In this study, the relationship between essentialism, religious beliefs, and views of change was investigated. Participants were given surveys containing three sets of items and a demographic questionnaire. Item sets included the Intrinsic/Extrinsic-Revised Scale of Religiosity, the Essentialist Belief Scales, and the Change Vignettes. Results indicated those with gradualist religious views were not more likely to endorse essentialist views when compared to those with conversionist views. Those who essentialized at high levels were not less likely to endorse the possibility of change in comparison to those who essentialized at lower levels. Participants with high levels of extrinsic religiosity were not more likely to demonstrate essentialist beliefs as compared to those with low levels of extrinsic religiosity. In addition, individuals did not view change as more plausible as they were determined to be more intrinsically religious. No relationship was found between religious affiliation and views of change or measures of essentialist thought. Those belonging to Fundamentalists and Liberalist denominational groups were found to be similar in regard to beliefs about change, and essentialism, as well as intrinsic and extrinsic religiosity. Those classified as Others were significantly different from Fundamentalist and Liberalists, excluding ratings of the importance of good deeds.

Introduction: From the start-up, the Internet has allowed easier, cheaper and more widespread communication between different parties. New ways in conducting business have emerged thanks to the Internet, such as Crowdsourcing. Crowdsourcing makes an open call to a group of peers, where the peers contribute to a final product. However, motivating these peers could be troublesome. Thus, there is a question in how to engage a crowd to participate in Crowdsourcing in order to create some sort of exchange to strive for a mutually beneficial relationship that makes the crowd willing to participate in Crowdsourcing. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to find how different motivating factors affect Participation in explicit Crowdsourcing. Methods: The design of the research conducted in this thesis was a quantitative survey that investigated motivating factors for the members of the company Company X. The survey was sent out threw Company X own site to their members and there were 82 complete answers collected. However, only 73 questionnaires were analyzable due to previous participation. The results gathered from the survey were analyzed with the help of seven hypotheses. Results: Monetary Awards, the Challenge of Problem Solving, and Peer Pressure were found to have a positive effect on Participation. Attention, Recognition, and the Ability of completing a Problem Solving process indicated that there are tendencies of a positive relationship with Participation, but it was not possible to draw any conclusions from these concepts. The results also indicated that having a Competition, or competitive environment could have a negative effect on Participation. Conclusion: The results show that there are some major differences between the results from studies dealing with implicit Crowdsourcing and innovation contests. The general nature of an explicit Crowdsourcing community is speculated to be more friendly and helpful than an implicit Crowdsourcing platform due to the necessary collaboration of explicit Crowdsourcing. Monetary incentives might be what draws the eye of a member in the beginning - although this is not tested -, and this is also one factor that might be motivating people the most in an explicit Crowdsourcing community. Nevertheless, the factors that could have effects on Participation in explicit Crowdsourcing were Monetary Awards, Ability, Competition, and Peer Pressure.

Motivation är viktigt för människor, både i arbetslivet och livet generellt. Motivation kan huvudsakligen indelas i inre och yttre motivation, beroende på vilken avsikt individen haft med sina handlingar. En individ som drivs av inre motivation till en handling, utför den eftersom själva aktiviteten upplevs som intressant eller tillfredsställande. Handlingar baserade på yttre motivation har sin grund i något annat än själva aktiviteten, exempelvis ekonomisk belöning. Syftet med studien var att jämföra möjliga skillnader mellan manliga respektive kvinnliga högskolelärare avseende inre och yttre motivation. I studien undersöktes även om typen av motivation som ansågs som viktig samtidigt upplevdes som väl uppfylld eller inte. Studien var kvantitativ och utgick ifrån Deci och Ryans teori om självbestämmande (SDT) vid utformningen av enkätfrågorna. I studien ingick 296 högskolelärare och svarsfrekvensen var på 47 %. Studiens resultat visade att kvinnorna värderade samtliga motivationsfaktorer utom en signifikant högre än männen. Därmed var Ekonomisk belöning den enda motivationsfaktor där skillnaderna inte var signifikanta. Resultatet visade också att de deltagare som värderade en motivationsfaktor som viktig och samtidigt uppfylld i hög grad var i klar majoritet. Väldigt få deltagare värderade en typ av motivationsfaktor som viktig och samtidigt uppfylld i låg grad. / Motivation is important for people, both in work-life and life in general. Motivation can mainly be divided into intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, which depends on the intentions behind the individual’s actions. An individual with intrinsic motivation performs an activity because it is based on interest and satisfaction. Actions based on extrinsic motivation are founded on something other than the activity itself for example economic reward. The aim of the study was to compare possible differences between male and female university teachers regarding intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. The study also examined whether a type of motivation was valued as important and at the same time fulfilled. The study had a quantative approach and the design of the questions in the questionnaire was based on Deci and Ryan’s theory of self-determination (SDT). The study included 296 university teachers and the response rate was 47 %. The results of the study showed that the women valued all but one of the motivational factors significantly higher than the men. Thereby the motivational factor Economic reward was the only one where the differences were not significant. The results also showed that the participants who valued a motivational factor as important and at the same time were fulfilled to a high extent were in a large majority. Very few of the participants valued a type of motivational factor as important and also were fulfilled to a low extent.

Dagens chefer förväntas ofta leda personal anställda av den egna organisationen samtidigt som de ska leda inhyrd personal då användandet av bemanningsföretag har ökat. En stor del av arbetet med att leda anställda innefattar motivationsarbete och för att utföra detta krävs en viss kunskap i ämnet motivation. En väl utformad motivationsstrategi ger inte bara de anställda ett ökat välbefinnande utan gagnar även organisationen genom en effektiviserad produktivitet. För att kunna implementera rätt strategi behöver organisationerna vara medvetna om vilka faktorer som motiverar anställda till arbete. Syftet med denna studie är att beskriva och förklara arbetsmotivationsfaktorer hos socialsekreterare i en storstadskommun. Vidare diskuteras även eventuella likheter och skillnader i motivationsfaktorer mellan socialsekreterare som är tillsvidareanställda av en kommunal verksamhet och socialsekreterare anställda av ett bemanningsföretag. Studien har utförts genom en kvalitativ forskningsansats där sex personer har intervjuats. Resultatet har därefter analyserats med hjälp av Self-determination theory för att besvara studiens frågeställningar. Self-determination theory grundar sig i att individen har tre universella behov, competence, relatedness och autonomy, som bör vara tillfredsställda för att uppnå välmående och skapa intrinsic motivation. De arbetsmotivationsfaktorer som identifierades som mest betydande i studien är feedback, utvecklingsmöjligheter, god relation till chef och kollegor samt inflytande och valfrihet i arbetsuppgifterna. Vidare ansågs lön även vara en arbetsmotivationsfaktor men då endast kortsiktigt. Den tydligaste skillnaden som kan urskiljas är betydelsen av den relation som skapas med organisationens chef och kollegor. De kommunalanställda socialsekreterarna värderar relationen till kollegor högst medan de som är anställda av bemanningsföretaget anser relationen till chefen mer betydande. Sammanfattningsvis ses ett samband mellan de identifierade arbetsmotivationsfaktorerna och de tre behoven. Sambandet talar för att en tillfredsställelse av dessa behov skulle leda till en ökad produktivitet i organisationen.

The rapid growth of network access and the development of Web 2.0 have resulted in the popularity of virtual communities (VCs), such as Wikipedia, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Although these online communities provide no monetary incentive for sharing knowledge, as most businesses will do, they still become a popular platform for knowledge sharing. The purpose of this study is to investigate the motivation for people to contribute in virtual communities, whether their motivations differ in different types of virtual communities, and whether their behavior and motivations will be affected by monetary reward. Social exchange theory and self determination theory were adopted to explore the relationships between behavior and motivations of virtual community members. Motivation crowding theory was used to examine the effect of monetary reward on knowledge sharing. The research framework includes two types of motivators (intrinsic and extrinsic), two different virtual community types (common identity vs. common bond), and one treatment (monetary reward). An online survey and an experiment with monetary incentive were conducted on two virtual communities: ITToolbox and LinkedIn. The results showed that there were significant moderating effects between these two types of virtual communities. A strong positive relationship was found between intrinsic motivation and knowledge sharing for the professional community (common identity). In contrast, the relationship between extrinsic motivation and knowledge sharing was stronger in the social networking community (common bond). The results also confirmed the existence of the crowding effect that the intrinsic motivation was significantly declined when an extrinsic monetary reward was provided.

With the rapid innovation of online services, people come to social communities not only to connect with their friends but also to share their feelings, ideas and information. Hence, these social communities have become a powerful platform for information sharing and product marketing. The purpose of this study is to examine the factors that affect the intention of information sharing in social communities. This study investigates the influence of user motivation and the attributes of message. An online survey was conducted. The result indicates: (1) In social communities, the quality of the message (i.e., the degree of credibility and level of irritation) was the major concern for them to decide whether to share the message with their friends. We find that intrinsic motivation has no significant effect on the intention to share. This is different from some previous literature. (2) Different attribute were having effects when the nature of the message differs. Content enjoyment was the most influential factor in recommending entertainment messages. Source creditability was the major factor for knowledge-type messages. When they share economic-type messages, the effect of message-related attributes were similar to that of the knowledge-type message, except that the competence of the intrinsic motivation became significant. This indicates that the subject must feel competent in evaluating the economic message in order for them to share with peers.

<p>The benefits gained by the presentation of environmental enrichment (EE) to captive animals are widely recognized. Few studies have, however, studied how to maximize the effect of EE. Repeated presentations of EE may cause a reduced interest towards the EE device, called habituation. To study the effect of habituation towards EE, behavioural data from 14 captive Sloth bears (<em>Melursus ursinus</em>) were collected during two different EE treatments. In treatment one, honey logs were presented for five consecutive days (ConsEE). In treatment two, the logs were presented every alternative day for five days (AltEE). The different treatments both showed a significant effect on responsiveness toward the EE, however, leaving gap days inbetween presentations in AltEE showed no reliable reduction in habituation. Both treatments significantly reduced stereotypies, however, only ConsEE reduced levels of stereotypies long term. Explorative behaviours, which are the most prominent behaviours in the wild, increased during both treatments. This is consistent with previous findings (Fischbacher & Schmid 1999, Grandia et al. 2001) that EE increases natural behaviours, which has been desribed as an indication of improved welfare (Carlstead et al. 1991 etc.). Other behavioural categories such as social and passiva behaviours were unaffected by the EE presentations. THe results show that it is possible to increase the effectiveness of EE by simple means in order to ensure animal welfare.</p>

A graphical user interface program was created along with shape models, which allow persons with disabilities to set up a stereovision system with off-the-shelf hardware and detect objects of interest, which can be picked up using a sensor assisted telerobotic manipulator. A Hitachi KP-D50 CCD camera and an Imaging Source CCD camera were used along with two Imaging Source DFG/LC1 frame grabbers to set up a stereovision system. In order to use the stereovision system, the two main problems of correspondence and reconstruction are solved using subroutines of the program created for this work.The user interface allows the user to easily perform the intrinsic and extrinsic camera calibration required for stereovision, by following a few basic steps incorporated into the user interface program, which are described in this thesis. A calibration table required for these tasks can also be easily created using the program. In order to detect the object of interest, shape models, created by the user interface program, are used to solve the correspondence problem of stereovision. The correspondence problem is that of locating corresponding points in the left eye and the right eye, which are necessary to perform the calculations to obtain the location of the object of interest with respect to the end-effector. The shape models created for some commonly available items such as a doorknob and a door handle are included in the program and used to test the stereovision system. As expected, the error of detection decreases as the stereo system is moved closer to the object of interest in the x-, y- and z-position.

This thesis presents certain recent methodologies and some new results for the statistical analysis of probability distributions on non-Euclidean manifolds. The notions of Frechet mean and variation as measures of center and spread are introduced and their properties are discussed. The sample estimates from a random sample are shown to be consistent under fairly broad conditions. Depending on the choice of distance on the manifold, intrinsic and extrinsic statistical analyses are carried out. In both cases, sufficient conditions are derived for the uniqueness of the population means and for the asymptotic normality of the sample estimates. Analytic expressions for the parameters in the asymptotic distributions are derived. The manifolds of particular interest in this thesis are the shape spaces of k-ads. The statistical analysis tools developed on general manifolds are applied to the spaces of direct similarity shapes, planar shapes, reflection similarity shapes, affine shapes and projective shapes. Two-sample nonparametric tests are constructed to compare the mean shapes and variation in shapes for two random samples. The samples in consideration can be either independent of each other or be the outcome of a matched pair experiment. The testing procedures are based on the asymptotic distribution of the test statistics, or on nonparametric bootstrap methods suitably constructed. Real life examples are included to illustrate the theory.

Tyrimo objektas – 20 – 40 m. amžiaus žmonių, lankančių sporto klubą, motyvacijos raiška. Hipotezė: 20 – 40 m. vyrų ir moterų, lankančių sporto klubą, motyvacijos ypatumai priklauso nuo lyties. Tyrimo tikslas – nustatyti 20 – 40 m. vyrų ir moterų, lankančių sporto klubą, motyvacijos ypatumus. Tyrimo uždaviniai: 1. Atskleisti 20 – 40 m. moterų ir vyrų sportavimo motyvus. 2. Nustatyti ir palyginti 20 – 40 m. moterų ir vyrų laimėjimų motyvacijos ypatumus (motyvaciją išvengti nesėkmės ir motyvaciją siekti sėkmės). Tyrimo išvados: 1. Atskleista, kad lankantys sporto klubą vyrai ir moterys patikimai skyrėsi (p < 0,05) pagal vidinę motyvaciją VM – siekti tobulumo, pagal išorinę motyvaciją IM – identifikuotis, pagal išorinę motyvaciją IM – tiesioginį išorinį reguliavimą. 2. Nustatyta, kad vyrams, lankantiems sporto klubą, būdingas aukštas motyvacijos lygis siekti sėkmės, o moterims, lankančioms sporto klubą, būdingas vidutinis motyvacijos lygis siekti sėkmės (p<0,05). Atskleista, kad tiek vyrai, tiek moterys patikimai nesiskyrė pagal motyvaciją išvengti nesėkmės (p>0,05). / Object of the research: Motivation expression of 20-40 age old people who are going to sports club. Hypothesis: The motivation of the 20-40 age old men and women who are going to sports club depends from the gender. Aim of the research: To identify 20-40 age old men and women who are going to sports club motivation expression. The tasks of research: 1. To identify 20-40 age old men and women motivation for doing sport. 2. To identify and compare the 20-40 age old men and women winning motivation pecularities (motivation to avoid failure and motivation to pursue success). Summarizing the investigation results, the following conclusions can be drawn: 1. The results show that women and men who goes to the gym differs (p < 0,05) according inside motivation VM- to reach for perfection, according outside motivation IM- to identify themselves, according to outside motivation IM- the direct outside regulation. 2. It was identified, that for the men who goes to sport club, is natural the high motivation level to seek for success, and women who are going to sports club, has the middle motivation level to seek for success (p<0,05). It was identified that according to the motivation to avoid failure men and women did not differ ( (p>0,05).