Increasing student success and retention rates are top goals for many higher education institutions. Supplemental Instruction (SI) is a widely used academic support program designed to increase students’ academic performance and provide students the learning skills they need to persist to graduation. Unfortunately, a lack of time, personnel, and resources often prevent in-depth, meaningful analysis on the effectiveness of SI programs. This study examined the relationship of attending SI sessions for first-year chemistry courses to student grade outcomes and retention rates for attendees. The gender of SI leaders and SI participants was also assessed to determine if leader and participant gender were related to SI attendance, final course grades, or retention. The results indicated that students who attended SI earned significantly higher final course grades and were retained at significantly higher rates after one and two terms. A positive correlation was discovered between the number of SI sessions attended and final course grades. Significant differences in final grades were demonstrated between students who attended SI and those who did not at all levels of composite ACT scores. Both male and female students showed a preference for gender-matching with their SI leader, but students who attended SI sessions with both male and female SI leaders earned higher final course grades than students who gender-matched with their SI leader and students who only attended SI sessions with an SI leader whose gender differed from their own. No significant differences were found between male and female students for final course grades or retention outcomes.

The purpose of this thesis was to investigate whether utilization of the Node.js Cluster module within a web application in an environment with limited resources (the Heroku Cloud App Platform) could lead to an increase in throughput of the application and, in the case of an increase, how substantial it was. This has been done by load testing an example application when utilizing the module and without utilizing it. In both scenarios, the traffic sent in to the application varied from 10 requests/second to 100 requests/second. For the tests conducted on the application utilizing the module the number of worker process used within the application varied between 1 and 16. Furthermore, the tests were first conducted in a local environment in order to establish any increases in throughput in a stable environment, and, in case there were notable differences in throughput of the application, the same tests were conducted on the Heroku Cloud App Platform. Each test was also aimed towards testing one of two different types of tasks performed by the application: I/O or CPU bound. From the test results, it could be derived that utilization of the Cluster module did not lead to any increases in throughput when the application was doing I/O bound tasks in neither of the environments. However, when doing CPU bound tasks, it led to a ≥20% increase when the traffic sent to the application in the local environment was 10 requests/second or higher. The same increase could be seen when the traffic sent to the application was 50 requests/second or higher in the Heroku environment. The conclusion was, thus, that utilization of the module would be useful for the company (that this thesis took place at) in case an application installed on Heroku was exposed to higher traffic. / Syftet med detta examensarbete var att undersöka om huruvida nyttjande av Node.jsmodulen Cluster i wen webbapplikation i en miljö med begränsade resurser (Heroku cloud appplattformen) skulle kunna leda till en ökning i throughput hos applikationen, och om det skedde en ökning – hur stor var då denna? Detta har gjorts genom att belastningstesta en exempelapplikation nyttjande modulen och utan den. I båda scenarier varierade trafiken som skickades till applikationen mellan 10 och 100 requests/sekund. För testerna utförda i applikationen som nyttjade modulen varierade antalet workerprocesser mellan 1 och16. Vidare utfördes testerna i den lokala miljön med målet att slå fast möjlig throughputökning i en stabil miljö först, och om det fanns några märkbara skillnaden i throughput hos applikationen skulle samma tester även utföras på Heroku app cloudplattformen. Varje test strävade också för att testa en av två olika typer av arbetsuppgifter utförda av applikationen: I/Oeller CPUbundna. Från testresultatet kunde det fastslås att: Clustermodulen ledde inte till några ökningar vad gällde throughput när applikationen gjorde I/Obundna arbetsuppgifter i någon av miljöerna. När applikationen däremot gjorde CPUbundna arbetsuppgifter ledde det till en ökning på ≥20% när trafiken var 10 requests/sekund eller högre. Samma ökning kunde ses först när trafiken kommer över 50 requests/sekund eller högre i Herokumiljön. Slutsatsen var därmed att användande av modulen skulle vara användbart för företaget som arbetet uträttades hos om en applikation som låg installerad på Heroku utsattes för vad som ansågs vara högre trafik.

Social media have transformed business commerce and consumer communication, yet organizational leaders lack clear strategies for using social media platforms to their advantage. The purpose of this qualitative multicase study was to explore social media marketing strategies for increasing sales. The relationship marketing conceptual framework grounded this study. Data collection included semistructured interviews with 5 organizational leaders from 5 different organizations in the San Francisco, California, Bay Area and a review of participants’ documents including marketing materials, social media posts, and published sales reports. Data analysis included coding, categorization, and identification of major themes. The thematic assessment approach revealed 5 major themes from participants’ responses that aligned with findings from the literature review. Themes included identifying the target audience, developing a customer roadmap to convert prospects to consumers, managing customer relationships to increase brand loyalty, and developing key performance indicators to measure the success of social media campaigns. Study findings may increase local organizational leaders’ knowledge of social media strategies that they can use to increase brand awareness, brand loyalty, and sales for their organizations. Implications for social change include the opportunity for local leaders to increase sales, which could lead to more jobs and improved economies in local communities.

The objective of this paper is to analyze methods of measurement of labor productivity and introduce them to real business. The object of this paper is to investigate methods of measuring performance. The subject of this paper is the process of implementing methods to increase productivity. Methods (procedures) of the study. Pattern during the writing of this work was used by scientists articles information about the measurement and implementation of systems productivity. Recommendations for the use of this work. Since this work was written with the use of different methods and examples, not all of them before writing the work was known to me, I want to present a certain part to improve the productivity of some companies in my country.

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This research aims to explore the importance of new company’s (startup’s) credibility in construction industry while research questions tries to identify essential aspects and processes which affects the startup credibility in construction industry. Further, rigorous analysis of literature review is done. In order to understand and apply various theories and concepts as source and corporate credibility theories, relationship marketing, etc. It is qualitative research and a case study. The case company – Ltd. “Mana ranga” is a new construction company situated in Lithuania. Moreover, its current situation is presented. Furthermore, the interviews were conducted in order to achieve the objective of the study, thus 22 participants completed the interviews. Further, in analysis section findings from literature and empirical data are put together, and main results are provided. It comprises key aspects that are affecting startup’s credibility, as well as processes, in order to look how the credibility of a company can be increased are identified. Finishing with answers to the research questions and suggesting future work.

Sexualization can affect individuals of all ages, colors, sexualities, and genders. Sexualization may affect women and girls more commonly and intensely, however. Sexualization occurs when one's value is placed solely on their appearance. Sexualization has been observed to happen through two main sources: the media and interpersonal relationships. Consequently, a third source may arise when girls internalize the sexualization. It has been demonstrated that sexualization can have negative and positive consequences for adolescent girls. Though sexualization may have positive consequences, such as sexual agency, the negative consequences seem to outweigh them. Despite the amount of attention this topic has received, there seems to be a lack of literature exploring ways to prevent or decrease sexualization among girls. However, research has shown that awareness-increasing interventions have been effective in changing health-related behaviors. The present study searched for common themes among previous awareness-increasing interventions. The results indicated 3 common themes: education, training, and monitoring. It is possible, then, that an intervention designed to increase awareness of sexualization, train the targets skills necessary for challenging sexualizing messages, and monitoring their progress could reduce sexualization. Finding a way to decrease sexualization aimed at adolescent girls could make more girls realize that their worth does not just lie within their appearance and not allow people to treat them as such.

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<p>Hydropower is an important source of energy in Sweden and accounts for about 46 % of the total energy production. Sweden has about 1 200 hydropower plants and with the intention of raising the pressure head of the water and to store water, dams are built by the power plants. The storage reservoirs make it possible to adjust the energy production by demand and season. Dams in connection to the reservoirs are subjected to additional loading during periods of high floods or when an icecap in the winter is formed on the reservoirs. In order to maintain the dam safety, the power companies in Sweden are working with guidelines for dam safety from RIDAS. An important part of the work of dam safety is FDU that is carried out with purposes of improving the work of dam safety. A FDU made for the Skålan dam in the River of Ljungan showed that the levels of the safety factors for sliding and overturning of the dam was not fulfilled when subjected to loads from an icecap. The object of this thesis was to follow up the FDU and by carrying out extensive stability calculations on all parts of the Skålan dam, investigate what safety factors the different parts will get and also investigate some proposal measures in order to increase the dam stability.</p><p>The stability calculations for the dam have been performed according to directions in RIDAS at four loading cases. Loading case I and II means a water level to the retained water level and an ice load of 200 and 100 kN/m respectively. Loading case III and IV means a situation without ice load but with a water level to the retained water level respectively a water level to a meter above the retained water level. The stability of the dam was studied with regards to sliding and overturning. The results from the stability calculations showed for both loading case I and II that the majority of the parts of the Skålan dam did not fulfill the levels of the safety factors. The calculations also showed that some parts of the dam did not fulfill the stability criteria of sliding at loading case III, which implies that these parts of the dam actually have not enough weight.</p><p>The measure proposals studied were the ice preventive measures IR-elements and circulation of the deep warm water and the stability increasing measure with pre strained rock anchorages. The net present value (NVP) for the different measures were calculated with a life length of the dam estimated to 60 years. The results from the calculations of the NVP showed that the most economically feasible measure is circulation of the water but when considering the results from the stability calculations, the most suitable measure is the rock anchorages. Therefore, a combination of rock anchorages on parts which not fulfills the stability criteria in combination with circulation of the water is suggested to be the best measure.</p> / <p>Vattenkraften är en viktig energikälla i Sverige som utgör ca 46 % av den totala energiproduktionen. I Sverige finns det ca 1 200 kraftverk och i syfte att öka fallhöjden och lagra vatten bygger man dammar i anslutning till kraftverken. Dammarna skapar stora magasin med vatten och gör det möjligt att anpassa elproduktionen efter säsong och behov.</p><p>Dammar och kraftverk vid vattenmagasinen utsätts för extra belastning under perioder med höga flöden samt vid islaster och för att upprätthålla dammsäkerheten har man tagit fram RIDAS - kraftföretagens riktlinjer för dammsäkerhet. Inom ramen för dammsäkerhetsarbete utförs fördjupade dammsäkerhetsutvärderingar, FDU, för att arbeta förebyggande och hitta möjligheter till förbättring av dammsäkerhetsarbetet. I en FDU gjord för Skålandammen i Ljungan påvisades att de av RIDAS uppsatta säkerhetsfaktorerna för glidning och stjälpning inte uppfylldes vid islast. Syftet med detta arbete var att följa upp FDU:n och med utförliga stabilitetsberäkningar på Skålandammens alla delar (monoliter) undersöka hur dessa klarar säkerhetsfaktorerna vid olika lastfall, hur stort problemet med islast är samt ta fram åtgärdsförslag för att öka dammens stabilitet.</p><p>Beräkningarna har utförts enligt RIDAS anvisningar för stabilitetsberäkningar vid fyra olika lastfall där de två första innebär en vattennivå till magasinets dämningsgräns samt en islast på 200 respektive 100 kN/m och de två andra behandlar en situation utan islast men med en vattennivå till dämningsgränsen respektive en vattennivå till 1 meter över dämningsgränsen. Stabiliteten kontrollerades med avseende på stjälpning och glidning.</p><p>Resultatet av stabilitetsberäkningarna visade att för majoriteten av Skålandammens monoliter uppfylls inte stabilitetskraven vid en islast på vare sig 200 eller 100 kN/m. Det visades även att ett fåtal monoliter inte uppfyller säkerhetskraven för glidning vid lastfallet utan islast med en vattennivå till dämningsgränsen, vilket indikerar på att dessa monoliter är för lätta.</p><p>De isfrihållande åtgärdsförslagen som jämfördes var IR-element och cirkulering av vattnet med hjälp av luftbubblor och den stabilitetshöjande åtgärden med förspända bergförankringar. Nuvärdet för dessa åtgärder beräknades sedan med antagandet att dammen har en livslängd på 60 år. Resultatet från nuvärdesberäkningen visade att det billigaste alternativet är cirkulering av vattnet men utifrån stabilitetsberäkningarna är det mest fördelaktigt att använda den stabilitetshöjande åtgärden med bergförankringar. Med anledning av detta föreslås ett alternativ med bergförankringar på de monoliter som inte uppfyllde säkerhetskraven vid lastfall utan is i kombination med cirkulering av vattnet som den mest lämpliga åtgärden.</p>