There are several competing views on how to best utilize air power. Following his quantitative study of air power, Robert Pape developed a theory which focuses on undermining the target state's military strategy. According to Pape it is possible to explain the outcome as a result of military vulnerability. This essay seeks to determine if Pape's theory can predict the outcome of Operation Unified Protector. By using a mixed methods approach on four hypotheses, it will be determined if the operation was a successful case of coercion, if NATO acted according to Pape's model and whether this achieved the desired effects or not. The results reveal that the theory could not successfully predict the outcome of the conflict.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate whether or not capitalism, viewed here as the system that is currently the dominant economic system in the Western world, can be seen as a modern myth or not. An author, Brian Tracy, of several popular self-help books is the target of this investigation and the language he uses in his books have been scrutinized in order to see whether or not he uses a religiously influenced, and more importantly, myth-creating language. In order to do so, Bruce Lincolns theories of myth have been used in correlation with Stefan Arvidssons definition ov myths. Also of interest is whether or not Tracy in his books uses any of the instruments of power defined by Michel Foucault to support his claims.The investigation shows that capitalism indeed can be seen as a modern myth. This claim is supported by the facts that Tracy not only uses a language heavily influenced by Christian texts and belief but furthermore because he descirbes himself and the people he claims to have helped in a way that strongly resembles the narratives of myths.

The purpose of this essay is to evaluate stock index bonds return to risk ratio in order to investigate to which degree an investor in a stock index bond take part of the underlying index return and what the investor must pay for the security of not losing his funds. In order to carry out this evaluation an average return per year and the Sharpe ratio will be calculated and a mean- standard deviation analysis will be made. All investigated stock index bonds are based on a Swedish underlying asset.The results show that the stock index bonds haven?t generated a higher risk adjusted return than its underlying asset. The stock index bonds took part of 57 % of the underlying assets return, and the loss of 10 percentage points per year for the stock index bonds compared to its underlying asset can be seen as the cost for the guarantee a stock index bond gives..

Undersökningens syfte är att pröva om en mindre stat kan nyttja sig av vilseledning för att minska åverkan från en motståndare som nyttjar sig av Wardens systemteori. Undersökningen fokuserar främst på att vilseleda en motståndares målinhämtning innan ett angrepp. Undersökningen ger förslag på ett antal sätt att genomföra defensiv vilseledning, både innan ett angrepp och under påbörjat angrepp. För att underlätta för undersökningen tas fiktiva målval ut inom Sverige med stöd av Wardens litteratur och med stöd i viss annan litteratur. En mindre jämförelse mot befintliga sårbarhetsanalyser genomförs.

This master thesis studies how much the cycle time, i.e. the time it takes for an industrial robot to perform a given task, can be reduced if an extra degree of freedom (DOF) is added to the robot system. The extra DOF consists of a linear track, which is supposed to be used in an optimal way. The problem has been studied using simulations in the robot simulation tool RobotStudio. To be able to run an optimization in Matlab, with the RobotStudio simulation cycle time as the object function, communication between Matlab and RobotStudio has been set up with an interface written in Visual Basic.

This paper is about employees' opinion towards libraries. The target group consists of employees at industrial research institutes in Sweden. Libraries offer several more services today than they have done before. I think many people do not recognise all of them and I also think the knowledge and the opinion about libraries have to do with use of them. Since I am curious about if this is true or not the purpose of this essay is to find out, through an attitude research, the employees', at industrial research institutes, opinion about library service.

This degree project was conducted in collaboration with Gremo AB located in Ätran.The aim of the project was to develop a solution to secure quality and to help assemblingthe locknut holding the vertical hinge on the harvesters and foresters from Gremo.At this time the nut is assembled manually by the aid of an overhead crane. The nut istightened differently from time to time, and there was no specified torque to which it istightened. Another present problem was the locking washer which sometimes getsdamaged during assembly, when this happens the procedure has to be started over fromthe beginning. The current assembly procedure is very time consuming and lengthy forthe employees.Our task was to design a machine that could tighten the nut to a specified torque with amargin of error of ± 3%. The assembly procedure will be held simple and the timerequired at a minimum.The project started by developing several principle solutions, the one solution that bestmatched our specifications were developed to a primary solution.Today we have started manufacturing and assembling our prototype.

The purpose of this research is to investigate the group constellation that is, what thoughts, feelings and sensations that arise when students and pupils change groups. The study will also affect students and pupils knowledge of why they should work in groups. Their perceived security will also be something that this study is looking for.The main questions of this study are:How does students and pupils experience the phenomenon of "group replacement"?What is considered to work or not work in the new group formations?The method that is used in this study is based on six qualitative interviews with students and pupils from three different levels of education. The target groups are college and high school students.

Background: When firms grow through acquisitions it is commonly debated whether the two entities ought to be better off as standalone companies rather than as a merged company. This thesis aims at discussing this issue of M&As advantages and disadvantages in terms of source of synergies from the perspective of resource allocation. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to describe and analyze to what extent pre-M&A differences (against similarities) in resource allocation and corporate culture between the acquiring and target firm have an impact on the post-M&A performance. Theoretical framework: Efficient market hypothesis, resource based view, strategic fit. Methodology: A longitudinal study is conducted on the EU market during 1992 to 2002 based on balance sheet and income statement data.

The foundation for this thesis lies in whether or not, and how, the body representation in printed commercials, specific products directed to the body (shampoo, body lotion etc.), has changed during the last fifty years. Four years have been chosen because of the changes in society that we believe might have had an impact. The commercials that have been picked out are the ones that best represent the general view of the body. We have found that the changes when it comes to body presentation has followed the social development to a certain degree, but it is difficult to say how much the society has had an affect on the body ideal in advertising. Representations of the male body is something that has escalated since the early 70?s, fifteen years earlier few commercials was made with male models, and the few there were, never showed more than the face.

ABSTRACTPurpose/aim: To clarify what information is communicated through the PR-firm JKL:s blog, how it is communicated, how it relates to and diverges from the communication theories in point, and what the strategies behind the blogging are. By doing this I hope to contribute to the knowledge on corporate blogging and how it can be used.Material/method: Qualitative textual analysis of ten blog posts published on the JKL Blog and process seeking interview with the person in charge of the same blog.Main results: JKLs? blogging coincides to the most part with business intelligence, with the exception that the information doesn?t relate directly to the company?s? main activities. This is mainly due to that they can?t publish information about their customers or competitors.

Energy supply in Sweden year 2011 amounted to 577 TWh. The final energy consumption for industrial, residential and service was 379 TWh. Sweden has energy policy goals to reduce energy use in buildings. One of these goals is to reduce the energy use by 20 % in 2020 compared to the year 1995. An important step to achieve this goal is to target energy efficiency measures in existing buildings.

Lifestyle magazines portray women in different manners and have an influence on how media consumers create self-images. The importance of knowing how different visual representation of the female acts out in magazines with large target audiences is therefore of weight for the magazines? readers to understand. This thesis analyze how the two lifestyle magazines ELLE and LOVE portrays women in images and how they in turn create ideal images of women.The thesis has been conducted through a qualitative analysis of 5 images from each magazine that represents the magazines artistic styles. The theories used in this study are semiotic image analysis and visual text analysis viewed from a gender- and discourse perspective.The conclusion of this thesis is that ELLE portrays women as strong, happy and feminine, with at tendency towards androgyny, while LOVE describes women as inferior and sexual objects constructed for the male gaze.

The aim of this study was to compare unemployed and workers' life situation and the way they cope with different situations and to determine their degree of Type A. We used two different instruments: Friedman and Rosenman?s Type A-test and Carver?s cope test. The total number of respondents amounted to 169 participants. The participants were selected from a convenience sample at the employment service and from three different companies.

It may seem obvious that the urban space in our northern cities should be design to function and inspire throughout the whole year. This is not always the case. The urban space is often designed on a summer basis and the winter is regarded more as a problem then a resource and its potential remain unused. I have in this master thesis studied the impact of the winter on people and spaces and ponder on how to design functional and attractive places for winter. The project ends in a design concept for Broparken in Umeå on the theme "everyday winter day". The work with this thesis has given me, as a landscape architect, valuable experiences and filled a gap of knowledge that I had in this subject. I hope that this thesis can inspire Umeå kommun and others who are interested in how northern cities can benefit by its climate and develop towards a more complete city. The thesis begins with a chapter that present the subject from four different perspectives.