Nowadays modern organizations move in an incredible speed and have to be flexible and adaptable to constantly changing circumstances. Global Virtual Teams (GVTs) have been proved to be one of the means to handle this challenge. While it is said that GVTs bestow an organization with flexibility and enhanced creativity, research proves that the managing of these teams is quite challenging. The modern work stress factor time pressure is said to be omnipresent in nowadays organizations and therefore undoubtedly connected to this. However time pressure within teams has until now been somewhat “under-researched”. This study therefore aims to explore how time pressure is related to the main challenges of GVTs. The qualitative research is based on empirical data collected through 15 interviews with students who participated in a global virtual competition. The main findings show that time pressure affects GVTs and their functioning on several dimensions as well as the challenges connected to the teams can also cause time pressure.

This study focuses on the translation from English to Swedish of three political articles published in The Economist. The aim was to analyze problems that can occur, and strategies that can be used when translating cultural aspects in the form of proper nouns and political correctness as well as political terminology. The study began by translating the texts mentioned above. The potential areas of special interest in the analysis were also identified. During the translation process, dictionaries, parallel texts and Statsvetenskapligt Lexikon proved particularly helpful along with various Internet searches. Theoretical strategies were also consulted and Vinay and Darbelnet’s (V & D in Munday 2008) theories and procedures proved useful. The strategies discussed by Ingo (1991 and 2007) were also applied to a great extent. The results showed that Vinay and Darbelnet’s procedure of borrowing along with Ingo’s strategy of adaption were most useful for translating proper nouns and political terminology. To use parallel texts as well as Ingo’s strategy of adaption proved to be the best way to deal with political correctness when translating the particular texts used for this study.

<p>Abstract</p><p>Translation is not an easy task. There is a plethora of problems and difficulties which needs to be tackled in the process of translating a text from one language to another. This analysis concentrates on three of them – terminology, connectors and cultural aspects. The study is based on the Swedish translation of an English text concerning the medical and ritual use of chocolate in ancient Native American cultures as well as in Europe during the colonial era. The main problem encountered in the translation of this text was how to generalize it so it would suit the Swedish public but still maintain the level of formality of the source text. The specialized terminology found belongs to the fields of medicine and botany and these terms were often explained or replaced with more common words. A couple of the cultural aspects were also explained, since, for example, the cultural area Mesoamerica may not be known to the target readers unless they are knowledgeable in anthropology or archaeology. This made the target text somewhat less formal than the original so, to compensate, the translation of the adverbial connectors however and thus were on occasion translated with the more formal Swedish emellertid and således.</p>

<p>This study deals with difficulties of different nature encountered in the process of translating a tourist booklet on Dover Castle, published by English Heritage. The study focuses on grammatical aspects as the translation of the passive and attributive adjectives, and lexical aspects as the translation of terminology and cultural words and expressions. The analysis is based on Peter Newmark's translation theory and translation strategies. Passives and adjectives have been divided into groups based on the translation models and strategies used, and the focus is on changes in the grammatical structure. Most passives were rendered as passives in Swedish by the use of s-passives, which involves a change in the grammatical structure. Most adjectives in the source text were translated by the use of a corresponding adjective in the target language, with no change in the grammatical structure. However, some adjectives were translated using for example a prepositional phrase or a compound noun.</p><p>The analysis on terminology and cultural aspects focuses on what translation strategies have been used and problems that may occur concerning such aspects. Most source language terms were translated by the use of corresponding target language terms found in dictionaries or parallel texts. Some of the terms were transferred into the target text in their source text form, with an added explanation.</p><p>The cultural aspects consisted mainly of names, which were dealt with in different ways. Some were transferred using the source language form, and in some cases conventionalised Swedish forms were used. The main aim of the translation has been to render the text as natural as possible in Swedish, and the main aim of the analysis has been to discuss certain aspects of difficulty that occurred in the translation process.</p>

Due to the current practices of street design in countries with hot and humid climates that prioritise air-conditioned cars as the favoured mode of transport, the physical and spatial characteristics of the street space have failed to retain much or any user-friendliness for walking or for sustaining street life. Moreover, particularly in Saudi Arabia, the increasingly sedentary lifestyle is leading to significant health problems and prevalence of lifestyle diseases. However, there has been limited research conducted on the use of urban streets under hot and humid conditions, and even less is known about the impact of certain sociocultural aspects in, for example, Muslim countries, on the design of streets for walking. Such a situation poses challenges to the urban space researcher and designer interested in gaining a better understanding of how walking can be restored into the street space. This thesis contributes to the advancement of knowledge in this area by integrating three influential factors connected to walking in a single study; an approach which has not been elaborated previously. This thesis aimed to broaden the understanding of pedestrians’ requirements, attitudes and preferences in order to identify ways in which the neglected street space can be reclaimed for walking under hot-humid climatic conditions and to inform decision-making into improved street design. The scope of this research centred on combining an understanding of pedestrians’ thermal comfort in a hot and humid urban environment, that of the city of Dammam in Saudi Arabia, where the problem is particularly acute, coupled with exploration into the socio-cultural aspects through which behaviour such as undertaking increased physical activity is governed. The research postulated an interactive relationship between the existing conditions of the street space and these two factors. Owing to the multifaceted nature of the factors affecting an individual’s choice to walk, there are few accepted theoretical frameworks, hence studying the cause-and-effect relationship between street design and walking is challenging. Following the literature review and analysis of existing street characteristics; the strategy of mixed-method data collection combining participant observation with interviews and a questionnaire was conducted. The findings revealed the dual impact of key street characteristics on pedestrians’ reluctance to walk on streets and this led to two levels of simultaneous interventions being suggested: physical and spatial. The analytical process (1) identified the upper thermal comfort limit for pedestrians by application of the Physiological Equivalent Temperature index, ‘PET’, through use of the RayMan Software; (2) revealed that physical proximity to other people while on the street is the most sensitive socio-cultural issue in the outdoor spaces of Saudi, particularly between the opposite sexes, and that the existing pavements are generally too narrow to accommodate the preferred personal distance; (3) identified appropriate design interventions at the microscale of the street space to introduce improved shading and create air movement to reduce the impact of solar radiation and humidity and thus to contribute towards encouraging more use of streets for walking; and (4) marking the pavement to indicate distance walked along with high quality streetscape elements was shown to attract pedestrians effectively. Such findings have significant implications for restoring the place of walking on streets in hot and humid cities and the research concludes by emphasising: (1) it is the design of the street space in climatically responsive and socio-culturally compatible ways, rather than the configuration of the urban form that is most associated with increasing physical activity; (2) there is a crucial need to redistribute the street space away from cars and towards pedestrians by widening the existing pavements both for satisfying the average personal comfort distance between pedestrians and for incorporating appropriate streetscape elements.

Embora os sistemas e-learning sejam utilizados por diferentes tipos de usuários, com diferentes perfis e culturas, geralmente ele é criado e mantido sem levar em conta essa diversidade. Em tempos em que os sistemas baseados na web precisam fornecer suporte para uma quantidade cada vez maior de material e torná-lo disponível para as diferentes populações em todo o mundo, a introdução do conceito de cultura nos sistemas baseados na web está se tornando uma necessidade, um desafio, e uma questão relevante e oportuna. De fato, considerar a cultura tanto em informática na educação quanto na interação humano-computador é uma questão importante, pois a cultura tem um forte impacto sobre muitos processos cognitivos e afetivos relacionados com a aprendizagem. Além disso, pessoas com diferentes origens culturais desenvolvem interpretações e estratégias alternativas, que consequentemente, são refletidas em suas interações com as tecnologias de aprendizagem. Esta tese apresenta uma nova abordagem para a modelagem de usuários em sistemas adaptativos educacionais, levando em consideração o contexto cultural complementar a 3 outros tipos de informação contextual: tecnológica (relacionada à plataforma e ao dispositivo), educacional (relacionada aos estilos de aprendizagem e a outros aspectos pedagógicos) e pessoal (relacionada com as preferências e informações pessoais dos alunos). Estas características contextuais visam melhorar as capacidades de personalização, fazendo uso de um conjunto de ontologias para representar as propriedades de contexto do usuário. De fato, o contexto cultural de um usuário molda sua percepção sobre características do sistema: um determinado contexto cultural possivelmente faz com que um usuário se concentre em um conjunto de informações e ignore outros. Assim, as características do sistema apropriadas para uma cultura podem não ser adequadas para outras; e o projeto do sistema precisa ser facilmente adaptado para diferentes culturas. Como um mecanismo de teste desta pesquisa, um sistema elearning open-source chamado AdaptWeb® foi ampliado para incorporar a nossa abordagem de adaptação baseada no contexto cultural. As principais características da nossa abordagem são descritas, representando explicitamente a rica noção de contexto como uma extensão da modelagem tradicional do usuário. Nossa abordagem detalha (i) como a adoção de ontologias é usada para a representação do modelo contextual e (ii) como as questões culturais são introduzidas na interface do usuário (apresentação, componentes de diálogo e conteúdo), melhorando a usabilidade e tornando a personalização mais adequada. Para avaliar nossa proposta, realizamos um experimento com um grupo de 65 estudantes de três países, com foco em alguns aspectos de usabilidade relacionados às extensões do AdaptWeb® e a satisfação do usuário sobre a adaptação cultural fornecida. / Although normally used by different types of users, with different profiles and cultures, an e-learning system (ELS) usually is created and maintained without taking into account a diversity-orientation. In times when web-based system needs to provide support for an ever increasing amount of material and make it available for locallanguage populations across the world, the introduction of the culture concept in webbased systems is becoming a necessity, a challenge, and a timely and relevant issue. In fact, considering culture in technology-enhanced learning and human computerinteraction is an important issue since culture has a strong impact on many cognitive and affective processes related to learning. Also, people with different cultural backgrounds develop alternative interpretations and strategies consequently reflecting in their interactions with learning technologies. This thesis presents a new approach to user modeling in adaptive e-learning, taking into account cultural context complementary to 3 other types of contextual information: technological (related to platform-oriented and device-specific characteristics), educational (related to learning styles and other pedagogical aspects) and personal (related mainly with students´ personal information and preferences). These contextual characteristics aim to improve personalization capabilities, making use of a set of ontologies for representing explicitly user’s context properties. Indeed, an user’s cultural context shapes his/her perception of system features: a given culture context will possibly cause an user to focus on a set of information and ignore others. Thus, system features appropriated for one culture may not be suitable for others; and system design needs to be easily adapted for different cultures as well. As the testbed of this research, an actual open-source e-learning system called AdaptWeb® was extended in order to incorporate our approach of cultural-aware context-based adaptation. The main features of our approach are described, representing explicitly the rich context as an extension of traditional student modeling. Our description also details (i) how the adoption of ontologies is used for context models representation and (ii) how cultural issues are introduced in the user interface (presentation, dialog components and contents), improving usability and making personalization more adequate. In an effort to evaluate our ideas, we conducted an experiment with a group of 65 students of three countries focusing on some usability aspects of AdaptWeb® extensions and the user´s satisfaction about the culture-oriented adaptation provided.

Embora os sistemas e-learning sejam utilizados por diferentes tipos de usuários, com diferentes perfis e culturas, geralmente ele é criado e mantido sem levar em conta essa diversidade. Em tempos em que os sistemas baseados na web precisam fornecer suporte para uma quantidade cada vez maior de material e torná-lo disponível para as diferentes populações em todo o mundo, a introdução do conceito de cultura nos sistemas baseados na web está se tornando uma necessidade, um desafio, e uma questão relevante e oportuna. De fato, considerar a cultura tanto em informática na educação quanto na interação humano-computador é uma questão importante, pois a cultura tem um forte impacto sobre muitos processos cognitivos e afetivos relacionados com a aprendizagem. Além disso, pessoas com diferentes origens culturais desenvolvem interpretações e estratégias alternativas, que consequentemente, são refletidas em suas interações com as tecnologias de aprendizagem. Esta tese apresenta uma nova abordagem para a modelagem de usuários em sistemas adaptativos educacionais, levando em consideração o contexto cultural complementar a 3 outros tipos de informação contextual: tecnológica (relacionada à plataforma e ao dispositivo), educacional (relacionada aos estilos de aprendizagem e a outros aspectos pedagógicos) e pessoal (relacionada com as preferências e informações pessoais dos alunos). Estas características contextuais visam melhorar as capacidades de personalização, fazendo uso de um conjunto de ontologias para representar as propriedades de contexto do usuário. De fato, o contexto cultural de um usuário molda sua percepção sobre características do sistema: um determinado contexto cultural possivelmente faz com que um usuário se concentre em um conjunto de informações e ignore outros. Assim, as características do sistema apropriadas para uma cultura podem não ser adequadas para outras; e o projeto do sistema precisa ser facilmente adaptado para diferentes culturas. Como um mecanismo de teste desta pesquisa, um sistema elearning open-source chamado AdaptWeb® foi ampliado para incorporar a nossa abordagem de adaptação baseada no contexto cultural. As principais características da nossa abordagem são descritas, representando explicitamente a rica noção de contexto como uma extensão da modelagem tradicional do usuário. Nossa abordagem detalha (i) como a adoção de ontologias é usada para a representação do modelo contextual e (ii) como as questões culturais são introduzidas na interface do usuário (apresentação, componentes de diálogo e conteúdo), melhorando a usabilidade e tornando a personalização mais adequada. Para avaliar nossa proposta, realizamos um experimento com um grupo de 65 estudantes de três países, com foco em alguns aspectos de usabilidade relacionados às extensões do AdaptWeb® e a satisfação do usuário sobre a adaptação cultural fornecida. / Although normally used by different types of users, with different profiles and cultures, an e-learning system (ELS) usually is created and maintained without taking into account a diversity-orientation. In times when web-based system needs to provide support for an ever increasing amount of material and make it available for locallanguage populations across the world, the introduction of the culture concept in webbased systems is becoming a necessity, a challenge, and a timely and relevant issue. In fact, considering culture in technology-enhanced learning and human computerinteraction is an important issue since culture has a strong impact on many cognitive and affective processes related to learning. Also, people with different cultural backgrounds develop alternative interpretations and strategies consequently reflecting in their interactions with learning technologies. This thesis presents a new approach to user modeling in adaptive e-learning, taking into account cultural context complementary to 3 other types of contextual information: technological (related to platform-oriented and device-specific characteristics), educational (related to learning styles and other pedagogical aspects) and personal (related mainly with students´ personal information and preferences). These contextual characteristics aim to improve personalization capabilities, making use of a set of ontologies for representing explicitly user’s context properties. Indeed, an user’s cultural context shapes his/her perception of system features: a given culture context will possibly cause an user to focus on a set of information and ignore others. Thus, system features appropriated for one culture may not be suitable for others; and system design needs to be easily adapted for different cultures as well. As the testbed of this research, an actual open-source e-learning system called AdaptWeb® was extended in order to incorporate our approach of cultural-aware context-based adaptation. The main features of our approach are described, representing explicitly the rich context as an extension of traditional student modeling. Our description also details (i) how the adoption of ontologies is used for context models representation and (ii) how cultural issues are introduced in the user interface (presentation, dialog components and contents), improving usability and making personalization more adequate. In an effort to evaluate our ideas, we conducted an experiment with a group of 65 students of three countries focusing on some usability aspects of AdaptWeb® extensions and the user´s satisfaction about the culture-oriented adaptation provided.

Embora os sistemas e-learning sejam utilizados por diferentes tipos de usuários, com diferentes perfis e culturas, geralmente ele é criado e mantido sem levar em conta essa diversidade. Em tempos em que os sistemas baseados na web precisam fornecer suporte para uma quantidade cada vez maior de material e torná-lo disponível para as diferentes populações em todo o mundo, a introdução do conceito de cultura nos sistemas baseados na web está se tornando uma necessidade, um desafio, e uma questão relevante e oportuna. De fato, considerar a cultura tanto em informática na educação quanto na interação humano-computador é uma questão importante, pois a cultura tem um forte impacto sobre muitos processos cognitivos e afetivos relacionados com a aprendizagem. Além disso, pessoas com diferentes origens culturais desenvolvem interpretações e estratégias alternativas, que consequentemente, são refletidas em suas interações com as tecnologias de aprendizagem. Esta tese apresenta uma nova abordagem para a modelagem de usuários em sistemas adaptativos educacionais, levando em consideração o contexto cultural complementar a 3 outros tipos de informação contextual: tecnológica (relacionada à plataforma e ao dispositivo), educacional (relacionada aos estilos de aprendizagem e a outros aspectos pedagógicos) e pessoal (relacionada com as preferências e informações pessoais dos alunos). Estas características contextuais visam melhorar as capacidades de personalização, fazendo uso de um conjunto de ontologias para representar as propriedades de contexto do usuário. De fato, o contexto cultural de um usuário molda sua percepção sobre características do sistema: um determinado contexto cultural possivelmente faz com que um usuário se concentre em um conjunto de informações e ignore outros. Assim, as características do sistema apropriadas para uma cultura podem não ser adequadas para outras; e o projeto do sistema precisa ser facilmente adaptado para diferentes culturas. Como um mecanismo de teste desta pesquisa, um sistema elearning open-source chamado AdaptWeb® foi ampliado para incorporar a nossa abordagem de adaptação baseada no contexto cultural. As principais características da nossa abordagem são descritas, representando explicitamente a rica noção de contexto como uma extensão da modelagem tradicional do usuário. Nossa abordagem detalha (i) como a adoção de ontologias é usada para a representação do modelo contextual e (ii) como as questões culturais são introduzidas na interface do usuário (apresentação, componentes de diálogo e conteúdo), melhorando a usabilidade e tornando a personalização mais adequada. Para avaliar nossa proposta, realizamos um experimento com um grupo de 65 estudantes de três países, com foco em alguns aspectos de usabilidade relacionados às extensões do AdaptWeb® e a satisfação do usuário sobre a adaptação cultural fornecida. / Although normally used by different types of users, with different profiles and cultures, an e-learning system (ELS) usually is created and maintained without taking into account a diversity-orientation. In times when web-based system needs to provide support for an ever increasing amount of material and make it available for locallanguage populations across the world, the introduction of the culture concept in webbased systems is becoming a necessity, a challenge, and a timely and relevant issue. In fact, considering culture in technology-enhanced learning and human computerinteraction is an important issue since culture has a strong impact on many cognitive and affective processes related to learning. Also, people with different cultural backgrounds develop alternative interpretations and strategies consequently reflecting in their interactions with learning technologies. This thesis presents a new approach to user modeling in adaptive e-learning, taking into account cultural context complementary to 3 other types of contextual information: technological (related to platform-oriented and device-specific characteristics), educational (related to learning styles and other pedagogical aspects) and personal (related mainly with students´ personal information and preferences). These contextual characteristics aim to improve personalization capabilities, making use of a set of ontologies for representing explicitly user’s context properties. Indeed, an user’s cultural context shapes his/her perception of system features: a given culture context will possibly cause an user to focus on a set of information and ignore others. Thus, system features appropriated for one culture may not be suitable for others; and system design needs to be easily adapted for different cultures as well. As the testbed of this research, an actual open-source e-learning system called AdaptWeb® was extended in order to incorporate our approach of cultural-aware context-based adaptation. The main features of our approach are described, representing explicitly the rich context as an extension of traditional student modeling. Our description also details (i) how the adoption of ontologies is used for context models representation and (ii) how cultural issues are introduced in the user interface (presentation, dialog components and contents), improving usability and making personalization more adequate. In an effort to evaluate our ideas, we conducted an experiment with a group of 65 students of three countries focusing on some usability aspects of AdaptWeb® extensions and the user´s satisfaction about the culture-oriented adaptation provided.

Na busca por soluções organizacionais, modelos alternativos de redes de cooperação, como forma otimizada de gestão, vêm sendo pesquisados e propostos. O conceito de empresa virtual é uma destas propostas, tendo como característica a integração de competências de diferentes empresas que se unem para satisfazer oportunidades específicas de negócio. Um ambiente adequado para as empresas virtuais se constituírem rapidamente é através da criação de organizações virtuais, formadas por empresas pré-dispostas a cooperarem e que juntas, buscam novas oportunidades de mercado. O pré-requisito para seu adequado funcionamento depende de quatro infra-estruturas: física, legal, de informação e a sócio-cultural. A ausência de estudos e ações aprofundadas sobre a parte sócio-cultural pode inviabilizar o bom desempenho das organizações virtuais devido, principalmente a falta de cultura de cooperação baseada na confiança. No sentido de minimizar o problema, este trabalho define uma infra-estrutura sócio-cultural essencial que suporta a participação de empresas em organizações virtuais contribuindo para um maior conhecimento científico sobre aspectos sócio-culturais em ambientes dinâmicos e viabilizando maiores chances de sucesso das organizações virtuais. Esta infra-estrutura é baseada em estudo de caso numa organização virtual brasileira onde, numa experiência de três anos, benefícios, problemas e sugestões são apresentados servindo assim, como um referencial para futuras organizações virtuais. / The actual fast dynamic in the business impose of the enterprises more flexibility and so an inquiry for organizational solutions to make this enterprises competitivities. New alternative models of cooperation chain between enterprises as a way of optimized management have been research and proposal. The Virtual Enterprise concept is one of this proposes having as characteristic the integration of the abilities, or competences, of this existent enterprises join itself to satisfy specific opportunities of business. One manner to create a proper environment to quickly constitute a virtual enterprise is among the creation of a Virtual Organization, formed by enterprises predisposes and qualified to cooperate seeking together new opportunities to operate in the market. This organizations owing for a good growth four substructures: physical, legal, of information and social-cultural. The absence of profound studies and actions about the social-cultural substructure can make unable the good performance of the virtual organizations due, mainly, to the absence of the cooperation culture based in trust. In sense to minimize this problem this work define a essential social-cultural substructure to support the participation of enterprises in Virtual Organizations contributing to a scientific knowledge about social-cultural aspects in dynamics environments and allowing higher chances of success of the Virtual Organizations. This substructure is based in a study of case in the brazilian virtual organization, where in a experience among three years, benefit, problems and suggestions are presented serving so as a referential to the future virtual organizations.

Esse trabalho consistiu da produção de um material pedagógico com base na Proposta Curricular de Matemática do Estado de São Paulo, especificamente para o conteúdo de geometria, para alunos da 1ª série do Ensino Médio, e de uma análise da aplicação desse material em turmas de uma escola estadual da cidade de Santos, SP. Foi elaborada uma sequência didática de oito aulas, realizadas em 16 horas-aula, inspiradas no enfoque sócio-histórico de Vygotsky. Destas, as duas primeiras foram aulas de revisão, resgate de conhecimentos anteriores e diagnóstico dos alunos; as três aulas seguintes foram de atividades compartilhadas, através da resolução de problemas ou construção de ideias de uma maneira exploratória, com os temas rampas, ângulos e relações trigonométricas no triângulo retângulo, com ponto de destaque na utilização de um morro conhecido da cidade; as duas aulas seguintes seguiram os mesmos métodos, com os temas de ângulos e áreas de polígonos, com destaque na utilização de ferramentas para desenho; e a última atividade foi o jogo da memória, utilizando os conhecimentos das aulas anteriores. A aplicação e análise da pesquisa se caracterizam por ser um estudo de campo, apoiado em uma pesquisa ação, seguindo um enfoque qualitativo. Das análises, podemos concluir que atividades compartilhadas ajudaram alguns alunos mais tímidos, mas também fizeram com que os mais adiantados, às vezes, se sentissem prejudicados; as atividades, desenvolvidas para terem sentido para os alunos, auxiliaram-nos na memorização dos conhecimentos; e finalmente, que a afetividade em relação ao conhecimento matemático, interferiu na motivação dos alunos, mas que esse é também um fator interno que não depende somente da diversificação das metodologias nas aulas. / This work consisted on the production of a pedagogical material based on the curricular documents of Mathematics in the State of São Paulo, Brazil, specifically on geometry, for students of the first year, in High School. It also includes an analysis of the application of this material in classes of a public state school, in the city of Santos- SP. We elaborated a didactical sequence of eight classes, developed in 16 classhours, based on Vygotsky´s socio-historical approach. The first two classes were for revision, rescuing students´ previous knowledge for diagnosis. The following three classes included shared activities, through problem solving or exploratory situations, with the mathematical subjects: ramps, angles and trigonometric relations in the rectangle triangle, where we point out the use of a known hill of the city. The next two classes had the same methods, with the themes of angles and areas of polygons, where we point out the use of tools for drawing; and finally, the last activity was the memory game, using the knowledge of previous classes. We characterize the application and analysis in this research as a field study, with a research-action structure, in a qualitative perspective. From the analysis, we conclude that shared activities can be helpful for some shy students, but it also causes more advanced students sometimes to feel harmed. On the other hand, the activities designed to make sense for the students helped them to remember easier. Finally, we saw that affectivity related to mathematical knowledge interfered with the students´ motivation, but this is an internal factor, that does not depend only on the methodology diversification.