The market for biofuels from the forests have had a positive development and the job initiators for this master´s thesis wanted to examine the profitability of a method for harvesting forest fuel, which was unfamiliar to them. The method was the ?long tree tops-method?, here called the LT-method. The LT-method is characterised by the fact that timber is harvested as the only roundwood assortment while the rest of the stem, which in other cases would become pulpwood, is harvested as forest fuel together with the logging residues. The method is based on the assumption that advantages in handling of the forest fuel assortment such as increased load weights for forest hauling and truck transportation, should compensate for the lower price for pulpwood when sold as forest fuel. The aim of the study was to compare the profitability of the LT-method with the GROT-method (harvest of timber, pulpwood and logging residues) and conventional logging without any harvest of forest fuel, and aslo to try to identify factors affecting the profitability of the different methods.

The purpose of this essay is to investigate the policy proposal The right to Challenge (utmaningsrätt) and the political motivation that has been used to implement it, as well as the result of it. The focus is on a case study of the implementing in Örebro municipality. Moreover, a comparative study is done to investegate the differences and similarities between Örebro and other municipalities that have chosen to implement The right to Challenge.The main question in this essay is How did Örebro?s municipality implement it and what was the result? There is also four minor questions: How was The right to Challenge motivated and what hopes did the politicans have for it? What has The right to Challenge so far contributed with in Örebro municipality? What do the entreprenures think about their oppertunity to challenge the municipality? What similarities and differences exists between Örebro and other municipalities that have chosen to implement The right to Challenge?The results that are presented in this essay generate conclusions that the implementing of The right to Challenge was motivated with arguments that it will result in increased diversity, improved efficiency, and reduced costs. This has however not been the case since very few challenges have been submitted, most likely due to a lack of promotion.

The workplace is for many associated with joy and commitment, for others it is associated with fatigue, inadequacy and cynicism that is explained as the three dimensions of burnout. A general view of burnout is that it is an individual problem that many companies ignore, because a preventive task does not generate immediate profits. This has been a growing problem for years. Burnout costs not only money but also time and knowledge. Unfortunately, the popular belief is that "If it ain?t broke, don?t fix it." Organizations that think this way are sacrificing future benefits for short-term gains.

In a time of economic turmoil and financial crisis profitability matters rise higher and higher on company agendas. Many companies are pressured to find profitability to avoid layoffs or even bankruptcy. Profitability essentially depends on the margin on the product or service sold and the costs associated with selling these products or services and hence these areas are of vital importance if companies are to improve profitability. Previous research has focused, for the most part, on product profitability while customer profitability has received less attention. This study is based on a case study of a Swedish publishing house and aims to investigate how the company?s Cost-to-Serve varies between its distribution channels.

This thesis is written on behalf of Skanska, Väg- och Anläggning Stockholm Mälardalen, vid Nya Karolinska Sjukhuset i Solna, NKS. The report has resulted in recommendations for the method of soil stabilizations of soil nailing, excavation of slope and fiber reinforced shotcrete, which is the most suitable method from a safety and a cost point at the NKS.The aim of this thesis was to investigate whether fiber reinforced shotcrete increases slope stability, with the focus being on the total stability. The main goal was to investigate which method of soil stabilization is the most suitable for the slopes that are analyzed in this report. Through studying literature, the authors have gained an understanding about the theoretical background for the given problem. Through calculations and analyses of the slopes, safety factors have been acquired.

This thesis describes a further development of an existing prototype named Automatic pin bone remover. The further development was requested from the Swedish consulting firm ATM AB. The request of automatic pin bone removers is high and has the potential to be a worldwide leading product.The goal with the thesis work is to further develop an existing prototype. In order to achieve the goal a pre-study of the prototype had to be made in order to define a customer demand specification. The thesis work is then continued by a function analysis which differs from a conservative one.

This study aims to measure the effect of accounting conservatism and to identify thebusiness activities causing firms to undervalue owners? equity. To estimateaccounting conservatism, we have followed the hypothesis that no firm over time cangenerate a return greater than its cost of equity, i.e. CAPM. Thus, if a firm in factgenerates an excess return over time, we assume that the excess return is an estimateof accounting conservatism within that firm.The hypothesis originates from the corporate valuation model ?Economic ValueAdded®? which tries to adjust for accounting bias.

This thesis is about a potential trade-off between integrity and long-term usability in the choice of file formats for preservation of text documents. Five common formats are discussed: plain text, PDF/A, Office Open XML Document, Open Document Text, and Markdown. The formats are compared with respect to four criteria related to integrity and usability and to the records continuum model: support by widely used software, stability, rendering of contents and reusability.It is concluded that no single format is optimal with respect to all four criteria, when it comes to preserving typical documents in a modern environment, with more or less complex formatting and document structure. Therefore, the feasiblity of using two or more formats for preservation of a single document (e.g. PDF/A combined with Markdown and/or Office Open XML) is discussed.

This thesis is performed in cooperation with Prodelox AB and JTI (Swedish Institute of Agricultural and Environmental Engineering). The purpose of the project is to generate and develop a WC-technique with a closet sewer that keeps a higher TS-substance than 1.5 %. The WC-technique is mainly directed towards permanent households in sparsely-populated areas and cabins. The goal is to generate concepts of toilets with an extremely low use of water in terms of flushing. The design should be appealing and touch more senses than only the visual.

Background & Problem: The Statutory audit was initiated in the beginning of 1983 with the argument that it had a preventative affect against economic crimes. It is discussed whether the statutory audit should be abolished considering it brings major costs for small limited companies, also there are discussions however easing the regulation for these companies. What effect would it impose for the preventative work against economic crimes if the statutory audit is abolished?Purpose: The purpose with this study is to learn how an abolishment of the statutory audit among so called micro businesses will affect authorities? preventive work against the economic crimes.Demarcate: The study is demarcated to comprise only authorities that work with preventing economic crimes with help of the statutory audit and that will be affected of an possible abolishment, such as the Swedish Tax Office (Skatteverket) and the Swedish National Economic Crimes Bureau (Ekobrottsmynigheten).Methodology: The research is based on a qualitative approach with personal interviews with two representatives from each authority. The gathering of data has been done by researching literature and databases.Conclusions: The result shows that the statutory audit is significant for the authorities and their preventive work.

The aim of this thesis is to investigate if an automation of the manual packaging process at Legosan AB is profitable. Legosan AB, located in Kumla, performs subcontract work of dietary supplements and medical products to companies within Europe. The chapterportal robot is used in the other. As there are several options in the choice of packaging robot the suggestions of improvement are divided into two different designs. Other machines and equipment necessary for the different suggestions of improvement are showed and their measurements are presented.

The situation that one can discern on the Swedish real estate market is that while there are several offices vacant, the need for apartments is high ? the vacancy rate for apartments is non-existent. According to the rebuilding of Skatteskrapan one will realise that the project requires a lot of money, even though it promotes the residential situation. The real estate owner experiences a risk in rebuilding real estates ? whether it will generate good yield or not.

To be able to protect themselves from credit risk, the banks must constantly check the performance of  the companies they have lent money to. There are many mathematical models for predicting financial distress. These models use accounting-based ratios, which often are historical and not representative for the present situation. This study describes how the banks do in practice to find signals of insolvency in time and the variables they are observing for doing that.In addition to financial reports which the company sends in to the bank at least once a year, also the relationship between them and information from different information  agencies are of great importance to track  signals of insolvency. Poor profitability is the primary cause of insolvency.

Global Software Development (GSD) is based on a geographical distance where teams are spread throughout the world. The related research have for a long time addressed the challenges presented by geographical distances. GSD is basically a necessity for many businesses to use in order to reduce development costs, reduce production time and to maintain high quality. The study aims to investigate the relationship between the reality of a specific maintenance project. Thus, our research question: How do distributed maintenance teams experience temporal, geographical and socio-cultural distances? To achieve the purpose of the study, we chose to perform a case study of a global consulting company which recently started a new system maintenance project.

The public health care sector has come under increasing pressure to cut down costs, maximize productivity and satisfy patients' needs during the 1990s and onwards. As a way of "getting more for less" quality management has been introduced. Originating in the private manufacturing industry, quality management has a strong focus on productivity and efficiency, aspects which are measured in quantitative terms. However, there are strong concerns that quality management is a means of speeding up the marketization of public health care by introducing core values much different from the ethic and medical norms that traditionally underpin health care organizations.This essay focuses on how quality management has been introduced to, and transformed by, public health care. A theoretical framework based on new institutionalism is constructed, and translation theories are used as a way of illustrating how the medical institutional environment, in fact, changes the concept of quality management.