This thesis explores the lived experience of those with Bipolar Disorder type I or type II condition. The aim is to delineate how individuals cope following the diagnosis of this chronic, recurrent mental illness. Twenty participants were interviewed in depth, producing 18 hours of recordings and 480 pages of transcript. Narrative data were thematically analysed to reveal themes common to the process of adaptation. The exploratory framework identified key elements of the lived experience of bipolar disorder, including: the phenomenology of highs and lows, the role of anxiety in triggering episodes, reactions to diagnosis, and issues with prescribed medications. Analyses highlighted how difficult it is for individuals to reconcile themselves to the symptoms and consequences of the illness, and also illustrated the extent of subjective distress and reduced quality of life incurred. The psychosocial burden, particularly the difficulties developing a sense of authenticity and coherent identity, and having to adjust life goals, were examined in detail. Negative coping behaviours, specifically the use of alcohol and drugs, as well as the influence of shame and guilt on peoples??? coping repertoires were also explored. Finally, the importance of psychosocial interventions, collaborative health care strategies and necessity for long-term, follow-up care were emphasised.

<p>In this thesis the theoretical framework student ownership of learning (SOL) is developed both theoretically and with qualitative research, based on studies of small-group work in physics with miniprojects and context rich problems. Ownership is finally defined as actions of choice and control, i.e. the realised opportunities to own organisation of the work. The dimension group ownership of learning refers to the groups’ actions of choice and control of the management of the task: how the task is determined, performed and finally reported. The other dimension, the individual student ownership of learning, refers to the individual student's own question/idea that comes from own experiences, interests, or anomalies of understanding; an idea/question that recurs several times and leads to new insights. From literature and from own data, categories are constructed for group and individual student ownership of learning, which have been iteratively sharpened in order to identify ownership in these two dimensions. As a consequence, the use of the framework student ownership of learning is a way to identify an optimal level of ownership for better learning and higher motivation in physics teaching.</p><p>The first part of the thesis gives an overview of the theoretical background to the studies made, and summarises the findings. The second part consists of six articles that report case studies with analyses of audio/video-recorded student cooperative work, and student group discussions, from three collections of data: 1) students working with miniprojects in teacher education, 2) upper secondary school students taking a physics course that includes both context rich problems with group discussions and miniprojects, and 3), aeronautical engineering students working with context rich problems in an introductory physics course at university.</p><p>The thesis describes in a fine-grained analysis the conversation in the groups based on Barnes discourse moves, and finds that ownership and communication are related. Group discussions are found to be an indicator for group ownership of learning and exploratory talks often promotes individual student ownership of learning.</p>

In this thesis the theoretical framework student ownership of learning (SOL) is developed both theoretically and with qualitative research, based on studies of small-group work in physics with miniprojects and context rich problems. Ownership is finally defined as actions of choice and control, i.e. the realised opportunities to own organisation of the work. The dimension group ownership of learning refers to the groups’ actions of choice and control of the management of the task: how the task is determined, performed and finally reported. The other dimension, the individual student ownership of learning, refers to the individual student's own question/idea that comes from own experiences, interests, or anomalies of understanding; an idea/question that recurs several times and leads to new insights. From literature and from own data, categories are constructed for group and individual student ownership of learning, which have been iteratively sharpened in order to identify ownership in these two dimensions. As a consequence, the use of the framework student ownership of learning is a way to identify an optimal level of ownership for better learning and higher motivation in physics teaching. The first part of the thesis gives an overview of the theoretical background to the studies made, and summarises the findings. The second part consists of six articles that report case studies with analyses of audio/video-recorded student cooperative work, and student group discussions, from three collections of data: 1) students working with miniprojects in teacher education, 2) upper secondary school students taking a physics course that includes both context rich problems with group discussions and miniprojects, and 3), aeronautical engineering students working with context rich problems in an introductory physics course at university. The thesis describes in a fine-grained analysis the conversation in the groups based on Barnes discourse moves, and finds that ownership and communication are related. Group discussions are found to be an indicator for group ownership of learning and exploratory talks often promotes individual student ownership of learning.

This research attempt, as its title witnesses, aims to build interdisciplinary approaches and to bridge gaps within management. Management and more specific, management of industrial organizations is a scientific discipline that consists of many different fields of interest. In industrial organizations, different parties of people, such as managers, engineers and workers are asked to communicate and collaborate towards common organizational targets and goals. This is were this research finds fertile ground, and tries to bridge the gaps between the quality management philosophy and corporate culture and the evolving, value adding functions and processes of logistics. In particular, the gaps between quality management and logistics were bridged by a demonstration of the applicability of quality management practices –tools and methodologies- in a logistics context. This was conducted by an extensive exploratory research by means literature analysis of both management disciplines. The present situation, put in academic literature, was investigated and thoughtful reflections and suggestions for further use of quality management practices within logistics were provided. All the quality management tools and methodologies examined were found, with one or another way, to be employed in logistics processes. Numerous examples demonstrating the universality of quality management concepts and techniques were identified. When it comes to the specific management area of logistics, eight quality management practices were found particularly useful, with three of them, namely Service Quality, SPC and Benchmarking to be well known, and to some extent, mature within logistics. However, empirical research, of qualitative and quantitative nature, is needed to confirm the trends recognized here. The suggestions and reflections provided throughout this work indicate actions to be taken by logistics managers, in order to apply well known and widely accepted, cost saving and quality improvement, practices to their operations. In addition, these suggestions and their potential, constitute a challenging field for further research were new, applicable to logistics, quality management tools and methodologies can be found and ones that already exist can be enhanced. The originality of this work can be found in that it thesis tries to bring conceptually closer two management areas that although have many values in common are not perceived as working on the same track, towards the same goals. This research adds value in the way that illustrates, in an extensive and formal way, that there should be no barriers within management.

High accessibility to internet technology and popularization of focus media has given rise to various emerging subcultures among the younger generation who constantly seek novelty and unique lifestyles. The Otaku subculture is one such adolescent subculture, a culture of avid ACG (animation, comic, games) collectors, while pop music fans belong to another youth subculture deeply involved in gathering and tracking the lives and performances of pop music stars. As the adolescent is becoming the most purchasing power consumer group of fashion product, this research aims at comparing the traits of the above two adolescent subcultures and their influences on buying behavior tendencies toward subculture-specific merchandises. This research is also attempting to develop an analytical model through comparison of two studies. The research framework is constructed based on the assumption that the traits of adolescent subcultures influence the subculture-specific consumptions and is examined on two studies of Otaku and pop music fans subcultures respectively. The same investigation methods are applied in two studies. First, the review of prior studies and findings of focus group interview with sample of five representative adolescents were integrated into a tentative model. Then, the questionnaire was developed based on the tentative model and the focus group interview findings, and sample of survey in two studies are 105 and 101 respectively. Survey data were examined by factor analysis and structural equation modeling for the verification of the tentative model, and finally a revised model is developed based on comparison of two studies results. Results show that the personality, values and lifestyle of subculture¡¦s main traits dimensions influence their buying behavior, although the Otaku and pop music fans take part in different activities and embrace different personality traits and values. The results also verify a feasible generalized analytical model for measuring the influences of the traits of specific adolescent subcultures on their buying behavior. This research offers some implications for consumer behavior and marketing communication including (1) comprehensive customer investigation is needed to understand what adolescents think and want; (2) providing attractive content and (3) adopting modern media to attract and access adolescent subculture group; (4) marketing communication appeals should match adolescents self-images to get their identification; and (5) providing total subculture solution in integrated marketing programs.

In this highly competitive environment, innovation seems to be the inevitable challenge to every company. The employees within the companies have become the key point for the companies to be innovative. So how do these companies use human resource management practices to promote innovation capabilities? In this thesis, the study will explore the relationship between human resource management practices and innovation capabilities and as well as the relationship between innovation capabilities and organizational performance. In addition, the business strategy as the moderator is also discussed. This thesis is conducted through opinion survey. This study gathered 86 valid questionnaires replied by the directors of research and development department in each company and the findings of this thesis can be summarized as follows: 1.Training and teamwork impact the exploratory innovation positively. 2.Recruitment, career system and employee participation impact the exploratory innovation positively. 3.Performance reward impacts the exploitative innovation positively. Performance appraisal does not have evident impact on exploitative innovation. 4.Recruitment, career system and employee participation impact the exploitative innovation positively. 5.Exploratory and exploitative innovations impact the organizational performance positively. 6.Business strategy does not have evident moderating effect.

<p>When systematically adopting a CASE (Computer-Aided Software Engineering) tool, an organisation evaluates candidate tools against a framework of requirements, and selects the most suitable tool for usage. A method, called 2G, has been proposed that aims at developing such frameworks based on the needs of a specific organisation.</p><p>This method includes a pilot evaluation phase, where state-of-the-art CASE-tools are explored with the aim of gaining more understanding of the requirements that the organisation adopting CASE-tools puts on candidate tools. This exploration results in certain output data, parts of which are used in interviews to discuss the findings of the tool exploration with the organisation. This project has focused on identifying the characteristics of these data, and subsequently to hypothesise a representation of the data, with the aim of providing guidelines for future tool support for the 2G method.</p><p>The approach to reaching this aim was to conduct a case study of a new application of the pilot evaluation phase, which resulted in data that could subsequently be analysed with the aim of identifying characteristics. This resulted in a hypothesised data representation, which was found to fit the data from the conducted application well, although certain situations were identified that the representation might not be able to handle.</p>

<p>This research attempt, as its title witnesses, aims to build interdisciplinary approaches and to bridge gaps within management. Management and more specific, management of industrial organizations is a scientific discipline that consists of many different fields of interest. In industrial organizations, different parties of people, such as managers, engineers and workers are asked to communicate and collaborate towards common organizational targets and goals. This is were this research finds fertile ground, and tries to bridge the gaps between the quality management philosophy and corporate culture and the evolving, value adding functions and processes of logistics.</p><p>In particular, the gaps between quality management and logistics were bridged by a demonstration of the applicability of quality management practices –tools and methodologies- in a logistics context. This was conducted by an extensive exploratory research by means literature analysis of both management disciplines. The present situation, put in academic literature, was investigated and thoughtful reflections and suggestions for further use of quality management practices within logistics were provided.</p><p>All the quality management tools and methodologies examined were found, with one or another way, to be employed in logistics processes. Numerous examples demonstrating the universality of quality management concepts and techniques were identified. When it comes to the specific management area of logistics, eight quality management practices were found particularly useful, with three of them, namely Service Quality, SPC and Benchmarking to be well known, and to some extent, mature within logistics. However, empirical research, of qualitative and quantitative nature, is needed to confirm the trends recognized here.</p><p>The suggestions and reflections provided throughout this work indicate actions to be taken by logistics managers, in order to apply well known and widely accepted, cost saving and quality improvement, practices to their operations. In addition, these suggestions and their potential, constitute a challenging field for further research were new, applicable to logistics, quality management tools and methodologies can be found and ones that already exist can be enhanced.</p><p>The originality of this work can be found in that it thesis tries to bring conceptually closer two management areas that although have many values in common are not perceived as working on the same track, towards the same goals. This research adds value in the way that illustrates, in an extensive and formal way, that there should be no barriers within management.</p>

For many years researchers have been troubled with the evaluation of Information Systems (IS) concluding to a lack of understanding as to the time, methods and tools for measuring the impact of IS on organisational performance. Motivated by this lacuna in the literature, this thesis explored the relationship between Information Systems’ Effectiveness and Organisational Performance. The theoretical framework is based on the Delone and McLean’s (D&M) IS success model which is widely adopted in the IS research. Based on a comprehensive literature review on the older and more recent studies the research framework incorporated several new items used by researchers for the measurement of the D&M dimensions. Following a web survey on 168 Greek firms this study sheds some light into the IS field by focusing on how IS effectiveness measures affect Organisational Performance. Data for this study was collected by means of a web-link questionnaire and a sample of 700 companies of different sizes operating in various industries. Many descriptive statistics of academic and managerial importance were produced. Following a correlation analysis and Exploratory Factor Analysis, 15 factors were used for Multiple Regression analysis conducted to test a number of hypotheses around the relationship between the dependent construct (organisational performance) and the independent construct (IS effectiveness). This thesis contributes to existing research in the following ways. First, this study extends our knowledge on IS effectiveness as we adapted and modified DeLone and McLean's model of IS success to incorporate new variables from recent research. The results indicate a significant statistical link between IS effectiveness and performance measures. Second, it provides a holistic framework for measuring Organisational Performance with financial and non-financial variables. Finally, the study presents findings from Greek companies that have adopted IS providing practioners with advice for the practices that can lead to possible and realistic benefits.

Health literacy involves basic reading and numeracy, allowing people to function as health care consumers, reading, understanding, evaluating and using information in health documents. For thirty years, the gap between the reading level of most of the public, eighth grade, and the reading level of most written health information, above the tenth grade, has been perceived to prevent people from comprehending health instructions or educating themselves about health conditions.This study examined comprehension of health materials, using print environmental public health information about relatively obscure aspects of arsenic and ultraviolet light contamination. The research question was "to what extent are print materials for environmental health promotion comprehensible by the target audience of readers at the eighth grade reading level?" This study tested a hypothesis that materials written at the seventh grade level would be more comprehensible than those written at the twelfth grade level for individuals with an average reading level.Materials were located, assessed for reading level, rewritten to the seventh grade reading level, and vetted by environmental health experts. The mean reading level of the participants was eighth grade. The study used a pretest / posttest design with follow up interviews to asses some participants' perception of the reading materials and test. Data was analyzed using repeat measures ANOVA and content analysis.Contrary to anticipated results, the study showed when people with average reading ability read twelfth grade material, they were able to comprehend it as well as they did seventh-grade material. Two follow-up interviews provided anecdotal evidence indicating people with an average reading level would not voluntarily choose to read the twelfth grade material.Although the results of this small exploratory study found individuals, with average reading levels, can read and comprehend written information about environmental health topics, health literacy professionals cannot stop being concerned about the perceived mismatch between the reading levels of American adults and reading levels of environmental health information. It is important to undertake additional studies to better understand how much of an encumbrance hard-to-read information may be placing on individuals with a need to know about environmental hazards and their health.