Introduction:By insight in the company and by monitoring the management, the board has an important function in creating trust in governance of the company. Furthermore, the board reduces the asymmetry of information between the owners and the management, which also is the function of the auditor, by auditing how the board governs the company and the accounting. In case the board does not effectively monitor the management, the auditor has to extend its monitoring, which increases the owners agency costs through the audit fee. The board composition can affect how effectively the board practices the monitoringProblem: How is the audit fee affected by the board composition?Purpose: The purpose of this study is to explain how the board composition affects the audit fee.Method: The study uses a quantitative method, where the data was collected from the annual reports of 112 limited companies listed on the NASDAQ OMX Large and Mid Cap lists on January 2, 2012.

The Turkish accession to the European Union has been the most extended one that the Unionhas been dealing with so far. Turkey is now accepted as a candidate country but it is still in aproblematic situation. Most of the EU?s member states do not share the Union?s belief thatTurkey should become a full member of the Union, if they should even become a member atall. Europeanization constitutes a ground in this essay, and the ?top-down? perspective withinthis process can give an explanation to why most EU member states have such a hesitanceagainst Turkey..

AbstractThe purpose of this thesis is to describe and analyse Europol. The research questions are:- How would increased powers for Europol impact on the cooperation between Europol and police authorities in EU-member states?- Which one of the two theories transactionalism and neofunctionalism can best create an understanding of Europol and its integration with the police of the member states?In so doing the study applies a qualitative method.Europol is the European Police Office and it was established through the Maastricht treaty in 1992 with the purpose of making the integration between police of the EU member states more efficient. In order for Europol to make integration between the police of member states more efficient it can be suggested that it needs for Europol to develop into having executive powers.One conclusion of this study is that Europol is an important tool for integration in the EU but there are at least three issues that are influencing the level of effectiveness in the integration work between the police of the member states; possible mistrust, that Europol has no executive powers and that it is voluntary for member states to participate in assisting Europol with information. Another conclusion is that Europol can be understood through an integration perspective when transactionalism and neofunctionalism are complementing each other..

The presidency of the European Union (EU) is one of the most important institutional actors for the improvement of democracy and equality between the member states. To hold a presidency is a big task and for many countries a tough challenge. What makes a presidency successful? The purpose of the thesis is to examine this question using Ole Elgströms? ?four properties for defining a successful presidency? as the theoretical background. This thesis will employ a comparative framework of four countries, using size and age (age understood as ?time being an EU Member State?) as the defining factors.

The following thesis is examining compliance with EU-law from a member state perspective. The variation in the compliance level between the member states from 1995 to 2005 is analyzed to prove the fact that the Nordic member countries during the measured time period experienced a low number of infringements. The infringements that did occur were resolved faster and more efficient in the Nordic countries then in the other member states. The theory used to explain the Nordic compliance rate is divided between external and internal pressure in a pull and push model. The external pressure is illustrated with argumentative persuasion from the EU-commission to the individual member states; how the state responds to the persuasion in order to act compliant.

Music production software has a strong tradition of two-dimensional graphical user interface (GUI), in which the time line is represented as a flat composition either horizontally (from left to right) or vertically (from top to bottom). In my degree work titled Sequi, I approach music composition from a different angle. Instead of a two-dimensional time line with only two possibly ways of progression (forward or backward) I constructed a three-dimensional GUI with the maximum of four different ways of progression from any given point in a composition. The height axis is used to describe time-intervals (the time between downbeats) and the wide and depth axes are used to describe progression from one sound to another..

This thesis studies two instruments within EC-law, affecting asylum issues, the Schengen Convention and the Dublin Regulation. These instruments are developed as a result of the free movement of persons in the European Union, and the development of the free internal market. The member states are afraid of losing control of who is residing within their borders, as their border controls has been removed, and these instruments are made to protect the member states now that their own means of control are gone. The thesis explains the relationship between the free movement and asylum issues and shows the connection between them. Its focus is aimed at the free movement of workers and how the European court of justice has interpreted article 39 to increase the workers ability to move within the union.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the European certificate of succession, and how it affects Swedish inheritance law. The European certificate of succession is a European document that will be introduced in august 2015 in the EU regulation of succession. The certificate of succession is meant to simplify the current process of cross-border inheritance by legitimizing the concerned parties, which according to the regulation are: heirs, legatees, executors of wills and administrators of the estate. According to the regulation, the member state of which the deceased had habitual residence shall have jurisdiction to rule on the succession as a whole. Since the certificate is a European document, it will have legal effect in all member states.

The purposes of this thesis is study the European Court of Justice from a non legal perspective and investigate the courts possibility to advance its own preferred goals rather that of the member states in cases of non-compliance. Drawing on general principal-agent theory I construct a model from which I derive certain hypothesis mainly about under what circumstances we should expect the Court to be more sensitive to member states preferences and under what circumstances we should expect the Court to be less sensitive. These hypotheses are then tested empirically against all cases of non-compliance initiated by the European Commission against member states between 1953-2000. The results from the study are rather positive. The most important result is that when the threat of sanctions against the Court increases so does the Courts sensitiveness to member states preferences and when it decreases so does the Courts sensitiveness..

In this thesis, the introduction of smoke-free restaurants and bars in several EU Member States in a policy convergence perspective is studied. The thesis sets out to explain whether policy convergence has occurred and the possible explanations connected with it. It is stated that 15 out of 25 EU Member States had introduced or decided to introduce smoke-free restaurants and bars up to April, 2006. Out of all the countries in the world, 35, including the EU Member States, had introduced or decided to introduce smoke-free restaurants and bars. The result is analysed by using policy convergence theory and by putting the case in a global environment where tobacco control has become an ever more central theme for public health policy.The EU Member States are different in several ways considered to be important factors for policy convergence, such as cultural, institutional and socio-economic similarities, and the conclusion is made that EU membership has been a most crucial factor for the rapidity of the policy diffusion.

Networking is an important part, for organizations, in the recruitment process. This since the emergence of Internet networking has become more common and the organizations finds that networking is applied more frequently in the recruitment process. Organizations have noticed that networking often is a more cost efficient option compared to traditional recruitment. Since networking in the recruitment process has increased, we intend to investigate if and how it affects the composition of organizations. This thesis aims to examine networking in the recruiting process, and aims to make no differences between networking offline and online.

The purpose of this essay is to describe and analyze experiences of how the daily rounds and a persons role is changing when you go from being a family member to being a family member as well as being a kinship carer.Essential questions at issue was:- Which feelings are associated to the roll as kinship carer?- What are the motivations for the relative/family member to become a kinship carer?- What is the change of the role like before and after the disease.Six persons have been interviewed on the subject and symbolic interactionism and role theory has been our theoretical perspective. The essay has been related to the ideas of Meads on social interaction and to Goffmans theatre theorem.The result of the essay showed that feelings and motivations as regards to the daily rounds and the role of the kinship carer were individual, where similarities and differences occurred. When ones partner, parent or child got a disease/functional disability it generated in some changes regarding their daily rounds and it led to altering of roles. To assume a role was a natural result and often happened when a relative/family member got a disease or an injury..

Human presence has always influenced the surrounding areas, the forest as well. Structure and species composition have changed during human land use. Knowledge regarding these changes should be of great interest for conservation and forestry. We have analyzed human impact on the tree species composition on five study sites during 2000 years in Ångermanland, Sweden. More specifically the change in tree species composition in percentage amongst alder, birch, spruce and pine over time.

In this thesis we examine the relationship between board composition and firm performance in Swedish companies. The selection of companies includes all Swedish limited liability companies, with the exception of micro enterprises, that have been active between the years of 2009-2010. We develop hypotheses based on resource dependence theory, agency theory, and the resource based view, and test these with regression analysis against collected data. Specifically, we examine the effects of board diversity, outside directorships, and CEO duality. Our findings show that none of the theories provide sufficient explanatory power of the relationship between board composition and firm performance, and that further research is required to better understand the role and effects of company boards..

In September 2014 the ECJ issued its decision in C-7/13 the Skandia case. The case con- cerned service transactions made between a main establishment in a third country and its Swedish branch. The branch was a member of a VAT group in Sweden. The ECJ estab- lished that the membership resulted in that the VAT group was considered as one taxable person which meant that the services was considered provided to the group itself and not the separate member. Therefore the transactions were deemed taxable.