This paper is about the psychosocial work environment, and those factors that can be responsible for an employee?s sick leave. We have through our knowledge from working life, on several occasions experienced colleagues becoming ill, the cause being the psychosocial working environment. Private factors, for instance different kinds of life crisis like a divorce or uprooting, have contributed to the sick leave. The psychosocial working environment is complex.

The interest for venture capital within the financial sector in Sweden has, according to earlier studies, been seen as a growing occurrence. Especially for what is known as informal venture capital. In modern times, private investors who engage themselves in small, unlisted companies, providing informal venture capital are to be known as business angels. They close equity gaps on the financial market by contribute financial capital to start-ups and are therefore an important participant on today?s market.

The aim with this master thesis is to study which ambitions and strategic aims Gothenburg?s district libraries have regarding their music sections. I have utilized my theory from Sanna Talja, a Finnish researcher in Library and Information Science. She identifies three perspectives in maintaining a music library. She calls them, general education, alternative and demand.

AbstractDate              2009-06-07Level             Master thesis in Information Technology and Business Administration, 15 hp, EIK024Authors        Anna Karlsson, akn05009@student.mdh.se                      Lena-Maria Lindström, llm05002@student.mdh.seTutor            Peter EkmanTitle              IT Governance with an IT investment focusKeywords     IT Governance, IT investments, IT decisions Problem       To control and manage IT and IT functions in the organization has been a big challenge for many businesses for a long time. In order to make the management of IT more efficient IT Governance is needed. If the organization is going to be successful IT Governance is necessary and this type of governance enables a more effective use of IT that supports the business and its operations. The problem questions for this thesis are: How is the company?s IT Governance built up? How are decisions regarding the company?s IT investments taken? How is the connection between the company?s IT investments and the company?s IT Governance?Purpose        The purpose of this thesis is to describe and analyze how a company?s IT Governance is built up and how the company uses IT Governance to reach the desired results from the IT investments.Method        The thesis is a qualitative study.

This paper investigates whether the traditional accrual based trading strategy first documented by Sloan (1996) can be refined using fundamental analysis. Specifically, this is done by implementing the composite signal F_SCORE introduced by Piotroski (2000) to identify financially strong or weak firms. We find that by applying both investment models simultaneously, in a model we call P_KOMB, the mean market-adjusted return earned by an investor exploiting the accrual anomaly can be increased by 14.8% annually. This is achieved by taking a long position in strong firms (as defined by the composite signal) in the lowest accrual portfolio, while an offsetting short position is taken in weak firms in the highest accrual portfolio, repeated annually between 1997 and 2007. Consistent with prior studies, positive market-adjusted returns can be attained through assessment of accruals as well as key value drivers found in historical financial data.

Latent heat storage is a way to store thermal energy when a phase change material undergoes a phase change. The advantage of latent heat storage is the capability to store more energy per mass unit than other heat storage methods. The most commonly used phase change in latent heat storage is the transition between solid and liquid. Phase change materials can be divided into organics, inorganics and eutectics.In the Nordic electricity market the price of electricity is set every hour by Nordpool spot, which leads to price fluctuations because of changes in demand. The main goal of this report is to create a latent heat storage system in a single-family home and investigate the possibility to save money by charging the latent heat storage system when the price of electricity is low, and discharge when the price is high.The thermodynamic model consisted of a ?tube-in-tube? heat exchanger with phase change material in the outer tube and water as the heat transfer fluid in the inner tube.

The overarching aim of this essay is to analyze, from a feminist point of view, the moral responsibility for the structural oppression of women. In this discussion I focus on the issue of moral responsibility for sexual violence against women, such as rapes. I claim that a feminist theory of moral responsibility has to be based on a collectivist approach. I argue that men should be considered as collective moral responsible for the structural oppression of women. However, it is important that we analyze the interaction between actor and structure.

Title: A study about the purchasing process of ITLevel: Master thesis in Information Technology and Business Administration, 15 hp, EIK024Authors: Emelie Johanson and Mikael LindströmTutor: Peter Ekman, Mälardalens HögskolaKeywords: IT-investment, purchase, decisionProblem: In the last decades the amount of IT investments increased and has become an important resource within most organizations. IT gives the ability to compete and could also be a condition for many to be able to compete. In different businesses it could vary in where they put their focus when they choose an IT investment. This thesis examines how the purchase process of IT looks. How does processes differs in a bigger company versus a smaller company? From these two perspectives this study examined these research questions: Who makes the decisions whether or not an IT solution should be purchased? What aspects decide when companies are to choose between different IT solutions? Where in the purchase process do problems usually emerge?Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to describe and analyze the purchasing process of IT from a business perspective.

Abstrakt -  As energy prices rise, energy-saving in buildings is becoming increasingly important. By applying different construction and installation technologies, to new buildings the energy consumption can be reduced effectively, compared to similar existing buildings. These technical measures are often an investment in the long term and will reduce energy costs significantly. The purpose of this report is to show how to reduce energy consumption in a small house. It is presented in this report that both building's technical saving arrangements (the sealing of a building) and an installation technical arrangement (changing from the F-system to the FTX-system) would reduce energy consumption in newly built detached houses, if compared with a similar existing house but without these technical measures. The report presents also detailed calculations showing how much energy an existing 2-storey house, built in the year 2007 in Eskilstuna, consumes and how much energy would be saved if these corrective measures were applied to a new building. It is also reported how much money would be saved each year over a 10 year period if the measures were applied. The results show that both solutions are a good investment in the reduction of energy consumption and hence the cost involved. Keywords: energy, heat energy, infiltration, FTX-system, free temperature effectively. .

As a result of increased energy prices more and more energy-efficient homes are coveted. An energy-efficient alternative is passive houses, which is characterized by an extremely well insulated building envelope that recovers the heat without the use of radiators or under floor heating. But a passive house requires a higher investment cost than a conventional building project, since it will require more construction materials, training of construction workers, greater land area, and long construction period. But the lower operating cost expects to pay back the higher cost of investment. We therefore question how profitable a passive house is in relation to houses built according to modern conventional building techniques.The aim of our study is to investigate the viability of passive houses compared to convent­ional houses.

A clean and affordable energy source for cooking is deficient in developing countries. People rely on fuels that contribute to environmental, social and health problems.Biogas is an alternative energy source and an increased investment in small-scale biogas production can in several developing countries be found. Several projects have started to use the technology in developing countries because of the benefits with biogas. Some cases in the establishment of biogas plants have succeeded and some have not. The study is a literature review supplemented by two field studies.

Background: Pesticides in conventional food may be related to morbidity and mortality. Furthermore pesticides have a negative impact on the whole ecosystem. Organic food can presume better health as they contain less chemicals and toxins and contribute to sustainable development efforts.Objective: The aim was to examine what attitudes consumers have regarding to purchase organic fruit, vegetables and root vegetables.Methods: The association between consumers? views on conventional food and organic food was investigated using questionnaire given to a population sample of men and women aged by 23-65 (N=60) in grocery stores and in a fitness center. The study was based on a cross-sectional study in a municipality in central Sweden.Results: Consumers were interested to buy organic food.

Background: Funds have become a more popular way for investments. After the financial crisis in 2008 there was some sectors that shown a better results than other depending if the sector was affected by the economic situation or not. Therefore can  investments in sector funds be a good way to get a high return, but it also has a high risk.Problem: Has the risk any impact on the return considered funds in sectors that is affected by the economic situation relatively to sectors that isn?t affected by the situation in the economy?Purpose: Determine whether sector funds risk has any impact on the return. Also if there are any differences between sectors depending if they are affected by the economic situation or not.

Since the early 1940s in Sweden, subsidies have been a recurring feature in housing politics.Throughout history, these have been used as a management measure to control theconstruction of housing and to promote the Swedish welfare state. The political parties aretoday disagreeing on how much responsibility the state should carry for citizens housing. Tosolve the conflict, the dwelling has to be defined. Is the dwelling to be considered a socialright, like education and healthcare or is the dwelling to be considered a product for the freemarket, driven by supply and demand?The positive population growth in Stockholm has lead to an increased demand for dwellings.The supply of dwellings has not been growing at the same rate, which has implied higherhousing prices and longer wait for rented apartments.

During 2008 we experienced an expansion of large scale investments in foreign farmland. This increasing trend has become a political hot-spot, but there is not much research available within the field. Due to a lack of research it remains a vital task to outline the potential effects of this trend. Drawing on existing ideas from some of the main actors within the field, The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), The World Bank, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and the latest G8 summit on agriculture, four main purposes are set out for this paper. First, to outline some of the underlying mechanisms behind the trend is considered crucial for the understanding of the nature of these investments.