Antal individer som söker sig till vidareutbildning på akademisk nivå har ökat under den senaste finanskrisen. Studier på landets lärosäten är oftast en mångårig process och kräver både motivation och tro på egen förmåga. Deltagarna i denna studie kommer från olika högskolor och studieinriktningar och har i många fall lämnat en trygg inkomstkälla i valet att vidareutbilda sig. För att undersöka betydelsen av en individs arbetslivserfarenhets i valet av utbildning användes mätinstrumentet AMS för att mäta motivation och GSE för att mäta grad av self-efficacy. Resultatet visade att det föreligger en statistisk signifikant skillnad på arbetslivserfarenhet och grad av self-efficacy samt att individer som saknar arbetslivserfarenhet upplever mer amotivation gentemot sina studier. Studiens slutsats ligger i linje med tidigare forskning vilket är att studenter motiveras i högre grad av yttre motivation vid valet av studier.

Metric spaces, which generalise the properties of commonly-encountered physical and abstract spaces into a mathematical framework, frequently occur in computer science applications. Three major kinds of questions about metric spaces are considered here: the intrinsic dimensionality of a distribution, the maximum number of distance permutations, and the difficulty of reverse similarity search. Intrinsic dimensionality measures the tendency for points to be equidistant, which is diagnostic of high-dimensional spaces. Distance permutations describe the order in which a set of fixed sites appears while moving away from a chosen point; the number of distinct permutations determines the amount of storage space required by some kinds of indexing data structure. Reverse similarity search problems are constraint satisfaction problems derived from distance-based index structures. Their difficulty reveals details of the structure of the space. Theoretical and experimental results are given for these three questions in a wide range of metric spaces, with commentary on the consequences for computer science applications and additional related results where appropriate.

The aim of this master thesis is to examine research perspectives and a selection ofmanagers’ views on the concept of work motivation. With an exploratory approach,based on a literature review and interviews these views are examined and compared inrelation to a theoretical framework. This theoretical framework consists of three keyconcepts, the individual, the context and the regulation of work motivation. Theliterature review reveals two research perspectives, a classic economic perspectivebased on Principal–Agent Theory and a more up to date social psychologicalperspective based on Self-Determination Theory. Interviews with selected managersas informants reveal that both of these research perspectives are represented amongthe managers, but foremost the social psychological perspective. The comparisonbetween the research perspectives and the managers’ views also show that thesimilarities between the social psychological perspective and the managers’ views arestrongest in relation to the key concept of the individual, compared to the keyconcepts of context and regulation. A discrepancy between how managers view workmotivation and how managers deal with work motivation in practice can also be seenand related to the managers’ views on the key concepts named.

Metric spaces, which generalise the properties of commonly-encountered physical and abstract spaces into a mathematical framework, frequently occur in computer science applications. Three major kinds of questions about metric spaces are considered here: the intrinsic dimensionality of a distribution, the maximum number of distance permutations, and the difficulty of reverse similarity search. Intrinsic dimensionality measures the tendency for points to be equidistant, which is diagnostic of high-dimensional spaces. Distance permutations describe the order in which a set of fixed sites appears while moving away from a chosen point; the number of distinct permutations determines the amount of storage space required by some kinds of indexing data structure. Reverse similarity search problems are constraint satisfaction problems derived from distance-based index structures. Their difficulty reveals details of the structure of the space. Theoretical and experimental results are given for these three questions in a wide range of metric spaces, with commentary on the consequences for computer science applications and additional related results where appropriate.

Online communities thrive on their members participation and contributions. Continuous encouragement of participation of these members is vital for an online community. Social visualizations are one of the methods to make members explicitly aware of their connections and relationships. There are numerous ways to visually represent information, current-status, power, and acceptance of members in an online community. In this thesis I present a design of a visualization representing the evolving reciprocity of relationships among users based on the comments they give to each others posts. The purpose of the visualization is to emphasize and hopefully trigger a common bond in the community and thereby increase their participation. We developed and deployed the visualization in an online community called WISETales where women in science and engineering share personal stories. We also deployed modified and improved versions of the visualization in two other communities, I-Help class discussion forums and the Vegatopia discussion forum for vegetarians. In this thesis we present the results of the evaluation in these three communities. The results unfortunately, were negative. Even though separate explanations for the lack of motivational effect can be found in each of the experiments, it seems that the chosen motivational approach was too gentle to encourage participation. It seems for reciprocation to take place, the users need to be committed to the community and already have some other underlying motivation to participate actively. The visualization also should provide some new information that they werent aware of previously. This was not the case with the users in the three chosen communities. WISETales was too new and can barely be called a community. I-Help was not a community, but a place for student to post questions for the teacher to answer. Vegatopia, in contrast, is well established, active community, where people know each other, and engage in conversations with each other. The visualization did not provide any new information for them that they didnt know and only served as a brief attraction for a day (novelty effect). We are still optimistic, however, that the visualization may be useful for active and too dynamic communities where people are unaware of their social relationships because they are too many, for example, social network sites like Twitter.

Motivation är ett centralt begrepp inom psykologisk forskning och är väsentligt i organisationer för att skapa förståelse om hur aktiviteter på arbetet påverkar anställdas motivation och prestation. Motivationsfaktorer förklaras bero på både inre och yttre drivkrafter. De inre drivkrafterna styrs av individens intressen och tillfredsställelse i arbetsuppgifter på arbetet, medan de yttre förklaras som exempelvis belöning och att uppnå företagsmål. Denna studie bygger på åtta intervjuer där syftet var att undersöka subjektiva upplevelser av inre och yttre motivation på arbetsplatsen. Resultatet analyserades med hjälp av metoden meningskoncentrering vilket uppvisade 4 teman i faktorn inre motivation: frihet, välbefinnande, mål och delaktighet. 6 teman upptäcktes i yttre motivation: belöningar, fysisk arbetsmiljö, sociala förhållanden, feedback, ledarskap/struktur samt kommunikation/samarbeten. Enligt resultatet kan yttre faktorer skapa möjligheter och förutsättningar för motivation, men det som driver är individens inre motivation.

Since the deregulation of the telecommunication industry, our company has been confronted with various internal as well as external challenges. Externally, we are facing an ever-competitive market, which resorts to endless price-cutting as a business tactic. As a result, not only that we have lost market share of customers, but the profit margin has steadily deteriorated. Internally, we are challenged with an aging workforce, whose mentality is ill-adjusted for the ferocious competition industry-wide. Some employees are plagued with low moral, due in part to the uncertainty about the company¡¦s privatizing status. The net result is a clear adverse effect on the overall productivity output of our company as a whole. Despite the efforts put forth to motivate our employees, the outcome is nowhere near our expectation. This ineffectiveness, ironically is due to a combination of job security, comfortable work atmosphere and above-average wages. Our management must investigate the employee mentality in depth, so that effective motivation measures can be undertaken. The endeavor is absolutely required to promote work ethics and improve the company¡¦s competitive edge. We have recently conducted a written survey, which is aimed primarily to determining employee job satisfaction. As a part of the survey analysis, we also intend to compare job satisfaction between employees of internal and external responsibilities. The survey reveals above-average satisfaction toward teamwork, individual work, wages, collegiateship and direct supervisorship. The only below-average satisfaction rating fell into the category of rank promotion. The survey also indicates that job satisfaction differs between genders and employees of different responsibility areas. Other than gender and job nature, all employees showed insignificant differences in job satisfaction. Further, the survey reveals that (1) intrinsic motivation and cognition of equity significantly affect employee job satisfaction of both the internals and the externals, the effect being more prominent with the internals (2) extrinsic motivation shows no effect on job satisfaction in either the internals or the externals. Suggestions to the company¡GPrior to privitization, it¡¦s essential for the company to consider two factors that apparently contribute to job satisfaction, i.e., intrinsic motivation and cognition of equity. The company should implement a motivation system with appropriate measures to improve job satisfaction and work moral. These measures, as successfully employed by private sectors of the industry, may include commission, dividend and equity sharing.

Abstract In the global steel industry, some of the regional steel makers start to mergers and acquisitions in order to increase their competitive ability and market share in faces of the crisis that the market share unceasingly glides down. In recent years, the merge and reorganization of steel industry become more popular. It¡¦s to form more professional and bigger group through expanding the productivity, the regional enterprise's merge, the vertical integration and international strategy alliance and so on merge. This research about merger of the H Company and the U Company is not only the first large-scale merge case in the domestic stainless steel industry, but also the first reverse mergers¡¦ case of listed companies and unlisted companies (include emerging stock board companies).It also means the pioneering case in the age. The ¡§reverse mergers¡¨ which above-mentioned plan uses is an item of advanced accounting concept . It mainly focuses on the economical essence of merger, which one can obtain the actual domination and which one is easier to obtain the approval of creditor and supervising institution. Therefore it changed the traditional idea about merger to the public. Integrating with the discussing procedure to above reverse mergers¡¦ case, there are three consolidated problems to be supposedly noticed. Hopefully this research can offer the alternatives to those enterprises that want to pick the merge way through this kind of exterior growth opportunity to expand their competitive ability in the domestic more frequent merge case, and for their reference when they take action concerning reverse mergers. In addition, this research valuation above case¡¦s reasonable intrinsic value by the Discounted Free Cash Flow Model (DCF Model) and the Edwards-Bell-Ohlson Model (EBO Model), and check whether my projection about the stock swap proportion under the DCF model and EBO model are reasonable by making the sensitivity analysis of the price-to-book ratio. The reasonable area of trading the stock swap proportion sector supposedly should be between 4.45 and 4.68 after this research¡¦s calculation by the above two valuation method. However, the proportional difference reaches 38% to 45% with the comparison of the bilateral company resolution 1¡G3.22. Obviously, it was not appropriately responded the intrinsic stock value for both of companies on trading the stock swap proportion, and makes the sensitivity analysis by the price-to-book ratio also to support the DCF model and result of the EBO model computation. Although the bilateral companies still have to considerate a lot of factors to final the stock swap proportion, then they could negotiate the acceptable stock swap proportion. But , the data ,the enterprise value, which was calculated by the relative value approach should still has the reference value.

The main purpose of this study was to explore the relationships between demographic variables (gender, experience of teaching, and educational background), playfulness, motivation of teaching, happiness and creative teaching among junior high school teachers. The participants in this study included 320 junior high school teachers in Kaohsiung City. The employed instruments included the Inventory of Creative Teaching Behaviors, the Inventory of Teacher Playfulness, the Inventory of Teaching Motivation, and the Inventory of Happiness. The applied analysis methods were Descriptive Statistics, One-way Multivariate Analysis of Variance, Canonical Correlation, and Discriminant Analysis. The main findings of this study were as follows: 1. The male teachers in junior high schools outperformed the female teachers in creative teaching, and the major differences were found on the dimensions of ¡§Interactive discussion and upgrading of thinking¡¨ and ¡§independent learning and challenge providing¡¨. 2. The teachers¡¦ experience of teaching and educational background did not have effects on their creative teaching. 3. The teachers¡¦ playfulness had positive effects on their creative teaching; more specifically, their playfulness in ¡§active sharing and atmosphere construction¡¨, ¡§enjoyment of trying and satisfaction obtaining¡¨, and ¡§easiness and self-recognition¡¨ had strong correlations with their creative teaching in ¡§varied teaching and motivation stimulation¡¨. 4. The teachers¡¦ motivation of teaching had positive effects on their creative teaching; more specifically, their teaching motivation of ¡§enjoying creation and problem solving¡¨ had the highest correlation with their creative teaching in ¡§independent learning and challenge providing¡¨. 5. The teachers¡¦ happiness had positive effects on their creative teaching; more specifically, their happiness in ¡§work enthusiasm and self-transcendence¡¨, ¡§Caring and optimism¡¨, and ¡§recognition and hope toward the value of life¡¨ had strong correlations with their creative teaching in ¡§varied teaching and motivation stimulation¡¨ and ¡§independent learning and challenge providing¡¨. 6. The playfulness, motivation of teaching, and happiness could jointly predict the teachers¡¦ performance in creative teaching, and the motivation of teaching and playfulness were the most powerful predictors. Finally, some suggestions were proposed for educational institutions, teachers, and further studies.

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