Master of Science / Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering / Caterina Maria Scoglio / Japanese Encephalitis (JE) is a vector-borne disease transmitted by mosquitoes and maintained in birds and pigs. An interconnected network model is proposed to examine the possible epidemiology of JE in the USA. Proposed JE model is an individual-level network model that explicitly considers the feral pig population and implicitly considers mosquitoes and birds in specific areas of Florida, North Carolina, and South Carolina. The virus transmission among feral pigs within a small geographic area (<60 sq mi areas) are modeled using two network topologies— fully connected and Erdos-Renyi networks. Connections between locations situated in different states (interstate links) are created with limited probability and based on fall and spring bird migration patterns. Simulation results obtained from the network models support the use of the Erdos-Renyi network because maximum incidence occurs during the fall migration period which is similar to the peak incidence of the closely related West Nile virus (WNV), another virus in the Japanese Encephalitis group (Flaviviridae) that is transmitted by both birds and mosquitoes. Simulation analysis suggested two important mitigation strategies: for low mosquito vectorial capacity, insecticidal spraying of infected areas reduces transmission and limits the outbreak to a single geographic area. Alternatively, in high mosquito vectorial capacity areas, birds rather than mosquitoes need to be removed/controlled.

The present programme of research discusses a series of studies which explore the relationships between individual characteristics and well being. The FIT theory (e.g. Fletcher & Stead, 2000a) was used as a framework. It attempts to explain individual’s cognitions and behaviours using two broad dimensions: an ‘Inner’ dimension which details factors used to guide decision making (a cognitive dimension), and an ‘Outer’ dimension which focuses on behaviour. The research explored whether FIT was directly or indirectly related to well being. Initial findings from an exploratory, cross-sectional, study revealed that individuals with greater ‘Inner’ FITness demonstrated significantly lower levels of anxiety and depression. They also perceived their work and personal projects more positively. Individuals with greater ‘Outer’ FITness were found to demonstrate better physical well being. This latter finding was replicated in the second study which explored why individuals with reater ‘Outer’ FITness would demonstrate a significantly lower Body Mass Index (BMI). The results showed that ‘Outer’ FITness did not relate to weight management behaviours, such as controlling calorie intake or regular exercise, measured over a week, via the components of the Theory of Planned Behaviour (e.g. Ajzen, 1991). It was hypothesised that it may instead be underpinned by habitual behaviour. Study 3 explored whether ‘Outer’ FITness could be trained and whether this would impact on habits and BMI. A longitudinal pilot intervention was run which encouraged individuals to Do Something Different in order to change habits and facilitate weight loss. Doing something different did increase ‘Outer’ FITness and this increase had a ‘dose-response- relationship with BMI change – the greater the increase in ‘Outer’ FITness, the greater the decrease in BMI. This was accompanied by changes to dietary and exercise behaviours. A qualitative follow up of a sub-sample revealed that doing something different did facilitate changes to some habitual behaviours but the formation of implementation intention plans was also a significant contributor to weight loss. Further research is required to elucidate the exact relationship between behavioural flexibility, habitual behaviour and weight loss.

Assessing the conditions of productivity of individual workers who process information and use IT has been a concern for many researchers. Prior studies have applied different theoretical foundations to study the relationship between IT use and productivity at individual level in post adoption scenarios and have provided mixed results. In the last decades, the proposition that there is a need for a set of factors to be changed in a synchronized fashion when using an IT system has received particular attention. Very little, however, is known about the configurations of these factors at individual level. To investigate this gap, we have designed a new research model of an information worker’s individual productivity when a more aligned IT system is used in a synchronized manner with both individual and organizational factors. The formulated research model is grounded on the complementarity theory, functioning here as a meta-theory guiding the linking of productivity theory, Kirton’s adaption-innovation theory, and several theoretical bodies on the structure of production processes and human resource management. The formulated model was tested in two empirical studies – a longitudinal quasi-randomized field experiment and an online experiment – conducted to investigate configurations of complementary factors that increase productivity when a new, more aligned IT system is used. Overall, the two studies shed important light on configurations of complementary factors and the improvement of the research design to study their impact on IT-enabled productivity. The obtained results contribute to the research that focuses on individual information worker IT-enabled productivity as well as research that rests on the complementarity theory with new configurations of complementary factors that, when matched correctly, can increase individual productivity of information workers. Eventually, the studies presented here advocate that further research is needed to increase our in-depth understanding of complementary factors and their impact on individual IT-enabled productivity of information workers.

The aim of this thesis was to test whether the protestant faith or the protestant tradition is the cause of the protestant suppressive effect on corruption and whether this effect prevails on an individual level. This was done using multilevel hierarchical regression models and over 350 000 survey questionnaires to avoid bias as well as national and cultural effects. This thesis shows that identifying oneself as protestant has a significant effect on ones tolerance of corruption, but this effect is severely reduced when controlling for socioeconomic and political factors. We further show that the level of religiosity is a relevant predictor in individual tolerance for corruption for protestants. The individual religious identity is, however, not as strong a predictor as documented aggregated levels of Protestantism, indicating that, while still relevant, national factors are more important in explaining variation in corruption. / <p>2019-06-04</p>

The Bayesian Markov Chain Monte Carlo(MCMC) approach to inference is commonly used to estimate the parameters in spatial infectious disease models. However, such MCMC analyses can pose a hefty computational burden. Here we present new method to reduce the computing time cost in such MCMC analyses and study its usefulness. This method is based a round the discretization of the spatial parameters in the infectious disease model. A normal approximation of the posterior density of the output from the original model will be compared to that of the modified model, using the Kullback-Leibler(KL) divergence measure.

Coopetition literature has been given a lot of interest in recent years but research on coopetition on the individual level of analysis and its effects on employees are scarce.The aim of the thesis is to indicate how coopetitive situations in coopetitive environments affect individual employees and knowledge sharing between them. From our findings, we found that coopetitive situations affect individual level knowledge sharing in two stages. First, individuals' attitudes towards knowledge sharing are influenced by the actor's position as either cooperative or competitive dominant. Ultimately, regardless of the actor's position, the choice to share knowledge is affected by the type of knowledge, by individual factors and by organizational factors.

archives@tulane.edu / The purpose of this dissertation was to develop, propose, and test a model of knowledge transfer for expatriates. The transfer of knowledge from expatriates to subsidiaries and the knowledge that is gained by expatriates during their international assignment was considered in this study. The model included the antecedents of expatriate absorptive capacity (EXACAP), and the effect of EXACAP on knowledge outcomes, according to purposes posed by Hocking et al. (2004). The relationship between expatriate success and knowledge transfer outcomes were discussed in terms of knowledge application and experiential learning. Two samples were utilized to provide empirical evidence, one composed of 149 expatriates assigned in 34 countries and the other sample comprised of 80 dyads of expatriates and host country nationals (HCNs). Results show that cognitive flexibility, language fluency, the frequent interaction with HCNs, and cultural distance were predictors of EXACAP. Additionally, EXACAP had a positive effect on knowledge transferred and knowledge received by expatriates. It is showed that expatriates who transfer more knowledge were more successful in their international positions and report higher levels of their performance were additionally observed. This work contributes to the expatriate literature by enhancing the understanding of expatriate failure and by providing an alternative explanation of expatriate success from a knowledge transfer approach. / 1 / Wilson Antonio Florez Vanegas

Background: Succession is a crucial concern for family business owners where an issue of importance is to retain the control within the family. Succession is a planned process which must be put in place to rearrange the leadership from one family member to another. It is a fragile process which requires a precise and in- depth planning as a result of the different essence of family firms. One of the most thriving and successful entrepreneurship regions in Sweden is the GGVV-region, Gnosjö, Gislaved, Värnamo and Vaggeryd, located in south of Sweden and consists of many family firms. Most of the companies in the GGVV-region are successful, at the same time, family firms in this region manage to go through successions and keep the business within the family. However, there is a little research available on succession within the GGVV-region. Purpose: The purpose of this research is to discover and examine the individual- and organizational level factors involved in succession for family members within family firms in the GGVV-region. The study will also identify what challenges family firms in this region deal with during the succession process. Method: The research was made with a qualitative approach, using in-depth, semi-structured interviews to collect the data. Ten face-to-face interviews were conducted with family firm owners in order to gather information about the succession process. An inductive approach has been used to analyze and interpret the data. Conclusion: It was concluded that common individual level- and organizational level factors has a major impact and is of importance when it comes to the succession process within the GGVV-region. Furthermore, it was also found that challenges such as; understand the complexity, clear work description andreleasing the control tend to have a crucial role within the succession process.

ABSTRACT   Title: Gender Equality in Higher Education- Comparative study in Sweden and India Level: Final assignment for Master’s Degree in Business Administration Authors: Dhiviya Janoris and Paula Prela Supervisor: Maria Fregidou-Malama Examiner: Daniella Fjellström Date: May 2019   Aim: The aim of this study is to understand gender equality in higher education in two different countries, Sweden and India. Method: The study uses a qualitative study method and a constructivism approach. We conducted 11 semi-structured interviews and document experiences regarding gender equality. We had 6 interviews from the University of Gävle, Sweden and 5 interviews from Patrician College, India. Result and Conclusions: The results have shown that there is gender equality within the University of Gävle and Patrician college. However, there can be improvements made regarding the vertical and horizontal segregation in both universities. Additionally, when examining Patrician College on a macro level, it is shown that the parental leave policies and the gender wage gap has a large impact on gender equality. Suggestions for future study: It can be suggested that future study in this topic concentrate on to understand why there is a majority of male professors rather than female professors. Additionally, the reasons as to why there is a wider gender wage gap in India and poor parental leave policies should be examined. Contribution of the thesis: The theories are used to understand gender equality in different dimensions and its relationship with the different levels of the construct of gender as a social structure with the help of different theories.   Keywords: Gender Equality, Individual level, Interactional level, Macro level, University of Gävle, Patrician College.

Tuberculosis (TB) is a two-stage disease, acquisition of infection and progression to disease. A complex interaction exists between the individual and their environment that determines who acquires infection and who progresses to disease. According to TB literature, 10% of individuals with infection will develop TB disease (1;2). Tuberculosis has been described a disease of poverty, but other factors may be important. The contribution of both individual measures, such as ethnic origin, gender and age and area-level measures, or socio-economic factors, to this two-stage process is not well understood. Understanding tuberculosis epidemiology and identifying those at risk for developing TB is important for effectively controlling the disease. The objective of this study was to determine the individual (age, gender, ethnic origin, geographic location) and area-level measures (income, home ownership, housing density, education, and employment) that contribute to the progression from tuberculosis infection to disease. Data from all Canadian-born Caucasians, Status Indians, and non-Status Indians and Metis, with an initial positive tuberculin skin test (TST) documented in the Saskatchewan TB Control database from January 1, 1986 to January 31, 2002 was analyzed. Exclusion criteria included any previous BCG vaccination, treatment for latent TB infection, or missing data. Individual data was obtained from the TB Control database. Area-level measures were obtained by matching individual postal codes with Canada census data to obtain information from enumeration areas. Outcome was time to TB disease at > 1 month following a documented positive tuberculin skin test. Analysis was completed using Cox regression proportional hazards model. 7588 individuals with a positive tuberculin skin test were included in the study and of these 338 (4.5%) developed TB disease. Thirty-four out of 4140 (0.8%) of Caucasians, 183 out of 2649 (6.9%) of Status Indians and 121 out of 799 (15.1%) non-Status Indians and Metis developed TB. The rate of progression to TB was 5.6/1000 person years for the entire study population. The incidence for Caucasians was 0.9/1000 person years, 7.7/1000 person years for Status Indians and 16.0/1000 person years for non-Status Indians and Metis. In the Cox regression model, including individual and area-level measures, the risk factors association with the progression to TB was age and ethnic origin (< 19 years of age HR 3.7, 95% CI 2.8 - 4.8 compared to > 19 years and ethnic origin HR 5.1, 95% CI 3.0 - 8.6 for Status Indians and HR 7.4, 95% CI 4.1-13.3 for non-Status Indians and Metis both compared to Caucasians). No socio-economic factor was consistently associated with progression to disease. We have found that age and ethnic origin are associated with an increased risk of TB infection progressing to disease. The differences in TB rates between Saskatchewan Caucasians and Status Indians, non-Status Indians and Metis can be explained by Grigg's natural history curve of TB epidemiology within a population (3). The Aboriginal population of Saskatchewan is much earlier in its epidemic resulting in higher disease rates compared to the Caucasian population. Identifying those at risk of developing TB and understanding the determinants of TB epidemiology are important for establishing successful TB control programs.