<p><strong>Sammanfattning</strong></p><p>Problemformulering: Vilka upplevda effekter har belöningssystem på agent- och principalproblem i en ledningsgrupp i svenska medelstora familjeföretag och hur är de uppbyggda?</p><p>Syfte: Syftet är att undersöka hur uppbyggandet av belöningssystem till ledningsgruppen egentligen ser ut i svenska medelstora familjeföretag och vilka upplevda effekter det har på agent- och principalproblemen.</p><p>Metod: Uppsatsen är en kvalitativ studie med en deduktiv ansats. Vi ger en överblick på hur vi har diskuterat oss fram till valen av metoderna samt det värde de tillför uppsatsen.</p><p>Teoretisk referensram: I kapitlet presenterar vi tillämpning av teorier, begrepp och modeller som används i studien. Vi ger en förklaring på begreppen som rör studier om familjeföretag, agent- och principalteorin, belöningssystem och deras samverkan med varandra. Dessa mynnar senare ut i en övergripande modell som förklarar vår problemformulering. Den teoretiska referensramen ligger senare till grund för analysen av det empiriska materialet.</p><p>Empirisk metod: I kapitlet förklarar vi hur undersökningen och insamlandet av material har gått till på ett metodiskt empiriskt sätt. I kapitlet presenteras de delaktiga företagen, tillvägagångssätt och urvalsramen. Datamaterialet består av en primär karaktär som skapats via intervjuerna.</p><p>Empirisk referensram: Här presenteras insamlad fakta utifrån våra djupintervjuer med respondenterna.</p><p>Slutsats: Studien visar att belöningssystemets uppbyggnad och upplevda effekter i en ledningsgrupp är starkt beroende på graden av upplevda agent- och principalproblem. De altruistiska motiven i familjeföretag är för utbredda för att helt och hållet elimineras.</p><p><em> </em></p>

<p>Mitt syfte har varit att utreda vad som motiverar fastighetsmäklaren i sin yrkesroll samt att utreda hur dess chefer bedömer medarbetarnas motivation och dess påverkan för arbetsprestationen. Jag har använt flera teorier som kunnat kopplats till empirins resultat. Några av de slutsatser som framkommit är bland annat att motivationsfaktorer varierar beroende på individ och därmed fastighetsmäklare. Nöjda kunder, trivsel på arbetsplatsen, varierade arbetsuppgifter och en god lön har dock uppkommit vara betydande motiverande faktorer för mäklarna. Cheferna bör skapa en bättre dialog med mäklarna för att öka medvetenheten kring medarbetarnas motivationsfaktorer. På så sätt elimineras risken att cheferna utgår från egna motivationsfaktorer snarare än medarbetarnas.</p> / <p>My purpose with this study has been to investigate what it is that motivate an estate agent and to investigate how the directors estimate the co-workers motivation and its influence on performance. I have hold to several theories that I could connect to the empirical result. Motivation factors vary depending on each individual and therefore estate agent. Satisfied customers, comfort at work, vary tasks and a good salary seems to be significant motivation factors for the estate agents. The directors should create a better dialogue with the estate agents to increase the wariness of the co-workers motivation factors. On that way the directors eliminate the risk that they assume their own motivation factors rather than the co-workers.</p>

<p>The aim of this paper is to see if Sweden has implemented the recommendations and taken notice of the guidelines for employment that the Commission and Council set up every year and from this see the role of the Commission and Council for the national employment politics. The years that I focused on in the paper are year 2000- 2004. The method that is used is a case study research that is exploratory and explanatory. The theoretical starting points are theories about delegation, cooperation and a variation of control and autonomy. This is recognized in the Principal- Agent theory and the Principal- Supervisor-Agent model. The Council and the Commission give recommendations and guidelines every year to the member states that points out what should be done for the employment. The member states can choose to implement the recommendations and guidelines or not. In other words is it not mandatory. The result of the paper is that Sweden has implemented and taken notice of to the recommendations and guidelines that the Council and the Commission gave to Sweden during year 2000- 2004, yet I argue that there have been differences to which extend the implementation has taken place.</p>

During the course of this work we have synthesized and evaluated a series of new enantiopure silyl triflmides as catalysts for asymmetric reactions. 3-Phenyl dialkylsilyl ketones, which were the key precursors to the target silyl triflmides were prepared by 1,4-addition of the corresponding silyl cuprate to enones, and resolved by chiral HPLC. Enantiopure trans silyl ketones were successfully reduced via the corresponding tosylhydrazones by the NaBH3CN/ZnCl2 system. However, due to an isomerization of the tosylhydrazone during the reaction, cis isomers (m = 0) were reduced via the corresponding dithioketals followed by desulfurization. The diastereoselective synthesis of enantiopure silyl triflimides from enantiomerically pure compounds has been also studied. The enantiopure trialkylsilyl triflimides were generated in situ by protodesilylation of the corresponding phenylsilanes with bis-(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide. The Diels-Alder reaction of methyl acrylate with cyclopentadiene was used as the model reaction for testing the new chiral catalysts : 1) Almost all silyl triflimides were efficient catalysts giving high yields and excellent diastereoselectivities in favour of the endo-isomer. 2) the best ee's (up to 56%) were obtained from catalysts carrying an aryl group directly attached to the cyclohexane ring (m = 0) which were much better than those obtained from catalysts carrying a benzyl-type group (m = 1). Interestingly catalysts of the same configuration carrying phenyl or naphthyl group gave cycloadducts of opposite configuration. 3) When m = 0, additional substituents at position-3 or 6 of the cyclohexyl ring had little influence on the ee. However, for m = 1, a methyl group at C2 increased the ee from 3% to 35%. 4) The replacement of the methyl groups connected to the silicon atom by bulkier ethyl groups decreased the ee (m = 0). 5) When m = 0, ee's for cycloaddition reactions of N,N-dimethyl acrylamide or acryloxazolidinone with cyclopentadiene were lower than those obtained with methyl acrylate.

In large multiagent games, partial observability, coordination, and credit assignment persistently plague attempts to design good learning algorithms. We provide a simple and efficient algorithm that in part uses a linear system to model the world from a single agent’s limited perspective, and takes advantage of Kalman filtering to allow an agent to construct a good training signal and effectively learn a near-optimal policy in a wide variety of settings. A sequence of increasingly complex empirical tests verifies the efficacy of this technique. / Singapore-MIT Alliance (SMA)

Research in mobile ad-hoc networks has focused on situations in which nodes have no control over their movements. We investigate an important but overlooked domain in which nodes do have control over their movements. Reinforcement learning methods can be used to control both packet routing decisions and node mobility, dramatically improving the connectivity of the network. We first motivate the problem by presenting theoretical bounds for the connectivity improvement of partially mobile networks and then present superior empirical results under a variety of different scenarios in which the mobile nodes in our ad-hoc network are embedded with adaptive routing policies and learned movement policies.

In this thesis I present a language for instructing a sheet of identically-programmed, flexible, autonomous agents (``cells'') to assemble themselves into a predetermined global shape, using local interactions. The global shape is described as a folding construction on a continuous sheet, using a set of axioms from paper-folding (origami). I provide a means of automatically deriving the cell program, executed by all cells, from the global shape description. With this language, a wide variety of global shapes and patterns can be synthesized, using only local interactions between identically-programmed cells. Examples include flat layered shapes, all plane Euclidean constructions, and a variety of tessellation patterns. In contrast to approaches based on cellular automata or evolution, the cell program is directly derived from the global shape description and is composed from a small number of biologically-inspired primitives: gradients, neighborhood query, polarity inversion, cell-to-cell contact and flexible folding. The cell programs are robust, without relying on regular cell placement, global coordinates, or synchronous operation and can tolerate a small amount of random cell death. I show that an average cell neighborhood of 15 is sufficient to reliably self-assemble complex shapes and geometric patterns on randomly distributed cells. The language provides many insights into the relationship between local and global descriptions of behavior, such as the advantage of constructive languages, mechanisms for achieving global robustness, and mechanisms for achieving scale-independent shapes from a single cell program. The language suggests a mechanism by which many related shapes can be created by the same cell program, in the manner of D'Arcy Thompson's famous coordinate transformations. The thesis illuminates how complex morphology and pattern can emerge from local interactions, and how one can engineer robust self-assembly.

Most Artificial Intelligence (AI) work can be characterized as either ``high-level'' (e.g., logical, symbolic) or ``low-level'' (e.g., connectionist networks, behavior-based robotics). Each approach suffers from particular drawbacks. High-level AI uses abstractions that often have no relation to the way real, biological brains work. Low-level AI, on the other hand, tends to lack the powerful abstractions that are needed to express complex structures and relationships. I have tried to combine the best features of both approaches, by building a set of programming abstractions defined in terms of simple, biologically plausible components. At the ``ground level'', I define a primitive, perceptron-like computational unit. I then show how more abstract computational units may be implemented in terms of the primitive units, and show the utility of the abstract units in sample networks. The new units make it possible to build networks using concepts such as long-term memories, short-term memories, and frames. As a demonstration of these abstractions, I have implemented a simulator for ``creatures'' controlled by a network of abstract units. The creatures exist in a simple 2D world, and exhibit behaviors such as catching mobile prey and sorting colored blocks into matching boxes. This program demonstrates that it is possible to build systems that can interact effectively with a dynamic physical environment, yet use symbolic representations to control aspects of their behavior.

Macroalgae are an important part of the coral reef ecosystem that has largely been overlooked. However, in the past few decades their abundances have increased and this has been attributed to combinations of coral mortality opening up space in the reef, decreased grazing and increased nutrient load in reefs. This dissertation illustrates a novel means of investigating the effect of various growth and disturbance factors on the dynamics of macroalgae at three different levels (individual, population and 3-species community). Macroalgae are modular and clonal organisms that have differing morphologies depending on the environment to which they are exposed. These traits were exploited in order to understand the factors that were acting on the dominant and common macroalgae in the Florida Reef Tract: Halimeda tuna, Halimeda opuntia and Dictyota sp. The agent-based model SPREAD (SPatially-explicit REef Algae Dynamics) was developed to incorporate the key morphogenetic characteristics of clonality and morphological plasticity. It revolves around the iteration of macroalgal module production in response to light, temperature, nutrients, and space availability, while fragmentation is the source for mortality or new individuals. These processes build the individual algae then the population. The model was parameterized through laboratory experiments, existing literature and databases and results were compared to independently collected field data from four study sites in the Florida Keys. SPREAD was run using a large range of light, temperature, nutrient and disturbance (fragmentation without survival) levels and yielded six morphological types for Halimeda tuna, and two each for Halimeda opuntia and Dictyota sp. The model morphological types that matched those measured in two inshore patch reefs (Cheeca Patch and Coral Gardens) and two offshore spur and groove reefs (Little Grecian and French Reef), were formed in conditions that were similar to the environmental (light, nutrient and disturbance) conditions in the field sites. There were also differences between species in the important factors that influenced their morphologies, wherein H. opuntia and Dictyota were more affected by disturbance than growth factors, while H. tuna morphology was affected by both. Allowing for fragmentation with survival in the model resulted in significantly higher population abundances (percent cover and density). The highest abundances were achieved under high fragment survival probabilities and a high disturbance level (but not large fragment sizes). Incorporating fragmentation with survival and simulating the variations in light, nutrients and disturbance between the inshore patch reefs and offshore spur and groove reefs in SPREAD led to comparable abundances of Halimeda in the virtual reef sites. Adding competition for space and light and epiphytism by Dictyota on the two Halimeda species suggests that it can regulate the populations of the three macroalgae. However, comparing model abundances to the field, competition may not be a strong regulating force for H. tuna in all the sites and H. opuntia in the patch reefs. H. opuntia in the offshore reefs is possibly competitively regulated. Although SPREAD was not able to capture the patterns in the population abundance of Dictyota, this points to the potential importance of other morphometrics not captured by the model, a variation in growth curves between reef habitats, or the differential contribution of sexual reproduction.

The focus of this study was to look at relationship between polydispersity caused by high pressure homogenization and molecular weight dependent antimicrobial activity of chitosan. It has been shown that chitosan has antimicrobial activity against bacteria, fungi, and viruses. Chitosan is obtained by partial de-N-acetylation of chitin which, consists of a ß 1-4 copolymer of glucosamine and N-acetylglucosamine residues. In this experiment we compared chitosan of sixteen different molecular weights after being processed through a high pressure homogenizer. Processed chitosan (420 kDa average molecular weight, 30% of acetylation) was dissolved in a 1% (v/v) acetic acid in water to a final concentration of 1% (w/v) and apparent viscosity of 183 MPa. The chitosan solution was passed through a high pressure homogenizer with 0-5 passes at pressure levels 0, 100, 200, and 300 MPa. After processing, the chitosan acetate was investigated to determine the effect on polydispersity in terms of molecular weight and the antimicrobial properties of chitosan at different molecular weights. All compounds were tested against Escherichia coli K-12 to determine antimicrobial activity. There is growing interest in the application of chitosan in food industry due to its wide range of desirable properties including being non-toxic and biodegradability. However, as a hydrophobic material, it is very challenging to work with. Though chitosan is a challenge to work my findings indicated a strong antimicrobial relationship with chitosan at 1% concentration with a molecular weight of 200 kDa and lower against E. coli. In conclusion chitosan has viable application with a variety of foods and can be used as a preservative that decrease bacterial activity below detection level’s and helps to prolong shelf-stable products.