<p><strong><p>Trading based on technical analysis has its roots in the U.S. financial industry where it has long been common practice, in Sweden however the trading style has not had the same impact. Based on the results from the preliminary study we believe this is about to change and that the topic therefore requires further studying. Several online stockbrokers today provide information and tools for technical analysis to their clients. As the list of indicators to use for creating strategies is so immense it is interesting for an investor to know what actually could be the basis for a profitable investment strategy. <strong><p>The purpose of this thesis is to examine and analyze the returns from trading strategies, based on technical analysis, which professionals use when investing in Nordic shares. <strong><p>The strategies that will be studied are derived from a preliminary study that was carried out before any work on this study began. The purpose of this preliminary study was to determine which strategies professionals use. The way we examine the different strategies is with a trading model built in Microsoft Excel which calculates buy and sell signals depending on which strategy is studied and then evaluates this in comparison with the buy and hold strategy. Testing has been carried out on 15 years of historical data on the most actively trades shares in Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Norway. The data material was divided in five different periods which were tested separately and combined. The study included six trading strategies, six time periods and five countries and consequently tested 144 different combinations of phases, markets and strategies. <strong><p>We conclude that the results of our study are unambiguous as to how the investigated strategies performed in comparison with the buy and hold strategy. Overall there is a very small percentage of the studied strategies that generated excess returns in so many cases that the strategy might be considered to be good in the long term. There were clear differences between how strategies performed during different market trends, and when the strategies were tested on the entire data set which included both ups and downs there were no longer any clear connection to what strategies were viable. There were also some differences concerning the return of the various strategies but since they all performed so poorly none of them should be recommended to an investor. The study also shows that there is no big difference in how the strategies performed on the different Nordic markets.</p></strong></p></strong></p></strong></p></strong></p> / <p><strong><p>Handel utifrån teknisk analys har sitt ursprung i den amerikanska finansbranschen där den länge varit vanligt förekommande, men Sverige har den inte haft samma genomslag. Vi anser, med förstudien som bakgrund att är på väg att förändras och därmed ett intressant ämne att studera vidare. Flera nätmäklare tillhandahåller idag information och verktyg för teknisk analys till sina kunder. Då det finns en uppsjö av verktyg att använda sig av är det intressant för en investerare att veta vilka som faktiskt kan ligga till grund för en lönsam investeringsstrategi.</p><p><strong>Denna studie syftar till att undersöka och analysera avkastningen från handelsstrategier, grundade på teknisk analys, som professionella aktörer använder sig av vid investeringsbeslut i enskilda nordisk aktier. <strong></strong></strong></p><p>De strategier som kommer studeras grundar sig på en förstudie som genomfördes innan arbetet med denna studie påbörjades. Syftet med förstudien var att ta reda på vilka strategier professionella aktörer använder sig av. Själva genomförandet av studien är uppbyggd kring en handelsmodell i Microsoft Excel som beräknar köp- och säljsignaler beroende på vilken strategi som testas och sedan utvärderar denna jämfört med buy and hold strategin. Tester har gjorts på 15 års historisk data för de mest omsatta aktierna i Sverige, Danmark, Finland och Norge. Tidsperioden delades in i fem faser vilka testades separat och dessutom testades hela perioden. Studien omfattade sex strategier och följaktligen testades 144 olika kombinationer av faser, marknader och strategi. <strong></strong></p><p>Vi kan konstatera att resultaten från vår studie är entydiga vad det gäller hur de undersökta strategierna presterade jämfört med buy and hold strategin. Sammantaget var de en liten andel som lyckades generera en överavkastning i så pass många fall att den strategin skall anses vara bra på lång sikt. Det fanns tydliga skillnader i hur de undersökta strategierna presterade under olika marknadstrender, men när strategierna testades på hela datamaterialet där det ingår både upp- och nedgångar fanns inte längre några tydliga samband för vilka strategier som var lönsamma. Det fanns även vissa skillnader gällande den avkastning som de olika strategierna genererade, men då samtliga presterade så pass dåligt bör en investera inte ägna sig åt någon av dem. Vidare visar studien på att det inte är några större skillnader mellan de nordiska marknaderna när det kommer till hur väl de olika strategierna presterar.</p></strong></p>

This study reexamines the nuclear microsatellite analysis by Rooney et al. (1999a) of Bering-Chukchi-Beaufort Seas bowhead whales (Balaena mysticetus) to determine if this population underwent a genetic bottleneck as a result of 19th and early 20th Century commercial whaling. This investigation used more accurate laboratory techniques to score alleles, had a larger sample size that was divided into two groups (mainland Alaska and St. Lawrence Island (SLI)), and used a moderately different set of microsatellite loci which are more variable and thus, more informative. The results corroborate the findings of Rooney et al. (1999a) for mainland Alaska showing no evidence of a genetic bottleneck. However, the SLI data analyses provide conflicting conclusions. The Wilcoxon test is significant for a heterozygote excess (p = 0.042) suggesting that a genetic bottleneck has occurred. This is not substantiated by the exact tests of each locus or the table-wide sign test. There is a possibility that a bottleneck has occurred, but due to the small sample size this is not a definitive conclusion and warrants reanalysis with a larger sample size.

Sigma-delta analog-to-digital converters are gaining in popularity in recent times because of their ability to trade-off resolutions in the time and voltage domains. In particular, continuous-time modulators are finding more acceptance at higher bandwidths due to the additional advantages they provide, such as better power efficiency and inherent anti-aliasing filtering, compared to their discrete-time counterparts. This thesis work presents the system level design of a continuous-time low-pass sigma-delta modulator targeting 11 bits of resolution over 100MHz signal bandwidth. The design considerations and tradeoffs involved at the system level are presented. The individual building blocks in the modulators are modeled with non-idealities and specifications for the various blocks are obtained in detail. Simulation results obtained from behavioral models of the system in MATLAB and Cadence environment show that a signal-to-noise-and-distortion-ratio (SNDR) of 69.6dB is achieved. A loop filter composed of passive LC sections is utilized in place of integrators or resonators used in traditional modulator implementations. Gain in the forward signal path is realized using active circuits based on simple transconductance stages. A novel method to compensate for excess delay in the loop without using an extra summing amplifier is proposed.

Chirality is the property of objects, including molecules, which are not superimposable on their materialized mirror image. Chiral molecules are omnipresent in living organisms and the constituents of biological macromolecules (proteins and nucleic acids) are chiral. Amino-acids (constituting proteins), ribose and 2-deoxy-ribose (the only chiral constituent of RNA and DNA nucleotides respectively) are furthermore generally present in living organisms only under one of their enantiomeric forms. This is referred to as the homochirality of the living world. The origin of this homochirality is still unexplained, even if many partial scenarios have been proposed in the literature. All scenarios involve the creation of a small enantiomeric excess for certain molecules, amplification of this excess and chirality transfer to other chiral molecules. The origin of homochirality on Earth is closely related to the origin of life, and is currently supposed to have preceded life. As no-one will ever be able to directly observe the phenomena which lead to homochirality, and life, on our planet, the only scientific approach to try and help explain how this occurred is to build scenarios, and test them taking into account all available information on the physical and chemical conditions on the primitive Earth (Earth before life appeared). In our work, we investigated three scenarios related to the origin of homochirality on Earth. One of these scenarios also relates to a very precise step of the origin of life: the selection of beta-d-ribofuranose as component of RNA nucleotides. Enantiomeric excesses (up to 15 %) of alpha-methylated alpha-amino-acids have been detected in meteorites which fell on Earth during the 20th century. No enantiomeric excess is detected for the corresponding alpha-hydroxy-acids in the same meteoritic samples and small (2% at most) or no enantiomeric excesses have been measured for non-methylated alpha-amino-acids. In the first part of our work, we investigated if photolysis by circularly polarized light (CPL) in space could be at the origin of the presence (or absence) of an enantiomeric excess for these compounds. Experiments to reproduce UV-CPL photolysis are difficult to undertake: they require high-energy circularly polarized photons, hence the use of a synchrotron. In our work, we used quantum mechanical calculations to obtain the electronic circular dichroïsm (ECD) spectra of two -methylated -amino-acids, their corresponding alpha-hydroxy-acids and one non-methylated alpha-amino-acid. Differences are observed between these spectra, and we propose a scenario to explain the experimental measurements reported here above: the enantioselective photolysis, in the gas phase at low temperatures (20K at most), of the alpha-amino-acids by UV-CPL with lambda>210 nm. Under these conditions no photolysis of the alpha-hydroxy-acids would occur. This scenario concerns the first step in the origin of homochirality on Earth: the creation of a small enantiomeric excess for some chiral molecules. The second scenario that we investigated relates to the enantiomeric amplification step of the origin of homochirality on Earth, for which the role of the alpha-amino-acid serine has been suggested in the literature. Serine clusters have been observed in the gas phase by mass spectrometry. Among these clusters the octamer has been shown to be a magic number cluster and to have a preference for homochirality. An enantiomeric amplification via cycles of formation and dissociation of the octamer has been suggested. No complete scenario has however been proposed in the literature to explain how this could have occurred on the primitive Earth, but any scenario would most probably include an aqueous phase. We aimed at determining if the homochiral preference of serine octamers also exists in solution and therefore we first investigated if serine octamers exist in solution. For this study, we used nuclear magnetic resonance and infrared spectroscopies, which are well-adapted to the study of molecular assemblies in solution. We were able to demonstrate that most probably serine clusters are not present in solution, and if they are it could only be in extremely low concentration. The scenario suggested in the literature is discussed in the light of our results and of literature data on serine clusters. As last hypothesis, we investigated a possible scenario for the selection of beta-d-ribofuranose as component of RNA nucleotides. The currently known prebiotic synthesis pathways to ribose also lead to the formation of many other carbohydrates, and ribose is only a minor product of these syntheses. Our hypothesis is that beta-d-ribofuranose could have been selected through favorable interactions with -amino-acids already present on the primitive Earth under one enantiomeric form. Indeed, it is plausible that a peptidic world emerged before the presence of RNA and that homochiral -amino-acids were present on Earth when RNA was synthesized. Under this hypothesis, we investigated the role that alpha-l-amino-acids could have played in the selection of alpha-d-ribofuranose as component of RNA nucleotides. This work is related to the last step of the origin of homochirality: chirality transfer. Our scenario was investigated via nuclear magnetic resonance studies of the interaction between alpha-amino-acids and carbohydrates. We were able to show that, in the systems that we studied, when an interaction occurs it is very weak (affinity constant less than 1M−1) and non enantioselective. Our results most probably discard the role that alpha-amino-acids alone could have played in the selection of beta-d-ribofuranose as component of RNA nucleotides, but does not discard the role that peptides could have played in this selection.

In the first part of this thesis, strategies for avoiding systematic errors when quantifying the main components in mixtures of solvents has been developed (paper I). It is shown that variations in density caused by variations in sample composition and/or volume contraction need to be taken into account. In this way, quantification can be improved. The second part (paper II-V) describes a number of new methods for the analysis of organic trace components present in gaseous or aqueous samples, after an overview of the most commonly applied sample enrichment techniques has been given. For the enrichment of volatile trace compounds from gaseous samples, the concept of open tubular trapping has been further developed. A simplified procedure for preparing ultra-thick film, sorptive open tubular traps (OTTs) is described (paper III). The traps are coated with an irregular film of PDMS, and it is shown that the performance in terms of breakthrough volume is only marginally affected by the use of such traps. In paper IV, it is shown both experimentally and with a theoretical model that the enrichment capacity of OTTs can be significantly increased by increasing the inner diameter of the traps. A fully automated procedure for high-capacity sorption enrichment of trace organic analytes present in water is also reported (paper II). Time-based non-equilibrium extractions are feasible, enabling fast extractions that still allow sub-ppt limits of detection. The high flexibility of the automated system makes it possible to sample from process streams or off-line sources. Finally, the development of a new 2-dimensional precolumn-backflush method for the analysis of polar volatile trace analytes in water is described (paper V). This concept is based on the action of a hygroscopic salt which has a strong affinity for water, in a precolumn. Organic trace compounds, such as volatile alcohols or ketones show little retention on the precolumn and are eluted ahead of the bulk amount of the water onto a capillary column for subsequent high resolution separation. The residual water is removed from the system by backflushing the precolumn. The procedure allows the direct injection of aqueous sample volumes of at least 100 µl, and the pre-fractionation is accomplished within only a few minutes. Quantification limits for selected polar trace components were in the low ppb-region.

Trading based on technical analysis has its roots in the U.S. financial industry where it has long been common practice, in Sweden however the trading style has not had the same impact. Based on the results from the preliminary study we believe this is about to change and that the topic therefore requires further studying. Several online stockbrokers today provide information and tools for technical analysis to their clients. As the list of indicators to use for creating strategies is so immense it is interesting for an investor to know what actually could be the basis for a profitable investment strategy. The purpose of this thesis is to examine and analyze the returns from trading strategies, based on technical analysis, which professionals use when investing in Nordic shares. The strategies that will be studied are derived from a preliminary study that was carried out before any work on this study began. The purpose of this preliminary study was to determine which strategies professionals use. The way we examine the different strategies is with a trading model built in Microsoft Excel which calculates buy and sell signals depending on which strategy is studied and then evaluates this in comparison with the buy and hold strategy. Testing has been carried out on 15 years of historical data on the most actively trades shares in Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Norway. The data material was divided in five different periods which were tested separately and combined. The study included six trading strategies, six time periods and five countries and consequently tested 144 different combinations of phases, markets and strategies. We conclude that the results of our study are unambiguous as to how the investigated strategies performed in comparison with the buy and hold strategy. Overall there is a very small percentage of the studied strategies that generated excess returns in so many cases that the strategy might be considered to be good in the long term. There were clear differences between how strategies performed during different market trends, and when the strategies were tested on the entire data set which included both ups and downs there were no longer any clear connection to what strategies were viable. There were also some differences concerning the return of the various strategies but since they all performed so poorly none of them should be recommended to an investor. The study also shows that there is no big difference in how the strategies performed on the different Nordic markets. / Handel utifrån teknisk analys har sitt ursprung i den amerikanska finansbranschen där den länge varit vanligt förekommande, men Sverige har den inte haft samma genomslag. Vi anser, med förstudien som bakgrund att är på väg att förändras och därmed ett intressant ämne att studera vidare. Flera nätmäklare tillhandahåller idag information och verktyg för teknisk analys till sina kunder. Då det finns en uppsjö av verktyg att använda sig av är det intressant för en investerare att veta vilka som faktiskt kan ligga till grund för en lönsam investeringsstrategi. Denna studie syftar till att undersöka och analysera avkastningen från handelsstrategier, grundade på teknisk analys, som professionella aktörer använder sig av vid investeringsbeslut i enskilda nordisk aktier. De strategier som kommer studeras grundar sig på en förstudie som genomfördes innan arbetet med denna studie påbörjades. Syftet med förstudien var att ta reda på vilka strategier professionella aktörer använder sig av. Själva genomförandet av studien är uppbyggd kring en handelsmodell i Microsoft Excel som beräknar köp- och säljsignaler beroende på vilken strategi som testas och sedan utvärderar denna jämfört med buy and hold strategin. Tester har gjorts på 15 års historisk data för de mest omsatta aktierna i Sverige, Danmark, Finland och Norge. Tidsperioden delades in i fem faser vilka testades separat och dessutom testades hela perioden. Studien omfattade sex strategier och följaktligen testades 144 olika kombinationer av faser, marknader och strategi. Vi kan konstatera att resultaten från vår studie är entydiga vad det gäller hur de undersökta strategierna presterade jämfört med buy and hold strategin. Sammantaget var de en liten andel som lyckades generera en överavkastning i så pass många fall att den strategin skall anses vara bra på lång sikt. Det fanns tydliga skillnader i hur de undersökta strategierna presterade under olika marknadstrender, men när strategierna testades på hela datamaterialet där det ingår både upp- och nedgångar fanns inte längre några tydliga samband för vilka strategier som var lönsamma. Det fanns även vissa skillnader gällande den avkastning som de olika strategierna genererade, men då samtliga presterade så pass dåligt bör en investera inte ägna sig åt någon av dem. Vidare visar studien på att det inte är några större skillnader mellan de nordiska marknaderna när det kommer till hur väl de olika strategierna presterar.

Reinsurance is one of the most important tools to be used by insurance companies, for managing risks. This is an effective way / however, there are situations where reinsurance is insufficient, such as the occurrence of a natural hazard. When a natural hazard occurs, many insured experience loss at the same time, which drains the reinsurance market capacity. If future market capacity could be forecasted, then it would be easier for companies to decide when to include cat bonds or any other additional securities in their portfolio. In order to establish a model for market capacity, its relationship with other market parameters and the association among parameters are examined. In this study, these relationships are analyzed and used to establish an algorithm for predicting the next years reinsurance capacity. Moreover, last 10-year data for market capacity is used to establish and AR(1) model, in order to create a comparison with the algorithm. A case study of cat bonds is done, which uses the pricing load calculation of the Lane model and aims to ease the decision-making process by comparing the loads of cat bond and reinsurance pricing.

In modern separation design, an important part of many phase-equilibrium calculations is the mathematical representation of pure-component and mixture enthalpies. Mixture enthalpy data are important not only for determination of heat loads, but also for the design of distillation units. Further, mixture enthalpy data, when available, are useful for extending vapor-liquid equilibria to higher (or lower) temperatures, through the use of the Gibbs-Helmholtz equation. In this connection excess molar enthalpies for several binary and ternary mixtures involving ethers and hydrocarbons have been measured at the temperature 298.15 K and atmospheric pressure, over the whole mole fraction range. Values of the excess molar enthalpies were measured by means of a modified flow microcalorimeter (LKB 10700-1) and the systems show endothermic behavior. The Redlich-Kister equation has been used to correlate experimental excess molar enthalpy data of binary mixtures. Smooth representations of the excess molar enthalpy values of ternary mixtures are accomplished by means of the Tsao-Smith equation with an added ternary contribution term and are used to construct excess enthalpy contours on Roozeboom diagrams. The values of the standard deviations indicate good agreement between experimental results and those calculated from the smoothing equations. The experimental excess enthalpy data are also correlated and predicted by means of solution theories (Flory theory and Liebermann-Fried model) for binary and ternary mixtures, respectively. These solution theories correlate the binary heats of mixing data with reasonable accuracy. The prediction of ternary excess molar enthalpy by means of the solution theories are also presented on Roozeboom diagrams. The predictions of ternary excess enthalpy data by means of these theories are reasonably reliable.

In modern separation design, an important part of many phase-equilibrium calculations is the mathematical representation of pure-component and mixture enthalpies. Mixture enthalpy data are important not only for determination of heat loads, but also for the design of distillation units. Further, mixture enthalpy data, when available, are useful for extending vapor-liquid equilibria to higher (or lower) temperatures, through the use of the Gibbs-Helmholtz equation. In this connection excess molar enthalpies for several binary and ternary mixtures involving ethers and hydrocarbons have been measured at the temperature 298.15 K and atmospheric pressure, over the whole mole fraction range. Values of the excess molar enthalpies were measured by means of a modified flow microcalorimeter (LKB 10700-1) and the systems show endothermic behavior. The Redlich-Kister equation has been used to correlate experimental excess molar enthalpy data of binary mixtures. Smooth representations of the excess molar enthalpy values of ternary mixtures are accomplished by means of the Tsao-Smith equation with an added ternary contribution term and are used to construct excess enthalpy contours on Roozeboom diagrams. The values of the standard deviations indicate good agreement between experimental results and those calculated from the smoothing equations. The experimental excess enthalpy data are also correlated and predicted by means of solution theories (Flory theory and Liebermann-Fried model) for binary and ternary mixtures, respectively. These solution theories correlate the binary heats of mixing data with reasonable accuracy. The prediction of ternary excess molar enthalpy by means of the solution theories are also presented on Roozeboom diagrams. The predictions of ternary excess enthalpy data by means of these theories are reasonably reliable.

This paper examines tracking stock issuances, a relatively uncommon method of equity restructuring. I utilize likely the entire population of tracking stock issuances on US exchanges – from the first ever in October 1984 to the most recent one in November 2009 – in order to analyze the effect that they have on the shortrun excess returns of issuing companies. I analyze the excess returns of companies that issue tracking stock that trade in the US, one year before and one year after completion of their restructuring. The results of this paper indicate that companies perform worse relative to a benchmark market index in the year following their tracking stock restructuring. However, it is important to note that the number of observations studied is relatively small, as there have been only 41 issuances of tracking stock since the first recorded case. This suggests that more data and greater research are necessary in order to more accurately measure the effects of tracking stock restructurings. With the limited data available, I find that there is a statistically significant decrease in excess stock returns following tracking stock issuances.