This thesis aims at systematically studying the possibilities of minimizing devastating consequences of high-speed rail vehicle derailments by appropriate measures and features in the train design including the running gear. Firstly, an empirical database is established containing as much relevant information as possible of past incidents and accidents that have occurred at substantial running speeds due to mechanical failure close to the interface between the running gear and the track. Other causes that ultimately brought the train in a derailed condition are also covered. Although various accidental circumstances make each derailment a unique event, certain patterns appear to emerge which lead to several critical vehicle parameters capable of influencing the outcome of a derailment or preventing a derailment to occur. Secondly, the possibility of preventing wheel climbing derailments after an axle journal failure is studied by implementing mechanical restrictions between wheelsets and bogie frame. In this respect, a multi body system (MBS) computer model is developed to account for such an axle failure condition, which is successfully validated on the basis of two authentic passenger car events. In order to study the overall post-derailment vehicle behaviour, in particular the wheelsets’ vertical motion and lateral deviation on sleepers, a comprehensive MBS post-derailment module is developed and implemented in the commercially available software GENSYS. The model detects wheel-sleeper impact conditions and applies valid force resultants calculated through linear interpolation based on a pre-defined look-up table. The table was constructed through exhaustive finite element (FE) wheel to concrete sleeper impact simulations utilising the commercially available software LS-DYNA. The MBS post-derailment module has been validated successfully in several stages, including a correct prediction of the derailing wheelset’s trajectory over ten consecutive sleepers in comparison with an authentic passenger vehicle derailment event. An extensive simulation analysis on the feasibility of utilizing alternative substitute guidance mechanisms attached to the running gear on rail vehicles is presented, as means of minimizing the lateral deviation. Three low-reaching guidance mechanisms attached onto the running gear (bogie frame, brake disc and axle journal box) are analysed in terms of geometrical parameters for a successful engagement with the rail in order to prevent large lateral deviations after twelve different derailment scenarios. Three conventional coupled passenger trailing cars are investigated in terms of lateral deviation and vehicle overturning tendency after derailments on tangent and curved track. This is performed as a function of various vehicle design features and parameters such as: maximum centre coupler yaw angle, carbody height of centre of gravity, coupler height and additional running gear features. In a similar manner, the articulated train concept is investigated in terms of the post-derailment vehicle behaviour as a function of different inter-carbody damper characteristics and running gear features. / QC 20100701

Hedge funds are a debated subject in today’s financial industry. During 2008, despite hedge funds absolute return target, the global hedge fund industry showed a negative performance whilst the Swedish hedge fund market performed relatively well in comparison. Many studies have been made investigating the effect on incorporating hedge funds in a traditional portfolio though none focused separately on the Swedish market. In a global perspective it is quite easy to invest in hedge fund portfolios due to the existence of investable indices. To invest on the Swedish market is a more complex matter. SIX Harcourt HFXS Index is a Swedish hedge fund index representing the Swedish hedge fund market though it is not investable. Hence it would be interesting to see if it is possible to create an investable version of SIX Harcourt HFXS. When creating an investable index, several administrative costs will arise and in order to cover these costs it would be interesting to see whether or not it possible to optimize SIX Harcourt HFXS Index in purpose of achieving a outperformance which could cover any administrative costs for setting up the investable version. Also, since the optimized version must replicate the standard SIX Harcourt HFXS Index it must maintain a certain level of correlation. This thesis, which is based on a positivistic epistemology, is built upon a quantitative case study where SIX Harcourt HFXS Index is optimized in purpose of achieving an outperformance in terms of the risk-adjusted return. The optimization uses an adjusted mean-variance methodology and is limited to a maintained correlation above 0,9 towards the standard SIX Harcourt HFXS Index. The optimization is created through the use of an Excel application created by Harcourt Investment Consulting. Also, based on the outperformance by Swedish hedge funds compared to global hedge funds, this study aims to show the effect of incorporating Swedish hedge funds in a traditional portfolio consisting of equities and bonds. This effect is analyzed by the use of several performance-and risk measures. The study shows that it is possible to optimize SIX Harcourt HFXS Index and produce an outperformance of approximately 1,5% per annum with a maintained correlation above 0,9. It also shows that the effect of incorporating Swedish hedge funds to a traditional portfolio is positive in regards to both risk and return.

Umeå University, Sweden, 2013 Title: Mindre avvikelse från detaljplan - Kartläggning och undersökning av tillåtna mindre avvikelser från detaljplan i Umeå kommun år 2012 English title: Minor deviation from local plan – Survey and analysis of allowed minor deviations from local plan in the municipality of Umeå, Sweden year 2012 Author: Elise Ljung Language: Swedish, with an English abstract Department: Department of Geography and Economic History   The aim with this essay is to analyse the frequency of minor deviations from the local plans in the municipality of Umeå year 2012. The analysis includes what kind of building arrangements that are deviating from the local plan, in what way these buildings are deviating, what kind of buildings that are concerned of deviations and what kind of applicants that apply for building permits that are deviating from the local plan. The provisions that are concerning minor deviations are presented in the results. The analyse is also investigating why deviations are made from the social plans and how the spatial distribution of minor deviations are in the municipality of Umeå and the urban areas of Umeå.   The survey is made from datasets provided by the office of building permits in the municipality of Umeå. The data has been encoded and categorised into four main categories; Type of applicant, type of building, type of building arrangement and type of deviation from local plan. The mapping of data has been made using the property map provided by the Ordnance Survey of the municipality of Umeå.   According to the survey extensions of buildings applied for by private housing owners are the most common minor deviations that are allowed and the deviation from the plan are placement of the extension part. The minor deviations are not a spatial phenomenon in the municipality of Umeå. The occurrence of minor deviations is evenly distributed in the municipality and in the urban areas as well. Provisions of the Planning -and Building act says that a minor deviation from the local plan can be made under conditions that the deviation is small and do not contradicts against the aim of the local plan.

ITAB Shop Concept är ett multinationellt företag som utvecklar, tillverkar, säljer samt installerar inredningskoncept och produkter till butikskedjor. En del av denna produktion innefattar tillverkning av kassadiskar, vilka består av komplexa produktstrukturer med hundratals ingående komponenter. På grund av att ITAB upplevde att komponenter saknades vid start av kassadiskmontaget, gavs uppdraget att undersöka orsakerna till detta. Studiens syfte var att kartlägga och analysera orsaker till störningar i ledtider som påverkar tillgängligheten på komponenter till monteringsavdelningen på ITAB Shop Concept Jönköping samt ge rekommendationer. Produktionen av kassadiskar var helt kundorderstyrd och produktionsplanering skedde med hjälp av affärssystemet Jeeves Universal. Metoden som användes var materialbehovsplanering, vilket innebär att planeringen av tillverkning och inköp baseras på kassadiskarnas produktstrukturer, lagersaldon och ledtider. ITAB producerade mellan 50-60 kassadiskar vid högsäsong och mellan 30-40 stycken vid lågsäsong. Vid insamlingen av dataunderlaget undersöktes tillverkningsorder som inte var startklara vid planerat startdatum. Detta gjordes genom daglig mätning, där samtliga tillverkningsorder inspekterades för att utläsa vilka komponenter som hade brist mot lager. Mätningarna visade att egenproducerade komponenter utgjorde drygt hälften av bristerna medan inköpta utgjorde ungefär en femtedel. Resterande brister berodde på så kallade fästelement, vilket är ett samlingsnamn för bland annat skruvar och muttrar. Dessa komponenter är lågvärdesartiklar och med hjälp av en bättre styrningsmetod skulle detta problemet kunna reduceras. Bättre rutiner för snabbinventering skulle behöva införas för att förhindra att minussaldon uppstår. Detta gäller inte enbart fästelement utan för samtliga artiklar i produktionen. För egenproducerade komponenter identifierades i vilka produktionsgrupper en störning i ledtiden först uppstod. För sex av dessa studerades rutinerna mer djupgående för att utreda varför störningar hade uppstått. De problem som identifierades var bland annat bristande rapporteringar och att data i Jeeves inte överensstämde med verkligheten. För två av produktionsgrupperna var den utförda arbetstiden mer än 50 respektive 80 procent längre än planerad. Detta medförde att planerad beläggning inte var tillförlitlig och operatörerna i dessa produktionsgrupper hade svårt att hinna med. För att förbättra detta och få en bättre planering bör regelbunden uppdatering av ställ- och stycktider utföras. Mätningarna visade även på tydliga felaktigheter mellan verkliga lagersaldon och de registrerade i Jeeves. En av anledningarna till detta var bristande rutiner vid kassationer. Då en kassation uppstod rapporterade operatören detta, men det kunde ta lång tid innan det noterades av produktionsplanerna på grund av hur planeringen i affärssystemet var uppbyggt. Eftersom produktionen var direkt kundorderstyrd innebar en kassation att en ny akut tillverkningsorder behövde släppas. Därför är det viktigt att dessa tidigt behandlas för att inte brist ska uppstå. Efter att en akutorder har släppts är det även viktigt att denna prioriteras i produktionen, vilket gjordes genom att produktionsledarna lämnade ut en lista till berörda produktionsgrupper. Detta skulle istället kunna göras med hjälp av Jeeves, eftersom systemet är försett med möjligheten att använda prioriteringskoder. Ett annat problem som identifierades i ett par produktionsgrupper var att körplanen som Jeeves utformat inte följdes. För plockning av material användes istället en lista baserad på när kundorder skulle vara klara. Detta medförde att material plockades samtidigt till monteringen och lackeringen, trots att lackering utförs innan montering. Därför bör truckförarna för kassadiskplocket följa körplanen för att säkerställa att material har plockats fram i rätt tidpunkt till respektive operation. För en av produktionsgrupperna var det svårt att följa körplanen och för att lösa detta behöver bättre förståelse för andras arbetsrutiner utvecklas hos personalen. Genom ett bättre samarbete mellan och inom produktionsgrupperna skulle det vara enklare för vissa produktionsgrupper att genomföra sitt arbete. För inköpta komponenter är det många variabler som påverkar och de problem som datainsamlingen påvisade var att inleveranser ofta blev stående i godsmottagningen. Detta medförde att materialet inte blev tillgängligt i affärssystemet även om det fysiskt fanns tillgängligt i produktionsanläggningen. En annan observation som gjordes var att material ofta beställdes till samma dag som det skulle användas i produktionen. Detta innebar att materialet behövde levereras i rätt tid från leverantörerna för att inte brist skulle uppstå. Eftersom ledtiderna för anskaffning av material var korta ställs större krav, något som inte återspeglades tillbaka på leverantörerna. Utifrån studiens resultat blev det tydligt att ITAB behöver fokusera mer på tillgänglighet av material. Därför kan det vara av intresse att undersöka huruvida det är ett felaktigt fokus i produktionen. Genom ITABs fokusering på leveransprecision och slutdatum uppstod suboptimering och operatörerna hade ingen helhetsuppfattning över tillgänglighet. Därför är det rimligt att fokusering på tillgänglighet och startdatum istället skulle skapa bättre balans i produktionen, vilket skulle kunna leda till ökad produktivitet. / ITAB Shop Concept is a multinational company that develops, manufactures, sells and installs interior design concepts and products to retail chain stores. A part of this production includes manufacturing of checkouts, which have complex product structures with hundreds of components. This thesis came to because ITAB experienced that components were missing at the start of the checkout assembly. The purpose of this thesis was to identify and analyze the causes of lead-time deviations that affect the availability of components to the assembly section at ITAB Shop Concept in Jönköping and give recommendations. The production of checkouts was completely customer-driven and the production planning was done with the ERP-system Jeeves Universal. The method used was material requirements planning, which base the production planning for purchasing and self-production on the product structures of the checkouts and also on inventory levels and lead times. ITAB produced between 50-60 checkouts at peak season and 30-40 in the off-season. To collect data material, every manufacturing order, which wasn’t ready to the planned start, was examined. This was done by making daily measurements, where all manufacturing orders were inspected to deduce which components had a shortage of stock. The measurements showed that self-produced components contributed to slightly more than half of the shortages while purchased components constituted of approximately one-fifth. The remaining shortages were due to screws and brackets. These components are low-cost products and by using a better inventory control method, the risk of shortages for these could be reduced. Better procedures for rapid update of inventory would also be necessary in order to prevent the occurrence of negative inventory balance. This applies not only to screws and brackets but for all components in the production. For self-produced components, production groups could be identified where a disturbance in lead-time first emerged. For six of these, routines where examined in more detail to investigate why the disturbance had occurred. The problems that were identified were for instance lack of reporting and that the data in Jeeves didn’t correspond to the reality. For two of the production groups, the reported work time was more than 50 percent and 80 percent longer than planned. This meant that scheduled availability was unreliable and the operators of these production groups had a hard time keeping up. To improve this and get a better production plan, planned work time and setup time should be regularly updated. The measurements also showed clear errors between actual inventory levels and the levels registered in Jeeves. One reason for this was found to be inadequate procedures for wasting. When wastage occurred, the operator reported this but then it could take a while before the production planner noted this because of how the planning was structured in the ERP-system. Since production was directly customer-driven, a new urgent manufacturing order had to be released. Therefore it’s important that these cases are noted early to avoid that shortages occur. When an urgent manufacturing order has been released, it’s also important that this order is prioritized within the production. At the time of this thesis, this was done by the production managers who gave out a list of urgent orders to the production groups. This could instead be performed with the help of Jeeves, as the system already is equipped with the ability to use priority codes. Another problem that was identified in a few productions groups was that the dispatch list that Jeeves generated wasn’t followed. Instead the operators in charge of transporting components to the assembly section and painting area used a list based on the orders completion date. This meant that the components were delivered at the same time to both these production groups, even though the painting should be done before the assembly takes place. Therefore, truck drivers for checkout components should follow the dispatch list in order to make sure that materials are transported to the correct operation at the correct time. Although, for one of the operations, it would be difficult to follow the dispatch list because many orders are combined. To solve this, personnel need to have better understanding of each other’s work routines. Through better collaborations between and within the productions groups, a better work situation could evolve. For purchase components, there are many variables that influence and one of the problems that were identified was that deliveries often were left standing in the receiving area. This meant that the material wasn’t available in the ERP-system even though the material was available within the production plant. Another observation that was made was that materials often were ordered to the same day it would be used in the production. This meant that the material had to be delivered on time from suppliers in order to avoid that shortages would occur. Given that the lead times for procurement of materials were short, it requires higher demands. These demands were not reflected back to the suppliers, which should be the case. Based on the results of this study, it became clear that ITAB has to focus more on the availability of materials. Therefore, it may be of interest to investigate whether right focus is used or not. While ITAB is focusing on delivery precision and completion dates, the operations were sub-optimized and the operators didn’t have a whole view of the material flow. It is therefore reasonable to believe that focus on availability and start date instead would create a better balance in the material flow, which could lead to increased productivity.

Social work is a profession where documentation about people’s behavior and life circumstances is common. In the beginning of the essay we ask ourselves, if these descriptions about people can be problematic? To explore this, we studied social documentation, from the past. We used a historical source because history can help usunderstand the social work that is being conducted today. The aim of our study was to findout how early welfare work defined and described deviant behavior in child care issues, and how the child care agency handled these issues. Out method was a document analysis off the children’s care protocols in Kalmar, from 1929 to 1937. We present our results along with two illustrative case descriptions. Our theoretical approaches are Howard S Becker and Erwing Goffman´s theories of deviation. Their conclusion is that deviation is created by society, not by individuals or their actions. Since cases of children’s neglect and cases with deviant children were common and well documented we focused our empirical presentation on what was included in these terms. Children’s neglect cases focused on parent’s inability to provide the child with proper food, clothes, housing and similar factors. We also found that they made a distinction between mothers and fathers responsibility in these cases. Regarding the deviant children they also made a distinction between the sexes, identifying different behaviors deviant for girls andboys. Though some factors, such as being a illegitimate child and being unreliable is a definition used on both sexes. Since, according to our theories, deviation is created by our society our conclusion is that both children’s neglect and problem children can be seen as a result of societies expectations, and we present examples of how that can be understood in our analyze. In our final discussion we discuss how the definition of deviant behavior is relevant today. We discuss our findings in relation to BBIC, a Swedish child protection investigation guide. Our conclusion is that we still create deviations through documentation.

In view of the current situation of fluctuating high crude oil prices, it is now more important than ever for petroleum refineries to operate at an optimal level in the present dynamic global economy. Acknowledging the shortcomings of deterministic models, this work proposes a hybrid of stochastic programming formulations for an optimal midterm refinery planning that addresses three factors of uncertainties, namely price of crude oil and saleable products, product demand, and production yields. An explicit stochastic programming technique is utilized by employing compensating slack variables to account for violations of constraints in order to increase model tractability. Four approaches are considered to ensure both solution and model robustness: (1) the Markowitz’s mean–variance (MV) model to handle randomness in the objective coefficients of prices by minimizing variance of the expected value of the random coefficients; (2) the two-stage stochastic programming with fixed recourse approach via scenario analysis to model randomness in the right-hand side and left-hand side coefficients by minimizing the expected recourse penalty costs due to constraints’ violations; (3) incorporation of the MV model within the framework developed in Approach 2 to minimize both the expectation and variance of the recourse costs; and (4) reformulation of the model in Approach 3 by adopting mean-absolute deviation (MAD) as the risk metric imposed by the recourse costs for a novel application to the petroleum refining industry. A representative numerical example is illustrated with the resulting outcome of higher net profits and increased robustness in solutions proposed by the stochastic models.

Syfte: Studera sju portföljer och notera den bästa typen av portfölj med högst avkastning till lägst risk. Metod: Sekundärdata är grunden för uträkning av samtliga portföljers avkastningar, risker och korrelation. Studien är deduktiv med kvantitativa inslag av kända teorier av nobelpristagare i ekonomisk vetenskap.  Slutsats: Studien visar att stora bolag i olika branscher är ett vinnande portföljinnehåll för denna studie. Stora bolags aktier har visat högre avkastning till lägre risk jämfört med små bolag under studiens tid då ekonomiska kriser drabbade marknaden. Den mest presterande portföljen var därför storbolagsportföljen. Vidare forskning: Längre tidsperspektiv och nya teorier som Jensens alfa samt Treynorkvot är av intresse för vidare forskning för att styrka vår slutsats. / Intention: To study seven portfolios and note the best type of portfolio with the maximum return at a minimum risk. Method: Secondary data is the basis for calculation of the total portfolio returns, risk and correlation. This study is deductive based using a quantitative method of world-known theories of Nobel laureates in economic sciences. Conclusion: The study shows that the best efficient portfolio contains large companies in different lines of business. Large companies' shares have higher returns at lower risk compared to small companies in circumstances to difficult economic situations globally. The best performed portfolio was the portfolio with large companies.                                       Further Research: Longer period of time study and a study of new theories such as Jensens Alfa and Tretnor ratio would be interesting for further research.

The aim of this thesis has been to provide the reader with an intuitive insight into the mechanisms of the Coriolis effect. Apart from thoroughly describing the phenomenon, the essay attempts to eliminate as many myths prevailing around the Coriolis effect as possible. To get there, only a few mathematical derivations and calculations have been presented – the focus has been on a pure conceptual level. Furthermore, delusive textbook explanations have been examined and discussed in case studies. In the conclusion, the goal is reached by summarising the sought intuitive description of the Coriolis effect into one single sentence.

Sample average approximation (SAA) is a well-known solution methodology for traditional stochastic programs which are risk neutral in the sense that they consider optimization of expectation functionals. In this thesis we establish sample average approximation methods for two classes of non-traditional stochastic programs. The first class is that of stochastic min-max programs, i.e., min-max problems with expected value objectives, and the second class is that of expected value constrained stochastic programs. We specialize these SAA methods for risk-averse stochastic problems with a bi-criteria objective involving mean and mean absolute deviation, and those with constraints on conditional value-at-risk. For the proposed SAA methods, we prove that the results of the SAA problem converge exponentially fast to their counterparts for the true problem as the sample size increases. We also propose implementation schemes which return not only candidate solutions but also statistical upper and lower bound estimates on the optimal value of the true problem. We apply the proposed methods to solve portfolio selection and supply chain network design problems. Our computational results reflect good performance of the proposed SAA schemes. We also investigate the effect of various types of risk-averse stochastic programming models in controlling risk in these problems.

La présente étude examine les causes de déchéance du droit à limitation de responsabilité du transporteur maritime de marchandises. En règle générale, les plafonds d’indemnisation fixés par les conventions internationales écartent la réparation intégrale du préjudice causé par le transporteur maritime de marchandises. Cependant, il est également prévu un certain nombre de causes de déchéance de ce droit à limitation, pour lesquelles les conditions d’application diffèrent d’une convention internationale à l’autre (Règles de La Haye, Règles de La Haye-Visby, Règles de Hambourg et Règles de Rotterdam). Parallèlement, les tribunaux nationaux, par le recours à des notions propres de leurs systèmes juridiques, modifient l’étendue des causes de déchéance de ce droit. En somme, la déchéance du droit à limitation de responsabilité variera selon la convention internationale appliquée et selon la juridiction compétente. Ce qui, en définitive, porte atteinte à la structuration rationnelle du régime de responsabilité du transporteur maritime dans sa globalité et à l’objectif d’uniformisation poursuivi jusqu’ici. / This study examines the institutions capable to deprive the sea carriers from the benefit of limitation of liability. In general, the package limitation provisions settled by international maritime conventions reject the full compensation of damages caused by the shipowning companies. However, this rule can be mitigated. Some specific conducts can bar the carrier from the benefit of limitation of liability. The conventions on international transport of goods (the Hague Rules, the Hague-Visby Rules, the Hamburg Rules and the Rotterdam Rules) have set out differently the conditions required to deprive the carrier of the right to limit responsibility. Concurrently, national courts, through the use of specific concepts, have modified the scope of the right of such limitation. In sum, the conducts barring limitation of liability will vary according to the International Convention applied and according to the relevant competent court. This, ultimately, undermines the rational organization of the maritime liability system and adversely affects the objective of uniformity in this matter.