Avec le développement de l'IoT, des Smart Cities, et d'autres systèmes large-échelle extrêmement hétérogènes, les systèmes distribués deviennent à la fois plus complexes et plus omniprésents de jour en jour et seront bientôt difficiles à gérer avec les approches courantes. Pour masquer cette difficulté croissante et faciliter leur gestion à tous les stages de leur cycle de vie, cette thèse soutient qu'une approche holistique est nécessaire, où la fonction d'un système est considérée comme un tout, et qui se détache du comportement des composants individuels. En parallèle à cette montée en abstraction, les blocs de base doivent devenir plus autonomes, capable de réagir aux circonstances et d'automatiser la plupart des tâches de bas niveau. Nous proposons trois contributions vers cette vision : 1) Pleiades : une approche holistique pour construire des structures complexes par assemblage, facile à programmer et soutenue par un moteur d'exécution auto-organisant et efficace, basé sur des protocoles épidémiques. 2) Mind-the-Gap : un protocole épidémique de détection des partitions dans les MANETs, grâce à des agrégations opportunistes et à une représentation stochastique compacte du réseau. 3) HyFN: une extension des protocoles épidémiques traditionnels, capable de résoudre efficacement le problème des k-plus-lointains-voisins, ce dont les méthodes standards s'étaient révélées incapables jusqu'à maintenant. Nous considérons que ces trois contributions montrent que notre vision est réaliste, et mettent en valeur ses qualités. / With the advent of the IoT, Smart Cities, and other large-scale extremely heterogeneous systems, distributed systems are becoming both more complex and pervasive every day and will soon be intractable with current approaches. To hide this growing complexity and facilitate the management of distributed systems at all stages of their life-cycle, this thesis argues for a holistic approach, where the function of a system is considered as a whole, moving away from the behavior of individual components. In parallel to this rise in abstraction levels, basic building blocks need to become more autonomous and able to react to circumstances, to alleviate developers and automate most of the low level operations. We propose three contributions towards this vision : 1) Pleiades: a holistic approach to build complex structures by assembly, easily programmable and supported by an efficient, self-organizing gossip-based run-time engine. 2) Mind-the-Gap: a gossip-based protocol to detect partitions and other large connectivity changes in MANETs, thanks to periodic opportunistic aggregations and a stochastic representation of the network membership. 3) HyFN: an extension to traditional gossip protocols that is able to efficiently solve the k-Furthest-Neighbors problem, which standard methods have been unable to up to now. We believe these three contributions demonstrate our vision is realistic and highlight its attractive qualities.

A presente pesquisa discute as contribuições do pensamento filosófico-estético e pedagógico de Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) e da Rítmica de Émile Jaques-Dalcroze (1865-1950) para os processos de ensino-aprendizagem em Música no contexto escolar, especialmente no período compreendido entre 7 e 14 anos de idade. A partir da pesquisa bibliográfica dos textos de ambos os autores, abarcando conferências, publicações e artigos, o trabalho consistiu, primeiramente, em sintetizar alguns conceitos fundamentais para a Antroposofia, ciência do espírito que Rudolf Steiner elaborou no início do século XX, como ampliação do campo de conhecimento das ciências naturais. Steiner adota a cosmovisão de Goethe e Schiller, bem como seu método cognitivo contemplativo, como alternativa ao materialismo mecanicista do pensamento cartesiano. O estudo revela a correspondência entre os pensamentos de Rudolf Steiner e Émile Jaques-Dalcroze em muitos aspectos, comprovando a hipótese da possibilidade de um fecundo diálogo e mútua complementação entre os dois contemporâneos. Dalcroze, em sentido inverso ao de Steiner, parte da observação e da intuição sobre sua experiência prática como docente de Música, compositor e intérprete, para a elaboração de uma filosofia estético-pedagógica. Dalcroze criou a Rítmica como um método ou um caminho para o desenvolvimento de uma escuta criativa, com o corpo inteiro, encontrando a musicalidade na expressão gestual e no movimento corporal. Ambos os autores apresentam uma concepção expandida de ritmo como princípio que urde toda a vida e toda arte, essencial a todo o processo educativo. Eles ainda trazem múltiplas contribuições importantes para a reflexão sobre a prática pedagógica em Música na atualidade, especialmente no tangente à arte de educar pelo ritmo, em que a improvisação e o aspecto lúdico potencializam a expressão criativa em aula. A dialética entre liberdade e estrutura, integrando escuta e corpo pela respiração e o movimento, e a concepção integrada das artes, como processos estésicos e poiéticos complexos, estendem a sua importância à apreciação dos repertórios modernos e pós-modernos na Educação Musical contemporânea. / This research discusses the contributions of Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner\'s (1861-1925) philosophical, aesthetic and pedagogical thought and of Austrian-Swiss musician, composer and music educator Émile Jaques-Dalcroze\'s (1865-1950) Eurythmics to the Music teaching-learning process in elementary and secondary school, especially concerning children between 7 and 14 years of age. Based on bibliographical research comprehending original texts - papers and books - and conferences, this work aims at, first of all, providing a synthesis of some concepts that are fundamental to Anthroposophy - a spiritual science founded by Rudolf Steiner at the beginning of the XXth. century and intended to be an expansion of natural science\'s scope of knowledge. Steiner adopts Goethe\'s and Schiller\'s artistic cosmovision and their cognition method, founded on contemplative observation of nature, as an alternative for the mechanical philosophy of Cartesian materialism. The study shows the many matching aspects of Steiner\'s and Dalcroze\'s thoughts, showing that it is possible to establish a prolific and mutual complementary dialogue between these two contemporaries, given that the latter followed the inverse path of the former toward his aesthetic and pedagogical philosophy, taking as starting point an intuitive approach of his own practical experience as Music teacher, composer and performer. Dalcroze created the Eurhytmics as a method or way to develop creative listening with the whole body, finding musicality in gestural expression and body movement. Both authors present an expanded conception of rhythm as the essence of life, that which unites all the arts and should be a component of every educational process. They also bring great contributions to the consciousness about pedagogical practices in Music at present, specially concerning the art of education through rhythm, taking improvisation and its playful nature as resources to enhance the creative expression in class. The dialectics between freedom and structure, integrating listening to the body as a whole through breathing and movement, as well as their integrated conception of Arts as a complex aesthetic and poetic process expand its importance toward the appreciation of modern and postmodern repertoires in the contemporary Musical Education.

Le branding territorial est perçu aujourd’hui comme un élément central de la stratégie de développement et de promotion des territoires, permettant de construire autour d’un nom de marque une identité et une offre singulière du territoire. Cependant, bien qu’une marque territoriale puisse paraître comme un véritable levier de différenciation et de dynamisme, la réalité a montré qu’elle n’engendre pas systématiquement une amélioration de l’attractivité ou du développement du territoire. D’ailleurs, certaines marques ont réussi alors que d’autres ont échoué. La présente thèse cherche donc à explorer en profondeur ce nouveau phénomène et concourir à la compréhension du processus de création et de gestion des marques territoriales pour aboutir in fine à des marques réussies et pérennes. Sur la base d’une revue de littérature foisonnante et des modèles existants, un nouveau cadre de branding territorial est présenté. En adoptant une approche interprétative, cette recherche combine deux postures méthodologiques : une étude qualitative a été menée auprès de 30 principaux acteurs de Casablanca pouvant avoir un rôle dans la création et la gestion de la marque de la ville, et une enquête quantitative par questionnaire a également été réalisée auprès d’un échantillon de 1016 citoyens casablancais pour évaluer leur perception et leur ressenti quant à la marque WeCasablanca. Grâce à la méthode du jeu de cartes employée dans l’étude qualitative, nous avons pu confirmer l’importance de l’ensemble des éléments identifiés dans le cadre théorique, examiner les relations d’influence entre les composants et entériner le modèle qualitativement. Aussi, l’étude quantitative a permis de valider les relations d’influence définies dans le cadre conceptuel entre les six composants retenus pour le test, et nous avons pu tester et mettre en relation les différentes variables relatives à la perception, au ressenti et à l’appropriation d’une marque territoriale par les citoyens, ainsi qu’expliquer leur formation. / Place branding is perceived today as a central element of the development and promotion strategy of places, allowing to build around a brand name an identity and a singular place offer. However, although a place brand may seem like a real lever for differentiation and dynamism, reality has shown that it does not systematically generate an improvement in the place attractiveness or development. Besides, some brands have succeeded while others have failed. Therefore, this thesis seeks to explore in depth this new phenomenon and contribute to understand the place brands creation and management process to achieve successful and sustainable brands. Based on a rich literature review and existing models, a new place branding framework is presented. By adopting an interpretative approach, this research combines two methodological postures: a qualitative study was conducted among 30 main actors of Casablanca who could have a role in the city brand creation and management, and a quantitative questionnaire survey was also realized among a sample of 1016 citizens of Casablanca to assess their perception and feelings about the WeCasablanca brand. Thanks to the card game method used in the qualitative study, we were able to confirm the importance of all the elements identified in the theoretical framework, examine the influence relationships between the components and validate the model qualitatively. The quantitative study also validated the influence relationships defined in the conceptual framework between the six components selected for the test, and we were able to test and connect the different variables relating to the place brand perception, feeling and appropriation by the citizens, and to explain their formation.

Ninth grade students are at a greater risk of dropping out of high school than are other grade-level populations. Factors such as a lack of academic preparedness, social and developmental changes, and the decline of parental support often result in 9th grade students falling behind in their academic work. Using holistic education as the conceptual framework, the goal of this intrinsic case study was to explore the perceptions of school and district office administrators on the impact that a 9th grade transition program has on the 9th grade retention and dropout rate of a high school located in the southeastern United States. The features of the 9th grade transition program (designated personnel, classes, location, and resources) were analyzed. Data collection occurred by a review of the school's evaluation reports and one-on-one interviews using a purposeful sample with 4 school and district office administrators. Thematic analysis of data followed an open coding process to identify categories and themes. The findings indicated that the 9th grade transition program positively impacted student and school performance and revealed inconsistencies in the transition programs and services among the 3 high schools within the school district. The resulting project was a policy recommendation that advocates for the use of standard 9th grade best practices. This study contributes to positive social change through the implementation of a best practice policy recommendation, intended to reduce 9the grade retention and dropout rates of the students within the school district.

The emerging health care culture of accountability for patient outcomes compounds problems for already overwhelmed clinicians struggling to fit everything entailed in complicated office visits into 15-minute appointments. Unprocessed frustrations tempt clinicians to use ineffective and outdated methods for trying to get their patients to comply or adhere to their care plans, undermining effective health care management. The intention of this project was to evaluate whether educating medical assistants in the health coaching method of motivational interviewing can improve the patient care approach while simultaneously assisting clinicians struggling with insufficient time. Several individual scheduling conflicts limited the target population into two primary care medical assistants and two auxiliary primary care office staff who voluntarily chose to learn the new approach. Guided by the adult learning theory, an educational lecture project was designed to capture the spirit of motivational interviewing through basic descriptions and strategies that will assist learners to focus on person-centered conversation skills, helping to balance both the needs of the patient and clinician. Following the education, participants filled out an anonymous post-lecture evaluation questionnaire to provide immediate feedback about learner understanding. Responses indicated the project met its stated objectives, and results showed the versatility of the motivational interviewing method which can be learned and effectively applied by health care workers from a wide range of professional backgrounds. Motivational interviewing is an innovative approach that utilizes therapeutic communication to promote behavior changes that lead to improved health of our communities and country.

This study set out to provide important empirical evidence on the role of knowledge management (KM) within Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in New Zealand and the United Kingdom and to explore how such companies handle their planning and strategic choices. In today’s knowledge economies the management of knowledge has become vital. In the context of SMEs, this is even more critical because they often operate under difficult conditions and are subject to global pressures from large corporations and demanding customers. In spite of the significance of SMEs as essential for any nation’s growth and success, and even though many scholars and business managers claim that knowledge management is highly relevant for SMEs, there has been little research about this concept in SMEs, in general, and in New Zealand, in particular. The few studies in the literature conclude that this concept is mostly neglected by SMEs even though it is vital and has high potential benefits for them. A quantitative research method approach was adopted. Self-completion questionnaires were sent to the senior management of firms with 100 employees or less, from a cross-section of industries. As part of this process an original knowledge management model was developed. The basic research questions were deduced from this model and the items in the questionnaire were created to answer these research questions. In New Zealand, a total of 417 SMEs were contacted by mail and 180 useable questionnaires were returned. In the United Kingdom, 1268 SMEs were contacted and 241 useable responses were received. The response rates of 43.2% in New Zealand, of 19% for the United Kingdom and of 25% in total, are satisfactory. Therefore, the basis of this study was a large (421 responses) and high quality transnational sample, which allowed for sound quantitative analyses. The claim by previous researchers that knowledge management in the SME sector is not yet fully developed appears to be supported by the results of this research. The large majority of respondents regard themselves as not familiar enough with the concept of knowledge management to actually benefit from it in practice. Even though the respondents in both countries seem to appreciate knowledge management as a relevant and useful concept with potential, many do not seem to be sufficiently informed about this concept. Few have a knowledge management initiative in place or are planning or in the process of setting up one. The responses, which vary little between the two sub-samples, point to a short-term rather than a long-term management perspective being dominant. Major barriers in terms of the deliberate creation and sharing of knowledge are a lack of time and higher importance given to daily operational activities. The respondents - predominantly senior managers - indicate that they primarily consider themselves to be responsible for ensuring that knowledge is captured and shared and relatively little responsibility is given to other employees or specialists. SMEs do apply several aspects of knowledge management, however, this is generally informal and with an operational rather than a strategic focus. From the responses it is apparent that knowledge is shared internally mostly via people-based mechanisms. More advanced measures such as the systematic collection, organisation and storage of knowledge are less common. The results indicate a number of differences between the respondents. In this regard it is most evident that the more familiar respondents are with the concept of knowledge management the more proactive they are in terms of managing knowledge on an operational and strategic level. This transnational research strongly links knowledge management to strategy and it clarifies how this concept can impact the formulation of strategy and the strategic competence of SMEs. Therefore, the results add new knowledge to the areas of SME research and strategic knowledge management.

This thesis is an exploration of the construct of mentoring and its transformative power in the development of the self. The concept of Athenic mentoring is offered and framed, in Jungian (Jung 1958;1996;2002) terms as an archetypical encounter between two people that can facilitate a significant transformative shift (metanoia) in the development of the personal and professional self. These shifts are initially at the level of 'being' but influence the more visible dimensions of 'doing' and 'knowing'. 'Doing' and 'knowing' can be articulated in terms of practice knowledge and skills (Schön 1987a). 'Being' is framed in both Jungian (Jung 1958;1996;2002) and Rogerian (Rogers 1973;1996) terms as engagement of the authentic, grounded and integrated self, in ways that may be largely and initially unconscious, but that can be taken up in conscious awareness and are ultimately reflected in overt, observable behaviours. Cunningham's (1988) framework of holistic interactive research was chosen as a method that allowed the researcher to draw on, as well as to reflect upon, his own experience in order to generate data. Written narrative and oral story-telling (Reason & Hawkins 1988) have been fundamental to the creation and analysis of data. Indeed, the process of writing has been an important source of self-understanding, revelation and integration for the author. The power of archetypal story-telling - most obvious in the ancient stories of human challenge, development and triumph, such as that of Athena(Mentor), in the Greek tradition - is acknowledged and explored from this perspective. In this respect the researcher has followed Megginson's (2000) advice that research into mentoring deserves and demands 'vivid stories'. The research approach also reflects Strauss and Corbin's (1990) suggestion that by staying close to the data ('grounding' theory in the data) before a deep immersion in the literature, the researcher will be more open to the insights that the data might reveal. The starting point for the research was the researcher's observation that, in the context of being a 'hired mentor' in an organisational setting, 'turning points' occurred that could be characterised as significant, transformational shifts in the energy and perspective of the person being mentored. While these shifts were reflected in important changes in work, choices and outward behaviour and practice, it was not obvious when or how the shifts had occurred. The initial research questions were framed as: what does the mentor do that leads to this turning point? and, can this be identified so that mentors can improve their chance of achieving it in practice? Later, the research journey itself led to a broader and richer framing of the research questions as a deeper exploration of the level at which transformative development of the self plays out and the implications of that for mentoring itself. The initial research question eventually was reframed as: How does the mentor need to be? Major sources of data were stories of ten people who have been in mentoring relationships (either as mentor, mentee, or both). The researcher's own experience was also a significant source of the data. In its presentation, the thesis attempts to 'track' and make transparent the ways in which listening to and writing down the stories of others, the researcher's own stories, engaging with the literature and writing reflective notes iterated with the construction of this particular conceptualisation of mentoring in 'Athenic' terms. Both contemporary Western literature (the majority of it American) and translations of Homer's (1980; 1998) accounts of Athena as mentor were used initially to explore the nature of mentoring. Later, the Jungian (Jung 1958;1992;1996;2002) and post-Jungian (Hillman 1975;1996) literature on the notion of the archetypes; Buber's (1996) conception of relationship as 'I-Thou'; and Rogers' (1996) evocation of 'becoming a person' all helped to describe more richly the dynamics of Athenic mentoring - both in terms of the nature of transformative personal change and the dynamics of the relationship that facilitates it. A major outcome of this research is the differentiation of Athenic mentoring (which facilitates the transformation of a person's 'being') from mentoring that helps to develop what a person 'knows' or 'does'. This differentiation will hopefully contribute to our understanding of the mentoring process, but at the most pragmatic level, will make it easier to navigate the complex and poorly 'mapped' contemporary literature. It is concluded that Athenic mentoring might not be, fully or even partly, recognised until well after it occurs, and that because it involves the pyschodynamic and largely unconscious interplay of one person's dominant archetypes with those of another, it is not something that can be easily orchestrated or arranged. This challenges contemporary notions (Burke & McKeen 1989; Murray & Owen 1991; Cunningham 1993; Hay 1995) that mentoring can be packaged, 'commodified' and paid for in a similar way to coaching and counselling. As a stimulus for further work, it is suggested that the role of mentor can be understood as completing or starting aspects of the development of self that have not been initiated or concluded in the parenting relationship; and the possibility for being a mentor or a mentee continues throughout life, or for at least as long as there remains the possibility that a 'Dream' (Levinson, Darrow, Klein, Levinson & McKee 1978; Levinson & Levinson 1996) can be fulfilled.

This study investigates the use of formulaic language in spoken French produced by native and non-native speakers. It aims at describing the development of formulaic sequences in learners ranging from beginners to very advanced users. It draws on data from the InterFra corpus, which includes both formal and semi-formal learners. Four measures are used to characterize this development: extent of formulaic language used, category distribution, type / token ratio and frequency of types. It has been shown that a user’s knowledge of formulaic sequences impacts heavily on language proficiency and idiomaticity. Because these sequences follow neither grammatical nor lexical rules, they constitute the last threshold for advanced L2 learners. In second language acquisition, the term formulaic sequence not only applies to strict idiomatic constructions, but it is also used to refer to sequences that appear to be acquired in a holistic manner during the first phases of acquisition. A categorization is therefore proposed that can account for native and non-native usage of formulaic sequences (prefabs). Five categories of prefabs are included: Lexical, Grammatical, Discourse, Situational and Idiosyncratic. The extent of a learner’s use of formulaic language increases as the learner progresses, the largest amount found in the production of native speakers and very advanced learners. The learner’s distribution of categories moves towards native speaker distribution, albeit slowly. Situational and Idiosyncratic prefabs are found to characterize the early phases of acquisition, while Lexical prefabs are mastered later and are a major difficulty for L2 learners. Only very advanced learners who have spent considerable time in France produce the same proportion of Lexical prefabs as native speakers. Discourse prefabs constitute the most important category for all groups, including natives and non-natives. It can therefore be postulated that the main function of formulaic sequences in spoken French is that of discourse structuring and speech management. The development and use of formulaic language is explained within a framework of Frequency Effects. Coupled with other factors, frequency can account for why Lexical prefabs are hard to acquire and why formulaic sequences take a long time to master. / The thesis is published and can be purchased by Peter Lang http://www.peterlang.com/index.cfm?vID=11369&vLang=E&vHR=1&vUR=1&vUUR=38

Today, with digitally stored information available in abundance, even for many minor languages, this information must by some means be filtered and extracted in order to avoid drowning in it. Automatic summarization is one such technique, where a computer summarizes a longer text to a shorter non-rendundant form. Apart from the major languages of the world there are a lot of languages for which large bodies of data aimed at language technology research to a high degree are lacking. There might also not be resources available to develop such bodies of data, since it is usually time consuming and requires substantial manual labor, hence being expensive. Nevertheless, there will still be a need for automatic text summarization for these languages in order to subdue this constantly increasing amount of electronically produced text. This thesis thus sets the focus on automatic summarization of text and the evaluation of summaries using as few human resources as possible. The resources that are used should to as high extent as possible be already existing, not specifically aimed at summarization or evaluation of summaries and, preferably, created as part of natural literary processes. Moreover, the summarization systems should be able to be easily assembled using only a small set of basic language processing tools, again, not specifically aimed at summarization/evaluation. The summarization system should thus be near language independent as to be quickly ported between different natural languages. The research put forth in this thesis mainly concerns three computerized systems, one for near language independent summarization – The HolSum summarizer; one for the collection of large-scale corpora – The KTH News Corpus; and one for summarization evaluation – The KTH eXtract Corpus. These three systems represent three different aspects of transferring the proposed summarization method to a new language. One aspect is the actual summarization method and how it relates to the highly irregular nature of human language and to the difference in traits among language groups. This aspect is discussed in detail in Chapter 3. This chapter also presents the notion of “holistic summarization”, an approach to self-evaluative summarization that weighs the fitness of the summary as a whole, by semantically comparing it to the text being summarized, before presenting it to the user. This approach is embodied as the text summarizer HolSum, which is presented in this chapter and evaluated in Paper 5. A second aspect is the collection of large-scale corpora for languages where few or none such exist. This type of corpora is on the one hand needed for building the language model used by HolSum when comparing summaries on semantic grounds, on the other hand a large enough set of (written) language use is needed to guarantee the randomly selected subcorpus used for evaluation to be representative. This topic briefly touched upon in Chapter 4, and detailed in Paper 1. The third aspect is, of course, the evaluation of the proposed summarization method on a new language. This aspect is investigated in Chapter 4. Evaluations of HolSum have been run on English as well as on Swedish, using both well established data and evaluation schemes (English) as well as with corpora gathered “in the wild” (Swedish). During the development of the latter corpora, which is discussed in Paper 4, evaluations of a traditional sentence ranking text summarizer, SweSum, have also been run. These can be found in Paper 2 and 3. This thesis thus contributes a novel approach to highly portable automatic text summarization, coupled with methods for building the needed corpora, both for training and evaluation on the new language. / Idag, med ett överflöd av digitalt lagrad information även för många mindre språk, är det nära nog omöjligt att manuellt sålla och välja ut vilken information man ska ta till sig. Denna information måste istället filteras och extraheras för att man inte ska drunkna i den. En teknik för detta är automatisk textsammanfattning, där en dator sammanfattar en längre text till en kortare icke-redundant form. Vid sidan av de stora världsspråken finns det många små språk för vilka det saknas stora datamängder ämnade för språkteknologisk forskning. För dessa saknas det också ofta resurser för att bygga upp sådana datamängder då detta är tidskrävande och ofta dessutom kräver en ansenlig mängd manuellt arbete. Likväl behövs automatisk textsammanfattning för dessa språk för att tämja denna konstant ökande mängd elektronsikt producerad text. Denna avhandling sätter således fokus på automatisk sammanfattning av text med så liten mänsklig insats som möjligt. De använda resurserna bör i så hög grad som möjligt redan existera, inte behöva vara skapade för automatisk textsammanfattning och helst även ha kommit till som en naturlig del av en litterär process. Vidare, sammanfattningssystemet bör utan större ansträngning kunna sättas samman med hjälp av ett mindre antal mycket grundläggande språkteknologiska verktyg, vilka inte heller de är specifikt ämnade för textsammanfattning. Textsammanfattaren bör således vara nära nog språkoberoende för att det med enkelhet kunna att flyttas mellan ett språk och ett annat. Den forskning som läggs fram i denna avhandling berör i huvudsak tre datorsystem, ett för nära nog språkoberoende sammanfattning – HolSum; ett för insamlande av stora textmängder – KTH News Corpus; och ett för utvärdering av sammanfattning – KTH eXtract Corpus. Dessa tre system representerar tre olika aspekter av att föra över den framlagda sammanfattningsmetoden till ett nytt språk. En aspekt är den faktiska sammanfattningsmetoden och hur den påverkas av mänskliga språks högst oregelbundna natur och de skillnader som uppvisas mellan olika språkgrupper. Denna aspekt diskuteras i detalj i kapitel tre. I detta kapitel presenteras också begreppet “holistisk sammanfattning”, en ansats tillsjälvutvärderande sammanfattning vilken gör en innehållslig bedömning av sammanfattningen som en helhet innan den presenteras för användaren. Denna ansats förkroppsligas i textsammanfattaren HolSum, som presenteras i detta kapitel samt utvärderas i artikel fem. En andra aspekt är insamlandet av stora textmängder för språk där sådana saknas. Denna typ av datamängder behövs dels för att bygga den språkmodell som HolSum använder sig av när den gör innehållsliga jämförelser sammanfattningar emellan, dels behövs dessa för att ha en tillräckligt stor mängd text att kunna slumpmässigt extrahera en representativ delmängd lämpad för utvärdering ur. Denna aspekt berörs kortfattat i kapitel fyra och i mer önskvärd detalj i artikel ett. Den tredje aspekten är, naturligtvis, utvärdering av den framlagda sammanfattningsmetoden på ett nytt språk. Denna aspekt ges en översikt i kapitel 4. Utvärderingar av HolSum har utförts både med väl etablerade datamängder och utvärderingsmetoder (för engelska) och med data- och utvärderingsmängder insamlade specifikt för detta ändamål (för svenska). Under sammanställningen av denna senare svenska datamängd, vilken beskrivs i artikel fyra, så utfördes även utvärderingar av en traditionell meningsextraherande textsammanfattare, SweSum. Dessa återfinns beskrivna i artikel två och tre. Denna avhandling bidrar således med ett nydanande angreppssätt för nära nog språkoberoende textsammanfattning, uppbackad av metoder för sammansättning av erforderliga datamängder för såväl modellering av som utvärdering på ett nytt språk. / QC 20100712

Web accessibility guidelines have textual representation and provide little support in systematic analysis and usage. The study hypothesizes that the guidelines can be reorganized and represented using the goal oriented technique and design patterns which will allow their usage in a more systematic manner and accommodate detailed analysis of the guidelines with other competing goals. For this study, knowledge from web designers’ experiences in using the guidelines, researchers’ findings, and the actual guidelines have been amalgamated. Six web designers have been consulted on a one-on-one basis and difficulties in using the guidelines for (1) specific scenarios, (2) systematic application, and (3) detailed systems analysis have been reported. Goal oriented modeling and design patterns have been introduced for (1) graphical representation of the guidelines using goal graphs, and (2) keeping the technical details separate from the goal graphs. The proposed representation allows for the accessibility guidelines to be systematically applied into interface design, and systems design using the goal oriented modeling technique.