The aim of this small thesis is to investigate if the probability of business failure is higher at the time of divestment than at the time of acquisition for portfolio companies that have been subject to private equity ownership. The background for this thesis is the widespread critique aimed at private equity firms, claiming that they increase the risk in their portfolio companies. We have performed a study of 53 buyout transactions, involving Swedish manufacturing companies, covering a time span of 13 years, from 1995 to 2007. We find evidence of an increased risk of business failure for the portfolio companies with a short forecasting horizon (within one year). The absolute increase in the sample is however small.

The essay is a text centred study of ten Young Adult Novels, in which Internet plays an essential part. The structure is put into light out of used narrative techniques of how to create stories and its construction elements. I compare the ten Young Adult novels to each other. My aim is to analyze the functions of the Internet motive in the chosen novels, using different approaches, and enlighten it with concerns to the new phenomenon that Internet is in society. Consequently the essay will also have a mimetic touch to it.The ten novels that I base the analysis on are written of both med and women and have both male and female as main fictive persons, and are from different parts of the world.

This report presents a study of the basic criteria for computer programmes that may be consideredadequate for aiding children with autism in their education and upbringing. I have based thisstudy on descriptions, opinions and proposals from people who deal with treatment and/orother issues concerning children with autism, as well as relevant literature.The study has been carried out in a major Swedish metropolitan municipality. The intervieweeswere civil servants from this municipality and representing different institutional endeavourson the issue of autism.I used a combination of both quantitative and qualitative techniques, as there was need for bothstandardization and qualitative variation. The main aim of the study was to seek suggestionson how computer programmes should be. That is, if they are to be considered appropriate föraiding children with autism develop their personality.The general conclusion of this study is that computer programmes, that may be consideredappropriate for the above mentioned purpose, should have certain characteristics of whichpedagogic usefulness and user suitability are of primary importance..

The purpose of the present quantitative study was to examine gender differences inperceived job satisfaction in two departments, with different work patterns, in a Swedishmanufacturing industry. The questionnaire contained 30 statements and five backgroundquestions. The questionnaire was designed in combination of Job Satisfaction Survey (JSS),Work demands, Social support, Control and Competence (ASK), Questionnaire forPsychological and Social factors at Work (QPS Nordic) and Minnesota SatisfactionQuestionnaire (MSQ). Job satisfaction was measured based on the categories influence atwork, leadership, employee influence, work requirements and the physical environment. Theresults of the present study showed an interaction of gender and department where the femaleindustrial workers, who worked with more monotonous and standardized work tasks, valuedall of the categories of job satisfaction the lowest, except for the category employee impact.The results are believed to depend on that the women in the department had greater demandsfor variety in the work..

The object for this study is a company developing and manufacturing vehicles for heavy transportation. The company distributes their products on a global market. Therefore the company is required to have efficient internal production development processes in order to successfully beat the competition. The purpose of this master thesis is to study how this particular company intends to implement their standardized theoretical product development process within their organization and how well it is done. We intend to identify and specify if the process has any unexploited capacity.

This thesis focuses on RM and customer relationships and tries to answer two research questions: how firms can retain customers and how to generate profitable customer relationships by using relationship marketing. We conducted case studies on JOB media, a company in Luleå, and Polardörren, a company in Öjebyn, Piteå. Our research has revealed that in many ways our case study companies conform in major ways to the theory in this particular area. However there are differences between how these two firms go about in regard to customer retention and establishing profitable customer relationship. We have discovered that JOB media, which is a service company is more inclined to maintaining close and long-term relationships with its customers.

The aim of this study is to find out in which way the education about climate in school is taught and how the students experience the world situation today. There are various theories about the greenhouse effect and its origin and these theories should be addressed to ensure that students get a broader understanding of how climate change occurs. This includes the natural phenomena and also the human impact on climate change. Students in school are a source of concern that only human are the cause of global warming, and know little or almost nothing about the natural phenomena of global warming.  I will mention what has emphasized in the national steering documents in the case of environmental education at school.I have used a qualitative method, where interviews and document analysis were used as techniques. The interviews took place with five students in ninth grade and with three science teachers in the same school..

This thesis aims to develop proposals and models for a modular electronics construction to a future D250S Dual battery charger. The aim also includes investigation of possibilities to use some of Texas Instruments C2000 microprocessors. The reason for this is that CTEK SWEDEN AB wants to renew the present D250S Dual battery charger and lower the manufacturing costs. The thesis work has involved gathering theoretical facts for the development of a design on the modular electronic construction, the choice on which microprocessor to use, the choice of electronic components and facts about peripheral equipment to the D250S Dual. With the theoretical there has been developed different solutions to the proposed hardware and software solutions with comparisons in aspects of positive and negative.

Pupils, and most of all girls, drop out of organized sports in the ages 13-18. The purpose of this survey was to study which motives girls had to proceed in sports together with differences between certain groups. This study was based on a survey which included 86 responses from girls active in sports in 10 different compounds. The results showed that the most frequent motives to do sports were to have fun and to feel well. Differences showed were that the ones who trained more often and the ones who practiced more than one sport found that to work hard was an important motive, compared to the other groups.

The purpose of the study was to review the current veterinary literature regarding gastric dilatation and volvulus (GDV) considering pathophysiology and treatment, and to evaluate the operative technique (incisional gastropexy) used during the years 2005 and 2006 at the University Animal Hospital (Universitetsdjursjukhuset), SLU, Uppsala, Sweden. GDV has a complicated pathophysiology which foremost effects the circulatory system. Progress is often acute and it is not unusual that patients are affected with shock. The initial treatment targets to alleviate the shock by fluid therapy and decompression of the stomach. There is a high risk of recurrence in the long term perspective unless the stomach is surgically fixated by gastropexy. The study describes two different techniques for gastropexy; incisional gastropexy, and funduspexy. Long term complications were rare among the patients that were treated surgically, while about half out of the eighteen dogs that undergo surgery do experience complications of various severity in the short term..

The project has been provided by Zenit design group and the goal for this project was tomanufacture and perform tests of a prototype that supersaturates water in a continuous flow ofwater. The project has involved finding and sorting out relevant data in scientific papers, books,communication with foreign manufactures and other platforms for information.The project has resulted in manufacturing of a test rig and an oxygen infuser based onmembrane technology. The test rigs purpose was to perform tests on oxygen infusers fordifferent comparison test and performance benchmarks in a in a laboratory provided by Zenit.The project led to satisfying results using the oxygen infuser manufactured by the authors withcomparable levels of saturation to the reference infuser.The theory behind this project is based on medical research, belonging terms will be explainedbut the authors have chosen to delimit the project from the medical area. The reason for this islack of knowledge in this area and its irrelevance to the mechanical engineering education insuch..

Forecasting is an important part in attempting to predict how companies will perform in the future. The more accurate the prediction, the more valuable are the results obtained from the forecast. This thesis aims to investigate forecasts of return on equity, and whether a disaggregation of the leverage formula into its underlying components affects the forecasting ability positively. This is conducted by comparing a model based on the leverage formula's components with a model solely based on return on equity from previous years. The study includes manufacturing companies on the Swedish Stock Exchange over the period 1998-2011.

This thesis report describes the development of concepts regarding how weight can be reduced to the analytical instrument Biacore 4000. This thesis has resulted in five different concept proposals, all of which is solutions to reduce the instrument's weight.The thesis started with a pre-study where the instrument's structure and function were studied using both Solid Works, the opportunity to study the instrument in real life were also possible done. During this phase, a weight study was conducted as well, in which the instrument's weight distribution was studied and mapped.Following the initial phase, the work proceeded by developing concrete concepts to reduce the weight of the instrument where focus mainly was on the two cabinets. In addition, another two concepts were revealed, both with a more general approach.At the final phase of the thesis, the concepts were compiled and evaluated among themselves and the initial instrument.The thesis resulted in a study of the instrument's structure and weight distribution, with suggestions on how weight may be reduced for the instrument.The result factors such as materials, and manufacturing were aspects that were taken into consideration.At the final section of the report, suggestions for further work in which different aspects are discussed can be found..

The author of this report has created a Web-based invoice system and CRM at therequest of the company Webhouse.se. The purpose of the System is to makeeveryday tasks in the company easier. The system also needed to prevent mistakesand errors by managing orders and invoices.The system has been created with the company?s requests in focus. During thedevelopment of the system information security and interaction design have beenimportant aspects that have been taken into consideration.The system has been created using techniques such as PHP and MYSQL.

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has the potential to be used for the diagnosis and study of osteoarthrosis in the equine tarsal region. In the development of new diagnostic MRI techniques cadaver specimens are often used. To allow the use of cadaver legs for these types of studies it is important to know the effect of time after death on the MRI image. Since the relaxation times are temperature dependent, it is interesting to examine whether the time after death and the temperature of the cadaver may play a role in the image appearance and quality. The radio pulse sequences that show the different types of tissues are also important to know when pathological evaluation with MRI is used.