PROBLEM STATEMENT: The way we interact in our relationships is continuously changing as technology advances. Technology can be used to enhance or destroy relationships depending on how people manage their use within relationships. Human relationships especially romantic ones are essential as they have an impact on a person's emotional, mental, and physical well-being. Most of the research to date has focused on the quantitative measurement of the advantages and disadvantages of technology as well as on the problematic use of smartphones. Little research has been done on the effect of smartphones on romantic relationship maintenance. THE PURPOSE OF THE RESEARCH: The objective of this research was to find out how individuals in romantic relationships were using their smartphones to maintain their relationships. DESIGN/METHODOLOGY: This research followed an interpretivist qualitative approach. Data was collected firstly through a discussion on Twitter under the hashtag #“RomanticMaintenancewithSmartphones”. This was then followed by fourteen in-depth semi-structured interviews which were done with individuals who were in romantic relationships or had been in a romantic relationship less than six months ago. A combination of purposive, snowballing and convenience sampling techniques were used. The affordance theory was used as a theoretical framework for the research and the data was analysed using thematic analysis. FINDINGS: The study identified individual and interactional affordances of smartphones for romantic relationship maintenances. Relationship thinking, breaking away from reality and displaying intimacy and affection where the individual affordances identified in the study. The interactive affordances were showing support and encouragement, planning and organising, openness for conflict management and displaying transparency. Personal values and culture were seen to have an impact on which affordances of smartphones a person utilised. In addition to maintaining the relationship positively, there were also negative outcomes of the actualization of the affordances of smartphones such as unrealistic expectations created on partners and partner abstraction.

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Practical concepts, such as area and perimeter, have an important part in today's school mathematics curricula. Research indicates that students and preservice teachers (PSTs) struggle with and harbor misconceptions regarding these topics. Researchers suggest that alternative instructional methods be investigated that enhance PSTs' conceptual understanding and encourage deeper student thinking. To address this need, this study examined and described what and how PSTs learn as they engage in anchored instruction involving web-based microworlds designed for exploring area and perimeter. Its focus was to examine the influences of a modified teacher development experiment (TDE) upon 12 elementary PSTs' content knowledge (CK) and knowledge of student thinking (KoST) regarding principles, relationships, and misconceptions involving area and perimeter as they develop simultaneously in a problem-solving environment. The learning of meaningful mathematics is a personal and independent activity, as one struggles to create and reason through their own mathematical realities and misconceptions. This study describes PSTs' reasonings, misconceptions, and difficulties as they grappled with new knowledge or reconciled new knowledge with prior understandings. Quantitative and qualitative research methods, including case-subject analysis, were used. Instructional sessions similar to Steffe's (1983) teaching episodes comprised this study's intervention. Results indicate that prior to intervention most of the PSTs possessed a procedural knowledge of area and perimeter and were bound by a dependency on formulas; their KoST pertaining area and perimeter was relatively underdeveloped. They seemed unaware of prevalent misconceptions students acquire while working with these concepts (specifically, units of measure and perceived relationships). The PSTs displayed an ineffective use of drawings to support their responses. Their preoccupation with finding what they judged as "the answer" to various problem-solving situations hindered their ability to properly diagnose and address student thinking and limited their meaningful interaction with the microworlds (MWs). A majority of PSTs felt the MWs were a valuable learning tool for themselves but not for their future students. The planned intervention played a role in the PSTs becoming more perceptive of the difficult mathematics involved with area and perimeter and better equipped to anticipate and address those difficulties with future students.

Have you ever wondered how to integrate the latest technology into the English Language Arts (ELA) Classroom? In this fun and interactive session, you will get to tinker with the newest technology such as the Dash Robot and the Blockley and Wonder Robotic apps. Presenters will demonstrate how to use computational thinking to increase student motivation as well as student analytical skills. Participants will leave the session with various resources and ideas about how to integrate robotics and computational thinking into their ELA class immediately!

Business Intelligence (BI) can be a great source of advantage in a business decision process. However, as we move forward, data comes in a greater volume and variety than before which puts pressure on BI to utilize this complex data and take better decisions. From BI companies point of view, it is about creating as much value as possible for its customers and stakeholders. It can however be challenging creating value with data that does not correspond with the purpose, business- goals and needs as well as user- goals and needs. Setting up goals, desires, and an overall plan happens in the initial stages of the BI process. This thesis aims to investigate and characterize the possible challenges appearing in these initial stages and discuss a method for addressing these challenges. In consultation with a company within BI, the method chosen was Design Thinking (DT). The challenges of BI in the initial stages and DT relevant for this thesis was studied through a literature study as well as through qualitative interviews and a workshop-like approach. Since the goal of this thesis is to generate theory that can be further researched, grounded theory is used as a strategy. The interviews conducted was with four BI experienced persons, whereas one had experience in DT as well. The result of these interviews confirms, corroborate, and adds to the challenges in the initial stages of BI brought up in the literature study. Challenges such as extracting goals and needs, plan, involve and manage. A desire for a method of ensuring that value is created for the customers was expressed in the interviews. One of the interviewees had used DT-tools in an implementation project scenario before with success. Findings from literature review and interviews gave insights about common challenges in BI and that a human-centered method such as DT can address these challenges.

I conducted a study among the middle school students to examinetheir attitudes to school mathematics both inside and outside of the classroom. Also, I have examined teachers’ perceptions of how everyday math examples can be integrated into the classroom experience. The purpose of the study is to investigate the effect of using everyday mathematics in teaching and how this will contribute to a further development of students' ability to think mathematically in different contexts. Parallels between prior research efforts and my study “The art of thinking mathematically - School mathematics in everyday life”are drawn by using qualitative analysis techniques such as the organized empirical data based on student survey questionnaire and teacher interviews. The theoretical perspectives utilized in the study are about the pragmatic perspective and its centralized concepts emphasizing continuity, experience, and interaction. The socio-cultural perspective sheds light on interaction between people and perceptions of themselves and others. Within a broader context I will address the proximal developmental zone (ZPD) by Vygotsky, scaffolding and mediating as those concepts apply to the aforementioned issues. In conclusion I will provide what advantages and disadvantages do teachers and students experience in linking everyday mathematics to the school mathematics.  I will give also approaches for teachers and suggestions for further research and investigation.

El texto completo de este trabajo no está disponible en el Repositorio Académico UPC por restricciones de la casa editorial donde ha sido publicado. / There is a high margin of informality in small- and medium-sized companies in the bakery sector because of their lack of focus and poor standardization of their activities. Bakery SMEs, the activities of which have not yet been standardized, usually perform activities inefficiently, unnecessarily extending production times. The current average productivity of Lima-based SMEs is 1.7, a figure that, when compared with countries in the Pacific Alliance, is low. In addition, currently no methodologies seek continuous process improvement. Therefore, a Lean Process Management model was established to reduce activities and times. As validation, a production time simulation was performed in a warehouse, increasing the productivity to 2.08, with a percentage variation of 87.39% when compared with the initial productivity.

Det finns ett stort problem bakom den linjära ekonomin vi utövar idag, vilket är att avfallen bara fortsätter att växa samtidigt som vi fortsätter att förbruka på jordens naturresurser. Om vi skall uppnå mål 12 i Agenda 2030 och säkerställa hållbara konsumtions- och produktionsmönster till år 2030 så krävs det åtgärder och engagemang. En bra startpunkt mot detta mål är att göra ett skifte till en cirkulär ekonomi, genom att bland annat börja konsumera secondhand istället för nyproducerad inredning. Secondhandbutiker har populariserats allt mer under de senaste året, vilket beror på människans behov att följa trender. Samtidigt så är det endast ett urval människor som besöker dessa butiker. Syftet bakom denna uppsats var att undersöka hur cirkulär ekonomi kan bidra till en hållbar konsumtion genom återbruk av inredningsdekor. Frågeställningarna hur förhåller sig ett urval secondhandbutiker i Sundsvall med omnejd till återbruk av inredningsdekor och hur förhåller sig ett urval människor till att dekorera sina hem med inredning från secondhand formulerades för att besvara detta. En visuell research i form av en omvärldsbevakning av vad som fanns i secondhandbutikerna, kvalitativa samtalsintervjuer med personal i secondhandbutikerna och en kvantitativ enkätundersökning med ett urval människor utfördes för att besvara dessa frågeställningar.   Det visade sig att främst unga människor är tillmötesgående för öka återanvändningen av inredningsdekor, samt att secondhandbutiker inte anstränger sig tillräckligt mycket för att utöka försäljningen av återbruk. Både konsumenter och secondhandbutikerna följer fortfarande till viss del en linjär ekonomi, men trots att de förekommer tillfällen då människor och secondhandbutiker slänger produkter, så har majoriteten en positiv inställning till att förändra sina konsumtionsmönster och besöker secondhand frekvent i dagens läge. Sammanfattningsvis så visar undersökningen att det finns en stor potential för att försäljning av inredningsdekor skall öka i secondhandbutiker. Detta i och med att undersökningen visar att de flesta konsumenter idag är påtagliga för att återbruka inredningsdekor, vilket vidare leder till en mer ansvarsfull konsumtion och produktion och mängden avfall skulle minska markant.

Purpose – Ever since Sarasvathy’s (2001) seminal article, scholars have sought to test effectuation’s affect on firm performance. Although recent work has begun the arduous process of testing effectuation’s effect on entrepreneurial performance, there is still much to learn about its impact on firm performance. One such area is the relationship between effectuation and innovation. The purpose of this paper is to first, propose a scale suitable to the explication of the effectuation construct relative to innovation. Second, it proposes a more parsimonious scale for the measurement of innovation. Third, these scales are tested relative to firm performance. Design/methodology/approach – This paper develops and tests a structural model, which investigates aspects of effectuation as mediators between innovation orientation and product/service innovation. This is accomplished using a sample of 169 electronic product manufacturing-based small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Subjective measures of performance are used as the dependent variable. Findings – The three most widely used measures of innovativeness were found to break cleanly into two sub-constructs, namely innovation orientation and product/service innovation. Effectuation measures included means (who I know), leverage contingencies (experimentation), pre-commitments and affordable loss. Means and leverage contingencies were found to positively mediate innovation orientation and product/service innovation leading to increased firm performance. Affordable loss did not show a mediating role, but had a direct effect on firm performance. Research limitations/implications – This study establishes two distinct sub-constructs of firm-level innovation; namely innovation orientation and product/service innovation. Second, by testing an innovation-centric effectuation model, this research establishes an empirical relationship between effectuation, innovation and firm performance. Practical implications – Practical implications include establishing a relationship between means, leverage contingencies and innovation-performance, indicating that the ways through which small and medium-sized enterprises use their innovation networks may affect innovation outcomes and ultimately firm performance. Originality/value – This research establishes an empirical relationship between effectuation, innovation and firm performance, extending effectuation theory from the entrepreneurship to the innovation literature.

Programmering har introducerats som ett nytt delmoment i den svenska läroplanen sedan2018. Denna fallstudie har därför fokuserat på elevers förståelse för programmering iintroducerande undervisning. Detta för att hjälpa lärare att få en bättre förståelse för hur de kanimplementera programmering i sin undervisning. Teorin datalogiskt tänkande har använts somgrund för analys av datamaterialet, för att identifiera elevers inkrementella och iterativa processsamt testa och felsöka processen. Teorin användes också för att identifiera elevers förståelse förprogrammeringsbegrepp. Insamlingen av datamaterialet utfördes med inspelningar av eleversskärmar och samtal, medan de introducerades till programmering i Scratch. Resultatet visadepå att elever hade svårigheter med vissa programmeringsbegrepp. En slutsats var även attprogrammeringsprocesserna var beroende av varandra för att utvecklas. / Programming is since 2018, a new subject in the Swedish curriculum. This case studytherefore focuses on students’ understanding of introductory programming, to help teachers geta better understanding of how to teach and assess the subject. The theory computationalthinking was used as a foundation for identifying the students’ incremental and iterative processas well as their testing and debugging process. It was also used for identifying the students’understanding of programming concepts. The data for this study was collected throughrecordings of students’ screens and conversations, while introducing them to programming inScratch. The results showed that students had some difficulties with some programmingconcepts. Furthermore, the results showed that the processes were dependant on each other’sdevelopment.