<p>Background:</p><p>SMEs are extremely important to the Swedish economy. But only 56% of the newly started companies in Sweden are still active three years after they start. One of the most important reasons for this happens in the strategic field which generally includes two issues- one is the applying strategy, another is the strategy process itself. The authors of this paper attach their importance into one of these two issues-strategy process and want to get the result if Mintzberg & Waters’ (1985) strategic process model is suited with Swedish IT-SMEs.</p><p>Purpose:</p><p>According to Karl Popper, people have to continuous try to falsify a hypotheses and each time you fail to do this the hypotheses or theories become stronger. If you succeed in falsifying the hypotheses it can be rejected as false and a new and better one will have to be created from the outcome of all these tests. Based on this kind of thought, our research chooses Swedish IT-SMEs to test Mintzberg & Waters’ (1985) model. After all, Mintzberg & Waters’ (1985) model has been put forward almost twenty years and furthermore, its standpoint is mostly based on the big enterprises. Our purpose is to see if this model is suited with the process of strategy of the three-premise (Swedish, IT, SME) companies. </p><p>Result:</p><p>We can say after getting the result, that Mintzberg & Waters’ (1985) model is suited with Swedish IT-SME, the model itself becomes stronger.</p>

Problem: To identify how the ideas for the reorganization at Mälardalen University surfaced and explain how the strategy then translated into the organization. This will be studied by using models intended for private organizations that hold relevance for public organizations. - What parts of the process can be described as emergent, deliberate, intended, realized and unrealized? - What influenced the reorganization process? - In this process, how does Mälardalen University use the concept of strategy? Purpose: The aim of this thesis is to explain a strategic organizational change process in a large organization. The choice fell on Mälardalen University due to its accessibility and significant size. By interpreting the empirical material, the underlying causes will be brought to the surface. The result will aim to explain how a change process might occur in a large organization and how internal and external influences were reflected in the strategic path. Method: The empirical data collected for this thesis was obtained through qualitative semi-structured interviews with organizational members on a managerial level. One focal organization was used for a case study. The theoretical framework had a knowledge base, based on some theories by Henry Mintzberg. After the collection of primary data additional theories were added. Results: The reorganization at Mälardalen University was an emergent process where the solutions and impacts were altered and adjusted along the way. In this reorganization the process has been evolving and progressing within a frame created by a few predetermined desires and plans. It also became evident that strategy for Mälardalen University is a way to achieve a position where they can benefit from their competitive advantages. The position is the goal and the way in which to get there is not as important. This has opened up the process to be as emerging as it has been. This emergent process has been allowed to progress in changing directions where decisions are taken as the solutions are found, muddling their way through the process.

Background: SMEs are extremely important to the Swedish economy. But only 56% of the newly started companies in Sweden are still active three years after they start. One of the most important reasons for this happens in the strategic field which generally includes two issues- one is the applying strategy, another is the strategy process itself. The authors of this paper attach their importance into one of these two issues-strategy process and want to get the result if Mintzberg &amp; Waters’ (1985) strategic process model is suited with Swedish IT-SMEs. Purpose: According to Karl Popper, people have to continuous try to falsify a hypotheses and each time you fail to do this the hypotheses or theories become stronger. If you succeed in falsifying the hypotheses it can be rejected as false and a new and better one will have to be created from the outcome of all these tests. Based on this kind of thought, our research chooses Swedish IT-SMEs to test Mintzberg &amp; Waters’ (1985) model. After all, Mintzberg &amp; Waters’ (1985) model has been put forward almost twenty years and furthermore, its standpoint is mostly based on the big enterprises. Our purpose is to see if this model is suited with the process of strategy of the three-premise (Swedish, IT, SME) companies. Result: We can say after getting the result, that Mintzberg &amp; Waters’ (1985) model is suited with Swedish IT-SME, the model itself becomes stronger.

An increased openness and rapidity of the media has resulted in more comprehensive coverage of organizations and their behavior. Additionally increased customer awareness of corporate ethical behavior has led to higher customer demands and expectations resulting in added pressure on companies. Corporate social responsibility has by researchers been identified as the solution to these increased expectations. There are various types of CSR activities and this study focuses on the concept of Fair Trade. A literature review examining the existing research within the field was performed to identify a research gap that assisted in establishing the purpose of the study. The purpose of this study is to assess how practicing CSR strategies at Coop influence subjective performance, and if these are deliberate or emergent. Three research questions were formulated to answer the purpose. The study tests a research model that has not yet been tested in practice, namely the 3C-SR model. The study has been conducted through a case study in the form of in-depth interviews and content analysis. The study was carried out through five interviews with employees from the Swedish grocery chain Coop. Organization-wide needs for well-developed communication, consistency and clear goals regarding CSR and Fair Trade were recognized. Practical managerial implications have been concluded based on these findings. Additionally, a suggestion for developing the existing research model is presented. The study reveals that Fair Trade is not practiced entirely in accordance with the 3C-SR model. Potentiality was identified concerning the subjective assessment, hence the subjective performance was not ultimate. The study further concluded that despite deliberate features, the corporate strategy was highly emergent.

This thesis studies matter emergent as topological excitations of quantum geometry in quantum gravity models. In these models, states are framed four-valent spin networks embedded in a topological three manifold, and the local evolution moves are dual Pachner moves. We first formulate our theory of embedded framed four-valent spin networks by proposing a new graphic calculus of these networks. With this graphic calculus, we study the equivalence classes and the evolution of these networks, and find what we call 3-strand braids, as topological excitations of embedded four-valent spin networks. Each 3-strand braid consists of two nodes that share three edges that may or may not be braided and twisted. The twists happen to be in units of 1/3. Under certain stability condition, some 3-strand braids are stable. Stable braids have rich dynamics encoded in our theory by dual Pachner moves. Firstly, all stable braids can propagate as induced by the expansion and contraction of other regions of their host spin network under evolution. Some braids can also propagate actively, in the sense that they can exchange places with substructures adjacent to them in the graph under the local evolution moves. Secondly, two adjacent braids may have a direct interaction: they merge under the evolution moves to form a new braid if one of them falls into a class called actively interacting braids. The reverse of a direct interaction may happen too, through which a braid decays to another braid by emitting an actively interacting braid. Thirdly, two neighboring braids may exchange a virtual actively interacting braid and become two different braids, in what is called an exchange interaction. Braid dynamics implies an analogue between actively interacting braids and bosons. We also invent a novel algebraic formalism for stable braids. With this new tool, we derive conservation laws from interactions of the braid excitations of spin networks. We show that actively interacting braids form a noncommutative algebra under direction interaction. Each actively interacting braid also behaves like a morphism on non-actively interacting braids. These findings reinforce the analogue between actively interacting braids and bosons. Another important discovery is that stable braids admit seven, and only seven, discrete transformations that uniquely correspond to analogues of C, P, T, and their products. Along with this finding, a braid's electric charge appears to be a function of a conserved quantity, effective twist, of the braids, and thus is quantized in units of 1/3. In addition, each $CPT$-multiplet of actively interacting braids has a unique, characteristic non-negative integer. Braid interactions turn out to be invariant under C, P, and T. Finally, we present an effective description, based on Feynman diagrams, of braid dynamics. This language manifests the analogue between actively interacting braids and bosons, as the topological conservation laws permit them to be singly created and destroyed and as exchanges of these excitations give rise to interactions between braids that are charged under the topological conservation rules. Additionally, we find a constraint on probability amplitudes of braid interactions. We discuss some subtleties, open issues, future directions, and work in progress at the end.

Individual differences in early literacy skills can be attributed to children’s previous history of emergent literacy experiences during their preschool years. The purpose of this qualitative study was to learn about the emergent literacy experiences of one Libyan American preschooler and one Syrian American preschooler and how their families support these experiences in their bilingual homes. Through the lens of social theory of learning (Lave & Wenger, 1991; Wenger, 1998) and sociocultural theory (Rogoff, 1990; Vygotsky, 1978), this multi-case study was designed to explore family literacy practices with a preschooler in a naturalistic setting. The questions guiding this study were: (1) How did the texts, tools, and technologies available in two bilingual home settings impact the emergent literacy practices of a Libyan American child and a Syrian American child? (2) What support did family members provide for these two children as they developed emergent literacy practices in their bilingual home settings? Data sources included a demographic questionnaire, digital-recordings of family literacy practices with a preschooler, audio-recorded in-depth interviews with the parents, home visits, the preschoolers’ writing samples, and photographs of literacy activities, materials, and the home environment. The recorded family literacy practices and interviews were transcribed and analyzed to identify emerging themes. Both within-case analysis and cross-case analysis were conducted. Findings revealed that the preschoolers in both families use a multimodal process such as talking, drawing, singing, chanting, recitation, technologies, and sociodramatic play in their daily literacy experiences. The parents are not concerned with teaching their children specific literacy skills; but they naturally use techniques for keeping them on task and questioning skills to enhance oral language and comprehension development. These families’ home literacy practices are Americanized by living in the mainstream social group, and English is frequently used among the family members. However, their bilingualism and religious literacy practices enrich and vary their children’s emergent literacy experiences and their family literacy practices. The significance of this study resides in the importance of getting to know individual families’ backgrounds to better understand and respect the cultural practices of family literacy.

This thesis studies matter emergent as topological excitations of quantum geometry in quantum gravity models. In these models, states are framed four-valent spin networks embedded in a topological three manifold, and the local evolution moves are dual Pachner moves. We first formulate our theory of embedded framed four-valent spin networks by proposing a new graphic calculus of these networks. With this graphic calculus, we study the equivalence classes and the evolution of these networks, and find what we call 3-strand braids, as topological excitations of embedded four-valent spin networks. Each 3-strand braid consists of two nodes that share three edges that may or may not be braided and twisted. The twists happen to be in units of 1/3. Under certain stability condition, some 3-strand braids are stable. Stable braids have rich dynamics encoded in our theory by dual Pachner moves. Firstly, all stable braids can propagate as induced by the expansion and contraction of other regions of their host spin network under evolution. Some braids can also propagate actively, in the sense that they can exchange places with substructures adjacent to them in the graph under the local evolution moves. Secondly, two adjacent braids may have a direct interaction: they merge under the evolution moves to form a new braid if one of them falls into a class called actively interacting braids. The reverse of a direct interaction may happen too, through which a braid decays to another braid by emitting an actively interacting braid. Thirdly, two neighboring braids may exchange a virtual actively interacting braid and become two different braids, in what is called an exchange interaction. Braid dynamics implies an analogue between actively interacting braids and bosons. We also invent a novel algebraic formalism for stable braids. With this new tool, we derive conservation laws from interactions of the braid excitations of spin networks. We show that actively interacting braids form a noncommutative algebra under direction interaction. Each actively interacting braid also behaves like a morphism on non-actively interacting braids. These findings reinforce the analogue between actively interacting braids and bosons. Another important discovery is that stable braids admit seven, and only seven, discrete transformations that uniquely correspond to analogues of C, P, T, and their products. Along with this finding, a braid's electric charge appears to be a function of a conserved quantity, effective twist, of the braids, and thus is quantized in units of 1/3. In addition, each $CPT$-multiplet of actively interacting braids has a unique, characteristic non-negative integer. Braid interactions turn out to be invariant under C, P, and T. Finally, we present an effective description, based on Feynman diagrams, of braid dynamics. This language manifests the analogue between actively interacting braids and bosons, as the topological conservation laws permit them to be singly created and destroyed and as exchanges of these excitations give rise to interactions between braids that are charged under the topological conservation rules. Additionally, we find a constraint on probability amplitudes of braid interactions. We discuss some subtleties, open issues, future directions, and work in progress at the end.

Recent and ongoing research has demonstrated the alarming likelihood of children from low-income homes and from ethnic minorities to read at much lower reading levels than their peers. Additionally, reading ability is related to the earliest of emergent literacy skills, which can be measured in young children before they enter formal schooling. The home environment, including the available resources, support for literacy and school, and the parent-child relationship, plays an important role in promoting the development of emergent literacy skills. More research is needed, however, to inform programs and researchers about the specific relationship between the home environment and emergent literacy development. The current study was conducted using a sample of 122 preschool children enrolled in ERF enriched preschool classrooms in one school located in a Southwestern state. The study investigated the power of three variables of the home literacy environment (HLE) (i.e., Family Reading and Writing, External Resources, and Daily Activities) to predict three emergent literacy outcomes (i.e., receptive oral language, alphabet knowledge, and name writing) using canonical correlation analysis (CCA). The study also used commonality regression analysis to examine the shared and unique variance in these emergent literacy outcomes accounted for by the variables of the HLE and the parent-child relationship. The results of the CCA did not find the variables of the HLE to have a statistically significant relationship with the emergent literacy outcomes. Missing data techniques were used to account for incomplete data, and he results were closer to obtaining statistical significance when the more advanced method of multiple imputation was used to account for missing data, with the p-value decreasing from .751 with listwise deletion to between .094 and .504 with multiple imputation. The second analysis of the study, the commonality regression analysis, did find home variables to account for unique and shared variance in the emergent literacy outcomes, particularly in preschool name writing. Specifically, the External Resources scale of the Familia Inventory (Taylor, 2000) uniquely accounted for the smallest amount of variance (i.e., .1 percent) in name writing, while the scores of the PCRI uniquely accounted for the largest amount of variance (i.e., 3.4 percent). When combined together, however, the predictor variables accounted for larger amounts of variance in name writing ability. The Familia Inventory scale of External Resources accounted for the smallest amount of variance when combined with the other predictor variables (i.e., 21.5 percent) while the scores on the PCRI accounted for the largest combined amount of variance, accounting for 31.4 percent of the variance in name writing ability. These results complement and extend on existing research. The findings, limitations, and implications of the results of this study are discussed.

Process writing research began with adult writers, eventually expanding to include school age children and more recently, emergent writers. Research at the early childhood level has often been directed at specific aspects of writing development rather than an examination of process writing development. This study used pre-existing writing samples to examine writing development in kindergarten and first grade over the course of the school year following the district-wide implementation of a writing process based intervention. The intervention utilized a writing workshop approach to teach the writing process with the addition of two elements: picture plans were used to support emergent writers’ prewriting plans, and teachers focused on a single teaching point to target writing instruction. Beginning and end of year samples from 138 kindergarten and 106 first-grade students from three elementary schools in a medium-sized, public school district in the southwestern United States were used for this study, yielding a total of 488 samples. The samples were scored to investigate the change over time on four outcome measures: quantity of words produced, attributes of prewriting picture plan, evelopmental level, and handwriting. In addition, the impact of fidelity to the intervention features was explored in relation to the four outcome measures. Fidelity to implementation was scored on each of the 10 separate aspects of the intervention: student choice for topics, reading-writing connections, prewriting, peer conferencing, teacher conferences, minilessons, revision, editing, publishing, and modeling. Overall, the study found that the greatest change over time in kindergarten and first grade was in the developmental level. There were also large effects for quantity of words produced and handwriting. A regression analysis was conducted to determine which aspects of the intervention feature were most critical to early writing development. Student choice had a significant positive association with all four dependent measures. Minilessons had a significant association with developmental level and handwriting; other significant positive associations included revision with quantity of words produced, and editing with planning. The findings suggest these features of writing workshops should be included in interventions designed to foster early writing development.

Real-Time Strategy (RTS) is a sub-genre of strategy games which is running in real-time, typically in a war setting. The player uses workers to gather resources, which in turn are used for creating new buildings, training combat units, build upgrades and do research. The game is won when all buildings of the opponent(s) have been destroyed. The numerous tasks that need to be handled in real-time can be very demanding for a player. Computer players (bots) for RTS games face the same challenges, and also have to navigate units in highly dynamic game worlds and deal with other low-level tasks such as attacking enemy units within fire range. This thesis is a compilation grouped into three parts. The first part deals with navigation in dynamic game worlds which can be a complex and resource demanding task. Typically it is solved by using pathfinding algorithms. We investigate an alternative approach based on Artificial Potential Fields and show how an APF based navigation system can be used without any need of pathfinding algorithms. In RTS games players usually have a limited visibility of the game world, known as Fog of War. Bots on the other hand often have complete visibility to aid the AI in making better decisions. We show that a Multi-Agent PF based bot with limited visibility can match and even surpass bots with complete visibility in some RTS scenarios. We also show how the bot can be extended and used in a full RTS scenario with base building and unit construction. In the next section we propose a flexible and expandable RTS game architecture that can be modified at several levels of abstraction to test different techniques and ideas. The proposed architecture is implemented in the famous RTS game StarCraft, and we show how the high-level architecture goals of flexibility and expandability can be achieved. In the last section we present two studies related to gameplay experience in RTS games. In games players usually have to select a static difficulty level when playing against computer oppo- nents. In the first study we use a bot that during runtime can adapt the difficulty level depending on the skills of the opponent, and study how it affects the perceived enjoyment and variation in playing against the bot. To create bots that are interesting and challenging for human players a goal is often to create bots that play more human-like. In the second study we asked participants to watch replays of recorded RTS games between bots and human players. The participants were asked to guess and motivate if a player was controlled by a human or a bot. This information was then used to identify human-like and bot-like characteristics for RTS game players.