been of increasing numbers and growing size, which was extra evident during the last wave during the 1990:s. What are the motives that has made M&A such a widely used strategy? Are there similarities within and across industries regarding merger motives? The empirical material consists of primary and secundary data collected from two mergers in three industries respectively; manufacturing, banking and IT. The analysis make use of three different perspectives, the reason for this being to create understanding and furthermore illuminate the complexity of the problem.

The purpose of this essay is to examine how officials within the Swedish public libraryorganisation view the IT-development, how the IT-development progresses within theorganisation and if there is a need for a national IT-strategy for the public libraries in Sweden.Four unorganized interviews with officials within the regional- and county libraryorganisation and one within the national organisation where conducted. This study is aqualitative examination where the phenomenographic approach has been used as inspirationfor the analytic model. The analytic result has been compared to the system theory of how anoptimal system should be constructed to perform in an optimal way and to be able to producegood results. The results of this study show a wish for a better national cooperation regardingthe IT-development for the Swedish public libraries. Today?s library structure should bereviewed over in order to enable the libraries to produce even better results from the cooperation?s..

Sahlgrenska Academyat University of GothenburgDepartment of Internal Medicine and Clinical NutritionAbstractTitle: Alcohol consumption after training and its effects on muscle gain and recovery adult menAuthor: Frida Carlstedt, Puck JanssonSupervisor: Frode SlindeExaminer: Anna WinkvistProgramme: Dietician study programme, 180/240 ECTSType of paper: Examination paper, 15 hpDate: April 09, 2014Background: Today, the Swedish population exceeds the recommendations for alcohol intake while advised to move at least thirty minutes a day. It is well established what happens if you drink alcohol before a workout or if you workout the day after an alcohol intake, but it is less well established how muscle gain and recovery are affected by an intake of alcohol in the phase of recovery.Objective: The objective of this review is to investigate if there is a relation between alcohol intake after a workout and effected recovery and muscle gain. This was performed by measuring the outcomes cortisol, testosterone, creatine kinase as well as different measures of muscle strength. The issue was ?Does an intake of alcohol after training affect recovery and muscle gain??Search strategy: A systematic review in the databases PubMed and Scopus with the MeSH-terms: exercise, muscles, recovery of function, training, athletic performance, performance, sport, alcohol drinking, alcohols, alcohol and ethanol.Selection criteria: Criteria for articles to be included in this review were that they would be RCT- and human studies in healthy subjects as well as containing an ethanol intake after a physical activity that consisted of weight training in the form of resistance training or other forms of activity that promotes strength.Data collection and analysis: A systematic search for literature as mentioned above (search strategy) was performed as well as an analysis with the SBU quality review template for randomized studies, and a quality review for each measure of outcome according to Gothenburg University summarized evidence template for measures of outcome.4Main results: Many studies are authored by the same group of researchers and/or are of a lower quality.

This paper studies how peer assessment is used as a strategy to improve young learners' results in Swedish as a school subject. Nine teachers are interviewed about their use of the method on 7-12-year-old pupils. Comparisons are made between the interviews and Swedish and international discussion on peer assessment. There are similarities between the practice of the teachers and what is said in the litterature about the method and its advantages and drawbacks. The teachers tend to emphasize the social aspects more, though.

The aim of this essay was to study the nitrogen flow in two willowplantations, at different locations in the south of Sweden, that wereirrigated with sewage. The study was also performed to compare thedifferences in nitrogen flows between two years, 1998 and 1999. The studywas made in three parts. First, the denitrification activity was measuredusing the acetylen inhibition method. Second the nitrogen flow, as well asthe water- and heat flows, were modeled through the SOIL-SOILN-modelThird; the nitrogen flow was calculated to compare with the results fromthe model.The results from the measurements were then compared with the resultsfrom the SOILN-simulations to detect differences in the denitrificationrate.