Communities of practices are particular and identified knowledge networks involved in a new global, virtual and digital framework. The study of their specific characteristics, the Legitimate Peripheral Participation and the duality Reification/Participation, provides the necessary background to understand and formalize the barriers and the limits in this new context. <br />In order to overcome these ones, the analysis of the tools and the methods for computerized reification (content analysis, information architecture, information visualization) and for enrichment and assessment of content and users (Human-Computer Interactions, Collaborative filtering) enables to develop a methodology to support the application of an automated and interactive reification process in a virtual Communities of Practices.

<p>The trend that more and more recently graduated (business) students are having trouble entering the Swedish labor market, and the fact that many of Sweden’s small firms are perfect absorbers of labor − putting aside the larger firms − how well do these two supply and demand sides match. The recurring theme of this thesis was to analyze the perceptions that small firm managers in Jönköping area, in the business-related sectors, had of business graduates and business graduate skills and competences. It was the skills approach that was the main focus of this thesis. Here we restrict ourselves to the small firms that employ less than fifty people and more than ten.</p><p>To supplement the reflections of small firm managers on graduates, soon-to-become business graduates in Jönköping area (undergraduates or postgraduates) were asked for their own opinion on small firm recruitment possibilities, and which ‘basket of skills’ they acquired and thus found to be important for small business firms. It is because of these two complementing perceptions that the authors had a chance to underline interesting graduate recruitment results, and perception on skills gaps.</p><p>The research design was of mostly qualitative nature coupled with additional integrated quantitative data serving as a supplement to the former. The empirical work was conducted through four interviews with small businesses and three focus groups with graduates.</p><p>Two of the companies had a basic aversion towards employing graduates, while one was indifferent and another welcomed graduates into the company. Graduates were seen as a ‘fresh applicant’, with new ideas and good social competence. However, lack of work experience and practicality, risks of hiring and over qualification brings the employability down.</p><p>The authors cannot identify a clear indication of a skills gap or skills match, but when taking into account the categorization of skills between practical and non-practical ones, there is a very positive skills match between graduates and small firms. In this way recommendation for designing educational business programs on the basis of practical skills seems to be appropriate for having business students well equipped for the small business labor market. In addition to that, other interesting results point out to that the skills preferences/demand by small firms varies when taking into account whether they recruit graduates to specific job posts or just for general work.</p>

This thesis describes and analyses how the leadership culture is constructed by the leadership discourse and leadership practices, in the Swedish non-profit organisation ABF, the Workers Education Association. The theoretical framework for the study is based on the practice theory by Swidler (2001) who claim that culture conceptualizes as practices in interaction with discourse. The empirical material consists of policy documents for the study of leadership discourse, and twelve qualitative interviews with leaders about their leadership practices. The empirical results show that the leadership discourse is based on three concepts: Carrying of idéas, Communicating and Developing. The leadership practice of the organisation is demonstrated through six leadership approaches: The communicative, The democratic, The stringent, The development focused, The situated and The positive. These approaches are used in internal and external activities. The conclusion of the study is that there is a clear stringency between the leadership discourse and leadership practices within the organisation which creates the leadership culture within ABF. The values and approaches expressed in the leadership discourse are also described in the interviews as practiced by the leaders.

This study uses ethnographic tools to document the multiple literacy practices of two Mayan families living in a rural community in Yucatan, Mexico. It explores how young emergent bilingual children make sense of written language through their everyday practices. Data includes field notes from participants observations, video and audio recordings and literacy samples collected during fieldwork. The literacy events extracted from the data were analyzed in terms of the communicative function written language serves, the use of linguistic resources, and particular ways of socialization within literacy events. The findings of this study challenge public discourses which define marginalized children and their families as deficient. Literacy is part of the everyday life activities of minoritiezed families and these experiences provide their children with vast amounts of literacy knowledge. Through the two case studies presented, we document how different language and literacy practices shape children's different pathways to bilingualism and biliteracy.

A study was initiated in the spring of 2003 to evaluate the response of lemons to soil and foliar applied micronutrients for two growing season (2003-2005). Soil applied Fe, Zn, Mn, and Cu was applied in sulfate form and B as Solubor in shallow holes around the skirt of each tree. Foliar applied micronutrients were all applied as “Metalosate” products. Lemon leaf tissue analyses show marginal levels of Zn, Mn, and Cu throughout the study. In 2003-2004, soil fertilization sometimes increased leaf nutrient composition but there was no effect to foliar fertilization. In 2004-2005, ,leaf B and Zn increased to soil fertilization and leaf Mn and Cu increased to foliar fertilization Overall, there were no significant differences in yield or quality to micronutrient fertilization in either growing season.

This experiment was established in January 2000 in a block of ‘Washington’ navel orange trees at Verde Growers, Stanfield, AZ. Treatments included: normal grower practice, winter low biuret (LB) urea application, summer LB urea application, winter LB urea application plus winter and spring potassium phosphite, winter LB urea application plus summer potassium phosphite, and normal grower practice plus spring potassium phosphite. Each treatment was applied to approximately four acres of trees. For 2000-01, yields ranged from 40 to 45 lbs. per tree, and there was no effect of treatments upon total yield, and only slight effect upon fruit size, grade and quality. For 2001-02, there was a slight effect of treatment upon yield as LB urea led to improved yield, while potassium phosphite led to reduced yield. Normal grower practice was intermediate between these two extremes. For 2002-03, we noted a large increase in yield, however the yield data was lost when the block was inadvertently harvested. For 2005, there was no effect of treatments upon total yield.

Three lemon cultivar selection trials are being conducted at the Yuma Mesa Agriculture Center in Somerton, AZ. Data from these trials suggest that ‘Limonero Fino 49’ selections may be a suitable alternative for the varieties most commonly planted in Southwest Arizona today. ‘Femminello’ and ‘Villafranca’ might also be planted on an experimental basis.

Lemons were treated with several plant growth regulators for the 2005-06 season, with the hope of improving fruit size. These PGR’s included CropSet, Accel, Maxim, Messenger and MT350. Although there were some increases in yield, these were just trends, and were not statistically significant. Similarly, there was no improvement in fruit size with application of the treatment

Higher nutrient and water use efficiency are possible with microsprinkler-irrigated citrus compared to flood-irrigated citrus. Therefore, new N and P fertilizer recommendations are needed for microsprinkler-irrigated citrus. The objectives of this project were to i) determine the effects of N applications of 0 - 0.8 lb/tree/yr on fruit yield, fruit and juice quality, and N and P removal in fruit for microsprinkler-irrigated navel oranges; ii) determine the effects of P applications of 0 - 0.2 lb/tree/yr on fruit yield, fruit and juice quality, and N and P removal in fruit, and iii) develop Best Management Practices for N and P fertigation of microsprinkler-irrigated citrus. Field experiments were conducted at the University of Arizona Citrus Agricultural Center in separate blocks of ‘Newhall’ and ‘Fukumoto’ navel oranges, both on ‘Carrizo’ rootstock. In each block, ten treatments, consisting of all possible combinations of 5 N rates (0, 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, and 0.8 lb N/tree/yr) and 2 P rates (0, 0.2 lb P/tree/year) were applied to five replicate trees per treatment. The maximum predicted yields for both varieties during all three seasons occurred at N rates of 0.4 to 0.55 lb N tree-1 yr-1. There were no significant effects of P application on fruit yield or quality. There were few significant effects of N or P fertilization on packout or fruit quality. The amounts of N removed in harvested fruit at the yield-maximizing N rates were equivalent to 50-84% of the N applied. New N fertilizer recommendations for microsprinkler-irrigated navel oranges are proposed.

This item was digitized as part of the Million Books Project led by Carnegie Mellon University and supported by grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF). Cornell University coordinated the participation of land-grant and agricultural libraries in providing historical agricultural information for the digitization project; the University of Arizona Libraries, the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, and the Office of Arid Lands Studies collaborated in the selection and provision of material for the digitization project.