1987 i Medellin, föder Maria ett barn, hon vill ge henne namnet Natalee, men efter att hon lämnat barnet till adoption ger någon annan henne istället namnet Leonela. Leonela bor 6 månader hos en fostermamma som också heter Maria, sedan adopteras hon till Sverige av Marie och Janne och får namnet Sara. Utan kronologi, blandas fragmenterade minnen och upplevelser. Essän ställer frågor så som vad namngivning gör med utformningen av ett jag och vad fysisk likhet spelar för roll i känslan av tillhörighet.

Mischlingskinder, also referred to as brown babies were the illegitimate children of African American occupation soldiers in post-World War II Germany. The complexities of their existence are often discussed in the context of national identity, racial identity and diplomacy. Their existence in Germany presented social struggles for the children as well as their mothers as a post Nazi German began towards society of racial acceptance. A few cases, through the cooperation of both the US and German government, some of the children were eligible for adoptions by African American families in America through the Brown Baby Adoption Plan. A thematic analysis was performed on 20 archived newspaper articles to uncover the different themes in which the children are discussed. My question is whether these themes connect to a lager theoretical concept of the “priceless child”. The results uncovered themes in which the brown babies were discussed which included their treatment in Germany, neglect, adoption and arrival in adoptive homes. The narratives of the children change over time in relation to the specific themes.

As a critical component of the city, urban infrastructures emerge through the interactions with the socioeconomic environment. Managing the complexity behind the interactions can make the city more sustainable. By this, we mean if we provide more sustainable amenities that people desire, a greater adoption of more sustainable infrastructures will likely occur. Two categories of infrastructure have emerged in recent years as exemplars of more sustainable development: green infrastructure and transit-oriented development. At the same time, new digital tools have emerged to better predict market acceptance of these infrastructures. This dissertation employs agent-based modeling, a latent-class analysis of survey results, and an online survey to model the potential of adoption of these infrastructures and the public benefits. The principal research content of the dissertation consists of two parts. First, understanding social preference and adoption of green infrastructure (e.g., low-impact development (LID) to control storm water), and transit-oriented development (TOD) to reduce car dependence and incentivize denser land use; Second, by developing an urban model that accounts for the complexity of the urban system, the purpose is to predict the emergent property of the city (e.g., land use, water consumption, tax revenues and carbon emissions). These two aspects constitute the research content of this dissertation. The principal findings of the dissertation are: 1) the use of digital feedback tools to inform the modeling of complex urban systems; 2) the future development of the metro Atlanta area can be more compact and sustainable with implementations of LID, TOD, and the proper policy. This dissertation consists of four sections. In the first section, I have developed an agent-based model (ABM) to predict the land use pattern. The ABM is an approach suited to simulating and understanding the dynamics of the complex system. To reduce the complexity and uncertainty of the ABM, the model simulates the decisions and interaction of agents (i.e., home buyer, the developer and the local government) at the neighborhood scale. The output of the ABM serves as the baseline scenario of land use pattern for evaluating the effect of tax investment and fees on the adoption of green infrastructure designs and more compact land use patterns. Second, with the help of the ABM, I evaluated and compared the policies (i.e., impact fees, subsidy) on the adoption of green infrastructure designs and more compact land use pattern. I developed a more sustainable development (MSD) scenario that introduces an impact fee that developers must pay if they choose not to use LID (i.e., rainwater harvesting, porous pavement) to build houses or apartment homes. Model simulations show homeowners selecting apartment homes 60% of the time after 30 years of development in MSD. In contrast, only 35% homeowners selected apartment homes after 30 years of development in a business as usual (BAU) scenario where there is no impact fee for LID. The increased adoption of apartment homes results from the lower cost of using LID (i.e., rain garden, native vegetation and porous pavements) in public spaces and improved quality of life for apartment homes relative to single-family homes. The MSD scenario generates more tax revenues and water savings than does BAU. Third, as an initial effort to calibrate the home buyer’s preference for community design in the ABM, I developed an analytic model based on an existing community preference survey. The data available for this effort is from National Association of Realtors’ 2011 community preference survey. I applied a latent class choice model to this data, and discovered four classes of individuals that reveal distinctive behaviors when choosing smart growth neighborhoods, based on the interplay between aspects of community design, socioeconomic characteristics and personal attitudes. Linking the results of the latent class choice to an agent-based market diffusion model enables planners to evaluate the effectiveness of a proposed smart growth neighborhood design in inducing less sprawling development. In the fourth section, I developed a survey that focuses on preferences of metropolitan Atlanta residents for LID and TOD. With the responses collected using Mechanical Turk, I developed a latent-class residential community choice model of four distinctive classes that reveal heterogeneous preferences for community designs. Spatial distribution of the four classes was mapped out to visualize the locations of the demand for different community designs in metropolitan Atlanta. The analysis of the impact of increase in housing price on the adoption of LID and TOD shows a low risk of investing in LID and TOD in metro area. Residents are willing to adopt the community with LID and TOD as compared to the corresponding one without LID and TOD. It turns out that LID and TOD have a great potential for adoption in metro Atlanta. Further, I integrated the individual residential community choice simulation into an agent-based market diffusion model to predict the emergent land use pattern and explore polices that can drive the adoption of more compact development. Results show that the current policy requiring single-family houses to implement LID based on individual sites should be switched to one that requires community-based LID for single-family houses. Such a policy switch will lead to a higher adoption of apartment homes with LID and TOD. Lastly, I estimated a 28% carbon emission reduction from more compact development driven by LID and TOD. This thesis is the very beginning of using digital feedback tools to anticipate market responses to more sustainable development alternatives. On the basis of the progress made in this dissertation, future work is recommended in terms of the development of an integrated platform that supports the integration of individual modules (e.g., land use, traffic simulation, air quality, and water resource management) for modeling the complexity, big data analytic techniques (e.g., Twitter, GPS data, sensors) for uncovering the interdependencies between infrastructures and socioeconomic development, and the exploration of sustainability metrics for public communication to build citizen capacity for sustainable cities.

<p>The aim of my study was to describe and interpretate how an international adopted person look back at and describes her learning process individually and in interaction with others. Data are based on one in-depth interview with a phenomenological inspired approach.</p><p>The findings showed that the interviewee has repressed a great deal of her former life from her country of origin. According to the interviewee, the process of learning in interaction with other people has worked well. She has furthermore never felt that other students have treated her differently based on her appearance. There is some ambivalence in how the interviewee describes this though, which opens up for other interpretations.</p> / <p>Syftet med framförliggande undersökning har varit att beskriva och tolka på vilket sätt en internationellt adopterad svensk upplever och berättar om sin lärprocess från barn till vuxen.</p><p>Mitt undersökningsmaterial baseras på en djupintervju med en person. Utgångspunkten för genomförandet och analysen av intervjun har varit en fenomenologiskt inspirerad livsberättelseansats. De mest framträdande resultaten av undersökningen är…</p><p>• … att den intervjuade förträngt stora delar av den lärprocess som skedde innan hon blev adopterad till Sverige</p><p>• … att lärprocessen i Sverige fungerat bra i interaktion med andra och att andra inte bemött henne som annorlunda utifrån hur hon ser ut…</p><p>• … men att det föreligger en ambivalens i den intervjuades beskrivning av det senare som möjliggör andra tolkningar.</p>

<p>År 1961 publicerades en notis i tidningen DN, där Medicinalstyrelsen avrådde från internationell adoption i större omfattning. I synnerhet om det gällde från adoptivföräldrarna starkt skilda rasgrupper. Detta uttalande väckte stark mediedebatt i Sverige under de följande åren. Syftet med studien är att undersöka hur de olika tidningsdebattörerna ställde sig i adoptionsfrågan när det gällde utländska barn med annan ras eller etnicitet,samt få en ökad förståelse för varifrån dessa åsikter kan ha fått sin grund.</p><p>Uppsatsen bygger på en kvalitativ innehållsanalys av artiklar som berör internationell adoption från 1961-1964. Syfte och frågeställningar diskuteras utifrån olika perspektiv på ras- och etnicitet, som kopplas till en socialkonstruvistisk bakgrund.</p><p>Resultatet av studien visar att de parter som uttalade sig i artiklarna representerades av människor med olika förhållande till internationell adoption men att det ändå var journalisterna som dominerade antalet uttalande. Adoptivföräldrar kom först på tredje plats. De flesta ansåg att barnen hade goda möjligheter till anpassning i Sverige, det största hindret skulle vara om de var alltför märkta av sin tidigare miljö och att de riskerade att känna sig utanför på grund av sin avvikande hudfärg. De flesta debattörerna ville minska klyftan mellan "svarta" och "vita" men många fördomar fanns kvar främst genom att Sverige sedan 1920-talet varit världsledande inom rasbiologi. Arvet från den "vita" kolonialtiden samt den svenska afrikamissionen bidrog till den nedlåtande synen på främmlingar. Trots fördomar verkar de flesta debattörer positiva till internationell adoption, mycket pågrund av 1960-talets solidariska tänkande gentemot omvärlden.</p>

Adoption is a social institution that is continually evolving in order to meet the needs of children and adults. The research presented in this dissertation focuses on measuring the current cultural sentiments about the practice of adoption and assessing the stigmatization of adoption and the identities of adoptive parent and adopted child. Drawing from Bruce Link and Jo Phelan's conceptualization of stigma and the assumptions of Affect Control Theory, I provide evidence that adoption and thus adoptive families continue to be stigmatized in the United States. My data indicate that adoptive parents and children are socially differentiated from parents and children who are biologically related. Adopted children, particularly children adopted out of foster care, are perceived more negatively than children who are not. The stereotypical traits predicted by Affect Control Theory for adoptive parents and adopted children indicate that these identities are more negative and notably less powerful than those for biological parents and children. In addition, the expected behavioral patterns between adoptive parents and their adopted children are more ambivalent and less supportive than those of biological children and parents. The predictions made in this work must be tested in future research.

Each year, organizations invest billions of dollars in large information systems (IS) that support business processes. These systems are implemented with the hope that they will bring increased efficiency and productivity to operations, decision making, and collaboration, thus strengthening competitive advantage in an increasingly aggressive global marketplace. Unfortunately, empirical evidence demonstrates that despite prodigious investment in these systems, their purported benefits often lag behind expectations, or fail to materialize at all. While many causes may contribute to these failures, a common theme in empirical studies is that information systems are rarely infused into individuals' work practices, thus undermining their benefits to the organization. IS infusion refers to the degree to which the technology is fully integrated into an individual's or organization's work systems. Although theoretical and practical interest in IS infusion is growing, little is understood about the factors that lead to IS infusion at the individual level.This dissertation integrates research and theory in information systems acceptance, adaptation, and infusion to develop a theoretical model of IS infusion at the individual level. To test the model, a survey instrument was developed and tested at the health care facility of a large public university. The revised survey was then deployed at a large technology firm in the northwestern United States, from which 195 individual responses were obtained. Results indicate that adaptation behaviors engaged in by IS users significantly impact the degree to which they infuse the IS in their work. Moreover, these adaptation behaviors are shaped by cognitive appraisals of the IS, which are, in turn, influenced by key acceptance-related IS perceptions.This study contributes to research by integrating previously disparate theories into a holistic framework of individual-level IS infusion. For practice, this research sheds light on specific factors that contribute to IS adaptation and infusion, thereby assisting IS managers to promote these outcomes within their organization.

An extensive amount of research has been conducted on Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) in the context of logistics, supply chain and manufacturing. Additionally, marketing opportunities related to RFID usage have been argued to exist. Despite this, limited research has focused on RFID in a marketing context which constitutes the research gap for this study.  A literature review on the subject area yielded an overview of the existing literature within the field. The literature review identified a research gap that constitutes the purpose of this study. The purpose is to investigate the factors influencing the adoption of Radio Frequency IDentification technology and whether it enhances retailers’ marketing opportunities. The study was of a qualitative nature and was conducted through a multiple case study. Data was gathered through semi-structured interviews with four companies. An archival analysis was performed in addition to the interviews. The interview data reveals that RFID technology adoption still has barriers to overcome, especially in regards to the identified marketing opportunities. Based on the conclusions of this study recommendations for managerial implications were formed. The findings of the study were able to support previous research stating that the main challenge for RFID adoption is the cost of the equipment. However, the previously identified marketing opportunities were not fully supported by the interviewed companies, thus, this area of research needs to be developed further.

Intercountry adoption, where children are born in one country and adopted by families in another country, has become an increasing global phenomenon (Scherman & Harré, 2004). As indicated by a review of the literature, the research in relation to intercountry adoptees provides contradictory findings in almost every area. However, since there is some evidence to suggest that a proportion of intercountry adoptees are at greater risk of developing mental health difficulties (Van Ijzendoorn & Juffer, 2006) further research, particularly in the UK, is required. As Anjudo (1988) posits, parents are their children‟s major reference group, and this research is therefore aimed at exploring the experience of parenting an intercountry adoptee. A qualitative approach, Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (Smith, 1996) was chosen as the most suitable methodology. This approach aims to explore in detail how participants are making sense of their world, and the meanings that experiences hold for them. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with six participants who had accessed or were accessing support from a specialist Adoption and Fostering team. The analysis of the transcribed verbatim accounts yielded four super-ordinate themes; „the importance of resolve and tenacity‟, „blood versus water‟, „weathering the storm of parenthood‟ and „the complexity of cultivating a heritage‟. The results were consistent with some of the existing theoretical, research and clinical literature. Additionally they also provided some new areas for consideration such as the emotional difficulties in negotiating the process of intercountry adoption. Additionally, areas for future research were proposed. Due to the small sample size, implications and recommendations are considered tentatively and include (1) prospective intercountry adoptive parents would benefit from the provision of pre and post-adoption supportive groups, (2) intercountry adoptive families would benefit from greater availability of multi-disciplinary specialist teams to address their needs, (3) there is a role for cultural consultants to aid both adoptive parents and professionals in their work with intercountry adoptive families. Since the number of children internationally who need new families continues to increase it is important to continue to find improved ways to support intercountry adoptive families.

This thesis addresses the following research paradox: Despite continual investment in e-mediated learning technology by higher education institutions, why has technological diffusion within UK universities been a slow process? It will be argued that the level of investment in e-mediated learning technology by UK universities and the impact of this technology across higher education as a whole, makes this subject area an appropriate setting in which to study this phenomenon. An interpretivist case study investigation of the adaptation process of e-mediated learning technology by academic staff is analysed through the development of a grounded theory approach. The investigation will show that the majority of academic staff in the School of Management at the Case Study University are adopting e-mediated learning technology at a basic level. Various factors can combine to influence technological adoption. These include conflicting priorities for academic staff, IT skills levels and the potential for the technology to transform the social relation between the academic member of staff and student leading towards a heightened culture of expectation. In addition, the study will show that e-mediated learning technology has the ability to place the expertise of the academic member of staff in a vulnerable position. Together these factors can combine to affect the successful diffusion of e-mediated learning technologies in UK universities. At a more critical level, the research identifies that using models of critical mass in isolation to indicate the take-up of multi-functional e-mediated learning technologies are misleading. As such, models that incorporate the levels and stages, as well as the pace of adoption provide a more detailed perspective of the successful diffusion of e-mediated learning technology.