There is a need of developing methods for evaluating material parameters for peat. It is hard and costly to obtain undisturbed samples for laboratory testing of the peat. Therefore, in this thesis the possibility of using in situ measurements of the shear wave velocity for first order estimates of the consolidation parameters has been investigated. In earlier work, relationships have been found be

In this paper, it is investigated whether High-Frequency Trading has an impact on the stock market predictability or not, using nine different Autoregressive moving average models forecasts are generated. Thenceforth, ordinary least squares are used to regress the variance of the forecasting errors with High-Frequency Trading as an explanatory variable in order to see if it has any form of impact.

The way how retirement is organized in a society is linked to multiple basic social processes such as the evolution of family ties, migration or inheritance. Intra-familial care and charity dominate our view of retirement in the pre-industrial past, while commercial arrangements hardly play a role. This thesis delivers a case study on how the commercial retirement home of St. Catherine’s Hospital

This thesis has sought to understand what has governed China’s behavior towards North Korea along with what keeps China aligned with North Korea, how the US is influencing Sino-North Korean relations and if China has been increasingly critical of North Korea in the light of its nuclear tests in 2006, 2009, 2013, 2016, 2017, the sinking of the Cheonan and the shelling of Yeonpyeong Island. A theore

This thesis explores whether and how rural-to-urban migration alters the Chinese migrant family in the case of divided rural households of 10 male migrant workers. The study relied on in-depth semi-structured interviews with married men, who are fathers, husbands and sons, and who are currently working on construction sites in Beijing. Drawing on Lusher & Robins’(2009) theory of masculinity, t

Tourism is an important income for regions, where souvenirs play an important part. As we are heading into a more creatively oriented tourism, visitors are encouraged to participate rather than merely observe. The current supply of static objects symbolized by the host region, do not necessarily fulfill the underlying purpose of a souvenir; helping you remember a special moment in your life. Memo

The tawny pipit (Anthus campestris) is a migrant bird adapted to dry, sandy habitats. In southern Sweden, land use changes have resulted in a reduction of suitable areas, affecting the birds’ population size. The SandLife Project was created with the goal to restore those sandy grasslands and improve local conditions to stimulate the recovery of biodiversity. In order to compare the current and th

Nowadays, European cities contain more than 70% of the population of the continent and are still growing. This growth tends to put pressure on the challenges that urban areas are already facing. The range of these challenges is wide, such challenges being social, environmental and economical. Air pollution, health issues, increasing heat, integration, social exclusion, loneliness or mobility probl

Competition over reproduction – how does it affect the DNA? Competition over what is often a scarce resource -reproduction, is a phenomenon widely studied in science. It is the ultimate endeavor for life, ensuring that an individual’s DNA is carried on to the next generation, preserving its footprint in the shape of a child. This is a very selfish enterprise for many organisms which becomes appar

The process of firms entering and exiting the market has since Schumpeter’s introduction of the concept of creative destruction been a subject of interest for economists aiming to determine what drives economic growth. However, limited availability of data has long been a hindrance to such ambitions and it is not until recent decades that empirical studies on the role of firm dynamics for economic

This paper uses a bivariate BEKK model to estimate volatility spillover effects between stock and bond markets for the Nordic countries Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Norway. Daily log returns between the years 2001 and 2018 are analyzed. No spillover effect from the bond to the stock market is found in any of the countries which is a result that is unusual compared to a large part of the preexistin

Förändringar av miljöförhållanden i två naturområden i Helsingborg Landskap förändras hela tiden och det sker många stora förändringar genom att vi brukar marken på olika sätt, som till exempel när vi odlar mat. Under det senaste århundradet har det skett många stora förändringar i jordbrukslandskapet, bland annat på grund av att man börjat använda konstgödsel, bekämpningsmedel och har utvecklat Since the 1800’s the agriculture has changed and intensified significantly, going from small scale farming to large homogenous arable landscapes with fewer grazing animals, more fertilizers and pesticides. In Sweden, this pattern of intensification has been very distinct, especially in Scania, which today is dominated by plains. This has left substantial changes in the surrounding ecosystems, affe

Sex matters! It is natural to ask questions about where the species of this planet come from and how they become what they are. As a matter of fact, development of new species is in process all the time. Somebody named this process speciation. Like language which enables us to guess where the people might come from, some traits make it possible to recognize the individuals from the same populatio

Diel vertical migration (DVM) is performed by various zooplankton taxa. The general movement pattern of DVM has been well studied while the possible clonal differences of this movement largely remain unknown. My master thesis focus on investigating the effects of environmental stressors on Daphnia magna strains isolated from natural populations. Here I maintained 11 strains of Daphnia magna origin

Sanction evasion can hamper the effect of international sanctions. This paper aims to establish whether the Russian sent counter-sanctions were evaded by the Western countries by using non-sanctioned countries as transit routes for the sanctioned products. This question is analysed by estimating a gravity equation of trade by applying Pseudo-Poisson Maximum Likelihood and Ordinary Least Squares es

Människokroppen är uppbyggd av olika typer av celler som exempelvis hudceller, nervceller och fettceller. Generellt sett är dessa celler utformade för en väldigt specifik uppgift såsom att utföra arbete (exempelvis muskelceller) eller att förse kroppen med struktur (exempelvis benceller). Det finns en väldigt spektakulär typ av cell -- så kallade stamceller -- vars specifika syfte är att omvandlasThe generation of induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells from differentiated cells is a process of great scientific interest due to the medical potential of such cells. This process (called 'reprogramming' of cells) is however notoriously inefficient and still not very well understood. Therefore studies that can help us understand the interactions and mechanisms governing the reprogramming p

The purpose of this study was to analyze how does China pursue its national interest in the governance of the Lancang- Mekong River in domestic and international terms. The analysis was done through the lens of the classical realism theoretical school. Drawing from this framework and adopting the concept of national interest, the study gave a deeper understanding of China‟s motives behind the Lanc

Invasive alien species are organisms that have been introduced to an area outside their natural distribution range and threatens animals, habitats or humans in the new area. The raccoon (Procyon lotor) is a mesopredator originating from North and Central America that has been introduced in Europe and Asia. Since the first European introductions of raccoons in Germany, natural dispersal and pet tra

Tamoxifen is the most common choice of anti-cancer drug for breast cancer in pre-menopausal women. Tamoxifen antagonizes the estrogen proliferative effect by interacting with estrogen receptor. Despite the fact that this treatment has showed a tremendous effect on the survival of patients, resistance to the treatment frequently occurs. Several mechanisms of tamoxifen resistance have been already d

I got to know the city of Dujiangyan during my semester in Sustainable Urban Dynamics. I was fascinated by it because it stood out from the image of China I had in my head. Dujiangyan is one of the greenest cities in China, pollution level is much lower than the average, people are living longer and they are known to be laid-back and relaxed. During my site visit I found Dujiangyan to be a city