An investigation and analysis of Acergy's start-up in St. John's

Our research problem is to analyze Acergy’s start-up in St. John’s. To reduce the research problem down to a manageable task we have developed the following research question: “Have the Pro-Dive Acergy alliance been a beneficial part of the entrepreneurial process of setting up a new Acergy office in St. John’s?” We have found it necessary to use two different theoretical frameworks to answer this question: entrepreneurship and strategic alliances. The entrepreneurship part is used to define entrepreneurship, the intrapreneur, international entrepreneurship, the entrepreneurial process and what a new business is. We have also included a part on entrepreneurial networks and relationships. Theory on strategic alliances is starting with defining what an alliance is, before moving on to describing theory on generic motives and the four different archetypes of strategic alliances. The gathering of data has been made using mainly three sources of data. We have been using Acergy’s webpage to gather general information about the company, as well as to gather financial data and press releases. We have also used internal work documents presented to us when we visited Acergy Canada. However our main source of data has been semi-structured in-depth interviews with Simon Hume and other employees at Acergy Canada. To help us answer our research question we have used the entrepreneurial process to structure our thesis, and the thesis therefore contains four main parts. The first part is the case description were we have given a general introduction to the Atlantic Canada oil and gas industry, followed by an introduction of Acergy, Pro-Dive and the Pro-Dive Acergy alliance. One of the key findings in the case description is the fact that the market place is dominated by a few organizations, both on the supplier and customer side. The case description also points to a growing oil and gas market in Newfoundland, Labrador and Nova Scotia. Acergy have shown growing revenue and profit during the last years, both in Northern Europe and Canada, and in the rest of the Acergy organization. The case description will give the reader a better understanding of the opportunity that Acergy followed when they decided to establish an office in St. John’s. The second part of our thesis is using theory on entrepreneurship to describe the entrepreneurial aspect of the thesis. We have compared the various entrepreneurial definitions with the set-up process in St. John’s and concluded that the process can be seen as entrepreneurial. We have also included an introduction to the general set-up process were we have included some of the obstacles that Acergy have encountered during the process. In the end of the entrepreneurial chapter we have included a figure describing Acergy Canada’s networks and relationships. We have her discussed some of the key relationships and concluded that Acergy Canada have 6 main relationships; Pro-Dive, interest organizations, customers, suppliers and Acergy (the rest of the organization). Third part of our thesis is focusing on the strategic alliance with Pro-Dive. To help us with this part we have used theory developed by Lorange and Roos to determine the motives behind the alliance and what archetype this alliance belongs to. Using this information we have been able to define the Pro-Dive Acergy alliance as an Ad-hoc pool alliance. We have thereafter used theory on how to set-up an Ad-hoc pool alliance to see if the Pro-Dive Acergy alliance is functioning like theory predicts that it will. After evaluating the industry, the entrepreneurial aspects and the Pro-Dive Acergy alliance we have concluded that there are several positive aspects of the way that Acergy have chosen to enter the Canadian market. And as Simon Hume, general manager of Acergy Canada put it: “The office should be fully operational according to plan” We said in our research question that we were to find out if the Pro-Dive Acergy alliance has been a beneficial part of the entrepreneurial process. After studying the case for 4 months we have concluded that the alliance definitive have been beneficial for Acergy’s entry into the Canadian market. We have also been able to prove that there is a clear connection between entrepreneurship and strategic alliances, and that this is a theoretical area that needs more research

"Alle roser glør" Kjønna retorikk i fire dikt av Halldis Moren Vesaas

This MA thesis examines the poet Halldis Moren Vesaas’ early writings. The main focus is on the poems ”Jordange”, ”Brurebøn”, ”Bylgje” and ”Sonen og treet”, which are drawn from and represent the author’s first four publications, published in the years 1929–1936. I suggest that each of the four poems reveals an aesthetic discourse which both creates and undermines gendered figurations such as ”the mistress”, ”the bride”, ”the partner” and ”the mother”. The interpretations of the poems are based on the work of the literary theorist Paul de Man and his notion of ”rhetoric of tropes”. Moren Vesaas’ poems are seen in relation to other literary works, such as Edith Södergran’s ”Dagen svalnar …”, Sigrid Undset’s triology of Kristin Lavransdatter, and to folklore, represented by a medieval ballad. These comparisons indicate that Halldis Moren Vesaas is far more radical in her approach to gender issues than previously recognized. The four poems analyzed in this thesis challenge established understandings of gender and gender relations. It is my intention to display a profound tension in Moren Vesaas’ poems that has been largely undervalued. The poems have commonly been perceived as harmonic and simple. This thesis is based on the view that the poet often has been underestimated and that her poetry has not been taken seriously as conscious poetic expressions. This must be seen in connection to the relative lack of research on Moren Vesaas’ poetry, despite her obvious canonisation. We may find clear similarities between the descriptions of Halldis Moren as literary debutant in the newspaper reviews of 1929 and the later presentations of the writer, as found for example in the literary history. The reception has in other words stagnated on a relatively early stage, with some honest exceptions. This work attempts to raise the appreciation of the aesthetic value of Moren Vesaas’ poems through close readings. In addition to the interpretations of the poems, the thesis contains an introductory chapter with a critical review of the reception and a presentation of Paul de Man’s two essays “Semiology and Rhetoric” and ”The Rhetoric of Temporality”. Other theorists referred in this work are above all Toril Moi, Judith Butler, Julia Kristeva and Jonathan Culler

Styrker og svakheter ved N-LARSP som kartleggingsverktøy for logopeder: en analyse basert på litteraturgjennomgang og egen utprøving av verktøyet

Masteroppgave i logopediLOGO345MAPS-LOG0

Using Queer and Black literature in the Norwegian EFL classroom to create awareness towards the intersections of multiple marginalised people

This thesis argues that using Black queer literature in the English Foreign Language (EFL) classroom, such as Hurricane Child, and Felix Ever After by Kacen Callender, and The Black Flamingo by Dean Atta, which depict the intersecting ways in which LGBTQ+ people of colour experience oppressive structures, can contribute to successful conversations about these structures that are based on a white supremacist hegemony. Moreover, they can assist the process of re-imagining and re-constructing discourses around race, sexuality, and gender to be more inclusive. Furthermore, using literature that provides Black queer stories in the EFL classroom is suggested to be a fruitful approach to develop intercultural competence and critical literacy. The thesis applies Critical Race Theory, Queer theory, and the concept of intersectionality as central theoretical frameworks to conduct a cultural analysis of the primary texts, with close reading as a method. Additionally, didactic concepts such as intercultural competence, critical literacy, and the pedagogy of discomfort is drawn from to link the themes of race, sexuality, and gender to the guidelines of LK20 regarding development of intercultural awareness and the ability of critical thinking

NMR measurements of wettability alternation in Berea Sandstone

When a new oil reservoir is discovered and a production strategy is chosen the knowledge about wettability characteristics for the field is of outermost importance. Wettability is a key factor for fluid distribution and fluid displacement. Many laboratory methods have therefore been developed and used over the years in order to measure wettability. Common to many of these methods are that they only give indirect information about wettability based on other parameters like imbibition rate, capillary pressures curves and relative permeability data. Displacement based methods are also often quite time consuming. In this thesis we will investigate the use of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) as a tool to find wettability data for 3 different systems of oil and water. Because of the NMR techniques natural sensitivity to position and surface effects between pore fluid and pore surface in a porous media it is ideal for investigating the wettability of a rock. Because the wetting state of the rock will have a big impact on the fluid distribution both on the micro scale inside a single pore, and on a larger scale in the porous media, NMR is capable of giving an indication for the wetting state. In order to find sufficient information about the system, we applied specialized NMR sequences order to separate the signal from the two phases based on diffusion coefficient and by the effects from internal gradients. Specialized NMR sequences were also used find the correlation between transverse and longitudinal relaxation rate. When combining these sequences with standard CPMG experiments it increases the amount of information obtained from the porous media. We have chosen Berea sandstone as a basis for the experiments and will be looking at a system of crude oil in aged cores, mineral oil in non-aged cores and crude oil in non-aged cores. A reference system at 100% water saturation n was also investigated. Because the aging of the cores changes the wettability of the core, we believe that it is possible to detect this by the use of NMR and find how it differs from the non-aged cores. We will also include a traditional USBM/Amott test in order to correlate this to the NMR-response in each system. The cores that have been chosen to undergo ageing were flooded with crude oil at 110˚C for a period of 4 weeks. All of the cores have then been subjected to the combined USBM/Amott test to establish the wettability of each core. We found that the aged cores had changed significantly towards neutrally wet, and the non-aged cores were strongly water wet. In the NMR part of the experiment we found that when doing only a standard CPMG test of the cores the broadening of the peaks originating from each phase made it hard to separate the response from each phase. This made it difficult to use the CPMG data as a wettability indicator. Despite this we were able to find some indicators of a change in the aged cores. When comparing the T2 distribution from the aged and the non-aged core we found that there had been a reduction in the main peak and increase in intensity at shorter T2 values of the aged core`s T2 distribution. This is described as an effect of changed wettability state, where the altered wetting conditions cause the oil to come into contact with the pore..

"I give you the ned of a golden string"; The Gothic Element in William Blake

Denne oppgave ser på hvordan det Gotiske utarter seg i poesien og ideene til William Blake gjennom å bruke teoriene til John Ruskin fra The Stones of Venice og Modern Painters. Ved hjelp av Ruskin’s teori, som fokuserer på samspillet mellom det indre og det ytre, form og innhold, kan vi finne nye måter å lese det Gotiske elementet i Blake på. Det er tidligere forsket på den visuelle arven fra middelalder Gotisk kunst i Blake’s arbeid, men man har ikke vurdert de ideologiske implikasjonene dette innebærer, og heller ikke hvordan man også kan finne middelalderske ideer i tekst materialet. Målet i denne oppgaven er å se nærmere på denne arven i alle aspekter av Blake’s arbeid, det poetiske, ideologiske, teoretiske, og visuelle. I tillegg blir også sammenhengen mellom Blake og Ruskin sine ideer vurdert i lys av begges forhold til middelalder Gotisk kunst for å se om de store likhetene man finner kan tilskrives en delt arv fra ideer i denne perioden. Fokuset er spesielt rettet mot ideer om forestillingsevne, kunstneren som håndverker og poeten som profet. Etter å ha vurdert Blake gjennom Ruskin sin teori om det Gotiske, blir også deres estetiske ideer og teorier vurdert, og man finner her at begge deler et syn som har store likhetstrekk med ideer fra middelalderen. En studie av to av Blake sine lengre dikt: Europe og The Book of Urizen, viser hvordan dette fungere innad i det poetiske landskapet til Blake

Industrial IT: Architecture for integration og and use of Process Information for tracking&trace and Valuechain management

Sporing har i seneste tid for alvor blitt satt på dagsordenen. Med minnene om kugalskap og skrapesyke nesten glemt, ble E.coli og salmonella viktige mediebegivenheter. Næringsmiddelindustrien og myndighetene har på grunn av dette blitt oppmerksomme på problemet og Landbruks- og Matministeren, Terje Riis-Johansen har lansert prosjektet eSporing, som har som mål å ha en teknisk løsning for sporing på plass innen 2010. Slik som informasjonssystemene er bygget opp i de fleste tilfeller i næringsmiddelindustrien, med et ERP system med tråder helt ned i enkelte prosessenheter, er dette tungt å få til på en god måte. Samtidig har det vist seg at generell sporing, kun er lønnsomt ved en tilbaketrekking, altså ved en krise. Ellers koster det bare mer penger og arbeid å ha kontroll på næringsmidlene. Det er imidlertid flere måter som sporing kan benyttes til noe positivt. Dette kan være verdikjedestyring, innhenting av nøkkelparametre som kan brukes til prosessoptimalisering og varedifferensiering. Problemet er imidlertid at dette krever en bedre sporing enn det som har vist seg å være mulig når sporingen blir løst på sentralt nivå. Det er altså behov for egne systemer på fabrikknivå for å forbedre sporingen. Dette krever en arkitektur som legger til rette for disse systemene. Datainnsamling og besøk på ulike fabrikker, har gjort det mulig å finne krav som en slik arkitektur har behov for å løse. Kravene til sporing og verdikjedestyring har vært sentrale. Med sporing menes både sporing på prosessinformasjon og sporing av hvilke innsatsfaktorer som har gått inn i en sporbar enhet. Prosessinformasjon er her definert som prosessenhetshendelser som kun har betydning lokalt på en enhet, mens innsatsfaktorer er definert som alle enheter som følger med produktet videre i næringskjeden. Ut fra disse kravene har en konseptuell arkitektur blitt laget. Denne anbefaler bruk av tilsvarende lagdeling som ISA 95 standarden. Nettverksarkitektur og informasjonsarkitektur er også definert her. Den tekniske arkitekturen er ikke definert fordi det har vært et mål å ha arkitekturen uavhengig av teknologier. Den overordnede datamodellen som er beskrevet er laget for å sikre støtte for prosessinformasjon fra både lastbærere og prosessutstyr. Den har også støtte for den sporingen frem og tilbake i verdikjeden ved at alle innsatsfaktorer blir registrert og følger den sporbare enheten. Hvordan arkitekturen og et eget lag med informasjonssystemer best kan støtte økt sporing, økt automatisering og gi en fleksibel og fremtidsrettet platform å bygge vider på, er diskutert i denne oppgaven. Resultatet av oppgaven er en generell arkitektur som kan støtte sporing og verdikjedestyring på en best mulig måte

Norwegian vegetation types : a preliminary survey of higher syntaxa

In einer vorläufigen Übersicht werden die norwegischen Vegetationstypen dem BRAUN-BLANQUET-schen System zugeordnet. Die Zusammenstellung stützt sich auf norwegische Arbeiten, eigene Erfahrungen im Gelände, sowie auch auf mitteleuropäische Lehrbücher und Publikationen. Durch wertvolle Anregungen und Diskussionen mit Kollegen wurde die Liste ergänzt. Diese erste Fassung (noch z.T. hypothetisch) umfasst 42 Klassen, 73 Ordnungen und etwa 140 Verbände.In a preliminary phytosociological survey the Norwegian vegetation types are placed into the floristic-sociological BRAUN-BLANQUET system. The list has been compiled on the basis of Norwegian publications, the author's field experience as well as the systems in foreign textbooks and publications. The survey has also been greatly influenced by discussions and advice from collegue phytosociologists. The present system (partly hypothetical) comprises 42 classes, 73 orders and approximately 140 alliances