The fundamentals of software testing and related activities are often elusive in undergraduate curricula. A direct consequence of the lack of software testing efforts during education is the huge losses suffered by the software industry when applications are not sufficiently tested. Software practitioners have exhorted faculty members and institutions to teach more software testing in universities. The purpose of this research is to provide answers to the needs of such practitioners and introduce software-testing activities throughout the curriculum. The most important goal is to introduce software-testing education without requiring a significant amount of extra effort on behalf of faculty members or teaching assistants. The approach taken comprises the development of the Web-based Center for Automated Testing (Web-CAT) and the introduction of test-driven development (TDD) in courses. Web-CAT serves as a learning environment for software testing tasks and helps automatically assess student assignments. A comparison of student programs developed using Web-CAT with historical records indicated a significant decrease in the number of bugs in submitted programs. Undergraduate students also received exposure to the principles of software testing and were able to write test cases that were on an average better than those generated by an automated test case generator designed specifically for the assignment. / Master of Science

Swedish agencies are obligated to collaborate in order to fulfil their respective missions. One of the largest agencies, The Social Insurance Agency, collaborates with several agencies, employers and care providers. Collaboration that needs synchronous dialogues andexchange of information, requires people to coordinate calendars, but since the organizations’ technical systems are separated, problems occur. The meeting organizers have to face the time-wasting problem of searching for suitable meeting occasions, without access to the calendars of their external meeting participants. Meetings across organizational borders are, therefore, difficult to arrange. This study has enlightened this problem, using methods for deeper understanding of the user’s point of view, searching for alternative solutions and with an experimental approach evaluated four different alternatives, all with their own unique pros and cons. One solution based on a WebDAV/CalDAV concept is recommended, due to its potentials. It is superior to the other alternatives, because of its strength in functionality. Moreover, it has great potential to develop into a broader collaboration service, offering a digital work space with functions for document sharing, discussion boards etc. / Svenska myndigheter är skyldiga att samarbeta med varandra, inom ramen för sina respektive uppdrag. Ett exempel är Försäkringskassan, som samarbetar med flera andra myndigheter, arbetsgivare och vårdgivare. Samarbete som kräver synkrona dialoger och informationsutbyte försvåras av att de olika organisationernas tekniska system är separerade. Utan tillgång till deltagarnas kalendrar tvingas mötesarrangören lägga ner mycket tid i sökandet efter passande tider, och mötesdeltagarna behöver manuellt koordinera sina kalendrar. Möten över organisationsgränser blir därmed svåra att boka. I denna studie fördjupas förståelsen för problemet utifrån ett användarperspektiv, för att därefter söka efter på marknaden tillgängliga lösningar. Med ett experimentellt angreppssätt har fyra alternativ studerats, alla med sina respektive för- och nackdelar. Resultatet blir en rekommendation om att gå vidare med WebDAV/CalDAV som med sin funktionella styrka är det mest kraftfulla alternativet. Detta koncept kan, utöver mötesbokningsfunktionaliteten, utvecklas till en bredare samarbetstjänst för Försäkringskassan och dess externa parter, med potential att erbjuda digitala arbetsytor och funktioner för dokumentdelning, diskussionstavlor mm.

Spät-miozäne bis quartäre Vulkanite der vulkanischen Front und der Back-arc Region der Zentralen Vulkanischen Zone in den Anden weisen eine weite Spannbreite von delta 11B Werten (+4 bis &ndash;7 &permil;) and Borkonzentrationen (6 bis 60 ppm) auf. Die positiven delta 11B Werte der Vulkanite der vulkanischen Front zeigen eine Beteiligung einer 11B-reichen Komponente am Aufbau der andinen Vulkanite, die am wahrscheinlichsten aus Fluiden der alterierten ozeanischen Kruste der abtauchenden Nazca-Platte stammt. Diese Beobachtung macht einen alleinigen Ursprung der untersuchten Laven aus der kontinentalen Kruste und/oder dem Mantelkeil unwahrscheinlich. Der Trend zu systematisch negativeren delta 11B Werten und kleineren B/Nb Verhältnissen von der vulkanischen Front zum Back-arc wird als Resultat einer Borisotopenfraktionierung einhergehend mit einer stetigen Abnahme der Fluidkomponente und einer relativ konstanten krustalen Kontamination, die sich durch relativ gleichbleibende Sr, Nd und Pb Isotopenverhältnisse ausdrückt, interpretiert. Weil die delta 11B Variation über den andinen vulkanischen Bogen sehr gut mit einer modellierten, sich als Funktion der Temperatur dynamisch verändernden, Zusammensetzung des Subduktionszonenfluides übereinstimmt, folgern wir, dass die Borisotopenzusammensetzung von Arc-Vulkaniten durch die sich dynamisch ändernde delta 11B Signatur eines Bor-reichen Subduktionsfluides bestimmt ird. Durch die Abnahme dieses Subduktionsfluides während der Subduktion nimmt der Einfluss der krustalen Kontamination auf die Borisotopie der Arc-Vulkanite im Back-arc zu. In Anbetracht der Borisotopenfraktionierung müssen hohe delta 11B Werte von Arc-Vulkaniten nicht notwendigerweise Unterschiede in der initialen Zusammensetzung der subduzierten Platte reflektieren.<br /> Eine Dreikomponenten Mischungskalkulation zwischen Subduktionsfluid, dem Mantelkeil und der kontinentalen Kruste, die auf Bor-, Strontium- und Neodymiumisotopendaten beruht, zeigt, dass das Subduktionsfluid die Borisotopie des fertilen Mantels dominiert und, dass die primären Arc-Magmen durchschnittlich einen Anteil von 15 bis 30 % krustalem Materiales aufweisen. / Late Miocene to Quaternary volcanic rocks from the frontal arc to the back-arc region of the Central Volcanic Zone in the Andes show a wide range of delta 11B values (+4 to -7 &permil;) and boron concentrations (6 to 60 ppm). Positive delta 11B values of samples from the volcanic front indicate involvement of a 11B-enriched slab component, most likely derived from altered oceanic crust, despite the thick Andean continental lithosphere, and rule out a pure crust-mantle origin for these lavas. The delta 11B values and B concentrations in the lavas decrease systematically with increasing depth of the Wadati-Benioff Zone. This across-arc variation in delta 11B values and decreasing B/Nb ratios from the arc to the back-arc samples are attributed to the combined effects of B-isotope fractionation during progressive dehydration in the slab and a steady decrease in slab-fluid flux towards the back arc, coupled with a relatively constant degree of crustal contamination as indicated by similar Sr, Nd and Pb isotope ratios in all samples. Modelling of fluid-mineral B-isotope fractionation as a function of temperature fits the across-arc variation in delta 11B and we conclude that the B-isotope composition of arc volcanics is dominated by changing delta 11B composition of B-rich slab-fluids during progressive dehydration. Crustal contamination becomes more important towards the back-arc due to the decrease in slab-derived fluid flux. Because of this isotope fractionation effect, high delta 11B signatures in volcanic arcs need not necessarily reflect differences in the initial composition of the subducting slab. <br /> Three-component mixing calculations for slab-derived fluid, the mantle wedge and the continental crust based on B, Sr and Nd isotope data indicate that the slab-fluid component dominates the B composition of the fertile mantle and that the primary arc magmas were contaminated by an average addition of 15 to 30 % crustal material.

There is an ongoing debate about what teaching practices are the most effective ones in order to improve student performance. However, little is known about the impact across countries and literature is highly inconclusive. In this work, we extend the portfolio of countries and provide evidence about the role of modern and traditional teaching practices on students' test scores in 43 countries. Our analysis is performed in two steps and is a typical example of hierarchical linear modelling (HLM). In the first step, we perform student fixed effect method to account for majority of selection issues. We identify a positive, negative or no effect of modern or traditional teaching methods on student performance. These results are priceless for policy makers suggesting that there is no one-fits-all-approach towards modern or traditional teaching methods to order to improve students' test scores. As a great variation is observed, we continue further and investigate what country characteristics could explain these differences across countries. Bayesian model averaging (BMA) method supports us in a model uncertainty and a particular variable selection. Our findings indicate that cultural dimension uncertainty avoidance, which describes country's rigidity in behaviour and institutions, assists in explaining...

Identifying the antecedents of export performance is critical for researchers, due to the many benefits of exporting for firms and nations. Many researchers have, thus, devoted their research efforts to identifying export performance antecedents. Export marketing adaptation and firm level export market orientation (or EMO) have emerged as two critical export performance predictors. However, two important research questions remain unexamined. The first is whether firms ought to pursue heterogeneous levels of marketing adaptation across ventures in order to boost venture performance, and whether the answer to this question is contingent upon internal firm resources which support adaptation (namely EMO) and upon the environments faced across ventures. The second question concerns what the total amount (i.e. quantity) of export marketing adaptation firms should undertake in order to boost firm export performance is, and whether the answer to this question depends on internal firm resources supporting adaptation (more specifically, EMO) and on the overall export environments faced by firms. Underpinned by a contingent approach to the study of business performance, this study set out to answer to such questions, via developing and testing two conceptual models. The models were tested using data collected from British exporting companies. The findings of the first model indicate that marketing adaptation across ventures becomes increasingly beneficial for venture performance (directly in the case of sales performance and indirectly in the case of profit performance) as EMO rises and as the levels of environmental differences across ventures increase. Results of the second model suggest that, under greater levels of EMO, firm export sales performance attains its highest values when the firm practices either very low or very high levels of marketing adaptation quantity. Also, under greater levels of EMO, firm export sales performance is increasingly reduced the more the firm deviates from extreme (low/high) marketing adaptation quantities. Additionally, as the firm s export environments become more heterogeneous, the firm benefits increasingly more from pursuing either very low or very high marketing adaptation quantity levels (with sales performance being maximized when the firm pursues very high levels of marketing adaptation quantity), and the reductions in firm export sales performance accruing from undertaking intermediate marleting adaptation quantity levels are increasingly higher. Findings also suggest that enhancing marketing adaptation quantity is beneficial for firm export profit performance up to an optimal point. The returns brought by additional increments in marketing adaptation quantity are increasingly smaller as marketing adaptation quantity increases. Beyond an optimal point, additional increments in marketing adaptation quantity diminish firm export profit performance. The marketing adaptation quantity-firm export profit performance link was not found to be moderated directly neither by EMO nor by firm export environmental differences. EMO was found to have a positive impact on firm export sales and profit performance.

abstract: Attaining a sufficiently large critical current density (Jc) in magnetic-barrier Josephson junctions has been one of the greatest challenges to the development of dense low-power superconductor memories. Many experimentalists have used various combinations of superconductor (S) and ferromagnetic (F) materials, with limited success towards the goal of attaining a useful Jc. This trial-and-error process is expensive and time consuming. An improvement in the fundamental understanding of transport through the ferromagnetic layers and across the superconductor-ferromagnetic interface could potentially give fast, accurate predictions of the transport properties in devices and help guide the experimental studies. In this thesis, parameters calculated using density functional methods are used to model transport across Nb/0.8 nm Fe/Nb/Nb and Nb/3.8 nm Ni /Nb/Nb Josephson junctions. The model simulates the following transport processes using realistic parameters from density functional theory within the generalized gradient approximation: (a) For the first electron of the Cooper pair in the superconductor to cross the interface- conservation of energy and crystal momentum parallel to the interface (kll). (b) For the second electron to be transmitted coherently- satisfying the Andreev reflection interfacial boundary conditions and crossing within a coherence time, (c) For transmission of the coherent pair through the ferromagnetic layer- the influence of the exchange field on the electrons’ wavefunction and (d) For transport through the bulk and across the interfaces- the role of pair-breaking from spin-flip scattering of the electrons. Our model shows the utility of using realistic electronic-structure band properties of the materials used, rather the mean-field exchange energy and empirical bulk and interfacial material parameters used by earlier workers. [Kontos et al. Phys. Rev Lett, 93(13), 137001. (2004); Demler et al. Phys. Rev. B, 55(22), 15174. (1997)]. The critical current densities obtained from out model for Nb/0.8 nm Fe/Nb is 104 A/cm2 and for Nb/3.8 nm Ni/Nb is 7.1*104 A/cm2. These values fall very close to those observed experimentally- i.e. for Nb/0.8 nm Fe/Nb is 8*103 A/cm2 [Robinson et al" Phys. Rev. B 76, no. 9, 094522. (2007)] and for Nb/3.8 nm of Ni/Nb is 3*104 A/cm2 [Blum et al Physical review letters 89, no. 18, 187004. (2002). This indicates that our approach could potentially be useful in optimizing the properties of ferromagnetic-barrier structures for use in low-energy superconducting memories. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Materials Science and Engineering 2018

Poor achievement on standardized math tests negatively impacts high school graduation rates. The purpose of this quantitative study was to investigate if math instruction in business classes could improve student achievement in math. As supported by constructivist theory, the students in this study were encouraged to use prior knowledge and experiences to make new connections between math concepts and business applications. The key research question examined if there was a significant increase in the standardized mathematics test scores of students enrolled in business classes with extended mathematics instruction compared to the standardized test scores of students not enrolled in business classes with extended mathematics instruction. The 2-sample t-test was used to compare the scores of 42 students in the treatment group to the scores of 47 students in the control group. Based on the findings, there was not a significant difference in the scores of the treatment and control groups. Recommendations for future research included redesigning the treatment to involve additional areas of mathematics instruction as well as extending the number of weeks for the treatment. This study may effect social change by informing teachers and administrators at the local site of the need to examine the effects of incorporating math into other content areas and recommending continued research in this area. The additional exposure, practice, and learning opportunities in math may help high school students achieve in mathematics and ultimately improve graduation rates.

Drug delivery technology is currently advancing faster than at any time in biotechnology history. The challenge of drug delivery is to achieve a controlled release of therapeutic agents over an extended period. Controlled release potentially offers significant advantages over conventional dosage forms, by eliminating both under- and overdosing while maintaining a desired range of drug concentrations. An existing drug regimen for induced calving produces a declining blood profile that does not mimic the naturally occurring, gradually increasing, cortisol blood level around parturition effectively, causing animal health issues. Likewise, while the existing progesterone controlled release systems for oestrous control successfully synchronise oestrus, it is however, associated with reduced fertility and as such other drugs have to be administered to improve the fertility during oestrus. Therefore, there is a need for a drug delivery system that is capable of delivering multiple drugs at various times and patterns. This research aimed to investigate, characterize, identify steroids with high absorption rates through vaginal mucosa and evaluate the potential of an electronic drug delivery system for the delivery of steroids for either the control of the bovine oestrous cycle or induced calving. In order to identify steroids with high absorption rates across the vaginal mucosa, an in vitro permeation method was developed to screen selected steroids for their ability to permeate artificial and biological membranes. The steroids were pre-formulated to enhance their solubility and permeation through these membranes. Analytical UV and HPLC assays to characterise the pure and formulated steroidal compounds were also developed and validated. An assessment of an intravaginal Electronically Modulated Intravaginal Device (EMID) for the control of the bovine oestrous cycle or induced calving was carried out. Five different release assessment methods were investigated and critically evaluated in order to identify the most appropriate release assessment method for the EMID. These were: 1) the Drug Dissolution Test, 2) a weight loss method, 3) the dispensed weight method, 4) the determination of piston travel distance method, and 5) the rod expulsion from the EMID method. The methods investigated were critically evaluated in terms of ease of use and automation, reproducibility and cost/time savings. Optimisation of various components and construction materials of the EMID were also investigated. Animal trials were carried out using the original EMID (manufactured from polypropylene polymer) and modified inserts (manufactured from high density polyethylene polymer) to determine their retention rate in the animals. Accelerated stability testing of progesterone in suspension, oestradiol-17 tablets, cloprostenol as a powder blend and the driving mechanism of the EMID were examined. The flux of the steroids was evaluated through poly-&-caprolactone and excised cow mucosa membranes using side-by-side permeation cells. Results indicated that progesterone followed by dexamethasone acetate and dexamethasone valerate showed higher permeability values through vaginal mucosa compared to dexamethasone or its other analogues. The weight loss method of the EMID proved to be an easy and appropriate method to measure the release rate from the EMID. A high density polyethylene polymer was identified as the most ideal body material for the insert compared to polypropylene body. Also double O-ring silicone, Elastollan WYO 1388-5 and solid silicone pistons were found to be amongst the best pistons tested and all performed well compared to other piston materials. There was a low retention rate with either the original EMID or the modified inserts. Further modification of retention wings of the EMID did not improve the retention rate, but a good blood profile response was obtained from cows treated with the complete EMID containing formulated progesterone. The formulations and driving mechanism were found to be stable under the tested conditions. Therefore, the EMID has potential for commercial application of induced calving or oestrous control per vaginum administration, reliant on improvement of its retention mechanism.

How do people construct shared views of what the organization is all about in the international, complex; company? Within a cultural perspective, organizational identity can be tmderstood as organizational members' shared views and definitions of the organization. As people make sense of actions, events, decisions, etc., shared meanings develop which provide organizational members with a sense of organization. Through an ethnographic study in the corporate setting of lKEA I have tried to create an understanding of the processes tluough which organizational identities become constructed across borders. In the study it is shown how organizational members through the processes of sense-making construct collective self-views. By drawing borders against the outside world, mirroring themselves and talking to the self, organizational members come to create definitions of what the organization is all about. In the international, complex organization, these processes take place in different national contexts and in various local spheres of meaning. In order to offset divergent views and differentiation of meanings, managers try to create a global supra-identity through the fabrication of culture. At the same time, however, there is a heterogenization of meanings as predefined meanings from the top are constantly interpreted, rejected, recreated or adopted in the local spheres. Thus, in the complex organization, there are many collective selfviews and multiple identities. The organization, then, is to be Wlderstood as an arbitrary boundary around a set of spheres of meaning that overlap and interact.Index

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