The purpose of this paper is to investigate if a dynamic investment strategy on the Swedish asset market can accomplish better returns then a static investment strategy. The dynamic investment strategy is created by incorporating business cycle Predictors and firm-level variables to predict future stock returns. The predictive regression is calculated wih 60 months of observation (1999 01-2005 12) and is then used to estimate future returns for 23 months in the period 2004 01 -2005 11. The structure of the regression, with linear functions of ? and ?, goes back to Shanken (1990) and Avramov and Chordia (2005) has had success with the variables chosen.

A self-esteem that is contingent on affirmation from others leaves the individual psychologically vulnerable. Ccontingent self-esteem has been shown to be either relationship or competence based. The aim of the current study was to examine the relationship between relationship based self-esteem, competence based self-esteem, the under dimensions of those, and self-efficacy. Questionnaires were handed out to 69 university students. The results indicated that competence based self-esteem predicted a significantly low self-efficacy.

This thesis is about the effect of political efficacy on societal participation among youths aged 15 to 29. It takes a starting point in the gloomy view of the decline of political participation among citizens in the western world, especially pointing out youths as a threat to democracy. This is a broad subject to take on so my aim becomes a bit more specific. The aim of the thesis is therefore to investigate if belief in ones own capacity and in the responsiveness of the political system affects the actual participation among youths in Europe, independent of a set of alternative Predictors. Moreover the thesis is divided into two sub-investigations, one qualitative and one quantitative.

Predicting corporate failure is an increasingly important topic in the world of economics today. This paper, with the help of the credit ranking company Syna AB, aims to investigate a few different statistic strategies to do just that. This task is accomplished by using a data material of 250 000 Swedish companies divided into two subsamples. The first sample is used to develop the model and the second as a validation sample. The model developing sample holds 160 000 companies divided into five different subgroups based on size and age.

Does the country people live in affect the probability of them experiencing happiness? Can a country variable in an ordinal regression model be affected when microeconomic and macroeconomic factors are added to the model? The possible outcomes are either that the country variable affects less when the additional Predictors are added to the model, or that they stay the same. The micro data is collected from the European Social Survey database, the macro data is collected from the World Bank. The country variable becomes less substantial when additional variables are added to the model. The variable with the most influence over expected happiness apart from the country variable is whether the individual often socializes with friends or not.

 Betydelsen av mediekonsumtion innehållande ideal/utseendefokus och olika psykologiska mekanismer för kroppsuppfattning studerades genom en enkätundersökning. Urvalet bestod av 331 svenska unga kvinnor och män. För kvinnor fanns ett svagt positivt samband mellan mediekonsumtion och positiv kroppsuppfattning. BMI var en tredjevariabel alternativt en mediator i detta samband. Selektiv exponeringsteori föreslås som en förklaringsmodell för att förstå dessa resultat.

The aim of this study was to examine if performance-based self-esteem, personality (Type A), perceived stress, age and gender predict the value of own or others life-stress (VLS). The aim was also to examine whether the variables were correlated significantly with each other. The investigation was conducted in a town in the mid-south of Sweden. The instrument consisted of two forms where the first measured Type A personality and the second tapped perform-ance-based self-esteem, perceived stress and the level of life-stress. The results showed that the level of life-stress could explain, on the basis of the Predictors, performance-based self-esteem, personality (Type A), perceived stress, age and gender.

The aim of this study was to investigate a health intervention at a Swedish telecom company, with regards to behavioral, cognitive and somatic stress, experienced health, and absence due to illness. A further aim was to investigate the employees' perceptions regarding the health intervention. Questionnaires were collected from 139 employees at the customer service departments.Results indicated that the health activity bowling to some extent could predict lower behavioral stress. However, the most important Predictors of stress and perceived health were lack of meaningfulness and quantitative demands. Lack of meaningfulness was also a predictor of absence due to illness.

Syfte: Studien undersöker om det finns ett samband mellan ekonomiska indikatorer och den årliga aktieavkastningen ett år framåt på den svenska marknaden för företag som genomfört nyemission och jämförs med en benchmark som består av företag som inte genomfört nyemission.Metod: Uppsatsen utgår från en kvantitativ undersökning där multipel regressionsanalys används för att undersöka sambandet mellan indikatorer och aktieavkastningen vid nyemissioner under tidsperioden 2002 ? 2010.Slutsats: Utifrån resultaten kunde vissa signifikanta samband konstateras mellan indikatorerna och totalavkastningen för nyemissionsgruppen. Det visade att totalavkastningen sjunker det året företag genomför nyemission jämfört med totalavkastningen året innan nyemissionen. Det kunde konstateras att marknaden är ineffektiv till en viss utsträckning i samband med nyemissioner. För benchmark kunde resultaten dock inte säkerställas på grund av att statistisk felkälla förekom i regressionsmodellen..

The purpose of this study is to examine whether personality traits, self-esteem, performance-based self-esteem and demographic data relate to, and can explain the variation in psychological ill-health among students at Lund University. A questionnaire was distributed to students attending the Psychology program, Bio-technology program, Theologian program and Law program. There were 247 respondents to the questionnaire, mainly attending their second or third semester. General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12), Rosenberg's Self- Esteem scale, Hallstens scale measuring performance-based self-esteem, questions relating to demographic data and a short version of the personality inventory scale Big Five were included in the questionnaire. Positive correlations were found between psychological ill-health and the variables neuroticism and performance-based self-esteem.

It is now increasingly common for organisations to work actively with HR issues. Furthermore, it is a constant top priority for organisations to remain profitable. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether so called soft HR values, as manager?s communication skills, has an actual impact on hard values in terms of costs for the organisation. Leadership is largely characterised by emotional communication, which together with personnel costs were the main focus of the research.

Difficult calvings and stillborn calves are costly for the producer and lowering these frequencies can decrease the costs for the dairy operation. Each calving in the herd is registered by the farmer and stored in a central database. The information is used to monitor the level of calving-difficulties and stillborn calves in the herd and nationally. Monitoring of these registrations is important to detect possible changes. Breeding-value prediction for calving traits is based on the calving information in the database.

The simple view of reading is a theory in which reading is divided into decoding and linguistic comprehension. The theory has been used to explain and to subgroup reading disabilities. Research has also investigated if additional factors are of relevance to reading. In the present study, decoding was divided into the factors orthographic decoding and phonological decoding, while comprehension was divided into word comprehension and grammatical comprehension. The purpose was to analyze these factors and their contribution to reading ability in children in fourth grade: one group with reading difficulties (n=36) and one group with typical reading ability (n=36).

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the cow-level association between acute hoof lesions and the somatic milk cell count in dairy cattle. Cows from three loose-housed Swedish dairy herds were enrolled in the study if they had an acute hoof lesion treated by a veterinarian or professional hoof trimmer during the preceding year, according to farmer records. Studied lesions were sole ulcer, dermatitis, interdigital necrobacillosis and hoof abscess, in each case causing lameness. For each hoof-diseased cow, 0 to 3 healthy cows were included, matched with respect to herd, breed, parity and lactation stage. Cell counts were obtained from monthly test recordings from one month before to three months after the hoof-lesion diagnosis, and log-transformed.

Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere contributes to the greenhouse effect, which is essential tolife on our planet. Furthermore, it plays an important part of the photosynthesis andrespiration of the world?s organisms. Since the start of the industrial revolution the amount ofcarbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased exponentially. The main source is theextensive burning of fossil fuels.