Bakgrund: Elitfotbollsklubbar befinner sig i en speciell situation. Man verkar i en bransch där det råder svårigheter att generera tillräckligt med intäkter samtidigt som kostnader drivs upp med tanke på att man vill nå sportslig framgång. Det blir därför väldigt viktigt hur man hanterar sin ekonomi och styr den i rätt riktning.   Syfte: Syftet med denna uppsats är att beskriva och förklara vilken roll ekonomistyrningen har i svenska elitfotbollsklubbar. Vidare är syftet även att identifiera situationsfaktorer inom elitfotbollen och analysera hur dessa påverkar elitfotbollklubbars ekonomistyrning. Detta för att utveckla kunskaper om hur elitfotbollklubbars situation påverkar ekonomistyrningen och dess roll.   Metod: Uppsatsen är en kvalitativ intervjustudie. Den empiriska undersökningen har skett genom semi-strukturerade intervjuer. Intervjuerna har gjorts med antingen klubbchef, ekonomichef eller sportchef i sju olika klubbar.   Resultat och slutsatser: Elitfotbollsklubbar befinner sig i en osäker miljö där en väl implementerad ekonomistyrning är i det närmaste nödvändigt. Budgeten är det viktigaste styrmedlet för klubbarna men det används även en rad andra styrmedel som belöningssystem, prestationsmätning, kalkylering och benchmark. Situationsfaktorer som omgivning, kultur och storlek har bidragit till att klubbarna idag har en stor ekonomisk medvetenhet där ekonomiska resultat ska leda till det sportsliga. Vi har med denna studie kommit fram till att ekonomistyrningen har en avgörande roll för klubbarnas långsiktiga målsättningar. / Background: Elite football clubs exist in a special situation. They operates in a industry where its difficult to generate enough revenue, meantime costs are driven up due to their need of generate sucess in the sport. It therefore becomes very important how to manage their finances and steering it in the right direction.   Purpose: The purpose of this essay is to describe and explain the financials role in a number of Swedish elite football clubs.   Method: Our essay is a qualitative study where we mixed convenience- and quota sampling. The empirical gathering was conducted through interviews using a semi-structured approach. Interviews have been made with either a Club Manager, CFO or sports director in seven diffrent clubs.   Conclusions: Elite football club sexists in an uncertain enciroment in which a well-implementated managament control system is necessary. The budget is the most important instrument for the clubs, but there are also a number of other instruments such as compensations, performance measurement, calculation and benchmark. Situational factors such as enviroment, culure and size has contributed wich has led to that the clubs have a great economic awareness today where economic results will lead to the sport result. We have with this study concluded that financial management has played a critical role in the club´s long-term objectives.

This thesis investigates the development of an animatronic robot with the objective of showing how modern animatronic models created as special effects have roots in models created during the scientific and mechanical revolution of the 17th and 18th centuries. It is noted that animatronic models that are available today have not been described in any great detail and most are covered by industrial secrecy. This project utilises technologies developed during the latter part of the 20th century and into the beginning of the 21st century to create the design of the animatronic robot. The objective of the project is to bring effective designs for animatronic robots into the public domain. The project will investigate a large variety of different mechanisms and apply them to various functioning parts of the model, with the design and method of each of these functions discussed. From this, one main part of the project, the jaw, will receive the focus of construction. Once the construction is complete this will be evaluated against what improvements and changes could be made for future iterations, with a revised design produced based on what has been learned.

Type 2 diabetes has reached epidemic proportions worldwide. The resulting increase in chronic and costly diabetes related complications has potentially catastrophic implications for healthcare systems, and economics and societies as a whole. One of the key pathological factors leading to type 2 diabetes is insulin resistance (IR), which is the reduced or impaired ability of the body to make use of available insulin to maintain safe glucose concentrations in the bloodstream. It is essential to understand the physiology of glucose and insulin when investigating the underlying factors contributing to chronic diseases such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease. For many years, clinicians and researchers have been working to develop and use model-based methods to increase understanding and aid therapeutic decision support. However, the majority of practicable tests cannot yield more than basic metrics that allow only a threshold-based assessment of the underlying disorder. This thesis gives an overview on several dynamic model-based methodologies with different clinical applications in assessing glycaemia via measuring effects of treatment or medication on insulin sensitivity. Other tests are clinically focused, designed to screen populations and diagnose or detect the risk of developing diabetes. Thus, it is very important to observe sensitivity metrics in various clinical and research settings. Interstitial insulin kinetics and their influence on model-based insulin sensitivity observation was analysed using data from the clinical pilot study of the dynamic insulin sensitivity and secretion (DISST) test and the glucose-insulin PK-PD models. From these inputs, a model of interstitial insulin dose-response that best links insulin action in plasma to response in blood glucose levels was developed. The critical parameters influencing interstitial insulin pharmacokinetics (PKs) are saturation in insulin receptor binding (αG) and the plasma-interstitium diffusion rate (nI). Population values for these parameters are found to be [αG, nI]=[0.05,0.055]. Critically ill patients are regularly fed via constant enteral (EN) nutrition infusions. The impact of incretin effects on endogenous insulin secretion in this cohort remains unclear. It is hypothesised that the identified SI would decrease during interruptions of EN and would increase when EN is resumed, where, for short periods around transition, the true patient SI would be assumed constant. The model-based analysis was able to elucidate incretin effects by tracking the identified model-based insulin sensitivity (SI) in a cohort of critically ill patients. Thus, changes in model-based SI given the fixed assumed endogenous secretion by the model would support the presence of an EN-related incretin effect in the population of non-diabetic, critically ill patients studied. The PD feedback-control model of Uen was designed to investigate endogenous insulin secretion amongst subjects with different metabolic states and levels of insulin resistance. The underlying effects that influence insulin secretion i.e. incretin effects were also defined by tracking the control model gain/response and the identified insulin sensitivity (SI) using intravenous (IV) bolus and oral glucose responses of insulin sensitivity tests. This new PD control model allowed the characterisation of both static (basal) and dynamic insulin responses, which defined the pancreatic β-cell glucose sensitivity parameters. However, incretin effects were unobserved during oral glucose responses as the PD control gains failed to simulate the true endogenous insulin secretion due to potentially inaccurate glucose appearance rates and low data resolution of glucose concentrations. The net effect of haemodialysis (HD) treatment on glycaemic regulation and insulin sensitivity in a critically ill cohort was investigated. It was hypothesized that the observed SI would decrease during HD due to enhanced insulin clearance compared to the model, and would be recaptured again when HD is stopped. The changes in model-based SI metric at HD transitions in a cohort of critically ill patients were evaluated. Significant changes of -29% in model-based SI was observed during HD therapy. However, there were insignificant changes when HD treatment was ended. Thus, the changes in model-based SI would thus offer a unique observation on insulin kinetics and action in this population of critically ill patients with ARF that would better inform metabolic care.

The aim of this study is to investigate how companies within different industries that use budgets perceive the critique that has been raised against it. As such, this study explores whether the companies find the critique valid and if so, whether and how they have managed to cope with the problems that the budget has been argued to entail. Additionally, this study explores the potential impact that the external and internal context of the budget may have on these perceptions. Utilizing on a qualitative case study research design, our findings indicate that the relevance of the critique is contextually contingent with regards to both the external and the internal environment of a company. Consequently, the likelihood for the alleged problems of the budget to appear is greater when the alignment between a company’s external and internal environment and the employed budget purpose is poor, and/or when the budget’s cohesiveness with other management control systems within a certain management control system-package is deficient. Thus, in contrast to the critics, we argue that budgets should not be seen as a static and stand-alone practice as it evidently constitute a multifaceted and contingent practice.

In nature, through millions of years of evolution, fish and cetaceans have developed fast efficient and highly manoeuvrable methods of marine propulsion. A recent explosion in demand for sub sea robotics, for conducting tasks such as sub sea exploration and survey has left developers desiring to capture some of the novel mechanisms evolved by fish and cetaceans to increase the efficiency of speed and manoeuvrability of sub sea robots. Research has revealed that interactions with vortices and other unsteady fluid effects play a significant role in the efficiency of fish and cetaceans. However attempts to duplicate this with robotic fish have been limited by the difficulty of predicting or sensing such uncertain fluid effects. This study aims to develop a gait generation method for a robotic fish with a degree of passivity which could allow the body to dynamically interact with and potentially synchronise with vortices within the flow without the need to actually sense them. In this study this is achieved through the development of a novel energy based gait generation tactic, where the gait of the robotic fish is determined through regulation of the state energy rather than absolute state position. Rather than treating fluid interactions as undesirable disturbances and `fighting' them to maintain a rigid geometric defined gait, energy based control allows the disturbances to the system generated by vortices in the surrounding flow to contribute to the energy of the system and hence the dynamic motion. Three different energy controllers are presented within this thesis, a deadbeat energy controller equivalent to an analytically optimised model predictive controller, a $H_\infty$ disturbance rejecting controller with a novel gradient decent optimisation and finally a error feedback controller with a novel alternative error metric. The controllers were tested on a robotic fish simulation platform developed within this project. The simulation platform consisted of the solution of a series of ordinary differential equations for solid body dynamics coupled with a finite element incompressible fluid dynamic simulation of the surrounding flow. results demonstrated the effectiveness of the energy based control approach and illustrate the importance of choice of controller in performance.

The objective of this study was to examine whether the factors which constitute the manufacturer/industrial-representative relationship, influence performance as predicted by control theory. In addition, the study evaluated the contribution of selected demographic factors such as size of the firm, and the representative's experience, on performance.

This thesis describes an all-in-one flight control system (FCS) that was designed for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). The project focuses on the embedded hardware aspect of a stand-alone system with low-cost and reliability in mind.

This master thesis describes the design and implementation of control sys- tem for autonomous robot which is able to run through user defined points in unknown environment without colliding with obstacles. The work contains analysis of the available hardware and software solutions, modular design with control system implementation divided into separate subsystems (control, lo- calization, route planning, driving the robot using Hermit curves and low-level hardware control). The work also contains explanation of rework of the school robotic platform. The implementation was tested on a created robotic platform. Driving the robot along the Hermit curve allows smooth and in some cases quicker passage through defined points, than passage consisting of rotations on the spot and direct movements. 1

För att skapa en hållbar utveckling behöver alla aktörer i samhället arbeta tillsammans. Ekonomistyrning kan hjälpa företag att mäta och följa upp prestationer i syfte att kontrollera att de når uppsatta mål. Hållbarhet kan definieras på olika sätt, vilket kan försvåra arbetet med styrning av hållbarhet i företag. Tidigare forskning har nästan enbart fokuserat på stora företag trots att majoriteten av alla företag i EU är små och medelstora företag. Därför är syftet med denna studie att undersöka hur småföretag arbetar med hållbarhet och vilken roll ekonomistyrning har i detta arbete. Då det finns en begränsad mängd forskning om småföretag och hållbarhet syftar även studien till att bidra med nya insikter om hur småföretag kan gå tillväga för att bli mer hållbara, samt vilka hinder de möter under arbetet med hållbarhet. Till studien genomfördes fyra semistrukturerade intervjuer med småföretag i syfte att undersöka hur småföretag arbetar med ekonomistyrning för att uppnå långsiktiga hållbarhetsmål. De fyra fallföretagen arbetar med hållbarhet, har maximalt 50 anställda och verkar inom olika branscher. Med grund i Malmi och Browns (2008) modell för Management Control Systems identifierades och analyserades vilka styrsystem som förekommer vid arbete med hållbarhet i småföretag. Studien visar att småföretag saknar tillräckliga resurser för att kunna göra ett formellt och systematiskt styrningsarbete. Detta är en av anledningarna till att småföretag väljer att arbeta löpande med hållbarhet. Många småföretag har endast en ägare eller är familjeägda, vilket gör att ägarens definition till hållbarhet är avgörande för hur företaget arbetar med hållbarhet. Det är således även ägarens kompetens som påverkar graden av formaliserade ekonomistyrningssystem i företaget. / Most of the research on sustainability and Management Control Systems is based on large businesses even though the majority of all companies in the European Union are small and medium sized businesses. Small businesses can make a big impact on the current climate crisis, but since sustainability can be a complex issue and more advanced management in small business is limited, working towards sustainable development in small business could be a challenge. Therefore, the purpose of this thesis is to study how small businesses work to be more sustainable using Management Control Systems. For data collection, interviews were conducted in four small businesses who work with sustainability. The study finds that it can be hard for small businesses to work with sustainability due to lack of resources, which makes the use of Management Control Systems more informal and value based.

The consequences of traffic congestion include increased travel time, fuel consumption, and the number of crashes. Studies suggest that most traffic delays are due to nonrecurring traffic congestion. Adaptive traffic control using real-time data is effective in dealing with nonrecurring traffic congestion. Many adaptive traffic control algorithms used today are deterministic and prone to human error and limitation. Reinforcement learning allows the development of an optimal traffic control policy in an unsupervised manner. We have implemented a reinforcement learning algorithm that only requires information about the number of vehicles and the mean speed of each incoming road to streamline traffic in a four-way intersection. The reinforcement learning algorithm is evaluated against a deterministic algorithm and a fixed-time control schedule. Furthermore, it was tested whether reinforcement learning can be trained to prioritize emergency vehicles while maintaining good traffic flow. The reinforcement learning algorithm obtains a lower average time in the system than the deterministic algorithm in eight out of nine experiments. Moreover, the reinforcement learning algorithm achieves a lower average time in the system than the fixed-time schedule in all experiments. At best, the reinforcement learning algorithm performs 13% better than the deterministic algorithm and 39% better than the fixed-time schedule. Moreover, the reinforcement learning algorithm could prioritize emergency vehicles while maintaining good traffic flow.