Constructive methods for obtaining the regular grammar counterparts for some sub-classes of the context free grammars (cfg) have been investigated by many researchers. An important class of grammars for which this is always possible is the one-letter cfg. We show in this paper a new constructive method for transforming arbitrary one-letter cfg to an equivalent regular expression of star-height 0 or 1. Our new result is considerably simpler than a previous construction by Leiss, and we also propose a new normal form for a regular expression with single-star occurrence. Through an alphabet factorization theorem, we show how to go beyond the one-letter cfg in a straight-forward way. / Singapore-MIT Alliance (SMA)

This thesis concerns a research project about psoriasis care and conse¬quences of psoriasis in the county of Västerbotten in Northern Sweden. The overall aim of the thesis is to contribute to improvement of psoriasis care through increased knowledge of the use and accessibility of psoriasis care, and knowledge of impact of psoriasis on patients’ daily lives by describing and interpreting: (i) accessibility and use of psoriasis care, (ii) consequences of having psoriasis in everyday life, and (iii) dilemmas in psoriasis care and visions of future care among professionals, politicians and administrators. The theoretical framework in the psoriasis project was based on previous research, theories and concepts about priority setting, stigma, coping and qual¬ity of life. Parts of the framework were basis of the project plan and other parts were included in order to analyse the findings. Two different methodological approaches were used as complement to each other. The project started with a questionnaire to all known persons with psoriasis in Västerbotten with ques¬tions about socio-economic factors, psoriasis symptoms, psoriasis care, and quality of life. These formed the basis for two studies. The first focused on quality of life, and the other on gender differences in psoriasis care. Qualita¬tive research interviews were made with persons with psoriasis, and with ad¬ministrators, politicians and professionals. The interviews formed the basis for two studies focusing on consequences of psoriasis, and priorities and visions in psoriasis care, respectively. Findings from the studies are reported in four papers. Accessibility of psoriasis care influenced the use among persons with pso¬riasis. Use was also influenced by age, income, joint symptoms and quality of life. Men used psoriasis care more often than women. Both genders expected professional care and amelioration, while more women valued polite treat¬ment. Expectations were fulfilled apart from amelioration. Among decision makers, accessibility and issues on organisation and ethics involved priority dilemmas. The persons with psoriasis stated that visibility of both skin psoria¬sis and joint changes, as well as being stigmatised, was the worst with living with psoriasis. The visibility and stigmatisation were most difficult in younger ages. Some of those with both rashes and joint changes thus felt stigmatised in a twofold way. In order to deal with these difficulties, commonly used coping strategies were routinisation of both treatment and of adjustment to the stigma¬tising process, a strategy which could not be found in literature, and accep¬tance. These strategies developed with age. Those with large disease extent and joint symptoms run the highest risk of impaired health-related quality of life. Most of the interviewed participants, took power over their lives and by using coping strategies created an acceptable personal quality of life for them¬selves. Still they could not find anything positive with having psoriasis. In specialised care as well as local health care, special attention should be paid to gender differences and distance to treatment facilities, and handling of possible stigmatisation in patient care. This thesis suggests that the coping theories should be complemented with routinisation as a coping strategy for psoriasis patients. Also, more research on the usefulness of the letter of referral and its consequence on equality and fairness are suggested.

Arbetets huvudsyfte var bland annat att undersöka könsord och ord med könsanknytning som används vid mobbning/sexuella trakasserier i skolan. Enkätstudien nådde 141 pojkar och 136 flickor i år 7-9. Enligt de redovisade resultaten är användning av kränkande ord i mobbningssammanhang mest förekommande, före ryktesspridning och fysisk kontakt. Åtta procent av alla eleverna anser sig ha känt sig mobbade/sexuellt trakasserade dagligen. Fem procent har mobbat eller utsatt någon för sexuella trakasserier varje dag. Fyrtionio procent av eleverna använder sig av kränkande ord oftast i skolan. Orden används mest i skolans korridor. De flesta elever är överens om att deras föräldrar ingriper i större utsträckning än andra vuxna då de hör ifrågavarande ord. Totalt sett har ett fyrtiotal ord presenterats av eleverna. De mest frekventa orden har analyserats kvantitativt. Eleverna i alla åldrar är medvetna om de grova ordens kränkningsgrad. Ungefär hälften av alla svarande anger att samma ord kan ha större eller mindre kränkningsgrad beroende på situationen i vilken orden används. Både flickor och pojkar anser generellt sett att könsord används i större utsträckning mot flickor.

Abstract Purpose/Aim: To investigate how the positions between the paper, the public and the elite in society have changed on Aftonbladets Op-Eds and Letter to the editor-pages between 1999 to 2005. In a wider context this means Aftonbladets potential to contribute to the role of the press as a forum of public debate. Material/Method: The study focuses on one week during 1999, 2002 and 2005. Here a quantitative contents analyse with inspiration from conversation (dialogue) analyse has been used. Main results: The study shows that the paper has strengthened its position over this period of time. Mainly by taking a more active role in forming and encouraging the debate. The public was given more space in 2002, then in 1999 and 2005. But on the other hand, in 2005 the public got, through the papers more active role, a stronger role themselves and by that, they strengthened their position too. Aftonbladet also broaden the debate to the Internet, whereby enlarging the papers own role as a forum of public debate. The elite temporarily was weakened in 2002 but regained its volume in 2005. However with more restraints put on it by the paper and the public. Keywords: Aftonbladet, Public debate, Newspaper, Press, Op-Ed, Letter to the editor, Quantitative contents analyse, Conversation (dialogue) analyse

During my practice as a teacher trainee at an upper secondary school it became clear to me that many pupils have difficulties with algebra. Also in a report from the National Agency for Education (1999) you can see that the students algebra knowledge get worse and worse. I was surprised to find that many pupils seemed to get stuck on the level of attainment for the senior level of the nine-year compulsory school. As I have not studied anything about difficulties in algebra during my training to become a qualified teacher I would like to get to know more about this. I also examine why you have to study algebra in upper secondary school. In my examination I have besides studying research used an empirical study. The empirical study consists of four interviews with upper secondary school teachers in mathematics. The result of my assignment can be summarized with that algebra gives you general solutions to problems, gives you larger poosibility to manage higer studys and its an important tool in other subjects in Upper Secondary School. The typical mistakes students do depends especially on fault due to lack of arithmetic skills. / Under mina praktikperioder på gymnasieskolan som lärarstudent kom jag i kontakt med många elever som hade det svårt med algebra. Även i en rapport från Skolverket (1999) fastlås gymnasieelevers allt sämre algebrakunskaper. Jag förundrades över att många elever verkade ha fastnat på högstadiets kunskapsnivå. Då jag inte har fått någon undervisning om elever med svårigheter i algebra i min lärarutbildning, vill jag lära mig mer om detta. Jag undersöker också varför man läser algebra på gymnasieskolan. I min undersökning har jag förutom litteraturstudier använt mig av en empirisk studie. Den empiriska studien består av intervjuer med fyra gymnasielärare i matematik. Resultatet av mitt arbete kan sammanfattas med att algebra ger generella lösningar på problem, ger större möjligheter att klara av högre studier och att det är ett viktigt verktyg i många andra ämnen i gymnasieskolan. De typiska fel som gymnasieelever gör beror främst på fel p.g.a. aritmetiska färdigheter saknas.

Since Mainland China advocated economic reform in 1978, the government appealed to many Taiwanese firms invested with a purpose of boosting trade and investing in this fast growing market. Some of the Taiwanese firms took this opportunity to expand and attain more profit and gradually developed into partners with major international enterprises in the supply chains. In order to increase the visibility in the world and increase the fundraising scale, numerous overseas Taiwanese firms chose to be listed in capital markets. A drastic change in government policy was seen in Taiwan since 2008. The regulations regarding foreign corporations listing in Taiwan capital markets have been largely loosened, which led to a sudden surge of appetite among successful overseas Taiwanese corporations for returning to Taiwan and be primary listed or secondary listed. This study is focused on overseas Taiwanese corporations based in Mainland China, where most of the primary listed firms operate and manufacture products. The main pragmatic issues discussed in this study include operating, managing, accounting and tax, and customs procedures¡Ketc. with a focus on illustration and analysis of tax related risks these firms encounter due to regulations in Mainland China when doing overseas investment restructuring, equity transfer and so on. This study not only investigate the issues of regulations for primary listing of securities in Taiwan, but also utilize case analysis to depict the development of primary listing oriented overseas investment structure and the frame of controlling of share holder¡¦s stock holding structures. Through practical experiences and diagrams to reveal the overseas operation and trading models in illustrations, the study has generated following verified summaries: 1. Analysis of regulations in China and the risk of taxes when corporations trying to make adjustment of overseas investment structure and transition of stock equity. 2. Study Taiwanese entrepurers or foreign companies, most of them are conglomerates companies or family owned business with centralized stock equity where they have the capability to highly conrol the core copany while they go public with the regard to the ownership and the level of controls in operation. 3. Utilize the formate of stock holding by overseas investment compay or through trust, to fullfill the consideration of equity diversification or reduce the burden of taxation.

This thesis examines the various futures presented by the original children's theatre of the Federal Theatre Project. Combining original archival research and play analysis, I investigate four plays from the Federal Theatre's canon: The Emperor's New Clothes (1935) and A Letter to Santa Claus (1938) by Charlotte Chorpenning, Revolt of the Beavers (1937) by Oscar Saul and Lou Lantz, and Pinocchio (1938-9) by Yasha Frank. I posit that the futures presented by the four plays allowed the spectators to envision a new American future beyond the Great Depression: of prosperity, of class equality, of individual agency. These futures were in conversation with the larger unspoken political goal of the Project - to produce theatre relevant to its time and place, and thus to its audiences' time and place. By analyzing the plays and their reception by young, adult, and critical audiences, my thesis reveals a a critical genealogy, one that can be traced through conservative arts criticism in the 1930s through present-day attacks on national arts such as PBS and the NEA / text

In considering the increasing interest in the study of a global Middle Ages, there seem to be few individuals, either fictional or actual, that had a more powerful cosmopolitan currency than the figure of Prester John and the legends surrounding his kingdom. As a product of cultural imaginings and questionably recounted historical events, the search for and legitimization of Prester John has commanded consistent interest, both popular and scholarly, almost continuously since first mention of the figure of John in 1145. The now infamous Letter of Prester John, which details the magnificent Christian kingdom lying somewhere in the East, beyond the approaching threat of an ever-expanding Islam, has long catalyzed a hunt, by both adventurers and scholars, to seek the elusive patriarch. The very indeterminacy of the geographic location of Prester John allowed the European imagination to consequently imagine him everywhere precisely because he could neither be confirmed nor denied existence anywhere. This report will explore the ways that a reading of the Prester John legend reveals competing ambitions of enclosure and expansion within twelfth and thirteenth-century Latin Christendom, specifically around the time of the Fifth Crusade. This report will trace the ideational tensions within a presumed Christian Crusading West trying to legitimate itself against the dialectical buttress of what was increasingly professed as its heretical other, Islam. The Fifth Crusade, especially, seemed to hinge on the possibility of the harmonious convergence of Eastern and Western Christian powers, literalizing the sense of Christian enclosure around all of Islam. Prester John’s kingdom thus served two functions: first, to comprise the other half of the Christian enclosure, and secondly, to mark a phenomenological limit point of human experience that domesticated alterity under the banner of a sovereign priest-king. / text

No description available.

Uppsatsen bygger på den vandringsdagbok som skrevs under 1952-1954 av 24 nyutexaminerade småskollärarinnor från Norrköpings småskoleseminarium. De hade enats om att skriva brev i dagboksform omfattande tre sidor brevtext och sedan låta boken cirkulera runt till samtliga författare. Boken skulle i första hand spegla deras arbete som lärarinnor och viktiga delar av deras privatliv. För några år sedan skänktes böckerna, 23 av 25, till Arbetets museum i Norrköping. Jag har tagit del av breven som omfattar lärarinnornas första arbetsår och försökt analysera deras arbete, privatliv, föreningsliv och deras hemligheter som det speglas i vandringsdagboken. De flesta anställdes bara på korta vikariat. En tredjedel förlovade eller gifte sig under det första året och några födde barn. Umgänget bestod av nya kolleger och av kontakt med gamla vänner från seminarietiden. De intresserade sig mycket litet för aktuella politiska, kulturella eller sociala problem. Vissa frågor, privata eller i skolan, behandlas inte i brevtexterna. / My essay is a result of an investigation of letters written in a diary between 1952 and 1954 by 24 primary school teachers who had just finished their final exam in the College of Education in Norrköping, Sweden during the summer of 1952. They had promised each other to write letters of three pages in a diary and to let the book circulate between all the participators. The letters should include the experience of their work as schoolteachers but also important parts of their private lives. The books, 23 of 25 in all, were donated to the Arbetets museum in Norrköping a few years ago. I have read the letters and made an effort to analyse their educational work, their private lives, their community activities and their secrets as found in the texts of the diary. The teachers were employed for some months or for one or two terms. One third of them was engaged or married during the first year and a few gave birth to children. Their intimate friends consisted of schoolteachers but they also kept contact with their old acquaintances from the College of Education. They took little interest in the political, cultural or social problems during the period I have studied. Certain questions of private nature were not discussed in the diary letters.