No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

This study is concerned with the development of extended fluid-dynamic models for the prediction of micro-scale flows. When compared to classical fluid descriptions, such models must remain valid on scales where traditional techniques fail. Also, knowing that solution to these equations will be sought by numerical methods, the nature of the extended models must also be such that they are amenable to solution using computational techniques. Moment closures of kinetic theory offer the promise of satisfying both of these requirements. It is shown that the hyperbolic nature of moment equations imbue them with several numerical advantages including an extra order of spacial accuracy for a given reconstuction when compared to the Navier-Stokes equations and a reduced sensitivity to grid irregularities. In addition to this, the expanded set of parameters governed by the moment closures allow them to accurately model many strong non-equilibrium effects that are typical of micro-scale flows. Unfortunately, traditional moment models have suffered from various closure breakdowns, and robust models that offer a treatment for non-equilibrium viscous heat-conducting gas flows have been elusive. To address these issues, a regularized 10-moment closure is first proposed herein based on the maximum-entropy Gaussian moment closure. This mathematically well-behaved model avoids closure breakdown through a strictly hyperbolic treatment for viscous effects and an elliptic formulation that accounts for non-equilibrium thermal diffusion. Moreover, steps toward the development of fully hyperbolic moment closures for the prediction of non-equilibrium viscous gas flow are made via two novel approaches. A thorough study of each of the proposed techniques is made through numerical solution of many classical flow problems.

In this thesis the aim has been to analyse changes and continuity in the governing of economic behaviour in small-scale credit schemes in colonial Nyasaland and independent Malawi from 1930 until 2010. Furthermore, how the effects of history in terms of how colonial and post-colonial development discourses and practices have been rephrased and reused in the early 21st century are discussed. The study focuses on the teaching and fostering of borrowers’ economic behaviour in order to reach increased living standards. The genealogical approach to the history of small-scale credit has made it possible to analyse a selection of colonial and post-colonial small-scale credit programs and microcredit organisations operating in the early 21st century. To analyse the governing of economic behaviour in the small-scale credit schemes, three aspects of the Foucauldian concept of governmentality are used: problematics of government, political rationality and governmentality technologies. The findings of the thesis, which are based on interviews, unofficial and official written sources, show that the genealogy of governing economic behaviour through small-scale credit schemes has varied over time depending on perceptions of the ideal actor’s economic behaviour. Despite this, some continuities have been identified. For example, there is a continuity in the problematics of government, the analysis of the perceived development problem and how small-scale credit was to be a solution. The study indicates that a linear and universal financial history is used in theory and practice and consequently that the local Malawian national history of small-scale credit has been ignored. Despite different political rationalities during the period there is a continuity in funding small-scale credit with external money, and the government’s interest in small-scale credit has also persisted. One effect of history is that small-scale credit seems to be politically efficient, but economically inefficient. In the colonial period and in more recent times, it seems like governmentality technologies regarding lending are quite ad hoc, for example regarding the supervision and distributions of loans. One effect of history is subordinated positions for borrowers and a governing towards economic responsibility, rather than entrepreneurship.

No description available.

The Wechsler Memory Scale (WMS) is the most extensively used battery for memory assessment of adults. The third edition of the WMS (WMS-111) represents a substantial revision of previous versions. Accordingly, issues of validity of the revised instrument need to be addressed. The purpose of these studies was to contribute to the validation of the scale in the assessment of patients with temporal lobe epilepsy WE). An important role of the neuropsychological evaluation in TLE is to aid in the localization and lateralization of dysfunction. This is based on the premise that the temporal lobes are specialized for the acquisition of material-specific information, with dysfunction in the left and right mesial temporal regions being associated with verbal and nonverbal memory impairment, respectively. Since the WMS is utilized by the vast majority of epilepsy centres, evaluation of its meaning and utility in this population is essential. In Study 1, the utility of the WMS-I11 in detecting lateralized impairment was examined in a sample of patients with left (n = 55) or right (n = 47) TLE. Methods of analysis included evaluation of group means on the various indexes and subtest scores, the use of ROC curves, and an examination of Auditory-Visual Index discrepancy scores. The Auditory- Visual Delayed Index difference score appeared most sensitive to side of temporal dysfunction, although patient classification rates were not within an acceptable range to have clinical utility. The ability to predict laterality based on statistically significant index score differences was particularly weak for those with left temporal dysfunction. The use of unusually large discrepancies led to improved prediction; however, the rarity of such scores limits their usefulness. ill In Study 2, five competing models specifying the factor structure underlying the WMS- 111 primarysubtest scores were evaluated in a large sample of patients with TLE (N = 254). Models specifying separate immediate and delayed constructs resulted in inadmissible parameter estimates and model specification error. There were negligible goodness-of-fit differences between a 3-factor model of working memory, auditory memory, and visual memory, and a nested- more parsimonious- 2-factor model of working memory and general memory. The results suggested that specifying a separate visual memory factor provided little advantage for this sample- an unexpected finding in a population with lateralized dysfunction, for which one might have predicted separate auditory and visual memory dimensions. These findings add to a growing literature which suggests that the WMS-I11 has little utility in detecting lateralized dysfunction in TLE. This has important implications for the preoperative assessment of epilepsy patients.

The shapes of cluster central galaxies are not randomly oriented, but rather exhibit coherent alignments with the shapes of their parent clusters as well as with the surrounding large-scale structures. In this work, we aim to identify the galaxy and cluster quantities that most strongly predict the central galaxy alignment phenomenon among a large parameter space with a sample of 8237 clusters and 94 817 members within 0.1 < z < 0.35, based on the red-sequence Matched-filter Probabilistic Percolation cluster catalogue constructed from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. We first quantify the alignment between the projected central galaxy shapes and the distribution of member satellites, to understand what central galaxy and cluster properties most strongly correlate with these alignments. Next, we investigate the angular segregation of satellites with respect to their central galaxy major axis directions, to identify the satellite properties that most strongly predict their angular segregation. We find that central galaxies are more aligned with their member galaxy distributions in clusters that are more elongated and have higher richness, and for central galaxies with larger physical size, higher luminosity and centring probability, and redder colour. Satellites with redder colour, higher luminosity, located closer to the central galaxy, and with smaller ellipticity show a stronger angular segregation towards their central galaxy major axes. Finally, we provide physical explanations for some of the identified correlations, and discuss the connection to theories of central galaxy alignments, the impact of primordial alignments with tidal fields, and the importance of anisotropic accretion.

Bipolar disorder is associated with significant social and occupational impairments, as well as increased risk for substance abuse and suicide. More research is needed to identify potential mechanisms associated with vulnerability to the disorder. Previous research has identified altered processing of emotional information in bipolar and bipolar-prone individuals, including attentional biases which appear to differ based on the current affective state of the individual. The current study applied a sensitive measure of attention (i.e., eye-tracking) to assess whether vulnerability to bipolar disorder, as indexed by hypomanic personality traits, would be correlated with biases in attention to emotional facial stimuli, independent of mood state. Hypomanic personality traits were hypothesized to be associated with greater attention to happy and angry faces, as indexed by faster initial orientation, more frequent gazes, and longer gaze duration for these stimuli. Participants completed self-report measures assessing current mood symptoms, positive and negative affect, and hypomanic personality traits. They then completed two tasks assessing attention for emotional faces. The first was an eye-tracking task, which measured latency to first fixation, total gaze duration and total number of gazes for each emotional face category. The second was a spatial cueing task which assessed both attentional engagement with emotional faces, and ability to disengage attention from this material. Hypomanic personality traits were significantly negatively correlated with latency to orient attention to happy faces. A trend toward decreased latency to orient to angry faces with higher hypomanic personality traits was also demonstrated. Hypomanic traits were not correlated with attention to sad faces. Furthermore, hypomanic traits were associated only with differences in initial orientation of attention, not with continued engagement or disengagement. The results of this study suggest that individuals with higher levels of hypomanic personality traits, who are hypothesized to be at greater risk of developing bipolar disorder, are characterized by differences in their initial orientation of attention to positive emotional stimuli, independent of their current mood state. This finding is indicative of biased information processing in individuals with vulnerability to bipolar disorder. Such a bias may have important clinical implications for individuals with a vulnerability to bipolar disorder, as it may represent a mechanism by which vulnerability leads to increased, and at times problematic, engagement with rewarding stimuli.

The purpose of this study was to develop an instrument to measure healthcare professionals’ knowledge and attitudes about near-death experiences (NDEs) that would demonstrate acceptable psychometric properties. In consultation with a focus group of six NDE experts, I developed the 50-item Knowledge and Attitudes toward Near-Death Experiences Scale (KANDES), including the 24-item KANDES–Attitude subscale (KANDES-A) and the 26-item KANDES–Knowledge subscale (KANDES-K). Including a pilot administration in which feedback indicated no need for revision, a total of 256 professional and student counselors completed the KANDES. Separate reliability and validity analyses were conducted for each subscale. For the KANDES–A, Cronbach’s alpha was .909, and Pearson’s r for test-retest was .748, both indicating acceptable reliability. An exploratory factor analysis indicated four factors to retain and yielded a factor solution that explained 54.87% of the variance, an acceptable amount of variance to substantiate construct validity. For the KANDES–K, Cronbach’s alpha was .816, indicating acceptable reliability. For each of the scale’s three domains, Cronbach’s alpha was .816 for Domain 1: NDE Content, .817 for Domain 2: NDE Aftereffects, and .631 for Domain 3: Experiencer Characteristics, indicating acceptable reliability. Pearson’s r for test-retest on the total KANDES–K was .812, further demonstrating acceptable reliability.