The problem of this study was whether differences exist between opinions news media members have toward higher education and the prediction of those opinions by college and university public relations directors. The purposes were to determine if such differences exist and to assess certain demographic factors' roles in journalists' opinions.

This study was conducted to determine the effectiveness of alternative middle school programs utilizing a longitudinal, mixed methods design and was driven by research questions which analyzed trends in attendance, discipline, and Standard of Learning test pass rates in history and science for 8th, 9th, and 10th grade. It also examined student perceptions concerning preparedness for high school, skills previously taught, transition to high school, and relationships with peers and adults. Data on attendance, discipline, and SOL scores were collected from 34 students from the 2009-2010 8th grade cohort who attended one of two alternative middle schools. Attendance data indicated a decrease in the number of absences each year from 8th – 10th grade, ranging from two days to 53 days per student. Discipline data reflected a drop in discipline referrals, each year, from 8th to 10th grade. The greatest improvement in discipline, indicated by a decrease in per student referrals, occurred between 9th and 10th grade. History SOL results indicated a pass rate that remained between 70% - 71% for grades 8-10. The test results for the science SOL showed a drop in number of students passing from 8th to 9th grade and increasing from 9th to 10th grade. An analysis of interviews with twelve students found that they perceived their alternative middle experience as having a positive effect on relationships, both with peers and adults, and a desire to graduate. They attributed an improvement in relationship skills and ability to select positive relationships with alternative middle school attendance. Students consistently noted small class size, as experienced in the alternative middle school, as an influence on both behavior and achievement. Students previously considering dropping out of school felt their alternative middle school experience had contributed to their changed mindsets and goals. Overall this study indicated that students attending the alternative middle school for 8th grade perceived their experiences as providing greater social rather than academic preparation for high school. In addition, best practices are similar for high school and middle school alternative programs.

This thesis is about development of Czech media market after 1989 in the context of political economy of the media. It tries to find practical impacts of the pressures of commercial sphere on media content in Czech serious daily press, on the basis of theories applied in the research part of the work. These pressures include media owners and media market ownership concentration, advertisers, expert opinions makers and think-tanks and public relations. A quantitative content analysis and journalists interviews are used for this purpose. The results confirm an existence of commercial influences in Czech dailies, especially from advertisers. A significant dominance of opinions supporting right-wing (conservative) thoughts has been also confirmed. Brought knowledge and research findings both leave and open substantial space for a future research of this topic.

Les cinquante dernières années témoignent d’une multiplication des mécanismes préjudiciels. Le mouvement fut initié par le renvoi préjudiciel à la Cour de justice, suivi de peu par le renvoi préventif au Tribunal des conflits. Il s’est confirmé à la fin des années 1980 et au début des années 1990 avec la création des demandes d’avis au Conseil d’État et à la Cour de cassation. Il s’accélère aujourd’hui avec la création récente de la question prioritaire de constitutionnalité et l’adoption du protocole n°15 à la Convention européenne des droits de l’homme instaurant un mécanisme de demande d’avis devant la Cour éponyme. Le travail de recherche invite à s’interroger sur les causes de cette dévotion particulière. L’étude démontre que l’utilisation de la technique préjudicielle poursuit aujourd’hui un effet particulier : celui d’assurer l’unification de l’interprétation des textes juridiques. Les mécanismes préjudiciels répondent donc à un besoin, celui d’unifier l’interprétation du droit, besoin aujourd’hui insatisfait du fait de la décadence des mécanismes hiérarchiques jusqu’alors chargés de cet office. En effet, l’accélération du temps du droit et le développement de la supra-légalité ont périmé ces mécanismes sédimentaires qui, tels la cassation, reposent sur la sanction. Même effet (l’unification du droit), même moyen (la technique préjudicielle), même cause (la péremption des mécanismes traditionnels) : il ne fait aucun doute que tous les mécanismes préjudiciels contemporains sont apparentés. Ils traduisent une nouvelle manière d’unifier l’interprétation qui, telle une lame de fond, étend indéfiniment son emprise. Il était impérieux de construire un nouvel outil juridique capable de témoigner de cette évolution, de créer une notion nouvelle : le renvoi préalable. Le renvoi préalable s’entend donc de « tout mécanisme par lequel une juridiction suprême uniformise l’interprétation d’un texte, sur le renvoi d’une question de droit posée à l’occasion d’un litige ». / During the last fifty years, the number of preliminary ruling mechanisms has multiplied. The movement first started with the preliminary ruling referral to the Court of Justice, which was soon followed by the preventive removal to the Court of Conflict. During the end of the eighties and in the early nineties, the movement reached confirmation through the creation of the possibility to ask its views to the State Council and to the Court of Cassation. It’s now getting faster and faster because of the recent creation of both the priority preliminary ruling on constitutionality, and the adoption, in front of the European Convention on Human Rights, of the protocol number fifteen, which introduces a system allowing the request for opinions in front of the eponymous Court. The research work invites to question about the causes of that singular devotion.The study proves that the use of the preliminary ruling procedure is nowadays endowed with a particular aim: that of ensuring the unification of the way legal texts are interpreted. Preliminary ruling mechanisms are the answer to a need, that of unifying the interpretation of the law, that need still remains unmet because of the decay of the hierarchical mechanisms which have been so far asked to manage it. As a matter of fact, both the acceleration of law time and the development of the supra-legality have collapsed these sediment mechanisms, which, just like Cassation, have to do with punishment.The same effect (the unification of the law), the same means (preliminary ruling technique), the same cause (the collapse of traditional mechanisms): there is no doubt about the link between all contemporary preliminary ruling mechanisms. They all reveal a new way of unifying interpretation which, like a tidal wave, becomes more and more powerful. It was becoming urgent to create a new legal tool which would be able to reveal this evolution, to create a new notion: pre-filing referrals. Pre-filing referrals is therefore said to be “any mechanism through which a supreme jurisdiction standardizes a text interpretation, after the referring of a law question which is raised in case of dispute”.

This diploma thesis aims to explore the influence of psychological and ethical aspects of advertising on human psyche. In the theoretical part is its reader informed about the contribution of psychology to the creation of effective advertising., there are described the forms of advertising and the psychological theories of motivation. Ethics in advertising, advertising, self-regulation and the Code of advertising are specified here. Moderate interviews in practical part of this thesis are used for revealing the factors affecting the reception of advertising. Individual moderate interview are done with ten persons. These peorsons are not differentiated according any specific criteria. In this thesis is given a view what people consider as ethical and what they think about the ethical issues in advertising. The main contribution of the research is verification of people's different opinions of ethical issues.

Inledning: Nollvisionen, som Sveriges trafiksäkerhet utgår från, uttrycker explicit att medborgares åsikter, krav och behov ska tas hänsyn till. De studier som undersökt hur medborgarnas åsikter hanteras av den offentliga sektorn har främst visat på ett tvetydigt resultat. Det saknas i stort sett forskning kring medborgares synpunkter angående trafiksäkerhet idag. Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka medborgarnas synpunkter om trafiksäkerhet och hur de relaterar till trafikolyckor och trafiksäkerhetsåtgärder. Metod: 400 synpunkter från Huddinge kommun för perioden 2014-2018 inhämtades och kategoriserades. Detta kompletterades med olycks- och skadestatistik från STRADA och trafiksäkerhetsåtgärder från kommunen. Materialet analyserades utifrån en gatu- och områdesanalys baserad på DeSo-indelningen, med hjälp av GIS. Eventuella samband analyserades vidare med hjälp av regressionsanalyser. Resultat: 78 % av synpunkterna var riktade mot en plats inom kommunens tätorter. Hastigheter på 30- och 40 km/h stod för 54 % respektive 32 % av synpunkterna, men 40 km/h visade på en överrepresentation efter den totala längden på vägsträckan. Synpunkterna kunde kategoriseras i 11 olika kategorier och vanligaste synpunkten var riktad mot hastigheter som utgjorde 38 % av synpunkterna. I de olika Deso-områdena var spannet av synpunkter mellan 0-39 stycken. Regressionsanalyserna visade inte på något samband till synpunkterna i gatuanalysen, men i områdesanalysen visade olyckor på ett R²-värde på 0,254 och trafiksäkerhetsåtgärder ett R²-värde på 0,413. Slutsats: Synpunkterna visade på en stor variation i typ, men det var framförallt hastigheter som bekymrade medborgarna. Det fanns stora skillnader baserat på områden och gator, och dessa skillnader kunde inte förklaras utifrån olycksstatistiken. Studien visade på att socio-ekonomiska faktorer delvis kan ligga bakom motivationen till synpunkterna. Kommunens trafiksäkerhetsåtgärder stämde delvis överens med synpunkternas karaktär och områdesplats, dock inte i hög grad på gatunivå. Det kan indikera att kommunen försöker åtgärda synpunkterna eller att medborgarnas syn på trafiksäkerhet delvis stämmer överens med kommunen. / Introduction: The zero-vision policy, on which Sweden’s traffic safety is based upon, expressly states that citizens’ opinions, demands and needs should be taken into consideration. Studies that have investigated the management of public opinions have mostly shown an ambiguous result. The empirical evidence for citizens’ opinions regarding traffic safety is largely lacking as of today. The purpose of this study is to investigate citizens’ opinions regarding traffic safety and how they relate to traffic accidents and road safety measures. Method: 400 opinions were gathered and categorised from Huddinge municipality for the period 2014-2018. This was supplemented by accident and injury statistics from STRADA and road safety measures from the municipality. The data was analysed using a street analysis and a regional analysis, based upon the DeSo classification, using GIS. Correlations were further investigated using regression analyses. Results: 78 % of the opinions were aimed at a place within the municipality’s urban areas. Speed limits of 30- and 40 km/h accounted for 54 % and 32 % respectively of the opinions, but 40 km/h showed an overrepresentation after the total length of the road section. The opinions were categorized into 11 different categories and the most common opinion was regarding speed and accounted for 38 % of the opinions. In the various DeSo-areas the range of opinions was between 0-39. The regression analyses did not show any relationships towards the opinions in the street analysis, but in the area analysis traffic accidents showed an R²-value of 0.254 and road safety measures an R²-value of 0.413. Conclusion: The opinions showed a great variation in type but is was mainly speeds that worried the citizens. There were large differences based on area and streets, and these differences could not be explained by traffic accidents. This study showed that socio-economic factors could partly underlie the motivation behind the opinions. The municipality’s road safety measures were partly in line with the nature of the opinions and their DeSo location, but not to a great extent at street level. This may indicate that the municipality is trying to address the opinions or that the citizens’ view of traffic safety is partly in line with that of the municipality.

In recent years frameworks for JavaScript has become a large part of web development. There has been a lot of discussion between developers which framework to use when developing a project since there is a large pool of frameworks to choose from. This paper aims to find out what factors affects the choice of framework according to web developers in the business. The earlier studies found on the topic of JavaScript frameworks focuses on the technical aspects while this study will focus on researching the pragmatic internal and external factors that affects the choice of framework. This will contribute with a different view to the field in contrast to the existing technical studies. To find answers to the research question qualitative interviews with web developers at different companies were conducted. 5 companies agreed to participate, and a total of 8 web developers were interviewed. The interviews were recorded and later transcribed. The results were analyzed through a thematic analysis. By analyzing the results several different factors were found, and by finding connections in between them they were then categorized into different themes. The themes found was demand, usability, community and reputation. Through the discussion of the findings it was found that the factors influencing the choice of framework can vary depending on if it is a personal project or a larger project at a company. For personal projects user gratification was major factor, while in companies the ability to collaborate was one of the main factors. To answer the purpose of the study the choice of framework depends on who is using it, what kind of requirements a project has, the resources of a company, and the locations demands. Therefore, different frameworks can be suitable for different situations.

This thesis aims to present and explore a mathematical model of attitude change within society. Building on the foundations set up by Lave and March [2] and Eriksson and Strimling [1] we propose a model which includes the possibility of having an overt as well as covert opinion by any individual on a given issue. We lay out the verbal and mathematical specifications for our model, interpret them in the framework of discrete-time dynamical systems and simulate the behavior using Matlab programming. Finally, we propose three conjectures based on the results of our simulations and proceed to subject two of them to further analytical treatment.

The U. S. criminal justice system has used risk assessment tools in an effort to reduce recidivism and risk assessment tools are now commonplace. Correctional organizations, however, have struggled with officers' resistance to these tools in spite of the evidence for their utility. There is limited research that explores the impact of resistance to organizational change within the context of correctional agencies. To address that gap, this correlational study used organizational change theory to examine officers' resistance to the use of risk assessment tools based on officers' opinions of the risk assessment tool being used in North Carolina. Data were collected through an online survey of 109 North Carolina probation and parole officers. Multiple linear regression analysis was used to examine the statistical relationship between officer use of risk assessment tools and the dependent variables which included officers' opinions of the risk assessment tool, knowledge of risk assessments, training for use of risk assessments, risk assessments in the sentencing process, and officers' length of time employed. Findings indicated that opinions of the risk assessment tool and training to use the tool statistically impact officers' use of the tool in daily supervision of offenders. Organizational change theory predicted these findings as officers' resistance to policy change was manifested in their opinions of that policy. Implications for positive social change include recommendations for corrections agencies to refine training regarding risk assessments in efforts to minimize officer resistance of properly applying risk assessment tools in daily job duties with the intended outcome of reducing recidivism, and therefore preventing future harms to the community.

The phenomenon of renting out your own home is a trend that has been spread worldwide. From a spatial behavior, human territory has opened in society by making the power over its geographical area accessible to people which the landlord does not need to have any relation to. A business site, based on the sharing economy, which has gained ground today, is Airbnb. This study aims to map out experiences and opinions of the sharing economy and Airbnb from two perspectives, central social actors and the population. A mix of qualitative and quantitative research is made. The study shows that there are differences in experiences and opinions, which have consequences for the population, such as precarious regulations and income declaration. Our research also shows that there is a change in social behavior through the sharing economy, which at best can become a creative development for the population who want to be part of the sharing economy. / Fenomenet att hyra ut sitt eget hem till andra är en trend som gjort succé världen över. Ur ett rumsligt beteende öppnas människans territorialitet upp i samhället genom att makten över sitt geografiska område tillgängliggörs för personer som uthyraren inte behöver ha någon relation till sedan tidigare. En affärsidé, med utgångspunkt ur delningsekonomi, som fått fäste i dagens samhälle är Airbnb. Denna studie syftar till att kartlägga erfarenheter och åsikter av delningsekonomi och Airbnb utifrån den två perspektiven samhällsaktörer och befolkningen. En blandning av kvalitativ och kvantitativ forskning görs. Studien visar att det finns skillnader i erfarenheter och åsikter som har konsekvenser för befolkningen, exempelvis osäkra förordningar och inkomstdeklaration. Vår forskning visar på att det finns en förändring av socialt beteende genom delningsekonomin, som i bästa fall kan bli en kreativ utveckling för befolkningen som vill vara en del av delningsekonomin.