Background and aim: All of the publicly listed companies in the EU have since January 2005 been required to implement the new international accounting standard IAS/IFRS in their financial statements. One of the new regulations that were included in the standard was the IAS 40 – Investment Property, which regulates the valuation and reporting of a company’s investment properties. IAS 40 introduced two different approaches to valuate investment properties; the cost method and the fair value method. The latter one created debate and controversy because of concerns regarding its applicability on assets not traded on an efficient market. The foundation of the fair value method is to value an asset to its fair value, which is the amount that can be expected to be received if the asset would have been sold the time of the valuation. If an asset is regularly traded on an efficient market the information of the value can be retrieved directly from recent market transactions. However, if the asset is not traded on an efficient market the management needs to make own assumptions when assessing the value, which is thus subject to bias. This creates opportunities for the management to manipulate the earnings. The purpose of this study is to determine whether Swedish real estate companies use the fair value method as a tool to manipulate earnings by implementing earnings management techniques. Methodology: Two hypotheses were developed to answer the research question. They were tested by conducting a statistical analysis. Hypothesis 1 was tested by performing a linear regression analysis and the second hypothesis was tested by a chi-square-test. Result and conclusion: The results from statistical analysis were ambiguous. Although a specific earnings management technique could not be proven to be used it was not possible to eliminate the possibility of real estate companies performing some kind of earnings management technique to manipulate the earnings. / Bakgrund och syfte: I januari 2005 introducerades en internationell redovisningsstandard, IAS/IFRS, som alla börsnoterade företag i EU var tvungna att implementera. Ett av de många nya regelverk som infördes var IAS 40 – Förvaltningsfastigheter som reglerade värderingen och redovisningen av ett företags förvaltningsfastigheter. IAS 40 introducerade två nya metoder för att hantera redovisningen av förvaltningsfastigheter; cost-metoden och fair value-metoden. Den sistnämnda blev debatterad och ansågs kontroversiell då det funderingar skapades över dess tillämpning på tillgångar som inte handlades på en effektiv marknad. Fair value-metoden syftar till att värdera en tillgång till dess verkliga värde, vilket är det belopp som kan förväntas fås vid en eventuell avyttring vid värderingstillfället. Om en tillgång regelbundet handlas på en effektiv marknad kan information inhämtas direkt ifrån nyligen genomförda marknadstransaktioner. Om en tillgång emellertid inte handlas på en negativ marknad måste företagsledningen formulera egna antaganden när värdet beräknas vilket skapar utrymme för subjektivitet och som då kan utnyttjas av företagsledningen för att manipulera resultatet. Studiens syfte är att fastställa huruvida svenska fastighetsföretag använder fair value-metoden som ett verktyg för att manipulera ressultatet genom att implementera earnings management-tekniker. Metod: Två hypoteser formulerades i studien för att besvara frågeställningen. De prövades genom att utföra en statistisk analys. Hypotes 1 prövades genom en linjär regressionsanalys och hypotes 2 prövades genom att utföra ett chi-två-test. Resultat och slutsats: Resultatet från den statistiska analysen var tvetydig. Då även om användadet av en specifik earnings management-teknik inte kunde statistiskt visas var det inte möjligt att eliminera det faktum att earnings management i någon form kan förekomma för att manipulera resultaten.

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This essay aims to analyse the motives behind President Donald Trump’s choice to remove Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH), a provision of the 1968 Fair Housing Act. The true motives are analysed through the lens of Rational Choice theory. The choice of theoretical framework can account as an explanation as to why the law was removed. The essay is moreover based upon drafts originating from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The public has since the removal of the AFFH doubted the motives presented by the President, thus giving room for further scientifical exploration on the subject. The author has chosen to conduct a quantitative text analysis to present the given arguments by the administration and the Republican party and furthermore to present alternative motives. The analysis presents an argumentation analysis to further explore the strength in the arguments presented from the relevant actors. The theoretical framework provides an explanation of the choices made, namely by offering a new dimension in which to examine the true motives behind the choice to remove AFFH.

While there is a concern that Sustainable Tourism has not been entirely adopted in practice (Graci, 2008), this thesis shows that Sustainable Tourism has been implemented by South Korean Tour Operators under the name of Fair Tourism. Fair Tourism is a rising trend as Sustainable Tourism in South Korea, and discussion on this new sector of the industry has increased in recent years (S. Gil Lee, 2016). This thesis adds to that discourse with three research objectives: 1) Define the concept of Fair Tourism. 2) What activities constitute Fair Tourism from practitioners’ viewpoint? 3) Examine how Fair Tour operators manage their sustainable supply chain based on the SCOR model.<div><br></div><div>To understand practitioners’ perception of Fair Tourism, this study has applied social constructionism, which recognized that human beings construct meanings through individual interaction (Walker, 2015). Semi-structured interviews with fifteen Fair Travel operators and thematic analysis have been applied for methodology (Elo & Kyngäs, 2008; McIntosh & Morse, 2015). This study has two significant findings. First, the findings have revealed a generally accepted definition of Fair Tourism by both researchers and operators. The definition includes Ensuring Economic Contribution to The Destination, Environmental and Social Sustainability, and Mutually Respectful Relationship. This generally acknowledged definition has helped Fair Tour operators develop the sector. Second, this thesis found that operators genuinely respect their suppliers. Operators regard their suppliers as partners who share responsibilities and benefits, leading to satisfactory outcomes for all partners (Macaulay et al., 1999). Their relationship with partners is long-term and deep rather than transactional.</div><div><br></div><div>Theoretically, this thesis contributed to the finding that Sustainable Tourism can be practicable under the name of Fair Tourism, demonstrating practitioners’ replies that are 100 percent consistent. This study applied a novel approach, focusing on the operators’ point of view, while previous studies on Fair Tourism focused on defining the term and the industry's demand (Byun, 2016; M.-K. Kim & Cho, 2019; Shin et al., 2018). Given that Supply Chain Operations Reference (SCOR) model has been developed for the analysis of the manufacturing industry, this study has advanced this manufacturing performance measurement framework and applied it to the tourism industry.</div>

In this thesis a general framework and accompanying guidelines for how to classify financial instruments within the fair value hierarchy (included within IFRS 13) is presented. IFRS 13 introduces a broad and loosely defined regulation of how to classify a financial instrument which leaves room for misinterpretation and uncertainties. In this thesis the pricing of financial instruments and behaviour of the market data used as inputs in the models has been investigated. This is to give better insight into what is classified as significant market data, how it is used and how it is approximated. Instruments that have been investigated are autocalls, swaps, European options and Asian options. The result is presented as general recommendations for how to classify the specified instruments with clearer boarders introduced between the levels in the hierarchy. Methods and deductions introduced in the thesis could also further be implemented in classification of closely related financial instruments but has been limited in this thesis due to time restrictions.     Nyckelord på svenska IFRS, Finansiella instrument, Klassificering, Fair value, Fair value hierarchy, Autocall, Swap, Europeisk option, Asiatisk option, Implicit volatilitet, Korrelation, Marknadsaktivitet, Räntesatser / I denna uppsats är ett generellt ramverk och medföljande riktlinjer för hur man klassificerar finansiella instrument inom fair value hierarkin (inkluderad i IFRS 13) presenterat. IFRS 13 introducerar en bred och löst definierad regulation om hur klassificering finansiella instrument ska gå till som lämnar rum för feltolkningar och oklarheter. I denna uppsats har prissättningen av finansiella instrument och beteende av marknadsdata som används i modellerna undersökts. Detta ger en bättre inblick i vad som klassificeras som signifikant marknadsdata, hur den används och hur den kan approximeras. Instrument som har undersökts är autocalls, swaps, europeiska optioner och asiatiska optioner. Resultatet presenteras som allmänna rekommendationer för hur man klassificerar de angivna instrumenten med tydligare gränser som införts mellan nivåerna i hierarkin. Metoder och slutsatser som är presenterade i uppsatsen kan även vidare användas vid klassifikation av liknande finansiella instrument men har i denna avhandling begränsats på grund av tidsskäl.

In dieser Ausgabe erfahren Sie, wie elektronische Laborjournale (ELNs) die Laborarbeit revolutionieren, indem sie die Umsetzung der FAIR-Prinzipien unterstützen, den Datenaustausch fördern und damit Transparenz und Reproduzierbarkeit in der Forschung stärken.

In dieser Ausgabe wird die Nationale Forschungsdateninfrastruktur (NFDI) in ihrer aktuellen Struktur (Stand Juli 2024) kurz vorgestellt. Es werden Beispiele für Services und Tools der NFDI-Konsortien und Basisdienste genannt, die Forschende für ein erfolgreiches Forschungsdatenmanagement nutzen können.

For more than two decades there has been a growing niche for ethically sourced coffees, at the same time as a revitalisation and development of sourcing models focused on indicators of coffee quality and measures of taste. Small independent and multinational buyers and roasters have become progressively interested in sourcing coffee in a way that privileges sustainable and/or high quality indicators, and are increasingly engaged in debates about solidarity versus mainstreaming, quantity versus quality, and provider of caffeine versus taste. Research on one coffee producing country, Guatemala, suggests how these debates have affected the historical evolution of the coffee market. This ethnographic study traces the qualifications of Guatemalan coffee and argues that responses to both the enactment of the technologies, as well as the perceived limitations of sourcing models have produced new articulations of ethics and taste. Producers and small entrepreneurs located in Guatemala reconfigure the practices of cultivation, processing, and selling/buying in relation to circulating market indicators. They create locally situated attachments to the coffee through skill transfer and knowledge exchange and in this way they imitate and also transform international valuations of taste, ethics and quality. This thesis works to make visible the range and diversity of processes and agencies involved in the production of markets for ethical coffee and considers coffee as vital and mobile; an active producer of public effects rather than a passive object moved through a commodity network. This view enables a more open, relational and mobile account of both coffee and of ethics, one which is capable of making clear the important and emerging role of taste. This thesis extends the qualifications of coffee to the daily enactments of cultivation and the skills and techniques that work to reveal taste. On this view, taste mediates the agency of the materials in both high quality and sustainable coffees and this expands and extends ethics to interpersonal, material and bodily relations that link producers and consumers in multiple ways.

This dissertation focuses on the interdependency between causality, context and history in selected novels by E.L. Doctorow: The Book of Daniel (1971), Ragtime (1974), Loon Lake (1980), World's Fair (1985) and The Waterworks (1995). Doctorow' s fiction is marked by an apparent paradox: while it underscores fictionalization and sometimes distorts late nineteenth and twentieth century American history, it simultaneously purports to be a valid representation of the past. The novelist's implementation of causality which is a significant component of "the power of freedom", constitutes fiction's ability to convey truth without relying on factuality or "the power of the regime". According to Doctorow, the documented fact is already an interpretation which induces the perception that all documentation is subjective. The author composes fictional contexts that disregard the pretence of reliability in non-fictional texts. Doctorow focuses on how contexts are formed: the contexts are usually defined through the experience of characters who have been exposed to an event or events that were generated by motivations, for example, emotions of fear, racism, conviction, desire and greed, i.e., the catalysts that form history. Each of the novels discussed focuses on various aspects of society and the fate of specific individuals. The Book of Daniel proposes that a human being can only survive physically and spiritually by remaining a social entity. Ragtime focuses on the persistent illusion in history that society is fragmented. The various "faces" of society encountered by the main character in Loon Lake, mirror one another and reflect spiritual poverty. Consequently, Loon Lake demonstrates that the search for personal fulfilment does not require a physical journey, but an inner or spiritual exploration. World's Fair postulates that reality is never exclusively defined by either fortune or misfortune alone. The Waterworks offers perhaps one of the most significant evaluations of history as it perceives that the world in which we live is essentially unknown to us. We have neither the practical means to obtain a total perspective of what occurs in society (especially among politicians and the financially powerful) nor do we have sufficient skills to distinguish what the motivations of individuals' actions really entail. / Thesis (M.A.) Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education, 2000.

This dissertation focuses on the interdependency between causality, context and history in selected novels by E.L. Doctorow: The Book of Daniel (1971), Ragtime (1974), Loon Lake (1980), World's Fair (1985) and The Waterworks (1995). Doctorow' s fiction is marked by an apparent paradox: while it underscores fictionalization and sometimes distorts late nineteenth and twentieth century American history, it simultaneously purports to be a valid representation of the past. The novelist's implementation of causality which is a significant component of "the power of freedom", constitutes fiction's ability to convey truth without relying on factuality or "the power of the regime". According to Doctorow, the documented fact is already an interpretation which induces the perception that all documentation is subjective. The author composes fictional contexts that disregard the pretence of reliability in non-fictional texts. Doctorow focuses on how contexts are formed: the contexts are usually defined through the experience of characters who have been exposed to an event or events that were generated by motivations, for example, emotions of fear, racism, conviction, desire and greed, i.e., the catalysts that form history. Each of the novels discussed focuses on various aspects of society and the fate of specific individuals. The Book of Daniel proposes that a human being can only survive physically and spiritually by remaining a social entity. Ragtime focuses on the persistent illusion in history that society is fragmented. The various "faces" of society encountered by the main character in Loon Lake, mirror one another and reflect spiritual poverty. Consequently, Loon Lake demonstrates that the search for personal fulfilment does not require a physical journey, but an inner or spiritual exploration. World's Fair postulates that reality is never exclusively defined by either fortune or misfortune alone. The Waterworks offers perhaps one of the most significant evaluations of history as it perceives that the world in which we live is essentially unknown to us. We have neither the practical means to obtain a total perspective of what occurs in society (especially among politicians and the financially powerful) nor do we have sufficient skills to distinguish what the motivations of individuals' actions really entail. / Thesis (M.A.) Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education, 2000.