Au Cambodge, le système éducatif s’inscrit dans un contexte de réformes à tous les niveaux pour répondre aux mutations accélérées de la société.Pour comprendre le fonctionnement bureaucratique de ce système éducatif et penser les conditions d’une efficacité accrue, nous avons mobilisé le cadre théorique des organisations (Crozier, 1963 ; Mintzberg, 1986, 1989) ainsi qu’une approche éthique et pédagogique qui prennent en compte la mobilisation des acteurs (Bruner, 1983 ; Durand, 1996).La question de recherche de la thèse est la suivante : quels sont les effets repérables sur les acteurs du système éducatif d’une coopération entre le Ministère de l’Éducation du Cambodge et l’ONG Pour un Sourire d’Enfant dans le cadre d’un programme de rattrapage scolaire qui est introduit dans le Ministère et pour le Ministère ? Nous présentons en détail ce programme. Sur le plan méthodologique, nous avons mobilisé différents outils auprès de l’ensemble des acteurs concernés (observations, entretiens, questionnaires).Les résultats permettent d’établir que les acteurs ont manifesté des signes de mise en œuvre d’une nouvelle posture professionnelle, notamment en termes d’engagement, même si certains enseignants sont restés en retrait pour diverses raisons. / In Cambodia, the education system is part of a context of reforms at all levels to respond to the accelerated changes in society.To understand the bureaucratic functioning of this educational system and to think about the conditions for greater efficiency, we have mobilized the theoretical framework of organizations (Crozier, 1963; Mintzberg, 1986, 1989) as well as an ethical and pedagogical approach that takes into account the mobilization of actors (Bruner, 1983; Durand, 1996).The research question of the thesis is as follows: what are the identifiable effects on the actors of the education system of a cooperation between the Ministry of Education of Cambodia and the NGO Pour un Sourire d'Enfant within the framework of a school accelerated learning programme that is introduced in the Ministry and for the Ministry? We present this programme in detail.On the methodological level, we mobilized different tools from all the actors concerned (observations, interviews, questionnaires)The results show that the actors have shown signs of implementing a new professional posture, particularly in terms of commitment, even if some teachers have remained behind for various reasons.

One of the most stunning works of art on the Scripps College campus is the mural Flower Vendors(1946). The artist,Alfredo Ramos Martínez, an influential figure in Mexican Modernism, executed the work using a variety of traditional and non-traditional techniques. Prior analysis of the work indicated the use of a wax emulsion medium and established the range of pigments used. Ramos Martínez’s use of lead chromate (chrome yellow, Pb(CrO4)) was unusual in wall painting, and the pigment itself has been shown to photodegrade and darken over time in oil paintings, due to the reduction of Cr(VI) to Cr(III). The Pb(CrO4) in Flower Vendorsdoes not appear to have darkened, raising questions about the stability of lead chromate in a wax-emulsion medium relative to that of oil-based mediums. To better understand the behavior of lead chromate in wax-based mediums, a historical synthesis of lead chromate was recreated, and the pigment was suspended in four different binder matrices: a wax-water emulsion, refined linseed oil, cold-pressed linseed oil, and poppy oil. Each of these paint-binder mixtures wasaged beneath full-spectrum 6500 K LED lights. The relative darkening of the pigments was measured using UV-Vis reflectance colorimetry, and comparisons were made between the mediums.

Companies providing products have many requirements, both from standards and customers, that they need to comply with in order to be able to sell their product. Veoneer AB is a leading automotive machine vision supplier, providing mono, stereo, night vision and driver monitoring systems consisting of both electronic, mechanical and optical components. These systems have to withstand certain environmental tests in order to assure the lifetime of the totalsystems. Since the life time is usually several years accelerated tests are used that correspond to a few weeks ormonths. The tests used at Veoneer are specified for electronic equipment and what Veoneer does not know today is ifthe accelerated environmental tests stated for electronic equipment are relevant for the optical component of the visionsystem. In this master thesis project two different accelerated environmental tests, dry and damp heat, have been chosen inorder to investigate the effect of temperature and relative humidity on the adhesive in the optical component connecting the sensor and lens. The optical components where characterized by measurement of focus position and mechanicalstrength. Different combinations of temperature and relative humidity where chosen in order to compare the effect of different stress levels but also for the purpose of deriving parameters needed for accelerated testing models such as theArrhenius, Eyring, Lawson and Peck model. Amongst the results from this thesis work is the focus shift measurement which follows the same trend as seen in previous research regarding the effect of temperature and relative humidity on adhesives. With an exponentialdistribution being seen in different directions for the respective stresses. Pull tests show a greater degradation withhigher stress levels, where one test case shows the greatest degradation. Calculations regarding activation energy and constants for models match previous research where one model, combining temperature and relative humidity, showssimilar values as found in literature. Calculations also show that standard accelerated life time tests overexpose adhesives due to calculations of test times with lower activation energies.

Variable selection procedures for high dimensional data have been proposed and studied by a large amount of literature in the last few years. Most of the previous research focuses on the selection properties as well as the point estimation properties. In this paper, our goal is to construct the confidence intervals for some low-dimensional parameters in the high-dimensional setting. The models we study are the partially penalized linear and accelerated failure time models in the high-dimensional setting. In our model setup, all variables are split into two groups. The first group consists of a relatively small number of variables that are more interesting. The second group consists of a large amount of variables that can be potentially correlated with the response variable. We propose an approach that selects the variables from the second group and produces confidence intervals for the parameters in the first group. We show the sign consistency of the selection procedure and give a bound on the estimation error. Based on this result, we provide the sufficient conditions for the asymptotic normality of the low-dimensional parameters. The high-dimensional selection consistency and the low-dimensional asymptotic normality are developed for both linear and AFT models with high-dimensional data.

A unique breed of nurses for the US market is emerging-the Physician-Nurses. They are foreign-educated physicians who have retrained as nurses. The purpose of this study was to generate a theory that can explain the development of their nursing identity. Specific aims were to discover barriers that participants perceived as problematic in their transition to nursing and catalysts that influenced how they addressed the central problematic issue they articulated. Grounded theory methodology guided by the philosophical foundations of symbolic interactionism was used. Twelve Physician-Nurses were interviewed. Transcribed interviews were imported to ATLAS.ti. Text data were analyzed by constant comparative method. Concept formation, development, modification and integration were accomplished through different levels of coding. Methods were employed to ensure trustworthiness of findings. Core categories were discovered and a central social psychological problem experiencing the burdens of a new beginning and a basic social psychological process combining the best of two worlds emerged. Further theorizing generated the substantive theory combining the best of two worlds and the beginnings of a formal theory. The substantive theory explained the three-dimensional central problem and the five-stage basic social psychological process. Dimensions of the central problem were (a) crossing cultures, (b) starting from zero, and (c) crossing professions. Stages of the basic process were (a) letting go of professional identity as physician, (b) experiencing growing pains, (c) seeing nursing as a saving grace, (d) gaining authority to practice as a nurse, and (e) engaging self to nursing and asserting "I am a nurse." The substantive theory is a springboard toward the development of a formal theory which may be able to further explicate the development of nursing identity in Physician-Nurses. This theory named, Theory of Transprofessionalism, was initially conceptualized as having five phases namely: (a) disengagement, (b) discouragement, (c) enlightenment, (d) encouragement, and (d) engagement. These stages correspond to the five stages of the substantive theory. The key concept nursing identity was operationalized by utilizing three statements published by the American Nurses Association that describe the professional registered nurse, the knowledge base for nursing practice, and the code of ethics for nurses.

The economic feasibility of producing biomass-based fuels requires high-yielding feedstocks to supply biomass to biorefineries. Populus trees are a potential biomass feedstock due to their high yield, but their high water requirement limits productivity under drought conditions. The number of genes controlling drought tolerance, and the long generation time for perennial species, slows cultivar development. Accelerated domestication proposes using the sequenced Populus genome to quickly incorporate target traits into productive clones by transgenesis. Six putative drought tolerance transcription factors: DREB2A, DREB2B, AtMYB, AREB1/ABF2, MYB, and NAC, had been previously identified and manipulated in eastern cottonwood (Populus deltoides). Three constructs of each gene were transformed into a P. deltoides background clone, including constitutive overexpression (OE), drought inducible OE, and knockdown. This greenhouse study examines the effect of these previously transformed constructs on drought tolerance by characterizing leaf abscission, leaf water potential, and growth under drought and well-watered conditions. AREB1/ABF2 constitutive OE lost significantly fewer leaves under drought than the Vector control, and had one of the lowest rates of leaf loss overall. Both DREB2A inducible OE and AREB1/ABF2 constitutive OE plants were more productive than the Vector control under drought conditions. MYB inducible OE was a productive construct and initially appeared to be drought tolerant. It is possible that this construct experienced xylem cavitation early on due to the severity of drought experienced by the large trees containing this construct. DREB2A inducible OE, AREB1/ABF2 constitutive OE, and MYB inducible OE were the most productive constructs as well as being likely to confer drought tolerance. Field trials would be the next step, providing a clearer picture of how these constructs would perform under natural conditions.

The accelerated lifetime model is considered. To test the influence of the covariate we transform the model in a regression model. Since censoring is allowed this approach leads to a goodness-of-fit problem for regression functions under censoring. So nonparametric estimation of regression functions under censoring is investigated, a limit theorem for a L2-distance is stated and a test procedure is formulated. Finally a Monte Carlo procedure is proposed.

High Performance Computing (HPC) aims at providing reasonably fast computing solutions to both scientific and real life technical problems. Many efforts have indeed been made on the way to powerful supercomputers, both generic and customized configurations. However, whatever their current and future breathtaking capabilities, supercomputers work by brute force and deterministic steps, while human mind works by few strokes of brilliance. Thus, in order to take a significant advantage of hardware advances, we need powerful methods to solve problems together with highly skillful programming efforts and relevant frameworks. The advent of multicore architectures is noteworthy in the HPC history, because it has brought the underlying concept of multiprocessing into common consideration and has changed the landscape of standard computing. At a larger scale, there is a keen desire to build or host frontline supercomputers. The yearly Top500 ranking nicely illustrates and orchestrates this supercomputers saga. For many years, computers have been falling in price while gaining processing power often strengthened by specialized accelerator units. We clearly see that what commonly springs up in mind when it comes to HPC is computer capability. However, this availability of increasingly fast computers has changed the rule of scientific discovery and has motivated the consideration of challenging applications. Thus, we are routinely at the door of large-scale problems, and most of time, the speed of calculation by itself is no longer sufficient. Indeed, the real concern of HPC users is the time-to-output. Thus, we need to study each important aspect in the critical path between inputs and outputs, and keep striving to reach the expected level of performance. This is the main concern of the viewpoints and the achievements reported in this book. The document is organized into five chapters articulated around our main contributions. The first chapter depicts the landscape of supercomputers, comments the need for tremendous processing speed, and analyze the main trends in supercomputing. The second chapter deals with solving large-scale combinatorial problems through a mixture of continuous and discrete optimization methods, we describe the main generic approaches and present an important framework on which we have been working so far. The third chapter is devoted to the topic accelerated computing, we discuss the motivations and the issues, and we describe three case studies from our contributions. In chapter four, we address the topic of energy minimization in a formal way and present our method based on a mathematical programming approach. Chapter five debates on hybrid supercomputing, we discuss technical issues with hierarchical shared memories and illustrate hybrid coding through a large-scale linear algebra implementation on a supercomputer.

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Anatoxin-a (ANTX) is a neurotoxin produced by several freshwater cyanobacteria and has been implicated in the death of livestock and domestic animals from consumption of tainted surface waters. ANTX is unstable under normal conditions and is somewhat problematic to extract and study. Accelerated solvent extraction (ASE) combined with liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC/MS) was used to develop an efficient extraction and analytical method for both ANTX and the more commonly encountered hepatotoxic microcystins produced by cyanobacteria. The effects of nitrogen supply on the cellular production and release of ANTX was investigated in Aphanizomenon issatschenkoi (Ussaczew) Proschkina-Lavrenko (Nostocales). In contrast to the predictions of the carbonnutrient balance hypothesis, the maximum production was observed under moderate N stress. In addition, steady state fugacity-based models were employed to investigate ANTX’s distribution and fate in freshwater ecosytems. ANTX was not found to be very persistent in aquatic ecosystems and did not appear to bioaccumulate in fish, at least not from the dissolved phase.