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This thesis has two main themes: (1) values shift versus cultural particularity and (2) values and democracy. The Postmaterialist thesis and related theories of values shift presented by Ronald Inglehart and others assume that, as a consequence of industrialisation and post-industrialisation, people's values transform in such a way as to increase an emphasis on self-esteem, self-expression and other qualities. Individuals become increasingly capable, autonomous and inclined to public demands, which can be conducive to liberal democratic outcomes. In relation to these, the present study suggests that cultural particularity should be taken into consideration as a factor competing with that of values shift in terms of influence on people's attitudinal conditions. For individualism is often quoted as a core element of Western civilisation, which is not necessarily so in other cultural scenarios. With this enquiry, the study mainly concentrates on the analysis of the World Values Survey. Postmaterialist indexes are closely investigated by comparing the USA, Britain, Russia and Japan. The examination further incorporates broader regions: Western, Postcommunist and East Asian regions. The results indicate a certain validity in the cultural effect. This is especially the case with a Postmaterialist values item on 'freedom of speech', which contrasts with other Postmaterialist item: 'giving people more say in important government decisions'. Their implications for democracy are subsequently considered. These non-Western societies appear to exhibit certain weaknesses in the Postmaterialist transformation and its attitudinal efficacy for polyarchy-like democracy. The attention turns to gaps in perceptions of freedom between the USA, Russia and Japan, which could be applied to the trilateral regions. This national difference also seems to be present in the area of protest, notwithstanding the fact that there are some indications of values shift. Culture seems to matter on popular outlooks vis-à-vis the Postmaterialist effects. Multivariate analysis on this aspect endorses the same conclusion. The outcomes imply variation between the citizens of these societies in ways that they relate to government. The nations are compared with respect to the influences of liberal democratic attitudes on moderate protest and views of governance. After all, American (and probably British) individuals seem to be more compatible with public demands and participatory democracy than those in Russia and Japan. Western cultural emphasis on the particular quality of freedom could be favourable to Postmaterialist values as well as individual attitudes that call for responsive and accountable democracy.

Este trabalho apresenta uma revisão bibliográfica sobre a teoria e a prática da Automação Residencial (AR) e também apresenta uma proposta de uma metodologia para auxílio da engenharia em AR intitulada MAEAR - Metodologia para Auxílio da Engenharia em Automação Residencial. Este trabalho apresenta também uma análise entre as principais teorias de controle desenvolvidas para a automação industrial, e a correlação das mesmas sobre sistemas de automação predial e residencial, assim como uma comparação dos níveis de automação industrial e residencial existentes. Os testes de validação da metodologia MAEAR proposta também são apresentadas neste trabalho. / This work presents a bibliographical revision about the theory and the practice of Home Automation (HA) and also presents a proposal of a methodology for aid of engineering in HA entitled MAEAR - Methodology for Aid of Engineering in Home Automation. This work also presents an analysis between the main theories of controls developed to industrial automation, and the correlation it with systems of building automation and home automation, as well as a comparative of levels of industrial automation and home automation. The tests of validation of methodology MAEAR proposal also are presented in this work.

Metropolitan mosquitoes: Understanding urban livestock keeping and vector-borne disease in growing tropical sites – The potential of sustainable control methods and the risks for emergence to Sweden.

Background: Problems with acceptability of healthcare interventions can undermine the validity of randomised evaluation studies. Hence, assessing acceptability is an important methodological issue. However, the research literature provides little guidance on how to define and assess acceptability. Acceptability of a healthcare intervention could be different, depending on the perspective taken: patients and healthcare professionals may have different views. Perceptions of acceptability may also change according to when acceptability is assessed, in relation to a person’s engagement with the intervention. A person can have perceptions about prospective acceptability (i.e. prior to taking part in the intervention); concurrent acceptability (i.e. whilst taking part in the intervention) and retrospective acceptability (after participating in the intervention). Objectives: The overall aim of this programme of research was to define acceptability in the context of healthcare interventions and to develop a Theoretical Framework of Acceptability (TFA) that can be applied to assess acceptability from two stakeholder perspectives: healthcare professionals and patients. The specific objectives were to: 1) Identify, from the published literature, how the acceptability of healthcare interventions has been defined, operationalised and theorised; 2) Theorise the concept of acceptability and develop a theoretical framework of acceptability (TFA) to guide assessment and develop preliminary assessment tools; 3) Use the tools to apply the TFA to assess intervention acceptability qualitatively, and 4) Apply pre-validation methods to develop preliminary versions of two TFA-based questionnaires. Methods: Six studies were conducted: 1. A systematic overview of reviews of published studies to investigate how the acceptability of healthcare interventions has been defined, theorised and assessed. The results of this study formed the basis for study 2. 2. Inductive and deductive methods of reasoning were applied to theorise acceptability and to develop the Theoretical Framework of Acceptability (TFA). 3. Semi-structured interviews with eligible participants who declined to participate in a Randomised Controlled Trial (RCT) comparing a new patient-led model of care with standard care, for managing blepharospasm and hemifacial spasm. The TFA was applied to identify whether participants’ reasons for refusal were associated with prospective acceptability of the intervention or with other factors. 4. Application of the TFA to analyse semi-structured interviews to assess healthcare professionals’ retrospective acceptability of two feedback interventions delivered in a research programme aimed at developing and evaluating audit and feedback interventions to increase evidence-based transfusion practice. 5. An extension of Study 3: semi-structured interviews with patients who agreed to participate in the RCT, at three-month follow-up, to assess patients’ concurrent acceptability of the standard model of care and the patient led model of care for managing blepharospasm and hemifacial spasm. 6. Pre-validation methods were applied to develop two TFA-based questionnaires applicable to the RCTs described in Studies 3, 4 and 5. Results: Study 1: acceptability had not been theorised and there was no standard definition used in the literature. Operational definitions of acceptability were often reported and often reflected measures of observed behaviour. Study 2: proposed definition: Acceptability is a multi-faceted construct that reflects the extent to which people delivering or receiving a healthcare intervention consider it to be appropriate, based on anticipated or experienced cognitive and emotional responses to the intervention. The TFA was proposed as a multi-component framework that can be applied to assess intervention acceptability across three temporal perspectives: prospective, concurrent and retrospective. The TFA consists of seven component constructs: Affective attitude, Burden, Ethicality, Intervention Coherence, Opportunity Costs, Perceived Effectiveness and Self-efficacy. Studies 3-5: It was feasible to apply the TFA in these empirical studies. Study 6: Two acceptability questionnaires were developed; the TFA informed the development of items reflecting the seven component constructs of the TFA. Conclusion: Despite frequent claims that the acceptability of healthcare interventions has been assessed, acceptability research could be more robust. Investigating acceptability as a multi-component construct resulted in richer information about the acceptability of each intervention, and suggestions for enhancing intervention acceptability across three temporal perspectives. The TFA offers the research community a systematic and theoretical approach to advance the science and practice of acceptability assessment for healthcare interventions.

This thesis develops a variety of econometric approaches in order to examine model specification and weighting choices in an era when computational power and efficiency is becoming less of a binding constraint and 'big data' becomes widely available. We apply our methodological contributions to housing markets, given their recently verified importance with regard to international financial stability. In particular, we develop two original forecasting routines based on high dimensional datasets, take simulated and empirical approaches to specifying large sets of spatial weighting matrices and we contrast structural (panel and single country based) vector autoregressions which are identified and analyzed in a number of ways. The appendices are reserved for introducing published econometric software and replication codes developed as a by-product of the main body of work.

Depuis l’adoption de la politique « Doimoi », le Vietnam a connu un développement économique rapide, conduisant à des transformations de façon significative des paysages dans des toutes les régions du pays. Les aspects du changement des paysages dans les zones urbaines n’ont pas reçu suffisamment l'attention, bien que le Vietnam soit classé un rang élevé en termes de la croissance de la population urbaine et de l'expansion spatiale urbaine en Asie de l'Est au cours de la période 2000-2010. Cette étude vise à analyser la dynamique du paysage et les conséquences environnementales du développement industriel et de l'urbanisation à la zone de la baie d'Ha Long, nord-est du Vietnam. Les principaux objectifs de ce travail sont les suivants: 1) d'analyser les tendances de l'urbanisation et du développement industriel, ainsi que identifier la liaison entre eux dans le contexte régional; 2) de quantifier l'évolution du paysage dans la période de 40 ans (1973-2013) en utilisant les données de la télédétection; 3) de développer une approche holistique pour expliquer les causes fondamentales du changement du paysage; 4) d’analyser les conséquences environnementales du changement du paysage. En conséquence, nous avons développé une méthode intégrée qui est basée sur la combinaison des données du changement du paysage et des données de l'enquête sociale en utilisant une combinaison des méthodes d’analyse multivariée. Cette approche est ouverte et peut être utilisée pour différentes variables à différentes échelles de la recherche. / Since the adoption of Doimoi policy in 1986, Vietnam has experienced a fast economic development, leading to rapid land transformations in the whole regions of the country. Land change aspects of urban areas have not been given adequate attention although Vietnam ranked top of urban population growth and urban spatial expansion in East Asia during the period 2000-2010. This study aims to analyze the landscape dynamics and the environmental consequences of industrial development and urbanization in the Ha Long bay area, Vietnam northeast coast. The principal objectives of the research are: 1) to analyze the trends of urbanization and industrial development, as well as identify the relation between then in the regional context; 2) to quantify the evolution of the landscape in the 40-year period (1973-2013) by using the remote sensing data; 3) to develop a holistic approach to explain the driving forces of the landscape change; 4) to analyze the environmental consequences of landscape change. As result, we have developed an integrated method based on the combination of landscape change data and social survey data using multivariate analysis. This approach is open and can be employed for different variables at various scales of research.

Thèse numérisée par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

Este trabalho apresenta uma revisão bibliográfica sobre a teoria e a prática da Automação Residencial (AR) e também apresenta uma proposta de uma metodologia para auxílio da engenharia em AR intitulada MAEAR - Metodologia para Auxílio da Engenharia em Automação Residencial. Este trabalho apresenta também uma análise entre as principais teorias de controle desenvolvidas para a automação industrial, e a correlação das mesmas sobre sistemas de automação predial e residencial, assim como uma comparação dos níveis de automação industrial e residencial existentes. Os testes de validação da metodologia MAEAR proposta também são apresentadas neste trabalho. / This work presents a bibliographical revision about the theory and the practice of Home Automation (HA) and also presents a proposal of a methodology for aid of engineering in HA entitled MAEAR - Methodology for Aid of Engineering in Home Automation. This work also presents an analysis between the main theories of controls developed to industrial automation, and the correlation it with systems of building automation and home automation, as well as a comparative of levels of industrial automation and home automation. The tests of validation of methodology MAEAR proposal also are presented in this work.

Tese de Doutoramento. Engenharia Biomédica. Área de Especialização de Biomateriais. Faculdade de Engenharia. Universidade do Porto. 2012