At Sandvik Materials Technology, Argon gas is used as furnace atmosphere when heattreating hot rolled wire. Upon heating chromium steel wire, a rich oxidelayer forms on the wire surface. The abstract of this masters thesis is to enhance the understanding of the constitution of the oxidelayers and the influence of the furnace atmosphere. This will be achieved by performing a number of annealing experiments on laboratory level. Also, the aim is to understand the chemical reactions and physical mecanisms controlling the pickling process.

Syftet med den här uppsatsen är att jag vill dokumentera min kreativa process från första gången jag börja skriva nytt material, till att för första gången framföra det för en publik för att sedan utveckla till en hel (examens) konsert. Huvudfråga: hur fungerar min kreativa process och hur förhåller jag mig till den? Jag har använt mig av att skriva processdagbok under ett och ett halvt år. Jag har kommit fram till att jag i min kreativitet behöver vara strukturerad och ha ett visst mått av disciplin och rutiner och försöka hålla en distans mellan mig och mitt skapande och samtidigt våga vara öppen och driva processen framåt även om jag inte riktigt vet vad slutmålet blir.Min uppfattning om ordet kreativitet har också under arbetet med denna uppsats förändrats. Från att vara något abstrakt och mystiskt med en bild av att de som kallades kreativa var speciella människor, genier, som mer eller mindre hade en speciell gåva till en uppfattning om att kreativitet är en egenskap vi alla har som med rätt förutsättningar och sammanhang kan övas och utvecklas..

During recent years, financial innovation has given rise to numerous structured investment opportunities aimed towards the general public. These have enabled private investors to engage in high-risk investments offering as much as 400 per cent leverage while oftentimes not fully having grasped the risk involved. The issuers of these securities have been criticized for using advertising of a too aggressive and misleading nature.By presenting 819 potential investors with two different investment opportunities yielding the same return over a six day period, we have aimed to assess whether the inclination of being affected by judegmental heuristics varies with factors such as knowledge, overall attitude towards the asset class, risk appetite and experience from previous investments.We have observed that investors' perception of the attractiveness of an investment can be distorted by altering the information presented to the investor. However, our findings show that this tendency decreases with an increased level of knowledge, experience and risk appetite..

Purpose The purpose of our study was to investigate the changing nature of volatility during the last 80 years. Like in an American study, we tried to find some trends in the risk of stocks and bonds that would have an impact on the balance of a portfolio of stocks and bonds. At the same time we investigated the influence of inflation on the choice of portfolio. Methods We have used standard statistic tools and formulas to obtain our results. In most cases it was a matter of calculating average and standard deviation.

Title: ?? Then came the realization that I was just like them. That I have a gambling addiction?? This is a qualitative study of four former gamblers and their experience of getting out of the gambling addiction. The study is about how individuals have overcome a gambling addiction.

Examensarbetet använder generaliserade linjära modeller för att identifiera och analysera enhetsspecifika egenskaper som påverkar risken för operativa förluster. Företag exponeras sällan mot operativa förluster vilket gör att det finns lite information om dessa förluster. De generaliserade linjära modellerna använder statistiska metoder som gör det möjligt att analysera all tillgänglig interndata trots att den är begränsad. Dessutom möjliggör metoden att analysera frekvensen av förlusterna samt magnituden av förlusterna var för sig. Det är fördelaktigt att göra två separata analyser, oberoende av varandra, för att identifiera vilka enhetsspecifika egenskaper som påverkar förlustfrekvensen respektive förlustmagnituden.

Background: During the 2000s, there has been an increased interest in studying business management and strategy implementation with customer focus in public organisations. To achieve business goals it is important to continuously work with strategies to meet customerdemands for increased efficiency and service. Purpose: The aim of the essay is to examine how to work on strategy implementation in a municipal real estate company from a management perspective in order to achieve overall goals. Method: The study?s methodology is a case study based on qualitative telephone interviews that were conducted with representatives in managerial positions from various levels of the company. The choice of the qualitative data was considered relevant in relation to the chosen topic of the thesis. The empirical data was then compared to the theoretical framework of the thesis. Results: Strategies guide the company to achieve the overall goals, which are later on broken down into operational targets.

Colours have been proven to have both a great physical and psychological impact on human beings. This essay investigates the rebranding of 37 Health Care Centers, located in Norrbotten, Sweden, and how 10 interviewees have experienced the new choice of colour on the logotypes of these Health Care Centers.The theoretical framework used in this research process, consists of theories related to rebranding, the communication process, encoding/decoding and Goethe?s Theory of Colours.To gather information about how the 10 inhabitants have experienced the new choice of colour, a semistructured form of interview was used. In addition to these interviews, three people employed by Norrbotten County Council (NLL) were interviewed, to get to know more about the rebranding process and the message behind the chosen colours of the logotype.Results show that the inhabitants had an overall positive reaction to the new colour choices, but that younger target groups lacked information about the new logotype and the rebranding.Due to these results, recommendations were made that NLL should expand the quantity of media channels to reach these younger target groups, and thereby be able to attract more patients to their Health Care Centers. NLL would also profit from investigating the inhabitants experiences related to the new colour choices themselves, but in a larger scale, to achieve greater knowledge of how to proceed with colour choices in the future..

During the milling of Sandvik Coromant?s world leading Drill with replaceable inserts,the CoroDrill880©, burrs appear around the milled surfaces. The burrs are removedusing different methods, one of which is deburring with special brushing machines thatare integrated into milling cells. The machines of the type Sinjet, use a Siemensguidance system. The deburring results are not satisfying and manual deburring isrequired afterwards.

Background: In our case study we have been studying a company that during the last seven years have tried to implement the control system Balanced Scorecard. They have during this period made three attempts. According to Kaplan and Norton, the creators of Balanced Scorecard, it should take about 16 weeks to implement a Balanced Scorecard. Purpose: Our purpose is to investigate which factors that influence the possibility to implement Balanced Scorecard. Method: We have conducted a case study where we have studied implementation at three levels in a company.

The purpose with this study is to investigate funds that are environmentally friendly. Environment issues has become a large subject that affects all aspects in today?s society.  It is a global issue which has affected the awareness of environmentally friendly products and its benefits for the environment.How has this awareness affected the financial market?  In this study the authors have looked at six environmentally sound funds and six energy funds to answer the question if it´s better to have your money in traditional energy or in renewable energy.This study is made in an quantitative way, the data has been gathered from the internet database Morningstar. The energy funds have had its biggest assets in companies dealing with oil, and the environmentally sound funds have had its biggest assets in renewable energy. Bye looking at the different funds rate of return and relating that to risk managing theories of Sharpe and Treynor, the authors compared the two types of funds.During the period that was looked at during this study ( third quarter of 2007 until third quarter 2010) the energy funds outperformed the environmentally sound funds in every aspect. .

Since Africa?s decolonization a number of foreign economic actors have begun toemerge in several African countries and they prove a vital role in many ways. China isone of the largest actor and they have a long history of political and economic ties withAfrica. China act primarily in Africa to meet their growing economy?s demand fornatural resources, and by providing aid and trade with development countries in Africathey get important natural resources like oil and iron ore in return.

The purpose of this thesis has been to investigate the effect of introducing the qualitystandard ISO 9001:2000 at Metso Paper Service in Sundsvall. The investigation has been focused on implementation of the new method of work, Continuous improvements. The implementation has been studied in a case study with both a qualitative and quantitative method. Continuous Improvements is a way of working focused on continuously increasing the efficiency and having the purpose of achieving the formulated goals. This is often accomplished by the organisation carrying out the changing process to a great extent in small but efficient teams.

Background: Officers in the Swedish Armed Forces educates their soldiers in various skills and arenas. The Officers get their educational training in officer training courses conducted by the Swedish Armed Forces or the Swedish national defence college. The aim of this study was to find out how the cadets, belive that they are formed into educators, their views on the literature being used in the Swedish armed Forsces, and their views on leadership and educational science.Methods: The data for analysis were collected in spring 2010, by use of a questionnaire among cadets studying the tactical/operational program Ta/Op 07/10 at the Swedish national defence college. The respons rate was 69, 6 %.Results: The majority of the cadets thought that experience was the most important factor in becoming a good educator. Most of the cadets also thought that the literature being used by the Swedish armed forces was good, however, few cadets stated that they will use the material for reflection on their own teaching when working as officers.Conclusions: The Cadets had a positive attitude towards the educational philosphy and literature being used, but few will use the literature in reflecting on themselves as teachers.

In Jan Jagers and Stefaan Walgrave theory about populism as a political communication-style they claim that one can find this in the rhetoric of political parties. In their study of Belgian politics they found that the extreme-right party Vlaams Block has embraced this populism to a larger extent than other parties. Based on this theory this thesis aims at finding populism as a communication-style in three different Swedish political parties with the purpose to see if the extreme-right party ?The Sweden Democrats? will show populism to a larger extent than other parties, as was the case in the Belgian study.Based on Jagers and Walgraves operational definition of populism as a political communication-style this thesis applies it to the rhetoric of three different parties being ?The Social Democratic Party?, ?The Moderate Party? and ?The Sweden Democrats?. This is done in order to be able to clarify on the one hand if their theory is applicable to the Swedish case and on the other hand to what extent populism as a communication-style exists in Swedish political rhetoric.The method for this thesis has been a qualitative text analysis since and leads to the result that Jagers and Walgraves theory of populism as a communication-style is applicable to the Swedish case and that ?The Sweden Democrats? to a larger extent uses this political communication style, than the two other parties..