We relate various restrictions of a quantitative logic to subclasses of weighted tree automata. The subclasses are defined by the level of ambiguity allowed in the automata. This yields a generalization of the results by Stephan Kreutzer and Cristian Riveros, who considered the same problem for weighted automata over words. Along the way we also prove that a finitely ambiguous weighted tree automaton can be decomposed into unambiguous ones and define and analyze polynomial ambiguity for tree automata.

Strategic Ambiguity: U.S. Policy Towards Taiwan since 1987 Jana Sehnálková Abstract This dissertation focuses on U.S.-Taiwan relations in the context of U.S.-China relations. It examines the development of mutual ties since the end of the 1980s when Taiwan started its transition towards democracy, which changed the dynamics of the relationship among Washington, Beijing, and Taipei. The dissertation also analyzes which events and issues impacted the development of mutual relations and examines U.S. reaction to such phenomena. These include, for example, the Beijing Massacre of 1989, Taiwan Strait crisis of 1995-1996, or the rise of China, which influenced the position, politics, and international space of Taiwan and with which the United States has to cope. The dissertation particularly focuses on the following questions: What motivates the United States to continue its support of Taiwan? How does Beijing react to such support and how does this impact the U.S.-China relations? The analysis concludes that the United States continuing support for Taiwan is motivated by ideological and strategic goals. Using the analytical frame of "pivotal deterrence", the dissertation shows that the United States takes a pivotal position and by its careful balancing between the PRC and Taiwan, Washington supports the existing...

Workplace stress has been found to be a causal agent of psychological distress consequences in employees. Chronic stressors have been well researched, in particular, role conflict, role ambiguity, and work overload have been extensively studied. A meta-analysis was conducted in order to aggregate past research to gain a better understanding of the impact these stressors have on the psychological distress consequences of depression, tension/anxiety, somatic complaints, and generalized feelings of stress. Only role ambiguity was found to be a significant contributor to psychological distress, in particular to feelings of depression and stress. In general, however, effect sizes for all three stressors were moderate to large. While chronic stressors have been well researched, acute stressors have been widely overlooked. Since research in this area is limited, the Daily Work Hassles Survey was developed and validated in order to analyze the role daily hassles play in the workplace. The survey yielded two factors, Interpersonal Hassles and Task Hassles. The former of which was found to be significantly related to the distress consequences of depression, tension/anxiety, somatic complaints, and general feelings of stress. The ultimate goal of this project was to compare chronic and acute stressors. Results from the daily hassles study were contrasted to the results of the aforementioned meta-analysis. It was found that the chronic stressors of role ambiguity, role conflict, and overload are significantly greater predictors of selected distress consequences than the acute factors of Interpersonal Hassles and Task Hassles. However, when somatic complaints was employed as the dependent variable, no significant differences were found between chronic and acute stressors.

Traveling salespeople usually play an integral part in exporting firms’ strategy. However, the Covid-19 pandemic and travel restrictions have forced many businesses to rely on digital communication technologies for communication with distant customers and partners they usually would meet with in person. For collaborative relationships to function well, both parties must be able to understand and make sense of each other, which is why the sensemaking process has been a topic of interest. An aspect laid forth by research as a potentially prominent issue in inter-cultural relationships is ambiguity and misunderstandings, for which previous research has underlined two main mechanisms to mitigate ambiguity and misunderstandings, formalization, and socialization. However, this research has been conducted in a context where both in-person and digital communication has been available options. This qualitative study aims to examine export sellers' perception of sensemaking, misunderstandings, and ambiguity when relying on digital communication through semi-structured interviews. This paper's result suggests that digital communication tended to be more formal than in-person communication and that relying solely on digital communication has imposed significant challenges for establishing a new relationship while being less problematic to maintaining relationships.

Recognizing when we need more information and asking clarifying questions are integral to communication in our day to day life. It helps us complete our mental model of the world and eliminate confusion. Chatbots need this technique to meaningfully collaborate with humans. We have investigated a process to generate an automated system that mimics human communication behavior using knowledge graphs, weights, an ambiguity test, and a response generator. It can take input dialog text and based on the chatbot's knowledge about the world and the user it can decide if it has enough information or if it requires more. Based on that decision, the chatbot generates a dialog output text which can be an answer if a question is asked, a statement if there are no doubts or if there is any ambiguity, it generates a clarifying question. The effectiveness of these features has been backed up by an empirical study which suggests that they are very useful in a chatbot not only for crucial information retrial but also for keeping the flow and context of the conversation intact.

Organizational culture is a widely known concept and is something that has increasingly become a subject of importance as many argue for its relation to an organization’s overall performance and business. The idea for this study was born in the context of the global COVID-19 pandemic that broke out during the year of 2020. The authors’ interest in the subject of organizational culture and the identified lack of research on the area culminated in the research question to what extent does remote work affect organizational culture? The aim with our study was to deepen our knowledge on remote work and its effects on culture because of the widespread discussion on a more flexible attitude towards it even after the COVID-19 pandemic. The theoretical framework in this study was based on a three- perspective-approach that consists of three different perspectives on how to study organizational culture. The research was based on a qualitative case study and nine semi- structured interviews were conducted. The results showed that organizational culture has been affected by remote work to some extent. The authors suggest future research on the subject with a similar study, but at a later point in time to be able to conclude the more long term and permanent effects of remote work on organizational culture.

Background: Due to the increased knowledge gaps that originate from rapid technological change, many organizations are in need of consulting services. As of this, the consulting market has had rapid growth, which has caught the attention of scholars. Previous research has identified an interface between knowledge and identity as two prominent concepts when analyzing the client-consultant relationship. Despite this, there is still a great lack of empirical insights regarding how these two concepts might affect this relationship. Purpose: The purpose of the study was to explore knowledge transfer within the client-consultant relationship by applying the lens of role identity. Furthermore, the research aimed to increase the understanding of the barriers to knowledge transfer, where they originate from,and how to overcome them. Method: This research is of a qualitative sort, where abductive reasoning has been applied in order to fulfill our research purpose. Furthermore, a single case study approach was conducted and data was gathered from interviews with both consultants and clients. The gathered data was analyzed by using grounded analysis, where insights have been identified by creating 1st order concepts, 2nd order themes and aggregated dimensions. Conclusion: The result of this study indicates that different idiosyncratic and conventional role identity meanings create mismatches within the client-consultant relationship. The concept of role identity ambiguity creates barriers for securing knowledge transfer within the client-consultant relationship, and knowledge transfer outcomes affect future role identity meanings. The result of this study contributes to already existing literature regarding role identity, knowledge transfer and the client-consultant relationship. Furthermore, the study presents managerial implications that will increase consultants' understanding of the barriers and suggestions for how to overcome them.

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Since the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act of 2004, special and general educators teach together in many classrooms. Co-teachers are subject to a variety of stressors, including role challenges for teachers who are accustomed to working independently. Research has shown that role ambiguity and role conflict are associated with burnout among special and general educators. However, no prior study has examined whether these role factors contribute to burnout among special and general educators in co-teaching roles. This study was based upon role stress theory in relation to the constructs of burnout. The sample included 72 special educators and 73 general educators who co-taught at 8 urban elementary schools. Participants completed the Role Conflict and Role Ambiguity Scales and the 3 scales of the MBI-ES. Multiple regression analyses were performed to examine the relationship of role ambiguity and role conflict (independent variables) to each of the burnout scales (dependent variables). Each dependent variable was analyzed separately, as were data from special and general educators. Therefore, data analysis consisted of 6 separate regressions. The regression analyses indicated that role ambiguity was significantly related to personal accomplishment in both special and general education co-teachers while emotional exhaustion was significantly related to role conflict in both special and general education co-teachers. This information may lead to improved understanding of the factors contributing to burnout among co-teachers and to the design of appropriate interventions to address this problem.

The behavior of the electric and magnetic fields in the upper atmosphere of the Earth is scientifically interesting but difficult to study, since balloons and aircraft are unable to fly high enough to measure it directly. Sounding rockets, which make a one-time flight carrying instruments that measure the environment around them, have been successfully used to study the upper atmosphere. As the rocket flies through the upper atmosphere, it radios down data about the environment. When scientists on the ground use this data to construct a picture of the upper atmosphere, they run into a problem: the fields reported by the rocket change over time, but it is not clear whether this is because these fields are actually changing in time, or just because the rocket has moved to a different place where the fields are different. This inability to determine whether changes are happening in time or space is called the temporal-spatial ambiguity. This thesis describes the Auroral Spatial Structures Probe (ASSP), a sounding rocket mission that attempts to resolve the temporal-spatial ambiguity by using multiple payloads flying in formation. Several payloads will pass through and measure the same point in space one after another, which will enable us to see how the fields are changing over time.