<p>Sense of coherence, SOC, is a way to study health and wellbeing in a salutogen perspective. SOC is a theory that Aaron Antonovsky came up with and it involves three elements; comprehensibility, manageability and meaningfulness. These three elements is a objective way to look at our existence. The aim of this study was to examine how high the pupils sense of coherence was in the grades 1, 3 and 6 in a school in Karlstad. And with the result as starting point have a discussion around the pedagogical consequences and which educational work procedures we can use to work with SOC in school. It turned out that the students sense of coherence had a high mean value and that it got even higher through the grades.</p><p> </p><p>The study will underlie for further development in this subject field and work as a foundation for further studies around the theory SOC.</p>

<p>In this Thesis the magnetic and structural properties of thin epitaxial Fe, Co, and Ni films are discussed. Some of the in-situ prepared samples were used to characterize the degree of circular polarization of the newly installed beamline D1011 at MAX-lab. By means of x-ray magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD) and utilizing the associated magneto optic sum rules, the orbital (<i>m</i><i>l</i>) and spin (<i>m</i><i>s</i>) moments are determined directly in <i>m</i><i>B</i>/atom with elemental specificity. The extended x-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS) measurements yield site specific information on the local crystallographic structure.</p><p>These measurements were performed using the circular x-rays of several beamlines. The influence of the degree of spatial source coherence <i>l</i><i>spat</i> of the x-rays was characterized by means of Fresnel diffractometry. A correlation between enhanced XAS white line intensities and higher values of <i>l</i><i>spat</i> was established for 20 ML Fe, Co, and Ni films on Cu(100).</p><p>The degree of circularly polarized x-rays (<i>P</i><i>c</i>) at beamline D1011 at MAX-lab was characterized by studying Fe films on Cu(100) by means of XMCD. The maximum value of <i>P</i><i>c</i> is experimentally determined to <i>P</i><i>c</i> =0.85.</p><p>The Au/Co/Au trilayer system was studied as a function of Co thickness, temperature, and Au cap thickness. A 10 mono-layer (ML) Co film, with an Au cap of 20 Å, shows a spin reorientation transition (SRT) from an in-plane to an out-of-plane easy direction as the temperature is lowered from 300 K to 200 K. The magnetic properities of these Co films are very different to what is found for bulk samples due to, in particular, the broken symmetry at the interfaces.</p><p>The thickness dependent spin reorientation transition in the Fe/Ag(100) system was characterized by means of XMCD and EXAFS measurements. 3 ML Fe films show an out-of-plane easy direction with an 125% enhanced orbital moment as compared to the 25 ML Fe in-plane film. Simulations of the Fe <i>L</i>-edge EXAFS indicate the bulk Fe bcc structure for film thicknesses of 6-25 ML Fe. For 3 ML Fe strong deviations from this bcc phase is observed.</p><p>Ultrathin Co films deposited on flat and vicinal Cu(111) in the thickness region 1-25 ML were studied by means of XMCD and scanning tunneling microscopy (STM). The vicinal Cu(111) Co deposition leads to the formation of elongated islands preferentially oriented along the step edges. In connection to this particular Co growth mode we observe an increase of both the orbital and the spin moment on the vicinal Cu(111) of about 25% relative to what was observed for Co on flat Cu(111).</p>

In ‘clean' confined conductors (the so-called mesoscopic systems), the electronic phase and momentum can be preserved over very long distances compared to the system dimensions. This gives rise to peculiar transport properties, bearing signatures of electron interferences, ballistic electron trajectories, electron-electron interactions, regular-chaotic electron dynamics and (in some cases) spin-orbit coupling. Examples of such effects are the Universal Conductance Fluctuations (UCFs) and the Weak Localization observed in the low-temperature magnetoconductance of many confined electronic systems. Of central importance, the electronic phase coherence time and the spin-orbit coupling time determine the amplitude of these quantum effects. In the first part of this thesis, we use UCFs to extract these characteristic timescales in open ballistic quantum dots (QDs) fabricated from InGaAs heterostructures. We observe an intrinsic saturation of the coherence time at low temperature in the InGaAs QDs. The origin of this phenomenon has been intensely debated during the last decade. Based on our observations and previous experimental data in QDs, we propose an explanation: the dwell time becomes the limiting factor for electron interferences in QDs at low temperature. Then, we report on magnetoconductance measurements in a bismuth ballistic nano-cavity. The cavity is found to be zero-dimensional for phase coherent processes at low temperature. We evidence an anomalous reduction of the phase coherence time in the cavity with respect to data obtained in thin Bi films, while the spin-orbit coupling time is similar in both systems. Finally, we examine the current-voltage characteristics of asymmetric InGaAs nano-junctions in the nonlinear regime. We observe a new tunable rectification effect, whose amplitude and sign are governed by the conductances of the junctions' channels. We show that the effect is ballistic and exhibits new features with respect to predictions of available models.

Thesis (M.A. (Industrial Psychology))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2007.

Thesis (M.A. (Industrial Psychology))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2007.

Thesis (MCom)--PU for CHE, 1999.

Thesis (M.A. (Industrial Psychology))--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2005.

This study presents an analysis of observed Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) variability at 26.5°N on submonthly to interannual time scales compared to variability characteristics produced by a selection of five high- and low-resolution, synoptically and climatologically forced OGCMs. The focus of the analysis is on the relative contributions of ocean mesoscale eddies and synoptic atmospheric forcing to the overall AMOC variability. Observations used in this study were collected within the framework of the joint U.K.-U.S. Rapid Climate Change (RAPID)-Meridional Overturning Circulation & Heat Flux Array (MOCHA) Program. The RAPID-MOCHA array has now been in place for nearly 6 years, of which 4 years of data (2004-2007) are analyzed in this study. At 26.5°N, the MOC strength measured by the RAPID-MOCHA array is 18.5 Sv. Overall, the models tend to produce a realistic, though slightly underestimated, MOC. With the exception of one of the high-resolution, synoptically forced models, standard deviations of model-produced MOC are lower than the observed standard deviation by 1.5 to 2 Sv. A comparison of the MOC spectra at 26.5°N shows that model variability is weaker than observed variability at periods longer than 100 days. Of the five models investigated in this study, two were selected for a more in-depth examination. One model is forced by a monthly climatology derived from 6-hourly NCEP/NCAR winds (OFES-CLIM), whereas the other is forced by NCEP/NCAR reanalysis daily winds and fluxes (OFES-NCEP). They are identically configured, presenting an opportunity to explain differences in their MOCs by their differences in forcing. Both of these models were produced by the OGCM for the Earth Simulator (OFES), operated by the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science & Technology (JAMSTEC). The effects of Ekman transport on the strength, variability, and meridional decorrelation scale are investigated for the OFES models. This study finds that AMOC variance due to Ekman forcing is distributed nearly evenly between the submonthly, intraseasonal, and seasonal period bands. When Ekman forcing is removed, the remaining variance is the result of geostrophic motions. In the intraseasonal period band this geostrophic AMOC variance is dominated by eddy activity, and variance in the submonthly period band is dominated by forced geostrophic motions such as Rossby and Kelvin waves. It is also found that MOC variability is coherent over a meridional distance of ~8° throughout the study region, and that this coherence scale is intrinsic to both Ekman and geostrophic motions. A Monte Carlo-style evaluation of the 27-year-long OFES-NCEP timeseries is used to investigate the ability of a four year MOC strength timeseries to represent the characteristics of lengthier timeseries. It is found that a randomly selected four year timeseries will fall within ~1 Sv of the true mean 95% of the time, but long term trends cannot be accurately calculated from a four year timeseries. Errors in the calculated trend are noticeably reduced for each additional year until the timeseries reaches ~11 years in length. For timeseries longer than 11-years, the trend's 95% confidence interval asymptotes to 2 Sv/decade.

The murine eye naturally undergoes post-natal changes in eye size. This dissertation quantifies longitudinal structural and functional changes in control mice (C57BL/6J (B6), D2-Gpnmb+/SjJ) and in DBA/2J (D2) mice, which spontaneously develop elevated intraocular pressure (IOP). IOP elevation results in abnormal eye elongation, retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL) thickness thinning and retinal ganglion cell (RGC) dysfunction and demise resembling human glaucoma. I measured structural changes with Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT), and RGC function with Pattern Electroretinogram (PERG). I also developed and refined provocation approaches (IOP elevation with changes in body posture; metabolic load with flickering light) to probe susceptibility of RGC function in D2 mice prone to glaucoma. Finally, I developed a novel system for recording, simultaneously but independently, the PERG from both eyes using asynchronous visual stimuli and deconvolution analysis. Simultaneous PERG recording from each eye was hitherto impossible due to the interocular cross-talk of the PERG signal. Altogether, the combination of these measures (OCT, PERG) and provocative conditions may represent powerful tools for glaucoma research using mouse models.

In order to investigate the temporal characteristics of cognitive processing, we apply multivariate phase synchronization analysis to event-related potentials. The experimental design combines a semantic incongruity in a sentence context with a physical mismatch (color change). In the ERP average, these result in an N400 component and a P300-like positivity, respectively. The synchronization analysis shows an effect of global desynchronization in the theta band around 288ms after stimulus presentation for the semantic incongruity, while the physical mismatch elicits an increase of global synchronization in the alpha band around 204ms. Both of these effects clearly precede those in the ERP average. Moreover, the delay between synchronization effect and ERP component correlates with the complexity of the cognitive processes.