Ever since it was first introduced in an article in the Journal of Finance 1952, Harry Markowitz? mean - variance model for portfolio selection has become one of the best known models in finance. The model was one of the first in the world to deal with portfolio optimization mathematically and have directly or indirectly inspired the rest of the world to develop new portfolio optimization methods. Although the model is one of the greatest contributions to modern portfolio theory, critics claim that it may have practical difficulties. Partly because the Markowitz model is based on various assumptions which do not necessarily coincide with the reality.

This masters thesis concerns a modeling project performed at Volvo Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden. The main purpose of the project has been to develop a physical model of the climate in construction vehicles that later on can be used in the development of an electronic climate controller. The focus of the work has been on one type of wheel loader and one type of excavator. The temperature inside the compartment has been set equal to the notion climate. With physical theories about air flow and heat transfer in respect, relations between the components in the climate unit and the compartment has been calculated.

This report is a thesis work for a B.Sc. in Forestry at the School for Forest Engineers, SLU. The work was an assignment from Jarlträ AB which is a privately owned sawmill located in southern Småland. The aim of the work was to investigate the economical result of different pricelists and how to adjust different parameters such as length correction to give an optimal result. The pricelists was examined through a computer program (SilviA). The pricelists was made in the program and after that a simulation was preformed with a selection of random sampled trees gathered from the area nearby the sawmill.

The market is developing and a growing competition increases pressure on companies to maintain their competitive advantage. Working with cost savings is a way to enhance earnings in a short term but also in a longer perspective. Volvo Powertrain Production Köping has an overall goal; to reduce costs by nine percentages in three years. To achieve the goal, Volvo Powertrain Production Köping works with World Class Manufacturing where the Department of Processing Technology constitutes an important part.Volvo Powertrain Production Köping lacks a standard for how savings within the metal cutting tool area are to be calculated. This makes it difficult to control and monitor their business outcome but it also causes difficulties in controlling the tool suppliers? outcome.

This study presents a methodology that enables the annual average power of a wind turbine to be increased by automatically optimizing it?s airfoil, twist and chord dis- tribution. As a part of the study the software SiteOpt has been developed. This software connects the open source software XFOIL with the blade element momen- tum theory. XFOIL gives lift and drag coefficients which enable the blade element momentum theory to predict the power of a wind turbine at different wind and ro- tational speeds.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the image of the Titanic disaster in two Swedish newspapers reports of the disaster. By analysing various newspapers reporting of the disaster, we wish to investigate whether there are differences in reporting of gender and class in order to say something about the contemporary outlook and the prevailing social beliefs.The source material that the study is based upon comes from the Swedish newspapers Aftonbladet and Svenska Dagbladet and their reports from the 15 April to the 30 April 1912 and the reporting from the time of the sea-hearings completion (22 May and 31 July 1912).The study finds that news reporting follows the same standards, however, are different in style of performance because of the newspapers' differing positions.The study finds that a distinction is made between the reporting of men's and women's behaviour. Whether a man followed or violated norms leads him criticized or praised in the newspapers. Women's behaviour is hailed independent if they followed the standard of what was feminine or masculine behaviour in a disaster.The study also finds that a distinction is made between passengers of the various classes in the reporting. The majority of reports concerning individuals in the First Class are in positive terms.

The purpose of this thesis is to describe what Building Information Modeling, BIM, could mean for landscape architects, and also hopefully to make sense of the possibilities and problems of the system. BIM is about virtual design and is based on all consultancy groups in the design team modeling in 3D. Intelligent objects and metadata, such as price and material, are used. The project group has a common interchange format for simple sharing of information. To get an idea of how the situation with BIM for landscape architects looks like today, I collected information mostly through interviews.

Våren 2011 var det stora debattämnet i media, bland konsumenter och hos fastighetsmäklarelockpriser. Med lockpris avses att en bostad annonseras till ett väsentligt lägre pris än detbedömda marknadsvärdet på bostaden. Motivet var att locka till sig fler spekulanter till eneventuell budgivning. Innebörden avväsentligt är inte helt fastställt i lagen, vilket görbegreppet svårtolkat. I och med attutgångspriserna var satta så lågt jämfört med vadslutprisetblev så fick fastighetsmäklarna utstå mycket kritik.

In Sweden, the eutrophication of lakes, water courses and the coastal areas is considered the major threat to aquatic ecosystems and therefore actions taken to reduce the nutrient load to aquatic system including the Baltic Sea has high priority. There are many different sources of phosphorous and nitrogen and domestic wastewater is one contributing factor to the high load. Especially waste water from households that is not connected to municipal sewage treatment or a local small scale plant with appropriate nutrient removal efficiency is considered a problem. These types of households are quite common in rural areas in Sweden and in areas where summer houses has been converted to permanent living. Swedish legislation now permit the municipalities to decide in which areas within the municipality higher demands of the local small scale treatment facility should be met by the households (i.e.

The forecast ability of four well-known exchange rate models for theSwedish krona is tested in this thesis. The models that are tested arethe purchase power parity, the real interest differential model, thesticky-price model and a productivity model. In addition to thebenchmark, the random walk, they are also compared to each other.They are all tested on three different horizons one quarter, two quartersand four quarters. The mean squared forecast error criteria and thedirection of change criteria are used for evaluation of the forecastability. Only in a couple of cases are the forecast ability of thetheoretical based models significant better than the random walk..

The dissertation were performed on SP, Technical Institute of Sweden. The dissertation were carried out on the measurement technical department, this dissertation is a part of a bigger project, project ClampCal. One of SP?s returning assignments are flow-measurement. When flow-measurement is performed, the flow has to be stopped so that a meter can be installed in the pipes where measurement is going to take place. At every stop there is time delay in the flow which causes the customers to loose money. This is why SP wanted to find a better solution so that measurement can be done without any stops in the flow. Usage of a so-called Clamp-on meter was considered, but since the measurement uncertainty is too large it takes some investigation on the parts where the largest uncertainties occur and thus find a solution that can diminish the uncertainty as much as possible. The parts that were considered to have an opportunity to reduce measurement uncertainties were the fluid temperature, its characteristics and the pipe geometry and its characteristics. For the fluid temperature a Pt100-sensor with four different radii for various pipes was used.

In this degree project we wanted to investigate if there are any possibilities to get a higher income from grain growing by giving the grain to hens instead of selling it. We were also wondering if the manure has any value or if it only cost the egg producer money. If the egg producer cultivate his own grain and is able to store it in layer is there quite much money to earn. Expensive pasture makes it profitability to pay up to 1,35 Swedish crowns for a kilo of wheat. In our calculating we?ve used calculation from the company Lantmännen.

This Thesis deals with the two concepts branding and position, more precisely how companies with a small marketing budget needs to work with these two concepts. The purpose of this thesis is to understand how these companies are able to assert a position  on their specific market. The thesis treats theories and empirical data to be  able to answer the purposes of the thesis and for the authors to be able to give recommendations of how companies in this situation can improve their marketing strategies. To be able to give these recommendations a more in depth study had been made of a carsharing company, Sunfleet. This to be able to se how a specific company works with branding and positioning as well as what can be improved.

The current situation for Swedish grain farmers facing a situation with decreasing profitability makes it necessary for the farmers to find ways of increasing the margins in their grain growing. Decreasing profitabilities along with Lantmännens closing of grain elevators contribute to the necessity for farmers to invest in grain storing and drying at the farm. By investing in capacity for drying and storage of grain on the farm it is possible to recieve a higher price on the grain sold due to the possibility to sell when the price is higher compared to the harvesting season. An investment in grain drying and storage with a relatively low investment cost that recently has appeared on the Swedish market is the grain stir drying system. This study contains a comparison of an investment in a grain stir drying system where the grain is dried and stored in the same silo and a conventional drying and storage system.

Oilseed rape crops are an important in southern Sweden because of the high intensity of wheat growing. Pollen beetles are the most important pest in oilseed rape and causes often economic losses. Therefore it?s of great importance that we can control the population density, e g by using insecticides if necessary, to avoid mayor yield losses. In year 2000 pollen beetles were numerous in the province of Östergötland. The farmers sprayed with insecticides several times, but with low effects on the beetles. Field trials and laboratory experiments showed that pollen beetles had developed resistance against pyrethroids.