Thesis (M.S.)--Boston University / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / This study focuses on the attitudes of twenty five mothers, residing in two housing projects, whose children attended the Operation Headstart Program at the Cambridge Neighborhood House during the summer of 1965. The purpose of this study was to discern the mother's role in her child's response to a program which offers a major solution to the problem of cultural deprivation. The study chose to examine the mother's role because of the importance which the family, and the mother particularly, plays in terms of providing the foundation for the child's emotional, social, and physical development. The housing projects were chosen because they represent another of society's major attempts to deal with the problems of the underprivileged. The group chosen for this study are residents of two housing projects in Cambridge, Massachusetts. These housing projects are located across the street from the Cambridge Neighborhood House. Names of subjects were obtained from the Neighborhood House, and were then contacted by letter. All interviews were conducted on a home visit basis. / 2031-01-01

Firm internationalisation has been a broadly examined subject, which has generated various established theories. Previous business activities are described as structured, incremental and predictable, which has enabled the development of frameworks that describe how the business internationalisation is conducted. Today’s technological advances, globalisation and changes in demographics are contemporary environmental forces of change, and the Swedish tech industry is growing in a steady phase. The tech start-ups internationalise rapidly and from an early age but in various ways, and therefore, reflecting diverse internationalisation theories to different extents. The wave of tech start-up is increasing and are seemingly operating in an unconventional manner and contradicts well-known theories, leaving scholars in the search for profound understanding about this phenomenon. Consequently, lack of previous research based on tech start-ups internationalisation processes has provided motivation for this study, with the intention to provide knowledge to companies and contribute with new theory angles to the existing literature. The purpose with this study was to fill the research gap on tech start-up internationalisation by investigating and analyse how the Stockholm-based tech start-ups internationalise, what barriers and drivers they have encountered while pursuing the expansion as well as, how these have affected the internationalisation. The literature review emphasises on internationalisation theories as well as, barriers and drivers of the internationalisation process and is summarised with a conceptual framework. The study was conducted through a qualitative case study including four companies of, which all four had established international operations and therefore, generated insightful information about the subject. Moreover, interviews with founders and CEOs of the companies were conducted through semi-structured approach, which including questions related to their internationalisation process and the barriers and drivers. The empirical data was thereafter organised and paralleled with previous theories as well as, with the authors' considerations. Finally, the conclusion highlight answers to the research questions and provide theoretical and practical implications, as well as suggestions for further research.

Thesis advisor: Mariela Paez / With the continued growth of culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students, it is necessary for teachers to be intentional about serving students whose backgrounds are assets but nonetheless different from the dominant culture and language in American society. Because most research on teaching practices has focused on the academic development of children in preschool, this study tries to fill a gap in the literature by examining teaching practices that respond to and affirm cultural diversity. After conducting interviews and observations in three Head Start classrooms, four core teacher beliefs (reciprocal relationships with family, importance of home language, social emotional emphasis, and inclusion of culture) were identified across the sites; these beliefs impacted how teachers created a multicultural space and tailored instruction for students. The findings contribute to the field by providing insight for how teachers can continue to foster inclusive classrooms that value and celebrate children’s unique identities. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2017. / Discipline: Departmental Honors. / Discipline: Education.

M.Sc., Faculty of Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, 2011 / Abstract This dissertation is concerned with discrete global optimization of nonlinear problems. These problems are constrained and unconstrained and are not easily solvable since there exists multiplicity of local and global minima. In this dissertation, we study the current methods for solving such problems and highlight their ine ciencies. We introduce a new local search procedure. We study the rapidly-exploring random tree (RRT) method, found mostly in the research area of robotics. We then design two global optimization algorithms based on RRT. RRT has never been used in the eld of global optimization. We exploit its attractive properties to develop two new algorithms for solving the discrete nonlinear optimization problems. The rst method is called RRT-Optimizer and is denoted as RRTOpt. RRTOpt is then modi ed to include probabilistic elements within the RRT. We have denoted this method by RRTOptv1. Results are generated for both methods and numerical comparisons are made with a number of recent methods.

Researchers and practitioners have both acknowledged the importance of attracting the right employees. The study aims to explore and analyze how Swedish gaming start-ups attract talent. The authors investigated eight gaming companies based in Sweden, conducting semi-structured interviews with founding team or management team that were responsible for talent attraction in their respective companies. Study draws on theory of employer brand and examines how game development start-ups overcome their challenges in employee attraction context. Results of the research show that most gaming companies offer variety of employment benefits described in employment brand theory, but for them to have a competitive advantage, they should incorporate innovative new ideas in talent attraction. We propose an ‘employer innovation matrix model’ that can be a strategic talent attraction planning tool for companies.

Background: Sweden is the home to many successful startups. The lack of IT-developers causes companies to use offshore outsourcing to realize their ideas. In research, there are studies on what needs to be done to outsource successfully. Researchers and practitioners argue that different perspectives on the impact of success need to be considered. Many studies show that the quality of the partnership relationship between customer and supplier is essential for the success of an outsourcing project. However, there are little studies on how success in outsourcing for a start-up comes about in the pre start-up phase and from which factors this depends. Purpose: This research has the purpose to understand why software startups outsource offshore in the pre-startup phase and how success can be achieved in these outsourcing projects. The partnership relationship has an influence on the success of outsourcing and is influenced by several factors. This research aims to find critical success factors in the pre start-up phase for offshore outsourcing. Method: To find answers to our research questions a multiple case study within 9 Swedish start-ups was conducted. Therefore, we collected all data through semi-structured interviews based on an interview guide. The critical success factors in outsourcing in the pre start-up phase were analyzed using content analysis methods. Conclusion: Our results show that outsourcing was an essential business step for all the examined software start-ups in order to realize their idea. In most cases, tactical reasons like availability of resources and costs savings were why start-ups chose to outsource software development to a provider abroad. The quick confirmation of ideas was another important aspect for some start-ups:  "fail fast and fail cheap". All investigated factors play a role in offshoring success, but communication, which directly influences trust, has the biggest influence on outsourcing success in the pre start-up phase of a firm. All other success factors influence the trust between client and vendor, which has a positive influence on the outsourcing success. It turns out that factors such as performance become more relevant in a more mature phase of the business.

The aim for this study is to identify the critical factors for an implementation of Lean for a micro company in the start-up phase, as well as to identify which Lean practices that are most applicable for a distribution strategy in a micro company. The aim was divided into two research questions: • RQ1: Which factors of a Lean implementation is critical for a producing micro company in the start-up phase? • RQ2: How applicable are lean tools and practices for a micro company’s distribution strategy? The research approach used to answer the aim and research questions were a literature review and a case study. A solid literature review was performed to understand the subject in a broader context as well as to compensate for the empirical findings. The case study was conducted at a micro company in the construction industry in Sweden, which currently has no distribution strategy. Since there is limited information related to micro companies, the study has been expanded to also include SMEs. Several factors were identified as critical for an implementation for a micro company. The factors were categorized as critical, favorable, hindering and driving. The identified most relevant critical factors for micro companies was the leadership and management as well as financial capabilities. This was found to be in line with the theoretical framework. Furthermore, an identification was that the Lean tools and practices that were the most applicable for a micro company were those that focus on the internal processes and the involvement of the workforce, such as 5S, PDCA and visual management. These tools were the most applicable because of the financial aspects as well as the lack of influence that a micro company has over its supply chain. It is recommended to perform a similar case study in a micro company with a higher level of maturity and has started their distribution of goods to further analyze tangible empirical data. Lean concerning micro companies need further research if it should become attractive and achievable for micro companies.

No description available.

O transporte de minérios através do bombeamento de polpa é relevante em escala mundial. No Brasil este modo de transporte é muito importante devido à enorme produção mineral e suas distâncias continentais. E, o bombeamento de polpa em planta é ainda mais importante pois é uma operação diária que afeta a todos os envolvidos. A motivação para este estudo foi providenciar para a Escola Politécnica uma estação de bombeamento capaz de levantar os parâmetros do escoamento necessários para o correto dimensionamento das linhas de polpa. Esta dissertação descreve a montagem de dois loops (3\'\' e 4\'\'), devidamente instrumentado e com a aquisição direta dos dados via computador. Os loops foram dimensionados, os componentes, bomba e instrumentos adquiridos, o loop montado, calibrado e colocado em marcha. Esta dissertação registra esta experiência e discute as dificuldades encontradas, na expectativa de que este sistema de bombeamento venha a ser útil para futuros pesquisadores. A Escola Politécnica agora dispõe de um loop de bombeamento de polpa mineral adequado para a determinação de parâmetros hidráulicos, pesquisa e suporte para futuros projetos. / Ore transportation via slurry pumping is relevant in a world scale. In Brazil, due to its huge mineral production and continental distances, mineroducts are an important transportation mode. And, in plant slurry pumping is still more important as it is a dayby- day operation that affects everybody. The motivation for this study was to provide Escola Politécnica (USP) of a convenient pumping station (loop) able to measure the necessary flow parameters for proper design of slurry lines. This dissertation describes the design of two loops (3\'\' and 4\'\') full instrumented and with direct data acquisition via computer. The loops have been sized, components, pump and instruments purchased, erected and started-up. This dissertation registers this experience and discusses the difficulties found, in the expectative can become useful for other researches. Escola Politécnica has now a proper slurry pumping loop for hydraulic determinations, research and for support of future projects.

O problema de roteamento de veículos é um dos problemas de otimização combinatória mais estudados nas últimas décadas. Neste trabalho, é estudada uma variante do problema de roteamento de veículos capacitado em que são considerados custos adicionais em viagens que cruzam fronteiras entre estados. Duas abordagens foram apresentadas para considerar tal característica: adicionar custos fixos às viagens de clientes de estados diferentes e adicionar custos que consideram a carga do veículo ao cruzar a fronteira e, para ambas, foram apresentados modelos matemáticos. Um solver comercial foi utilizado para resolver instâncias conhecidas da literatura e devido à resolução ter atingido o tempo máximo computacional para grande parte dos testes, uma Variable Neighborhood Descent com múltiplos inícios foi desenvolvida para a resolução do problema. Os múltiplos inícios são gerados perturbando a solução inicial gerada para a heurística. Como esperado, tanto para a resolução via modelagem quanto a resolução via heurística, considerar custos de fronteira proporcionais a carga apresentaram soluções de melhor qualidade. Essa nova proposta para abordar custos reais de fronteira abre novas possibilidades para considerar custos de fronteira fixos e proporcionais a carga concomitantemente para melhor representar aplicações reais. / The vehicle routing problem is one of the most studied combinatorial optimization problems in the last decades. In this paper, a variant of vehicle routing problem was studied in which the border costs was added to trips that cross borders. In order to consider such characteristic, two approaches were made: add fixed costs for the trips which clients are from different states and add costs that consider the amount of cargo in the vehicle when it crosses the border. In order to consider such characteristics, models were presented. Instances of literature were solved with a commercial solver and due to high computational time obtained from the exact method, a heuristic with Variable Neighborhood Descent as the local search in a multiple start environment was implemented. The multiple starts were generated making a perturbation in the initial solution obtained for the heuristic. As expected, approaching the problem considering the border cost proportional to the cargo in the vehicle presented better results. This study gives the first results for solving the vehicle routing problem considering real border costs and gives the possibility for solving the problem considering real fixed and proportional costs simultaneously in order to better represent real applications.