The purpose of this essay is to describe how Boverkets Byggregler has affected the cost ofnewly built houses from 2003 to 2012, to Boverkets Vision 2025. The purpose is also to findagent-principal relations in the construction sector.When investing in an energy efficient house the operating costs are reduced compared to aconventional house. But due to the lower operating costs, the investment cost rises. In thisstudy, we find out if it is economically viable to invest in an energy efficient house comparedto a conventional house from the customer's perspective.The study's approach has been qualitatively where we in collaboration with Derome Hus hadaccess to three conventional reference houses and a passive house and data that was necessaryto conduct viability assessments on houses. We conducted five interviews with people fromDeromekoncernen and Varbergs kommun.The calculation methods we have used in this study are present value method, annuity methodand a sensitivity analysis. In the present value method, we have calculated all future cashflows to year zero for a fair and comparable pricing to occur. Annuity method allocates theentire investment cost in equal annual annuities. In the sensitivity analysis, we test differentoutcomes in profitability as a result of change in the future price of electricity and districtheating. The electricity price changes we have used in the sensitivity analysis are a priceincrease of 1%, 2% and 3%. The same goes for the price of district heating. We have assumeda calculation time of 20 years and 50 years, where 20 years is the average time a person livesin the same house in Sweden and 50 years is estimated to be the approximate economiclifetime for a house.The results of the study indicate that passive house is the most economically viable option at acalculation time of 50 years. But at a calculation time of 20 years the reference house from2003 is the most profitable option. A principal-agent relation was also located whereFinansinspektionen and Boverket makes it more difficult for an individual to buy a house. / Syftet med denna uppsats är att beskriva hur Boverkets byggregler har påverkat prisbilden förnybyggnation av småhus mellan år 2003 till 2012 och vidare mot Boverkets Vision 2025.Syftet är även att finna de agent-principalsamband som finns inom byggsektorn.Genom att investera i ett mer energieffektivt småhus blir driftskostnaderna mindre jämförtmed ett konventionellt småhus. Men samtidigt som driftskostnaderna blir lägre stigerinvesteringskostnaden. I denna studie tar vi reda på om det är ekonomiskt lönsamt attinvestera i ett energieffektivt småhus jämfört med ett konventionellt småhus utifrån kundensperspektiv.Studiens arbetssätt har varit kvalitativt där vi i samarbete med Derome Hus fått tillgång till 3konventionella referenshus och ett passivhus och de data som var nödvändiga för att utföralönsamhetsbedömningar på husen. Vi har genomfört fem intervjuer med personer frånDeromekoncernen och Varbergs kommun.De beräkningsmetoder vi har använt i studien är nuvärdesmetoden, annuitetsmetoden ochkänslighetsanalys. I nuvärdesmetoden har vi beräknat tillbaks alla framtida kapitalflöden tillår noll för att en rättvis och jämförelsebar prisbild skall uppstå. Annuitetsmetoden fördelarhela investeringskostnaden i lika stora årliga annuiteter. I känslighetsanalysen provar vi olikautfall i lönsamheten till följd av till exempel en förändring i det framtida elpriset. Deelprisförändringar vi har använt i känslighetsanalysen är en prisökning på 1 %, 2 % och 3 %.Detsamma gäller för fjärrvärmepriset. Vi har räknat med en kalkyltid på 20 år och 50 år, där20 år är den genomsnittliga boendetiden i ett hus i Sverige och 50 år beräknas vara denungefärliga ekonomiska livslängden för ett hus.Resultatet i studien visar att passivhuset är det mest ekonomiskt lönsamma alternativet vid enkalkyltid på 50 år. Men vid en kalkyltid på 20 år är referenshuset från 2003 det mestlönsamma alternativet. Ett agent principal-samband lokaliserades också därFinansinspektionen och Boverket gör det betydligt svårare för en privatperson att investera iett småhus.

Immateriella tillgångar debatteras flitigt i företagsekonomiska sammanhang. En immateriell tillgång som har stor betydelse för svenska börsbolag och som stått i centrum av denna debatt är goodwill. Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka hur företag som är i ett behov av att skriva ned sitt goodwillvärde men som inte gjort detta motiverar det beslutet i sin årsredovisning samt bakomliggande faktorer som kan förklara detta. Studien har en kvantitativ ansats där företag noterade på Stockholmsbörsen åren 2005-2010 har studerats och t-test samt multipla regressionsanalyser har genomförts på urvalet. Vi förväntade oss att de undersökta företagen skulle vara generellt sämre på att uppfylla upplysningskraven i IAS 36 än företag som inte är i ett nedskrivningsbehov. Vår undersökning finner att företag som är i ett nedskrivningsbehov av goodwill men som inte gjort denna nedskrivning i stort inte skiljer sig, vad det gäller att lämna upplysningar om goodwill, från företag som inte är i ett nedskrivningsbehov, om än att vissa mindre skillnader konstateras.

In order to succeed, it is imperative that all e-commerce systems include an effective and reliable trust and reputation modeling system. This is particularly true of decentralized e-commerce systems in which autonomous software engage in commercial transactions. Many researchers have sought to overcome the complexities of modeling a subjective, human concept like trust, resulting in several trust and reputation models. While these models each present a unique offering and solution to the problem, several issues persist. Most of the models require direct experience in the e-commerce system in order to make effective trust decisions. This leaves new agents and agents who only casually use the e-commerce system vulnerable. Additionally, the reputation ratings of agents who are relatively new to the system are often indistinguishable from scores for poorly performing agents. Finally, more tactics to defend against agents who exploit the characteristics of the open, distributed system for their own malicious needs are required. To address these issues, a new metric is devised and presented: seniority. Based on agent age and activity level within the e-commerce system, seniority provides a means of judging the credibility of other agents with little or no prior experience in the system. As the results of experimental analysis reveals, employing a reputation model that uses seniority provides considerable value to agents who are new agents, casual buyer agents and all other purchasing agents in the e-commerce system. This new metric therefore offers a significant contribution toward the development of enhanced and new trust and reputation models for deployment in real-world distributed e-commerce environments.

The agent-based micro-simulation modelling technique for transportation planning is rapidly developing and is being applied to practice in recent years. In contrast to conventional four-step modelling with static assignment theory, this emerging technique employs a dynamic assignment principle. Based on summary of various types of traffic assignment models and algorithms, the thesis elucidates in detail the theories of two models, MATSim and EMME/2, which represent two genres of traffic assignment, i.e., dynamic stochastic stationary state assignment and static deterministic user equilibrium assignment. In the study, the two models are compared and validated to reflect both spatial and temporal variation of the traffic flow pattern. The comparison results indicate that numerical outputs produced by MATSim are not only compatible to those by EMME/2 but more realistic from a temporal point of view. Therefore, agent-based micro-simulation models reflect a promising direction of next generation of transportation planning models.

Molecular Imaging provides new aspects in cancer diagnosis and treatment. With the ap-plication of imaging and biological techniques, molecular imaging can monitor molecular and cellular changes of different diseases. To interpret the mechanism of disease, more and more at-tention is focused on the development of new probes for molecular imaging. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a powerful, non-invasive clinical diagnostic tool with high spatial resolution without the limitation of the depth of tissues. Applications of MRI contrast agents can amply the MRI signal during imaging. Many studies have been devoted to developing targeted MR contrast agents. Proteins and peptides have been widely used for target-ing cancer cells in cancer diagnosis and treatments. GRP, gastrin-releasing peptide, is one of a well-characterized group of mammalian bombesin-like peptides. GRP acts through its cell surface receptors, GRP receptor (GRPR). It has been reported that there is a high density of GRP receptors in the majority of prostate carci-noma. In contrast, the GRPRs are not highly expressed in normal cells of most tissues. Thus, this tumor specific expression pattern provides an advantage for cancer targeting. A novel class of MRI contrast agent was designed by adding the Gd3+ binding sites into a stable host protein, the domain 1 of rat CD2. Due to the unique features of the designed metal binding properties, the protein contrast agent (ProCA1) exhibits more than 10-fold enhanced MRI relaxivity compared to that of the more commonly used Gd-DTPA. The high relaxivity of the designed protein contrast agent largely overcomes the major barrier of low sensitivity of MRI techniques. A peptide of ten amino acids from the C-terminal of GRP was grafted onto ProCA1. GRP-grafted protein contrast agents (ProCA1.GRPs) showed the targeting capability to the GRPRs which are over-expressed on prostate cancer cells. Cell MRI Imaging demonstrated that ProCA1.GRP(52) grafted between Lys51 and Ser52 had better targeting capability than C-terminal one. Administration of ProCA1.GRP into xenograft tumor model enhances the contrast in the GRPR+ prostate tumor under MRI and optical imaging. Study demonstrated a potential application for disease marker targeted MR imaging by using our developed protein contrast agent.

Using protein design, a series of metal binding proteins have been designed, allowing the local factors that contribute to metal affinity and thermostability to be studied. Those proteins with the highest metal binding affinities had the lowest apo-form Tm and the largest ÄTm upon metal binding. In this thesis, major steps have been taken toward applying the engineered protein to MR imaging. The progress of magnetic resonance imaging is hindered by low specificity and rapid elimination of FDA-approved MRI contrast agents. The engineered protein contrast agent has been conjugated to a cancer-specific targeting peptide and encapsulated in albumin microspheres to provide tandem passive and active tumor targeting. Also, a simple, high-yield purification method has been developed.

The application of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to non-invasively assess disease biomarkers has been hampered by lack of desired contrast agents with high relaxivity, targeting capability, and optimized pharmacokinetics. We developed a novel MRI probe which targets HER2, a biomarker for various cancers and a target for anti-cancer therapies. This multimodal HER2-targeted MRI probe integrates a rationally designed protein contrast agent with a high affinity HER2 affibody and near IR dye. Our probe can differentially monitor tumors with different HER2 levels in both cells and xenograft mice. In addition to its 10-fold higher dose efficiency compared to clinically-approved agent DTPA, our developed agent also exhibits advantages in crossing the endothelial boundary, tissue distribution, and tumor tissue retention as demonstrated by even distribution of the imaging probe across the entire tumor mass. Additionally, a second series of protein contrast agents that included affibody against EFGR developed with the capability to specifically target EGFR. These contrast agents have been utilized to monitor drug treatments and quantitatively analyze biomarker expression level. Furthermore, we anticipate these agents will provide powerful tools for quantitative assessment of molecular markers, and improved resolution for diagnosis, prognosis and drug discovery.

Vi presenterar i denna uppsats en undersökning av ersättningsformer till VD:ar i svenska publika bolag under perioden 2001-2010. Detta sker då det funnits en debatt som kretsat kring VD:ars ersättningar vilket dock inte lett till mer förståelse för hur ersättningarna sätts. Av denna anledning har vi insett att mer forskning kring hur ersättningar sätts för VD:ar är nödvändig för att öka förståelsen. Mot bakgrund av tidigare internationell forskning har vi studerat om samband föreligger mellan VD-ålder, bolagens ekonomiska ställning och typ av ersättning. Detta görs då vi inte kunnat finna någon liknande forskning gjord på företag i Sverige. Vi har utgått från Hambrick och Fukutomis (1991) åldersteori för att förklara varför ålder kan vara en faktor bakom VD-ersättningar samt Jensen och Mecklings (1976) agentteori för att förklara varför ersättningar finns. Vi har använt oss av 2099 observationer från börsbolagens årsredovisningar och analyserat dessa med hjälp av regressionsanalyser på ett flertal egen gjorda modeller. Vår undersökning visar på att samband föreligger mellan den andel som pensionen utgör av ersättningen och VD:s ålder. Undersökning visar att ett likande samband inte råder mellan ålder och rörlig ersättning. Samband föreligger istället mellan rörlig ersättning och företagens marknadsvärde. Undersökningen visar även att snittskillnader mellan rörlig ersättning och pension mildras i företag med hög skuldsättning och låga resultat.

Natural disasters and extreme events are often characterized by their violence and unpredictability, resulting in consequences that in severe cases result in devastating physical and ecological damage as well as countless fatalities. In August 2005, Hurricane Katrina hit the Southern coast of the United States wielding serious weather and storm surges. The brunt of Katrina’s force was felt in Louisiana, where the hurricane has been estimated to total more than $108 billion in damage and over 1,800 casualties. Hurricane Rita followed Katrina in September 2005 and further contributed $12 billion in damage and 7 fatalities to the coastal communities of Louisiana and Texas. Prior to making landfall, residents of New Orleans received a voluntary, and then a mandatory, evacuation order in an attempt to encourage people to move themselves out of Hurricane Katrina’s predicted destructive path. Consistent with current practice in nearly all states, this evacuation order did not include or convey any information to individuals regarding route selection, shelter availability and assignment, or evacuation timing. This practice leaves the general population free to determine their own routes, destinations and evacuation times independently. Such freedom often results in inefficient and chaotic utilization of the roadways within an evacuation region, quickly creating bottlenecks along evacuation routes that can slow individual egress and lead to significant and potentially dangerous exposure of the evacuees to the impending storm. One way to assist the over-burdened and over-exposed population during extreme event evacuation is to provide an evacuation strategy that gives specific information on individual route selection, evacuation timing and shelter destination assignment derived from effective, strategic pre-planning. For this purpose, we present a mixed integer linear program to devise effective and controlled evacuation networks to be utilized during extreme event egress. To solve our proposed model, we develop a solution methodology based on Benders Decomposition and test its performance through an experimental design using the Central Texas region as our case study area. We show that our solution methods are efficient for large-scale instances of realistic size and that our methods surpass the size and computational limitations currently imposed by more traditional approaches such as branch-and-cut. To further test our model under conditions of uncertain individual choice/behavior, we create an agent-based simulation capable of modeling varying levels of evacuee compliance to the suggested optimal routes and varying degrees of communication between evacuees and between evacuees and the evacuation authority. By providing evacuees with information on when to evacuate, where to evacuate and how to get to their prescribed destination, we are able to observe significant cost and time increases for our case study evacuation scenarios while reducing the potential exposure of evacuees to the hurricane through more efficient network usage. We provide discussion on scenario performance and show the trade-offs and benefits of alternative batch-time evacuation strategies using global and individual effectiveness measures. Through these experiments and the developed methodology, we are able to further motivate the need for a more coordinated and informative approach to extreme event evacuation.

The agent-based micro-simulation modelling technique for transportation planning is rapidly developing and is being applied to practice in recent years. In contrast to conventional four-step modelling with static assignment theory, this emerging technique employs a dynamic assignment principle. Based on summary of various types of traffic assignment models and algorithms, the thesis elucidates in detail the theories of two models, MATSim and EMME/2, which represent two genres of traffic assignment, i.e., dynamic stochastic stationary state assignment and static deterministic user equilibrium assignment. In the study, the two models are compared and validated to reflect both spatial and temporal variation of the traffic flow pattern. The comparison results indicate that numerical outputs produced by MATSim are not only compatible to those by EMME/2 but more realistic from a temporal point of view. Therefore, agent-based micro-simulation models reflect a promising direction of next generation of transportation planning models.