[ES] Fostering innovativeness in every team of a company is essential in order to stay competitive today. However, little is known about the real effect of measures to improve a team's innovativeness. The purpose of this dissertation is to test the impact of such measures to support human resource development. A mixed method triangulation research strategy was applied. Two approaches for measuring innovation performance were developed based on a structured literature review and qualitative expert interviews: One based on the idea of counting innovations along the steps of the innovation process (counting tool) and one which also integrates the value of the innovations into the assessment (valuing tool). A pretest-posttest control group design was used while conducting a quasi-experiment with 18 teams of a German insurance company. Findings were two-fold: On the one hand the validity of the counting tool to measure innovation performance of teams could be proven. Despite strongly correlating results this was not possible with regard to the valuing tool. On the other hand, they suggest a statistically significant effect of the measures on innovativeness, particularly implementing a pin board and providing employees with time for innovations can be recommended. The results provide a new perspective on measuring innovativeness and extends existing frameworks for future academic investigations. Additionally, it can be used by managers to invest in and select effective measures to improve the innovativeness of teams. / [CAT] Fomentar la innovación en todos los equipos de una empresa es esencial para seguir siendo competitivo hoy en día. Sin embargo, se sabe poco sobre el efecto real de las medidas para mejorar la capacidad de innovación de un equipo. El propósito de este trabajo es probar el impacto de tales medidas para apoyar el desarrollo de los recursos humanos. Se aplicó una estrategia de investigación de triangulación con métodos mixtos. Se desarrollaron dos enfoques para medir el rendimiento de la innovación basados en una revisión estructurada de la literatura y en entrevistas cualitativas con expertos: Una basada en la idea de contar el número de las innovaciones a lo largo de los pasos del proceso de innovación (herramienta de recuento) y otra basada en la integración del valor de las innovaciones en la evaluación (herramienta de valoración). Se utilizó un diseño de grupo de control antes y después de la prueba mientras se realizaba un cuasi-experimento con 18 equipos de una compañía de seguros alemana. Los resultados fueron dobles: Por un lado, se pudo comprobar la validez de la herramienta de recuento para medir el rendimiento de innovación de los equipos. A pesar de la fuerte correlación de los resultados, esto no fue posible con respecto a la herramienta de valoración. Por otra parte, sugieren un efecto estadísticamente significativo de las medidas sobre la capacidad de innovación, en particular la implantación de un tablón de anuncios y la concesión de tiempo a los empleados para innovar. Los resultados proporcionan una nueva perspectiva para medir la capacidad de innovación y amplían los marcos existentes para futuras investigaciones académicas. Además, pueden ser utilizados por los directivos para invertir y seleccionar medidas eficaces para mejorar la capacidad de innovación de los equipos. / [EN] Fomentar la innovació en tots els equips d'una empresa és essencial per continuar sent competitiu avui en dia. No obstant això, se sap poc sobre l'efecte real de les mesures per a millorar la capacitat d'innovació d'un equip. El propòsit d'aquest treball és provar l'impacte d'aquestes mesures per donar suport al desenvolupament dels recursos humans. Es va aplicar una estratègia d'investigació de triangulació amb mètodes mixtes. Es van desenvolupar dos enfocaments per mesurar el rendiment de la innovació basats en una revisió estructurada de la literatura i en entrevistes qualitatives amb experts: Una basada en la idea de comptar el nombre de les innovacions al llarg dels passos del procés d'innovació (eina de recompte) i una altra basada en la integració del valor de les innovacions en l'avaluació (eina de valoració). Es va utilitzar un disseny de grup de control abans i després de la prova mentre es realitzava un quasi-experiment amb 18 equips d'una companyia d'assegurances alemanya. Els resultats van ser dobles: D'una banda, es va poder comprovar la validesa de l'eina de recompte per mesurar el rendiment d'innovació dels equips. Tot i la forta correlació dels resultats, això no va ser possible pel que fa a l'eina de valoració. D'altra banda, suggereixen un efecte estadísticament significatiu de les mesures sobre la capacitat d'innovació, en particular la implantació d'un tauler d'anuncis i la concessió de temps als empleats per innovar. Els resultats proporcionen una nova perspectiva per mesurar la capacitat d'innovació i amplien els marcs existents per a futures investigacions acadèmiques. A més, poden ser utilitzats pels directius per invertir i seleccionar mesures eficaces per millorar la capacitat d'innovació dels equips. / Ter Haar, PJ. (2020). Measuring the impact of specific activities to improve innovation capacity of teams in a German insurance company [Tesis doctoral no publicada]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/141083 / TESIS

The dissertation deals with the usability of alchemy in chemistry education at secondary schools - especially grammar schools. In the research part it monitors the differences in educational outcomes for pupils who performed the same experiment with the alchemical approach and those who did it in the classical manner. The basic objective was to confirm or refute the benefits of a completely different approach to the experiment - an alchemical way. The starting point of the paper is alchemy itself. First, it was necessary to describe it and then find and define what is useful in teaching. I chose its spiritual dimension. This phenomenon is then transformed into the framework of pedagogical-psychological speech in order to set a certain didactic method on that basis that will be accessible to pupils, realizable at schools and efficient. The theoretical part focuses on the definition of alchemy in particular. It is based on the research available in Czech and world literature. It monitors the evolution of alchemy from its ancient beginnings to the 20th century because the development of this doctrine is as important as its foundations themselves for its definition. Given that there is currently no clear view of alchemy in terms of its true objectives, the paper watches both physical and contemplative...

Since its description in 2008, Chromera velia has drawn profound interest as the closest free-­-living photosynthetic relative of apicomplexan parasites that are significant pathogens, causing enormous health and economic problems. There-­- fore, this newly described species holds a great potential to understand evolu-­- tionary basis of how photosynthetic algae evolved into the fully pathogenic Apicomplexa and how their common ancestors may have lived before they evolved into obligate parasites. Hence, the aim of this work is to understand how C. velia function and respond to different environmental conditions. This study aims to reveal how C. velia is able to respond to environmental perturbations that are applied individually and simultaneously since, studying stress factors in separation fails to elucidate complex responses to multi stress factors and un-­- derstanding the systemic regulation of involved genes. To extract biologically significant information and to identify genes involved in various physiological processes under variety of environmental conditions (i.e. a combination of vary-­- ing temperatures, iron availability, and salinity in the growth medium) we pre-­- pared strand specific RNA-­-seq libraries for 83 samples in diverse environmental conditions. Here, we report the set of significantly differentially expressed genes as a re-­- sponse to the each condition and their combinations. Several interesting up-­- regulated and down-­-regulated genes were found and their functions and in-­- volved pathways were studied. We showed that the profound regulation of HSP20 proteins is significant under stress conditions and hypothesized that the-­- se proteins might be involved in their movements.

Studiens avsikt är att öka kunskapen om experiments användning i fysikundervisningen. Syftet med studien är att synliggöra hur och varför utvalda lärare arbetar med experiment i fysikundervisningen, med elever i årskurs 4–6. Detta med fokus på hur lärarna följer upp experiment samt på vilka sätt som lärarna tar tillvara elevernas erfarenheter i undervisningen. Teoretiska utgångspunkten för studien grundar sig i pragmatismen. Mer specificerat i de tankar som John Dewey framförde om undervisning och lärande, det som i dagens pedagogiska sammanhang går under begreppet learning by doing. Studien har genomförts genom semistrukturerade intervjuer med fyra aktiva fysiklärare i årskurs 4–6 och analyserats med den didaktiska triangeln som analysverktyg. Samtliga lärare i studien använder experiment i sin undervisning. Syftet är främst att förstärka teorier och hjälpa elever att förstå abstrakta fenomen inom fysiken. Lärare planerar till viss del för att inkludera elevernas erfarenheter när de genomför fysikexperiment. Samtliga lärare använder sig dock av och utgår ifrån elevernas erfarenheter i fysikundervisningen. Uppföljningen av experiment sker främst genom helklassdiskussioner, men även genom att eleverna skriver labbrapporter.

Vid inhandling av livsmedel är det lätt att frångå vetskapen om hur en produkt gått från jord till butikshylla. Genom att undersöka geografiska hållbarhetsfaktorer av ett antal livsmedelsprodukter och därefter genomföra ett butiksexperiment har denna studie undersökt i vilken grad ytterligare information angående hållbarhetsfaktorer kan få konsumenter att handla mer hållbart. Kvantitativ experimentdata stöds av kvalitativa semi-strukturerade intervjuer med tio respondenter för att besvara studiens frågeställningar. Butiksexperimentet kunde inte påvisa signifikant skillnad i konsumenters inköpsbeteende då konsumenter hade tillgång till utökad information angående produkters hållbarhetsfaktorer. I kombination med intervjuerna visade resultaten på ett attityd-beteende-gap bland konsumenter då samtliga respondenter sade att de skulle bli påverkade i fall de hade mer information om en produkts hållbarhetsfaktorer. För att besvara frågor som den här studien lämnar öppna föreslås vidare liknande studier som pågår under längre tid och där informationen angående produktionsförhållanden presenteras på ett sätt som tydligare framställer ett fördelaktigt alternativ.

This thesis explores the seperation of isomeric paraffins in organic chemistry and how the resulting mixture of hydrocarbons might be examined.

Abstract “At the Intersection of Transgender Attitudes, Identity Politics, and Vote Choice” Amy Howard and Dr. Wesley Wehde, Department of Political Science, International Affairs and Public Administration, College of Arts and Sciences, East Tennessee State University, Johnson City, TN. Political scientists have been increasingly focused on the role of identity politics in determining vote choice, with recent work including the potential penalties faced by gender and sexual minorities. Research indicates that both candidate and voter characteristics play a role in vote choice, with the largest penalties incurred by transgender candidates and small or no penalties assigned by non-religious and politically progressive voters. However, our study improves on extant research by differentiating between male and female transgender candidates; adding a non-binary option for gender identity; including a bisexual option for sexual orientation; and differentiating between moderate and far-left or far-right candidate ideologies within the Republican and Democratic Parties, respectively. In line with previous research, we conducted a conjoint experiment to examine the peculiar impact of male/female transgender, non-binary gender identity, and bisexuality on vote choice, even in comparison with straight and gay candidates. Respondents were asked to choose between ten sets of hypothetical candidates for their district House of Representatives, with Republican or right-leaning respondents being shown randomized combinations of candidates who were classified as “moderate” or “far-right,” and Democratic or left-leaning respondents being shown randomized combinations of candidates who were classified as “moderate” or “far-left.” The remaining candidate attributes were also randomized for each respondent, and included age, race, gender, education, religion, ideology, previous experience, and sexual orientation. Upon completion of our data analysis, we expect our results to be consistent with those of the aforementioned research, with gay candidates—particularly black, gay candidates—facing penalties at the ballot box, and transgender candidates facing higher penalties than gay candidates. We will build on these findings by differentiating between genders in “transgender,” and with the addition of the “non-binary,” “bisexual” options, as well as the inclusion of “far-right” and “far-left” political ideologies. This study will contribute to our understanding of how voter and candidate identities affect vote choice, particularly in the case of gender and sexual minority candidates. Such an understanding can be used to develop policies and strategies that will ultimately increase LGBTQ+ representation in government, and improve the safety, welfare and wellbeing of LGBTQ+ Americans.

No description available.

An A/B test is implemented on a SaaS rm's product page to examine the dierence in conversion rates from website visitors who are randomly assigned to two dierent product-landing pages that show dierent prices. To count as a successful conversion the visitors that view a product-landing page have to click on a \Free Trial" button. Half of the group will be assigned the treatment page, which will state higher prices and the other half will be assigned the controlled page, which will state today's current price. The only variant that will dier from the two pages will be the stated price of the product and all other factors will be kept constant. The controlled experiment is executed to get a sense of customers' price sensitivity, hence this thesis contributes to microeconomic research of the private sector, more specically to the ICT industry by using a novel approach with the help of A/B testing on prices. The results showed no statistical signicance difference between the two variations, which can be translated to accepting the null hypothesis; the demand for a particular Software-As-A-Service product will hold unchanged after the proposed price increase. At first, this could be a surprising result but when looking into the industry, which the rm participates in and their early mover advantages this result could have been assumed.

Nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus) should be removed and recycled from wastewater in order to reduce the nutrient load to recipient waters, avoiding contamination of groundwater and conserve resources. There is a need to pay more attention to phosphorus (P) removal and recycling from wastewater due to limited availability of phosphorus recourses. For such purpose reactive filter media can be used to remove nutrient from wastewater as a sustainable technology. The present study was aimed to evaluate calcium silicate hydrate crystallization in Absol as a reactive filter media for removal and recycle of phosphorus from household wastewater and assess physical and chemical characteristics of Absol. A study of the color removing capacity of Absol was also performed. Several batch experiments were done for comparing absorption mechanism. Collected data were applied to Langmuir and Freundlich isotherm models to study type of adsorption isotherms and pseudofirst- order and second order models were run for study of adsorption kinetics. The experiment demonstrated a very high P and Methylene Blue (MB) sorption capacity. The amount of adsorbed P and MB vary with initial solution concentrations, contact time, and adsorbent dosage. Both equilibrium data (P, MB) were fitted very well in the Langmuir isotherm equation, confirming the monolayer physical sorption and adsorption kinetic followed by the pseudo-second order kinetic model. It is concluded that Absol can have potential to be use for the removal of P, textile dye contaminants and probably also pharmaceuticals present in wastewater.