Denna examensrapport ingår som ett obligatoriskt moment i den treåriga Byggingenjörsutbildningen, vid Högskolan i Borås. Studien beskriver den förbättringspotential anläggningsprojektet Knutpunkt Gamlestaden har, för att kunna minska koldioxidavtrycket. Kortare beskrivningar kring posterna armering, asfalt, drivmedel och plattor av natursten ges, där produktionsprocesser och transporter vägs in. Författarna har tagit fram alternativa producenter och material, vilket i slutändan reducerar projektets totala koldioxidbelastning. Det har även tagits hänsyn till om dessa alternativ är tillgängliga och realistiska att införa i projektet. De eventuella fördelar och nackdelar som förändringen kan medföra, förs det en diskussion kring. Med hjälp av Skanskas interna klimatkalkylsverktyg, redovisas förbättringspotentialen i siffror. Detta för att få ut koldioxidbelastningen och därmed kunna jämföra de nya alternativen mot de befintliga. / This report is a part of the three-year Bachelor in Civil Engineering program at the University of Borås. The study describes the potential of improvement that the project Knutpunkt Gamlestaden have, in order to reduce the carbon footprint. Brief descriptions of the items rebar, asphalt, fuel and slabs of natural stone is given, where the production and  ransportation are considered. The authors have looked at alternative producers and materials, which ultimately reduces the project's total carbon footprint. It has also been taken into account if these options are available and realistic to implement in the project. The possible advantages and  isadvantages that the change can bring are discussed. With help from Skanska's in-house climate calculation tool, the potential for improvement is graphically described. This is to demonstrate the carbon load and to be able to compare the new options to the existing ones.

This thesis is an empirical event study that examines the short-run performance of initial public offerings (IPO), known as underpricing and initial return. I argue that literature which only presents equal weights could potentially give the reader a skewed understanding of the width of the concept. By using a new data set of Nordic IPOs during the period 2009-2018, I provide estimates using equal as well as market capitalization weights consistently to give a more nuanced and fair picture. The equally weighted first-day initial return is estimated to be 4.96% and the value weighted first-day initial return is estimated to be 5.32% during the examined time period. Further, the initial return is examined in relation to firm characteristics as well as quarterly index returns and issuance volume. No statistically significant characteristics that can identify additional levels of underpricing was found. Quarterly average initial returns and quarterly index returns are independent of each other. In line with previous literature the positive relationship of issuance volume and initial return is valid on a quarterly level, indicating that firms tend to go public in times of positive and higher initial returns to a greater extent.

This thesis explores the possibility of applying sentiment analysis to extract tonality of user reviews on the Nordic languages. Data processing is performed in the form of preprocessing through tokenization and padding. A model is built in a framework called Keras. Models for classification and regression were built using LSTM and GRU architectures. The results showed how the dataset influences the end result and the correlation between observed and predicted values for classification and regression. The project shows that it is possible to implement NLP in the Nordic languages and how limitations in input and performance in hardware affected the result. Some questions that arose during the project consist of methods for improving the dataset and alternative solutions for managing information related to big data and GDPR. / Denna avhandling undersöker möjligheten att tillämpa sentiment analys för att extrahera tonalitet av användarrecensioner på nordiska språk. Databehandling utförs i form av förprocessering genom tokenisering och padding. En modell är uppbyggd i en ramverkad Keras. Modeller för klassificering och regression byggdes med LSTM och GRU-arkitekturer. Resultaten visade hur datasetet påverkar slutresultatet och korrelationen mellan observerade och förutspådda värden för klassificering och regression. Projektet visar att det är möjligt att implementera NLP på de nordiska språken och hur begränsningar i input och prestanda i hårdvara påverkat resultatet. Några frågor som uppstod under projektet består av metoder för att förbättra datasetet och alternativa lösningar för hantering av information relaterad till stora data och GDPR.

Background – This paper examined the literature on the concept of the glass ceiling in the management field, with an emphasis on Finnish and Swedish female leaders' perceptions of the barriers and facilitating factors of their career. Purpose – The purpose of this thesis was to explore the factors that affect the career development of women in the context of Nordic countries, namely in Finland and Sweden. Furthermore, this thesis tried to understand the welfare state paradox better and how the women in Finland and Sweden perceive it. Lastly, the purpose of this study was to find out if there are any differences between the perceptions of these countries due to the societal and cultural differences. Method – Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 female leaders from different companies in Finland and in Sweden. The grounded analysis was used in the qualitative analysis of the coding. Conclusion – The research resulted that there are several barriers and facilitating factors that have affected the career of female leaders. Finnish and Swedish women highlighted their own individual factors such as motivation, self-esteem and courage as the major facilitating factor, and thereof lack of them a barrier. Based on this research, women’s perception of Nordic welfare policies is that they are beneficial to career development, providing an opportunity to focus on work more. Contrary to the expectations, there were relatively few differences in perceptions between Finnish and Swedish female leaders identified in this study. However, it seems that in Sweden the responsibilities about family are shared more equally and the overall social atmosphere is more encouraging for women's career success.

The Nordic countries share common interests to digitize services in the health care sector from which their eHealth strategies are a proof of. Sweden has specifically put effort on the global scheme by setting a goal of being the best in eHealth by 2025. As one of the main goals of the strategies is increasing patient empowerment, perspective of the health care professionals in this digital shift has yet remained less noticed and the concrete effects on them is still scarcely studied. This study focuses on providing the aspect of the health care professionals and how they have perceived and experienced the digital tools and eHealth services affecting their work and what attitudes they themselves have as users.                                This study utilized the mixed method approach and was done in collaboration with the Digga Halland project which aims towards enhancing health care workers’ digital competences and conditions to utilize eHealth. Previously collected baseline survey data from health care professionals in different municipalities in the Halland region was analysed and five health care professionals were recruited for in-depth, phenomenological interviews.             The results of this research indicate that the use of digital tools and services is common among health care professionals at work and outside work and the workers consider their digital competence rather good. However, the interview respondents presented varying attitudes towards digital services and eHealth depending on whether the services were evaluated from a professional role or outside work role when the professionals used the services themselves. Also, the current professional position guided whether the digital shift and eHealth were experienced more positively or negatively.

This is a qualitative study with an argumentation and discourse approach with the purpose to compile what the Swedish democrats (SD) and the Nordic resistance movement (NMR) writes about religion in their current party program. The two main questions in this study were as follows: Are there any signs of islamophobia, antisemitism or cultural racism in the party programs of Swedish democrats and the Nordic resistance movement and how is this expressed? also Is it religion that is more represented as threat in each party program? The main theories that are discussed in this study are islamophobia, antisemitism and cultural racism. The result of the study shows that the Nordic resistance movement have many arguments that are antiemetic, and this organization especially believes that we live in a world where majority of medias and politicians are controlled by a Zionist elite group. The study of The Swedish democrat’s party program shows that many arguments have cultural racism intendencies and that the party favorites Christianity in their party program.

The purpose of this study is to explore the meaning of womanhood in relation to the Swedish fäbod culture at the turn of the 20th century. The study is based upon a questionnaire from 1928 and the material is collected from the archives at the Nordic Museum in Stockholm and the Institute for Language and Folklore in Uppsala. Drawing upon gender and ritual theories, the study intends to gain an understanding for what it meant to be a woman of the fäbod by examining how fäbod herdswomen were culturally shaped and initiated into women both in relation to their place in the fäbod community of herdswomen, but also in respect to the wider community and society of which they were a part of.  The main conclusion of the study is that the journey into the fäbod woods can be seen as a rite of passage where adolescent girls going to the fäbod for the first time were initiated into the fäbod community of herdswomen. Womanhood is a cultural phenomenon in which women are culturally shaped and initiated into women not only by the codes, conceptions and values of the society at large, but also by the stories, customs and traditions of their local communities. The fäbod herdswomen were born into the gender power structures of a patriarchal society that sought to shape them into promising wives, and they were also women of the fäbod, initiated into the fäbod communitas, a form of female counterculture with its very own musical language, customs and traditions, and with its very own definitions of womanhood.

This thesis aims to examine whether a merger arbitrage strategy is able to generate market neutral alpha in the Nordic region. Similar studies of merger arbitrage strategies in both the US and Australian market find market neutral alpha. To investigate the viability of such a strategy, we developed a “Merger arbitrage portfolio” which invests in 55 deals during 2003-2017 in the Nordic equity capital market. Our findings provide strong support that a merger arbitrage strategy is market neutral, even in times of financial turmoil. An excess return is recorded, however, when estimating the portfolio with the Market Model we find no statistically significant alpha. The results are affected by large outliers. We conclude that our version of the merger arbitrage strategy is not an optimal investment in terms of its Sharpe Ratio, compared to an index using a similar strategy and the stock market.

<p>This study investigates the capital structure pattern on the Nordic Banking sector, and analyzes if the macroeconomics conditions have an impact on it. The topic is timely and relevant as the credit crises, which has reached the real economy strongly, appears to lead to a restructure of the capital structure of the firms. To achieve my objective I have observed the debt-to-equity ratio in the period 2003-2008. I conducted correlation analysis and further regression analysis to search for a relationship between the variables and then a cause-effect relation between the macroeconomic measures and the capital structure. In order to understand and select the macroeconomics measures to this investigation I have reviewed well known theories and studies about the subject.</p><p> </p><p>I have found a stable debt-to-equity ratio on the book value; however to the market value the figures indicate a decrease in equity value, especially in the last year. In order to search for a macroeconomic relationship, I have developed hypotheses and examined them to select the most suitable variables to a regression analysis. The choice was the change in the GDP, the interest rate and tax rate.</p><p> </p><p>The results revealed that the book value is better explained by these measures than the market value. They demonstrate statistical significantly, highlighting the change in GDP. Even if the findings suggest that there is a correlation between the macroeconomic condition and the capital structure, the analyses suggest only moderate relationship, that should be further investigate.</p>

<p><strong>Problem: </strong>Det finns skillnader kring hållbarhetsredovisning mellan länder när det gäller reglering, tillämpning av GRI:s (Global Reporting Initiatives) riktlinjer, intressenternas makt att påverka med flera. Dessa skillnader kan ha uppstått på grund av många orsaker men i denna uppsats kommer det att utredas om kulturen kan förklara dessa skillnader.  </p><p><strong>Syfte:</strong> Syftet med denna uppsats är att beskriva och förklara i vilken utsträckning kulturen har en inverkan på hur de olika nordiska länderna väljer att lagstifta kring hållbarhetsredovisning och hur företagen tillämpar GRI:s riktlinjer. Men även om intressenternas makt att påverka företagen att göra en hållbarhetsredovisning har någon förklaring i kulturen.</p><p><strong>Metod: </strong>Den insamlade<strong> </strong>datan är huvudsakligen kvalitativ men har kompletterats med en del kvantitativ data. Insamlingen har skett genom litteratursökning, telefonintervjuer och en e-mailkontakt. Vid telefonintervjuerna har vi utgått ifrån ett frågeformulär och låtit respondenterna besvara frågorna med egna ord. Respondenterna har valts utifrån Fredrik Ljungdahls affärsnätverk inom PwC (PricewaterhouseCoopers).                             </p><p><strong>Resultat: </strong>Det finns en svag kulturell förklaring till<strong> </strong>hur företagen i nordens länder väljer att lagstifta kring hållbarhetsredovisning, tillämpa GRI:s riktlinjer samt vilken makt intressenterna har att påverka företagen till att hållbarhetsredovisa. Graden av lagstadgad kontroll kan förklara skillnader i reglering medan det inte finns någon kulturell förklaring till tillämpningen av GRI:s riktlinjer. Graden av maktdistans kan slutligen förklara intressenternas makt att påverka företagen till att hållbarhetsredovisa.</p> / <p><strong>Problem: </strong>There are some differences in sustainability reporting between countries when it comes to regulation, applying GRI:s (Global Reporting Initiatives) guiding principles, stakeholders´ power to influence and so on. These differences can appear from different reasons but in this graduate paper we will investigate if these differences can be explained by cultural factors.</p><p><strong>Purpose:</strong> The purpose of this paper is to describe and explain to which extent the culture has any impact on how the Nordic countries choose to regulate the sustainability reporting and how the companies apply GRI:s guiding principles. But also if the stakeholders´ power to affect companies to do a sustainability report can have its explanation in the culture.</p><p><strong>Method: </strong>The gathered data is mainly qualitative but has been complemented with quantitative data. The gathering has been done through literature research, telephone interviews and an e-mail contact. In the telephone interviews we used a question form although the interviewee was allowed to answer the questions in his or her own words. The interviewee have been chosen on the basis of Fredrik Ljungdahls business network within PwC (PricewaterhouseCoopers).            </p><p><strong>Result: </strong>There are a weak cultural explanation to how the Nordic countries choose to regulate the sustainability reporting, apply GRI:s guiding principles and which power the stakeholders´ have to influence the companies to do a sustainability report. The degree of statutory control can explain the differences in regulation while there are no cultural explanation to the application of GRI:s guiding principles. The degree of powerdistance can finally explain the stakeholders´ power to influence the companies to do a sustainability report.</p>