O objetivo geral deste trabalho é identificar os fatores contributivos e os fatores limitadores para negócios sociais nas regiões Sul e Sudeste do Brasil, por meio do atingimento dos seguintes objetivos específicos: (a) descrever os principais modelos conceituais existentes para negócios sociais, identificando similaridades e diferenças; (b) identificar as percepções dos principais atores sobre negócios sociais nas regiões Sul e Sudeste do Brasil; e (c) desenvolver um framework com as principais dimensões de análise, fatores contributivos e fatores limitadores para negócios sociais. Foi realizada uma pesquisa exploratória, qualitativa de abordagem direta e de análise descritivo-interpretativa, em duas fases. Na primeira, com pesquisa documental, na segunda por meio de trinta e seis entrevistas semi-estruturadas com atores-chave para negócios sociais no Brasil – empreendedores, suas equipes e organizações apoiadoras. Os dados coletados foram analisados segundo a técnica de análise de conteúdo e os resultados são apresentados de forma descritiva e sintetizados no framework de análise. Foram identificados oito fatores contributivos e dezoito fatores limitadores, distribuídos em cinco dimensões de análise. / The main objective of this research is to identify the contributing and limiting factors for social businesses in the Brazilian South and Southeast regions. The specific objectives are: (a) to describe the key existing social business conceptual models, making explicit their similarities and differences; (b) to identify the perception of the main players in the field of social business in the Brazilian South and Southeast regions; and (c) to develop an analytical framework with the main analysis dimensions, contributing and limiting factor. It was a two phases exploratory research, qualitative with a direct approach, with descriptive-interpretative analysis. On the first phase, the focus was on a documental research, on the second, the focus was on thirty-six semi-structured interviews with the main players in the field – entrepreneurs, their teams, and supporting organizations. The collected data processed according to the content analysis technique, and the results are presented in descriptive format, being sintetized in the analytical framework. The result were eight contributing factors and eighteen limiting factors, spread across five analytical dimensions.

First of all, we want to inform the readers that this thesis is written in Swedish before addressing the abstract.The possibility to buy groceries online has been a possibility since 1996 in Sweden, but the growth of the service did actually begin a few years ago. The two latest years of shopping food online – e-grocery has become one of the most fast growing markets online, and it is still growing. More and more customers have been drawn to this type of alternative to shop food. It is a quite relatively new market in progress, both for consumers and companies and the online market has still a few obstacles to overcome, for instance the delivery time and the online payment. The consumer today is in a changing phase and starts to see the advantages of buying groceries online. In this research the barriers and advantage factors have been identified towards the online grocery shopping, in ability to examine the situation today.In order to find these barriers and the advantages of e-grocery, a case study with ICA City in Borås was an optimal approach. With the help of ICA City's digital customers, a qualitative study with focus groups was performed and a quantitative data collection with questionnaires was made. The purpose of the qualitative research was to identify barriers and the advantage factors, and the quantitative study was to measure their importance of these. These barriers and advantages have been placed against the purchase decision process to identify when and how the consumers are affected.The conclusion of this study resulted in both old and new barriers against e-Grocery. E-Grocery needs to be better developed; especially when it comes to the interface, it needs to be user friendlier, as well as inspirational. The groceries online, is today inadequate, which affects many consumers' and the shopping experience. The trading strategy must be adapted to the digital customer, which leads to the conclusion of a need for a better and stronger website to attract more and loyal customers. The biggest advantages for e-Grocery in this research were the conveniences and the time the consumers save, on not having to go to a physical store and shop for food. Many of the participants who participated saw the benefit of the e-Groceries availability, when they could buy food whenever and wherever. / Att handla mat på nätet är något som har funnits möjlighet att göra sedan 1996, men det var först för några år sedan som det började växa kraftigt. De två senaste åren har försäljningen av mat online ökat kraftigt, och fler kunder lockas till detta alternativa sätt att handla mat. Det är en relativt ny marknad för både konsumenter och företag. Det finns många faktorer som hindrat kunder, men dessa barriärer är nu i en förändringsfas och konsumenterna börjar se de främjande faktorer som den digitala mathandeln tillför framför barriärerna. I denna forskning har barriärer och främjanden faktorer mot digital mathandel mäts för att se hur de ser ut idag.För att kunna ta reda på dessa barriärer och de främjande faktorerna blev ansatsen och tillvägagångssättet en fallstudie på ICA City i Borås. Med hjälp av ICA Citys digitala kunder utfördes en kvalitativ studie med fokusgrupper och utifrån den en kvantitativ insamling med ett frågeformulär. Syftet med den kvalitativa undersökningen var att identifierade barriärer och främjande faktorer, och med hjälp av den kvantitativa studien i mäta deras betydelse. Dessa barriärer och främjanden faktorerna har sedan placerats ut efter den köpbeslutsprocess för att identifiera när och hur konsumenten blir påverkad.Slutsatsen av studien resulterade i att de barriärer som funnits förr börjar försvinna och i samband med detta uppkommer nya. E-livsmedel är något som behöver utvecklas, speciellt när det kommer till användarvänlighet och inspiration. Sortimentet online är bristfälligt vilket påverkar många konsumenters upplevelse. Handelstrategin måste anpassas till den digitala kunden vilket leder till slutsatsen om ett behov av en bättre och starkare hemsida för att locka fler och trogna kunder. De främsta främjande faktorer för respondenterna i forskningen var bekvämligheten med e-livsmedel samt tiden som de sparar med att inte behöva åka till en fysisk butik och handla. Många deltagare såg även fördelen med butikens tillgänglig, närsomhelst och var som helst.

This degree project is an interview study investigating upper secondary EFL teachers’ perceptions of speaking anxiety in their classrooms. The aim of the study is to gain insight into how the teachers perceive the prevalence of foreign language speaking anxiety (FLSA) among their pupils, the factors contributing to FLSA and what methods they use to manage FLSA in their EFL classrooms. To achieve this aim, a phenomenological approach was applied, and six teachers were interviewed using semi-structured interviews in a mediumsized city in Sweden. Through the interviews, information of the teachers’ experiences in relation to the prevalence of FLSA, the contributing factors to FLSA and what methods they used to manage FLSA were gathered. The results showcase that the teachers perceive FLSA to be present in their EFL classrooms but to varying degrees. They perceived that the factors contributing to FLSA could be many, but the factors all the teachers named were fear of evaluation, having many people listening to your speech, being focused on correctness in the FL, and being inexperienced and afraid to make mistakes in the FL. To counteract this with methods of managing FLSA, the teachers perceived that positive reinforcement, communication, group division, individual adaptation, a focus on meaning over correctness, and showing understanding for the pupils’ feelings are suitable methods to manage FLSA in their classrooms. The most common of these methods was the usage of individual adaptations, where the teacher and pupil communicate to find the most suitable solution with reference to the knowledge requirements of the English subject and the pupil’s needs. Lastly, the results indicate that FLSA is a complex phenomenon in EFL education due to the variety of factors that might contribute to it and the variety of methods potentially useful in counteracting it.

Raising the bar in safety performance is a critical challenge for many organizations. Contributing factor taxonomies organize information on why accidents occur. Therefore, they are essential elements of accident investigations and safety reporting systems. Organizations must balance efforts to identify causes of specific accidents with efforts to evaluate systemic safety issues in order to become more proactive about improving safety. This research successfully addressed two problems: (1) limited methods and metrics exist to support the design of effective taxonomies, and (2) influence relationships between contributing factors are not explicitly modeled within a taxonomy. The primary result of the taxonomic relationship modeling efforts was an innovative "dual role" contributing factor taxonomy with significant improvements in comprehensiveness and diagnosticity over existing taxonomies. The influence map methodology was the result of a unique graphical and analytical combination of the dual role taxonomy and influence relationship models. Influence maps were developed for several safety incidents at Kennedy Space Center. An independent assessment was conducted by a team of experts using the new dual role taxonomy and influence chain methodology to evaluate the accuracy and completeness of contributing factors identified during the formal incident investigations. One hundred and sixteen contributing factors were identified using the influence map methodology. Only 16% of these contributing factors were accurately identified with traditional tools, and over half of the 116 contributing factors were completely unaddressed by the findings and recommendations of the formal incident reports. The new methodology is being applied to improve spaceport operations and enhance designs of future NASA launch systems.

This thesis aims at contributing to the theoretical research discourse on teaching mathematics. More precise, to explore a teacher’s role and actions while negotiating meaning of mathematical objects in discursive transformative practices in mathematics. The focus is to highlight the teacher as an active contributor to the classroom mathematical discourse, having an important role in shaping the mathematics. At the same time, the teacher is acknowledged as an individual who learns and develops as a lesson and semester progress. Three research papers illustrate the state, at that time, of an inductive analysis of three teachers, teaching a series of lessons based on probability theory at two Swedish primary schools. The teachers worked together with the students to explore an unknown sample space, made up out of an opaque bottle with coloured marbles within that showed one marble at each turn of the bottle. They had to construct mathematical tools together to help them solve the mystery. The analysis focused on teacher–student interactions during this exploration, revealing complex connections in the process of teaching. The three papers presented the development of a theoretical framework named Contributing to Develop Contributions (CDC). The frameworks’ fundamental idea is that teachers learn as they teach, using the teaching metaphor learning to develop learning. That metaphor was developed, in light of the ongoing empirical analysis, into CDC by drawing on a theoretical idea that learning can be viewed as contributing to the collaborative meaning making in the classroom. Teaching and teacher learning are described and understood as reflexive processes in relation to in-the-moment teacher-student interaction. Contributing to develop contributions consists of three different ways of contributing. The analytical categories illustrate how students’ opportunities to contribute to the negotiation of mathematical meaning are closely linked to teachers’ different ways of contributing. The different ways are Contributing one’s own interpretations of mathematical objects, Contributing with others’ interpretations of mathematical objects, and Contributing by eliciting contributions. Each way of contributing was found to have the attributes Transparency, Role-taking and Authority. Together, these six categories show teacher– student interaction as a complex dynamical system where they draw on each other and together negotiate meaning of mathematical objects in the classroom. This thesis reveals how the teaching process can be viewed in terms of learning on different levels. Learning as thought of in terms of contributing to the negotiation of meaning in the moment-to-moment interaction in the classroom. By contributing you influence the collective’s understanding as well as your own. A teacher exercises and develops ways of contributing to the negotiation of meaning of mathematical objects, in order to develop students’ contributions. In a wider perspective, the analysis showed development over time in terms of transformation. The teachers were found to have transformed their understanding of classroom situations in light of the present interactions. Contributing to the negotiation of meaning in the classroom was understood as a process in such transformation, in the ever ongoing becoming of a mathematics teacher.

Political Finance Reform and Public Procurement:  Evidence from Lithuania. Can political donations buy influence? This paper studies whether firms trade political contributions for public procurement contracts. To answer this question, I focus on the Lithuanian political economy. Combining data on a large number of government tenders, the universe of corporate donors and firm characteristics, I examine how a ban on corporate donations affects the awarding of procurement contracts to companies that donated in the past. Consistent with political favoritism, contributing firms’ probability of winning goes down by five percentage points as compared to that of non-donor firms after the ban. Among different mechanisms, the hypothesis that corporate donors get confidential information on competing bids prevails. The empirical results are in line with predictions from a first-price sealed-bid auction model with one informed bidder. Evidence on firm bidding and victory margins suggests that contributing firms adjust their bids in order to secure contracts at a maximum revenue. I assess that tax payers save almost one percent of GDP thanks to the reform. Gender Quotas and the Quality of Politicians. We analyze the effects of the introduction of gender quotas in candidate lists on the quality of elected politicians, as measured by the average number of years of education. We consider an Italian law which introduced gender quotas in local elections in 1993, and was abolished in 1995. As not all municipalities went through elections during this period, we identify two groups of municipalities and use a difference-in-differences estimation. We find that gender quotas are associated with an increase in the quality of elected politicians, with the effect ranging from 0.12 to 0.24 years of education. This effect is due not only to the higher number of elected women, who are on average more educated than men, but also to the lower number of low-educated elected men. The positive effect on quality is confirmed when we measure the latter with alternative indicators, it persists in the long run and it is robust to controlling for political ideology and political competition. Affirmative Action and the Power of the Elderly. There is evidence that age matters in politics. In this article we study whether implementation of affirmative action policies on gender can generate additional effects on an alternative dimension of representation, namely, the age of politicians. We consider an Italian law which introduced gender quotas in candidate lists for local elections in 1993, and was abolished in 1995. As not all municipalities went through elections during this period, we can identify two groups of municipalities and use a difference-in-differences estimation to analyze the effect of gender quotas on the age of elected politicians. We find that gender quotas are associated with election of politicians that are younger by more than one year. The effect occurs mainly due to the reduction in age of elected male politicians and is consistent with the optimizing behavior of parties or of voters. Let the Voters Choose Women. Female under-representation in politics can be the result of parties' selection of candidates and/or of voters’ electoral preferences. To assess the impact of these two channels, we exploit the introduction of Italian Law 215/2013, which prescribes both gender quotas on candidate lists and double preference voting conditioned on gender. Using a regression discontinuity design, we estimate that the law increases the share of elected female politicians by 22 percentage points. The result is driven by the increase in preference votes cast for female candidates, suggesting a salient role of double preference voting in promoting female empowerment in politics.

La morphologie mathématique est une théorie puissante pour l’analyse d’images 2 D. Elle se base sur la dilatation et l’érosion, qui correspondent à l’addition et la soustraction de Minkowski. Afin d’analyser des maillages 3D par morphologie mathématique, on doit disposer d’algorithmes performants et robustes pour le calcul exact de l’addition et de la soustraction pour ces maillages. Malheureusement, les travaux existants sont, soit approximés, soit non robustes ou limités par des contraintes. Aucun travail n’a traité la différence. Ces difficultés sont dues au fait qu’un maillage représente une surface linéaire par morceaux englobant un ensemble contenu et non dénombrable. Nous avons introduit la notion de sommets contributeurs et nous avons développé un algorithme efficace et robuste pour le calcul de la somme de polyèdres convexes. Nous l’avons par la suite adapté et proposé deux algorithmes performants pour la somme d’une paire de polyèdres non convexe/convexe, tout en gérant correctement les polyèdres complexes, les situations de non-variété ainsi que les changements topologiques. Nous avons également démontré la dualité des sommets contributeurs et nous l’avons exploité pour développer la première approche du calcul exact et efficace de la différence de polyèdres convexes. La dualité des sommets contributeurs ainsi que la robustesse et l’efficacité de nos approches motivent le développement d’une approche unifiée pour l’addition et la soustraction de polyèdres quelconques, ce qui permettra d’appliquer des traitements morphologiques à des maillages 3D. D’autres domaines tels que l’imagerie médicale, la robotique, la géométrie ou la chimie pourront en tirer profit / Mathematical morphology is a powerful theory for the analysis of 2D digital images. It is based on dilation and erosion, which correspond to Minkowski addition and subtraction. To be able to analyze 3D meshes using mathematical morphology, we must use efficient and robust algorithms for the exact computation of the addition and subtraction of meshes. Unfortunately, existing approaches are approximated, non-robust or limited by some constraints. No work has addressed the difference. These difficulties come from the the fact that a mesh represents a piecewise linear surface bounding a continuous and uncountable set. We introduced the concept of contributing vertices and developed an efficient and robust algorithm for the computation of the Minkowski sum of convex polyhedra. After that, we adapted and proposed two efficient algorithms for the computation of the Minkowski sum of a non-convex/convex pair of polyhedra, while properly handling complex polyhedra, non-manifold situations and topological changes. We also demonstrated the duality of the contributing vertices concept and exploited it to develop the first approach for the efficient and exact computation of the Minkowski difference of convex polyhedra. The duality of the contributing vertices concept as well as the robustness and efficiency of our approaches motivate the development of a unified approach for the Minkowski addition and subtraction of arbitrary polyhedral, which will permit the morphological analysis of 3D meshes. Other areas such as medical imaging, robotics, geometry or chemistry may benefit from our approaches

It is evident from the past forty years of research, debate and literature that the New World was far more populated in 1492 than was previously thought. However, despite the expanding field of study most works omit the effects that epidemics had on the tribes of the Great Plains, particularly those located in present-day Canada, and the works that have been published deal mainly with demographics and fail to delve into how disease affected intertribal relations. As well, almost all studies of disease and the Great Plains tribes end by 1850 or start in 1880. Therefore, the decades from 1860 through to the 1870s are largely ignored and become even more of a mystery when considering the fact that the eventual subjugation of the Plains Natives soon came when the Numbered Treaties commenced in 1871.<p>The omission of research on epidemics from 1860 to 1880 has left historians to concentrate on other reasons for the collapse of the Plains lifestyle, primarily the disappearance of the buffalo, which was crucial to Native existence in the parkland/grassland regions. Although this was obviously a very important factor in weakening warrior societies on the Plains, it was by no means the sole factor. In fact, the smallpox epidemic of 1870-71 and its after effects played an important role in debilitating Native nations, especially great tribes like the Plains Cree in present-day Saskatchewan. Food supplies could not be maintained and starvation became prevalent throughout the Great Plains in the winter of 1870-71. Malnutrition certainly would also have led to further secondary complications such as fertility problems and pulmonary illnesses, such as pneumonia, which would have contributed to the impact of the epidemic through a continued loss of population and disruption of intertribal functioning. Through analysis of the consequences of this epidemic on the Plains Cree it becomes increasingly apparent that disease played a much greater role in leading Natives towards treaty negotiations and settlement than has been formerly thought. This is not to say that epidemics in themselves were the main reason for the collapse of the Plains Cree culture, but rather they deserve to be included along with the traditional causes such as the disappearance of the buffalo.

It is evident from the past forty years of research, debate and literature that the New World was far more populated in 1492 than was previously thought. However, despite the expanding field of study most works omit the effects that epidemics had on the tribes of the Great Plains, particularly those located in present-day Canada, and the works that have been published deal mainly with demographics and fail to delve into how disease affected intertribal relations. As well, almost all studies of disease and the Great Plains tribes end by 1850 or start in 1880. Therefore, the decades from 1860 through to the 1870s are largely ignored and become even more of a mystery when considering the fact that the eventual subjugation of the Plains Natives soon came when the Numbered Treaties commenced in 1871.<p>The omission of research on epidemics from 1860 to 1880 has left historians to concentrate on other reasons for the collapse of the Plains lifestyle, primarily the disappearance of the buffalo, which was crucial to Native existence in the parkland/grassland regions. Although this was obviously a very important factor in weakening warrior societies on the Plains, it was by no means the sole factor. In fact, the smallpox epidemic of 1870-71 and its after effects played an important role in debilitating Native nations, especially great tribes like the Plains Cree in present-day Saskatchewan. Food supplies could not be maintained and starvation became prevalent throughout the Great Plains in the winter of 1870-71. Malnutrition certainly would also have led to further secondary complications such as fertility problems and pulmonary illnesses, such as pneumonia, which would have contributed to the impact of the epidemic through a continued loss of population and disruption of intertribal functioning. Through analysis of the consequences of this epidemic on the Plains Cree it becomes increasingly apparent that disease played a much greater role in leading Natives towards treaty negotiations and settlement than has been formerly thought. This is not to say that epidemics in themselves were the main reason for the collapse of the Plains Cree culture, but rather they deserve to be included along with the traditional causes such as the disappearance of the buffalo.

The Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary (FKNMS) encompasses North America's only living coral barrier reef and the third longest barrier reef in the world, making it a unique national treasure of international notoriety (FKNMS, 2005). Recent evidence of environmental decline within the sanctuary has created a sense of urgency to understand and protect the valuable resources within. This thesis contributed to the understanding of habitat connectivity to aid managers and decision makers in the creation of additional Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) in the FKNMS to help prevent further environmental decline. This research specifically focused on modeling larval transport and larval connectivity among Acropora palmata (Lamarck, 1816) populations, coral habitats and MPAs in the upper and middle FKNMS. The transport of larvae in relation to ocean currents is a very limited area of research, and the analytic modeling results may serve as powerful guides to decisions about the relative importance of individual coral habitats and MPAs in the study area.Larval transport was modeled with ArcGIS and TauDEM using SoFLA-HYCOM simulated ocean currents during the A. palmata spawning season. This model allowed for the assessment of coral habitat and A. palmata population larval connectivity. The dependence of three distant A. palmata test populations on other upstream coral habitats and A. palmata populations significantly differed (Kruskal-Wallis test, P less than 0.0001). The clonally diverse Sand Island Reef A. palmata population's larval connectivity was significantly higher compared to other distant monoclonal populations (Mann-Whitney test, P less than 0.0001). Compared to the clonal structure of each test population determined by Baums, Miller, and Hellberg (2006), results indicated simulated larval connectivity may be a determinant of A. palmata population clonal diversity.By modeling MPA and coral habitat connectivity, this study also identified unprotected and distant coral habitat areas with the greatest downstream influence on MPAs; these may serve as potential coral larvae sources. It is recommended that establishing these areas as no-take MPAs would improve overall coral habitat and MPA network connectivity.