This field study presents mobile rescue robots as a way of augmenting communication in distributed teams through a remote shared visual presence (RSVP) consisting of the robot's view. It examines the effects of RSVP on team mental models, team processes, and team performance in collocated and distributed Urban Search & Rescue (US&R) technical search teams, and tests two models of team performance. Participants (n=50) were US&R task force personnel drawn from high-fidelity training exercises held in California (2004) and New Jersey (2005). Data were collected from the 25 dyadic teams as they performed a 2 x 2 repeated measures search task entailing robot-assisted search in a confined space rubble pile. Team communication was analyzed using the Robot-Assisted Search and Rescue coding scheme (RASAR-CS). Team mental models were measured through a team-constructed map of the search process. Ratings of team processes (communication, support, leadership, and situation awareness) were made by onsite observers, and team performance was measured by number of victims (mannequins) found. Multilevel regression analyses were used to predict team mental models, team process, and team performance based upon use of RSVP (RSVP or no-RSVP) and location of team members (distributed or collocated). Results indicated that the use of RSVP technology predicted team performance (Ã?=-1.322, p = 0.05), but not team mental models or team process. Location predicted team mental models (Ã?=-0.425, p = 0.05), but not as expected. Distributed teams had richer team mental models as measured by map ratings. No significant differences emerged between collocated and distributed teams in team process or team performance. Findings suggest RSVP may enhance team performance in US&R search tasks. However, results are complicated by differences detected between sites. Support was found for both models of team performance, but neither model was found sufficient to describe the data. Further research is suggested in the use of RSVP technology, the exploration of team mental models, and refinement of a modified model of team performance in extreme environments.

SUMMARY Topic of Investigation: Socio-Educational Discourse of Children Summer Holidays (as a kind of leisure and recreation forms). Author of the Work: Ruta Palubaityte, student of Educology Program of Studies EMM-03 (specialization: leisure pedagogy and basics of recreation) Siauliai University, Educology Faculty. Urgency of the work. According to the data of the State Youth Affairs Council (2004), “having much leisure” if the most important feature of the youth. One fifth of the interviewed youths maintain such opinion.However almost every seventh young person (15 per cent) state they are too little occupied and have too much leisure, almost every sixth (17 per cent) noted lack of occupation as youth’s problem.Most of the (over 65 per cent) 14-29 aged youths spends leisure watching TV, meeting friends or listening music. Large part of their leisure is spent for chores, work with PC or Internet and sports (http://www.vjrt.lt/apie_jaunima/laisvalaikis). Most of the data covers leisure of the teenagers and youths. There is no generalized statistics about leisure of the children (preschool and school-aged) in Lithuania. Children leisure camp attendance reports are the only available sources. However information, covering another leisure forms, is lacking. In Lithuania only children leisure forms and methods undergo analysis. Subject of Investigation: Socio-Educational Significance Discourse of Children and Adults Summer Holidays. Target of the Work: the work is aimed to... [to full text]

We assessed how estimates of need-expected inpatient hospital use differ depending on whether need-expected use was estimated for a population of all Canadians, Canadian health regions, or a subpopulation of higher income Canadians, who likely had minimal healthcare access problems. Data came from the 2009/2010 Canadian Community Health Survey, a national cross-sectional survey. Using zero-inflated negative binomial regression, we modeled inpatient hospital use separately based on the three aforementioned choices of population. We adjusted for demographic, health behaviour, health status, socioeconomic, and health care supply factors. We then estimated need-expected inpatient hospital use and compared the estimates across individuals and by income and province. The three choices of population that we used in this study had similar results. Our estimates of the average need-expected use by province or income group were not sensitive to the choice of population used to estimate need-expected use.

Šiame darbe sprendžiama mobiliųjų įrenginių internetinės vartotojo sąsajos vartojamumo problema, kuri kuo toliau, tuo labiau tampa aktualesnė, kadangi vis daugiau paslaugų bei veiklos procesų yra perkeliama į mobiliąją erdvę. Vartojamumas tampa vienas iš svarbesnių veiksnių, lemiančių internetinės sistemos išlikimo bei naudojimo perspektyvas. Tačiau išlieka atviras klausimas – ar kuriant internetinę sistemą tikslinga investuoti laiką bei resursus ir greta įprastinės vartotojo sąsajos vystyti dar ir mobiliesiems įrenginiams pritaikytą sąsają. Nagrinėjama sritis yra pakankamai nauja todėl tokio pobūdžio tyrimai arba bent jau jų rezultatai dar nėra plačiai paplitę bei skelbiami. Analizės metu buvo išnagrinėti vartojamumo tyrimo metodai bei mobiliųjų įrenginių internetinės vartojo sąsajos rekomendacijos. Pasitelkus dalį išanalizuotų metodų vartojamumo požiūriu buvo ištirtos dvi eksperimentinės tos pačios sistemos vartotojo sąsajos – mobilioji bei įprastinė, naudojamos mobiliajame įrenginyje. Eksperimentui reikalingos vartotojo sąsajos buvo realizuotos sukūrus bei įdiegus „naujienų tinklaraščio“ informacinę sistemą, turinčią tiek įprastinę tiek mobiliesiems įrenginiams pritaikytas vartotojo sąsajas. Vartojamumo tyrime buvo panaudoti trys vartojamumo tyrimo metodai, kurių pagalba sistemos vartojamumas tiriamas keliais aspektais: rekomendacijų laikymasis, sistemos techninės savybės, vartotojo sąveika su sistema. Gauti rezultatai leidžia daryti išvadą, jog kuriant internetinę... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / Mobile technologies are evolving very fast and according to specialists they will become the main tool used to access the internet in the 10 next years. So it is natural that more and mode services are served through mobile internet. As all regular applications, mobile web applications should be usable and user friendly. These aspects make a quite big influence on success of software. The main goal of this work is to make a usability research on web user interface for mobile devices. This research will show if there is a sense to make separate user interface for mobile devices when you are going to develop web system which will be also used by mobile devices users. The field of this work is web user interface for mobile devices and its usability. The object of this work is user interface usability research methodology.

Note: / Clinical chemistry is a medical discipline whose aim is to diagnose and assess disease by analysis of biological specimens. Modem laboratories can perform several hundred different tests using many different methods developed over the last century. The classical, more traditional assays are typically labour-intensive, not multiplexed (only measure one analyte or disorder per assay), expensive, require a long turnaround time, and may not provide adequate sensitivity and specificity. Developments in mass spectrometry (MS) and related technologies over the last two decades have provided solutions for many if not all of these shortcomings. While MS based applications have not yet been widely implemented in clinical chemistry laboratories, current developments will encourage the replacement of traditional methods as well as the expansion of clinically diagnostic endpoints. Indeed, modem MS can be used to simultaneously analyze and quantitate multiple biomarkers in a single analysis. Currently, no other technique exists that can provide a comparable multiplexed analysis. In this thesis, current MS and related technologies were developed and applied to several important but distinct clinical chemistry applications. [...] / La chimie clinique est une discipline medicale qui a pour but de diagnostiquer la presence et la progression d'une maladie par l'analyse d'echantillons biologiques. Les laboratoires modemes peuvent executer des centaines d'analyses en utilisant plusieurs methodes developpees au courrant des cent demieres annees. Les essaisc1assiques, et plus traditionnels, sont souvent laborieux, non multiplexe (mesurent seulement un analyte par essai), cher, exige un long temps de rotation et risque de ne pas fournir une specificite adequate. Pendant les deux dernieres decennies, les developpements dans Ie domaine de la spectrometrie de masse (MS) et les technologies rattachees ont foumi des solutions a plusieurs, pour ne pas dire tous, manques retrouves dans les methodes d'analyse traditionnelles.

<p>This was a descriptive qualitative study. Eight people living with HIV, four of which had disclosed their status, were individually interviewed. Two focus group discussions (each comprising 6 participants) were also conducted with health workers. The study was based at an urban TB hospital which is currently providing a range of HIV-related services including HIV Voluntary Counselling and Testing, case management and treatment.</p>

The purpose of this study is to demonstrate a practical application of social network analysis in the field of education using a large-scale data source. Using the Early Childhood Longitudinal Base Year data, a network is identified by examining the connections that occur between supports, both inside and outside formal special education resources for kindergarteners with access to special education programs. Social network mappings and quantitative findings are presented for formal and informal supports and primary disability category, along with policy implications and suggestions for further research. Findings indicate that social network analysis offers a unique and innovative perspective to educational research.

Citizens of the Aamjiwnaang First Nation fight for justice with their bodies at the frontlines of environmental catastrophe. This dissertation employs a biopolitical and interpretive analysis to examine these struggles in the polluted heart of Canada’s ‘Chemical Valley’. Drawing from a discursive analysis of situated concerns on the ground and a textual analysis of Canada’s biopolitical ‘policy ensemble’ for Indigenous citizenship, this dissertation examines how citizens and public officials respond to environmental and reproductive injustices in Aamjiwnaang. Based upon in-depth interviews with residents and policy-makers, I first document citizens of the Aamjiwnaang First Nation’s activities and practices on the ground as they cope with and navigate their health concerns and habitat. Second, I examine struggles over knowledge and the contestation over scientific expertise as the community seeks reproductive justice. Third, I contextualize citizen struggles over knowledge by discussing the power relations embedded within the ‘policy ensemble’ for Indigenous citizenship and Canadian jurisdiction for on-reserve environmental health. From an interpretive lens, inspired by Foucault’s concepts of biopower and governmentality, the dissertation develops a framework of “ecological citizenship”, which confronts biopolitics with a theoretical discussion of place to expand upon existing Canadian citizenship and environmental studies literature. I argue that reproductive justice in Aamjiwnaang cannot be separated from environmental justice, and that the concept of place is central to ongoing struggles. As such, I discuss “ecological citizenship’s double-edge”, to contend that citizens are at once bound up within disciplinary biopolitical power relations and also articulate a radical form of place-based belonging.

The prevalence of crack use among illicit drug users has dramatically increased in Canada over the past decade. The sharing of crack pipes and other crack use paraphernalia is common among users of crack cocaine and is associated with unique negative health harms and costs (Haydon & Fischer, 2005). This thesis explores the phenomenon of crack pipe sharing among crack users in Victoria, British Columbia. The study uses data from in-depth interviews with thirteen self-reported crack users who regularly share crack pipes. Interviews explored the experiences of participants around crack pipe sharing, focusing on contextual, social and environmental factors that influenced the sharing of pipes. Crack pipe sharing is presented as a largely social act around which shared meanings have emerged. The findings illustrate the social context of crack pipe sharing, which is mediated by informal rules and etiquette, as well as distinct sanctions and consequences for deviating from the generally accepted norms around sharing pipes. Further, three distinct dimensions of crack pipe sharing are proposed - mutual, distributive and receptive sharing - each associated with various costs and benefits, and framed by relations of status and power. The results of this study also demonstrate that crack pipe sharing serves a number of real and distinct purposes in crack users’ lives, providing economic, control and social functions. My findings illustrate that, despite the various health and social harms related to crack pipe sharing, sharing pipes makes sense in the reality and lived experience of the participants.

This study of newspaper content from ten papers in four countries with substantial Muslim minorities uses discourse and sentiment analysis to identify general attitudes toward Muslims. / Masters by research Thesis