In order for companies to be competetive on the market, there’s a need of capital. If a company is in a need of capital to make major investments and isn’t able to prioritize internal funding, the priority will be external financing with safe securities; loans. How companies should prioritize the allocation between equity and debt, which together form value, leads us to the subject of capital structure. The purpose of the study is to examine what possible relationship; P/E-ratio, tangible assets, size, profitability and inflation have on leverage, for listed companies on the Stockholm Stock Exchange between the years 2008-2012. The study use a quantitative method of a collection of annual report data. The conclution shows that P/E ratio, tangible assets and inflation have no relationship with leverage. Size showed the strongest positive relationship and profitability of the strongest negative relationship. The authors conclude that the trade-off theory, both contradict and support the results of the study and the authors find support for the Pecking order theory.

This thesis addresses different questions regarding the rate, efficiency, and accuracy of peptide bond formation with natural as well as unnatural amino acids: Which step is rate-limiting during peptide bond formation? How does the accuracy vary with different transfer RNAs (tRNAs) and codons and how is it relevant to the living cells? Does proofreading selection of codon reading occur in a single- or multi-step manner as theoretically suggested? How does the E. coli translation system discriminate unnatural amino acids? Based on that, how to improve the incorporation efficiencies of unnatural amino acids? Based on the study on pH dependence of peptide bond formation, we show that the rate of the chemistry of peptidyl transfer to aminoacyl-tRNA (AA-tRNA) Gly-tRNAGly or Pro-tRNAPro limits the rate of peptide bond formation at physiological pH 7.5, and this could possibly be true for peptidyl transfer to all natural AA-tRNAs at physiological condition. By studying the efficiency-accuracy trade-off for codon reading by seven AA-tRNA containing ternary complexes, we observe a large variation on the accuracy of initial codon selection and identify several error hot-spots. The maximal accuracy varied 400-fold from 200 to 84000 depending on the tRNA identity, the type and position of the mismatches. We also propose a proofreading mechanism that contains two irreversible steps in sequence. This could be highly relevant to the living cells in relation to maintaining both high accuracy and high efficiency in protein synthesis. Finally, we show that peptide bond formation with small and large non-N-alkylated L- unnatural amino acids proceed at rates similar to those with natural amino acids Phe and Ala on the ribosome. Interestingly, the large side chain of the bulky unnatural amino acid only weakens its binding for elongation factor Tu (EF-Tu) but not slows down peptidyl transfer on the ribosome. Our results also suggest that the efficiency of unnatural amino acid incorporation could be improved in general by increasing EF-Tu concentration, lowering the reaction temperature and / or using tRNA bodies with optimal affinities for EF-Tu in the translation system.

There have been increased efforts to develop methods for improving attention across a range of tasks including those assessing sustained attention. Using a variety of techniques, researchers have reported modest reductions in errors on sustained attention tasks. However, published reports often have not documented changes in response times (RTs) that might accompany error reductions, which is problematic given that the error reductions could be mediated by a slowing strategy (i.e., speed-accuracy trade-off). In three studies, I explored the effects of speed-accuracy trade-offs in a sustained attention task (The Sustained Attention to Response Task; SART). In Study 1, I examined the effects of changing SART instructions from the double-edged "be fast and accurate" to the more conceptually accurate goal of maintaining high accuracy by responding slowly and carefully, and found that instructions to respond slowly and accurately resulted in both significantly longer RTs and fewer SART errors. In Studies 2 and 3, I developed a modified version of the SART that allowed me to experimentally manipulate RTs and found that errors were a systematic function of manipulated differences in RT independent of individual differences in response strategies. The results of these experiments indicate that it is possible that any technique that alters RT might indirectly alter error rates independently of improvements in sustained attention. I therefore conclude that investigators need to carefully attend to, control for, and report any changes in RT that accompany improvements in accuracy of performance, or alternatively employ tasks controlling for RT.

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Cost of debt is a key cognitive anchor for managerial decisions and an important determinant of firm profitability. We extend international management research by analyzing the effects of institutional distance, institutional quality, and their dynamics on the cost of debt in the context of foreign direct investments (FDI). We test our conceptual model on a sample of companies making 3,764 greenfield foreign direct investments from developed into less developed markets. Using hierarchical linear modelling, we show that the financial consequences of internationalizing into countries with weak institutions depend on both the institutional distance between countries, as well as their institutional quality. Furthermore, we find that recent changes in institutional quality form expectations about future development and ultimately influence post investment financing costs.

Denna uppsats undersöker hur ett företags skuldsättningsgrad påverkar dess lönsamhet och hur detta samband påverkas av en ekonomisk nedgång. En ekonomisk nedgång har studien likställt med finanskrisen 2008-2009. För att undersöka sambandet används en regressionsmodell som tar hänsyn till att ett potentiellt omvänt samband föreligger mellan skuldsättningsgrad och lönsamhet. Resultatet visar att det är ett positivt samband mellan skuldsättningsgrad och lönsamhet före och under finanskrisen, men att sambandet inte är signifikant efter finanskrisen. Förhållandet mellan skuldsättningsgrad och lönsamhet förändras under de tre undersökningsperioderna och blir starkare under krisen och svagare efter krisen. Det funna positiva sambandet mellan skuldsättningsgrad och lönsamhet ger stöd för trade-off teorin och agentteorin och inget stöd för pecking order teorin.

A decision process can be conceptually separated into a perceptual process and a decision strategy. The former includes all the different mechanisms that contribute to accumulate information relevant to the decision, whereas the decision strategy determines when enough information has been accumulated and a decision can be taken. Although perceptual processes have been extensively investigated in the last decades, decision strategies have received comparatively little attention. The main aim of this work is to fill this gap by analysing four decision strategies with two different experimental paradigms. We also focus on ancillary decision-making topics, such as the effect of stimulus intensity, foreperiod duration, payoff manipulation, and the response distributions in the rate domain. We initially performed a qualitative analysis of decision strategies by using a classic reaction time tasks on human participants while assuming the Drift Diffusion Model, one of the many models used for simple and fast decisions, as the perceptual process. We found that increasing the time of the trial does not have a relevant effect on the response, which is in contrast with some of the decision rules considered here. However, this approach is limited by the implicit assumption of a perceptual model that would result in different prediction for the decision strategies. We suggest the use of a different experimental design, called the EXACT Paradigm, which allows us to analyse decision strategies without having to assume any perceptual process. We tested the feasibility of such approach and applied it to several experimental studies, including a direct comparison with a classic reaction time task. Overall, two of the four decision strategies (modified Reward Rate and Reward/Accuracy) appeared to model the data satisfactorily. We discuss several ways in which the EXACT Paradigm can be used for expanding our knowledge in the field of decision-making.

Styrelsen är ett bolags främsta styrorgan med ansvar för flera strategiska funktioner, såsom övervakning, disciplinering och finansiering, med målet att säkerställa att företagsledningen agerar i enlighet med bolagets vision och aktieägarnas avkastningskrav. Omfattande kapitalstrukturbeslut kan kräva styrelsens godkännande innan de förverkligas. Detta kan innefatta valet om bolaget ska använda sig av interna eller externa finansieringskällor, vilket påverkar kapitalstrukturen/skuldsättningsgraden.   Tidigare studier har bl.a. undersökt hur styrelsesammansättning påverkat bolagets kapitalstruktur. Studier har påvisat att styrelsestorlek, styrelsens oberoende, medelålder och kön påverkar kapitalstrukturen, där studierna har utgått från pecking-order och trade-off teorierna Traditionellt har bolagsstyrelser återspeglat sig av en homogen sammansättning, avseende variabler som ålder, kön, etnicitet, vilket bidragit till eniga affärsbeslut. Studier som undersökt utbildning, erfarenheter och expertis (humankapital) bland styrelsemedlemmar har fokuserat på bolagets finansiella prestation och innovationsförmåga. Dock finns det ingen studie tagit hänsyn till humankapitalets påverkan på kapitalstrukturen.   Syftet med studien är att analysera styrelsemedlemmars humankapital och deras påverkan på bolagets kapitalstruktur för bolag listade på svenska börsen. Genom att använda en deduktiv ansats och kvantitativa data är målet att få svar på syftet. Teorier om kapitalstruktur, såsom pecking-order och trade-off, samt teorier om styrelsens egenskaper, upper echelon och resursberoendeteorin har använts. Därtill har hypoteser formulerats, där kvantitativa data inhämtats från årsredovisningar och empiriskt operationaliserats.   Resultatet och slutsatsen av studien är att humankapital hos styrelsen har en påverkan på hur kapitalstrukturen ser ut bland bolagen. Studiens resultat påvisade att humankapitalet bland börsbolagen kan påverka kapitalstruktur både positivt och negativt. Slutsatsen är att humankapitalet i bolagsstyrelser följer trade-off teorin gällande finansieringsvalen, d.v.s. styrelsemedlemmar balanserar för - och nackdelar för att nå en optimal kapitalstruktur.

Quantum state discrimination is a fundamental problem in quantum information science. We investigate the optimal distinguishability of orthogonal two-qubit (bipartite) quantum states. The scenario consists of three parties: Alice, Bob, and Charlie. Charlie prepares one of two orthogonal states and sends one qubit to Alice and the other to Bob. Their goal is to correctly identify which state Charlie sent. In most state discrimination scenarios, it is assumed that Alice and Bob can freely communicate with one another so as to collectively agree on the best guess. In this research, we consider a more restricted setting where only one-way classical communication is possible from Alice to Bob. Under this setting, we study two figures of merit (i) Alice's optimal probability, $P$, of identifying the state , and (ii) Alice's optimal probability, $P^\perp$, of identifying the state along with helping Bob identify the state perfectly. We show that in general $P\neq P^\perp$ and we prove a theorem for when $P=P^\perp$. We also found that the maximum of $P-P^\perp$ can arbitrarily approach $1/2$.

A new hypothesis, The Adaptive Markets Hypothesis (AMH), is applied to the Swedish stockmarket context by testing the variability of the risk-return trade-off over different investment horizons and market environments. Yearly returns and volatility are measured on OMXS30 index between1986 and 2017 over a variety of different investment horizons. Through the sample observations, a number of distinct market environments become apparent. A regression analysis is then used to test the statistical significance of the risk-return relationship. The results show a weak – and varying – statistical relationship between risk and return, implying that risk is not a reliable explanatory variable for average returns. The length of the investment horizon and the market environment the investment is being made in are shown to be influential factors on changes to the risk-return relationship. These findings from the OMXS30 index support the AMH, showing that the risk-return relationship is dynamic and subject to changes over different investment horizons and in different market environments.