Common wisdom dictates that because payment of dividends decreases funds available for investment, a high payout ratio is to be associated with low earnings growth. This notion has been challenged in recent years by empirical research that has found a positive relationship between payout ratio and future earnings growth, both on the aggregated market level and the company level in different countries. This study investigated the aforementioned relationship on the Swedish market by statistically analyzing future earnings growth as a function of payout ratio on a large sample of publicly listed companies over the period 1980 to 2011. The results are in line with those found in previous research and indicate that companies with high dividend payout ratio tend to experience strong future earnings growth. The results are robust to the presence of mean reversion, the use of an alternative accounting measure of earnings, non-symmetrical earnings growth cycles and alternative practices for dealing with outliers..

Det sägs att en fjärils vingslag i Brasilien kan utlösa en storm i Texas. I vår alltmer globaliserade samtid ligger det troligen mer sanning i det sagda än någonsin tidigare. Föremålet för föreliggande uppsatsen är en rättsgrundsats ? en av Högsta domstolen etablerad rättsprincip ? betecknad påståendedoktrinen, närmare bestämt doktrinens betydelse i skiljetvister i allmänhet och i investeringstvister i synnerhet. Bakgrunden till de problemställningar varom uppsatsen handlar står att finna i Högsta domstolens avgörande NJA 2008 s 406, vari Högsta domstolen, med undanröjande av skiljenämndens dom, gjorde följande synnerligen intressanta uttalande: ?Det är en etablerad grundsats i svensk rätt att skiljemännen vid [behörighetsprövningen] skall tillämpa påståendedoktrinen.

Given that the oil prices have risen and the environmental regulations has become more stringent, the interest in operating efficiency has increased. The project has investigated the possibility of producing electricity from waste heat generated in the diesel process. One technique to utilize and convert energy into electricity is the ORC (Organic Rankine Cycle). This process is based on the Rankine process (the steam process), the difference from the traditional Rankine process is that instead of water as a working medium, an organic substance is used. The main component used in the process is a evaporator, a turbine, a condenser and a pump.

The Swedish energy company Vattenfall is currently the owner of the district heatingsystems in Nyköping and Motala. To be able to also offer cooling solutions tocustomers are becoming more and more important. This report describes the resultsof an investigation of the cooling market in the two cities and the potential needs forcooling today and in the coming 20 years. The total potential for the coming 20 yearsis estimated to be roughly 17 MW for Nyköping and 9 MW for Motala.Two possible district cooling systems for each of the two city centers was modeledand a comparison was made between different cooling techniques namely absorptionand compressor chillers.Absorption chillers driven with district heating during the summer is one way ofincreasing the load in a combined heat and power plant and thereby the possibleelectricity generation. The cost of heat production must be low for absorption chillerto be able to compete as an alternative.

Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka hur Karlskrona kommun skulle betygsättas utifrån Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan verktyget ADVANCE. Studien utgår framförallt ifrån forskningsförhållningssättet fallstudier, som framförallt har genomförts med hjälp av metoderna litteraturstudier samt ADVANCE. Litteraturstudierna har framförallt bestått av de strategier Karlskrona kommun har antagit angående dess mobilitetsplanering och ADVANCE har använts som ett verktyg för att kunna upptäcka de positiva och negativa effekter dessa strategier har för kommunen. Utifrån denna fallstudie, samt genom diskussioner med Lars Olofsson (trafiknämnden, Karlskrona kommun), analyseras de resultat som verktyget ADVANCE visar upp, i dessa analyser ges även exempel på lösningar som Karlskrona kommun skulle kunna använda sig av för att kunna förbättra sin nuvarande mobilitetsstrategi..

Information technology inflicts upon us in our everyday life. It is a natural part of our work and of our spare time. The education system is not excluded from this development, IT is becoming an important part of education at all levels. In university, learning platforms is one of these new ways of using IT in education. Learning platforms becomes a valuable tool for teachers and students.

Title: The future is looking bright - Studies of burnout among musicians and music teachers. Since late 1970's, the burn-out-syndrome has been researched in several ways, especially among people working in care-oriented employments. The object with this study is to find out the biggest issues about why musicians and music teachers burn themselves out. This is based on musicians and music teachers own stories when they got burned out. The method I have used is qualitative interviews and in the result chapter I will present summaries of the interviews.

In this project a simulator has been developed (in C++) with the purpose of illustrating how changes in environmental regulations, tax levels and other policy measures affect the composition of an energy system. The aim of the project was to investigate how energy companies? investment strategies are affected when changes in economic and environmental conditions occur. A standard scenario has been created based on current Swedish conditions, but the user can create new scenarios and set parameters freely. The user is tasked with building power plants to supply the city/region with district heating and electricity during a pre-set number of years. When the simulation is finished the result is graded in the following categories: economy, environment and quality. To evaluate the simulator three scenarios were created (?early 20th century?, ?reduced environmental control? and ?future?) in addition to the standard scenario and these were compared with each other by examining how a select group of power plants perform under the given conditions.

GNT Group is a Nordic/Baltic wholesaler that distributes products in the IT, entertainment and home electronics sector. GNT is facing problems with inaccurate inventory levels which can lead to unnecessarily high inventory carrying costs or lost sales. Currently the decisions about when and how many to order are made somewhat arbitrarily by the responsible personnel. Their decisions are based only on some brief sales history and on experience. GNT wants to develop its ERP system to be able to support the purchaser in these and other related decisions.

Problem och bakgrund: Fram till för ett antal år sedan fokuserade forskare inom Supply ChainManagement på frågor som miljö, säkerhet och sociala rättigheter separat, utan att titta på vadinteraktion mellan dessa frågor kunde innebära för företag. Sedan dess har mängder av akademiskaartiklar skrivits som behandlar hållbar utveckling sett ur ett helhetsperspektiv där ekonomiska,miljömässiga och sociala strategier behandlas tillsammans för att uppnå största möjliga nytta i företagsleverantörskedjor. Dessa har sedermera mynnat ut i ett koncept som benämns Sustainable SupplyChain Management (SSCM). I ljuset av detta ämnar rapporten besvara två frågor: (i) Vilkanyckelområden består ämnesdisciplinen SSCM av? och (ii) i vilken utsträckning arbetar svenskaföretag som anses vara goda exempel inom arbete med hållbar utveckling med SSCM i sinverksamhet?Syfte: Syftet med rapporten är att redogöra för vilka nyckelområden forskningsdisciplinen SSCMbestår av.

Denna uppsats utgår ifrån att människans aktiviteter påverkar miljö och naturresurser negativt. Generellt har företag en mer betydande miljöpåverkan än enskilda personer och det är därför viktigt att de tar sitt miljömässiga ansvar (Ammenberg, 2003). Ett sätt att göra det är att arbeta med miljöledningssystem, MLS. Det MLS som används mest globalt sett är International Organization for Standardizations miljöledningssystem ISO 14001. Antal företag och organisationer som är certifierade med ISO 14001 räknas som en indikator på hållbar utveckling i Sverige (www, Statistiska centralbyrån, 2010).

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 purpose of this paper is to get a conception how prioritization and decision making works in technologically advanced companies. We wanted to understand how to administrate models and how to prioritize the best ideas and relate these to technologically advanced companies. How does the company make these decisions and who is responsible?We have chosen to observe TranSiC, a Swedish technologically advanced company that manufacture silicon carbide transistors. They currently have nine employees and mange 10-20 projects simultaneously, but are aiming to expand their business.

The main focus of this study is to explore Swedish soldiers? experiences of the transition back to everyday life after international service missions. This includes the help and support that they have received and also what barriers to care they have experienced during the transition back to everyday life. The theoretical perspectives of this study are social identity and stigma theory. This study was performed using a qualitative method and includes six individual interviews with active duty officers within the Swedish armed forces.

This report describes the development of a sample loader for my diploma work at Q-linea AB in Uppsala. The sample loader will replace the process of loading fluid samples into Q-linea?s instrument for biomolecule analysis. The earlier process was done by hand and was a time consuming and inefficient task.The work was initiated with a design phase where an overview of the system was created. The sample loader will be receiving text commands from a PC that coordinates all the subsystems like pumps and lasers on the analysis instrument.