Alongside societal change and more sustainable living, new technologies and research will be important in becoming carbon neutral. Multiple modern board games have some form of technological progression and research in their theme, presented by game mechanics like “tech trees”. Since board games are known for being great at explaining their themes via mechanics, this study looks at how they can present the development of new green technologies. The Mariestad climate board game is a board game where players compete to try to reduce pollution in the municipality. It was also used as the artifact for this study. Through its development several groups of testers played it and then partook in semi-structured interviews, about how they experienced the game and its portrayal of technology and climate change. Overall the testers liked the mechanics, but future testing with longer test sessions are needed in the future on the topic.

Swedish micro-businesses are encouraged by the government to internationalise and participate in entrepreneurial ecosystems. Yet research on how they should be supported while doing so is thin. Current research on entrepreneurial ecosystems shows that value co-creation breads sustainability, and increased attention is given to intermediary organisations. While scholars stress aligned expectations as key to value co-creation, intermediaries today are basing their actions on what they think businesses need and expect. This study challenges that logic. This study focused on the entrepreneurial ecosystem of New York, specifically looking at Swedish technology startups, intermediaries and investors. Trough semi-structured interviews the study sought to understand how congruent startups’ and intermediaries’ perceptions of challenges during business establishment in NYC are, and also, how they could be aligned. The study employed the framework of Gioia et al. (2012) when distilling challenges from the interviews. The results show congruence in some identified challenges, with a key difference in their temporal approaches. The intermediaries primarily focused on instrumental challenges and initial barriers-to-entry, while the startups (and investors) in higher regard focused on open-ended challenges related to relationships and legitimacy. This was considered proof of intermediaries employing an outdated theoretical perspective on their role as an instrumental broker. The study thus concluded by suggesting an alternative perspective, emphasizing dynamic and situation-based support. / Svenska mikro-företag uppmanas av regeringen att internationalisera tidigt och delta i entreprenöriella ekosystem. Mängden forskning på hur de bäst bör stödjas i detta är dock blygsam. Samtida studier på entrepreöriella ekosystem visar hur kollektivt värdeskapande (eng: value co-creation) föder långsiktig hållbarhet, och uppmärksamhet riktas allt mer åt intermediära organisationer. Även om forskare menar att kongruenta förväntningar är en nyckel till kollektivt värdeskapande baserar intermediärer idag ofta sina handlingar och stöd på vad de tror att företag behöver och förväntar sig. Denna studie utmanar den logiken. Studien fokuserade på New Yorks entreprenöriella ekosystem och undersökte svenska högteknologiska startupbolag, intermediärer och investerare. Genom semi-strukturerade intervjuer sökte studien lära hur kongruenta startups och intermediärer är i sina uppfattningar av utmaningar vid företagsetablering i New York, samt hur dessa kan göras mer samstämmiga för att föda långsiktigt hållbara stödfunktioner Studien nyttjade ett ramverk av Gioia et al. (2012) i destillationen av utmaningar från intervjuerna. Resultaten visar kongruens i vissa identifierade utmaningar, med en tongivande skillnad i dess tidsmässiga förhållningssätt. Intermedärerna fokuserade primärt på instrumentella utmaningar och initiala inträdesbarriärer, medan startups (och investerare) i högre utsträckning fokuserade på mindre tidsbegränsade utmaningar som t.ex. relationer och legitimitet. Detta ansågs vara bevis på hur intermediärer brukar ett daterat teoretiskt perspektiv på sin egen roll som instrumentella mäklare. Studien sammanfattade därför slutligen att ett nytt, mer dynamiskt och situationsbaserat perspektiv på intermediärer och stöd bör välkomnas.

Henriksdalsskolan är en tvåparallellig F-6 skola belägen i Henriksdal. Skolans huvudentré är placerad på tomtens nordöstra hörn, nära busshållplatser och saltsjöbanans station. Huvudbyggnaden med alla hemvister och administrationen ligger längst i norr, för att inte skugga resten av skolgården. Resten av byggnadskroppen har baksidan mot vägen, samt öppnar upp sig mot skolgården. Den långa passagen mynnar ut i gymnastiksalen, vars konstruktion är inspirerad av ”gaussian vaults”, en valvkonstruktion som utvecklades av Eladio Dieste. Likt resten av byggnaderna är gymnastiksalen byggd i tegel, och de välvda och krökta formerna förstärker teglets materialitet.    Med en igenkännbar gestalt kan skolan annonsera sig till närområdet som en välkomnande och offentlig byggnad. Det högre tornet utgörs av en skorsten och en eldstad. Dels skapar eldstaden som är belägen i galleriet ett mervärde som samlingsplats, dels förbinds det nya med platsens industrihistoria och bildar ett landmärke. / The Henriksdal school is situated in Henriksdal, south Stockholm. It has two parallel classe from preschool to 6th grade. The school’s main entrance is located in the north east corner of the site, close to public transport points. The main building, which houses all the home units and administration is situatied in the north, in order to not shadow the school yard. The connecting building volume has its back towards the road and opens up towards the school yard. The long passage leads to the gym hall, which is inspired by “gaussian vaults”, a vault construction developed by Eladio Dieste. Like the rest of the buildings, the gym hall is built in bricks. The curved walls enhances the texture of the building material.   With a recognizeable silhouette the school has a precense as a welcoming and public building. The highest tower is a chimney and fireplace. The fireplace, which is located in the gallery creates a welcoming atmosphere and a meeting point. The chimney also conncets to the industrial history of the surrounding area and works as a landmark.

This thesis aimed to describe what (planning for) data centers reveal about the power relations between big tech companies and Sweden’s municipalities and national government. Data centers owned by large IT companies serve global interests but are dependent on and have an impact on local infrastructures, as demonstrated by for instance the large amount of energy they require. A Microsoft data center in Staffanstorp, located in Skåne, served as a case study. Based on various types of documents, the study analyzed what this hyperscale data center uncovers about the influence of big tech on urban planning in Sweden. For this, theoretical concepts such as cloud infrastructures, the hidden materiality of the cloud, and clouding have been used. The thesis explored the motivations behind choosing Staffanstorp to establish a hyperscale data center. Sweden is an attractive data center location for big tech companies. The image corporations have of Sweden is an important contributing factor here, as it is not just factual characteristics of a location that determine its attractiveness, but first and foremost how that location is perceived. The analysis therefore also highlights the promotional strategies that the government and the municipality of Staffanstorp have employed to attract data centers, in which Business Sweden appeared to have played a key role. Among other significant factors that contribute to big tech’s interest in Sweden are cheap renewable energy, a 98% electricity tax reduction, and a business-friendly environment. Processes behind the planning of Microsoft’s data center in Staffanstorp have also been studied by looking at the developments in the implementation of the data center. Reflecting on the outcomes of Microsoft’s data center by comparing these developments to plans and visions for Sweden and Staffanstorp shows that the promise of jobs for a data center location is paradoxical and that hyperscale data centers potentially endanger the energy supply. The research concludes that rather than corporations directly influencing Swedish planning, Sweden indirectly allows them to have a large influence.

The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship of Tech Prep to student enrollment and retention in a California community college. Tech Prep was conceived by Dale Parnell as an articulated high school/community college program focusing on the neglected majority or the middle-quartile of high school students. This study included a review of high school Tech Prep student data for 1997–1998 and 1998–1999. These students were tracked from the high school program through the community college program. The data generated from this review indicated that 1,947 high school students enrolled in the Tech Prep program during this time period, with 1,437 completing the high school requirements, 420 of these students enrolled in the community college within a two year timeframe, and 51 completed the community college Tech Prep course, thereby receiving community college credit for the high school Tech Prep course(s). Student perceptions and self reported attitudes were obtained through surveys of a random sample of those high school Tech Prep students who continued their education at community college. Findings indicated that lack of information about program opportunities is the key to loss of student continuity. Interviews were conducted of fifteen of the surveyed students, resulting in validation of this contention. An evaluation of the student data, surveys and interviews revealed that there was no definitive relationship of enrollment and retention of high school Tech Prep student through the community college Tech Prep program. The resulting findings revealed that the community college Tech Prep programs require significant and appropriate changes in communicating program information in order to positively impact enrollment and retention of the target population. Recommendations were also made for future studies.

No description available.

In IT the waterfall model is being replaced by agile development processes. When transitioning into agile processes software products are delivered in iterations, or cycles, of the same software. That software will be tested repeatedly, by the same tests. When the same test is executed several times test automation comes into consideration. With test automation organizations aim to cut costs but also have predictable and efficient test execution. Over time though, research suggests that maintenance of test automation could become a burden rather than a success.  This thesis aims to investigate and research problem areas that affect test automation maintenance and what measurements can be taken to manage maintenance. In total seven semi-structured interviews are conducted with software testing professionals. The gathered empirical data have been analyzed using a thematic approach, which is the result of this study. The outcome of the thematic analysis resulted in four themes Maintenance Issues, Minimize Maintenance, Coding Guidelines, and Collaboration Guidelines. Findings from those themes and underlying codes revealed several sources and problem areas in test automation maintenance. Respondents mentioned several challenges with Flaky tests, unreliable environments, and usage of incorrect tools. When it comes to reducing maintenance, respondents evaluated a list of guidelines but also mentioned a set of tools or approaches to use, to keep maintenance to a minimum.

The importance of entrepreneurship for economic growth and development is a well-known factor in the world. In which high technology startup firms are playing an important role in introducing innovative and advanced technologies. However, due to inherent difficulties in nature, they face major challenges such as acquiring sufficient investments. Especially for high-tech startups founded and located in non-main cities facing the issue compared to main cities. As a result, the firms tend to move out from the non-main city or region to main cities or abroad seeking investments.  Such trends directly affect negatively in the regional economic development goals and plans. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to address such tendencies by focusing on the Luleå city in Northern Sweden, investigating the ways of attracting local and global investors through social networks, for high technology startup firms in non-main cities, and identify the possibility of use digitalization to support to overcome the geographical distances to retain them within the region.  This empirical study is exploratory in nature and used qualitative methodology with an inductive research approach. In order to collect the data, the research performed expert interviews by interviewing top management in high-tech startups, incubators, and science parks in two cities (i.e. Luleå and Stockholm) from two regions in Sweden. To perform in-depth semi-structured interviews, an interview guide was used and analyzed the gathered data using the pattern matching method.  As the findings of this study, selected social networks for this study; multilevel and multiplex networks are modified, and presented in the context of high-tech startup ecosystems to attract and expand the investor networks out of geographical boundaries. The use of such networks is based on the amount of investment required, purpose, and aim of the high-tech startup firm. A six steps model has been introduced to Incubators to assist their high-tech startups through investor attractions. Further, the study has identified, to a certain level digital tools are useful to minimize geographical distances but physical meetings are to move forward and continue with strong relationships as physical meetings are non-replaceable with any other modes.  Suggestions and recommendations were provided mainly to high-tech startups, incubators, and science parks in Luleå as well as some recommendations for the Luleå kommun or Norrbotten region. These recommendations were provided focusing on Luleå but could also be used by the same high-tech startup business ecosystem players in other non-main cities in the world where necessary to expand their networks to assist high-tech startup companies to achieve regional development. Finally, managerial implications and theoretical implications have been presented at the end of the study.

Wearable tech has become increasingly popular with elite level sports organizations. The limiting factor to the value of the wearables is the use cases for the data they provide. This study introduces a technique to be used in tandem with this data to better inform training decisions. K-means clustering was used to group athletes from two seasons worth of data from an NCAA Division 1 American Football team. This data provided average game demands of each student-athlete, which was then used to create training groups. The resultant groupings showed results that were similar to traditional groupings used for training in American football, thus validating the results, while also offering insights on individuals that may need to consider training in a non-traditional group. In conclusion, this technique can be brought to athletic training and be useful in any organization that is dealing with training multitudes of athletes.

No description available.