The aim of this thesis is to create an understanding of the incentives for forest companies to invest in reducing carbon dioxide emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, which is termed REDD. The Brazilian Amazonas was chosen as the base for the investment case. Brazil has the largest area of rainforest in the world, and also the biggest problem with deforestation. The Amazon region of Brazil comprises rainforest which is largely intact and unexploited. Accordingly, there is significant potential scope for prospective investments in a REDD-project, and so have a noteworthy impact in preventing deforestation.The research approach used the United Nation?s Clean Development Mechanism concept was used as a framework for ascertaining the investment costs in potential REDD-projects.

This thesis examines the reasons to why railway projects conducted by Banverket (Swedish National Rail Administration) could be expected to cause significant effects on the environment, on which grounds the County Administrative Board and Swedish National Rail Administration base their decisions/assumptions and highlight regional differences between the different Swedish national rail administrations regions. Total 24 railway projects, conducted or being conducted, during the time period 2001 - January 2010 have been analyzed and studied. These projects represent eight different measures/activities which are dispersed throughout all five of the Swedish National Rail Administration´s different regions. Swedish legislations demands that the planner of a new railway project shall first conduct a pre-study and then conduct a public consultation which provides the participants an opportunity to provide input. The County Administrative Board shall then decide if the project could cause significant effects on the environment.

Norske Skog Jämtland AB is like many other companies in a situation where it has to increase its purchases to provide its industries with raw material. To increase the available amount of raw materials, many companies employ purchasers to cover larger areas. This study aims to find out how to handle the increasing competition for timber suppliers. An important input for defining such a strategy is to examine how the suppliers view their relation to the company today. For a company it is extremely important to have a good relation with the suppliers to secure long term supplies.

This report describes the construction work of a radar antenna for the radar systemCARABAS. CARABAS is a long wave airborne ground radar that has been developed bySAAB Microwave Systems and will now be mounted on a small helicopter, Schweizer 300.The antenna should be able to fold up and down. When the radar is in use the antenna islowered and under transport, start and landing the antenna is folded up. An emergency dropfunction should also be included in the design of CARABAS III.The extent of this report includes construction of the antenna, frame structure attached to thehelicopter, mechanism for folding the antenna up and down and mechanism for emergencydrop function. The mechanical design of the antenna and frame structure is based on modaland stress analysis, vibration measurement of Schweizer 300 and frequency analysis, andcalculations regarding aerodynamic drag and mechanics.The exciting frequencies of the helicopter and accelerations at those frequencies weredetermined by vibration measurement and frequency analysis.

Changes in the environment are affecting the world market, and pressures from several stakeholders? are forcing different enterprises to adjust to the current situation. Farmers? difficult working conditions and environmental impacts of the conventional cotton production in India have been highlighted. The small-scale production that is characterising India?s cotton farmers implies an insufficient competition power.

The focus of the thesis is: how conditions for agriculture in the Republic of Macedonia today may form the basis for development of the agricultural sector towards conditions needed for future accession into the European Union. The method for investigating this question has been to look at newly available farm monitoring system (FMS) data from Macedonia. Also to look at the latest government policies created in the country for the agricultural sector and rural areas in relation to the requirements for EU accession. Articles and empirical studies published by other authors related to the questions which arise in this study have been reviewed and presented herein. Trade relations, trade patterns and national economic and agricultural trends are displayed to provide a background overview for the study of the agricultural sector.

An excessive input of nutrients to lakes and other water bodies has created a problem with eutrophication in Sweden. Untreated, or partially treated, domestic sewage is a major source for discharge of phosphorus (P), which is the nutrient most frequently responsible for eutrophication of most fresh waters and the Baltic Sea. The waste water can be cleaned by filter materials, which have a high P-retention ability and which after saturation may be used as fertilizers. Four potentially suitable filter materials were tested in batch- and column experiments in this study. In the batch experiments, the following materials were shaken with waste water in time series ranging from 5 seconds to 60 minutes: coarse (1-4 mm) and fine (0-2 mm) Polonite® (heated bedrock from Poland); Filtralite® (light expanded clay aggregates with limestone added before burning); water cooled blast furnace slag (BF-slag) and BF-slag mixed with 10% burned limestone.

This report is the result of a degree project in building engineering, at an advanced level. The project evaluated a building from a technical and historical point of view, and focused on its energy consumption, particularly the energy used for heating. The building in question was a small apartment building in Strömsholm, Sweden. It was made in 1902, from vertical logs, a not so common form of the traditional log house. The goal of the project was to evaluate if the energy consumption could be reduced in accordance with building preservation regulations, that is without damaging any of the building?s cultural or historical values.The building was surveyed with the help of archive and literature studies, interviews and inspections.

Barns musikaliska intresse och utveckling kan bero på föräldrarnas påverkan genom uppväxten. I den här rapporten presenteras resultatet av kvalitativa intervjuer med sex mammor med barn i en ålder under två år. Tre av mammorna ägnar sig åt musik i sin profession, medan de andra tre har ett mer allmänt musikintresse. Oberoende av föräldrarnas bakgrund visar det sig att de anser musikalisk stimulering vara någonting viktig och nyttig för deras barns utveckling. Till exempel har alla i intervjugruppen deltagit i någon form av musikalisk aktivitet ämnad för barn.

Många gamla spel som spelades på gamla konsoler och datorer kördes på sammamaskin med två eller flera spelare anslutna med egna individuella kontroller. Idag ärinternet väl utspritt och många spel erbjuder multiplayer-spel via internet. Detta varförstås inte möjligt på de gamla konsolerna och datorerna, men med hjälp av deemulatorer som finns för många gamla plattformar idag kan man skapa möjlighetenatt spela över internet i de gamla spelen genom att skicka varje knapptryckning enspelare utför mellan spelarnas datorer och på det sättet emulera det existerandeflerspelarläget i spelet.Kaillera-protokollet, som är baserat Client-server-arkitekturen, är ett protokolldesignat för att spela gamla spel genom emulatorer över nätverk. Det harimplementerats i ett antal populära emulatorer med hjälp av ett tredjepartsbibliotekmed samma namn. Kaillera fungerar genom att synkronisera spelarnas input for eachbild som visas i spelet.

In a phonological assessment, the aim is to obtain systematic and reliable data of a child's speech output, which can then serve as a basis for a decision on an appropriate intervention (Wolk & Meisler, 1998). Whether phonological assessment should be derived from an analysis of picture-naming or a conversation with the child, and whether the two methods for elicitation generate equivalent results, has been debated among clinicians and researchers for an extended time (Masterson, Bernhardt & Hofheintz, 2005).The aim of the present study was to compare two methods of speech elicitation for phonological assessment: spontaneous conversation and picture-naming, respectively. In the study, the procedures have been used when assessing children with phonological disorders as well as children with typical language development. The results are presented using two levels of phonological analysis; degree of phonological impairment, in terms of percentage of phonemes correct (PPC), and type of phonological impairment, in terms of phonological simplification processes. Eighteen (18) children participated in the study, nine (9) with phonological impairment (age 3;10 ? 5;11), and nine with typical phonologic development (age 3;2 ? 4;6).

BakgrundSmå familjeägda aktiebolags styrelsesammansättning brukar kännetecknas av en överlappning mellan familjen och företaget. Små företag har ofta inte råd med det antal kompetenta styrelseledamöter som de har behov av och kan därmed gå miste om viktig information, kompetens och erfarenheter som en extern styrelseledamot kan bidra med. Vidare har tidigare forskning visat att externa styrelseledamöter kan tillföra ett främmande inslag i familjeföretaget vilket kan ge en känsla som innebär förlust av kontroll. Slutligen kan det anses finnas brister i tidigare forskning då små företag har undersökts i mindre utsträckning.ForskningsfrågorVad är det som avgör varför små familjeföretag väljer att tillsätta externa styrelseledamöter eller inte?SyfteSyftet är att genom kvalitativa intervjuer förklara små familjeföretags tillsättande av externa styrelseledamöter.MetodStudien har byggts på en kvalitativ metod med semistrukturerade intervjuer som genomförts med tio VD:ar i tio små svenska familjeägda aktiebolag.Teoretisk referensramsDen teoretiska referensramen bygger på en trecirkelmodell som beskriver familjeföretags överlappande system.

The demand for shorter lead-times and increased delivery reliability puts pressure on companies to provide more efficient logistic services. One strategy to deal with this demand is by outsourcing logistics to a third part. The development of logistics information systems enables increased control over business supply chains. This is why Green Cargo aims to create a Logistics Control Tower (LCT) solution to provide it?s customers with better information with higher availability.

There is a growing awareness that multinational companies have opportunities to influence political conditions. Ethical activities made by multinational companies and ?Corporate Social Responsibility? (CSR) can therefore function as a positive input in society. The primary purpose of this master thesis is to investigate CSR´s contribution to strengthen human rights, and thereby to democratization. The research questions are listed below:1.

The aim is to develop a new decision-making model for credit-loans. The model will be specific for credit applicants of the OKQ8 bank, becauseit is based on data of earlier applicants of credit from the client (the bank). The final model is, in effect, functional enough to use informationabout a new applicant as input, and predict the outcome to either the good risk group or the bad risk group based on the applicant?s properties.The prediction may then lay the foundation for the decision to grant or deny credit loan.Because of the skewed distribution in the response variable, different sampling techniques are evaluated. These include oversampling with SMOTE, random undersampling and pure oversampling in the form of scalar weighting of the minority class.