Under the background of the competitive and dynamic international market, many enterprises started or intended to develop international entrepreneurial orientation (IEO) as a strategic posture. For achieving this kind of orientation, leadership behaviours are necessary and shared leadership is put forward to support enterprises to adapt to the fast-changing global market. Moreover, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are an essential type of business enterprises, especially in China. Therefore, the purpose of the research is to study how shared leadership contributes to the development of IEO in a Chinese SME. As a qualitative research, data were collected by interviews and processed by content analysis. The findings of this research are: (1) shared leadership contributes on the establishment of common IEO thinking at the phase of building the IEO awareness; (2) shared leadership plays a role as explicit support and implicit support on implementing IEO; (3) these contributions of shared leadership are mutually reinforcing and complementary, which result in the reinforcement and complementation between the awareness and the implementation of IEO. These findings contribute to the research in the combination of shared leadership and IEO through studying the effects of shared leadership and the process of IEO development. Moreover, this research enriches the study on the field of SMEs and provides guidance for SME leaders who intend to develop IEO.

The rapid development of sharing economy in the past decade has spawned a number of excellent products such as Airbnb and Uber. As one of the representative products of the sharing economy, the emergence and development of shared bikes are of great significance to the country, the government and citizens. In this context, this study aims to use Decomposed Theory of Planned Behavior (DTPB) to investigate the factors influencing consumers’ intentions to use shared bikes. We collected primary data from 268 respondents from different districts as input, finally using SPSS 25.0 to conduct a regression analysis to test 9 antecedent variables and 3 intermediate variables to verify 12 hypotheses. The empirical results indicate that perceived usefulness, perceived joviality and perceived environmental protection have a positive influence on users' attitude towards using while perceived risk has a negative influence; peer influence and superior influence have a positive influence on subjective norm; self-efficacy and resource facilitating condition have a positive influence on perceived behavior control; attitude, subjective norm and perceived behavior control are positively related to the intentions to use shared bikes. This study provides important and new insights into shared bikes adoption and intentions about consumer behavior.

Sustainability within wholesale is currently facing a significant challenge. Research has shown that sustainable solutions are most commonly achieved through win-win strategies. However, such strategies do not work when the push for sustainability is external, e.g. governmental. This study intends to review how stakeholders can be analysed to create shared value. Building on existing theories, it asks: How is the change towards sustainable transportation perceived by stakeholders and how does it affect the perceived value of the business? In this context, we define the studied stakeholders as customers and employees. Shared value is defined as an action that a business can take to add value for themselves and their customers, or for the society. Based on existing literature regarding sustainability and theories regarding stakeholders, a scenario-based online survey was distributed to customers of wholesale and employees (non-managerial) at Martin & Servera. Analysis of the responses demonstrate a significant disparity between what is expected, required and desired of the business from customers. The results indicate that the disparity between employees and customers complicate sustainable improvements. Therefore, sustainable improvements should be enhanced by reducing the disparity through e.g. communication between customers and employees. Further research is needed to distinguish if other stakeholders have a significant impact or not.

Barrelfish operating system is an experimental instance of multikernel structure which exhibits good features such as hardware heterogeneity, scalability, dynamicity, etc. Barrelfish is in progress and lacks applications. Therefore, there is a need to investigate the efficiency of applications running in Barrelfish and one of candidates is a shared-memory application. To conduct an empirical study, Cilk is chosen inasmuch as its runtime library is designed for shared-memory architectures and it has been known to expose good performance. This thesis focuses on making Cilk run on top of Barrelfish in order to reach two goals: portability which is described to be supported by Barrelfish, and good speed afterwards. The porting involves compiling Cilk runtime source code by replacing its pthread subroutines with set of APIs in Barrelfish and then changing the way Cilk scheduler spawns worker thread on multiple cores. However, the main point of the porting is to make different cores access to the same virtual address space. Luckily, Barrelfish provides a notion of domain which specifies the number of cores in an application so that these cores can share the same memory space. This thesis also has carried out benchmarks on some Cilk programs and found that Cilk does not perform as well as it is expected. In addition measurements on parallel workers shows that Cilk on Barrelfish takes more cycles to perform computation. Although Cilk still maintains work-first principle, it cannot achieve the time bound. The spanning domain cost is proportional to the number of cores, but it will matter if applications take small time to complete.

Mitt projekt är en urban strategi för Uddevalla, som är en stad med väldigt dålig självbild. Jag kallar projektet: “Vision för aktivering av Uddevalla centrum”. Projektet handlar om att ge de de offentliga rummen i stadskärnan ett värde som inte bara handlar om kommersiell handel utan också om interaktion och utbyte mellan människor. Mitt fokus är Uddevallas centrala årum, som är ett outnyttjat område med stor potential. En del av strategin innebär att jag tar utgångspunkt i Uddevallas planerade satsning på ett kulturhus. En annan del av strategin innebär att jag planerar åtgärder för biltrafiken i årummet, för att minska barriärerna som bilvägarna innebär idag. Jag väljer att sprida ut funktionerna för att det då blir en ökad aktivitet på flera platser istället för en. Långsiktigt hoppas jag att det leder till en ökad aktivitet i hela årummet. Jag bygger mindre för att jag anser att man kan utnyttja existerande lokaler bättre, i Uddevalla centrum står många lokaler tomma. Jag tolkar kulturbegreppet så att projektet innefattar funktioner som känns folkliga och tillgängliga. Dessa funktionerär bibliotek, secondhandverksamhet, ungdomshus och biograf. Dessutom lägger jag till en bänk, en plats för utomhussport och en aktivitetsplattform. Motivet till valet av funktioner är att det finns ett engagemang för dem i Uddevalla idag och de är i behov av nya lokaler. I mitt projekt får dessa verksamheter ta plats, synas och ge avtryck i stadskärnan. Jag tror att det är nödvändigt att tillföra något nytt och väl synligt i Uddevalla centrum för att verkligen kunna göra skillnad i stadslivet. Utöver det som jag tillför, anser jag att det finns potential att utnyttja existerande byggnader istället för att bygga nytt. En ökad aktivitet i centrum tror jag kan katalysera en vilja att använda befintliga lokaler i högre utsträckning. Jag utgår ifrån 5 viktiga platser i årummet som jag definierar och aktiverar genom arkitektur. Jag arbetar med ett formspråk där en enhetlig arkitektur kan kan ha olika skalor och fungera på många olika sätt. Jag utforskar arkitektur som byggnad, struktur och rumsbildare. Jag utforskar också en mångtydig arkitektur som man kan tolka och använda på olika sätt. För att utveckla ett relevant projekt har jag på olika sätt haft löpande kontakt med Uddevalla kommun. Det har t.ex. varit genom samtal och mailkontakt med kommunala tjänstemän. Jag har också pratat med ansvariga för de olika verksamheter som har blivit en del av projektet. Dessutom har jag gjort intervjuer med invånare i Uddevalla och tagit del av människors olika uppfattningar om staden t.ex. genom min facebookgrupp “åsikter om Uddevalla”. Om detta projekt skulle bli verklighet skulle de här dialogerna vara lika viktiga för den fortsatta processen och bearbetningen. Syftet med projektet är att katalysera en ökad aktivitet och ett ökat engagemang i Uddevalla centrum. För att det ska ha en chans att lyckas krävs det ett tätt samarbete med dem som projektet gäller.

BACKGROUND: Medical professional organizations in the U.S. recommend shared decision-making for routine labor induction in healthy term pregnancies. Shared decision-making is part of high quality, person-centered care and has substantial positive impacts. Despite these recommendations for, and impacts of, shared decision-making many people, especially people of color and those who are Medicaid-insured, do not experience shared decision-making concerning induction and according to a 2020 scoping review there are no patient decision aids on this topic. METHODS: We used quality improvement and qualitative methods to develop, test, and refine a patient decision aid on labor induction in healthy pregnancies at or beyond 39 weeks to support shared decision-making. We assessed shared decision-making primarily with these outcomes: patients’ understanding of choices, pros and cons of choices, and their role as primary decision-maker. A quality improvement team developed an initial prototype and used Plan-Do-Study-Act cycles to get patient and provider feedback. The decision aid was tested in three languages by providers across obstetrics, family medicine, and midwifery at a tertiary hospital and two community health centers in Boston, MA between September 2020 and December 2021. RESULTS: Shared decision-making on labor induction in healthy pregnancies was achieved. Across three Plan-Do-Study-Act cycles 24 pregnant people were interviewed. Most were people of color and Medicaid-insured. Many were recent immigrants and/or non-Native English speakers. Nearly all interviewees experienced shared decision making: 23/24 understood their role as the decision-maker. The majority could name two or three choices they had and pros and cons of different choices. Many described the process as empowering and positive. Nine medical providers tested the decision aid and gave feedback. Providers said using the tool helped improve the consistency and content of their counseling and reduce the role of bias. CONCLUSION: A balanced, evidence-based decision aid can support patients and providers in achieving shared decision-making on induction. Quality improvement and qualitative methods were shown effective for decision aid development and can be applied to other topics within and beyond maternity care. Decision aids may be a meaningful part of efforts to improve equity when development, testing, and evaluation centers people with marginalized identities.

The thesis investigates the Message Passing Interface (MPI) support for shared memory programming on modern hardware architecture with multiple Non-Uniform Memory Access (NUMA) domains. We investigate its performance in two case studies: the matrix-matrix multiplication and Conway’s game of life. We compare MPI shared memory performance in terms of execution time and memory consumption with the performance of implementations using OpenMP and MPI point-to-point communication, also called "MPI two-sided". We perform strong scaling tests in both test cases. We observe that MPI two-sided implementation is 21% and 18% faster than the MPI shared and OpenMP implementations respectively in the matrix-matrix multiplication when using 32 processes. MPI shared uses less memory space: when compared to MPI two-sided, MPI shared uses 45% less memory. In the Conway’s game of life, we find that MPI two-sided implementation is 10% and 82% faster than the MPI shared and OpenMP implementations respectively when using 32 processes. We also observe that not mapping virtual memory to a specific NUMA domain can lead to an increment in execution time of 64% when using 32 processes. The use of MPI shared is viable for intranode communication on modern hardware architecture with multiple NUMA domains. / I detta examensarbete undersöker vi Message Passing Inferfaces (MPI) support för shared memory programmering på modern hårdvaruarkitektur med flera Non-Uniform Memory Access (NUMA) domäner. Vi undersöker prestanda med hjälp av två fallstudier: matris-matris multiplikation och Conway’s game of life. Vi jämför prestandan utav MPI shared med hjälp utav exekveringstid samt minneskonsumtion jämtemot OpenMP och MPI punkt-till-punkt kommunikation, även känd som MPI two-sided. Vi utför strong scaling tests för båda fallstudierna. Vi observerar att MPI-two sided är 21% snabbare än MPI shared och 18% snabbare än OpenMP för matris-matris multiplikation när 32 processorer användes. För samma testdata har MPI shared en 45% lägre minnesförburkning än MPI two-sided. För Conway’s game of life är MPI two-sided 10% snabbare än MPI shared samt 82% snabbare än OpenMP implementation vid användandet av 32 processorer. Vi kunde också utskilja att om ingen mappning av virtuella minnet till en specifik NUMA domän görs, leder det till en ökning av exekveringstiden med upp till 64% när 32 processorer används. Vi kom fram till att MPI shared är användbart för intranode kommunikation på modern hårdvaruarkitektur med flera NUMA domäner.

PURPOSE: Parent-child reading allows parents to extend the walls of their home to introduce their children to novel places and scenarios, and is an important factor shaping language development. Accordingly, the parent-child reading practices characterizing the home literacy environment (HLE) offer rich potential to boost and diversify language input and exposure in early childhood, especially if parents use shared reading experiences to spark conversational dialogue around novel concepts. To date, it remains unclear how shared reading experiences may promote language interaction and development in early childhood for late talker children. Furthermore, the role of socioeconomic status (SES) in contribution to the relationship between language development and shared book reading interactions in early childhood remains understudied. Therefore, there is a need to further specify characteristics of shared reading practices and SES in relation to parent-child conversational interactions and child language abilities in early childhood. METHOD: 33 parent-child dyads (all mothers) of children classified as either late talkers (n = 15, 8 male) or typical controls (n=18, 9 male) were selected from an ongoing larger longitudinal study of language delay in collaboration with researchers at Northwestern University (PIs: Norton and Wakschlaug). Characteristics of parent-child conversational interactions during story book reading were assessed through language transcription and subsequent analysis of the quality and quantity of parent language input during these interactions. Parent language input measures and SES were evaluated for possible group differences between late talkers and typical controls, and subsequently examined as potential predictors of language status. RESULTS: Parental language input during shared book reading significantly differed among dyads of late talkers compared to typical controls, as indicated by mean length of utterance (MLU) in words, MLU in morphemes, moving average type token ratio (TTR), and number of different words. SES differences in parent education were also identified between groups. MLU in morphemes was found to significantly contribute to the prediction of language status in toddlerhood. CONCLUSION: Results suggest that the proximal factor of parent language input quality may be a more salient predictor of language development than the distal factors of SES for late talker children in particular. Findings highlight modifiable factors such as high-quality parent language input and shared book reading that have the potential to facilitate positive language outcomes for this population. These findings may lead to better guidance for adjustments that can be made within the HLE to improve language outcomes for late talker children.

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The aim of this report is to provide an analysis of potential benefits of a fleet of Shared Autonomous Vehicles (SAV) providing a taxi service to replace private car commuter trips in a metropolitan area. We develop a framework for dynamic allocation of SAVs to passenger trips, empty-vehicle routing and multi-criteria evaluation with regard to passenger waiting time, trip time and fleet size. Using a representation of current private trip demand for the Stockholm metropolitan area and a detailed road network representation, different scenarios (varying levels of accepted passenger waiting time at origin and accepted increase in travel time) are compared with respect to passenger travel time, number of vehicles needed and vehicle mileage. In a second step the environmental impacts of the different scenarios are assessed and compared using a life cycle approach. The assessment includes both a fleet consisting of currently in use gasoline and diesel cars as well as electrical cars. The results show that an SAV-based personal transport system has the potential to provide an on-demand door-to-door transport with a high level of service, using less than 10 % of today's private cars and parking places. In order to provide an environmental benefit and lower congestion an SAV-based personal transport system requires users to accept ride-sharing, allowing a maximum 30% increase of their travel time (15% on average) and a start time window of 10 minutes. In a scenario where users are not inclined to accept any reduced level of service, i.e. no ride-sharing and no delay, empty vehicle drive of an SAV-based personal transport system will lead to increased road traffic increasing environmental impacts and congestion. Envisioning a future using electrical cars a SAV-based system and electrical vehicle technology seems to be a “perfect” match that could definitely contribute to a sustainable transport system in Stockholm.