Allt fler företag världen över certifierar sitt ledningssystem och intresset för kvalitetsstandarden ISO 9001 växer sig allt starkare. Trots den ökade populariteten kring ISO 9001 finns det dock studier som ifrågasätter om certifiering bidrar till högre kvalitet hos företag, detta bland annat på grund av att dokumentationskraven i standarden upplevs som betungande.Elektriska Installatörsorganisationen EIO, är en bransch- och arbetsgivarorganisation för Sveriges el- och teleteknikföretag. I början av år 2007 startade de ett projekt med syfte att underlätta ISO 9001 certifiering hos sina medlemsföretag. En testgrupp med fem pilotföretag fick stöd av EIO vid certifieringsarbetet. Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka vilka resultat ISO 9001 certifieringen har lett till hos EIO:s pilotföretag.Resultaten analyseras sedan genom att utreda vilka förutsättningar som varit viktiga för att pilotföretagen ska kunna uppnå en lyckad certifiering. Vidare undersöks även hur pilotföretagen själva har upplevt dokumentationskraven i standarden. Undersökning har skett genom intervjuer med VD och annan personal samt genom att distribuera en enkät till medarbetare på pilotföretagen. Resultaten visar att fördelarna av ISO 9001 certifieringen hos pilotföretagen har övervägt de kostnader och investeringar som behövts göras. Dessutom har standardens dokumentationskrav inte upplevts som betungande av pilotföretagen, utan istället som något positivt.

To be allowed to sell Z-suspended vehicles with dipped beam Xenon or LED lighting, Scania have to develop automatic headlight level control. This master’s thesis aims to be the foundation to that development. The thesis consists of several parts; a market analysis of how competitors to Scania and the general vehicle industry solve this problem; several available principles for detecting the amount of control needed; the construction of a test station for sensors, a control unit and components connected controlled by the control unit; a further theoretical and practical development of one principle – one rotational sensor connected between the chassis and the back drive axis; a state flow model programmed in Simulink that produces the control signal for the headlight leveling from the sensor input. Lastly the thesis gives some recommendations to the further development and implementation of automatic headlight level control on Scania vehicles.

This study applied action research to explore teaching and learning processes on 6th graders¡¦ environmental education with the implementation of Science-Technology-Society (STS) teaching model in order to understand how the model helped to improve the teaching process and learning effect on environmental education. Subjects in this study were 6th graders in an elementary school in Kaohsiung. This study designed a STS teaching plan for environmental education based on Grade 1-9 Curriculum Guidelines, implementing 21 classes for a total of 7 weeks. Data-collecting methods such as records of observation, teaching journal, blog discussion, learning sheets, learning effect checklists, self-evaluation and feedback were used in order to identify the difficulties and solutions of STS teaching on environmental education. Teacher¡¦s reflection and student feedback also helped to evaluate the effectiveness and feasibility of STS teaching implementation on environmental education. We concluded the analysis of the study as follow¡G ¢¹. With regard to course design and implementation: 1.Further the effectuation of STS teaching on environmental education. 2.STS teaching can improve the learning effects on the five teaching goods of environmental education. 3.STS teaching can enhance students¡¦ interest and ability of science and environmental education. 4.STS teaching combines with blogs to motivate students learning. ¢º. With regard to the perceptions of teachers and students: 1.Games and team competition can improve the focus and the participation of students. 2.Field visit and observation is suitable for STS environmental education. 3.Experimental activities of STS teaching can help students caring for disadvantaged and respecting the surroundings. 4.Team meeting can improve the unequal division of labor and promote their cooperation.

abstract: The purpose of this study was to analyze the impact of a context-based teaching approach (STS) versus a more traditional textbook approach on the attitudes and achievement of community college chemistry students. In studying attitudes toward chemistry within this study, I used a 30-item Likert scale in order to study the importance of chemistry in students' lives, the importance of chemistry, the difficulty of chemistry, interest in chemistry, and the usefulness of chemistry for their future career. Though the STS approach students had higher attitude post scores, there was no significant difference between the STS and textbook students' attitude post scores. It was noted that females had higher postattitude scores in the STS group, while males had higher postattitude scores in the textbook group. With regard to postachievement, I noted that males had higher scores in both groups. A correlation existed between postattitude and postachievement in the STS classroom. In summary, while an association between attitude and achievement was found in the STS classroom, teaching approach or sex was not found to influence attitudes, while sex was also not found to influence achievement. These results, overall, suggest that attitudes are not expected to change on the basis of either teaching approach or gender, and that techniques other than changing the teaching approach would need to be used in order to improve the attitudes of students. Qualitative analysis of an online discussion activity on Energy revealed that STS students were able to apply aspects of chemistry in decision making related to socioscientific issues. Additional analysis of interview and written responses provided insight regarding attitudes toward chemistry, with respect to topics of applicability of chemistry to life, difficulties with chemistry, teaching approach for chemistry, and the intent for enrolling in additional chemistry courses. In addition, the surveys of female students brought out subcategories with regard to emotional and professional characteristics of a good teacher, under the category of characteristics of teaching approach. With respect to the category of course experience, subcategories of useful knowledge to solve real-life problems and knowledge for future career were revealed. The differences between the control group females and STS group females with respect to these characteristics was striking and threw insight into how teacher behavior and teaching approach shape student attitudes to chemistry in case of female students. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Curriculum and Instruction 2011

The objective of this study was to examine whether the premolars and molars found at Sterkfontein Sts Mbr. 4 and StW Mbr. 5 are morphometrically similar to the degree that all individuals could belong to the same species, A. africanus. Mesial-distal (MD) and buccal-lingual (BL) measurements were obtained from maxillary premolars (P3 and P4) and molars (M1, M2, and M3) of Homo, Pan, and Gorilla, and compared to their counterparts attributed to A. africanus from Sterkfontein. Specimen samples were statistically analyzed using univariate and multivariate analyses. The results support the acceptance of the null hypothesis, indicating that the dental remains from Sts Mbr. 4 and StW Mbr 5 are from the same species.

No description available.

Type 1 Diabetes (T1D) is an irreversible chronic autoimmune disease that affects millions in the United States. Individuals with T1D rely on biomedical technologies to manage their disability and to stay alive. The increased use of and reliance on automated technologies creates complex entanglements between human bodies, technologies and external factors including digital infrastructures creating what I term as "biotechnological organism." This U.S.-based study focuses on the most advanced biomedical technology used to manage T1D today, the Artificial Pancreas System (APS), to demonstrate how seemingly liberating automated biomedical technologies can entangle, subjugate, and confine those they aim to free. This study features the analysis of two distinct social groups by focusing on their risk discourses and risk reduction efforts. The first group is a community of regulatory experts represented by the American Diabetes Association (ADA). It provides an important perspective grounded in evidence-based science, established norms, and professional standards of medicine, healthcare, and research. The second group is the Do-It-Yourself (DIY) biological community represented by DIY innovators, patients, caregivers, and advocates. It provides a different but equally important perspective shaped by affective dimensions that reflect a phenomenological experience with biomedical technologies. The combination of these two perspectives along with the improved understanding of this disability, the complexity of entanglements between humans and machines, differing approaches to health automation and knowledge production practices elucidates important social, economic, and political issues. The significance of this work lies in its examination of how the improved understanding of health automation efforts can help inform policy and healthcare decisions. / Doctor of Philosophy / Type 1 Diabetes (T1D) is a chronic condition when the pancreas does not make enough insulin necessary for the body to allow blood glucose (blood sugar) to enter cells and produce energy. This disability affects millions in the United States. Individuals with T1D rely on biomedical technologies to manage their blood glucose levels and need to inject insulin to stay alive. The increased use of and reliance on automated technologies is encouraged to reduce the risks of health complications and reduce the demands of T1D management. But automated biomedical technologies also pose additional burdens related to technological use, maintenance, data overload, decision-making, and risk. This U.S.-based study focuses on the most advanced biomedical technology used to manage T1D today, the Artificial Pancreas System (APS). I coin the term "biotechnological organism" to describe the complex relationship between humans and biomedical technologies. The study demonstrates how seemingly liberating automated biomedical technologies can burden those they aim to free from the demands of disease. This study features the analysis of two distinct groups by focusing on their risk perceptions and risk reduction efforts. The first group is regulatory experts represented by the American Diabetes Association (ADA). This group provides an important perspective grounded in evidence-based science, established norms, and professional standards of medicine, healthcare, and research. The second group is the Do-It-Yourself (DIY) biological community, which includes DIY innovators, patients, caregivers, and advocates. This group provides a different but equally important perspective shaped by the diverse lived experiences of people using biomedical technologies. The improved understanding of differing approaches to health automation and knowledge production practices within these two groups elucidates important social, economic, and political issues. This work aims to understand how health automation efforts can help inform policy and healthcare decisions.

Over the past two decades, many American universities have created transdisciplinary institutes devoted to science, engineering, art, and design (SEAD). These organizations promote research, teaching, and engagement across technoscientific and artistic disciplines, and seek to cultivate creativity and innovation. Their proponents argue that this particular type of transdisciplinary knowledge-making has the potential to transform research universities. However, making and maintaining SEAD institutions is difficult work for the researchers and administrators involved. Practitioners struggle to define the broader goals of their transdisciplinary research; to demonstrate its value; to receive appropriate credit from their peers; and to feel that they belong in their institutions. I argue that these issues result from a fundamental “transdisciplinary dilemma”: the challenge of institutionalizing an ideal of transdisciplinarity that is actually a complex and contradictory set of different actors and motivations. In my dissertation I examine SEAD and transdisciplinarity through an ethnographic study of Virginia Tech’s Institute for Creativity, Arts, and Technology, a research institute that aspires to work “at the nexus of science, engineering, art, and design.” I identify three significant “matters of concern” for SEAD practitioners, each of which is a tension that reveals an aspect of the transdisciplinary dilemma and the challenges of institutionalizing art and technology research. Sponsored collaboration contrasts the idea of transdisciplinarity as an idealized stage of creative knowledge production with the notion of transdisciplinarity as an economic driver for higher education. Value and belonging highlights researchers’ simultaneous desire to exist outside of traditional disciplines and to enjoy the comforts of a disciplinary home. Measurable impact describes the balancing act between institutions’ need for resources and status, and the nature of researchers’ everyday work. Ultimately, I argue, these tensions are irresolvable aspects of SEAD as it exists within the contemporary research university. The persistence of the transdisciplinary dilemma leaves practitioners in a perpetual state of striving to belong, and SEAD institutions continually seeking to (re-)define themselves. / Ph. D. / Over the past two decades, many American universities have created transdisciplinary institutes devoted to science, engineering, art, and design (SEAD). These organizations promote research, teaching, and engagement across technical, scientific, and artistic disciplines, and seek to cultivate creativity and innovation. Their proponents argue that this particular type of transdisciplinary research and education has the potential to transform universities. However, making and maintaining SEAD institutions is difficult work for the researchers and administrators involved. Practitioners struggle to define the broader goals of their transdisciplinary research; to demonstrate its value; to receive appropriate credit from their peers; and to feel that they belong in their institutions. I argue that these issues result from a fundamental “transdisciplinary dilemma”: the challenge of institutionalizing an ideal of transdisciplinarity that is actually a complex and contradictory set of different actors and motivations. In my dissertation I examine SEAD and transdisciplinarity through a study of Virginia Tech’s Institute for Creativity, Arts, and Technology, a research institute that aspires to work “at the nexus of science, engineering, art, and design.” I identify three significant “matters of concern” for SEAD practitioners, each of which is an issue that reveals an aspect of the transdisciplinary dilemma and the challenges of institutionalizing art and technology research. Ultimately, I argue, these tensions are irresolvable aspects of SEAD as it exists within the contemporary research university. The persistence of the transdisciplinary dilemma leaves practitioners in a perpetual state of striving to belong, and SEAD institutions continually seeking to (re-) define themselves.

“Know what people think”. Ce slogan, affiché sur la page d’accueil du site de l’entreprise britannique Brandwatch, résume à lui seul la promesse de l’industrie nouvelle associée à l’étude des opinions sur le web : savoir enfin ce que les gens pensent, et cela sans même avoir besoin de le leur demander. Un ensemble d’agences, de start-ups et d’éditeurs de logiciels propose en effet depuis le milieu des années 2000 de connaître les opinions du grand public à partir des millions de publications quotidiennes sur le web social : tweets, billets de blogs, messages sur les forums ou encore commentaires de la presse en ligne. Ces données massivement disponibles sont ainsi investies par des acteurs et des instruments extrêmement variés pour mesurer aussi bien la réputation des grandes marques et entreprises, que les réactions à une campagne publicitaire ou un débat télévisé, ou encore des pratiques de consommation émergentes ; tous ont en commun de s’intéresser pour cela aux opinions non sollicitées des internautes. Cette démarche rencontre par ailleurs un succès considérable depuis plusieurs années : en 2015, soit dix ans après la création des premières entreprises dans ce domaine, l’industrie des logiciels de social media analysis générait 2,2 milliards de dollars de chiffre d’affaires selon le cabinet Markets and Markets, qui prévoit par ailleurs la croissance de ce marché jusqu’à 17,9 milliards de dollars en 2019.À distance du positivisme qui entoure ces technologies comme d’une critique constructiviste extérieure à son objet, cette thèse cherche à décrire l’émergence de médiations d’un nouveau type qui se saisissent des traces conversationnelles du web social pour la mesure de l’opinion, et renouvellent ainsi le contenu épistémologique et politique de cette catégorie. Partant de l’hypothèse d’une pluralité des formes de l’opinion et des dispositifs qui la mesurent, nous suivons ainsi un ensemble extrêmement varié de modélisations, construites par des start-ups et entreprises innovantes. Nous nous intéressons ainsi dans un premier temps les tentatives de redéfinition de la notion de représentativité par l’échantillonnage de publics mobilisés et influents. Dans un second temps, nous étudions le modèle qui semble l’emporter sur ce marché, fondé sur des logiciels visant l’indexation exhaustive et continue des traces de la conversation en ligne. Mesurant l’opinion comme un flux continu d’événements singuliers, ces instruments rompent définitivement avec l’idée de représentativité et réactualisent une grammaire de l’opinion comme activité collective et discursive, attentive aux dynamiques médiatiques et relationnelles de la discussion en ligne. Ce régime indiciel de connaissance des opinions délaisse donc la quantification des majorités et des minorités pour la mesure des mobilisations et des mouvements de l’opinion. / "Know what people think." This slogan, posted on the homepage of the British company Brandwatch website, contains the promise of the new industry associated with the study of online opinion: know what people think, finally, without even having to ask. Indeed, since the mid-2000s, a group of agencies, startups and software companies offers to know the opinion from millions of daily publications on the social web: tweets, blog posts or messages on forums. These massively available data are invested by extremely diverse actors and instruments, to measure brand reputation, reactions to an advertising campaign or a televised debate, or emerging consumer practices. To this purpose, all have in common an interest for unsolicited opinions of Internet users. This approach met considerable success in recent years: in 2015, ten years after the creation of the first companies in this area of social media software industry analysis generated $ 2.2 billion in revenue by the firm markets and markets, which also provides for the growth of this market to $ 17.9 billion in 2019.Taking distance with both positivism, which surrounds these technologies, and with an external and critical constructivism, this thesis seeks to describe the emergence of a new type of mediation that captures conversational traces from the social web for measuring opinion, and thus renews the epistemological and political content of this category. Assuming the plurality of the instruments and regimes that measure opinion, we follow a very diverse set of models built by start-ups and innovative companies. We first analyze some attempts made by them to redefine the concept of representative sampling, based on the selection of mobilized and influential publics. Secondly, we study the model that seems to prevail in this market, based on software seeking a comprehensive and continuous indexing of the online conversation. Measuring the opinion as a continuous flow of singular events, these instruments definitively break with the idea of representativeness and reactualize a conception of opinion as collective and discursive activity, focused on the relational dynamics of the online discussion. This regime thus abandons the quantification of majorities and minorities, to concentrate on the mobilizations and movements of online opinion.

<p>Miljö- och klimatfrågor diskuteras flitigt både hos privatpersoner och på myndighetsnivå. Det blir allt viktigare för oss alla att anpassa oss till denna förändring i samhället. Myndigheterna kommer ständigt med nya lagar och förordningar som leder till att företag behöver tänka mer på miljön. Ett steg i denna utveckling är införandet av handel med utsläppsrätter där intentionerna är att minska utsläppen från industrin. Den andra perioden har precis börjat och en ny tar vid 2012 då nya branscher så som flyget inkluderas i denna handel. I denna uppsats har syftet varit att studera hur ett flygbolags miljöstrategier påverkats av det nya beslutet från EU om att inkludera flygbranschen i handeln med utsläppsrätter. Den syftar även till att undersöka vilken attityd företaget har till den nya lagen. Det flygbolag som studeras i denna uppsats är SAS, som är en av de största aktörerna på den svenska flygmarknaden. Studien grundar sig på intervjuer med personal på SAS som är väl insatta i koncernens miljöarbete. En jämförelse med tre andra flygbolag som verkar på den svenska marknaden används slutligen för att ha något att relatera SAS miljöarbete till. Resultaten av studien visar på att vilken attityd ett företag har till miljöfrågor påverkar i vilken grad de utvecklar sina miljöstrategier. Handel med utsläppsrätter är dock inte skälet till att företag väljer att förändra sina miljöstrategier, det är snarare den ekonomiska vinningen i att minska sina utsläpp som är denna drivkraft.</p>