<p>In 2005 a new recommendation was implemented, IAS 36 "Impairment of intangible assets". The Swedish translation of the recommendation is RR 17. The previous treatment of impairment of goodwill was to amortize it over a certain amount of years. In order for a company to make impairment, they had to estimate the decrease in value of goodwill to be permanent. The new recommendation RR 17 on the other hand states that goodwill should be impaired as soon as an indication of impairment loss is revealed. This implies that the new recommendation shows the fair value of goodwill. Our problem description is; <em>how does the impairment procedure of goodwill in companies applying RR 17 look like?</em></p><p>In order to reach the purpose of this study, which is to understand the impairment procedure of goodwill, we used four sub questions; (1) How does goodwill arise? (2) How is goodwill divided between cash generating units? (3) How do stock listed business combinations in accordance with RR 17 estimate whether an impairment loss of goodwill exist or not, in cases where goodwill exist, how is it impaired? (4) How is goodwill revalued and how often?</p><p>The study has mainly taken a hermeneutic approach because we strive to understand the impairment procedure of goodwill. We conducted a qualitative study, with semi- structured interviews. Four companies, which operate in somewhat different branches, were chosen in order to get a diversified illustration of different business areas and see if there were any differences between them.</p><p>Our central concepts present general accounting principles as well as accounting principles handling impairment of goodwill, which helps the reader to receive a better understanding of the essential concepts concerning the impairment procedure of goodwill. In the analysis we connect our empirical findings with the central concepts in order to discover more dimensions of the impairment procedure of goodwill.</p><p>The result from our interviews showed that the companies follow the recommendation RR 17. However we could identify some differences between the companies, which we believe are due to the fact that the companies operate in different business areas and are therefore faced with somewhat diverse risks. Further we could link the differences to be correlated to the mindsets and demands of the companies’ auditors.</p><p>Finally we want to make the reader aware of the fact that the recommendation RR 17 has so far only been applied in an economic boom and therefore when we conducted this study the need to impair goodwill was very small.</p><p> </p>

An investigation has been carried out to determine the fundamental reliability unit of copper dual-damascene metallization. Electromigration experiments have been carried out on straight via-to-via interconnects in the lower metal (M1) and the upper metal (M2), and in a simple interconnect tree structure consisting of straight via-to-via line with an extra via in the middle of the line (a "dotted-I"). Multiple failure mechanisms have been observed during electromigration testing of via-to-via Cu interconnects. The failure times of the M2 test structures are significantly longer than that of identical M1 structures. It is proposed that this asymmetry is the result of a difference in the location of void formation and growth, which is believed to be related to the ease of electromigration-induced void nucleation and growth at the Cu/Si₃N₄ interface. However, voids were also detected in the vias instead of in the Cu lines for some cases of early failure of the test lines. These early failures are suspected to be related to the integrity and reliability of the Cu via. Different magnitudes and directions of electrical current were applied independently in two segments of the interconnect tree structure. As with Al-based interconnects, the reliability of a segment in this tree strongly depends on the stress conditions of the connected segment. Beyond this, there are important differences in the results obtained under similar test conditions for Al-based and Cu-based interconnect trees. These differences are thought to be associated with variations in the architectural schemes of the two metallizations. The absence of a conducting electromigration-resistant overlayer in Cu technology allows smaller voids to cause failure in Cu compared to Al. Moreover, the Si₃N₄ overlayer that serves as an interlevel diffusion barrier provides sites for easy nucleation of voids and also provides a high diffusivity path for electromigration. The results reported here suggest that while segments are not the fundamental reliability unit for circuit-level reliability assessments for Al or Cu, vias, rather than trees, might be the appropriate fundamental units for the assessment of Cu reliability. / Singapore-MIT Alliance (SMA)

The United State’s renewable portfolio standards call for a large increase of renewable energy and improved conservation efforts over today’s current system. Wind will play a ma jor role in meeting the renewable portfolio standards. As a result, the amount of wind capacity and generation has been growing exponentially over the past 10 to 15 years. The proposed unit commitment method integrates wind energy into a scheduable resource while keeping the formulation simple using mixed integer programming. A reserve constraint is developed and added to unit commitment giving the forecasted wind energy an effective cost. The reserve constraint can be scaled based on the needs of the system: cost, reliability, or the penetration of wind energy. The results show that approximately 24% of the load can be met in the given test system, while keeping a constant reliability before and after wind is introduced. This amount of wind will alone meet many of the renewable portfolio standards in the United States.

No description available.

Research on auctions that involve more than one identical item for sale was,almost non-existing in the 90’s, but has since then been getting increasing attention. External incentives for this research have come from the US spectrum, sales, the European 3G mobile-phone auctions,  and Internet auctions. The policy relevance and the huge amount of money involved in many of them have helped the theory and experimental research advance. But in auctions where values are equal across bidders, common value auctions, that is, when the value depends on some outside parameter, equal to all bidders, the research is still embryonic. This thesis contributes to the topic with three studies. The first uses a Bayesian game to model a simple multi-unit common value auction, the task being to compare equilibrium strategies and the seller’s revenue from three auction formats; the discriminatory, the uniform and the Vickrey auction. The second study conducts an economic laboratory experiment on basis of the first study. The third study comprises an experiment on the multi-unit common value uniform auction and compares the dynamic and the static environments of this format. The most salient result in both experiments is that subjects overbid. They are victims of the winner’s curse and bid above the expected value, thus earning a negative profit. There is some learning, but most bidders continue to earn a negative profit also in later rounds. The competitive effect when participating in an auction seems to be stronger than the rationality concerns. In the first experiment, subjects in the Vickrey auction do somewhat better in small groups than subjects in the other auction types and, in the second experiment, subjects in the dynamic auction format perform much better than subjects in the static auction format; but still, they overbid. Due to this overbidding, the theoretical (but not the behavioral) prediction that the dynamic auction should render more revenue than the static fails inthe second experiment. Nonetheless, the higher revenue of the static auction comes at a cost; half of the auctions yield negative profits to the bidders, and the winner’s curse is more severely widespread in this format. Besides, only a minority of the bidders use the equilibrium bidding strategy.The bottom line is that the choice between the open and sealed-bid formats may be more important than the choice of price mechanism, especially in common value settings.

This thesis is focussing on the crystallographic challenges and what knowledge we can gain from studying the different open-framework germanates. Five new open-framework germanates have been synthesized and the structures have been determined by single crystal X-ray diffraction. A thorough description is made of the different problems raised with the different compounds, whether it is choice of crystal system in SU-61, twinning and possible ordering in SU-46, superstructure and variation in elemental content in SU-57, template disorder in JLG-5 or framework disorder in SU-44. Open-framework germanates are often built from one type of cluster, such as the Ge7 [Ge7X19], Ge8 [Ge8X20], Ge9 [Ge9Xn, n =25-26] and Ge10 [Ge10X28], (X =O, OH, F) clusters. The structures built by clusters containing different kinds of polyhedra are discussed, with a focus on the 4-coordinated Ge7 clusters, the larger cluster aggregate found in SU-8 and SU-44 and the structures built by the Ge10 clusters.

Trade openness, market size, transparency, ease of doing business, location advantagesand low levels of corruption and country risk are the main determinants that attractForeign Direct Investment into a host country. FDI inflows in México have increasedremarkably since 1994 when the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) cameinto effect. Using multiple regression analysis in order to measure the impact of FDI onGDP; the Empirical results showed that a one percent increase in FDI leads on average toan increase of 0.08 percent in GDP which clearly reflects a positive but neither animportant nor a substantial impact of FDI on economic growth in México as it would beexpected. Time series data analysis for the period 1980-2007 has been tested for UnitRoot by applying the Dickey-Fuller (DF) test. Each time series after the first differencebecomes stationary and therefore it might be a causal relationship among the variables.However, FDI will not have a real impact on the society unless there is an effective stockof Human Capital capable of learning and absorbing the know-how to work successfullywith the technology that Multinational Corporations bring into the host country with theirinvestment. The challenge for the Mexican Government is to create structural reformssuch as the deregulation of energy and oil sector for private investment that will lead toconstantly higher flows of FDI. In the medium term this will then be reflected in thesociety in terms of poverty reduction and development of its population.

Abstract The main objective of our paper is to investigate whether expansion in exports can lead to improve economic growth of Sub-Saharan African countries for the period 1970-2006. Four macro economic indicators (real GDP, Trade balance, Government expenditure and Investment) are used in our model to carry out our analysis concerning Sub Saharan African countries. Time series techniques such as unit root test (Augmented Dickey Fuller test) and co integration test (Johansen’s procedure) are used to find out whether there is a long run relationship between economic growth and trade balance. The results of the unit root test indicate that all series are stationary after first difference, with I (1). Johansen’s co integration test showed that co integration (long run relationship) exists between GDP and Trade balance, as we got significant eigenvalues and found co integration between all of the four variables which shows that they are co integrated with each other and indicates a long run relationship. Our results indicate that for the time period of 1970 to 2006, Sub Saharan African countries experienced a simultaneous increase in economic growth and trade balance as well as in investment and Govt expenditure.   Key words: exports, economic growth, unit root, co integration, Sub-Saharan Africa

In 2005 a new recommendation was implemented, IAS 36 "Impairment of intangible assets". The Swedish translation of the recommendation is RR 17. The previous treatment of impairment of goodwill was to amortize it over a certain amount of years. In order for a company to make impairment, they had to estimate the decrease in value of goodwill to be permanent. The new recommendation RR 17 on the other hand states that goodwill should be impaired as soon as an indication of impairment loss is revealed. This implies that the new recommendation shows the fair value of goodwill. Our problem description is; how does the impairment procedure of goodwill in companies applying RR 17 look like? In order to reach the purpose of this study, which is to understand the impairment procedure of goodwill, we used four sub questions; (1) How does goodwill arise? (2) How is goodwill divided between cash generating units? (3) How do stock listed business combinations in accordance with RR 17 estimate whether an impairment loss of goodwill exist or not, in cases where goodwill exist, how is it impaired? (4) How is goodwill revalued and how often? The study has mainly taken a hermeneutic approach because we strive to understand the impairment procedure of goodwill. We conducted a qualitative study, with semi- structured interviews. Four companies, which operate in somewhat different branches, were chosen in order to get a diversified illustration of different business areas and see if there were any differences between them. Our central concepts present general accounting principles as well as accounting principles handling impairment of goodwill, which helps the reader to receive a better understanding of the essential concepts concerning the impairment procedure of goodwill. In the analysis we connect our empirical findings with the central concepts in order to discover more dimensions of the impairment procedure of goodwill. The result from our interviews showed that the companies follow the recommendation RR 17. However we could identify some differences between the companies, which we believe are due to the fact that the companies operate in different business areas and are therefore faced with somewhat diverse risks. Further we could link the differences to be correlated to the mindsets and demands of the companies’ auditors. Finally we want to make the reader aware of the fact that the recommendation RR 17 has so far only been applied in an economic boom and therefore when we conducted this study the need to impair goodwill was very small.

Sammanfattning Bakgrund: Idag närvarar pappor vid det akuta omhändertagandet av sitt barn och har en viktig roll i det nyfödda barnets vård. Närhet mellan föräldrar och barn är avgörande för välbefinnande, anknytning och bindning. Syfte: Syftet med undersökningen var att beskriva vad pappor upplever vid akut omhändertagande av sitt nyfödda barn. Metod: Tio pappor till nyfödda barn, där barnen i direkt anslutning till födseln krävt akut omhändertagande och inläggning på neonatalavdelning, har intervjuats. Intervjuerna har bearbetats med hjälp av kvalitativ innehållsanalys. Resultat: Huvudkategorin som framkom var: Att gå från kaos till kontroll. Underliggande kategorier som framkom var (1) rädsla för det okända, (2) otillräcklighet i förhållande till sig själv och andra, (3) overklighet i den nya situationen, (4) delaktighet i vården av sitt barn och (5) förtroende för vårdpersonalen. Slutsats: Papporna var från början rädda, kände sig otillräckliga och upplevde situationen som overklig. Med hjälp av egna och utifrån kommande resurser, bland annat barnsjuksköterskans omvårdnad och information, fann papporna efter olika lång tid en känsla av att vara delaktiga och ett förtroende för vårdpersonalen, som ledde till en högre känsla av sammanhang, det vill säga KASAM.   Nyckelord: Anknytning, delaktighet, KASAM, neonatalavdelning, / Summary Background: Today fathers are present during acute care of his newborn child and have an important role in the care of the newborn child. Closeness between child and parent is essential to promote wellbeing, attachment and bonding. Purpose: The purpose of the study was to describe what fathers' experience in acute care of their newborn baby. Method: Ten fathers of newborn children, where the child after the birth has been in need of emergency care and hospitalization in a neonatal department, have been interviewed. The interviews have been analyzed using qualitative content analysis. Result: The main category was: Going from chaos to control. The underlying categories that emerged were (1) fear of the unknown, (2) inadequacy in relation to himself and others, (3) unreality in the new situation, (4) participation in the care of his baby and (5) trust of health care staff. Conclusion: Fathers were initially afraid, felt inadequate and experienced the situation as unreal. Using proprietary and extrinsic resources, including pediatric nursing care and information, the fathers found at different phases a sense of ownership and confidence in the care that led to a greater sense of coherence, in other words Salutogenesis.Keywords: Attachment, Neonatal unit, Participation, Salutogenesis,