The European Union Emission Trading System (EU ETS) is the cornerstone of the EU's transition to climate neutrality by 2050. Significant carbon price increases and ambitious changes to the ETS make phase four (2021-2030) uncharted territory. This thesis exploratively investigates how the EU Emission Trading System (ETS) currently affects Swedish firms’ competitive position within the European Union and how these firms respond to the carbon price. This is done through a qualitative approach with a thematic analysis of findings from interviews with nine Swedish firms within the sectors: Combined Power and Heat generation (CHP), Electricity production, Mining & Refining, and Smelting of iron and steel and of ferroalloys. Our findings show unanimous support for the Emission Trading System as an instrument to reduce carbon emissions, yet significant differences in each firm's response to the carbon price. Uncertainty related to future price development is found to cause difficulties in pricing among firms within the CHP sector. In contrast, firms with free allocation of EU Allowances have limited financial impact. Across the board, the ETS drives clean technology innovation by making fossil technology less appealing. Nonetheless, two instances of competitive losses stemming from system design were recognised: 1) Swedish CHP producers bear emission costs that other European producers do not, as a result of Sweden’s opt-in of the CHP sector, potentially causing carbon leakage within the EU; 2) The maintained division between the manufacturing of iron pellets (NACE 07.10) and sinter (NACE 24.10) keeps benchmarks for sinter high, resulting in less incentive for abatement efforts within EU. This thesis adds to the existing literature by identifying skewness in the harmonisation of the EU ETS and investigating signals to which the firms respond. / Europeiska unionens system för handel med utsläppsrätter (EU ETS) är hörnstenen i EU:s övergång till klimatneutralitet till 2050. Betydande koldioxidprishöjningar och ambitiösa förändringar av ETS innebär att fas fyra (2021-2030) är outforskat territorium. Denna avhandling undersöker explorativt hur EU:s system för handel med utsläppsrätter (ETS) för närvarande påverkar svenska företags konkurrensposition inom EU och hur dessa företag reagerar på koldioxidpriset. Detta görs genom ett kvalitativt angreppssätt med en tematisk analys av resultat från intervjuer med nio svenska företag inom sektorerna: Kraft och Värmeproduktion (CHP), Elproduktion, Gruvindustrin, samt Smältning av järn och stål samt ferrolegeringar. Våra resultat visar enhälligt stöd för systemet för handel med utsläppsrätter som ett instrument för att minska koldioxidutsläppen, men ändå betydande skillnader i varje företags svar på koldioxidpriset. Osäkerhet relaterad till framtida prisutveckling visar sig orsaka svårigheter i prissättningen bland företag inom kraftvärmesektorn. Medan företag med gratis tilldelning av EU-utsläppsrätter har begränsad ekonomisk inverkan. Överlag driver ETS ren teknologiinnovation genom att göra fossil teknik mindre tilltalande. Icke desto mindre erkändes två fall av konkurrensförluster till följd av systemdesign: 1) Svenska kraftvärmeproducenter bär utsläppskostnader som andra europeiska producenter inte, som ett resultat av Sveriges val av kraftvärme-sektorn, vilket potentiellt orsakar koldioxidläckage inom EU; 2) Den bibehållna uppdelningen mellan tillverkning av järnpellets (NACE 07.10) och sinter (NACE 24.10) håller riktmärkena för sinter högt, vilket resulterar i mindre incitament för minskningsinsatser inom EU. Denna avhandling kompletterar den befintliga litteraturen genom att identifiera skevheter i harmoniseringen av EU ETS och vilka styrsignaler som företagen reagerar på.

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In dieser Arbeit wurden nutzbringende Anwendungsmöglichkeiten für monoskopische und (auto)stereoskopische 3D-Anzeigen in Fahrzeugen theoretisch hergeleitet und empirisch überprüft. Zur Ableitung der Hypothesen wurde für jede Teilaufgabe anhand eines Fragenkatalogs zu den Vor- und Nachteilen von 3D-Anzeigen untersucht, inwieweit deren Bearbeitung davon profitiert, dass Informationen räumlich abgebildet werden. Die erwiesenen 3D-Vorteile wurden zu fünf Kategorien zusammengefasst: Integration, räumliche Kompatibilität, Aufmerksamkeitslenkung, Bildhaftigkeit und Attraktivität. Da der wesentliche 3D-Vorteil für Anzeigen in Fahrzeugen in einer räumlich kompatiblen Informationsdarstellung aus der Fahrerperspektive gesehen wurde, lag der Schwerpunkt der empirischen Arbeit auf 3D-Anzeigen für Fahrerassistenzsysteme (FAS). Am Beispiel einer 3D-Anzeige des Abstandsregeltempomaten (ART) wurde nachgewiesen, dass die Vorteile von 3D-Anzeigen für FAS in einer Erhöhung der Attraktivität und Akzeptanz sowie in einer Verbesserung des unmittelbaren Verständnisses im Vergleich zu 2D-Anzeigen liegen. Gleichzeitig wurden mit optimal gestalteten 3D-Anzeigen keine Nachteile in der Wahrnehmungssicherheit und Ablenkungswirkung festgestellt. Anhand der Literaturanalyse und der empirischen Ergebnisse wurden Gestaltungshinweise für 3D-Anzeigen in Fahrzeugen formuliert. Der erwartete 3D-Vorteil einer kompatiblen Darstellung stellte sich bei einer konstanten Anordnung der Informationen nicht ein, bleibt aber für Aufgaben mit einem kontinuierlichen Abgleich (z.B. Navigation) zu überprüfen. Die stereoskopische Darbietung erbrachte keinen besonderen Nutzen. Das fahrzeugtaugliche ASD erhöhte sogar die Reaktionszeiten. Insgesamt sprechen die Ergebnisse für eine gezielte Verwendung bildhafter monoskopischer 3D-Anzeigen für FAS und ausgewählte räumliche Funktionen, welche sich anhand von Begriffen und abstrakten Symbolen nur schwer erläutern lassen. / This thesis consists of the theoretical deduction and empirical evaluation of useful applications for monoscopic and (auto)stereoscopic 3D-displays in vehicles. For deducting hypotheses concerning the benefits and limits of 3D-displays, each subtask was tested for its potential benefits from a 3D-information presentation using a catalogue of confirmed advantages and disadvantages of 3D-displays. The proven 3D-advantages were summarized in five categories: integration, spatial compatibility, direction of attention, concreteness and attractiveness. Because it was presumed, that 3D-displays in vehicles are especially favorable for representing information about the vehicle surrounding in a 3D-perspective compatible to the drivers view, the empirical part was mainly focused on the application of 3D-displays for driver assistance systems. Using a 3D-display for adaptive cruise control (ACC), a general increase of attractiveness, acceptance and immediate comprehension for 3D-displays in comparison to conventional 2D-displays was confirmed. Simultaneously, well designed 3D-displays did not compromise perceptional safety and driver distraction. Design guidelines for 3D-displays in vehicles were concluded from the evaluation results and from literature analysis. Even though the expected 3D-benefit of spatially compatible information displays from the driver’s perspective was not confirmed for driver assistance systems like ACC with a constant layout of information, it still remains to be tested for continuous matching tasks like navigational checking in cars. The stereoscopic presentation of 3D-displays did not show advantages. On the contrary, an in-vehicle ASD even increased reaction times. In summery, the results suggest a distinctive application of well designed concrete and monoscopic 3D-displays for driver assistance systems and selected spatial functions which are difficult to explain using abstract notions or symbols.

<p>We investigate some simulation-based approaches for the valuing of the employee stock options. The mathematical models that deal with valuation of such options include the work of Jennergren and Naeslund [L.P Jennergren and B. Naeslund, A comment on valuation of executive stock options and the FASB proposal, Accounting Review 68 (1993) 179-183]. They used the Black and Scholes [F. Black and M. Scholes, The pricing of options and corporate liabilities, Journal of Political Economy 81(1973) 637-659] and extended partial differential equation for an option that includes the early exercise. Some other major relevant works to this mini thesis are Hemmer et al. [T Hemmer, S. Matsunaga and T Shevlin, The influence of risk diversification on the early exercise of employee stock options by executive officers, Journal of Accounting and Economics 21(1) (1996) 45-68] and Baril et al. [C. Baril, L. Betancourt, J. Briggs, Valuing employee stock options under SFAS 123 R using the Black-Scholes-Merton and lattice model approaches, Journal of Accounting Education 25 (1-2) (2007) 88-101]. The underlying assets are studied under the GARCH (generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity) effects. Particular emphasis is made on the American style employee stock options.</p>

<p>We investigate some simulation-based approaches for the valuing of the employee stock options. The mathematical models that deal with valuation of such options include the work of Jennergren and Naeslund [L.P Jennergren and B. Naeslund, A comment on valuation of executive stock options and the FASB proposal, Accounting Review 68 (1993) 179-183]. They used the Black and Scholes [F. Black and M. Scholes, The pricing of options and corporate liabilities, Journal of Political Economy 81(1973) 637-659] and extended partial differential equation for an option that includes the early exercise. Some other major relevant works to this mini thesis are Hemmer et al. [T Hemmer, S. Matsunaga and T Shevlin, The influence of risk diversification on the early exercise of employee stock options by executive officers, Journal of Accounting and Economics 21(1) (1996) 45-68] and Baril et al. [C. Baril, L. Betancourt, J. Briggs, Valuing employee stock options under SFAS 123 R using the Black-Scholes-Merton and lattice model approaches, Journal of Accounting Education 25 (1-2) (2007) 88-101]. The underlying assets are studied under the GARCH (generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity) effects. Particular emphasis is made on the American style employee stock options.</p>

Bakgrund och syfte. Ordflödestest undersöker en persons förmåga att generera så många ord som möjligt under en minut. Orden kan börja på en viss bokstav eller tillhöra en särskild kategori. FAS är ett vanligt ordflödestest där orden som ska genereras börjar på bokstäverna F, A och S. Exempel på kategoriska ordflödestest är djurflöde, som går ut på att säga så många djur som möjligt, samt verbflöde där instruktionen är att säga så många saker man kan göra (handlingar). Forskare har undersökt vilka mentala färdigheter som ligger till grund för ordflödesförmågan, framför allt planerande och reglerande (exekutiva) funktioner samt språklig förmåga. I forskning används ofta FAS och djurflöde för att undersöka olika delar av den språkliga förmågan. Även verbflöde har undersökts i dessa sammanhang, men inte i lika stor utsträckning. Däremot har verbflöde en större roll i forskning på planerande och reglerande funktioner hos äldre personer som har exempelvis Alzheimers eller Parkinson. Forskningen har lett till att ordflödestest används i kliniska sammanhang som en del i utredningen av dessa sjukdomar. I praktiken används även FAS och djurflöde vid utredningar av dyslexi, språkstörning och koncentrations-/hyperaktivitetssvårigheter (ADHD). Forskning har visat motstridiga resultat om vilka typer av ordflödestest som är nedsatta vid dyslexi och språkstörning, eller vilka mentala förmågor som är viktiga vid genomförande av ordflödestest. I denna studie undersöks FAS, djurflöde och verbflöde hos studenter inom högre utbildning med och utan dyslexi. Syftet är att utreda om ordflödesförmågan är nedsatt hos studenter med dyslexi. Studien undersöker om ordflöde kan bidra till att förklara spridningen i läsförmåga. Metod. I undersökningen deltog 42 studenter, varav 16 hade dyslexidiagnos och 26 kontroller utan dyslexidiagnos. Deltagarna genomförde test som undersöker läsförmåga, fonologisk förmåga, snabb benämning samt ordflöde av FAS, djur och verb. Resultat. Prestationen på ordflödesförmåga var signifikant nedsatt hos studenter med dyslexi jämfört med kontrollgruppen. En multipel regression med bakåteliminering genomfördes för att undersöka om FAS, djurflöde och verbflöde kunde förutsäga spridningen i läsförmåga när fonologisk medvetenhet och snabb benämning kontrollerades för. Regressionsanalysen visade att verbflöde, tillsammans med fonologisk medvetenhet, kunde förutsäga läsförmåga hos studenter med och utan dyslexi. Diskussion. Den nedsatta ordflödesförmågan hos studenter med dyslexi diskuteras utifrån faktorer som utbildning och andra mentala förmågor. Resultatet pekar på ett unikt samband mellan verbflöde och läsförmåga hos studenter med och utan dyslexi. De strukturer i hjärnan som aktiveras vid verbflöde är även strukturer som ligger till grund för andra mentala förmågor. Dessa mentala förmågor har även visats vara nedsatta hos personer med dyslexi. Generellt indikerar dessa nya fynd att verbflöde har en betydelse i förhållande till läsförmåga och dyslexi som behöver undersökas vidare. Resultatet diskuteras även utifrån ett kliniskt perspektiv. / Verbal fluency is commonly measured in cognitive assessments and has been shown to measure aspects of verbal ability and executive function, as well as to involve specific cortical areas during performance. Verbal fluency tasks, in which participants generate words during a given time limit, have been used in research and assessments of neurobiological disorders and impairments. Dyslexia is a neurobiologically based reading disorder that is characterized by difficulties in word decoding and spelling. Research on verbal fluency in individuals with dyslexia shows that semantic and letter fluency is impaired. However, studies show inconsistent results. This study examines performance on semantic fluency (animals), action fluency (verbs), and letter fluency (FAS) in 42 students with developmental dyslexia (DD, n = 16) and a control group with typical reading development (TD, n = 26). Participants also perform a test battery that measures reading and phonological abilities, amongst others. Additionally, it is examined if verbal fluency performance can contribute to predicting reading ability, when phonological awareness and rapid automatized naming (RAN) are taken into account. Results show that verbal fluency performance was impaired in the DD group, and that action and letter fluency were relatively more impaired than semantic fluency. A backward elimination regression showed that action fluency and phonological awareness were significant predictors of reading ability, together explaining 48 % of the variance. The impaired verbal fluency ability is discussed in relation to factors such as education and cognitive abilities. Further, the findings point to a possible unique connection between action fluency and reading ability in students, in addition to phonological awareness. The possibility that the relationship between action fluency and reading may be partly explained by common neurocognitive underpinnings is discussed. These novel findings indicate that action fluency has a pertinent role in reading ability and dyslexia, which should be further examined.

Dynamic behavior of impacting water drops on superhydrophobic solid surfaces provides important details on the stability/durability of such solid surfaces. Multi-scale surface roughness combined with a layer of low energy chemical is an essential surface modification process followed to create superhydrophobic capabilities on solid surfaces. The present work aims at studying the effect of low energy surface coating on droplet impact dynamics by carrying out experiments of water drop impacts on rough solid surfaces with and without chemical modification. A group of six aluminium alloy (Al6061) surfaces (three pairs) are prepared. Roughness, characterized in terms mean surface roughness, Ra, is introduced to these metallic surfaces using sand-paper polishing, electric discharge machining (EDM), and chemical based surface etching process. Low energy surface layer is laid on the rough surfaces by coating NeverWet hydrophobic solution, octadecyl-trichloro-silane (OTS), and perfluorodecyltricholorosilane (FAS-17). The impact dynamics of water drops is analyzed by capturing high speed videos for a range of drop Weber number from 1 to 570 and the salient features of drop impact process on the coated rough surfaces are compared with the corresponding uncoated rough surfaces. A one-to-one comparison on the spreading, fingering, receding, and final equilibrium of impacting drops on the coated and uncoated target surfaces is presented. Upon coating NeverWet, the original surface features of the base aluminium surface are completely covered by the hydrophobic coating material resulting in a fresh top surface layer. The outcomes as well as the bounce-off characteristics of impacting water drops on the coated surface are comparable to those observed on lotus leaf. The surface morphology features of rough aluminium surfaces coated with OTS and FAS-17 are comparable to those of the corresponding uncoated surfaces. The quantitative measurements on primary spreading and maximum spread factor of impacting drops are largely unaffected by the presence of low energy chemical coating. The dominant effect of surface coating is seen on the receding of impacting drops and hence the final drop configuration. This behavior is more prominently seen on EDM fabricated rough surface (larger Ra) combined with OTS coating than that on etching based rough surface (smaller Ra) combined with FAS-17 coating highlighting the dependence of coating effect with roughness features.

Perovskite based materials have great potentials for various energy applications and the search for new materials for uses in SOFCs has largely been concentrated to this class of compounds. In this search, we have studied perovskite phases in the system La2Co1+z(Ti1-xMgx)1-zO6, with 0  x 0.9 and z = 0.0, 0.2, 0.4, 0.6. Crystal structures were characterized by XRD and, for selected compositions, also by NPD and SAED. They exhibit with increasing x, as well as increasing z, a progressive increase in symmetry from monoclinic to orthorhombic to rhombohedral. The main focus in this work has been on the investigation of structure-property relations for compositions with 0.0 x 0.5 and z = 0. The nominal oxidation state of Co increases for these with increasing x, from Co2+ for x = 0 to Co3+ for x = 0.5. Magnetic measurements and XANES studies showed that the average spin state of Co changes linearly with increasing x, up to x = 0.5, in accordance with varying proportions of Co with two fixed oxidation states, i.e. Co2+ and Co3+. The data suggests that the Co3+ ions have an IS spin state or a mixture of LS and HS spin states for all compositions with nominally only Co2+ and Co3+ ions, possibly with the exception of the composition with x = 0.1, 0.2 and z = 0, for which the data indicate that the spin state might be HS. The XANES data indicate furthermore that for the perovskite phases with z = 0 and x &gt; 0.5, which in the absence of O atom vacancies contain formally Co4+, the highest oxidation state of Co is Co3+, implying that the substitution of Ti4+ by Mg2+ for x ³ 0.5 effects an oxidation of O2- ions rather than an oxidation of Co3+ ions. The thermal expansion was found to increase nearly linearly with increasing oxidation state of Co. This agrees well with findings in previous studies and is attributable to an increase in the ionic radius of Co3+ ions with increasing temperature, due to a thermal excitation from a LS to IS or LS/HS spin states. High temperature electronic conductivity measurements indicate that the electronic conductivity increases with an increase of both relative and absolute amount of Co3+. The latter can be attributed to an increase in the number of Co-O-Co connections. Additional high temperature magnetic measurements for selected samples, whose susceptibilities did not follow a Curie law behaviour up to room temperature, showed effective magnetic moments that did approach plateaus even at high temperatures (900 K). Interpretations of these data are, however, hindered by the samples losing oxygen during the applied heating-cooling cycle. The present study has shown that the investigated system is suitable for further studies, of more fundamental character, which could provide further insight of the structure-property relationships that depend on the oxidation state of Co. / Studies of cobalt based perovskites for cathode materials in solid oxide fuel cells.