Problem: After several corporate scandals concerning accounting around the world a discussion concerning corporate governance arose. The public demanded greater insight and better corporate governance in public companies. The discussions led to the development of codes of corporate governance, codes such as the Sarbanes Oxley Act, the Combined Code and the Swedish Code of Corporate Governance. The Swedish code is a clarifying of the Swedish law, a codification of praxis and in some cases an increase in the demands on reporting of information from the companies.Purpose: The purpose of the thesis is to describe what effects the Swedish Code of Corporate Governance has had on the content of annual reports of listed companies and if different types of companies have been affected in different ways.Method: The investigation was conducted using both qualitative and quantitative methods. Through a preliminary study knowledge about the subject was gathered.

This bachelor thesis examines the relation between countries? degree of economic freedom and their economic performance. Economic freedom as a concept is defined as the degree of market economy within a nation.The variable of measure that is used is the Frasier institute Economic freedom of the world index (EFI). The paper is built upon the Solow growth model and is extended by incorporation of additional variables; among which of course economic freedom. The study is performed through regression analysis, based on the neoclassical model both on rich countries, poor countries and on all investigated countries.Two investigations are performed: i) the impact from economic freedom on countries level of GDP per capita and ii) the impact from economic freedom on the growth rate in GDP per capita.The finding is that economic freedom can be seen as a relevant determinant of differences in GDP per capita growth rates between nations.

In healthy dogs, heart rate fluctuates during the day. Heart rate variability (HRV) reflects the autonomic nervous system´s regulation of the cardiovascular unit. Heart rate variability shows the balance between the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system, also called sympathovagal balance. Heart rate variability can be measured by time domain - and frequency domain analysis. In a time domain analysis you study the beat-to-beat-interval (RR-interval) in an electrocardiogram (ECG), while a frequency domain analysis can be used to determine the size of the variability.

The population over 65 years of age is increasing and health in elderly has been a subject of research for decades but voice function and vocal health has not been prioritized. The purpose of this study is to obtain reference value for the Swedish version of Voice Handicap Index (RHI) and the Throat Scale among people over 65 years of age and assess voice function and vocal health for this age group. The questions were as followed:1) What is the reference value of RHI for people over 65 years of age? 2) What is the reference value of the Throat Scale for people over 65 years of age? 3) Is there a correlation between a self-rated VA-scale on the perceived degree of voice problems, and the self-rated RHI-/Throat Scale result? 4) Does age, gender or previous profession matter for the self-perceived voice?In total 100 individuals participated in the study, 50 women and 50 men, between 65 and 92 years old. The reference value of RHI for people over 65 years of age was 13,4 points and the reference value for the Throat Scale was 7,7 points.

This project was a collaboration with Kajsa Bergström. The projected was to develop the French/English deck of cards. We replaced the knight, queen and king with the numbers 11, 12 and 13. We worked with separate aesthetics and solutions after making that common change. I worked on an idea on how to make the cards look slim, by adapting a handcrafted look, full of details.

The aim of this master ´s thesis is to understand why there are difficulties in finding joint methods and standards in the field of image indexing. The main focus for interpreting these issues is on Sara Shatford ´s article Analyzing the Subject of a Picture: A Theoretical Approach. In the article Shatford discusses a theoretical basis for identifying and classifying the subject in a picture. In doing so she uses concepts taken from The Philosophy of Art, Meaning in Language and Visual Perception. With the aid of S.R.

To be able to handle tomorrows need for limited energy consumption we need to reduce our use of energy. The building sector stands for around 40 % of all energy consumption in the society. The government has put up a goal to reduce the energy consumption in our buildings with 20 % by year 2020 and 50 % by year 2050 compared with year 1995. To be able to do reach that goal we need a more energy efficient building stock.The main part of the energy used in our buildings is used for space heating. By installing ventilation systems with heat recovery on the exhaust air it is possible to use the heat-energy in the exhaust air to warm up the incoming air.

I en mer global och konkurrensutsatt marknad krävs, i allt större utsträckning, att företag väljer att differentiera sig med specifika kundlösningar istället för den enskilda produkten. Genom att, tillsammans med kunden, skapa värde knyter man denna närmare till sig. Ett konsignationslager är en strategisk lagerlösning för att minska avstånden mellan kund och leverantör samt att minska kedjans totala lagerkostnad. SCA Timber har begränsad erfarenhet kring konsignationslager. Av den anledningen har det funnits oklarheter kring hur arbetet bör organiseras. Syftet med studien är att ta fram en best practice för hur SCA Timber ska arbeta med upprättandet av framtida konsignationslager. Studien är en multipel fallstudie av fyra verksamheter inom SCA och baseras på kvalitativa, semistrukturerade intervjuer med respondenter som varit inblandade i upprättandet av konsignationslager. Det empiriska materialet består av fjorton intervjuer. Studien utgår ifrån ett teoretiskt ramverk bestående av teorier kring projekt, kritiska framgångsfaktorer i projekt och skapandet av nyttjandevärde.

This Master?s thesis is a comparative study of information retrieval results between three distinct search strategies in simulated automatic query expansion in a bibliographic database. Our purpose is to investigate which of the search strategies score the most effective precision and to what extent the same relevant documents are retrieved (overlapped). A thesaurus attached to the database is used to select appropriate descriptors for the baseline query formulations which subsequently are expanded with hierarchical relations. The search strategies are s1: A baseline query with two or three descriptors, s2: The baseline descriptors combined with at least one Narrower Term, s3: The baseline descriptors combined with Narrower Term and at least one Broader Term.

This study was conducted on behalf of SCA forest AB, Västerbottens forest administration. Timber procurement from non-industrial private forest owners has become an increasingly important part of SCA:s wood supply. The objectives of this study was to report the current forest conditions in the private forests in the county of Västerbotten, analyse the potential for procurement of wood from private forest owners, and provide a basis for decisions on future strategies for timber procurement from private owners.Material and data have been collected from different sources, mainly from Swedish National Forest Inventory and SKA-VB08. This material was the basis for the analysis and calculations performed with the Heureka application PlanWise. This study area was divided into six different analytical areas (Coastal south, Coastal middle, Lycksele, Inland south, Inland north, Skellefteå), where each area of analysis is represented by a number of municipalities.In this study, two scenarios were specified; one describing the current forest management with current harvesting levels and the effects of these assumptions, the second to illuminate what potential there is for future timber harvesting.

Bakgrund: Globalt sett är HIV/AIDS en utbredd sjukdom som orsakar stora påfrestningar på varje individ som drabbas. HIV/AIDS har blivit vår tids mest stigmatiserande sjukdom då den är kopplad till starka tabun. Syfte: Att beskriva sjukvårdspersonalens stigmatisering och diskriminering av patienter med HIV/AIDS utifrån ett patientperspektiv. Metod: Systematisk litteraturstudie där sökningar utfördes i Cinahl, Pubmed, PsycInfo, Science Citation Index Expanded samt SveMed+. Sökningarna resulterade i 11 kvalitativa och tre kvantitativa artiklar relevanta för syftet.

Effekterna av psykoterapi har visat sig positiva i en mängd olika studier. Syftet med föreliggande studie var att undersöka potentiella prediktorer för terapeutisk framgång bland psykoterapipatienter från den svenska psykiatriska öppenvården. Patienter kategoriserades till tre olika utfallsgrupper kliniskt signifikant förbättring, reliabel förbättring, och svarade inte på behandling genom att använda Reliable Change Index och GSI av SCL-90 som kriterievariabel. Grupperna jämfördes med hänsyn till patienternas självskattningar, terapeuternas bedömningar, terapeutvariabler, och enhetskarakteristika. Variabler som visade på signifikanta skillnader mellan grupperna inkluderades i en multipel diskriminantanalys.

Cattle production systems are changing to bigger intensified systems with larger numbers of animals per farm and more free range systems while at the same time employing fewer people. Aversive handling has been known to affect cattle production negatively for many years, but lately scientists have started to focus more on what positive effects gentle handling and positive human-cattle interactions may have on beef and dairy production. Fear can cause high stress in production animals and this can contribute to not only reduced production within beef and dairy cattle, but also increased risks for accidents and decreased animal welfare. Therefore, by reducing the fear cattle experience of humans, it could be possible to increase production, decrease accidents and increase the welfare of the animals. Reducing the animals fear and stress can be done by simple means, such as walking and talking calmly around the cattle, associating humans to positive feelings (such as feed) and stroking the cattle?s body regions associated with social grooming.

Syfte: Syftet med studien är att med statistiska mått undersöka om företags aktiekurs reagerar på ett vd-byte samt se hur ledarskap påverkar företagets rörelseresultat ur ett genusperspektiv. Metod: Undersökningen är en eventstudie som innefattar åtta stycken företag. Eventstudiens estimeringsfönster omfattar 56 dagar innan eventfönstrets 29 dagar, där aktiekursens rörelse undersöks. Varje företags enskilda procentuella förändring i rörelseresultatet kommer att studeras två år innan och två år efter ett vd-byte har inträffat.Teori: Undersökningen utgår från effektiva marknadshypotesen, agentteorin och signalteorin.Empiri: Resultaten för aktiekursens abnormala genomsnittliga avkastning (AAR) och den kumulativa genomsnittliga avkastningen (CAAR) visas i diagram, detsamma gäller för företagens procentuella förändring i rörelseresultatet. En jämförelse dras mellan företag som har genomfört ett kvinnligt vd-byte mot företag som har genomfört ett manligt vd-byte.Slutsats:Aktiekursen för företag som har genomfört ett kvinnligt vd-byte har cirka 10 procent högre förändring i AAR än för företag som har genomfört ett manligt vd-byte.Aktiekursens lutning på CAAR för företag med en kvinnlig vd är starkare än för företag där det har skett ett manligt vd-byte.

ABSTRACTTitle: The exact title used in the thesis will be mentioned here.Level: Bachelor thesis in BusinessAuthor: Mattias Lindqvist & Jonas TesfaySupervisor: Peter LindbergDate: 2011 ? JuneAim: In Sweden the representation of women on company boards is discussed extensively. It has also been suggested that regulations such as quotas should be imposed, in hopes of getting the gender balance on the board of directors. Measures such as these have been presented when this problem attacks our democratic values about how a society should look like. The aim is to study and analyze whether there is any connection between the return on assets and the proportion of women on company boards.Method: The paper is made from a quantitative with a deductive approach.