<p>There is no reason to refuse the fact that, in the coming years, Europe is going to face a new wave of immigration. The birth rate is in decline and life expectancy in the European continent is higher than before. As a consequence, there are two major problems: a shortage of labour and the financing of the pensions (Kohler, Billari & Ortega, 2002). World Bank warns European Union that for stabilizing the amount of working age population in 2050 like in 1995, would involve a net migration of 79 million within the EU25. There should be new flow of immigration. As a consequence, the phenomenon combines immigration and entrepreneurship will be vital for countries’ future growth within Europe. However, consider Sweden as the area of study by combining the immigration entrepreneurship study and business start-up abroad. Therefore, the questions of why the entrepreneurs choose to go to other countries for business venture and why they choose Sweden as the host country become a topic to study in this research paper.</p><p>The purpose of the research is going to find out the motivations for the initiative of entrepreneurial immigrants’ choice of Sweden as a host country. In order to find the result for the purpose, the research chose to use an inductive and exploratory approach to find out why those entrepreneurial immigrants indented to come to establish business in Sweden. Those reasons were investigated from previous research; experts working with foreigners who arrived in Sweden for business purpose, and the entrepreneurial immigrants who arrived in Sweden for new ventures. The data collection based on a qualitative method. According to the research purpose, the theories were chosen in the field of migration and entrepreneurship. Determinants of immigration and entrepreneurship were listed and explained. Based on the interview, information was categorized with the determinants listed in the theoretical frame work.</p><p>Based on the analysis, the empirical information shows that entrepreneurs came to Sweden not only for business reasons. All of the Local Development Managers and entrepreneurs interviewed considered that entrepreneurial immigrants chose to create business in Sweden with immigration purpose. However, if we want to apply this result to all entrepreneurial immigrants, further quantitative study would be required.</p>

<p>Introduction:</p><p>Venture capital investment process is complex and different firms vary greatly in their investment practices. This has resulted in authors given several different factors that could be imperative for venture firms investment decisions. There is thus no consensus in the field of venture investing.</p><p>Purpose:</p><p>The purpose of this thesis is to list which factors are important for venture capital firms investment decisions in start-up firms.</p><p>Method:</p><p>The authors conducted structured phone interviews with seven venture capital firms in Sweden.</p><p>Conclusion:</p><p>The authors found the following factors to be important for venture firms investment decisions in start-up firms; Busienss plans that demonstrated the thinkings of the entrepreneur, communicate ideas, visions, product, market, competition, growth potential as well as the planned intentions with the recived funds. They also desired realistic, concreate, simple plans that explained the implementation process of the start-up firm. The second factor that was important was markets where large markets, market growth, market share, market entry and global markets were mentioned. The third factor of importance was product, in which uniqueness, simplicity, patents and time-to-market were listed. Management was the fourth factor of importance, in which sensibility, competence, technical skills, entrepreurial spirit, attitude, humbelness, determination, openness, drive, chemistry and confidence were included. The fifth factor of importamce financial embraced ROI, economioes of scale, valuation and the size of the investment. The last two important factors that the authors found to be important for the venture firms in the study were location and industry.</p>

<p>This licentiate thesis describes the modeling and measurements performed with the aim of developing design guidelines for Line Start Permanent Magnet Synchronous Motors, LSPMSMs. LSPMSMs can offer higher efficiency than standard induction motors used in the industry today, especially for small motor sizes. The increase in efficiency results in lower environmental impact and reduced electricity cost. The LSPMSM has, however, several drawbacks, among the most important is the reduced starting capability compared to induction motors. Furthermore, the rotor construction is complex and the added cost of magnet material makes the LSPMSM a comparably expensive motor type. The design of a LSPMSM is a trade-off between starting capability and steady state performance. The thesis discusses these trade-offs and the models that can be used as a basis for design and optimization. The models make use of different motor parameters, and a number of measurement methods for measuring these parameters are described and compared. Among these is a step response adapted measurement method that provides most of the parameters of interest. The development and setup of a brake bench for measuring both start-up and steady state performance is presented. Furthermore the start-up behavior and steady-state performance is calculated using measured parameters. The calculated performance is compared to measured performance and found to correlate well for nominal operating conditions. Thus, design guidelines can be based on the models proposed.</p>

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2001. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 196-199). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (M.S.N.)--Gonzaga University, 2002. / Oral presentation for NURS 681P.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2001. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 196-199). Also available on the Internet.

I Sverige klassificeras cirka 99,4 % av alla företag som mindre företag och under 2014 registrerades cirka 70 000 nya företag. Gemensamt är att nystartade och mindre företag som växer och utvecklas bidrar till nationell tillväxt i länderna de är verksamma inom. För att företagen ska kunna växa krävs finansiering och banker har traditionellt tillgodosett detta behov. Regelverket Basel III är därför väldiskuterat eftersom flera studier visar att det kan påverka bankers kreditgivning. Forskning visar bland annat att Basel III leder till minskad utlåning och ökade utlåningsräntor. Det visar också att nystartade företag kan missgynnas mer än andra bolag på grund av de interna riskklassificeringssystem som tillåts inom regelverket. Interna riskklassificeringssystem kan nämligen, på grund av olika variabler och parametrar, göra att nystartade företag betraktas som mer riskfyllda. Andra studier som gjorts i ämnet visar att Basel III inte påverkar varken banker, kreditgivning eller utlåningsräntor. Eftersom tidigare forskning och litteratur visar olika resultat syftar denna studie till att undersöka, beskriva och öka förståelsen för hur Basel III påverkat kreditgivningen till nystartade företag i Sverige. För att få empiriskt underlag till studien har tio intervjuer gjorts med elva respondenter från sju olika banker. Intervjuer har gjorts med anställda på större och mindre banker på central och lokal nivå. Resultatet i studien visar att alla banker höjt utlåningsräntorna till nystartade företag. Bankerna uppger att det framför allt beror på förändrad risksyn och riskbedömning till följd av Basel III. Basel III har lett till att företagskunder prissätts mer efter bedömd kreditrisk och detta har gjort att nystartade företag generellt fått en högre ränta. Resultatet visar också att interna system och modeller blivit viktigare inom bankerna och att alternativa finansieringslösningar börjat växa fram på marknaden. Samtidigt är kreditbedömningsprocessen och låneutbudet oförändrat sedan Basel III:s introduktion. Studiens resultat bidrar med praktiska implikationer till nystartade företag, banker, entreprenörer och samhället. Den bidrar också teoretiskt till forskningen i form av underlag till diskussionen om utlåningsräntor och låneutbud. / In Sweden approximately 99.4% of all companies are classified as small companies and in 2014 around 70,000 new companies were registered. The common denominator is that start-ups and small businesses that grow and evolve contribute to national growth in the countries they operate in. In order to enable businesses to grow they require finance and traditionally banks have met this need. Basel III is therefore a well-argued subject since several studies show that it can affect banks' lending. Research shows that Basel III will lead to reduced lending and increased lending rates. It also shows that start-ups may be more disadvantaged than other companies because of the internal ratings-based (IRB) approach allowed within the regulation. The IRB approach can namely, because of different variables and parameters, consider start-ups more risky than other companies. Other studies however, show that Basel III has no, or very little, impact on lending and interest rates. Since previous research and literature shows different results this study aims to examine, describe and increase the understanding of how Basel III impact lending to start-ups in Sweden. Ten interviews with eleven respondents from seven different banks have been conducted. The interviews were conducted with employees of large and small banks working on central and local level. The results of the study show that all banks have raised lending rates to start-ups. The banks say that it is mainly due to changed risk profile and risk assessment as a result of Basel III. Basel III has led to corporates, retails and start-ups being priced on estimated credit risk and this has led to start-ups being considered as riskier. Thus, banks have raised lending rates to start-ups. The result also shows that internal systems and models have become more important in banks and that alternative financing has begun to emerge on the market. Meanwhile, the credit assessment process and the loan supply are unaffected since Basel III's introduction. The study's results contribute with practical implications for start-ups, banks, entrepreneurs and the community. It also contributes to theoretical research regarding the lending rates and loan supply discussion.

There has been growing interest among parents, teachers, researchers, and policymakers in better understanding children’s school readiness and the precise mechanisms by which early care and education programs promote these early skills. Two key, but understudied, mechanisms include preschool instruction and parenting practices. The present study used the Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES) 2006 cohort and examined whether gains in young children’s (n = 2,308) math, literacy, and behavior problems over the Head Start year were predicted by increased stimulation across children’s homes and school using structural equation modeling. Net of all other factors, parent learning support was uniquely associated with lower levels of behavioral problems and greater math achievement. Although there were no direct effects of parent involvement on child outcomes, the effects of parent involvement on children’s math and behavior were mediated through parent learning support. Children also demonstrated reduced problem behaviors when they received greater teacher instruction. However, the observed benefits for math achievement and reduced problem behaviors appear to be stronger when young children receive stimulation across both the home and school contexts. These findings have implications for children’s early problem behaviors and achievement, suggesting that parenting practices and teacher instruction are important avenues that can promote young children’s early skills. For optimal academic and behavioral outcomes, however, greater effort needs to be coordinated across children’s home and school settings. / text

The Vehicle Routing Problem (VRP) is a classical problem in logistics that has been well studied by the operations research and transportation science communities. VRPs are defined as follows. Given a transportation network with a depot, a set of pickup or delivery locations, and a set of vehicles to service these locations: find a collection of routes starting and ending at the depot, such that (i) the customer's demand at a node is satisfied by exactly one vehicle, (ii) the total demand satisfied by a vehicle does not exceed its capacity, and (iii) the total distance traveled by the vehicles is minimized. This problem is especially hard to solve because of the presence of sub--tours, which can be exponential in number. In this dissertation, a special case of the VRP is considered -- where the underlying network has a tree structure (TVRP). Such tree structures are found in rural areas, river networks, assembly lines of manufacturing systems, and in networks where the customer service locations are all located off a main highway. Solution techniques for TVRPs that explicitly consider their tree structure are discussed in this dissertation. For example, TVRPs do not contain any sub-tours, thereby making it possible to develop faster solution methods. The variants that are studied in this dissertation include TVRPs with Backhauls, TVRPs with Heterogeneous Fleets, TVRPs with Duration Constraints, and TVRPs with Time Windows. Various properties and observations that hold true at optimality for these problems are discussed. Integer programming formulations and solution techniques are proposed. Additionally, heuristic methods and conditions for lower bounds are also detailed. Based on the proposed methodology, extensive computational analysis are conducted on networks of different sizes and demand distributions. / text

Networking research and development have historically focused on increasing network throughput and path resource utilization, which particularly helped bulk applications such as file transfer and video streaming. Recent over-provisioning in the core of the Internet has facilitated the use of interactive applications like interactive web browsing, audio/video conferencing, multi- player online gaming and financial trading applications. Although the bulk applications rely on transferring data as fast as the network permits, interactive applications consume rather little bandwidth, depending instead on low latency. Recently, there has been an increasing concern in reducing latency in networking research, as the responsiveness of interactive applications directly influences the quality of experience. To appreciate the significance of latency-sensitive applications for today's Internet, we need to understand their traffic pattern and quantify their prevalence. In this thesis, we quantify the proportion of potentially latency-sensitive traffic and its development over time. Next, we show that the flow start-up mechanism in the Internet is a major source of latency for a growing proportion of traffic, as network links get faster. The loss recovery mechanism in the transport protocol is another major source of latency. To improve the performance of latency-sensitive applications, we propose and evaluate several modifications in TCP. We also investigate the possibility of prioritization at the transport layer to improve the loss recovery. The idea is to trade reliability for timeliness. We particularly examine the applicability of PR-SCTP with a focus on event logging. In our evaluation, the performance of PR-SCTP is largely influenced by small messages. We analyze the inefficiency in detail and propose several solutions. We particularly implement and evaluate one solution that utilizes the Non-Renegable Selective Acknowledgments (NR-SACKs) mechanism, which has been proposed for standardization in the IETF. According to the results, PR-SCTP with NR-SCAKs significantly improves the application performance in terms of low latency as compared to SCTP and TCP. / Interactive applications such as web browsing, audio/video conferencing, multi-player online gaming and financial trading applications do not benefit (much) from more bandwidth. Instead, they depend on low latency. Latency is a key determinant of user experience. An increasing concern for reducing latency is therefore currently being observed among the networking research community and industry. In this thesis, we quantify the proportion of potentially latency-sensitive traffic and its development over time. Next, we show that the flow start-up mechanism in the Internet is a major source of latency for a growing proportion of traffic, as network links get faster. The loss recovery mechanism in the transport protocol is another major source of latency. To improve the performance of latency-sensitive applications, we propose and evaluate several modifications in TCP. We also investigate the possibility of prioritization at the transport layer to improve the loss recovery. The idea is to trade reliability for timeliness. We particularly examine the applicability of PR-SCTP with a focus on event logging. In our evaluation, the performance of PR-SCTP is largely influenced by small messages. We analyze the inefficiency in detail and propose several solutions. We particularly implement and evaluate one solution that utilizes the Non-Renegable Selective Acknowledgments (NR-SACKs) mechanism, which has been proposed for standardization in the IETF. According to the results, PR-SCTP with NR-SCAKs significantly improves the application performance in terms of low latency as compared to SCTP and TCP.