The acceleration of globalisation has forced companies to cope with its propulsion in order to become more competitive and internationalised, an internationalisation that creates the importance of knowing how to manage global and virtual teams (GVT). The knowledge in the area today has shown to be vague, generalised and hard to grasp, especially for the unexperienced GVT-project manager. The purpose of this thesis is therefore to study whether the literature regarding how to manage a GVT corresponds with the perceptions in practice and how these findings can contribute to a more efficient project management approach. This study is examined using a qualitative method based upon literature and semi-structured interviews. This foundation is used to provide a deeper understanding of the subject as well as it puts this research questions into the proper context. The interview respondents are from the same organisation, however, from offices located in four different countries. The result shows that there are different perspectives on how GVTs should be managed efficiently, and that different leadership preferences exits. Furthermore, there exists a lot of possibilities, but also challenges that must be coped with in order to reach the team’s full potential. These challenges are connected to the virtual work settings and practical problems as well as the team's heterogeneity and communication structure. It was found that it is important to consider the purpose of the collaboration in order to strategically plan for its initiation and execution. / Globaliseringens acceleration har tvingat företag att hantera sin framdrift för att bli mer konkurrenskraftiga och internationaliserade, en internationalisering som vidare leder till vikten av att veta hur man ska hantera globala och virtuella team (GVT). Kunskapen i området idag har visat sig vara vag, generaliserad och svår att ta till sig, särskilt för den oerfarna GVT-projektledaren. Syftet med detta examensarbete är därför att studera huruvida uppfattningen om hur man ska hantera GVT skiljer sig mellan litteratur och i praktiken samt hur dessa upptäckter kan bidra till ett mer effektivt projektledningssätt. Denna studie undersöks med en kvalitativ metod baserad på litteratur och semi-strukturerade intervjuer. Grunden används sedan för att få en djupare förståelse av ämnet såväl som den sätter rapportens frågeställningar i rätt sammanhang. Intervjurespondenterna är från samma organisation, dock från kontor i fyra olika länder. Resultatet visar att det finns olika perspektiv på hur GVT ska ledas effektivt och att olika ledarskapspreferenser existerar. Dessutom finns det många möjligheter, men också utmaningar som måste hanteras för att nå teamets fulla potential. Dessa utmaningar är kopplade till virtuella arbetssätt och praktiska problem samt teamets heterogenitet och kommunikationsstruktur. Det konstaterades att det är viktigt att överväga syftet med samarbetet för att strategiskt planera för dess initiering och genomförande.

<p>  </p> <p>Informal learning environments are critical to supplemental student learning outside the formal classroom space. The problem the research addressed is the lack of informal STEM learning programs for underrepresented minority, female, urban, and rural students. The purpose of this research was to demonstrate the effect informal STEM learning has on the population’s self-efficacy and interest in STEM. The intervention for this research study was a seven-day informal learning summer camp involving five STEM projects from around the field and aligned with relevant fields offered by the Purdue University Polytechnic Institute. The participants worked in large and small group sessions with program volunteers to gain foundational learning outcomes. The outcome was measured using the STEM-CIS survey instrument in a pre-and post-testing format. The data was coded from the Likert scale and then used to calculate statistics and effect size for Likert-style data. The intervention was performed during the summer of 2021 and yielded results showing that students felt the effect of having role models and professionals involved in the STEM field. </p>

Users have limited knowledge and control over their data, while needing personalization-based services that are requesting their data. The Automated Privacy Negotiation Agent (APNA) model is brought up as a solution by assisting users’ privacy management with less effort, but more accurate options. To bring insights for APNA to gather requirements from different users, this research described how users have been managing their privacy settings and consenting, and their preferences when it comes to their data processing through semi-structured interviews. We conducted interviews on 11 participants with different levels of motivation and knowledge to enhance privacy, from ages 21 to 35, living in Jönköping, Sweden. By thematic analysis we identified and described 5 types of behaviour and how users have articulated their considerations behind each of the 5 types of behaviour. We found 22 privacy preferences of users when it comes to how their data should be collected, stored, and used. These could be considered as required options to be implemented in the preference set-up.

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Surface quality plays a vital role in controlling the function performance of the workpiece. With the development of the measuring technique, areal surface measurement has been widely applied in the industry. However, estimating the uncertainty of areal surface measurement is still a challenge. Except for the metrological characteristics of the measurement system, measurement conditions should be considered for uncertainty evaluation. The dissertation investigates the influence of measurement settings on surface measurement. A silver-plated surface, three different rough grinding surfaces, and three different rough cylindrical grinding surfaces were measured using structured illumination microscopy. The measurements were at the different objective lenses, vertical scanning interval, exposure time, and sample tilt. The results show that the measurement settings influence the non-measured points, measurement noise, and areal surface texture parameters. Therefore, according to the investigation, the sample tilt and exposure time should also be included in the uncertainty budget. An approach was proposed to investigate the influence of non-measured points on the areal surface texture parameters. The relation between the non-measured points ratio and measurement settings was investigated, and how the areal surface texture parameters changed due to the non-measured points was studied. Moreover, an approach based on the metrological characteristic method was proposed to estimate the uncertainty due to the measurement noise. This method can be extended to the uncertainty evaluation due to other metrological characteristics. Additionally, an approach based on the Monte Carlo Method was proposed to estimate the measurement uncertainty due to different influences. This approach was verified as feasible in the practical measurement.

<p>Examinator Professor Peter Jansson, Institutionen för naturgeografi</p> / Research school for teachers on climate and environment grant 2017-06037

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