In this thesis we examine the relationship between board composition and firm performance in Swedish companies. The selection of companies includes all Swedish limited liability companies, with the exception of micro enterprises, that have been active between the years of 2009-2010. We develop hypotheses based on resource dependence theory, agency theory, and the resource based view, and test these with regression analysis against collected data. Specifically, we examine the effects of board diversity, outside directorships, and CEO duality. Our findings show that none of the theories provide sufficient explanatory power of the relationship between board composition and firm performance, and that further research is required to better understand the role and effects of company boards..

This thesis aims to study the indirect effects of the Europeanization on national parties and the presence of an established national opposition towards the European Union (EU) and its effects in Sweden, as a result of the so-called conflict of Vaxholm. The questions asked were whether or not it existed an established national opposition towards the EU, and if so, what the opposition consists of substantially. The research method, which was used, is a quantified text analysis on the chamber debates of the Swedish Riksdag and the party congresses of Socialdemokraterna. The study shows that there is an ambivalent opposition towards the EU and its effects in the aftermath of the conflict of Vaxholm.  Socialdemokraterna presented resistance, but did not manage to present apparent alternatives, which left the party with a rather indistinctive opposition. In contrast to the right-wing party, the left-wing party had some profound difficulties in positioning itself in the new and globalized economy. I therefore suggest, that it might be more providing and exhaustive to introduce Azmanova?s ideal-type analysis, which instead of positing parties on a left-right continuum, posit parties after respective party?s opinions concerning the risks or opportunities which the EU and the internal market?s effects. .

The running of gas turbines with low emissions causes high pressure pulsations to arise in the combustion chamber. These pulsations are high amplitude sound vibrations. At some frequencies these are harmful to the gas turbine. Hence these pulsations are monitored to avoid operating conditions where pulsations are specifically harmful. It is necessary to expose the system of known pulsations to verify the functionality of the monitoring process.

På elmarknaden har man utvecklat fenomenet mikroproduktion av elenergi vilket innbär att slutkunden själv ska producera sin el främst genom att utnyttja sol och vind kraft. I Sverige finns det ett växande  intresset för mikroproduktion. De flesta som producerar sin egen el gör det främst genom solpaneler och mindre vindkraftverk som sätts upp vid deras egendom. I den här studien har vi gjort en djupare analys kring olika typer av anläggningar för att producera småskalig elkraft. Men även tittat på den ekonomiska aspekten genom att beskriva ekonomisk vinning och kostnader samt ställt upp en kostnadskalkyl för att beskriva detta i siffror.

Ericsson?s factory in Kumla, Modules Kumla, became a hub for radio modules and micro base stations, which enables mobile communication through radio base stations, in 2004. Because of this the factory focuses more on the logistics operations. This has led to a need to be able to plan the capacity for the materials handling system. This master thesis has therefore been performed at Modules Kumla to develop a capacity calculation model for the material handling flow during the autumn of 2005.The work has contained a mapping of the material handling flow regarding to which activities was performed and how much time they consumed.

Does the country people live in affect the probability of them experiencing happiness? Can a country variable in an ordinal regression model be affected when microeconomic and macroeconomic factors are added to the model? The possible outcomes are either that the country variable affects less when the additional predictors are added to the model, or that they stay the same. The micro data is collected from the European Social Survey database, the macro data is collected from the World Bank. The country variable becomes less substantial when additional variables are added to the model. The variable with the most influence over expected happiness apart from the country variable is whether the individual often socializes with friends or not.

 The image of the poet Gustaf Fröding is the main theme of this essay. It opens with an analysis of the chamber opera Flickan i ögat. This opera has never been translated but a direct translation would be The Girl in the Eye. It refers to a story that when a man looks into the mirror and sees a picture of a girl in his eye, she will be his future love.  Fröding has written a poem "Flickan i ögat" where the person in the poem only observes himself.

This thesis is an evaluation of a new design concept for statorfeets in Gallejaur hydro power plant. Founder of the work is Vattenfall AB Vattenkraft. During the 70- and 80´s nuclear power began to be phased in to the Swedish grid, which meant that hydropower became an important source of rules. The generators began running in so called intermittent operations instead of basic operations, which meant 300-600 start/stop per year instead of one-ten numbers start/stop per year. In order to deal with the thermal forces that arise at every start and stop suppliers began to mount so called sliding joints, which is to take advantage of these forces and maintain the stator shape.

Many companies sometimes affects that a competitive company pulls use for their trademark or their products in his advertising. It can for instance be that the company uses alike symbols or features and on so ways fields a free ride on another companies good reputation. This procedure is called reputation parasitism and settles in the marketing act, 8 a § comparative advertising. You can also condemn after the marketing acts 4 § general requirement which?s says, ?marketing must be compatible with good marketing practice? which also agrees with international chamber of commerce.

In this thesis a possible cost effective runner change of some of the units in the hydroelectric power station Olidan is investigated. The possibility to drive a unit at the same efficiency point through a change of the turbine shaft speed and the rate of discharge is tested. Furthermore the theories behind model testing, determination of efficiency increase from model to prototype and efficiency measurements shall be discussed and analyzed with Olidan as a starting point.A predicted curve has been built on information from model tests and field measurements on the existing runners and runner data from the test of the new model. The predicted curve shows the difference in efficiency between an existing runner and a modern one. It is the difference in efficiency that is used in the calculations that are to show whether changing to a pair of new runners will be cost effective or not.

I samband med ingenjörsutbildningen med inriktning produktutveckling vid högskolan i Borås, konstruerades ett formsprutningsverktyg åt firma Finstansteknik i Ulricehamn.Syftet vid konstruktion var framtagning av ny serie Foodboxes för fastfood som är en lockande alternativ till befintliga engångsförpackningar i termoplastmaterial som används i stor utsträckning idag.Formsprutningsverktyg konstruerades för massproduktion av olika formar engångshämtboxar.Med hänsyn tagen till kravspecifikationen har projektet inneburit närmare analyser inom material, design och konstruktion.Riktlinjerna för produkt designen var huvudsakligen miljövänlighet och upptagning av minsta möjliga plats vid exponering i butik.Designen kan redovisa minsta möjliga materialåtgång och en stabil konstruktion som kan återvändas, återvinnas, frysas, maskindiskas, värmas i micro och lätt staplas. Samtidig ökar efterfrågan på formsprutningsteknologi och formsprutade produkter som gör det möjligt att tillverka högkvalitativa former i kortare serielängder. Också ingår formsprutade produkter och komponenter en viktig del av vårt vardagsliv..

Nowadays naval units are participating in international missions, where new and in many cases tougher conditions will affect their propulsion. This essay deals with some of the now developed nanostructure coatings and gives a presentation of how the coatings could function on some exposed parts of the naval powertrain. The essay investigates the possibility that the coatings can be used as a protective layer that will reduce or prevent wear on selected parts of the naval powertrains. As a basis for the essay, nanotechnology is described, as well as different reasons that wear occurs and application techniques for coatings The conclusion is that nanostructured coatings can be applied and provide a much better result on hardness and wear resistance as of naval powertrains compared to micro-structural coatings, both for manufacturing and renovation. The essay presents a few examples of the military utility of the nanostructure coatings as well as suggestions for further research..

A pavement construction designed to cope with the different type of traffic loads; it is exposed to and at the same time it can resist the effect of the climate. A road structure consists of sub- and superstructure which is divided by a boundary known as terrace. During the construction of unbound layers (base course and sub-base course) in the superstructure, it is always ensured that the material meet the requirements for bearing capacity and the degree of compaction. These parameters are controlled by various laboratory tests and control methods. To obtain increased knowledge of the material and improve the quality of the compaction in the field, it is necessary to perform laboratory tests in order to determine material properties.A base course material 0/ 32 mm limestone from Gotland (Hejdeby) was investigated in this study.

The thesis aims to analyze strategic, cultural and structural aspects of Grameen Bank and its micro-credit project, in order to identify key success factors. A case study was performed with an inductive and qualitative approach, using semi-structured interviews. The data was collected by field observations and interviews on site in Dhaka, Bangladesh and surrounding areas.The main conclusion is that the critical success factor of Grameen Bank is the relationship focus, guiding and aligning its strategy, culture and structure. Also, local offices have been observed to utilize practices not permitted by the bank?s management, ultimately increasing the organizational efficiency..

The present study aims to examine how teachers write polemical articles. This genre often occurs in national standardized tests in Swedish schools. The study seeks to analyze argumentative structures in the articles. It also categorizes assessment notes written by the teachers in response to each others? articles, by interpreting response texts.    The examination shows that there is uncertainty among the teachers about how to create structures in argumentative text types.