Following the implementation of IFRS with yearly impairment tests, the question of correlations and causalities between impairments and investors? decision making is gaining interest in academia. This essay will study the relationship between significant goodwill impairments, communicated on the Nasdaq OMX Stockholm webpage between the years 2005-2009, and the impact those announcements have had on investors? decision making. Furthermore, the causality behind the impairments will be in focus.

The incineration of waste is steadily increasing in Sweden and so is the production of ashes. The bottom ash has for many years been used as construction material in landfills. Now many of the nation's landfills are closed and there is a great need to find another beneficial use for the ash. Bottom ash is a gravel-like material and with its material properties it can replace natural gravel in parts of roads and surface constructions. Today this use is only approved within landfill areas where leachate is collected and checked.

This essay concerns the notion of how immigration politics, defined as a political discursive structure that explains and justifies how and why the movement of people into a state's territory is restricted and controlled, has come to present its purpose not as solidarity with the 'immigrants' wanting to enter the state but as a protective measure for the state's citizens. By using discourse theory combined with theories from the International Relations field I attempt to explain why and how such a discourse positions 'immigrants' as a threat to the state.First, I concentrate on why an immigration politics discourse would position 'immigrants' as a threat. I argue that in order for people to construct their identity, the 'outside' what they "are not" has to be repressed. In the same way, the state has to dislocate the "outside" and create threats to uphold its supremacy. These boundaries are set to create a feeling of predictability and security, and ultimately they are a way of making peoples' "world" coherent.

In this thesis we have examined Västra Götalandsregionens ways to lobby and network in the European Union. Our aim was to examine which kind of methods the region uses to lobby in a successful way in Brussels. We found that the region uses both formal and informal methods of lobbying to gain advantages in Brussels. We also wanted to locate various networks which the region is involved in to more easily have their interests satisfied. We found that they had a lot of different alliances and that it is necessary to be involved in different networks to have a chance to lobby the EU institutions.

Sibirisk lärk (Larix sibirica och Larix sukaczewii) är ett snabbväxande barrträd som odlats i Sverige i mer än 100 år. Trots det finns det få studier angående dess potential i Sverige och dessutom visar studierna på skilda resultat. Med data från bestånden med sibirisk lärk i Siljansfors försökspark, har höjdutveckling och tillväxt studerats. Med detta kandidatarbete avsågs att fastställa sambandet mellan medelhöjd och beståndets totala volym, ta reda på om den sibiriska lärken slutar växa på höjden vid 80 års ålder samt ta reda på när den årliga löpande tillväxten sjunker under den årliga medeltillväxten. Totalt ingick elva avdelningar med sibirisk lärk, som var mellan 48-94 år, i studien. Genom regressionsanalyser har samband mellan aktuella variabler skapats och analyserats. Resultatet gav att sambandet mellan medelhöjd (m) och total beståndsvolym (m3sk/ha) följer regressionsekvationen: Total beståndsvolym = - 73,3 + 13,1 medelhöjd + 0,386 medelhöjd2 Resultaten var att lärken inte slutar att växa på höjden vid 80 års ålder, snarare tycks höjdtillväxten inte avstanna förrän efter 90 år.

Abstract: Private equity used to be synonymous with tremendous yields and rates of return. However, the private equity market trembled in 2008, due to the financial meltdown caused by the worldwide credit crisis. Considering the current low number of exits within the private equity industry, the purpose of this thesis is to examine if there has been any change in how private equity firms control their portfolio companies since the inception of the crisis. One private equity company and two portfolio companies have been studied. The case study is prepared from interviews with senior directors in the portfolio company and investment managers in the private equity firm.

Sahlgrenska Academyat University of GothenburgDepartment of Internal Medicine and Clinical NutritionAbstractTitle: The effect of naturally existent beta-glucan in adults with hypercholesterolemia. - a systematic review with focus on the Swedish food market.Author: Ida Edman Hellberg, Frida HanssonSupervisor: Mette AxelsenExaminer: Anna WinkvistProgramme: Dietician study programme, 180/240 ECTSType of paper: Examination paper, 15 hpDate: May 01, 2014Background EFSA states in 2010 that there are good evidence that three grams of beta-glucan/day from oat as a part of a balanced diet, has a positive effect on total cholesterol and LDL.Objective Evaluate if there is evidence for primary treatment of lifestyle related hypercholesterolemia with products naturally containing beta-glucan.Search strategyIn February 2014 the databases PubMed and Scopus were used for article research. The search terms used were; cholesterol level, beta-glucan, hypercholesterolemia, oat and barley.Selection criteria Articles, written in Swedish and English, on RCT-studies conducted on otherwise healthy adults with hypercholesterolemia (serum cholesterol >5,0 mmol/L) were included. The intervention product must naturally contain beta-glucan, and an equally product should be retailed in Swedish grocery stores. The control group needed to be supplied with a placebo product and the participants could not be on any lipid-lowering medication.

Fisksätra has a historical background that goes back to the battle between Russia and Sweden that took place in 1719. This battle is known as "Slaget vid Stäket". Today there are plans to develop Fisksätra as a tourist destination where focus lays on the historic factor of the battlefield that took place there. As of this a project called the HAMN project has started to try to develop a new experience park at this destination unlike any other.The aim of this essay has been to study how much potential this experience park has to become a popular tourist destination in the future, while looking at the potential interest of the foreign tourists. This essay is written as an assignment for Göran Andersson, who is in charge of the tourism department at Södertörns Högskola.

During recent years, financial innovation has given rise to numerous structured investment opportunities aimed towards the general public. These have enabled private investors to engage in high-risk investments offering as much as 400 per cent leverage while oftentimes not fully having grasped the risk involved. The issuers of these securities have been criticized for using advertising of a too aggressive and misleading nature.By presenting 819 potential investors with two different investment opportunities yielding the same return over a six day period, we have aimed to assess whether the inclination of being affected by judegmental heuristics varies with factors such as knowledge, overall attitude towards the asset class, risk appetite and experience from previous investments.We have observed that investors' perception of the attractiveness of an investment can be distorted by altering the information presented to the investor. However, our findings show that this tendency decreases with an increased level of knowledge, experience and risk appetite..

Purpose The purpose of our study was to investigate the changing nature of volatility during the last 80 years. Like in an American study, we tried to find some trends in the risk of stocks and bonds that would have an impact on the balance of a portfolio of stocks and bonds. At the same time we investigated the influence of inflation on the choice of portfolio. Methods We have used standard statistic tools and formulas to obtain our results. In most cases it was a matter of calculating average and standard deviation.

This project investigated how elevation and vegetation type influences variation in plant litter phenolic content and protein precipitation capacity among and within common plant species for two different vegetation types, heath and meadow, in a subarctic ecosystem in the Abisko region of northern Sweden. As nutrient availability generally decreases with increasing elevation as a result of decreasing temperature, I hypothesised that phenolic content would increase with elevation and be higher on the heath than the meadow. To test this, the total phenolic content and protein precipitation capacity was estimated in leaf litter from 13 species in both heath and meadow vegetation across an elevational gradient ranging from 500 to 1000 meters above sea level (m.a.s.l.) in the study region. The results showed that elevation and vegetation type both had a strong impact on both variables. Total phenolic concentrations decreased with elevation for the meadow, and were greater for the heath than the meadow.

The main purpose of this project was to make a survey of the steam and electricity consumption at Akzo Nobel Functional Chemistry AB and give suggestions of how to minimize them. These three different areas were focused on. First to make a survey of all the most important consumers, second to find the electricity consumption of the air compressors and the amount of waste heat produced from them. The third area was to calculate a model of how much fresh water that is used during a cooling sequence in the water based heating/cooling system of the reactors and give a suggestion of a suitable reuse for this water.The main result is a total survey of the energy consumption in steam and electricity. The survey shows that the second largest group after drying is heating of ventilation which gives big potentials of reducing the total steam consumption if there is a way of being self supporting in ventilation heat.

This master thesis has been a pilot study preceding a forthcoming project of a larger scale with the long term objective to separate the direct effect of added nitrogen on soil processes from indirect effects via trees. The aim of this study has been to investigate the allocation of nitrogen following direct injection of liquid solutions into the xylem of 40 year old Norway spruce. The field site is located at Flakaliden (64°07?N, 19°27?E), approximately 60 km northwest of Umeå, Sweden. A total of 18 trees were selected for treatment, equally divided between three treatments, potassium nitrate, glutamine and water (control).

The purpose with this study is to investigate funds that are environmentally friendly. Environment issues has become a large subject that affects all aspects in today?s society.  It is a global issue which has affected the awareness of environmentally friendly products and its benefits for the environment.How has this awareness affected the financial market?  In this study the authors have looked at six environmentally sound funds and six energy funds to answer the question if it´s better to have your money in traditional energy or in renewable energy.This study is made in an quantitative way, the data has been gathered from the internet database Morningstar. The energy funds have had its biggest assets in companies dealing with oil, and the environmentally sound funds have had its biggest assets in renewable energy. Bye looking at the different funds rate of return and relating that to risk managing theories of Sharpe and Treynor, the authors compared the two types of funds.During the period that was looked at during this study ( third quarter of 2007 until third quarter 2010) the energy funds outperformed the environmentally sound funds in every aspect. .

Since Africa?s decolonization a number of foreign economic actors have begun toemerge in several African countries and they prove a vital role in many ways. China isone of the largest actor and they have a long history of political and economic ties withAfrica. China act primarily in Africa to meet their growing economy?s demand fornatural resources, and by providing aid and trade with development countries in Africathey get important natural resources like oil and iron ore in return.