Banks are an important institution for the economy of a society. During the later years the world of banking has changed. Several new actors have entered the market and taken over traditional bankservices as well as new ones. The way of conducting banking has changed with the event of new technology. One of the banks customer segments, the students have also been under a change. With a changed market companies have to adapt to the new rules of the game.

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 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..

Purpose: This study aims to investigate the conditions that prevail when companies put their marketing in social media with the purpose of creating a perception of the risks and opportunities it brings to businesses and ultimately how it may affect the corporate image and identity.Theories: The basis of the problem area are presented through a theoretical framework with the purpose of highlighting the notions of social media, communi- cation, marketing communication, groundswell, corporate identity and image.Methodology: To investigate the research questions this study adopted a qualitative approach in which the authors study the properties of a phenomenon in order to seek a deeper understanding of the problems we have presented. There is an exploratory approach to knowledge and the authors have chosen to conduct qualitative research interviews based upon three themes: driving forces, challenges and impacts.Conclusion: The study revealed that traditional models of communication are no longer applicable in social media. Companies are up for a challenge and must clarify their sole purpose when establishing communication in the social landscape. The general motivation for marketing in social media is making profit, however, building relationships is not a natural motive for most companies. The risks companies expe- rience is the exposure caused by social media and the study also reveals that this fear is firmly attached to their lack of knowledge of these new channels of communicat- ion and their primary areas of use which indicates that skilled employees plays a vi- tal role with their use of social media in their communication process.

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.

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.

The purpose of the thesis has been to explore the use of hedge fund styles when constructing portfolios of hedge funds (i.e. funds of hedge funds). The central question is if the use of hedge fund styles can significantly explain and improve risk adjusted returns (characterized by Sharpe ratios). The study has been done in collaboration with Optimized Portfolio Management AB who desire further knowledge and evaluation of hedge fund styles for their fund of hedge funds.To be able to create successful ex ante portfolios we have explored various prediction models for both risk and return. Our findings indicate that return prediction is problematic using simple models such as regression since the risk exposure of the indices appear to change significantly over time.

?Multimedia and museums - A thesis about expectations, problems and new target audiences? is a thesis about what it means for museums to work with multimedia in it´s public activities today. This paper also focuses on how this development is received by museum employees. Amongst other issues questions concerning new target audiences, application areas and economy is discussed. References are made to both the current discussion about new media and more traditional issues concerning museums, like authenticity for example..

The aim of thie literature review was to study the advantages and disadventages of the intranasal medication, treating children with acute pain in  prehsopital settings and in emergency care. Searches were performed in databases PubMed and Cinahl. The intranasal method of administrating drugs could be a acceptable compliment to todays's traditional metods. Unnecessary pain is avoided as there is no need for skin penetration. Further studies are necessary in order to integrate this metod both in prehospital settings and in emeregncy care..

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 work was carried out on Termisk Systemteknisk?s office in Linköping. The aim was to create a computer system with infrared camera technology for quality control and temperature monitoring of manufacturing processes in industry. The system should be configurable such that it can be used on several different issues, including those where the real-time analysis of camera images is required.The developed system is based on an existing framework, Panola, to deal with measurement results and images in a database. The framework is built for the system continually check for new data , and the task was to create a foundation upon which to build systems that use the framework, but fully or partially utilize direct calls .

Ecolean Development AB are developing and manufacturing filling machines for pasteurized liquid food products. Because of lack of any appropriate supplier of box closer which seals boxes with small flaps, they have decided to start a project to develop a prototype of a box closer. Due to long experience from industrial automation I have been given a chance to develop control system for a box closer. Degree thesis involves electric design in ELPROCAD ic PRO and programming of PLC (programmable logic controller) and HMI (Human Machine Interface). The report describes degree project from the project plan phase via the development phase to the conclusions.