Thesis advisor: Hiroshi Nakazato / Microcredit has been praised and criticized for its reputation as the solution to global poverty—helping the poor help themselves. The economists have focused on the impossibility of a sustainable microfinance system, whereas other scholars have commended the social advancements that MFIs have supported, especially in relation to gender inequality. This conceptual thesis specifically studies the effects of microfinance institutions on women’s empowerment—first defining ‘empowerment’ and then observing it in various case studies. My research supports the conclusion that microfinance is a useful economic aid and more importantly it spearheads the fight for women’s rights. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2011. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: International Studies Honors Program. / Discipline: International Studies.

Education is a key component of empowerment and has a significant impact on the economic and social development in any country. People who have intellectual disabilities are usually marginalized because they are considered limited in their abilities to contribute to the enhancement of the social and economic development in a country. The purpose of the research study was explore the perceptions of teachers and primary care-givers regarding strategies for empowering children with intellectual disabilities. The research design was qualitative in nature and a phenomenological methodology was adopted. Purposive sampling was used to recruit research participants from two primary schools for children with special needs in Katlehong on the East Rand. The sample size was twenty research participants; ten teachers and ten primary care-givers. The data gathered was analysed using Thematic Content Analysis. Results indicated that both teachers and primary care-givers are experiencing challenges empowering these children. Teachers require support, equipment and training to develop skills needed to address the educational needs. Primary care-givers need to be educated regarding how to support the educational programmes presented to their children, and encouraged to become personally involved in the educational lives of their children. The conclusion reached is that teachers’ efforts to empower children with intellectual disabilities are being obstructed due to many factors. Their voices need to be heard by the Department of Education on what strategies they perceive as being effective to empower children with intellectual disabilities. The primary care-givers need to gain a better understanding of concept ‘intellectual disability’ so that they can stimulate and support efforts made by the school to empower them.

Bakgrund: I samma stund som statistik gällande skärmtid släpps blir den inaktuell. Användandet av skärmar ökar i dagens samhälle och går allt längre ner i åldrarna. Skärmtid kan ha både positiva och negativa effekter på barnet. Barhälsovårdssjuksköterskan (BHV-sjuksköterskan) träffar föräldrar och barn från tidig ålder och har en stor roll att stötta föräldrarna i deras föräldraroll genom att ge dem rätt verktyg och evidensbaserade rekommendationer. Skärmtiden hos barn ökar och är därför ett viktigt ämne för BHV-sjuksköterskan att samtala med föräldrar om. Syfte: Syftet med studien var att undersöka BHV-sjuksköterskans erfarenheter av att samtala med föräldrar om barns skärmtid. Metod: Den valda metoden var en kvalitativ design med induktiv ansats. Semistrukturerade intervjuer med åtta specialistsjuksköterskor på sex barnavårdscentraler genomfördes för att inhämta data. En kvalitativ innehållsanalys inspirerad av Graneheim och Lundman utfördes av insamlat material. Resultat: Intervjuerna med BHV-sjuksköterskorna resulterade i fyra kategorier och fem underkategorier. Det framkom av BHV-sjuksköterskornas erfarenheter att det var viktigt att stötta och stärka föräldrarna i deras beslut, att ta hjälp av pedagogiskt material underlättar i samtalet. Det framkom även att det var betydelsefullt att samtala med föräldrarna om vikten av andra aktiviteter såsom lek, umgås med varandra och att skärmen inte ska vara en barnvakt. BHV-sjuksköterskorna hade även erfarenhet av att föräldragrupper var ett bra forum att prata om skärmtid. Slutsats: BHV-sjuksköterskans erfarenheter av att samtala med föräldrar om barns skärmtid upplevdes vara ett relativt enkelt samtalsämne, detta tack vare att det fanns bra pedagogiskt material att använda sig av. Det kan vara av betydelse att fler studier inom området görs för att på så vis öka kunskapen gällande ämnet.

by Ma Wing-Kin. / Thesis (M.B.A.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1996. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves [57-58]). / ABSTRACT --- p.ii / TABLE OF CONTENTS --- p.iii / LIST OF TABLES --- p.iv / PREFACE --- p.xxv / Chapter / Chapter I. --- INTRODUCTION --- p.1 / Current Situation Facing Multinational Corporations --- p.1 / Methodology of the Study --- p.19 / Chapter II. --- FINDINGS OF THE SURVEY AND TRENDS IDENTIFIED --- p.24 / General Findings and Analysis --- p.24 / Correlation findings --- p.35 / Chapter III. --- SUMMARY OF TRENDS --- p.43 / Chapter IV. --- RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONCLUSION --- p.46 / APPENDIX --- p.54 / BIBLIOGRAPHY --- p.i

The purpose of this thesis was to investigate whether publiclibraries language cafés can support or enable the empowerment of the participants. Empowerment means that the individuals ability to take control of their own lives is strengthened and that the individual becomes more independent. Empowerment also means that the individual takes part in a community. An important part of this is the language. I have developed two research questions: What forms of empowerment can be seen in the respondents' statements? What role do language cafés play for people from other countries, in terms of empowerment? The thesis empirical material consists of interviews whit five people involved in different languages cafes in public libraries in the city of Malmö. The theory used to analyze the material is the concept of empowerment. Based on this concept, I have selected a few keywords to structure the empirical material, identity and self-confidence, social context and vertical and horizontal empowerment. It was found that language cafés fill an important function for the participants' empowerment regarding language, social context, self-confidence and the opportunity to be part of a community. / Program: Bibliotekarie

In the last 50 years computers have made dramatic progress in their capabilities, but at the same time their failings have demonstrated that we, as designers, do not yet understand the nature of intelligence. Chess playing, for example, was long offered up as an example of the unassailability of the human mind to Artificial Intelligence, but now a chess engine on a smartphone can beat a grandmaster. Yet, at the same time, computers struggle to beat amateur players in simpler games, such as Stratego, where sheer processing power cannot substitute for a lack of deeper understanding. The task of developing that deeper understanding is overwhelming, and has previously been underestimated. There are many threads and all must be investigated. This dissertation explores one of those threads, namely asking the question "How might an artificial agent decide on a sensible course of action, without being told what to do?". To this end, this research builds upon empowerment, a universal utility which provides an entirely general method for allowing an agent to measure the preferability of one state over another. Empowerment requires no explicit goals, and instead favours states that maximise an agent's control over its environment. Several extensions to the empowerment framework are proposed, which drastically increase the array of scenarios to which it can be applied, and allow it to evaluate actions in addition to states. These extensions are motivated by concepts such as bounded rationality, sub-goals, and anticipated future utility. In addition, the novel concept of strategic affinity is proposed as a general method for measuring the strategic similarity between two (or more) potential sequences of actions. It does this in a general fashion, by examining how similar the distribution of future possible states would be in the case of enacting either sequence. This allows an agent to group action sequences, even in an unknown task space, into 'strategies'. Strategic affinity is combined with the empowerment extensions to form soft-horizon empowerment, which is capable of composing action policies in a variety of unknown scenarios. A Pac-Man-inspired prey game and the Gambler's Problem are used to demonstrate this selfmotivated action selection, and a Sokoban inspired box-pushing scenario is used to highlight the capability to pick strategically diverse actions. The culmination of this is that soft-horizon empowerment demonstrates a variety of 'intuitive' behaviours, which are not dissimilar to what we might expect a human to try. This line of thinking demonstrates compelling results, and it is suggested there are a couple of avenues for immediate further research. One of the most promising of these would be applying the self-motivated methodology and strategic affinity method to a wider range of scenarios, with a view to developing improved heuristic approximations that generate similar results. A goal of replicating similar results, whilst reducing the computational overhead, could help drive an improved understanding of how we may get closer to replicating a human-like approach.

Fock Kwong Yin Henry. / "June 2004." / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 196-211). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, MI : ProQuest Information and Learning Company, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, MI : ProQuest dissertations and theses, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / Abstracts in English and Chinese.

En el presente estudio se hablará del empowerment psicológico, una rama que se desprende del empowerment gerencial, cuyo tronco matricial está relacionado a la administración moderna. Con este trabajo se busca establecer relaciones entre el nivel de percepción de empowerment psicológico de los colaboradores administrativos y las variables de sexo y área laboral. Los datos se han obtenido mediante la aplicación del cuestionario multidisciplinar de empowerment modificado, propuesto por Spreitzer (1995), a 83 colaboradores internos de una organización universitaria. Es una investigación de tipo cuantitativa con un alcance exploratorio y descriptivo, se ha utilizado un diseño muestral estratificado con probabilidades proporcionales y selección aleatoria en cada estrato. En cuanto a los resultados obtenidos, se ha encontrado que el nivel de percepción de las dimensiones del significado y competencia mucho depende del valor intrínseco que le da cada uno de los colaboradores y, las dimensiones de autodeterminación, impacto y seguridad influyen en cada una de sus áreas, puesto que depende de lo que éstas les puedan brindar. En cuanto al análisis de la variable sexo, los resultados entre hombre y mujeres son similares, ambos dan importancia a las dimensiones: significado y competencia. Sin embargo existe una baja percepción en el sexo femenino en las dimensiones de autodeterminación, impacto y seguridad. / Tesis

The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of management in organizations and, specifically, look at the overlap between management and leadership with a particular focus on empowerment. With considerations of previous literature, current examples, and a case study interview, this literature seeks to solidify the importance of leadership by managers in the workplace. Furthermore, it seeks to highlight the role of empowerment, presented by the leader and experienced by followers, in creating a thriving workplace built on culture and trust. Lastly, the literature aims to better understand the motivations of the modern employee to provide potential areas of focus that can improve manager and employee relationships. This is an analysis of modern management looking at the effects of leadership, empowerment, and motivation in the workplace.

In recent years, family support partners (FSPs) have been hired to work in the behavioral health care system for the state in which this study was conducted. FSPs are legacy caregivers, meaning they have raised a child with a mental health illness. At the time of this study, there was not a set criterion in the state to measure the effectiveness or benefits of FSPs working with families. The purpose of this quantitative, correlational study was to determine whether a caregiver's level of empowerment, as measured by the Family Empowerment Scale (FES), was increased through working with an FSP. Social learning theory provided the framework for the study. Survey data were collected from 93 caregivers using the FES. Simultaneous multiple regression analysis was conducted to examine the predictive relationship between the caregiver's gender, age, ethnicity, length of time as a caregiver of a child or youth with a mental health illness, and length of time the caregiver worked with an FSP, and the level of caregiver empowerment on the family, service system, and community/political levels. On the family level, caregiver age and length of time the caregiver worked with an FSP were statistically significant predictors. On the service system level, length of time the caregiver worked with an FSP was a statistically significant predictor. On the community/political level, caregiver age, ethnicity, and length of time the caregiver worked with an FSP were statistically significant predictors. Length of time the caregiver worked with an FSP was the only variable shown to be statistically significant on all 3 levels. Findings may be used to support peer specialists in the state this study was conducted and other states, not only in the mental health field, but in additional fields as well.