Thesis (M.Eng.Sc.) - University of Queensland, 2002. / Includes bibliography.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1967. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.S.) University of Missouri-Columbia, 2006. / The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research.pdf file (viewed on August 23, 2007) Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1985. / Vita. Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 142-148). Also available via the Internet.

During the first decade of the 21st century, there has been a shift in the view of what role regions should play in the creation of growth. From being governed from a national level more and more of the responsibility of creating growth is being transferred to a regional level. One example of this development has been the Regional Growth Program (RGP), which were implemented in all regions in Sweden during the period 2004 to 2007. This dissertation studies the RGP in the county of Västmanland, where a number of actors within the program have been interviewed as well as meetings within the program have been monitored. The interviews have been analyzed through a phenomenological oriented method which has resulted in six empirical themes. They consist of the following themes: region, growth, entrepreneurship, cooperation and competition, results, and talk and action. The last theme which concerns talk and action is being examined more thoroughly through the observations of meetings in the RGP and interviews with central actors. This theme is viewed as the most central and essential theme of the study. The dominating view of the central actors is that there is “too much talk and too little action” in the RGP   In the latter part of the dissertation the theme of talk and action is examined further using a organizational perspective. The RGP is organized in so called “partnerships”, where the differences become very clear when compared to organization in a more traditional form. In traditional organizations, output can be observed as manufactured units or the value created in services performed. From such a perspective, consensus, efficiency and action – becomes the rational to strive for to maximize the effectiveness. Such a traditional view of organization is less useful for RGP – but is still in use since they are the dominant perspectives on how we value “good” organizing. In the case of the RGP the partnership have being assigned to cooperate and find new, better ways to stimulate the regional growth. The success of the partnership is still measured by quantitative indicators, which is not very logical since it is almost impossible to see if the partnership has had anything to do with affecting these indicators.   With the support of theories from Brunsson (2006) I therefore propose the “talk organization” as an alternative to the “action organization” – and also see the potential of redefining the partnership as a form of such a talk organization. The advantages of such an approach could be to view the talking as an important prerequisite to potential action, and furthermore we can revalue the importance of creating talk opportunities to occur in such partnerships. This creates a view full of conflicts in relating to the traditional view of organization that advocates consensus and order – but in the supposedly creative talking partnerships the issue may be to uphold conflict, and a wide range of different views  to be able to create something new. The dissertation has a theoretical focus that highlights the connection, but also contradictions, between the structural and symbolic in organizing and also how it may affect the potential for development and change. / Under 2000-talets inledning har synen på regionernas roll i skapandet av tillväxt ändrats. Från att ha styrts från nationell nivå fördelas nu ansvaret ner på regional nivå. Bland annat manifesteras detta i de regionala tillväxtprogram (RTP) som sjösattes 2004 som ett uppdrag från regeringen till Sveriges regioner och län. Uppdraget handlar om att regionala aktörer ska organisera sig bättre för att stimulera tillväxten. Denna avhandling studerar arbetet i Västmanlands län under programperioden 2004-2007 och där ett antal av programmets aktörer intervjuats och programmets möten följts via observationer. Intervjuerna har analyserats utifrån en fenomenologiskt orienterad metod och gett upphov till ett antal empiriska huvudteman som handlar om region, tillväxt, entreprenörskap, samverkan och konkurrens, resultat, samt prat och handling. Det sista temat om prat och handling undersöks djupare genom att studera möten i RTP som arenor för detta prat och kan ses som något av ett överordnat och essentiellt tema i avhandlingen. Den dominerande bilden från aktörerna tycks vara ett intryck av ”för mycket prat och för lite handling” i RTP. I avhandlingens senare del fortsätter analysen om prat och handling utifrån ett organiseringsperspektiv. RTP organiseras i så kallade "partnerskap" där skillnaderna blir mycket tydliga mot organisering i en mer traditionell form. I traditionella organisationer består oftast output av kvantifierbara enheter, alternativt värdeskapande handling i tjänster. Då blir ordning, reda, samsyn och framför allt handling det rationella och centrala att sträva efter för att maximera effektiviteten. I den organisering som studerats i RTP passar de traditionella perspektiven mindre bra - men används ändå eftersom de är de förhärskande synsätten på hur vi värderar "bra" organisering. I fallet med RTP har det regionala partnerskapet fått i uppgift att samverka och finna nya, bättre arbetssätt för att öka den regionala tillväxten. Man mäter sedan partnerskapets framgång i traditionella kvantitativa mätetal, vilket är svårt på många sätt, men kanske framförallt för att man har problem att se huruvida partnerskapet i sig ligger bakom en förändring av indikatorerna.   Här tar jag stöd av Brunsson (2006) och lanserar "prat"-organisationen som ett alternativ till "handlings"-organisationen, och ser även möjligheten att omdefiniera partnerskapet till ett "pratnerskap". Fördelarna med detta är att vi då se på vissa delar av organisering på ett nytt sätt - där det så kallade pratet kan ses som en förutsättning för potentiell handling, och där vissa organisationer kanske bör värderas efter förmåga att skapa prat och arenor för detta prat. Detta ger ett konfliktfullt förhållande till den klassiska synen som förespråkar konsensus, ordning och samsyn – medan det kreativa pratnerskapet går ut på att upprätthålla en mångfald av synsätt och dissensus för att kunna skapa något nytt. Avhandlingen har ett teoretiskt fokus som belyser kopplingen, men även motsättningen, mellan det strukturella och det symboliska i organisationsvärlden, samt hur det påverkar möjligheter till förändrings- och utvecklingsarbete. / Interaktiv kunskapsutveckling i de regionala tillväxtprogrammen - entreprenörskap, innovation och drivkrafter för hållbar utveckling i fokus, 2004-2007

The aim of this study was to investigate whether daily handling in the form of tactile stimulation can ifluence behaviour of adult common voles (Microtus arvalis). The voles were tested in three types of behavioural experiments - Acoustic startle test, Open Field test (OFT), and Elevated Plus Maze test (EPM). No significant impact of handling on personality traits was detected.

Since August 2010, Facebook has entered the self-reported positioning world by providing the check-in service to its users. This service allows users to share their physical location using the GPS receiver in their mobile devices such as a smart-phone, tablet, or smart-watch. Over the years, big datasets of recorded check-ins have been collected with increasing popularity of social networks. Analyzing the check-in datasets reveals valuable information and patterns in users’ check-in behavior as well as places check-in history. The analysis results can be used in several areas including business planning and financial decisions, for instance providing location-based deals. In this thesis, we leverage novel data mining methodology to learn from big check-in data and predict the next check-in place based on only places’ history and with no reference to individual users. To this end, we study a large Facebook check-in dataset. This dataset has a high level of noise in location coordinates due to multiple collection sources, which are users’ mobile devices. The research question is how we can leverage a noise impact reduction technique to enhance performance of prediction model. We design our own noise handling mechanism to deal with feature noise. The predictive model is generated by Random Forest classification algorithm in a shared-memory parallel environment. We represent how the performance of predictors is enhanced by minimizing noise impacts. The solution is a preprocessing feature noise cleansing approach implemented in R and works fast for big check-in datasets.

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico / The reflections on this research began-taking as a starting point the interest in issues related to the most primitive experiences that underlie the constitution of subjectivity. It is thought, as some authors, that the initial experiences of a baby are very important for the formation of his psychic apparatus, especially those related to the set of sensations in which it is immersed. But then what happens when the baby is born with some deficiency in their sensorimotor apparatus, as in the case of babies born blind? It is known that blind people have to use other means to establish relations with the world of objects, people and things that surround them, implying a process of profound perceptual reorganization in which the stimuli provided by the environment play a key role. However, several studies indicate that many of these children who are blind from birth are not able to develop harmoniously manifesting often similar to autism in children visionaries, among other disorders. It seems that in these cases, visual impairment Baby profoundly affected the capacity to bond with attachment figures and this fact led to important onsequences for the evolution of the child. At the other extreme, infants who achieved an adequate level of development, showed healthy bonds with family, especially his mother. Thus, the purpose of this research concerns on the one hand, the understanding of the path taken by children who do not have the help of the sense of sight and, secondly, the understanding of the role of the first links to both health cases and for cases where the pathology and psychological distress arise. / As reflexões acerca desta pesquisa iniciaram-se tendo como ponto de partida o interesse pelas questões relacionadas às experiências mais primitivas que estão na base da constituição da subjetividade. Pensa-se, tal como alguns autores, que as vivências iniciais de um bebê são bastante importantes para a formação de seu aparato psíquico, sobretudo, as que dizem respeito ao conjunto de sensações nas quais o mesmo está imerso. Mas, então, o que se passa quando o bebê nasce com alguma deficiência em seu aparato sensório-motor, como no caso de bebês cegos de nascença? Sabe-se que as pessoas cegas precisam utilizar outros meios para estabelecer relações com o mundo dos objetos, pessoas e coisas que as cercam, implicando um processo de profunda reorganização perceptiva no qual os estímulos proporcionados pelo ambiente desempenharão um papel fundamental. No entanto, vários estudos apontam que muitas destas crianças cegas desde o nascimento não conseguem se desenvolver de modo harmônico manifestando distúrbios freqüentemente semelhantes ao autismo em crianças videntes, entre outros. Parece que, nestes casos, a incapacidade visual do bebê afetou profundamente as capacidades de vínculo com as figuras de apego e este fato originou seqüelas importantes na evolução da criança. No outro extremo, bebês que conseguiram um nível de desenvolvimento adequado, mostraram vínculos saudáveis com a família, em especial com a mãe. Assim, a finalidade da presente pesquisa prende-se, por um lado, à compreensão do caminho percorrido por crianças que não contam com o auxílio do sentido da visão e, por outro, ao entendimento do papel dos primeiros vínculos tanto para os casos de saúde quanto para os casos em que a patologia e o sofrimento psíquico surgem.

M.Sc. (Botany) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

In the experimental ITER fusion reactor, currently under construction in Cadarache, France, components close to the plasma will get activated and contaminated over time. Therefore, these components will need to be maintained remotely in a so called hot cell facility. The maintenance will be executed according to step-by-step procedures, with every procedure meticulously validated and formally described in an Operation Sequence Description (OSD). To support formal validation, OSDs are to be captured in an ITER-dedicated Structured Language (SL), a form of domain specific programming language. The Remote Handling Study Centre (RHSC), located at FOM institute DIFFER, Nieuwegein, The Netherlands, has an ITER Remote Handling Control Room representative setup which connects to a virtual ITER Hot Cell back-end environment. In this setup, Remote Handling maintenance scenarios and procedures can be tested under realistic conditions. In this thesis, a Structured Language for ITER maintenance is proposed, implemented as a prototype to capture several realistic operational sequences from existing projects, and integrated in the RHSC workflow. The Structured Language programs are converted to schedulable tasks, by inferring their resource usage and time duration from the structured task descriptions. These tasks are then scheduled using a proposed set of scheduling heuristics. The resulting schedule is subsequently submitted to many simulated executions, with random variation in the execution time of individual tasks. The variation that is applied in the execution time, is based on representative task execution times was measured for a recent and repetitive set of maintenance tasks performed at JET. It is shown that inserting a certain amount of slack in the schedule improves its robustness. ITER maintenance scheduling should account for uncertainty by including slack in the resulting planning.