For more than a decade, to reduce the agency problem, various ways have been examined on how to align the interest of manager with shareholders. Evidence and empirical findings are conflicting on the agency problem. Recently, deferred compensation as one incentive compensation draws the attention as a means to incentivize CEOs to make them work for the firm. However, it is still not evident if deferred compensation has effect on aligning CEOs with the firm’s goal possibly due to the issue on data. Therefore, the first essay investigates if deferred compensation has the effect on the agency problem and on the firm performance improvement after dealing with the data issue. This paper mainly aims to investigate if there is the non-linear relationship between the investment choice problem and the deferred compensation as Jensen and Meckling (1976) claim. This paper concludes that deferred compensation from NQDC table has positive and significant effect on the firm performance and the investment choice problem. More importantly, following McConnell and Servaes (1990), this paper finds the curvilinear relationship between Tobin’s Q and the deferred compensation and can confirm Jensen and Meckling (1976) theoretical application. The second essay aims to clarify the understanding on the relationship between the firm’s cash holdings and its causes by introducing the more detailed relationship between cash holdings and macroeconomic uncertainty. While previous literature tries to explain the level of cash holdings mainly by the firm-level variables, this study considers the full impact of the macroeconomic uncertainty on the level of cash holdings by introducing the firm’s heterogeneous exposure to macroeconomic uncertainty to see if the heterogeneity can tell the difference in the change in the level of cash holdings. This paper finds that macroeconomic uncertainties measured by difference macroeconomic condition variables are significant and contribute to the change in cash holdings. Additionally, this paper shows that the firms’ different level of exposure to macroeconomic uncertainty can cause the different degree of cash holdings and that firms with the higher level of exposure have the higher level of cash holdings.

Hysing & Olsson published a paper in 2011 revealing that 23% of all Swedish municipalities had a green inside activists (a form of public official) residing within them. Our paper aims to highlight the activity of this specific brand of public officials which many know little about. Considering recent events, particularly Greta Thunberg’s strike and the Swedish public official petition in the government office, this study reused Hysing and Olsson’s (2011) questionnaire survey to examine the local environmental office in Örebro municipality to identify the presence of green inside activists. In comparison to Hysing & Olssons study results, no green inside activists were identified nor could their activity be reviewed. The study requires further research concerning the eventual presence of other bureaucratic archetypes.

There is a lack of academic research on sales teams, despite team selling becoming more prominent in recent years. Particularly in Inside Sales, there is a lack of clarity as to what are the drivers of optimum team-based selling and their degree of effect on sales performance. We utilize a team-based approach that aims to study the characteristics of Inside Sales teams and their interactions with business leads, using data from a well-reputed leads management software vendor. Based on prior team-based constructs in the literature, we built a framework that posits Quality of Team Composition, Task Utility and Intra-team Coordination leading to different categories of sales performance at various stages of the sales pipeline via their reflective variables. We tested our conceptual model in the following fashion: first, we used text mining on sales results to classify the different stages of the sales pipeline. Following that, we measured the conversion ratio at each stage as appropriate. Next, we discretized each conversion ratio into three levels of performance groups. The outcome variables in the model are different categories of team performance at each stage of the sales pipeline. Subsequently, we used multinomial logistic regression to regress our outcome variables on our team-based predictor variables in the hopes of establishing and validating important drivers for nuanced Inside Sales success. We uncovered new insight regarding team-selling best practices, using pre-identified constructs from the literature which are uniquely suited to teams and also constructs which are aggregated at a team level from an individual level. Our study is especially relevant to the Inside Sales process, as the outcome measures relate to the sales pipeline. Our main finding was that in there is a difference in skills required at different stages of the sales pipeline, in that more customization and experience is needed at the more advanced stages, whereas more repetition of activity is needed at the beginner stages. We also found that smaller team sizes tend to do better in Inside Sales, which was an unsettled research question in team research with plenty of evidence in favor of both smaller and bigger teams. Additionally, even if it was not a primary goal of our study, by virtue of classifying the leads by their final outcomes, we stumbled across an interesting finding, which is that an overwhelming majority of the sales leads tend to stay at one stage in their entire lifecycle. The implications of all our findings are very relevant to both practitioners and researchers of Inside Sales who are interested in team-based sales optimization. More research should be done in the field of Industrial Marketing, building upon what we found to be true for the B2B sector.

Under 2017 avled 1,189 personer till följd av suicid i Sverige. Suicid är ett komplext problem och för att förebygga suicid krävs ett mångfacetterat angreppssätt. Syftet med denna studie var att beskriva arbetsterapeuters uppfattningar och erfarenheter av suicidprevention och hur arbetsterapeutisk kompetens kan användas i suicidpreventivt arbete. En kvalitativ studie där tre fokusgrupper och en enskild intervju med sammanlagt åtta arbetsterapeuter genomfördes. Datainsamlingen analyserades därefter med en kvalitativ innehållsanalys. I resultatet framkom två kategorier: Suicidprevention i praktiken och Bemötande och kunskap om suicidala patienter. Deltagarna har tidigare inte reflekterat över sin roll i suicidprevention och upplever en rädsla och osäkerhet i mötet med suicidala patienter. Begreppen meningsfullhet och delaktighet lyfts som viktiga. Den terapeutiska relationen ligger till grund för att patienten ska vilja och våga prata om suicidala tankar och/eller suicidala beteenden. Deltagarna lyfter även vikten av att ta patientens fokus och ha ett inifrånperspektiv. Slutsatserna är att arbetsterapeuter behöver utbildning i suicidprevention för att förtydliga rollen och känna sig trygga i mötet med suicidala patienter. Arbetsterapeuter kan, med sin kompetens, fördjupa och bredda förståelsen för suicidala handlingar samt främja individens psykiska hälsa på lång sikt för att förebygga suicid. / During 2017, 1,189 people died due to suicide in Sweden. Suicide is a complex problem and a multifaceted approach is required to prevent suicide. The aim with this study was to describe occupational therapists’ perceptions and experiences regarding suicide prevention and how occupational therapists’ competence can be used in work regarding suicide prevention. A qualitative study including three focus groups and an individual interview with a total of eight occupational therapists were conducted. Data was therefore analysed using qualitative content analysis. Two categories were revealed in the result: Suicide prevention in practice and Treatment and knowledge about suicidal patients. The participants have not earlier reflected on their role in suicide prevention and experience a fear and insecurity in the meeting with suicidal patients. The concepts meaningfulness and participation are emphasized as important. The therapeutic alliance is the basis for the patient to want, or dare, to talk about suicidal thoughts and/or suicidal behaviours. The participants also emphasize the importance of taking the patient's focus and having an inside perspective. The conclusions are that occupational therapists need training regarding suicide prevention to further clarify their roles, and to feel safe in the meeting with suicidal patients. Occupational therapists, with their competence, can deepen and broaden the understanding of suicidal actions and promote the individual’s mental health in the long term to prevent suicide.

Submitted by JOSIANE SANTOS DE OLIVEIRA (josianeso) on 2018-10-03T15:55:06Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Adriana Picheco Rolim_.pdf: 4646445 bytes, checksum: d66fbac3c2ed5d31d7c49fad63b1bbb2 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-10-03T15:55:07Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Adriana Picheco Rolim_.pdf: 4646445 bytes, checksum: d66fbac3c2ed5d31d7c49fad63b1bbb2 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-06-04 / Nenhuma / O objetivo desta dissertação é analisar a construção da imagem do inimigo interno através de alguns exemplares de cartazes impressos produzidos pelos órgãos de informação e segurança, compostos de slogans e imagens relacionados a indivíduos considerados “terroristas”, destinados a exposição pública em um período que compreende os anos de 1968 e 1975, no contexto da Doutrina de Segurança Nacional, DSN. Os chamados “cartazes de terroristas procurados” foram propostos dentro de uma normativa de caça e combate ao elemento dito “subversivo”. Inicialmente, foram difundidos com o intuito do conhecimento e da delação do inimigo interno, o que os coloca dentro de uma prática metodológica e repressiva, cuja repercussão no âmbito social envolveu a população não somente para a vigília e a delação, como para inserir o medo e a insegurança no tecido social. Um conjunto de reproduções destes cartazes, chamados de “coleções”, somados a documentos produzidos pelos órgãos de informação e segurança, pelo DEOPS e pelos periódicos da época, como a revista Veja, Folha de S. Paulo e O Estado de S. Paulo, possibilitaram o cruzamento destas fontes, a fim de proceder com as devidas inferências resultantes nesta dissertação. Dividida em quatro capítulos, esta dissertação parte da introdução sobre a temática e seus entornos, no capítulo seguinte discorre sobre o serviço de informações e sua extensa rede de comunicação, depois sobre a análise de conteúdo das coleções compostas de exemplares de cartazes, segundo a sua composição e apresentação e por fim, no último capítulo, um estudo sobre as efemérides nos periódicos supracitados e suas relações com os cartazes e as versões oficiais atribuídas às mortes dos “terroristas”, advindas dos órgãos de segurança e informação e divulgadas pela imprensa, selecionadas conforme o protagonismo destes indivíduos em ambas as situações. A produção e difusão destas coleções de cartazes configurou-se como uma propaganda do regime, disposto a construir a imagem do inimigo interno, a fim de apresentá-lo à sociedade como uma ameaça à nação. Esta prática repressiva embasou-se nos princípios da Lei de Segurança Nacional e da DSN, advindo de um governo autoritário que se instituiu como legítimo, caracterizando-se como um método de coação e repressão dentre outros já conhecidos. / This dissertation aims to analyze the building of the inside enemy image through some printed posters copies produced by security and information public agencies, composed of images and slogans related to people considered “terrorists”, used to public exposure in the years of 1968 and 1975, during the Brazil national security Civil-Military Dictatorship’s period, in the National Security’s Doctrine. These posters, called “wanted terrorist posters” were proposed considering a hunt and fight regulation towards a so-called “subversive” element. Initially, these posters were publicized in order to identify, recognize and report the inside enemy, defining them as a repressive and methodic praxis, whose repercussion in the social context drew in the population not only to a watching and denouncing’s process, as well as would infuse fear and insecurity in the social fabric. A set of copies of these posters, called “collections”, added to documents made by security and information public agencies, as well as other ones produced by DEOPS and some newspapers from that period, like Veja, Folha de São Paulo, and O Estado de São Paulo, made possible a proper sources crossing, in order to achieve the adequate inferences resulting from this dissertation. Divided into four chapters, this dissertation starts from the introduction about the theme and its specifications, going to the next chapter where is discussed the information service and its large network, then the posters copies’ collections content analysis according to its composition, and finally in the last chapter a study about the main facts in the aforementioned newspapers, their relations with the posters and the official versions allegedly attributed to “terrorists”, selected according to the protagonism of these individuals in those posters and the “official versions of suicide and gunfight”, bore from security and information public agencies, publicized by the press. The diffusion and production of these posters collections proved to be an advertisement made by the dictatorship’s regime which was willing to build an inside enemy’s image whose projection was used to introduce to the society the nation’s enemy face. This repressive práxis based itself on the national security law principles’ and DSN ones, produced in an authoritarian government which placed itself as a legitimate one, displaying itself as a coercion and repressive method, among others already known.

There are over six million gestation sows in the United States and most of them are kept in gestation stalls. The inside environment of large livestock buildings requires advanced environmental control systems to maintain animal health and optimize animal production efficiency. The ventilation rate, inside temperature, and supplemental heating and cooling are the main control variables to manage the barn environment. About 144 barn-months of unpublished thermal data were obtained from six commercial gestation houses by the National Air Emission Monitoring Study (NAEMS). The data from this site was reviewed, corrected, and re-analyzed to improve its quality, completion, accuracy and reliability using the methods of comparison between onsite measurements and data collected from nearest weather stations, introducing corrected models to adjust the onsite data, substituting invalid and missing onsite data by weather station data and other improved methodologies. The data completeness for solar radiation, relative humidity, atmospheric pressure, outside temperature, and wind speed and direction were increased by 5.6 to 17.9%. The six NAEMS gestation barns were used to test and validate a building environmental prediction model (BEPM) based on known thermodynamic and heat transfer principles for simultaneously predicting inside temperatures and ventilation rates. The BEPM inputs included the weather, the building dimensions and materials, geographical location and building orientation, and sow herd characteristics. Predictions of ventilation rates and inside temperatures followed the expected yearly patterns as the measured NAEMS data. Four combinations of heat production rate and inside temperature submodel combinations CIGR-T, CIGR-T², US-T, and US-T² were compared and evaluated based on the root-mean-square-deviation and fitness tests to determine the best submodel combination. The average predicted and measured means of ventilation rate were 24.8 and 24.1 m³/s for NAEMS Site IA4B, 27.5 and 24.9 m³/s for Site NC4B, and 24.6 and 23.9 m³/s for Site OK4B, respectively. The average predicted and measured means of inside temperature were 20.3 and 19.7°C for IA4B, 23.3 and 22.9°C for NC4B, and 20.8 and 20.9°C for OK4B, respectively, based on their top performing submodel combinations. The overall optimal combination of four different submodels was determined to be the CIGR-T² submodel, which consisted of the CIGR International Commission of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering heat production rate equations for sows and a second order polynomial regression of inside versus outside temperatures in the temperature control region between the minimum and maximum temperature setpoints. The CIGR-T² submodel simultaneously predicted the daily mean ventilation rate and daily mean inside temperature with good performance. The average RMSDs of the three sites for ventilation rate and inside temperature were 7.05 m³/s and 2.78°C, respectively. Sensitivity tests simulated based on the optimal BEPM (CIGR-T²) showed that annual total energy costs including electricity for powering fans and supplemental heat were influenced significantly by the minimum inside temperature setpoint, the thickness of ceiling insulation, and the minimum ventilation rate. This BEPM can be used for energy usage predictions, cooling and heating systems analysis and design, and as an important module of process-based gas emission models. It can be expanded to other livestock species (swine farrowing and finishing, egg laying operations, freestall dairy barns, etc.) by changing the heat production rate prediction submodel.

This thesis situates the Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program within the larger realm of postsecondary prison education to analyze its unique pedagogical approach. Through utilizing critical theory and other pedagogical theories, I will address several key themes in the Inside-Out Pedagogy including 1) humanization 2) dialogue 3) mutuality, and the way these frames and tools are used to approach questions of identity, criminality, and power dynamics within the classroom. In providing both benefits and limitations of the Inside-Out program’s efforts to facilitate dialogue across difference, I argue that Inside-Out moves beyond prison education frameworks rooted in recidivist and neoliberal paradigms and instead fosters opportunities based on empathy, critical thinking, and holistic growth and transformation. I also argue that some of the projects and frameworks of transformation, equality, and humanization are oversimplified. Overall, I argue in favor of college-in-prison programs like Inside-Out that can supplement pre-existing postsecondary prison education programs.

<p>Background: The software industry is being described as an industry of fierce competition and rapid technology change. The innovation pace is said to be so high that today's new technology might be history tomorrow. Where do the companies of the software industry focus when making strategic decisions? According to the strategic literature, a firm can focus on either the external environment or the internal environment as strategic starting points. </p><p>Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to find out what determines the strategy of firms in the software industry. </p><p>Procedure: Interviews with six software companies in Sweden. </p><p>Result: Four strategic determinants were identified: Flexible software solution, Markets that fit the software solution, Market Segmentation, Customers within the market segment. In this way, both the internal and external environment determines the strategies of the software companies.</p>

<p>The purpose with this essay was to study the knowledge of children today between six and eight years old about the human body and its function. A second purpose was to study how junior-level educationalist were carrying through there tuition about the human body. I wanted to investigate if the children today hade another knowledge about the human body than children that participated in previous similar investigations. I wanted to investigate this because today we live in another society than before with  more access to information. My first question was to find out what children thought that we humans looked like inside the body and how its works. My second question was how junior-level educationalist do carry out  their tuition. Ten children and tree junior-level educationalist participated in qualitative interviews, interviewed one by one. During the interviews the children were given a picture with a contour of the human body where they could fill in different organ. The most common organs that the children painted on their pictures of the human body where brain, heart, stomach, skeleton and lungs. The children also had some knowledge about the different organs like the skeletons function was to make the body hard, the hearts function was to pump the blood around in our body, the brain control the whole body and the stomach purpose was to take care of the food we eat. The educationalist replied that they used a lot of concrete material and they tried to have miscellaneous tuition. The result of this study is that the children today don’t have so much more knowledge of the human body than children that have been interview in older days. The result also showed that the way the educationalist were teaching hade a positive influents on the students learning.</p> / <p>Syftet med undersökningen var att se vad barn mellan sex och åtta års ålder idag hade för tankar om hur vi människor ser ut inuti vår kropp och hur det fungerar inuti oss men också att undersöka hur lågstadiepedagoger går tillväga vid undervisningen om människokroppen. Jag ville undersöka om barnen idag hade mer kunskap om människokroppen än de barn som ingått i liknande studier tidigare, eftersom vi idag lever i ett informationssamhälle. Min första frågeställning blev att ta reda på barnens tankar om människokroppens inre och hur det fungerar inuti oss. Min andra frågeställning blev hur lågstadiepedagoger gick tillväga med sin undervisning om människokroppen. Tio barn och tre lågstadiepedagoger har medverkat i kvalitativa intervjuer där de intervjuades en och en. Under intervjutillfällena fick barnen en bild med människokroppens kontur för att fylla i olika organ. De vanligaste organen som barnen ritade var hjärna, hjärta, magsäck, skelett och lungorna. Barnen berättade också bl.a. att skelettets funktion var att göra kroppen hård, hjärtat pumpade runt blod i kroppen, hjärnan styrde kroppen, magen tog hand om vår mat. Pedagogerna svarade att de använde mycket konkret material och att de försökte ha en så varierad undervisning som möjligt. Resultatet från denna studie visade att barnen idag inte har så mycket mer kunskap än de barn som ingått i liknande studier från förr. Resultatet visade också att det sätt pedagogerna undervisade på hade en positiv inverkan på elevernas lärande.</p>

Background: The software industry is being described as an industry of fierce competition and rapid technology change. The innovation pace is said to be so high that today's new technology might be history tomorrow. Where do the companies of the software industry focus when making strategic decisions? According to the strategic literature, a firm can focus on either the external environment or the internal environment as strategic starting points. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to find out what determines the strategy of firms in the software industry. Procedure: Interviews with six software companies in Sweden. Result: Four strategic determinants were identified: Flexible software solution, Markets that fit the software solution, Market Segmentation, Customers within the market segment. In this way, both the internal and external environment determines the strategies of the software companies.