På vuxenutbildningen förväntar sig lärarna att eleverna ska kunna reglera sitt lärande genom att sätta upp rimliga mål, planera hur målen ska nås och genomföra planen. Detta kallas självreglerat lärande (SRL) och är viktigt inom så väl studier som arbetslivet. Det finns däremot elever inom vuxenutbildningen som inte har fått möjligheten att utveckla SRL och därför var syftet med denna studie att studera hur SRL kan utvecklas hos en elev i matematiksvårigheter. Aktionsforskning var metoden för att uppnå detta syfte där aktionen bestod av tolv enskilda lektioner. På dessa lektioner använde läraren olika strategier kopplat till både SRL, motivation och feedback med intentionen att bedöma vilka effekter dessa strategier fick för elevens SRL användes observationer och intervjuer. Strategierna var till exempel enskilda lektioner, tydliggör lärandemål, nivåanpassa uppgifter, introducera en problemlösningsmall och använda självskattningsmatriser, olika former av självbedömning samt feedback. Detta resulterade bland annat i att eleven började reflektera mer över sitt eget lärande samt förändrade synen på inlärning.

The system known as 360-degree feedback, also called multi-source or multi-rater feedback, is a development program that provides a recipient with feedback from supervisors, peers, and subordinates. There is currently no institutionalized, Navywide 360-degree feedback program for leadership development. Due to widespread civilian acceptance and to the success of the 360-degree program for the Navy's flag officers, the 2004 Surface Warfare Commanders Conference recommended a pilot program for 360-degree feedback be tested on a portion of the Surface Warfare Officer community. Results of the pilot program will be used to inform decisions on implementation of a Navy-wide 360-degree feedback program. The objectives of this thesis were to review the research evidence in the literature on the effectiveness and best practices of 360-degree programs and to identify general program evaluation techniques. The thesis then presents a conceptual analysis of the Navy pilot program and makes recommendations for modifications to the program based on comparisons with empirical research evidence and identified best practices of 360-degree programs. The thesis concludes by developing some guidelines and recommendations for a program evaluation plan that can be used to assess or revise the pilot program during and after its implementation.

Our experiment is aimed at understanding how employee reactions to negative feedback are received by the feedback provider and how employee gender may play a role in the process. We focus specifically on the act of crying and, based on role congruity theory, argue that a male employee crying in response to negative performance feedback will be seen as atypical behavior by the feedback provider, which will bias evaluations of the employee on a number of different outcome variables, including performance evaluations, assessments of leadership capability, and written recommendations. That is, we expect an interactive effect between gender and crying on our outcomes, an effect that will be mediated by perceived typicality. We find support for our moderated mediation model in a sample of 169 adults, indicating that men who cry in response to negative performance feedback will experience biased evaluations from the feedback provider. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Syfte: Studiens syfte är att skapa en förståelse för hotellreceptionisters upplevelser av ansvarsdelegering samt hur det påverkar deras motivation till att vilja göra det lilla extra i sin yrkesroll. Som ett led i detta vill vi även komma underfund med hur hotellchefer ser på ansvarsdelegering och hur de använder sig av det. Metodik: En tvärsnittstudie inom hotell har tillämpats som undersökningsdesign med en induktiv ansats. Datan har producerats fram genom en kvalitativ metod där semi- strukturerade intervjuer har genomförts. Slutsats: Hotellchefer använder sig främst av ansvarsdelegering för att skapa gästnöjdhet och hotellreceptionister vill ha befogenheter för att kunna tillgodose gästernas behov. Det finns en mängd faktorer som kommer att påverka utfallet av delegeringen så som feedback, matchning av person och uppgift samt att det finns rätt verktyg och kompetens. Mer ansvar bidrar till att hotellreceptionister blir motiverade till att göra ett gott arbete, under förutsättningen att ansvarsdelegeringen sker på rätt sätt. / Purpose: The purpose of this study is to create an understanding of hotel receptionists experiences of delegation of responsibility and how it affects their motivation for wanting to go the extra mile in their professional capacity. As part of this, we also want to figure out how hotel managers look at delegating responsibilities and how they use it. Methodology: A cross-sectional study of hotels has been used as a research design with an inductive approach. The data has been produced through a qualitative approach in which semi-structured interviews were conducted. Conclusion: Hotel managers primarily use delegation of responsibility to create guest satisfaction and hotel receptionists want to have authority to satisfy the guests' needs. There are a lot of factors that will affect the outcome of the delegation such as feedback, the individuals willingnes to have more responsibility and having the right tools and competence. More responsibility contributes to more motivated hotel receptionists, under the premise that the delgetion of authority is done the right way.

The purpose of the research study was to provide improved relaxation training with the use of an electromyography feedback device based on the design of Green et al. (1969). It was intended that this instrument would allow the training of deep muscle relaxation to the point of neuro-muscular silence, while remaining inexpensive enough to be applied in the clinical setting.

A number of clinicians have reported that narcissists show grandiosity in self-concept, and rage after receiving disconfirming feedback. This is the first empirical study to test these claims. Subjects with differing levels of narcissism and self-esteem were compared on distortion in self-perception and emotional reaction to negative feedback. Ninety-six college students predicted their levels of intelligence, attractiveness, and interpersonal understanding (empathy) as compared to their peers. Objective measures of these characteristics were obtained, and subjects' predictions, with their actual scores held constant, provided measures of reality distortion in selfperception. Subjects were given feedback comparing their predictions to objective measures at the end of the experiment, and reaction to feedback was assessed by comparing subjects' pre- and post-feedback scores on the Multiple Affect Adjective Checklist-Revised (Zuckerman & Lubin, 1985). Narcissists were expected to react to negative feedback with greater hostility than nonnarcissists. Narcissists evidenced significant distortion in perceptions of their own intelligence, attractiveness, and interpersonal understanding. This finding provided empirical evidence supporting the clinical phenomenon of grandiosity. Narcissists did not react with greater hostility after negative feedback, but as compared to nonnarcissists, they did react with less depression following negative feedback. This supported Kernberg's (1980) assertion that narcissists do not react to loss with depression. In contrast to the inflated self-image associated with narcissism, self-esteem was associated with a comparatively accurate view of self.

Current biofuel production methods use engineered bacteria to break down cellulose and convert it to biofuel. However, this production is limited by the toxicity of the biofuel to the organism that is producing it. Therefore, to increase yields, microbial biofuel tolerance must be increased. Tolerant strains of bacteria use a wide range of mechanisms to counteract the detrimental effects of toxic solvents. Previous research demonstrates that efflux pumps are effective at increasing tolerance to various biofuels. However, when overexpressed, efflux pumps burden cells, which hinders growth and slows biofuel production. Therefore, the toxicity of the biofuel must be balanced with the toxicity of pump overexpression. We have developed a mathematical model and experimentally characterized parts for a synthetic feedback loop to control efflux pump expression so that it is proportional to the concentration of biofuel present. In this way, the biofuel production rate will be maximal when the concentration of biofuel is low because the cell does not expend energy expressing efflux pumps when they are not needed. Additionally, the microbe is able to adapt to toxic conditions by triggering the expression of efflux pumps, which allows it to continue biofuel production. The mathematical model shows that this feedback loop increases biofuel production relative to a model that expresses efflux pumps at a constant level by delaying pump expression until it is needed. This result is more pronounced when there is variability in biofuel production rates because the system can use feedback to adjust to the actual production rate. To complement the mathematical model, we also constructed a whole cell biosensor that responds to biofuel by expressing a fluorescent reporter protein from a promoter under the control of the sensor.

Motion segmentation plays an important role in human motion analysis. Understanding the intrinsic features of human activities represents a challenge for modern science. Current solutions usually involve computationally demanding processing and achieve the best results using expensive, intrusive motion capture devices. In this thesis, research has been carried out to develop a series of methods for affordable and effective human motion assessment in the context of stand-up physical exercises. The objective of the research was to tackle the needs for an autonomous system that could be deployed in nursing homes or elderly people's houses, as well as rehabilitation of high profile sport performers. Firstly, it has to be designed so that instructions on physical exercises, especially in the case of elderly people, can be delivered in an understandable way. Secondly, it has to deal with the problem that some individuals may find it difficult to keep up with the programme due to physical impediments. They may also be discouraged because the activities are not stimulating or the instructions are hard to follow. In this thesis, a series of methods for automatic assessment production, as a combination of worded feedback and motion visualisation, is presented. The methods comprise two major steps. First, a series of key body poses are identified upon a model built by a multi-class classifier from a set of frame-wise features extracted from the motion data. Second, motion alignment (or synchronisation) with a reference performance (the tutor) is established in order to produce a second assessment model. Numerical assessment, first, and textual feedback, after, are delivered to the user along with a 3D skeletal animation to enrich the assessment experience. This animation is produced after the demonstration of the expert is transformed to the current level of performance of the user, in order to help encourage them to engage with the programme. The key body pose identification stage follows a two-step approach: first, the principal components of the input motion data are calculated in order to reduce the dimensionality of the input. Then, candidates of key body poses are inferred using multi-class, supervised machine learning techniques from a set of training samples. Finally, cluster analysis is used to refine the result. Key body pose identification is guaranteed to be invariant to the repetitiveness and symmetry of the performance. Results show the effectiveness of the proposed approach by comparing it against Dynamic Time Warping and Hierarchical Aligned Cluster Analysis. The synchronisation sub-system takes advantage of the cyclic nature of the stretches that are part of the stand-up exercises subject to study in order to remove out-of-sequence identified key body poses (i.e., false positives). Two approaches are considered for performing cycle analysis: a sequential, trivial algorithm and a proposed Genetic Algorithm, with and without prior knowledge on cyclic sequence patterns. These two approaches are compared and the Genetic Algorithm with prior knowledge shows a lower rate of false positives, but also a higher false negative rate. The GAs are also evaluated with randomly generated periodic string sequences. The automatic assessment follows a similar approach to that of key body pose identification. A multi-class, multi-target machine learning classifier is trained with features extracted from previous motion alignment. The inferred numerical assessment levels (one per identified key body pose and involved body joint) are translated into human-understandable language via a highly-customisable, context-free grammar. Finally, visual feedback is produced in the form of a synchronised skeletal animation of both the user's performance and the tutor's. If the user's performance is well below a standard then an affine offset transformation of the skeletal motion data series to an in-between performance is performed, in order to prevent dis-encouragement from the user and still provide a reference for improvement. At the end of this thesis, a study of the limitations of the methods in real circumstances is explored. Issues like the gimbal lock in the angular motion data, lack of accuracy of the motion capture system and the escalation of the training set are discussed. Finally, some conclusions are drawn and future work is discussed.

M.Ing. / This research project is dedicated to the automation of environmental control within greenhouses. To create an optimal climate in the greenhouse, the main environmental parameters that need to be controlled are temperature, humidity and light intensity. As a result of process dead times and the extreme interdependence of these parameters, the control problem can be classified as non-linear and multi-variable. In the past, most greenhouse environmental control systems depended on the decision making of an experienced human operator. This often gave rise to trial and error, especially when new species were established. With the current advances in "intelligent" control systems and high accuracy sensors, more and more of the decisions involved in greenhouse control can be automated. In this way more emphasis can be placed on emulating the abilities of an expert operator, by means of a computerbased automatic control system. In this research project, "intelligent" as well as "non-intelligent" control techniques, for addressing the problem of automated climate control in a greenhouse, are investigated. These include PID-control as a "non-intelligent" technique, and rule-based fuzzy logic control and self-learning fuzzy logic control as two "intelligent" control techniques. These techniques are all applied to experimental greenhouse which is equipped with management mechanisms, such as fans, heaters, sprinklers and lights. The results of the experiments are evaluated according to two performance parameters: the Control Performance Index (CPI) and the Mean Square Error (MSE). The three techniques are not only assessed for their efficiency, but also for their applicability to the greenhouse environmental problem. Each of the control techniques has a unique characteristic response to the non-linear, non-stationary, multi-variable problem of environmental control and are subsequently addressed in the respective chapter.

Denna kvalitativa forskningsstudie syftar till att visa på hur feedback kan fungera när chefer och medarbetare arbetar med en geografisk distans från varandra. Analysen av data har i sin tur skett med en hermeneutisk tolkningsansats. Fokus fanns i att ta reda på hur feedbacken går till när chefer måste leda, coacha och styra medarbetare på avstånd. Vidare avser undersökningen till att kartlägga eventuella behov hos medarbetarna samt belysa vilka strategier som används av cheferna för att lyckas med feedbackgivandet. Detta sätts således i en organisatorisk kontext och avser därmed även avgöra vilken funktion feedbacken upplevs ha bland såväl chefer som anställda, på organisatorisk och individuell nivå. I studien framgick att feedback är ett viktigt redskap för att medarbetaren ska känna koppling till företaget samt en förutsättning för att personen och således verksamheten i sig ska kunna utvecklas. Eftersom att medarbetaren inte har tillgång till en stationär arbetsplats i samma utsträckning, blir kontakten med chefen viktig. För att upprätthålla en kontakt används istället mer frekvent digitala medel som videosamtal, telefonsamtal och mejl. Resultatet visade att feedbacken fyller sin viktigaste funktion i frågan om utveckling samt relationsskapande. Detta för att organisationen ska förbli enad, och inte visa på splittrade resultat.