Spanning Tree Approach On The Snow Cleaning Problem

Snow cleaning is one of the important tasks in the winter time in Sweden. Every year government spends huge amount money for snow cleaning purpose. In this thesis we generate a shortest road network of the city and put the depots in different place of the city for snow cleaning. We generate shortest road network using minimum spanning tree algorithm and find the depots position using greedy heuristic. When snow is falling, vehicles start work from the depots and clean the snow all the road network of the city. We generate two types of model. Models are economic model and efficient model. Economic model provide good economical solution of the problem and it use less number of vehicles. Efficient model generate good efficient solution and it take less amount of time to clean the entire road network.

Preparers’ and non-preparers’ lobbying on the proposed prohibition of goodwill amortisation in ED3 ‘business combinations’

In this paper preparers’ and non-preparers’ positions regarding accounting for goodwill are examined through studying submitted comment letters on ED3 ‘Business Combinations’. Preparers have, because of economic consequences, incentives to lobby for the non-amortisation approach and non-preparers for the amortisation approach. As hypothesised, non-preparers are found to support amortisation of goodwill to a greater extent than do preparers. Moreover, the two groups’ supportive arguments, i.e. how they argue for or against the non-amortisation or amortisation approach, are studied. Again, as hypothesised, the results show that the two groups use the same type of ‘sophisticated’ framework based arguments instead of economic consequences arguments. Taken together the examination of the comment letters thus indicates that both preparers and non-preparers point at conceptual strengths and weaknesses, instead of pointing at the real cause of the lobbying activities, i.e. perceived economic consequences, when they try to affect the final outcome of the standard. These findings confirm earlier research which has suggested that self-interested lobbyists use accounting theories and concepts as useful justifications.

The effects of Ikea and external shopping centers on regional trade and retail growth : A comparative analysis of Ikea’s establishment in Kalmar and Karlstad

This paper examines the effects of Ikea store establishment in Kalmar and Karlstad on the trade and retail inside the two cities, and as well on the trade and retail in the close neighboring municipalities and in further peripheral municipalities in both regions. After the establishment of Ikea store, Kalmar and Karlstad have experienced significant growth in trade and retail. The question, however, is how big this growth is in both cities? And how different locations on different distances from Ikea have been affected? What impact there was on different segments of the retail? How different business branches have been affected? How large the catchment area for the emerging new large-scale retail locations is? These questions, in addition to few others, are investigated in this paper. The thesis starts with an introduction chapter containing a background of the topic, problem description, the investigated questions, the purpose, and the outline of the paper. The next chapter includes the frame of reference which consists of literature review and theoretical framework about the external shopping centers and their impact on retail and regional trade development. It includes also information gathered from previous studies technical reports and other available sources about the subject. The third chapter includes description for the methods used to collect the primary and secondary data needed for the purpose of this study. Then the empirical framework which demonstrates the results of the conducted research followed by analysis and concluded in discussion and conclusion. Mixed methods are used as research strategy in this thesis, and the method to conduct the research is based on telephone interviews for the primary (qualitative) data, and documents and desk research for the secondary (quantitative) data. The gathered data is analyzed and designed in a way that allows the usage of comparative analysis technique to present the findings and draw conclusions. The results showed that new established Ikea retail store outside the city boundaries results with many effects on the city center and on the neighboring municipalities as well. The city center seems not to be affected negatively, but on the contrary positive effects were witnessed in both regions, these positive effects are linked to the increase inflow of customers from the external retail area which is known as spillover effect. III On the other hand, the neighboring towns and municipalities are more negatively affected especially with the trade of con-convenience goods as the consumers in these towns and municipalities start to go to the area of Ikea and the large external retail center to do their purchasing, the substitution effect is then said to be occurred. Moreover, the further far municipalities do not seem to be significantly affected by the establishment of Ikea. These effects whether positive or negative could be monitored by looking to few trade parameters such as the turnover, the sales index, and the consumers’ expenditure, these parameters can be very useful to measure the developments and changes in the trade and retail in a given place.