The credit rating industry is a complex and fascinating industry. Its history stretches back more than 150 years and has gradually increased in importance. During its history the dynamics of the industry have changed. The extended-principal-agent model was developed by synthesizing different principal-agent-relationships into one model. This model provides a holistic understanding of the credit rating industry and illustrates the interdependence between the different relationships.

Through interaction with customers, companies can acquire knowledge about- and satisfy the needs of customers. In retailing, the ranges of products are standardized and staffing numbers are scarce. How do companies in retailing deal with adaptation towards their customers given the small staffing numbers? The purpose of this study is to examine if and if so, how companies in the Swedish retailing industry are making adaptations towards their customers and also why these adaptations are being made. To answer this purpose, observations in the retailing industry are conducted and the results show that companies adapt to customers? needs.

The price of Swedish forest properties has gone up by 77 percent during the past five years. Amongst private forest managers the high price level signals optimism and confidence for the future. Many forest owners manage large capital in the forest and a planned economy is to a larger extent demanded to achieve a positive economic result. Forest is long-term and to maximize a single year without planning for the years to come results in less optimization of the parameters available to achieve a favourable economic result. This case study investigates the investment of two forest properties situated in Götaland. The management of the forest has been planned for both properties during a period of ten years.

It is essential to reuse- and recycles residues to decrease the amount of deposit materials and reach sustainable energy use. Two ways to work towards this is to recycle wood ashes to the forest as nutrient compensation and extract biogas from combustion of biomass.The aim with this study was to decide whether wood ashes that been used for biogas upgrading with accelerated carbonation also can be used as a nutrient compensation in the woods according to recommendations from the Swedish Forest Agency (Skogsstyrelsen).The ashes that were used in this study came from Johan Andersson who works at JTI in Uppsala, who also treated the ashes with biogas. The ashes have, in both untreated and treated condition, been analyzed in this study according to contents of elements, leaching properties, hardening properties and contents of crystalline phases, to evaluate what impact carbonation with biogas has on the ashes.The accelerated carbonation led to hardening of the ash, and decreased amount of CaO- and increased amount of CaCO3. The CO2-uptake also entails a dilution of the elements, and the content of nutrients and trace elements decreases. However the results show an indication of an uptake of S from the biogas to the ash, since the dilution had a smaller impact on S than the rest of the elements.

People have utilised and influenced the boreal forest for many centuries. Prior to the industrial revolution during the 19th century, however, human use primarily only had a low impact on the forest. When the timberfrontier swept over the country, the Swedish forests came to change for ever. The study site for this thesis is situated in the northern part of the county of Västerbotten, Sweden, and has previously been a National forest. Today the area is an ecopark and the land is owned by the forest company Sveaskog.

Air tightness in new buildings has been discussed for several decades. But the knowledge in the subject is low. With tougher requirements from the Swedish government about energy consumption for a new building required competences how these shall be met. It's not only the thick mess of insulation that are important, it's also the air tightness. This report is about air leakage in Swedish houses.

Sweden have 419 000 km road in the country and about half of these roads is forestroads. The forest road net most important mission is to make it possible to deliver wood from the forest to the industries. With a raw material that is spread over a large area the road network is important. Each year has the forest road network been extended with about 1 700 km new roads. To decide if a new road is to be built different forest road cost estimation models has been used.

This Master thesis is performed at the request of the forest company Mellanskog and the local municipality of Borlänge in Sweden and aims to establish recreational adjusted forest management plan for the areas of Mellsta and Skräddarbacken in Borlänge. In all types of urban forestry it is very important that the management plan are accepted by the general public. To make sure that also these plans of future measures, pass in the public, interview studies have been performed in which the public wishes and interests have been examined and applied in the management plan. To make sure that future measures in the forest may be accepted by the public when the forest harvester enters the woods, it is very important that a well functional work of information has been made. The people living close by the forest shall have been informed a couple of weeks before the time of measures and it must also be good information available that explains what is to be done and why.

SCA is the largest private owned forest owner in Sweden, with an ownership of 2 million hectares of productive forestland. To manage the planning of such large areas and to fit the traditional organization structure of a Swedish forest company, the planning approach is subdivided into three stages; strategic, tactical and operational. The strategic part, based on a statistic sample of stands, returns a harvest level estimate which should then be implemented at actual sites in the tactical part. This procedure can lead to incompatible solutions as the strategic solution is not necessarily possible to translate into actual sites in the tactical plan. The geographic aspect is important in tactical planning due to the large costs for moving equipment and maintenance of a large number of forest roads.

The world economy of today is in an extensive financial crisis which has lead to the fact that people seek well placed investments and securing of capital, something that by many people can be found in forest investment. The price of forest estates has increased with 90 % during the last 5 years and marketing polls indicate a positive belief in the future among forest owners. The development of timber prices has not increased to the same extent as the forest property prices which implies that the property price not only reflect the yield value from the forest but also that the lumber value does not have such a meaningful role in the pricing of forest properties as proven earlier. This fact means that forest owners either invest their capital in forest in a speculative point of view or that the purchasers of forest properties invests in non monetary benefits that lacks a direct yield value. The purpose with this degree thesis is to increase the understanding of the pricing of forest properties with focus on the above mentioned fact.

To be able to plan different treatments, accurate data is required. The collection of data is often expensive and that?s why the aim is to lower the inventory costs without loosing the accuracy of the data. Holmen Skog has in its strive to lower the costs, decided to evaluate two different methods for forest delineation, computer aided forest delineation and digital stereo view. This study?s purpose is to evaluate these two methods in regard to usability for a beginner and how good the delineation gets.

Birch is the dominant deciduous tree species in Sweden but only 16 % is found in pure birch stands. The majority of the birch (51 %) is to be found in conifer dominated stands. Swedish forest land comprises approximately of 23 % mixed stands and one problem is that for mixed stands there are few management recommendations. The underlying aim of this thesis was to study the management of mixed forest stands of spruce and birch to achieve good timber quality of birch. The study was based on a literature study and measurement in a field experiment launched in 1998 by the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU).

To better understand how various factors affect the establishment of forest and trees around the tree line-ecotone, this study was conducted in Troms County, Norway. The altitude of different forest and tree limits together with the surrounding vegetation type were collected during August 2011. Comparisons of the collected data were made with previously collected data from the same sites conducted 1914 and 1915. On average the forest limit has expanded with 26 meters in altitude, however, an expansion is not statistically significant for the whole area. The tree limit has significantly expanded in altitude.

The NIPF (Non Industrial Private Forest) owners in Sweden have very differentiated goals and needs with their forest. They have different backgrounds and some of them live at their forest estate while other live in an urban environment, and some are economically dependent on their forest estate while others are not. The heterogeneity among these forest owners creates problems for market actors that want to aim marketing messages to catch their interest. This is the problem background to the task that was provided to us as an investigative masters thesis for us. Their request was a plan for ensuring a successful marketing towards different segments of the NIPF owners. We commenced with a literature study based on market information and previously carried out similar investigations. We summarized the most important market information from the literature and created some hypotheses regarding goals and needs of the NIPF owners.

In this essay we have been trying to get an understanding of what Swedish charter tourists cares for when they are going on vacation. The Tourism industry is a major field with a lot of winners, but it also comes with consequences. The purpose with this essay is to get an understanding of how aware the Swedish charter tourists is of these consequences. We would also like to get a perception of how the tourists themselves believe that their presence effects the locals at the destinations they are visiting (if they assume that they are). There are several different types of consequences that can appear in the context of tourism, but we have decided to focus on one kind.