This paper investigates whether greater investor distraction on the Swedish stock market during the summer months of June, July and August leads to a more pronounced post earnings announcement drift (PEAD) effect, during the ten year period between 2000 and 2009. PEAD is an anomaly whereby the information contained in earnings announcements is not immediately or completely incorporated into stock prices, in the cases where the announcement contains an ‘earnings surprise’. The methodology involves using the standardised unexpected earnings (SUE) metric to measure the level of ‘earnings surprise’ and a buy and hold abnormal returns (BHAR) trading strategy to measure return. The study tests and confirms the existence of greater investor distraction during summer months on the Swedish market. For a holding period of 12 months, a BHAR trading strategy generates a greater abnormal return for summer months (11.3%) compared with the abnormal return for non-summer months (10.5%). These results are also interesting in a broader context, as they confirm the existence of the PEAD effect, one of the strongest counter-arguments to the efficient markets hypothesis (EMH); the foundation of many financial models used for stock market valuation. This is because, according to the EMH, in an efficient market it should not be possible to generate abnormal returns based on available information. However, it may be noted that these results do not take into account transaction costs. This means that while it can be demonstrated that there is greater investor distraction during the Swedish summer, in order to implement a successful trading strategy based on this finding, further testing would be required. Therefore, based on the findings of this paper, a number of areas for future research have been identified.

An auditors’ job is to review the company's figures and, as an independent part, give an accurate picture of its financial situation. Auditors have to relate to ISA where ISA 570 can be found and which deals with the going concern. The standard addresses a couple of factors that may be indications that a company can have problems with their continued operation. The problem is that ISA does not evaluate the events, which is more significant than others in the assessment, but it is up to the auditor to consider. The purpose of this paper is to describe the factors, which the auditor believes is more important than others in assessing the going concern and explain why it is so. In order to solve the purpose we used both a quantitative and qualitative method. The quantitative method was based on a grid model called The Reperatory Grid and the qualitative method consisted of interview questions. In order to obtain data we interviewed three certified public accountants. In our results and conclusion, we concluded that it is difficult to determine whether an event is more important than anyone else. The explanation is that the objects that the auditor takes into account most often is situation-specific and therefore require the auditor to use out of their previous knowledge of the company, but also create a comprehensive picture of the specific situation with the help of various dimensions. / En revisors uppgift är att granska företagets siffror och, som oberoende part, ge en tillförlitlig bild av företagets ekonomiska ställning. Revisorn måste vid granskningen förhålla sig till standarden ISA. I ISA finns standarden ISA 570 som behandlar fortsatt drift (going concern). Standarden tar upp ett par faktorer som kan vara indikationer på att ett företag kan få problem med sin fortsatta drift. Problematiken är att ISA inte värderar vilka faktorer som är mer betydelsefulla än andra vid bedömningen, utan det är upp till revisorn att ta ställning. Syftet med denna uppsats är att beskriva vilka faktorer som revisorn anser är mer betydelsefulla än andra vid en bedömning av going concern samt förklara orsaken till varför det är så. För att ta reda på syftet användes både en kvantitativ och kvalitativ metod. Den kvantitativa metoden utgick från en gridmodell som kallas The Reperatory Grid och den kvalitativa metoden bestod av intervjufrågor. För att få fram data intervjuades tre auktoriserade revisorer. I vårt resultat och slutsats kom vi fram till att det är svårt att avgöra om någon händelse är mer betydelsefull än någon annan. Förklaringen till detta är att de faktorer som revisorn beaktar oftast är situationsspecifik och därför behöver revisorn använda sig utav sin tidigare kunskap om företaget, men även skapa sig en helhetsbild över den specifika situationen med hjälp av olika mått.

Nyckelord: Revision, revisorers oberoende, fortsatt drift, Big 4, konsulttjänster och klientstorlek. Bakgrund: Under 2000-talet har den finansiella revisionen genomgått en rad förändringar. Detta till följd av ett antal händelser såsom Enronskandalen som kom att ifrågasätta revisorers oberoende ytterligare. Syfte: Studiens syfte är att undersöka huruvida en revisors oberoende påverkas av variabler som revisionsbyråns storlek (Big 4), konsulttjänster och klientstorlek. Metod: Utifrån en deduktiv ansats har vi använt en kvantitativ metod genom att analysera sekundärdata som vi hämtat från Affärsdatas databas. Urvalet bestod av årsredovisningar och dess tillhörande revisionsberättelser som studerats utifrån kriterierna: svenska aktiebolag som inlett konkurs under april, maj och december 2010. Studiens kvantitativa data har jämförts med tidigare forskning inom revisionsområdet, denna forskning bottnar i teorier kring agentteori och revision som försäkran. Resultat och slutsats: Studiens resultat visar att Big 4 anmärker i något större utsträckning än övriga revisionsbyråer kring fortsatt drift. Studien fann ett signifikant samband mellan Big 4 och konsulttjänster, företag som nyttjar revisionstjänster från Big 4 nyttjar konsulttjänster i högre utsträckning än företag som har annan revisionsbyrå. Klientstorlek har enbart en påverkan på företagens benägenhet att köpa konsulttjänster, det vill säga förekomsten av att även köpa konsulttjänster utöver revisionen ökar i takt med företagens storlek, om än inte signifikant. Sammanfattningsvis kan klargöras att ingen av de undersökta variablerna har någon signifikant inverkan på anmärkning kring fortsatt drift, varken enskilt eller tillsammans. Detta resultat gör att den rimligaste tolkningen blir att revisorerna förblir oberoende trots påverkan utifrån. Det mesta talar för att valet av revisionsbyrå, vilka tjänster som nyttjats eller vilket företag man representerar inte påverkar revisorns oberoende vilket visar på att revisorn tycks klara av sin uppgift som en tredje oberoende part. / Background: During the early 2000s the financial audit went through a series of changes. The cause of these changes were several, one of these reasons were the Enron scandal which arouse the question about the importance of auditor independence once again.  Purpose: The purpose of the study is to examine whether variables as Big 4, advisory services or client size has any influence on auditor independence. Method: From a deductive point of view a quantitative method has been used as we analyzed data collected from the database Affärsdata. The data were collected from annual reports and audit reports which were analyzed based on the following criteria: Swedish limited companies with a started bankruptcy process during April, May or December in the year 2010. The data of the study have been compared with previous research in the audit field which deals with the theories agency theory and audit as an affirmation. Results and conclusion: The results of the study shows that Big 4 firms tend to issue going concern opinions in a slightly higher extent than other audit firms. There is a significant association between Big 4 and advisory services. Companies who use audit services provided by a Big 4 firm also use their advisory services to a higher extent than those who use audit services from other audit firms. Client size does only show an association, even though it is not statistically significant, between those companies who use both audit and advisory services, in other words, the tendency of using both audit and advisory services increase with company size. None of the investigated variables had any significant affect on the tendency to issue a going concern opinion, neither individually nor together. The most reasonable explanation to these results comes down to the fact that the Swedish auditors are independent due to the variables we studied. Based on this we conclude that the choice of audit firm, weather companies use advisory services or not, or who you are, does not affect the auditor’s independence which indicates that auditors cope with the independence issues quite well.

Beach profile models predict the changes in bathymetry along a line perpendicular to the shoreline. These models are used to forecast bathymetric changes in response to storms, sea level rise or human activities such as dredging and beach nourishment. Process-based models achieve this by simulating the physical processes that drive the sediment transport as opposed to behavior models which simulate observed profile changes without resolving the underlying processes. Some of these processes are wave shoaling and breaking, boundary layer streaming, and offshore-directed undertow currents. These hydrodynamic processes control the sediment processes such as sediment pick-up from the bottom, diffusion of the sediment across the water column and its advection with waves and currents. For this study, newly developed sediment transport and boundary layer models were coupled with existing models of wave transformation, nearshore circulation and bathymetry update, to predict beach profile changes. The models covered the region from the dry land to a depth of 6-8 meters, spanning up to 500 meters in the cross-shore direction. The modeling system was applied at storm time scales, extending from a couple of hours to several days. Two field experiments were conducted at Myrtle Beach, SC, involving the collection of wave, current and bathymetric data as a part of this study. The results were used to calibrate and test the numerical models along with data from various laboratory studies from the literature. The sediment transport model computes the variation of sediment concentrations over a wave period and over the water column, solving the advection-diffusion equation using the Crank-Nicholson finite-difference numerical scheme. Using a new approach, erosion depth thickness and sediment concentrations within the bed were also predicted. The model could predict sediment transport rates for a range of conditions, within a factor of two. It successfully computed the sediment concentration profile over the water column and within the bed and its variation throughout a wave period. Erosion depth and sheet flow layer thickness were also predicted reasonably well. Wave heights across the profile were predicted within ten percent when the empirical wave breaking parameter was tuned appropriately. Mean cross-shore velocities contain more uncertainty, even after tuning. The importance of capturing the location of the maximum, near-bottom, cross-shore velocity when predicting bar behavior was shown. Bar formation, erosion, accretion, onshore and offshore bar movement were all computed with the model successfully

The main topic of this thesis is the development of a chemical microsystem based on integration of a silicon-based resonant microsensor and a CMOS ASIC for portable sensing applications. Cantilever and disk-shape microresonators have been used as mass-sensitive sensors. Based on the characteristics of the microresonators, CMOS integrated interface and control electronics have been implemented. The CMOS ASIC utilizes the self-oscillation method, which incorporates the microresonator in an amplifying feedback loop as the frequency determining element. In this manner, the ASIC includes a main feedback loop to sustain oscillation at or close to the fundamental resonance frequency of the microresonator. For stable oscillation, an automatic gain control loop regulates the oscillation amplitude by controlling the gain of the main feedback loop. In addition, an automatic phase control loop has been included to adjust the phase of the main feedback loop to ensure an operating point as close as possible to the resonance frequency, resulting in improved frequency stability. The CMOS chip has been interfaced to cantilever and disk-shape microresonators and short-term frequency stabilities as low as 3.4×10-8 in air have been obtained with a 1 sec gate time. The performance of the implemented microsystem as a chemical sensor has been evaluated experimentally with microresonators coated with chemically sensitive polymer films. With a gas-phase chemical measurement setup constructed in this work, chemical measurements have been performed and different concentrations of VOCs, such as benzene, toluene and m-xylene have been detected with limits of detection of 5.3 ppm, 1.2 ppm and 0.35 ppm, respectively. To improve the long-term stability in monitoring applications with slowly changing analyte signatures, a method to compensate for frequency drift caused by environmental disturbances has been implemented on the CMOS chip. This method uses a controlled stiffness modulation generated by a frequency drift compensation circuit to track the changes in the resonator's Q-factor in response to variations in the environmental conditions. The measured Q-factor is then used to compensate for the frequency drift using an initial calibration step. The feasibility of the proposed method has been verified experimentally by compensating for temperature-induced frequency drift during gas-phase chemical measurements.

A sensor is a technological device or biological organ that detects, or senses, a signal or physical condition and chemical compounds. Technological developments in the recent decades have brought along with it several environmental problems and human safety issues to the fore. In today's world, therefore, sensors, which detect toxic and inflammable chemicals quickly, are necessary. Gas sensors which form a subclass of chemical sensors have found extensive applications in process control industries and environmental monitoring. The present thesis reports the attempt made in development of Zinc oxide thin film based gas sensors. ZnO is sensitive to many gases of interest like hydrocarbons, hydrogen, volatile organic compounds etc. They exhibit high sensitivity, satisfactory stability and rapid response. In the present work the developed sensors have been tested for their sensitivity for a typical volatile organic compound, acetone. An objective analysis of the various substrates namely borosilicate glass, sintered alumina and hard anodized alumina, has been performed as a part of this work. The substrates were evaluated for their electrical insulation and thermal diffusivity. The microstructure of the gas sensitive film on the above mentioned substrates was studied by SEM technique. The gas sensitive Zinc oxide film is deposited by D.C reactive magnetron sputtering technique with substrate bias arrangement. The characterization of the as-deposited film was performed by XRD, SEM and EDAX techniques to determine the variation of microstructure, crystallite size, orientation and chemical composition with substrate bias voltage. The thesis also describes the development of the gas sensor test setup, which has been used to measure the sensing characteristics of the sensor. It was observed that the ZnO sensors developed with higher bias voltages exhibited improved sensitivity to test gas of interest. Gas sensors essentially measure the concentration of gas in its vicinity. In order to determine the distribution of gas concentration in a region, it is necessary to network sensors at remote locations to a host. The host acts as a gateway to the end user to determine the distribution of gas concentration in a region. However, wireless gas sensor networks have not found widespread use because of two inherent limitations: Metal oxide gas sensors suffer from output drift over time; frequent recalibration of a number of sensors is a laborious task. The gas sensors have to be maintained at a high temperature to perform the task of gas sensing. This is power intensive operation and is not well suited for wireless sensor network. This thesis reports an exploratory study carried out on the applicability of gas sensors in wireless gas sensor network. A simple prototype sensing node has been developed using discrete electronic components. A methodology to overcome the problem of frequent calibration of the sensing nodes, to tackle the sensor drift with ageing, is presented. Finally, a preliminary attempt to develop a strategy for using gas sensor network to localize the point of gas leak is given.

We study anomalous diffusion on fractals with a static external field applied. We utilise the master equation to calculate particle distributions and from that important quantities as for example the mean square displacement <r^2(t)>. Applying different bias amplitudes on several regular Sierpinski carpets we obtain maximal drift velocities for weak field strengths. According to <r^2(t)>~t^(2/d_w), we determine random walk dimensions of d_w<2 for applied external fields. These d_w corresponds to superdiffusion, although diffusion is hindered by the structure of the carpet, containing dangling ends. This seems to result from two competing effects arising within an external field. Though the particles prefer to move along the biased direction, some particles get trapped by dangling ends. To escape from there they have to move against the field direction. Due to the by the bias accelerated particles and the trapped ones the probability distribution gets wider and thus d_w<2. / In dieser Arbeit untersuchen wir anomale Diffusion auf Fraktalen unter Einwirkung eines statisches äußeres Feldes. Wir benutzen die Mastergleichung, um die Wahrscheinlichkeitsverteilung der Teilchen zu berechnen, um daraus wichtige Größen wie das mittlere Abstandsquadrat <r^2(t)> zu bestimmen. Wir wenden unterschiedliche Feldstärken bei verschiedenen regelmäßigen Sierpinski-Teppichen an und erhalten maximale Driftgeschwindigkeiten für schwache Feldstärken. Über <r^2(t)>~t^{2/d_w} bestimmen wir die Random-Walk-Dimension d_w als d_w<2. Dieser Wert für d_w entspricht der Superdiffusion, obwohl der Diffusionsprozess durch Strukturen des Teppichs, wie Sackgassen, behindert wird. Es schient, dass dies das Ergebnis zweier konkurrierender Effekte ist, die durch das Anlegen eines äußeren Feldes entstehen. Einerseits bewegen sich die Teilchen bevorzugt entlang der Feldrichtung. Andererseits gelangen einige Teilchen in Sackgassen. Um die Sackgassen, die in Feldrichtung liegen, zu verlassen, müssen sich die Teilchen entgegen der Feldrichtung bewegen. Somit sind die Teilchen eine gewisse Zeit in der Sackgasse gefangen. Infolge der durch das äußere Feld beschleunigten und der gefangenen Teilchen, verbreitert sich die Wahrscheinlichkeitsverteilung der Teilchen und somit ist d_w<2.

Cette thèse décrit la modélisation et la simulation de systèmes à deux phases composées de particules évoluant dans un gaz. Les deux phases interagissent entre elles et le type de modèle à considérer dépend directement du type de simulations envisagées. Dans une première partie, les deux phases sont considérées comme des fluides, elles sont décrites à l'aide d'un modèle de mélange avec une relation de dérive (permettant de suivre une vitesse relative entre les deux phases et de prendre en compte deux vitesses) et sont supposées à l'équilibre en température et pression. Cette partie du manuscrit est composée de la dérivation des équations, de l'écriture d'un schéma numérique associé à ce jeu d'équations, d'une étude d'ordre de ce schéma ainsi que de simulations. Une étude mathématique de ce modèle (hyperbolicité dans un cadre simplifié, stabilité du système linéaire autour d'un état constant) a été réalisée dans un cadre o'u le gaz est supposé barotrope. La seconde partie de ce manuscrit est consacrée à la modélisation de l'effet de collisions inélastiques sur les gouttelettes lorsque l'on se place à un temps de simulation beaucoup plus court, pour lequel les gouttelettes ne peuvent plus être vues comme un fluide. Pour modéliser ces collisions, on construit un modèle simplifié (moins coûteux en temps) de type BGK permettant de reproduire le comportement en temps de certains moments sur les gouttelettes. Ces moments sont choisis pour être représentatifs de l'effet des collisions sur ces gouttelettes, à savoir une thermalisation en vitesse et énergie. Ce modèle est discrétisé avec une méthode particulaire et des résultats numériques sont donnés en comparaison avec ceux obtenus avec un modèle résolvant directement l'équation de Boltzmann homogène.

This thesis presents the design of an attitude determination system for small satellites that automatically corrects for attitude drift. Existing attitude determination systems suffer from attitude drift due to the integration of noisy rate gyro sensors used to measure the change in attitude. This attitude drift leads to a gradual loss in attitude knowledge, as error between the estimated attitude and the actual attitude increases. In this thesis a Kalman filter is used to complete sensor fusion which combines sensor observations with a projected attitude based on the dynamics of the satellite. The system proposed in this thesis also utilizes a novel sensor called the stellar gyro to correct for the drift. The stellar gyro compares star field images taken at different times to determine orientation, and works in the presence of the sun and during eclipse. This device provides a relative attitude fix that can be used to update the attitude estimate provided by the Kalman filter, effectively compensating for drift. Simulink models are developed of the hardware and algorithms to model the effectiveness of the system. The Simulink models show that the attitude determination system is highly accurate, with steady state errors of less than 1 degree.

Software applications are of great importance in organisations, and performance of an organisation depends on how hosting of software applications are organised. This thesis deals with the question: Why and how organisations decide on specific sourcing options for software applications hosting. The thesis describes and explains sourcing decision-making processes made in the Swedish Post (MeLo) and Jönköpings Kommun (the municipality). MeLo’s sourcing decision resulted in outsourcing of hosting, and the municipality’s sourcing decision resulted in internal sourcing of hosting. Both organisations were distinguished by a decentralised structure to a great extent and showed a huge diversity in software applications used. The sourcing decisions resulted in a change to a more centralised hosting of software applications. The thesis is a retrospective case study based on semi-structured interviews and documents analysis. Concepts from the resource-based view and factors described in sourcing literature are used to analyse these sourcing decisions. From nine theoretical initial propositions 28 propositions are developed about why and how sourcing decisions are made. From these propositions, relations are described and some conclusions are presented about why and how sourcing decisions are made. The main conclusion is that maturity level regarding software applications usage seems to influences the start, the process as such, and the outcome of a sourcing decision-making process. This is explained as the more mature the organisation is regarding usage of software applications the more proactive decision-makers are in the sourcing decision. It is also identified that involved factors can be either influencing or justifying, and it is found that control of software applications usage influences the start of a sourcing decision to a high extent. The findings suggest that a sourcing decision-making process can be described as an irrational decision process that aims at increasing commitment on an already made decision. The study suggests that the less mature and more decentralised the organisation is the more reactive and the stronger influence the need to increase control over software applications have in a sourcing decision-making process. / Information och kommunikations teknik (IKT) och hur organisationer väljer att organisera driften av mjukvaruapplikationer spelar en allt större roll för organisationers framgång. Forskningsfrågan i avhandlingen är: Varför samt hur organisationer beslutar när de väljer ett specifikt lokaliseringsalternativ för driften av mjukvaruapplikationer. Avhandlingen beskriver och förklarar lokaliseringsbeslut i Posten AB och Jönköpings Kommun från ett resursbaserat perspektiv. Båda organisationerna uppvisade en spretig och decentraliserad struktur av mjukvaruapplikationer. Postens lokaliseringbeslut resulterade i utlokalisering. Kommunens lokaliseringsbeslut resulterade i en intern omlokalisering. Besluten resulterade i båda fallen i en mer centraliserad drift av mjukvaruapplikationer. Avhandlingen är en retrospektiv fallstudie baserad på analys av semistrukturerade intervjuer och dokument. Begrepp från resursbaserad teori och litteratur om lokalisering används för att beskriva och förklara lokaliseringsbesluten. Från nio teoretiska initiala propositioner utvecklas 28 propositioner vilka tydligare redogör för varför samt hur lokaliseringbeslut genomförs. Utifrån dessa propositioner diskuteras kring relationer mellan varför och hur faktorer är involverade i lokaliseringsbeslut. Den främst dragna slutsatsen är att organisationers mognad vad gäller användningen av mjukvaruapplikationer kan beskrivas som influerande för såväl starten, beslutsprocessen som sådan, samt det slutliga resultatet av beslutsprocessen vid ett lokaliseringsbeslut rörande drift av mjukvaruapplikationer. Detta kan förklaras som att ju mer mogen organisationen är vad gäller användning av mjukvaruapplikationer desto mer proaktiv är beslutsfattare i beslutsprocessen. Involverade faktorer kan också förklaras som antingen påverkande eller försvarande. Kontroll av användning kan beskrivas ha den största påverkan på starten av beslutsprocessen. Analysen föreslår att beslutsprocessen kan ses som en irrationell beslutsprocess som genomförs med inriktning på att förankra ett redan fattat beslut, och att ju mer omogen och decentraliserad desto större inverkan har önskemålet om en ökad kontroll över mjukvaruapplikationer i ett lokaliseringsbeslut.