The National Park Service (NPS) strives to embody U.S. democratic ideals, conserving our collective stories and scenery for their intrinsic value and the enjoyment of current and future generations. However, although these places are conserved for all, they are not enjoyed by all. As with other conservation agencies, the NPS finds itself increasingly concerned with building relevance with diverse potential stewards. In cities, where 80% of the U.S. population and 40% of the NPS portfolio is based, there is a prime opportunity to build relevance with large, diverse, and proximate audiences. Recognizing this opportunity, the NPS initiated its Urban Agenda as a centerpiece of its 2016 centennial. The Urban Agenda seeks to connect people with proximate NPS parks and programs, primarily by using collaborations as pathways to relevance. In doing so, the agency may become a more resilient and value-added component of these larger landscapes. However, connections between relevance, resilience, and collaborations, especially at the organizational level, have rarely been addressed. This dissertation: 1) identifies perspectives on NPS relevance in the urban context; 2) examines the diversity of brokers and roles in facilitating relevance across collaborative networks; and 3) assesses areas of intra-NPS relationship-building for enhanced relevance. A multi-site, multi-methods evaluation was conducted. Detroit, Tucson, and Boston, all cities with Urban Agenda investment but representing different proximities to physical NPS parks, were selected as cases. Qualitative in-depth interviews with NPS staff and community partners were paired with quantitative social network analysis. The first phase of research identifies areas of commonality and difference among perceptions about relevance. Qualitative inquiry found that, across cities, NPS staff tended to conceptualize relevance in agency-focused ways while community partners conceptualized it on broader scales, both in audiences and goals. These differences in scale may be complementary, though, with the NPS further enhancing its relevance by recognizing the larger context and embedding its perspectives within this context. The second phase of research quantitatively examines collaborative network composition and potential, especially regarding network and broker diversity. Study results suggest that building the breadth and depth of a network, as well as targeting specific areas of desired growth, are ways to effectively build network resilience and further connections for relevance. The third phase of research examines relationships among parks, programs, and offices of the NPS. Combining qualitative and quantitative methods, this inquiry found that relationships between parks are most numerous and supported by institutional structures. However, connections to and within programs are a desired area for further connection. All relationship-building structures and language must emphasize the utility of internal connections for external relevance. Balancing relationship types while being inclusive of non-park groups may be essential in promoting organizational resilience and relevance. This evaluation contributes to theoretical understanding about and indicators of relevance and resilience. Together, results from these three phases of study can help the NPS understand specific relevance considerations in urban areas, efficiently use their resources to enhance relevance, and continue to strive toward our democratic ideals.

Technological advancements continue to increase online accessibility and the virtual population. As students engage with these advancements, their lives and identities will be on a worldwide platform. The realities of online identities present a challenge for educators to teach students how to manage those online identities. Researchers have studied the after-effects of online identities, but there is a gap in understanding the individual's thought process during the creation of online identities. The purpose of this interpretative phenomenological analysis was to understand the perspectives of working high school graduates regarding the creation of online identities. The research questions were designed to elicit recent high school graduates' perceptions or viewpoints about creating online identities. The conceptual framework for this study included social identity theory and computer-mediated communication theory. Data were collected from 9 face-to-face interviews, including the creation of summary sheets, and were analyzed via member checking and extensive manual coding. Eight themes emerged, revealing that online identities were created to support social connections. The participants' responses generated 4 types of online identities: real, desired, enhanced, and deceptive. Participants did not place consideration into the idea that they were creating an identity. Recommendations included an application for educators to model online behavior and to help students manage their online identities. Further studies could include a data gathering tool that uses an anonymous platform. These findings can inform curriculum and expand the landscape of the literature toward the social change goal of helping students grow and thrive in the online world in a safe, effective, and ethical manner.

Syftet med studien har varit att bidra med kunskap om hur professionella ser på faktorer som kan ha betydelse för social och politisk tillit hos föräldrar med intellektuell funktionsnedsättning. Det bakomliggande intresset grundar sig i det faktum att personer med intellektuell funktionsnedsättning många gånger har dåliga erfarenheter av kontakt med professionella som arbetar med att ge den typ av insatser som riktar sig till denna målgrupp. Tillit framstår som en viktig förutsättning för att insatserna och stödet ska ge effekt. Studiens frågeställningar har berört tre faktorer: socialt nätverk, anpassade stödinsatser samt attityder. Semi-strukturerade intervjuer har genomförts med professionella som är familjebehandlare eller kuratorer och bland annat arbetar med anpassade föräldrastödsprogram och gruppverksamheter, som sedan har analyserats med hjälp av tillit och socialt kapital som teoretisk analysram. Resultatet visar att förälderns delaktighet i sociala sammanhang kan vara ett sätt att vidga det sociala nätverket och öka den sociala tilliten. Det framkommer också att anpassat stöd och insatser ges i olika omfattning och att synsätten skiljer sig åt i olika verksamheter. Resultatet visar även att det finns utmaningar för de professionella på både individ- och samhällsnivå och att det är nödvändigt att förstå hur dessa kan påverka och motverka varandra. Den enskilde professionella har goda förutsättningar att öka tilliten på individnivå och stärka förälderns sociala och politiska tillit. Genom att ge föräldern möjlighet att vidga sitt sociala nätverk och öka sin sociala tillit finns förutsättningar att öka den politiska tilliten hos föräldern och att ge effektivt stöd för ökade föräldrafärdigheter. Samtidigt finns utmaningar för den enskilde professionella som behöver förhålla sig till värderingar och förhållningssätt på organisatorisk nivå. / The aim of this study has been to increase knowledge about social and political trust among parents with intellectual disabilities - ID - which can be understood as a consequence of, and a reason for, the challenges facing parents and professionals in creating a partnership. People with ID tend to be stigmatized and have a history of bad experiences with authorities and social services, which generally makes them “distrusters”. They are aware of this stigma when they become parents, and have a tendency of denying their need of support because of the fear of losing custody of their children.Nine social workers have been interviewed about their experience of working with parents with ID. The data was placed into three categories and analyzed through the framework of trust and social capital. These categories were: Support from the social network, Customized support from professionals and Knowledge and attitudes. This study shows that community participation such as parent groups gives the parents a chance to increase their social trust by expanding their social network. Their special needs require customized support for developing parenting skills, where the alliance with the social worker as a part of the social services can increase their overall political trust. This study also shows that the attitudes of the professional is an essential part of solving the problem with distrust. The stigmatization the parents are facing makes it challenging to change their status in society, as well as their deeply rooted lack of social and political trust.

The Bass model has been used extensively and globally to forecast the first purchases of new products. It has been named by INFORMS as one of the top 10 most influential papers published in the 50-year history of Management Science. Most models for the diffusion of innovation are deeply rooted in the work of Bass (1969). His work provides a framework to model the underlying process of innovation adaption among first-time customers. Potential customers may be connected to one another in some sort of network. Prior research has shown that the structure of a network affects adoption patterns (Dover et al. 2012; Hill et al. 2006; Katona and Sarvary 2008; Katona et al. 2011; Newman et al. 2006; Shaikh et al. 2010; Van den Bulte and Joshi 2007). One approach to addressing this issue is to incorporate network information into the original Bass model. The focus of this study is to explore how to incorporate network information and other micro-level data into the Bass model. First, I prove that the Bass Model assumes all potential customers are linked to all other customers. Through simulations of individual adoptions and connections among individuals using a Random Network , I show that the estimate of q in the Bass Model is biased downward in the original Bass model. I find that biases in the Bass Model depend on the structure of the network. I relax the assumption of the fully connected network by proposing a Network-Based Bass model (NBB), which incorporates the network structure into the traditional Bass model. Using the proposed model (NBB), I am able to recover the true parameters. To test the generalizability and to enhance the applicability of my NBB model, I tested my NBB model on the various network types with sampled data from the population network. I showed that my NBB model is robust across different types of networks, and it is efficient in terms of sample size. With a small fraction of data from the population, it accurately recovered the true parameters. Therefore, the NBB model can be used when we do not have complete network information. The last essay is the first attempt to incorporate heterogeneous peer influence into the NBB model, based on individuals' preference structures. Besides the significant extension of the NBB (Bass) Model, incorporating high-quality data on individual behavior into the model leads to new findings on individuals' adoption behaviors, and thus expands our knowledge of the diffusion process.

À l’ère numérique, la société vit des mutations radicales. Internet et les autres technologies de l’information ont un retentissement majeur et croissant sur la plupart des composantes sociétales, dont le religieux. La spiritualité musulmane, composante du patrimoine culturel mondial, est elle aussi impliquée dans cette digitalisation effrénée. Ainsi, les réseaux sociaux, les forums de discussion et l’accès à Internet en mobilité influencent la trajectoire du soufisme. Les défis qui lui sont posés sont multiples. Leur analyse et la mise en perspective de l’islam spirituel contemporain au travers d’Internet nous permettent de mieux saisir les liens entre spiritualité et virtualité, entre technologies et religion, et, par là même, d’entrevoir des champs de recherche interdisciplinaires inédits. Au-delà de la spiritualité, nous nous intéressons aux parallèles que l’on peut dresser entre Internet et les activités qui comportent une initiation, un accompagnement, une formation ou un apprentissage. / In this digital era, society is undergoing radical changes. Internet and other information technology are having major and growing repercussions on most societal components, including religion. Muslim spirituality, a component of the world’s cultural heritage, is also involved in this frantic digitalisation. Thus social networks, discussion forums and mobile Internet access are influencing the path Sufism is taking. The challenges facing it are multiple. Analysing them and putting into perspective modern, spiritual Islam through the Internet enables us to better grasp the links between spirituality and virtuality, between technology and religion, and at the same time glimpse at new, interdisciplinary fields of research. Beyond spirituality, we explore the parallels that can be made between the Internet and activities including initiation, support, training or apprenticeships.

由於近年社群網路各種應用網站興起，像是Facebook、Twitter，等，相關議 題也逐漸受到討論，例如越來越多利用社群網路傳播訊息或者病毒式行銷的相關 研究。當我們能夠找出一個社群網路當中，習慣的傳播模式或者是傳播路徑，並 且能從中定位各種角色的重要性，進一步在社群網路中找出這些角色後，在這些 相關的議題的應用將更加靈活。 目前各大社群網路應用網站，使用者都可以與社群網路中的好友分享自己的 動作，例如發佈影片或圖片，評論，按「讚」等，基於這樣的前提使用者的任何 活動是有機會被社群網路中的好友影響，因此我們定義好友間影響的可能性，以 及依觀察合理的定義出社群網路中較為重要的角色。 我們的演算法經由收集使用者在固定社群網路應用網站的各種動作，加上動 作的時間所形成的動作誌(action log)，以及使用者們所構成的社群網路，可以從 社群網路中找出主要的資訊傳遞路徑以及各種不同限制下的領袖以及追隨者，並 且將會利用社群網路應用網站驗證分析我們所定義的角色成為結論。 / Recently, social networking services and websites such as Facebook and Twitter are taking more and more parts in our daily life. Issues of in uence propagation have been studied in recent years. To ll in the gap of previous works, we aim to discover the main path of in uence and dene the importance of leader in hierarchy on the social graph. Social networking users are in uenced by the power of social networking service as they are able to post and likevideos, pictures and comments. Therefore, in this study we propose to discover the possibility of a relation and important roles by mining social activities. After collecting performed action and time stamp from dierent users and understanding their social network, our framework was able to identify the main in uence paths and leaders under dierent constrains. Most importantly, our approach outperforms both on precision/recall and ranking in realistic data.

<p>The growing role of communication using computers in people’s everyday lives is reflected by the debates about massive multiplayer online role playing games (MMOs) like World of Warcraft and the Internet as a whole. While people may be driven by the same psychological drives that have spurred interaction between people in the past, this interaction is increasingly facilitated with the use of computer mediated communication (CMC). Can strong relations form between people that are separated by great distances in space using CMC? The presence of strong relations in MMOs could open the possibility for MMO communities to thrive.</p><p>A social network analysis of a MMO guild with 50 members was conducted using an online survey, which produced a non-response rate of 50 percent. Participants were asked about their age, the time they had spent in the guild and their gender in order to explain the social structure of the networks. They were then asked to state the strength of their relations with each of the other members of the guild on a scale from ―one, neutral‖ to ―five, strong friendship‖. The social network analysis program Pajek was used to investigate the characteristics of the social network using so called sociograms.</p><p>The essay concludes that numerous strong relations exist within the guild and that a long time spent in the guild increases the number of strong relations a guild member has. The results show that guilds may form the cohesive backbone of MMO communities and proposes that future research be conducted on the brokerage between guilds in MMO communities in order to produce a comprehensive view of the social structure of MMO communities.</p>

<p>The purpose of this qualitative study has been; how social bonds are interlaced between the social worlds contained within the analytical division of “outside Internet” and “within Internet”. What happens with the social bond as the individual oscillate between this analytic bisection? This purpose raises important questions of the use of Internet in everyday life.</p><p>A new stance is taken toward studying the Internets integration into everyday life. The focus is adjusted to the importance of emotions. Emotions of pride and shame will be treated as the signals of social bonds state and will indicate the resistance or openness of this integration. Goffmans theory on face-work will be used as a complement. A cognitive approach on social bonds will assist the emotional approach. This is interwoven with a perspective for understanding Internet as a medium in form rather than only to focus on the “content”.</p><p>The conclusion consists of a required consistency between the quality of the social bond on the Internet and outside the Internet. The fear of inconsistency had to do with a threat of loss of face, not to come in conflict with established norms from outside the Internet. Development of close and intimate social bonds on the Internet that didn’t have a counterpart or was in inconsistency with the social bond outside Internet, lead to shame that threatened the social bond. The integration of Internet in everyday life is therefore not accomplished. Still, a new generation with instant access to the Internet is to be primary socialized under new conditions.</p>

<p>For the past recent years mobile developers and content providers have been aware of consumers’ engagement in online social networking. New opportunities are presented when using a mobile device as a medium for social interaction, also referred to as mobile social software. An ever growing effort aimed at various mobile design processes and applications have taken place. To achieve a widespread adoption of mobile social software amongst the main stream mobile consumer, several problem areas have to be taken into consideration, such as the technological possibilities and limitations of mobile phones, security issues regarding user privacy and the different aspects of consumers appeal for social media. This research looks into the overall situation of the current field of research and focuses on the interests in mobile social software amongst users. The study was geographically limited to Malmö, Sweden and focused on a population at the ages of 13-18.</p>

<p>Bakgrund: Idag finns det cirka 40 000 individer som har diagnosen schizofreni i Sverige. Schizofreni innebär psykisk ohälsa i form av bland annat hallucinationer, vanföreställningar samt apati och passivitet, vilket leder till en försämrad livskvalitet. Syfte: Syftet med litteraturstudien var att belysa upplevelsen av livskvalitet hos patienter med diagnosen schizofreni. Metod: Studien utfördes som en allmän litteraturstudie där sju vetenskapliga artiklar, som var relevanta till syftet, valdes ut, kvalitetsgranskades och analyserades. Resultat: Resultatet delades in i fem olika rubriker. Det visade sig att svåra symtom, civilstatus, socialt nätverk, otillfredsställda behov och ekonomi alla vara direkt relaterade till livskvaliteten hos patienter med schizofreni. Slutsats: Förbättrade levnadsförhållanden betyder inte nödvändigtvis förbättrad livskvalitet. Många faktorer bland annat trygg och lugn omgivning, bra ekonomi och ett bra socialt nätverk påverkar livskvaliteten. Därför bör sjukvårdspersonal tillgodose patienternas behov på ett adekvat sätt och därmed bidra till en förbättrad livskvalitet.</p> / <p>Background: About 40 000 individuals in Sweden lives with the diagnose schizophrenia. Schizophrenia involves psychiatric disease with symptoms such as hallucinations, delusions, apathy and passivity, which lead to a decline in quality of life. Purpose: The purpose of the study was to elucidate the experience of quality of life in patients with schizophrenia. Method: The study was conducted as a literature review where seven scientific articles were chosen, critically reviewed and analysed. Result: The result was divided in to five different categories. Severe symptoms, marital status, social network, unmet needs and economy appeared to be all directly related to quality of life in patients with schizophrenia. Conclusion: Improved living conditions do not necessarily improve quality of life. Many factors including security, quiet environment, good economy and a good social network affects the quality of life. Therefore, health care professionals should meet patient needs in an adequate manner and thus contribute to an improved quality of life.</p>