Background: Earnings management has been a popular topic of discussion for many decades, and researchers always look for underlying factors that can reduce the phenomenon. A common subject for this has been board independence, and the implications that independent directors have on earnings management. Additionally, researchers have argued that legal protection is a big part in how independent directors can exercise their monitoring, as well as the use of control-enhancing mechanisms (CEM). Purpose: To investigate the relationship between board independence and earnings management. This thesis will also examine if shareholder protection and CEMs respectively affect independent directors´ ability to reduce earnings management. Method: This thesis adopts a positivistic view with a deductive approach using a quantitative method where data was collected using databases, websites, and annual reports. Further, the data was analyzed using a Spearman correlation matrix and an OLS regression for each hypothesis. Findings: The findings show that there exists no relationship between board independence and earnings management. Furthermore, the thesis does not find support that shareholder protection has a moderating influence on the relationship, and thus has no effect on independent directors’ability to reduce earnings management. However, the thesis finds indications that firms who have the CEM of dual-class shares experience increase in earnings management as the share of independent directors increases.

Mass spectrometry is a commonly used technique in the modern sports anti-doping laboratory. Characteristic product ions observed in tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS) can be used to identify prohibited substances. However, with continuous introduction of novel uncharacterized drugs, there is a need to increase the selectivity and coverage identification of mass spectrometry and non-mass spectrometry-based methods. The use of separations methods, (e.g., chromatography) is another means to identify substances using retention times, providing an additional dimension of analysis. Broadly, this work examines mass spectrometry of small molecules, with a focus on pharmaceuticals of sports anti-doping relevance. To gain a deeper understanding of characteristic product ions and their dissociation pathways, multi-stage mass spectrometry (MSn) and energy-resolved collision induced dissociation (E-resolved CID) were used. Using these methods, two classes of pharmaceuticals were studied: beta-2 agonists and beta blockers. Sequential versus competitive pathways were elucidated for four beta-2 agonists: isoetharine, salbutamol, formoterol, and salmeterol. Water loss is a common dissociation mechanism, with multiple water losses observed where structurally possible. A similar methodology was used for further investigation of the dissociation chemistry of five beta blockers (labetalol, bisoprolol, carteolol, acebutolol, and atenolol). Insights into the nature of the neutral losses and structures of product ions characteristic to the class are highlighted. Isomers that share product ions pose a special challenge, where differentiation is not possible using single collision energy CID-MS. Three sets of isomers with similar MS/MS patterns (leucine and tert¬-leucine, quinoline and isoquinoline, and para-, ortho-, and meta-aminobenzoic acid) were analyzed by E-resolved CID to investigate the analytical utility of this approach for isomer differentiation. Unique “fingerprints” were found among each set of isomers and additional analytical considerations were also investigated. Finally, separation of enantiomers is another special challenge, as MS techniques are “chirality blind”. Ion mobility spectrometry (IMS), a gas-phase separation technique, has been reported to show separation of enantiomers with the aid of drift gas modifiers (DGMs). Chiral butanol was used as a DGM to aid the IMS analysis of salbutamol enantiomers. These efforts were ultimately unsuccessful, which is in line with current literature.

Privacy on the Internet has become one of the leading concerns for Internet users. These users are not wrong in their concerns if personally identifiable information is not protected and under their control. To minimize the collection of Internet users' personal information and help solve the problem of online privacy, a number of privacy-enhancing technologies have been developed. These so-called privacy-enhancing technologies still have usability issues in the user interfaces because Internet users do not have the choices required to monitor and control their personal data when released in online repositories. Current research shows a need exists to improve the overall usability of privacy-enhancing technology user interfaces. A properly designed privacy-enhancing technology user interface will give the Internet users confidence they can monitor and control all aspects of their personal data. Specific methods and criteria for assessing the usability of privacy-enhancing technology user interfaces either have not been developed or have not been widely published leading to the complexity of the user interfaces, which negatively affects the privacy and security of Internet users' personal data. This study focused on the development of a conceptual framework, which will provide a sound foundation for use in assessing the user interfaces of Web-based privacy-enhancing technologies for user-controlled e-privacy features. The study investigated the extent to which user testing and heuristic evaluation help identify the lack of user-controlled e-privacy features and usability problems in selected privacy-enhancing technology user interfaces. The outcome of this research was the development of a domain-specific heuristics checklist with criteria for the future evaluation of privacy-enhancing technologies' applications user interfaces. The results of the study show the domain-specific heuristics checklist generated more usability problems and a higher number of severe problems than the general heuristics. This suggests domain-specific heuristics can be used as a discount usability technique, which enforces the concept of usability that the heuristics are easy to use and learn. The domain-specific heuristics checklist should be of interest to privacy and security practitioners involved in the development of privacy-enhancing technologies' user interfaces. This research should supplement the literature on human-computer interaction, personal data protection, and privacy management.

The aim of this thesis was to develop and make a quality assessment of a tool, which includes a questionnaire and a dialogue process that could be useful for workplace health promotion from a salutogenic point of view. The studies have been performed within two health care organizations between 2005 and 2009, together with hospital staff. Two questionnaire studies were conducted (n=446 n=505, respectively). A focus group interview study was performed (n=78), and meetings were held in an action research process for applying a questionnaire process at two wards (n=69). The result shows a development process for a multi-dimensional questionnaire, the Work Experience Measurement Scale (WEMS), which can be used to measure work experiences from a salutogenic perspective. WEMS was shown to be a functional workplace health promotion questionnaire with the ability to discriminate between groups. Its psychometric properties support its applicability in health care settings and offer a possibility to measure trends over time regarding employees´ work experiences. A dialogue structure for progress in the questionnaire process is presented. It describes what to precede and how to proceed through a workplace questionnaire process to foster applicability, meaningfulness, and sustainability. Through WEMS, the outcome of work-related Specific Enhancing Resources (SER) may be highlighted and strengthened in workplace activities. When used as a dialogue tool in a continuous questionnaire process, WEMS has the potential of being a useful assessment tool in workplace health promotion. Such a dialogue tool is useful in discussions and tangible for the work of enhancing positive human capabilities and resources (SER) that improve work performance.

The diploma thesis is foollow up on nutritional supplements in sport, both allowed and forbidden, therefore doping. It focuses on teaching at secondary (hight) schools and incorporating the issue of sports supplements into lessons. The theoretical part includes an analysis of the RVP for grammar schools and sports grammar schools, a literature search on the topic of support substances i sport and the theory of didactic research. The practical part contains an evaluation of the questionnaire survey, which examines pupils' knowledge about nutritional supplements focused on sport, and evaluation of the evaluation questionnaire, which is served as a feedback reflection in verifying didactic materials. Furthermore, in the practical part there is created technical text for teachers, presentations with didactic notes, worksheet including author's solution and didactic game verifying knowledge after the subject's interpretation.

The transport control protocol (TCP) is one of the most heavily used protocols on the Internet, offering a reliable, connection oriented transport service. However, the quality of service (QoS) provided by the TCP protocol deteriorates when it is used over satellite IP networks. With the increased usage of Internet applications by the military in remote geographical regions, there is an increased need to address some of the shortcomings of TCP performance in satellite IP networks. In this research we describe our efforts at designing and testing a performance enhancing proxy (PEP) that can be used improve the QoS provided by the TCP service in large latency networks. We also show how one can use such a proxy to create a new transport service similar to the Available Bit Rate (ABR) service provided by ATM networks without needing ATM infrastructure, this new service offers a connection oriented, reliable, best effort transport service with minimal queuing delay, jitter and throughput variation.

Nicotine has multiple behavioral effects as a result of its action in the central nervous system. Nicotine strengthens the behaviors that lead to nicotine administration (primary reinforcement), and this effect of nicotine depends on mesotelencephalic systems of the brain that are critical to goal directed behavior, reward, and reinforcement. Nicotine also serves as a ‘reinforcement enhancer’ – drug administration enhances behaviors that lead to other drug and nondrug reinforcers. Although the reinforcement enhancing effects of nicotine may promote tobacco use in the face of associated negative health outcomes, the neuroanatomical systems that mediate this effect of nicotine have never been described. The ventral tegmental area (VTA) is a nucleus that serves as a convergence point in the mesotelencephalic system, plays a substantial role in reinforcement by both drug and nondrug rewards and is rich in both presynaptic and postsynaptic nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs). Therefore, these experiments were designed to determine the role of the VTA and nAChR subtypes in the reinforcement enhancing effect of nicotine. Transiently inhibiting the VTA with a gamma amino butyric acid (GABA) agonist cocktail (baclofen and muscimol) reduced both primary reinforcement by a visual stimulus and the reinforcement enhancing effect of nicotine, without producing nonspecific suppression of activity. Intra-VTA infusions of a high concentration of mecamylamine a nonselective nAChR antagonist, or methylycaconitine, an α7 nAChR antagonist, did not reduce the reinforcement enhancing effect of nicotine. Intra-VTA infusions of a low concentration of mecamylamine and dihydro-beta-erythroidine (DHβE), a selective antagonist of nAChRs containing the *β2 subunit, attenuated, but did not abolish, the reinforcement enhancing effect of nicotine. In follow-up tests replacing systemic nicotine injections with intra-VTA infusions (70mM, 105mM) resulted in complete substitution of the reinforcement enhancing effects – increases in operant responding were comparable to giving injections of systemic nicotine. These results suggest that *β2-subunit containing nAChRs in the VTA play a role in the reinforcement enhancing effect of nicotine. However, when nicotine is administered systemically these reinforcement enhancing effects may depend on the action of nicotine at nAChRs in multiple brain nuclei.

The present thesis will provide an overview of how the four humor styles, affiliative, self-enhancing, aggressive, and self-defeating humor, are connected to different brain areas. The thesis will also include an overview of how humor in general, and especially three factors of humor including, processing, appreciation, and comprehension is connected to different brain areas. The present study found a connection between these three factors of humor and activation in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and inferior frontal gyrus (IFG). The four humor styles were all connected to activity in the midbrain and nucleus accumbens (NAc), though they were found to differ in other parts of the brain. Affiliative humor and self-enhancing humor are humor styles found to share activation of similar brain areas, whereas self-enhancing and aggressive humor was found to the least extent share activation of the same brain areas. No neural differences in relation to the four humor styles have been found between men and woman, or between cultures.

Human gait is elegant and efficient in propelling the body forward. While a healthy human gait is symmetric, any deviation from symmetry can cause inefficiencies to the entire body. Such asymmetries may present themselves in hemiplegic patients, prosthetic users, lower limb injuries, limb height and weight discrepancies, or abnormal overground foot rolling. In this dissertation, practical passive methods to alleviate such asymmetric walking dynamics are presented. The novel concepts presented in this manuscript can all be related and applied to passive gait rehabilitation, that is, the rehabilitation of a person's gait through methods that do not require external power. One of the passive rehabilitation solutions for asymmetric gait is the the Gait Enhancing Mobile Shoe (GEMS). The GEMS is designed to mimic the motions of a split-belt treadmill, which is commonly used for asymmetric gait rehabilitation. Two iterations of the GEMS prototype are presented. While the first development design of the GEMS was too bulky, it showed controlled and constant backward motion. The second fully mechanical design was tested on healthy participants and was successful in producing spatial and temporal aftereffects similar to those seen in split-belt treadmill gait studies. In order to more accurately define the dynamics of the GEMS wheel as an individual steps on the shoe, mathematical models that predict the static and dynamic behavior of irregularly shaped curves on a flat plane as a weight is applied are derived and verified. While this kinetic shape concept can be applied to rolling irregularly shaped wheels, it can also be utilized to predict and manipulate roll-over motions of human feet, prosthetic feet, or even robotic biped feet. This kinetic shape concept was applied to develop a force dependent musical string instrument, transportation device, a more efficient walking crutch for controlled crutch walking, and a unique form of force mathematics. The asymmetric kinematics of dissimilar human limbs can be synchronized for symmetry with a generalized passive kinematic synchronization technique that can match the motion of two or more dissimilar and uncoupled rotating systems. This kinematic synchronization technique introduced in this dissertation can be applied to duplicate the motion of swinging human limbs with dissimilar masses and mass distributions, which allows for the passive synchronization and rehabilitation of human limbs such as swinging arms and legs during walking. This technique also allows for the synchronization of mechanical systems such as pendulums, propellers, or rotating cams. Finally, a detailed derivation of a two and three link passive dynamic walker (PDW) model with and without variable radius feet is presented. While PDW models have been studied and derived for decades, this dissertation offers a clear and complete guide on how to derive the kinematics and kinetics of the simplest compass gait, three-link point-foot, and for the first time, a variable radius foot PDW model, where the roll-over foot shape of the PDW can be dependent on its position or other kinematic variables. This advancement in the PDW model allows for the systematic evaluation of the change of various gait parameters such as foot roll-over shape or robotic foot dynamics. This numerical biped model was compared to human gait parameters. This comparison included normal walking, tied- and split-belt treadmill walking, and GEMS walking. This model was also used to analyze the dynamic effects of changing the foot roll-over parameters such as foot roll radius and foot shape curvature. In addition, the PDW model was employed to investigate the perception of normal and pathological gait. The PDW model was systematically manipulated to produce walking patterns that showed a degree of abnormality in spatial and temporal gait parameters. This analysis showed that certain gait parameters may be asymmetrically changed to some extent without causing an abnormal perception.

In this paper, I seek to determine whether the current ban on performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) in professional sport is justified. I look at two of the most common categories of arguments in favor of the ban, which I term the Harm Category and The Nature of Sport Category, and ultimately determine that neither is strong enough to justify the current ban. I determine, however, that a third and less common category of arguments, which I term the Dehumanization Category, provides good reason to justify the ban by appealing to our intuitions about why the use of PEDs in professional sport is wrong.