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 aim of this two years master thesis in Library and information science is to study the foundation Centrum för lättläst and its work regarding information use with focus on information structures and information needs. The aim is also to examine how Centrum för lättläst cooperate with Swedish libraries to promote the work concerning people with reading disabilities. This master thesis applies a domain analytic theory and method inspired by Birger Hjørland. The domain analysis is confined to examine ontology, epistemology, sociology, empirical user studies, document and genre studies and studies of structures and institutions in scientific communication. The main source material consists of information from the homepage of Centrum för lättläst.

Purpose The purpose is to analyze the parliamentary parties political communication in the social media channels before the election 2010.Methodology This essay is a descriptive study from nine interviews of the responsible people in the parliamentary parties. In addition to that two more interviews were done with social media expertsTheoretical perspective This essay is based on two-way communication and communication strategiesConclusions The parliamentary parties use social media as a complement to traditional media. The purpose is to create dialog and to minimize the gap to the voters, but in many ways it is being used as a one-way communication channel.  The parliamentary parties are trying to use the social media channels in Swedish conditions, but in many ways they try to imitate an American used strategy..

The public sector in Sweden has in recent decades undergone a large change due to market and liberalism impact. This change has meant that marketing communication and its concepts have been adopted by administrative authorities. In this thesis, we used governmentality, social constructivism and an interpretive perspective to examine the staff at the County Administrative Board in Kalmar County and their experiences and opinions of the concepts ?customer? and ?trademark?. The study was designed as a case study with qualitative interviews.

At the Congress of the Swedish Trade Union Confederation (LO) in 1991 a decision was made to reform LOs politics of gender. In the new resolution class and gender were established as equal causes of oppression. This was a giant leap from LOs traditional politics, where the dimension of class had always been considered more important than gender. The present thesis discusses how gender was constructed in LOs discourse after 1990 by analysing their official publications about gender politics called Klass och kön. The key terms in the analysis are continuity and change.

The public library is an institution that throughout history has been associated with anumber of social codes, that seem to be deeply rooted in the minds of the public. Thesecodes regulates how users act and interact in the library environment and as a library useryou have to obtain knowledge about these social codes.This master's thesis aims at studying how these codes are transferred to children in the earlyschool-age, how children react to the social codes and what effects they have on thechildren's development into library users.The empirical material used in this study consists of observations and interviews. Theobservations are conducted during two school classes visits to a public library and focuseson the interaction between librarians, the children and their teachers, and the interviewswere conducted with the two librarians responsible for the library visits.The theories used in this master's thesis consists of symbolic interactionism, in the form oftheories by George Herbert Mead and Erving Goffman, Peter L. Berger and ThomasLuckmanns theories regarding the concept of institutions. Another theory that's used in thismaster's thesis is the one concerning the social aspects of information literacy focusing onthe concept of epistemic communities as presented by Kimmo Tuominen, Reijo Savolainenand Sanna Talja.The result of this study is that the social codes are communicated to the children primarilyby the teachers rather than the librarians.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to increase the understanding of how a bank?s features and internal factors have affected its choice of method in calculating the capital requirement.Theoretical and Empirical Method: The research strategy of this study has been of a qualitative nature with a deductive approach. The choice of method was depth interviews with respondents from a targeted sample of Swedish banks. These respondents were chosen based on the knowledge they possess as key employees in the capital requirement process and their involvement in choosing their banks? method for calculating the capital requirement.

The main purpose of this study was to examine how social work can be performed online, by a case study of Korrespondensgymnasiet that pursues distance education. The intention was to determine the possibilities and limits with the online communication between the school counsellor and the pupils. The study was based on qualitative semi-structured interviews with one school counsellor and five pupils and document analysis of three descriptions of the school counsellor?s profession. The theory that has been used in this study is the communication theory: Shannon and Weaver?s Model of Communication and non-verbal communication.

This thesis aims to study the effects of the infrastructure project Västlänken in Gothenburg, a rail tunnel to be built through the city center. The study focuses on the community of Haga where one of the three exits will be constructed and also the surrounding urban environment, to see if the project can be sustainable. Sustainable urban development was selected as the theory, and the term "sustainable" is defined in this study using a number of criteria that two scientists developed. The criteria include economic, ecological and social perspectives on how a place or a geographical area can meet today's needs as well as possible needs in the future. The methods used were semi-structured interviews and content analysis of government documents. Interviews were conducted with various institutions in the city, and companies involved in the planning of the project in Gothenburg.

Study objects: JM, Folkhem and ABB.Purpose: The purpose with this study are to examine how the supplier relations are in the construction branch and compare that result with how the supplier relations are for ABB a production company.Theoretical: The theoretical chapter illustrates important and relevant parts of supplier relations, purchasing and supplier strategies to give good overview. The theoretical review will combine information from different fields to consent with the research problem.Method: A case study has been made on three different companies, one of the companies was active in the production industry the other two were active in the construction industry. Data was mainly collected through semi structured interviews on each of the three companies.Conclusions: The size of the company decided which point of view the company had on purchasing, traditional or modern view. All three companies had a centralized purchasing organization but the construction firms were more decentralized than the production company. The reason was that the construction firms were dependent with more flexibility when every construction project is unique..

Hedge funds have the past few years become an increasingly popular investment alternative and in the last decade hedge fund assets managed have quadrupled to USD 2000 billion, a growth rate of around 25-30% per year. One explanation for this substantial increase is that hedge funds' minimum limits on capital invested has declined, which have made ??them available to retail investors. The recent turmoil in financial markets has also contributed to investors finding their way to hedge funds, whose goal is to generate stable returns regardless of how the market develops.Using Sharpe?s, Treynor?s and Jensen's performance measures, I have investigated whether hedge funds manage to generate higher risk-adjusted returns than traditional managed funds.

The concept of the photographic truth has had a special status for almost 200 years. Yet with the emerge of digital technology and especially digital photography there has been a loss of the particular connection photography has had in reference to reality. The aim of this study is to see in what ways digitalization has affected the credibility of photography from the perspective of professionals in the field of photography. The digital technology that has enabled the large-scale manipulation of photographies is not, however, the main reason for the decreased credibility of photography. The ongoing discussion about the available possibilities concerning digital imagery and manipulation has had a far more powerful effect on the concept of the photographic truth.

Syftet med studien är att undersöka förutsättningarna för en lyckad samförvaltningsprocess i de nya viltförvaltningsdelegationerna (VFD). Vad som gör detta ämne särskilt intressant är att det existerar en komplexitet kring intresset av viltförvaltning. Denna komplexitet inrymmer olika åsikter om hur vilt bör/skall förvaltas och grunden till problemet är människans samexistens med först och främst rovdjuren. Metoden för att göra detta utgörs av en undersökande flerfallstudie där en kvalitativ innehållanalys utförs på redan insamlat intervjumaterial inom forskningsprojektet Legitimate institutions for carnivore management. Föremål för analys är även det formella regelverk som delegationerna har att förhålla sig till i form av; Förordning (2009:1 474) om viltförvaltningsdelegationer.

Part of the great acclaim for Anne Rice?s Interview with the Vampire (1976) is due to the wayshe renews the vampire story by reinforcing the traditional erotic dimension and, as a result ofthis, the way she examines the theme of homosexuality already present in Bram Stoker?sDracula (1897). However, this essay shows that Rice?s novel stands in much closer relation toVladimir Nabokov?s Lolita (1955) than to Dracula and that pedophilia, not homosexuality, isthe facet of sexuality which here first and foremost comes into focus. Through a comparisonbetween Interview with the Vampire and Lolita emerges a surprising coherence on the levelsof plot and characterization, which in itself is of importance for our understanding of Rice?snovel as well as Lolita, but it is also interesting to note to what degree these two novels sharea world of concepts and ideas common to actual pedophiles.

The purpose of this study is to find out teachers view on manipulatives as a way to concretize a certain mathematical content and to highlight knowledge and experiences within the range of using manipulatives to concretize. By answering the questions below different approaches a teacher may have towards the manipulatives and how that may impact on student?s learning will also be discussed in comparison to mainly traditional and socially constructive theories of learning.What is the teachers view on manipulatives as a way to concretize?What purpose do they have when using manipulatives?According to the teachers, what does it mean to concretize a certain mathematical content?According to the teachers, what connection is there between manipulatives and concretizing?Through interviews and observations conclusions can be made that the teachers are in general positive towards using manipulatives as a way to concretize a certain mathematical content although the definition of what a manipulative is differ somewhat between the teachers. The teachers working with manipulatives do it in a well thought out fashion but more research is needed to furthermore define the purpose of using manipulatives. Few countries spend so much time concretizing and working with manipulatives as Sweden do, but still Sweden score below the OECD-average on the mathematical PISA-tests.