The growing number of seniors in Canada and worldwide has highlighted the significant role of people providing unpaid care to their loved ones, who are so-called “family caregivers”. A great number of family caregivers are employees working in the paid labor market, who experience additional difficulties as a result of multiple responsibilities in their daily lives. This group of caregivers has to cope with continuous work-related tensions in addition to their daily caregiving burdens. In multicultural nations such as Canada, a great number of caregiver-employees also belong to the immigrant community. While immigrant caregiver-employees (CEs) are faced with extra challenges compared to other CEs, limited research is available for this underrated and overlooked population. This group of CEs have the challenging task of working from home while providing intensive care for their loved one. Therefore, the home environment is an everyday space highly susceptible because of daily spatial and temporal tensions. The current research aims to explore the experience and tensions of Iranian immigrant caregiver-employees in order to assist them in managing their ever-growing responsibilities in the home environment by providing a set of specific home modification strategies. Initially, CEs major tensions and management strategies are identified by in-depth qualitative interviews. A novel Photovoice methodology is implemented to illustrate these tensions exclusively through self-captured photos. Five major themes are identified for the tensions, which are categorized as: (i) personal, (ii) caregiving, (iii) spatial, (iv) family and social, and (v) temporal tensions. The management strategies utilized by caregivers to cope with these tensions are also organized into five additional themes: (i) spatial, (ii) personal, (iii) social, (iv) monitoring and control, and (v) assistive and supportive strategies. Although, these management strategies are effective in resolving some of the tensions, specific tensions remain unmanaged for immigrant CEs’. Unmanaged tensions are analyzed under the therapeutic landscape framework to improve CEs’ health and well-being. A comprehensive list of architectural home modification strategies is proposed to relieve CEs’ tensions in the home environment. Finally, an ideal home is pictured for Iranian immigrant CEs, considering their most significant spatial, natural, symbolic and social requirements. The outcomes of the current research will assist immigrant CEs in managing their daily tensions while performing their working and caregiving responsibilities. The proposed home modification strategies will minimize CEs’ tensions to a large scale, improve their level of mental and physical health, and increase their quality of life. Furthermore, the current research results in increased safety and independence for the care recipients. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc)

Obesity is one of the most pressing global population health issues, and importantly one that affects racial/ethnic minorities and those of low socioeconomic status disproportionately. Obesity tracks from childhood into adulthood and is related to serious medical and economic consequences throughout the life course. Childhood obesity is well recognized as a complex and multifaceted problem influenced by broader social, geographic and environmental factors. A social ecological framework that is transdisciplinary is needed to address individual-level influences and choices that lead to energy imbalance, but also to address the complex interactions among home and neighborhood environmental features that provide the context for health-related behavior change. The overall goal of this dissertation is to investigate multilevel factors that could influence outcomes of an intervention program aimed at addressing childhood obesity. Including studies that investigated the use of clear communication strategies to facilitate parents comprehension, home media environment related to change in children weight status and the neighborhood environmental context of families. This dissertation draws upon a social ecological model that acknowledges multiple levels of human interaction with the environment and represents a comprehensive approach to designing, implementing and evaluating interventions that which target multiple influences on health behaviors. The iChoose is a 3-month family-based childhood obesity treatment program developed under a community-based participatory research approach led by the Partnering for Obesity Planning and Sustainability (POPS) Community Advisory Board (CAB). The studies within this dissertation use clear communication evaluation and qualitative feedback from focus groups, intervention outcome data and home environmental surveys, as well as environmental audits of neighborhoods. To investigate multilevel factors could influence intervention outcomes, we used both multiple statistical analytical techniques and a Geographic Information System (GIS) spatial analysis to evaluate the iChoose program. / Ph. D.

The research in this thesis is intended to aid caregivers’ supervision of toddlers to prevent accidental injuries, especially injuries due to falls in the home environment. There have been very few attempts to develop an automatic system to tackle young children’s accidents despite the fact that they are particularly vulnerable to home accidents and a caregiver cannot give continuous supervision. Vision-based analysis methods have been developed to recognise toddlers’ fall risk factors related to changes in their behaviour or environment. First of all, suggestions to prevent fall events of young children at home were collected from well-known organisations for child safety. A large number of fall records of toddlers who had sought treatment at a hospital were analysed to identify a toddler’s fall risk factors. The factors include clutter being a tripping or slipping hazard on the floor and a toddler moving around or climbing furniture or room structures. The major technical problem in detecting the risk factors is to classify foreground objects into human and non-human, and novel approaches have been proposed for the classification. Unlike most existing studies, which focus on human appearance such as skin colour for human detection, the approaches addressed in this thesis use cues related to dynamic motions. The first cue is based on the fact that there is relative motion between human body parts while typical indoor clutter does not have such parts with diverse motions. In addition, other motion cues are employed to differentiate a human from a pet since a pet also moves its parts diversely. They are angle changes of ellipse fitted to each object and history of its actual heights to capture the various posture changes and different body size of pets. The methods work well as long as foreground regions are correctly segmented.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Human Nutrition / David A. Dzewaltowski / David A. Dzewaltowski / Insufficient physical activity, excessive sedentary behavior and insufficient fruit and vegetable consumption may contribute to childhood obesity. Parents and other adults provide social and physical environments, and build children’s skills for these healthful behaviors. The purpose of this dissertation was to examine parent and adult practices that contribute to the prevention of obesity in children. Chapter one reviewed the literature examining the influence of parent and adult practices on the development of young children’s eating and activity self-regulation skills. Recently, studies have provided evidence that children who lack self-regulation skills are more likely to be overweight. However, there is a gap in the literature addressing practices necessary to foster young children’s self-regulation. Thus, a need exists to identify parent and adult practices that foster the development of children’s eating and activity self-regulation skills. Chapter two described the development, validity and reliability of a self-report measure of parenting practices that may foster children’s self-regulation skills. Parents of overweight/obese children use less parenting practices that foster self-reflection of screen time than parents of normal weight children. Chapter three described the development and evaluation of an intervention designed to develop children’s self-regulation skills to ask parents for healthful home environments. The 12-week intervention was delivered to children and their parents through training child care providers. Children’s self-regulation for asking for healthy foods and activities increased after intervention, as well as increases in child eating and physical activity behaviors. In addition to parents, other adults can impact children’s environments to increase energy expenditure. Chapter four examined the influence of adult leader participation compared to no leader participation among children participating in active games. Results showed no effect of leader participation on children’s physical activity. It may be that adult participation could not increase physical activity because the children were already exhibiting high levels of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity. This dissertation provides preliminary evidence that parent/adult practices play a key role in the development of healthy eating and physical activity in children. Future research is necessary to identify the most important parent/adult practices that can be targeted by interventions to provide healthful options and build children’s skills to promote healthful behavior to prevent obesity.

V ANGLICKÉM JAZYCE The diploma thesis deals with psychosocial problems of seniors' alimentation. The theoretical part focuses on the area of health, healthy lifestyle of elderly people, and also on the diseases and physical problems typical for old age. The geriatric syndromes, which occur in old age, as well as psychosocial aspects of the nutrition of seniors, are described there. The fourth chapter presents up-to-date documents that are closely related to alimentation. The nutrition of seniors is a crucial chapter of the whole thesis, because it describes how the alimentation of seniors is carried out in the home environment and how in residential care. The aim of the last chapter in the theoretical part is to present to the reader the "Domov ANNA", where the research survey (which is a part of the thesis) was realized at the beginning of the year 2019. The survey was carried out using a questionnaire method among clients of the above-mentioned "Domov ANNA" and also seniors living at home in Český Brod. The aim of the research was to find out if the elderly in residential care have better (more varied and balanced) diet in comparison with the elderly who live and eat at home and how psychosocial and economic factors influence the quality of their nutrition.

As a result of rapid development in Emergency Medicine and Intensive Care the patients with brain damage have better chances of surviving than they had in the past. However the survivors need to deal with severe loss of function and consequences resulting from that. An excellent primary care for patients who suffer from strok is provided in Czech Republic, the rehabilitation on the other hand is insufficient. The main problem is an absence of continuity of care which leads to aneffective outcomes and increase of total costs of treatment The purpose of this diploma theses was to evaluate the possibilities of occupational therapist of interprofessional collaboration in community based rehabilitation - in client's home environment. There are several categories of brain damage including acquired brain injury, genetic brain disorders and brain damage acquired during labor. The goal was to detect basic deficient fields. Results of this thesis based on knowledge from foreign literature as well as own experiencis in the team. Results might be used as basis for designed guidelines to improve situation. One client with degenerative brain disorder and five with acquired brain injury which live in home environment were selected. Three months long therapy was provided to them, occupational therapist as case...

This thesis is about how aluminium correlates to democratic design. It includes comparisons between different materials used at a company that develops products according to democratic design. The analysis of how aluminium correlates is done in order to identify if the company has used and are using aluminium in the correct way, in a home environment. This report also includes some examples of analysis of product types, to show which would and whish would not benefit from being made out of aluminium.

<p>In all types of learning situations, it is important to find each student where they are at the moment in knowledge. I have reflections about  what animal experience students have with them when they begin their education. This thesis is about what home environment and in home environment acquried animal experience student at agricultural college have. This work is based on data collected through questionnaire survey done in two agricultural colleges in middle Sweden in the spring of 2007. Questions were divided into four blocks, historical data such as on the environment in which pupils are growing up, animal habit, why they read on agricultural school and future data on what plans students have for future education and careers. Notably current finding is that 44 % of students indicated that they had grown up in rural areas compared to 16 % of the Swedish population. Previous research has shown that 47 % of pupils at agricultural school have grown up on farms, which together with this investigation can be understood as if the school population at agricultural school does not represent the population as a whole in Sweden concerning access to the rural environment and animal habit. With the results above, it may be seen as remarkable that 51 % of the student have filled in that they are not grown up with some kind of animal activities in the home environment and 28 % of the students filled in that they helped little or not at all with animal husbandry at home while growing up. My hope is that this thesis will be followed by additional studies that examine what knowledge students have with them when they begin their education to further develop teaching at agricultural college.</p> / <p>Vid alla typer av inlärningssituationer är det viktigt att finna varje elev där de för tillfället befinner sig kunskapsmässigt. Jag har ställt mig undrande till vilken djurvana eleverna har med sig när de börjar sin utbildning. Detta examensarbete handlar om vilken uppväxtmiljö och i uppväxtmiljön förvärvad djurvana har elever som studerar vid naturbruksgymnasium, inriktning djur? Examensarbetet bygger på data insamlat genom enkätundersökning gjord på två naturbruksgymnasier i mellersta Sverige under våren 2007. Enkätfrågorna har delats upp i fyra block gällande bakgrundsdata såsom i vilken miljö eleven är uppväxt, djurvana, varför de läser på naturbruksgymnasium samt framtidsdata gällande vad eleverna planerar för framtida utbildning och yrken. Noterbart gällande resultaten är att 44 % av eleverna uppger att de vuxit upp på landsbygden mot 16 % av den svenska befolkningen vilket kan läsas ut såsom att elever som är uppvuxna på landsbygden i större utsträckning söker sig till naturbruksgymnasium. Tidigare forskning har påvisat att 47 % av elever vid naturbruksgymnasium vuxit upp på lantbruk vilket tillsammans med denna undersökning kan tydas ut som om elevunderlaget vid naturbruksgymnasium inte representerar befolkningen i sin helhet gällande koppling till landsbygdsmiljö och djurvana. Mot detta står dock att 51 % av eleverna svarade att de inte vuxit upp med någon form av djurverksamhet i uppväxtmiljön och 28 % av de tillfrågade eleverna har i ingen eller liten utsträckning hjälp till med djurskötsel i hemmet under uppväxten. Min förhoppning är att detta examensarbete ska följas av fler undersökningar som granskar vad elever ha med sig kunskapsmässigt när de påbörjar sin utbildning allt för att vidareutveckla undervisningen vid naturbruksgymnasium.</p>

The purpose of this study was to examine the musical home environment of preschool children aged 3 to 5 years enrolled in an early childhood music class. This study also examined how the musical home environment was affected by demographic characteristics, parental musical experience, and early childhood music instruction. Parents and primary caregivers (N = 103) of preschool children enrolled in three university-based early childhood music programs in Florida, New York, and Ohio were surveyed using a researcher-constructed measure, “Parents’ Use of Music with Preschool Students” (PUMPS). The PUMPS was intended to gather data related to demographic characteristics of the sample, participants’ experiences in early childhood music programs, the personal music experience of participants and information about how music was used in the home. Participants demonstrated that they provided a rich musical home environment for preschool children, having a variety of musical interactions with their children on a weekly basis (i.e., singing, listening to music, playing instruments, moving to music, utilizing music class activities and composition) and had a variety of musical materials in their homes including music instruments, musical toys, and music listening devices. Participants reported a higher frequency of singing, listening to music, and dancing in the home and a lower frequency of playing instruments, performing music class activities, and composing or reading music. Most of the sample had participated in music during their lifetime but the vast majority of the participants did not engage in musical activities at the time of the study. They did, however, value music and attend musical events. Factor analysis of the PUMPS subsets revealed three factors for musical home environment (Music Interactions, Musical Materials, and Child Attendance at Musical Events), two factors related to parental music experience (Music Participation and Value of Music), and one factor related to Early Childhood Music Experiences. Several independent variables significantly predicted musical home environment factors. Musical Interactions were related to adult gender, child age, ethnicity, and parent valuing music. Musical materials in the home were related to parental musical participation and ethnicity, while no significant predictors were found for child attendance at musical events. Ethnicity, child age, parental musical participation, and musical materials accounted for 37.8% of the variance in composite musical home environment scores, yielding a medium effect size.

The current study investigated the factors that have a positive impact on reading development by examining the influence of the home and school environment on students who started school already able to read (early readers). The reading proficiency of the students in the study was determined by a variety of reading tests conducted at the beginning of the school year and students were identified as “early readers”, “average readers”, or “non readers”. The intent was to provide a comprehensive picture of early readers with an emphasis on historical, cultural, and social factors. Many factors influence the development of reading, but this study concentrated on the learning environment at home and in the school. Several methods were used to facilitate a broad description of the reading development of early readers, including observations, interviews, questionnaires, and reading tests. The theoretical concepts were derived from a social constructivist perspective and build on Vygotsky’s theories of learning and development. Among the factors considered were formal reading instruction and literacy. The results demonstrated that the early readers’ reading ability greatly exceeded that of their classmates at the start of the formal school experience. The early readers maintained this advantage through the first three years of school, but the gap was reduced over time. A comparison of the timing of the reading development showed that the early readers developed primarily before the start of school, while the average readers developed during school years one and two, and the non readers, during school year two. A comparison of the learning environments in home and school showed considerable differences. Learning in the home came about as a result of the child’s interests and occurred in the zone of proximal development. Parents gave support without controlling the activities and, along with older siblings, served as good models for reading. In the school setting, the national curriculum and the goals set in the syllabus determined the content of the instruction. The child’s interest did not guide the learning and early readers often worked on concepts they had already mastered. Early readers also worked independently more often, facilitated by their ability to read instructions. As a result, the individualization that occurred was often simply that children accomplished the same tasks in different amounts of time. This study concluded that the stimulation and support that parents provide can have a significant impact on reading learning and development. It is important that teachers take into account the prior knowledge and experiences that children have, since this can greatly impact their motivation to learn. Reading development does not occur at any one specific age, but can be influenced by a number of factors including the child’s development in other areas, and historical, social, or cultural influences.