The competition for customers in today?s society is growing rapidly. Companies invest a great amount of time and recourses to establish and preserve a strong brand. Repositioning is a process that today is necessary for virtually all brands at some point during its lifetime and is about to change a customer's perception of a brand name, by changing its associations. The goal is to create a new, stronger position for the existing brand.

The Swedish Armed Forces have gone through a remarkable change. From beingan organisation built on the notion of countering a Soviet invasion it has evolvedto focusing on small, multilateral rapid reaction capabilities to be used within theframework of the European security and defence policy, ESDP.This thesis regards the change as a process of Europeanisation. Drawing fromsociological and historical institutionalism, it is shown that the Swedish ArmedForces in the post-cold war context was path dependent and unwilling to redefineits historical raison d?être. The origin of the ESDP Europeanised the nationaldefence policy, whereas the bureaucracy was still unwilling to translate the newstructural norms.

Syftet med föreliggande studie var att undersöka om det fanns någon skillnad mellan de som varit anställd få respektive många år samt mellan de som arbetade dagtid och de som arbetade skift gällande uppfattningen av säkerhetsklimatet avseende både ledningen säkerhetsarbete och arbetsgruppens säkerhetsarbete på ett bruk inom massa- och pappersindustrin. Totalt deltog 92 medarbetarna i studien och dessa fick besvara frågeformuläret, Nordic Safety Climate Questionnaire (NOSACQ-50). Resultatet visade att de som arbetat många år uppfattade både ledningens och arbetsgruppens säkerhetsarbete som bättre än de som arbetat få år. Det visade sig även att de som arbetade dagtid uppfattade, om än bara i närheten till signifikant, ledningens säkerhetsarbete bättre än de som arbetade skift. Att ha en förståelse kring att det finns skillnader i uppfattningen av säkerhetsklimatet och vad dessa kan bero på kan vara av vikt för att skapa ett bättre säkerhetsarbete på företaget, något som diskuteras i uppsatsen..

Aiming to contribute to the discourse on the sustainability of consociational democracy in plural societies, this case study provides an examination of Lebanon?s power sharing model. The study begins with an evaluation of the Taif Agreement. After acknowledging its effect on Lebanon?s consociational system the function and operation of Lijphart?s four consociational elements are analyzed.

The purpose of this paper is to examine and analyze past development of mutual funds in large and small mutual fund companies and see if there are any differences between these two segments. Limitations on the number of funds have been made by choosing Nordic mutual fund companies that invest in emerging markets over an 11-year period. The study is made on 66 mutual funds managed by 13 mutual fund companies in which the segment of small fund companies includes seven fund companies with assets under management less than 100 billion SEK and the segment of large mutual fund companies includes six fund companies with assets under management more than 400 billion SEK. In the comparison of the segments the Sharpe ratio has been used to calculate the risk-adjusted return. The study shows small differences of the risk-adjusted return between the segments.

Eftersök av försvunnen person ? ur hundförarens synvinkel. I arbetet har jag velat lyfta fram hur hundekipage fungerar som resurs vid eftersök av försvunnen person. Jag har försökt beskriva hur hunden används, dels hur hunden själv arbetar men även hur det är att vara hundförare och vad man som hundförare måste tänka på. På ett förhoppningsvis lättfattligt sätt har jag beskrivit MSO-modellen som är den arbetsmodell man utgår från vid eftersök av försvunnen person.

Being able to predict the future had been an invaluable competitive advantage for any corporation. Forecasting is a vital part of any business, hence a good forecast allows enterprises to invest in a beneficial way. However, there are several ways to prepare forecasts and the forecast methodology can vary. An industry that is dependent on forecasts is the energy industry. By predicting consumers' energy consumption, Swedish energy companies can hedge on the Nordic power market Nord Pool.

The purpose of this essay was to study social workers´ and polices contributions with criminal youth gangs and get an insight in how co-operation in the contributions between these governments comes to rank and works.To find out, we carried out a study with a qualitative design based on document studies and interviews with social workers´ and polices who were meeting youths in their work.Our findings were that it's hard to define a criminal youth gang. The social workers´ and polices have both individual and common contributions with criminal youth gangs. One of their most important lining is to prevent new recruitment of young people to criminality. The social workers´ and polices both have an intention to cooperate but they can?t agree about the method of work they shall use, ?the kid-glove or the whip?..

During spring 2012, six students at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm carried out agroup project in the field of mechatronics as part of the thesis for the bachelor degree. The resultwas a robot with active balancing and the purpose of this report is to describe the development,manufacturing and problems that arose during the project. The finished robot has two wheelsmounted in line with each other, like a bicycle. Measurement data from an accelerometer and agyroscope are used together in a complementary filter for determining the angle from the verticalplane. For balancing, a PID controller was used to control the rotation of a reaction wheel, whenaccelerating causes a straightening torque.

The objective of this work was to introduce measures to reduce energy and water demand at Gävle Söder 17:10. To succeed, this energy audit has been made. The work is based on collected statistics from the property owner Norrporten, measurements, literature review and through consultation with experts in the field. Two models, one for each building, have been created in the simulation program BV2 to estimate the potential of energy measures based on the collected information. The models in BV2 have been verified against the statistics of the energy consumption.With the help of calculations and simulations, seven cost-effective measures have been identified.

Virtual Communities is an increasingly common phenomenon on the Internet. Most of the Virtual Communities are operated and maintained on a non-profit basis with a direction towards entertainment. However, as more state administrated and commercial services become web-based, we believe that the number of Virtual Communities with a community-based or commercial direction will increase in a near future. In this thesis, we describe our participation in, and studies of, a number of Virtual Communities with focus on the IRC-channel ?3dfxsweden?.

Aim: The aim of this study is to describe which messages and by which rhetorical means were communicated in political TV-advertisement in Finland and Sweden. The study also aims to analyze how the rhetorical choices were influenced by the political and social context in these countries.Material: Two TV-commercials from the latest parliamentary elections in each country were chosen. The leading left-wing and right-wing parties were chosen from each country.Theoretical perspective: This study is based on theories on political parties? vote maximization and the development of the modern electoral campaign.Methodology: The method used in this study is rhetorical analysis.Results: All commercials had similar themes and were characterized by a low level of conflict. This is related to the common Nordic context in the two countries.

International negotiation is the link between international planning and implementation. The ability to negotiate successfully may very well depend on the efforts being put into preparatory activities, leading to the purpose of this research, to gain a better understanding of pre-negotiation in an international context, by exploring, describing and partly explaining the process. Personal interviews were conducted with two Swedish international companies to obtain thorough information within the area. The collected data from these two cases are discussed, compared and then finally used to draw general conclusions. The study indicates the different issues that either occur or should be considered prior to the first formal meeting in an international negotiation.

 Problem   Are there any abnormal changes in the parent company's share price at the news of a spin?off.ObjectiveThe main purpose of the study is to investigate how the news of a spin-off affects the parent company's share price. In other words if the news of the Spin-off gives an abnormal return on the Stockholm Stock Exchange during the specific period of 1998?2008. In addressing this, the paper will also investigate the following sub sections: are there any differences in the abnormal returns in various sectors and what the reasons to perform a spin?off in the Swedish market are.MethodAn event study in which market data is used to measure specific events? impact on the value of the company and on the effects on the stock market.

Our Bachelor?s Thesies has been performed in co-operation with Cellplast Direkt AB inLaholm. Our task was to develop a construction that cuts gussets to ceiling disposition as isused to isolation.Our goal with our construction was to increase the degree of automation so that theproductivity increased and also meet the market which is getting tougher and tougher due tothe future business cycle.Cellplast Direkt gave us free hands in order to enable new ideas. A pair different principleproposal was developed and prepared to a final structure.The Bachelor?s Thesies resulted in one PLC - governed machine with three engines that runthree different moves, wich does that the degree of automation increases and the risk forerrors decreases.We have developed a complete production bases to Cellplast Direkt and our hope is that thecompany comes to produce the machine in the future..