Bakgrund: Styrelseskandaler som orsakat oroligheter i affärsvärlden har skapat ett behov av ett tydligt regelverk för bolagsstyrning, den skulle förstärka svenska noterade bolags och svenska börsplatsers konkurrenskraft på den internationella kapitalmarknaden. Den svenska koden för bolagsstyrning har kommit att bli en viktig del av regelsystemet på den svenska kapitalmarknaden. Den kräver att svenska börsnoterade bolag skall presentera bolagsstyrningsrapporter. Rapporternas kvalité är viktig för intressenterna som använder sig av bolagsstyrningsinformation. Syfte: Syftet med uppsatsen är att analysera utvecklingen av tillämpningen av den svenska koden för bolagsstyrningen. Författarna vill undersöka rapporternas kvalité och se hur den har förändrats mellan åren. Författarna vill vidare utreda om informationen som presenteras i bolagsstyrningsrapporter har blivit mer användbar för intressenterna som nyttjar den. Teori: Den teoretiska referensramen utgår ifrån Corporate Governance, agent-teorin, den svenska koden för bolagsstyrning och värderingskriterier som används för att bedöma bolagsstyrningsrapporternas kvalité. Metod: Författarna använder sig av den kvantitativa metoden där 36 bolagsstyrningsrapporter jämförs mellan åren 2005 och 2006. Rapporterna granskas med hjälp av de tre värderingskriterierna. Resultatet presenteras i löpande text, tabeller och diagram. Analys: Resultatet av granskade rapporter visar att de flesta bolag har utformat sin bolagsstyrningsrapportering enligt Kodens föreskrifter. De analyserade bolagen har generellt förbättrat sina bolagsstyrningsrapporter. Detta påvisar bolagsledningens vilja att ge en ärlig bild av bolaget och skapa en transparens gentemot aktieägare och övriga intressenter. Författarna tror att det leder till ökat förtroende mellan bolaget och deras intressenter. / Background: Board scandals that caused disturbances in the business world created a need for a clear regulation system for corporate governance. This system was created to reinforce Swedish-listed companies and their ability to compete on the international capital market. The Swedish Code for Corporate Governance is an important part of the regulation system on the Swedish capital market. It prescribes that Swedish-listed companies should present reports of corporate governance. The quality of the reports is important for stakeholders who use this information. Purpose: The purpose of this essay is to analyse the development of the companies’ applications of the Swedish Code for Corporate Governance. The writers want to examine the quality of the reports and observe how it has changed over the years. Furthermore, the writers want to investigate if the information which is presented in the reports of corporate governance has become more applicable for stakeholders who use it. Theory: The theoretical frame of reference is corporate governance, agent theory, the Swedish Code for Corporate Governance, and valuation standards, which are used to evaluate the quality of the reports for corporate governance. Method: The writers use the quantitative scientific method to evaluate 36 reports of corporate governance between the years 2005 and 2006. The reports are studied on the basis of the three valuation standards. The results are presented in the text, and in tables and diagrams. Analysis: The results of the studied reports show that most of the companies have shaped their reports of corporate governance according to the regulations of the Swedish Code for Corporate Governance. The analysed companies have generally improved their reports of corporate governance. This shows the willingness of the boards to give an honest image of the corporations in order to create a transparency towards shareholders and stakeholders. The writers believe that this will lead to a higher level of trust between the corporations and their stakeholders.

Bakgrund: Krav på ökad information och transparens i årsredovisningar har varit ett debatterat ämne de senaste åren. International Financial Reporting Standard (IFRS) har uppmärksammats med anledning av de ökad krav på upplysningar som standarden ställer däribland genom reglerna i IFRS 7 Finansiella Instrument: Upplysningar. Användandet av IFRS 7 blev lag år 2007 och gäller vid upprättande av en koncernredovisning. Kraven i IFRS 7 syftar till att visa företags hantering av finansiella instrument och därmed öka redovisningens transparens. Med anledning av de ökade krav som ställs på företag vill denna studie se hur noterade bolag har anpassat och förändrat sin redovisning enligt standarden.    Syfte: Studiens syfte är att analysera bolag noterade på OMX Nordic Exchange Stockholm Large Cap och deras redovisning enligt IFRS 7 för att se om någon förändring skett i mängden upplysningar som lämnats i årsredovisningar för år 2010 jämfört med år 2007. Metod: Den kvantitativa metoden har använts för att genomföra undersökningen. Den positivistiska inriktningen har varit i fokus då antaganden som gjorts på förhand blivit erkända eller förkastade genom en objektiv granskning av de kvantitativa data som samlats in. I undersökningen ingår 37 bolag och totalt har 74 årsredovisningar granskats. Följande punkter valdes ut och undersöktes sedan i de aktuella årsredovisningarna: Punkt 8 Rapport över finansiell ställning, Punkt 20 Rapport över totalresultat, Punkt 33 Kvalitativa upplysningar, Punkt 36-37 Kreditrisk, Punkt 39 Likviditetsrisk och Punkt 40-42 Marknadsrisk. Materialet som samlats in har förts in i kodningstabeller skapade i SPSS för att sedan analyseras. Slutsats: Det har sedan införandet av IFRS 7 år 2007 skett en förändring i redovisningen enligt de undersökta punkterna. Mängden ord som redovisas i samband med de undersökta punkterna har i årsredovisningarna för år 2010 ökat jämfört med mängden ord som redovisades år 2007. En ökning har också skett med avseende på antalet punkter som följs fullt ut. Flera av bolagen har också gjort någon typ av ändring beträffande placering, framställning, rubrik, borttagning eller tillägg av information vid redovisning enligt IFRS 7 år 2010. / Background: Requirements for increased information and transparency in annual reports has in recent years been a debated topic. International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) has been a discussed standard in response to the amount of disclosure requirements it contains. IFRS 7 Financial Instruments: Disclosures is one standard included in IFRS which since year 2007 requires listed companies to report their management of financial instruments and thereby increase the transparency. IFRS 7 was standardized in the year 2007 for companies that prepare consolidated financial statements. Due to the increased demands placed on listed companies this study wants to see how the companies have adapted and changed their accounting in accordance with the standard. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to analyze public companies listed on OMX Nordic Exchange Stockholm Large Cap and their accounting in accordance with IFRS 7 in order to see if any changes are made in the amount of information provided in the financial statements for the year 2010 compared to 2007. Methodology: The quantitative method has been used to conduct this study and the positivistic objective has been in focus. The study sample included 37 companies and a total of 74 annual reports. The following parts were selected from IFRS 7 and examined in the annual reports: Paragraph 8 Balance sheet, Paragraph 20 Income statement and equity, Paragraph 33 Qualitative disclosures, Paragraph 36-37 Credit risk, Paragraph 39 Liquidity risk and Paragraph 40-42 Market risk. The information collected from the annual reports have been put in to a coding system created in SPSS and then analyzed.       Conclusion: Since the standardization of IFRS 7 in year 2007 there has been a change in the way listed companies account in accordance with the examined parts. The amount of words related to the examined parts in the annual reports of year 2010 has increased compared to the amount of words disclosed in year 2007. The study also shows that more of the examined parts are accounted for. Several of the investigated companies have also made changes regarding the placement and the presentation of the information. Change of headline and removal of information also occurred. Additionally some companies added new information

Bakgrund: Redovisning syftar till att ge en historisk bild av en organisation – ett företag eller en koncern. Skillnaden mellan den bild som baserar sig på redovisningsprinciper (och regler) och en bild, vilken som helst, är jämförbarheten. Goodwillned-skrivningar skapar problem med just jämförbarheten. Det skäl som anges baserar sig på regler stipulerade i IFRS. Skälen som koncerner anger är i sin tur naturligtvis motiverade mer eller mindre väl med utgångspunkt i IFRS men dessa regler innehåller en betydande rymlighet som kan beskrivas i termer av godtycke. Den här uppsatsen undersöker denna rymlighet i termer av regleringen och skälen för nedskrivning som ingen undersökning hittills orienterat sig mot. Syfte: Den här undersökningen syftar till att förtydliga strukturer i skälen till goodwill-nedskivningar som ett exempel på strukturer mellan explicita skäl och regler och underliggande (implicita) tillämpningar och normer. Metod: Metoden som användes var facktextanalys. Företagen i studien är valda utifrån kriterier som är energi- och råvaruföretag, börsnoterade på stockholmsbörsen (NASDAQ OMX Nordic). Resultat: Resultaten redovisas i en tabell där man kan se tendenser. En tendens är att företagen har ett behov av att förklara och försvara sitt agerande. En annan är på normnivån, att man gärna vill vara rationell och ärlig. Det som vidare framträder är ett möjligt samband mellan den explicit formulerade regeln (IFRS) och de skäl som anges. Men detta samband är inte entydigt. Slutsats: Goodwillnedskrivningar förefaller vara svagt institutionaliserat. Godtycket (öppenheten) tycks vara det centrala som bäst förklarar det empirin visat. De skäl som koncernerna ger kopplar inte entydigt till reglerna, istället tycks det som om det finns ett betydande utrymme (godtycke) att utforma en praktisk redovisningsmodell när det gäller nedskrivningarna. / Background: The aim of accounting is to provide a historical view of an organization – a company or concern. The difference between the view that is based on accounting principles (and rules) and a view, any view, is comparability. Goodwill impairment causes a problem with precisely this comparability. The reasons given are based on rules stipulated in IFRS. The reasons that a concerns use are, in turn, motivated more or less well on the basis of IFRS but these rules contain a considerable spaciousness thus the use is arbitrary. This thesis examines the spaciousness in terms of regulation and the reasons for impairment as no study so far has studied this. Aim: This study aims to clarify the structures in the reasons for goodwill impairment as an example of the structures of explicit reasons and rules and implicit applications of standards Method: The method used was specialized text analysis. Concerns in the study are selected based on specific criteria. These concerns are selected based on the commodity and energy industries. The stocks of the concerns are listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange (NASDAQ OMX). Results: The results are presented in a table where one can see tendencies: one such tendency is that concerns have a need to explain and defend their impairments. Another tendency is on the normative level, that one wants to be rational and honest. What also emerges is a possible connection between the explicitly formulated rule (IFRS) and the reasons given. But this relationship is not unambiguous. Conclusion: Goodwill impairment appears to be only slightly institutionalized. The arbitrariness (spaciousness) appears to be the key element that explains what our empirical data has shown. The reasons that concerns provide does not clearly link to the regulations, instead it appears that there is a considerable spaciousness (arbitrariness) to the design of a practical accounting model in terms of impairment.

The subject matter of this Bachelor´s thesis is the Eastern Baltic Sea cod. A literature review has been done regarding how environmental factors such as salinity, oxygen supply and temperature but also the size of the cod populations affects the migration patterns and the habitat choice of the cod. The result of the review shows that, when the eastern Baltic cod population is small, its area of distribution is restricted to the southern parts of the Baltic Sea. Moreover, high salinity leads to a larger area of distribution, while low oxygen content in the Deep Basins leads to vertical migrations, as well as further migrations south and north, to areas with better hydrological conditions. Finally the the cod tend to prefer habitats with warmer water, if the oxygen and salinity conditions are suitable, at least during the spawning period. This thesis also include estimation on how well the annual scientific trawl surveys performed by coastal Baltic countries, reflects the actual cod population size. This estimation is partly based on a critical review of available information about the trawl survey design in relation to cod migration patterns, distribution and habitat choice. Furthermore, a test has been done of how well the annual stock size estimates for the latest year, presented in the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) Annual Reports of the Baltic Fisheries Assessment Working Group (WGBFAS), between the years 1996-2009 reflected the best available stock size estimates from 2010. The results indicate that the scientific trawl surveys might not work satisfactory. This indicates that further research must be done in the field, therefore possible alternatives such as comparisons of positioning data of commercial and scientific trawls and interviews with fishermen are suggested. / Denna uppsats handlar om torsken i det östra Östersjöbeståndet. En litteratursammanfattning har gjorts gällande hur miljömässiga faktorer såsom salthalt, syretillgång, temperatur samt storleken på bestånden påverkar migrationsmönster och habitatval hos torsken. Resultaten visar bland annat att när torskbestånden är små blir torskens utbredningsområden begränsade till de södra delarna av Östersjön. Höga salthalter leder till större utbredningsområden medan låga syrehalter i djupbassängerna leder till vertikala migrationer såväl som längre migrationer söder och norr om bassängerna, till områden med bättre syretillgång. Torsken verkar dessutom föredra habitat med varmare vatten om syre- och salthaltsförhållandena är gynnsamma, åtminstone under lekperioden. Vidare inkluderar denna uppsats en bedömning av hur väl de årliga vetenskapliga trålningsundersökningarna som utförs av länder med kust mot Östersjön, återspeglar den faktiska storleken på torskbestånden. Denna bedömning baseras på en kritisk granskning av den information som finns tillgänglig gällande de vetenskapliga trålningsundersökningarna, i förhållande till torskens migrationsmönster, distribution och habitatval. Dessutom har ett test gjorts av hur väl de årliga beståndsuppskattningarna för 1996-2009 presenterade i International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) Annual Report of the Baltic Sea Fisheries Assessment Working Group (WGBFAS), reflekterar de bästa tillgängliga beståndsuppskattningarna från 2010. Resultaten indikerar att de vetenskapliga provtrålningsundersökningarna inte fungerar tillfredsställande, vilket visar på att vidare studier måste göras inom området. Möjliga alternativ, såsom jämförelser av positioneringsdata för kommersiell- samt vetenskaplig trålning, samt intervjuer med yrkesfiskare presenteras.

Healthcare systems require continuous monitoring of risk to prevent adverse events. Risk analysis is a time consuming activity that depends on the background of analysts and available data. Patient safety data is often incomplete and biased. This research proposes systematic approaches to monitor risk in healthcare using available patient safety data. The methodologies combine traditional healthcare risk analysis methods with safety theory concepts, in an innovative manner, to allocate available evidence to potential risk sources throughout the system. We propose the use of data mining to analyze near-miss reports and guide the identification of risk sources. In addition, we propose a Maximum-Entropy based approach to monitor risk sources and prioritize investigation efforts accordingly. The products of this research are intended to facilitate risk analysis and allow for timely identification of risks to prevent harm to patients.

ABSTRACT

published_or_final_version / Social Work and Social Administration / Master / Master of Social Sciences

Memory conformity effects occur when witnesses report misleading suggestions they learned about from another witness. Using a new paradigm the present thesis investigated whether what subject-witnesses report about an event also implies what they personally remember or know about that event. Subjects were tested in pairs, with each member of a pair shown a different version of a video using the MORI technique. There were critical details (e.g., theft of an iPod) in each of the following conditions: visible to only one member of each subject spair, visible to both members of the pair, and not visible to either member of the pair. Pairs subsequently completed a questionnaire together to remember details from the video. Subjects then individually completed a similar questionnaire. A source monitoring and subjective experiences test revealed that co-witness discussion does not necessarily lead people to experience illusory recollections for details they did not witness themselves.

Functional vision refers to the use of vision to perform day-day tasks and is assessed by the ability to perform these tasks. Assessment of functional vision is an integral component of the management of children with visual impairment. The results of the assessment help in designing appropriate educational and rehabilitation intervention strategies. The L V Prasad-Functional Vision Questionnaire (LVP-FVQ) is a reliable and valid tool for assessing self-reported functional vision performance (FVP) in children. Self-reports are obviously the child's perception of his or her ability to perform certain tasks but they may not reflect actual performance. Various studies of FVP in adults have used actual performance measures of everyday tasks, but very few studies, even in adults with visual impairment, have compared self-reports and performance measures and none have included identical tasks on the 2 methods of assessment. To date, no study has assessed FVP using performance measures of daily tasks in the paediatric population. Therefore, the aims of the current study were: (1) To develop performance measures of FVP and compare them with self-reports of FVP from the LVP-FVQ in a prospective cohort of Indian school-going children with visual impairment. (2) To investigate the effect of a psychological attribute, self-concept, on self-reports, performance measures and the relationships between the 2 measures. (3) To investigate the relationship between clinical measures of vision and FVP. Performance measures of FVP for children with visual impairment were developed for 17 day to day tasks for comparison with self-reports of the same tasks for the LVP-FVQ. The LVP-FVQ was verbally administered by the researcher to 178 Indian school-going children aged between 8 and 17 years with visual impairment. Similarly, the performance of each of the tasks by these children was measured by the researcher. The performance measures for most of these tasks were recorded on continuous scales and later categorized to match the ordinal ratings from the LVP-FVQ. The self-report and performance measure ratings for the 17 tasks were then converted into the same metric using a Rasch model allowing an accurate picture of whether and how these two measures of FVP compared with each other. Rasch analysis was used to estimate the person ability and item difficulty for FVP from the 2 methods of assessment. Self-reports showed stronger correlations with performance measures of FVP than were hypothesized. Similar to some studies in adults, binocular high-contrast visual acuity was found to be the single most significant predictor of a child's functional vision performance. Contrary to expectations, self-concept did not have a significant effect on the relationship between the 2 measures. A few reasons for the stronger than expected relationship between the 2 methods of assessment of FVP in children with visual impairment are suggested. Firstly, the use of identical tasks for self-reports and performance measures of FVP is likely to improve the relationship. Secondly, the LVP-FVQ was developed using focus groups of children with visual impairment, their parents, low vision specialists and rehabilitation professionals leading to good content validity. Since children were included in the development of the LVP-FVQ, the tasks were representative of a child's typical daily life. Thus, the performance measures were also suited to the day-day tasks of school-going children but were not tapping any social and psychological issues relating to visual impairment. Thirdly, the use of Rasch analysis which addresses many of the issues of unequal measurement and defines a hierarchy of items for self-reports and performance measures could have led to higher correlations in the present study. Finally, the high reliability and validity of self-reports and performance measures of FVP in the present study may have contributed to the higher than expected correlations. None of the demographic variables or self-concept affected the relationship between self-reports and performance measures of FVP, but self-concept had a weak significant association with self-reports. This result is unique to this study and warrants further investigation. Binocular high-contrast visual acuity alone, the most common visual function measured in ophthalmic clinics, explained between one-third and two-thirds of the variance in functional vision performance. This confirms the expected trend that with worse visual impairment, FVP is lower. The addition of the variable, self-concept, resulted in a very small increase in the variability explained for self-reported FVP. Similarly, the addition of other clinical measures of vision such as binocular low contrast visual acuity and colour vision resulted in a small increase in the variability explained for performance measures of FVP. The correlation between binocular high-contrast visual acuity and performance measures of FVP was statistically significantly higher than that between binocular high-contrast visual acuity and self-reports of FVP. There are a few possible reasons for this higher correlation. Firstly, performance measures are considered to be a more "objective" form of assessment, while self-reports are a child's perception of his or her ability and therefore lack a context, which may result in either over-estimation or under-estimation of actual ability. Furthermore, performance measures include dimensions such as the time taken to perform a task or other criteria specific to a task, while self-reports do not use such qualifiers. Secondly, the higher correlation may be the result of the visual complexity of some of the tasks. While self-concepts of children with visual impairment played a small but significant role in the self-reported FVP, studies in adults with visual impairment have suggested that other psychological factors such as mood, anxiety, motivation etc. are associated with an individual's perception of visual performance. Future studies are required to explore the possible role of these and other factors in FVP in Indian school-going children with visual impairment. This thesis makes a significant contribution to the field of paediatric low vision rehabilitation by providing performance measures of FVP and relating them to self-reports in children with visual impairment and their relationship with common measures of visual function. With self-reports, the child is reporting his or her perception of ability to complete a task, where performance measures examine the child's ability to complete a task by observing his or her performance. Thus, although the two methods are comparable, it is because of the different yields from each of these measures that they are not considered interchangeable. A combination of the 2 measures where practical would perhaps provide a richer depiction of the FVP of children with visual impairment. As developing countries such as India have limited resources allocated for eye care services where less than seven percent of the gross national product is spent on health care, self-reports can be utilized together with clinical measures of vision (mainly visual acuity) to assess the FVP in children with visual impairment in a community setting. However, both methods of assessment of FVP together with clinical measures of vision are essential if a comprehensive assessment of FVP is to be carried out in children with visual impairment. Information from these assessments can help clinicians better understand the functioning of children with visual impairment and incorporate them in the management of low vision in school-going children with visual impairment in India.

Thesis (PhD)--Macquarie University, Graduate School of Management, 2004. / Bibliography: p. 210-272. / "December 2003". / Overview -- Literature review of intellectual capital reporting with a human capital focus -- Forces shaping intellectual capital reporting in Sri Lanka -- Reseach method -- Political economy of accounting reporting theory -- Hypothesis development and data interpretation -- Results of hypothesis testing --Interpretation of results -- Conclusions. / This study examines and explains the intellectual capital reporting (ICR) practices, with a human capital (HumC) focus, of firms located in a developing nation, Sri Lanka. The study ascertained the following: first, to what extent the industry groups, based on the number of shareholders, differ in their ICR practices; and second, to what extent firms in Sri Lanka differfrom counterparts in other nations in their ICR practices. -- The literature reviewed highlighted the voluntary nature and unregulated nvironment of ICR. It also underlined the inability of traditional accounting to recognise IC within its financial statements. This has lead to a plethora of non-uniform definitions of intellectual capital (IC) and ICR, and a wide range of theoretical frameworks available for IC. -- This thesis examined the top 30 firms by market capitalisation listed on the Colombo stock exchange in both 1998/1999 and 1999/2000. It reviewed their annual reports using content analysis to analyse the type and amount ofIC reported, and carried out 11 case study interviews with directors and senior executives to analyse the type and amount of IC managed within the firms. Using this data, this study tested the political economy of accounting (PEA) theory. The study collapsed the firms into four industry groups based on the number of areholders; this was done on the basis that the number of shareholders of a firm influences their ICR practice. -- The results indicate that, overall, there were distinct differences in ICR practice between industry groups. The industry groups were found to report similarly in relation to IC category. However, in relation to IC elements the industry groups were found to report differently, with some industry groups over reporting on certain elements which were not well managed and vice versa. The differences in ICR practices indicate that industry groups use ICR to mediate the agenda of debate between them and their economic, social and political constituents to maximise their capital reproduction. The study also indicates that differences exist in ICR practices between firms located in Sri Lanka and firms in other nations in relation to both IC categories and IC elements. These differences are attributed to the unique economic, social and political context of each country. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / xvii, 383 p., ill