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In this study, friction spot welding was used to join DP980 steel sheet. Four different ultra-hard tool materials were used with the objective of determining which tool material produced the highest number of acceptable-strength welds. Three of the tools were composed of various mixtures of polycrystalline cubic Boron Nitride (PCBN), Tungsten, and Rhenium. These materials are referred to herein as Q60, Q70, and Q80, the "Qxx" designation denoting the percentage of the volume of the tool material composed of PCBN. The fourth tool tested was composed entirely of PCBN. The Q70 tool produced approximately 1100 welds of acceptable strength before average weld strength decreased below the acceptable value, and the Q60 tool produced approximately 600 welds of acceptable strength. The Q80 material did not produce any welds with strengths above the acceptable value. However, Q80 produced the greatest number of welds of consistent strength. The PCBN tool, being the hardest, also did not produce any welds of acceptable strength, and failed at 257 welds. This failure is presumed to be a result of a tool/parameter mismatch which caused excessive loads on the tool. This research revealed that the weld parameters and tool materials used in this study will not generally provide for feasibility of implementation in industry. Further advances in weld parameter selection, tool geometry, and tool materials will be necessary in order to make friction spot joining of high strength steels an economically viable option.

It seems clear to me that humanity currently stands at a major crossroad where “the old truths have lost their validity and new ones are yet to emerge”, to quote late sociologist Zygmunt Bauman. It seems also clear that these “new truths” has to be formulated quickly if we do not want to end up on the wrong fork of the road... During recent years, these two insights has driven my desire to understand where we are now, how we ended up here and how we might move forward. Whereas I began in the field of architecture, my curiosity has led me to look into a wide array of subjects ranging from economy to thermodynamics and sociology in order to comprehend the bigger picture. In this thesis however, I have limited myself to the architectural realm again and I have done so through a close reading of a figure I found along the way: Christopher Wolfgang Alexander. During the course of the project, I have read his four-volume, magnum opus “The Nature of Order: An Essay on the Art of Building and the Nature of the Universe ” (2003-2004) where he summarizes over thirtyfive years of scientific and architectural research and practice into a “grand unified theory of architecture”. His views on many issues (social to scientific) align a lot with with mine so the goal of this project has been to let his theoretical framework guide my own creative process in order to be able to evaluate the result – does his work present some “new truths” to help us move forward or is it just another blind alley?

This thesis examines how New public management has affected the governance of elderly care in Swedish municipalities.  In recent years, the Swedish media, unions for people working in elderly care and other societal actors, have reported on flaws in both the working environment for the people working in elderly care and in the care that is provided to the elders. This thesis examines how the ideas behind the term New public management are implemented in a public organization that is facing a lot of challenges and therefore is struggling to deliver good quality services to the residents. This is done by an in depth analysis of the governance of the elderly care in a single Swedish municipality, Arvika kommun. This analysis also aims to explore the relationship between the challenges that the Swedish elderly care is facing and the implementation of reforms that are associated with the term New public management.  The analysis is based on a model for ideal type analysis and the material that is analyzed consist of a policy document that describes the elderly care in Arvika kommun and transcribed interviews with four informants who are working as managers in the elderly care in Arvika kommun. The ideal types that have been constructed are based on the doctrines that Christopher Hood formulated as the content of the term New public management.  The results from the analysis shows that the ideas behind the term New public management are implemented in the governing of the elderly care in Arvika kommun in a large number of ways. For example in the use of explicit standards and measures of performance, private sector styles of management and the disaggregation of units. The most prominent way in which the ideas behind the term New public management are implemented in the governing of the elderly care is in the focus on discipline and parsimony in resource use which is something that affects the whole organization.  Like some of the previous studies that examine New public management in relation to Swedish elderly care, this thesis also presents the result that there is a connection between the challenges that the elderly care is facing and the implementation of reforms associated with New public management. New public managements focus on making everything more time- and cost effective gives the staff working in elderly care a more stressful working environment. The stressful working environment leads to people resigning and a staff shortage which in turn leads to a lower quality in the care that is provided to the elders.

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The thesis discusses if the hero’s journey in the fantasy genre could be seen as a journey through social classes. By comparing Paolin’s Eragon’s journey to that of Moberg’s Karl Oskar’s with a focus on the home, education and the chosen one trope via the concepts skogsgång (to go into the forest) and return the thesis concludes that many of the steps necessary for social mobility is also necessary in the hero’s journey, and that the change between social classes can be an answer to the heroes isolation in the end of their stories. The thesis also muses on how the hero’s journey can enlighten the hardships of social mobility.

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