Teleworking has first been introduced in the U.S. after the oil crisis that has happened during the 1970s. The main purpose of teleworking in that time was to save fuel and energy regarding the high prices that were practiced on it. Nowadays, this untraditional way of working is back on stage as the improvements in technology have considerably contributed to its spreading and the rise of the e-commerce industry has increased the demand of teleworkers. Our study focuses on the teleworkers in the context of startups and analyze the effects of them on the entrepreneurial atmosphere that involves these small ventures. There is evidence that startups are likely to hire teleworkers because they usually have small offices. Moreover, besides keeping low costs in terms of structure and free up more space, they are motivated to employ them in order to become more productive. But besides this little insight, a very few has yet explored further on this research area, although it would have been interesting for employers to know more about it. Thus, our study questions how teleworkers that have been depicted as assets for startups foster entrepreneurship. Geographically speaking, our research focuses on the French territory and startups that are thus based in France. This study was conducted using a qualitative study and using interviews as a way to gather data. To answer our research question, we have interviewed five teleworkers from French startups and five employers/managers that are actually working with these telecommuters. We followed the principles of semi-structured interviews by using an interview guideline and following it in the main guidelines. We have structured our interviews in three main themes regarding our topic and the theoretical framework we have developed: teleworking, startup and innovation, entrepreneurship and innovation. Our results have demonstrated that the better work environment, and the flexibility provided by teleworking were characteristics that are helping to foster entrepreneurship in startups. These teleworkers are more likely to identify and discover opportunities, but also to exploit them, and increase the innovativeness that is key to entrepreneurship and startups.

With the recent advances in computer vision and pattern recognition, methods from these fields are successfully applied to solve problems in various domains, including health care and social sciences. In this thesis, two such problems, from different domains, are discussed. First, an application of computer vision and broader pattern recognition in physical therapy is presented. Home-based physical therapy is an essential part of the recovery process in which the patient is prescribed specific exercises in order to improve symptoms and daily functioning of the body. However, poor adherence to the prescribed exercises is a common problem. In our work, we explore methods for improving home-based physical therapy experience. We begin by proposing DyAd, a dynamically difficulty adjustment system which captures the trajectory of the hand movement, evaluates the user's performance quantitatively and adjusts the difficulty level for the next trial of the exercise based on the performance measurements. Next, we introduce ExerciseCheck, a remote monitoring and evaluation platform for home-based physical therapy. ExerciseCheck is capable of capturing exercise information, evaluating the performance, providing therapeutic feedback to the patient and the therapist, checking the progress of the user over the course of the physical therapy, and supporting the patient throughout this period. In our experiments, Parkinson patients have tested our system at a clinic and in their homes during their physical therapy period. Our results suggests that ExerciseCheck is a user-friendly application and can assist patients by providing motivation, and guidance to ensure correct execution of the required exercises. As the second application, and within computer vision paradigm, we focus on visual complexity, an image attribute that humans can subjectively evaluate based on the level of details in the image. Visual complexity has been studied in psychophysics, cognitive science, and, more recently, computer vision, for the purposes of product design, web design, advertising, etc. We first introduce a diverse visual complexity dataset which compromises of seven image categories. We collect the ground-truth scores by comparing the pairwise relationship of images and then convert the pairwise scores to absolute scores using mathematical methods. Furthermore, we propose a method to measure the visual complexity that uses unsupervised information extraction from intermediate convolutional layers of deep neural networks. We derive an activation energy metric that combines convolutional layer activations to quantify visual complexity. The high correlations between ground-truth labels and computed energy scores in our experiments show superiority of our method compared to the previous works. Finally, as an example of the relationship between visual complexity and other image attributes, we demonstrate that, within the context of a category, visually more complex images are more memorable to human observers.

Le vieillissement est malheureusement souvent le fait de devoir vivre avec des problèmes qui n'affecteraient pas des personnes jeunes à cause de l'homéostasie. Lorsque quelque chose va mal, comme par exemple une chute ou une maladie aiguë, les personnes âgées peuvent avoir des conséquences bien plus terribles que des personnes jeunes. Ainsi, la prévention des chutes et la surveillance de pathologies pré-existantes comme par exemple la maladie d'Alzheimer est une des clés du "bien vieillir", car le gériatre pourra adapter sa stratégie de prévention à chaque individu. Les gérontechnologies (technologies au service de la personne âgée) peuvent aider dans le cadre des stratégies de prévention globale. Mais, qu'est-ce exactement qu'une gérontechnologie ? Quels sont les déterminants à explorer pour prévenir les chutes ? Comment évaluer de tels dispositifs ? Y a-t-il des limitations techniques auxquelles nous devrions faire attention ? Y a-t-il des résultats cliniques attendus pour ces technologies ? En passant en revue la littérature préexistante sur l'évaluation de gérontechnologies, nous avons montré quels sont les principaux résultats à attendre, ce qu'il manque dans ces évaluations, et nous avons donc proposé un modèle simple d'évaluation pluridisciplinaire. Ce dernier inclus les résultats cliniques (prévention), les limitations techniques, le médico-économique, une évaluation sociologique (acceptabilité, appropriation, habitudes d'utilisation...), et la détermination des paramètres intrinsèques des équipements. Une telle évaluation n'est rendue possible que par un environnement contrôlé, une méthodologie qui suit celle des essais cliniques et par un partenariat avec les industriels. Avec les résultats d'une étude clinique en environnement écologique sur des technologies simples d'assistance et de prévention à domicile, nous avons été capables de dimensionner un essai clinique randomisé bien plus grand en termes d'échantillon afin d'évaluer l'impact préventif d'un service de téléassistance couplé à des technologies de prévention au domicile. En effet, notre étude pilote a montré les bénéfices potentiels d'équipements gérontechnologiques pour les personnes âgées et leurs aidants en termes de santé, de chutes, et d'autonomie fonctionnelle. / Aging is unfortunately like living with a lot of conditions which aren’t affecting people because of homeostasis. When something goes wrong, such as a fall or a sudden and acute disease, elderly people would have terrible consequences, worse than for younger people. Thus, preventing falls, and monitoring pre-existing pathologies such as Alzheimer’s disease is a key to a good aging because geriatrician will adapt their prevention strategies for each individuals. Gerontechnologies (technologies for gerontological purposes) can help global prevention strategies for aging with relative ease. But, what is exactly a gerontechnology? What are the mechanics that can prevent falls? How to assess such devices? Is there any technical limitations we should pay attention for? Is there any clinical outcomes we should see? By reviewing previously made work on assessing technologies we showed what are the main outcomes on assessing technologies, what is lacking in such assessments and proposed a simple model for pluridisciplinary evaluations. This includes clinical outcomes (prevention), technical limitations, medico-economical outcomes, sociological outcomes (acceptability, appropriation, habits…) and intrinsic parameters of the devices. Such assessment is made possible with a controlled environment, clinical trial methodology and partnership with industry. With the result of a previous, real life conditions, clinical trial on simple assisting devices, we were able to design a large scale clinical trial with a complete evaluation of commercialized teleassistance service combined with home-based technologies. Indeed, our pilot study highlighted the potentials benefits of such devices on health, falls, functional autonomy and carers.

This study seeks the views of care workers working with older people about what impact social support resources has on the living conditions of older people. Social support was conceptualised in the study as support received from family members or close friends of the older people. Care workers were asked to share their views about social support for older people receiving care support in institutional setting or receiving home-based support services. This qualitative investigation involved eight care workers working with older people in Sweden. It has been argued in the study that care workers proving support for older people could have useful information about the social support of older people because they would have witnessed interactions between older people and their immediate network members. Qualitative interviews were conducted with eight care workers providing care support in institutions and home-based to explore their perspectives on the impact of social support on older people. Data from the interviews were analysed using thematic analysis. It was revealed from the views of care workers that both family and friends were engaged in different ways to provide support for older people, although not at all times. Managing loneliness, satisfaction with life and feeling better about themselves emerged as the ways social support impacted on the living conditions of older people. The care workers highlighted certain activities or areas that could ensure continuity of social support for older people. These included family members having regular contact with older people, older people acknowledging the need for support. Implications of the study for the practice of care for older people were highlighted.

Bakgrund: Inom primärvården tillämpas vanligtvis hemträningsprogram som behandling. Flera studier har undersökt underlättande faktorer för följsamhet till hemträning. Sedan fysioterapeutprogrammet på Uppsala Universitet hösten 2014 utvecklade utbildningsplanen till ett mer biopsykosocialt inriktat lärande återfinns ingen forskning på hur fysioterapeuterna med den nya utbildningsplanen upplever att de kan underlätta patientens följsamhet. Syfte: Undersöka hur nyexaminerade fysioterapeuter, som påbörjat utbildningen på Uppsala Universitet höstterminen 2014 eller senare, upplever att de kan underlätta följsamheten till hemträningsprogram för patienter i primärvården. Metod: Kvalitativ deskriptiv design. Datan insamlades genom fem semistrukturerade intervjuer med nyexaminerade fysioterapeuter och bearbetades sedan med hjälp av en kvalitativ innehållsanalys. Resultat: Analysen resulterade i sju kategorier samt 19 underkategorier. De sju kategorierna bestod av “Individanpassa träningsupplägg och uppföljning”, “Öka patientens förståelse av hemövningar”, “Tillämpa socialt stöd vid hemträning”, “Kartlägga och framkalla motivation till hemträning”, “Utforska patientens beteende och mående”, “Etablera god patientkontakt” och “Tillgångar på arbetsplatsen”. Konklusion: Resultatet framställde många strategier som redan beforskats. Samtliga kategorier förutom ”Tillgångar på arbetsplatsen” speglar ett beteendemedicinskt perspektiv. Detta kan indikera på att framtidens fysioterapeuter är behjälpliga av denna typ av perspektiv vid bemötande av patienter för att underlätta följsamheten till hemträningsprogram inom primärvården. / Background: In primary care, it is common to apply home-based exercise programs as treatment. Several studies have investigated facilitating factors that affect adherence to home-based exercise. Since the physiotherapist program at Uppsala University in autumn 2014 developed the syllabus into a more biopsychosocial-oriented learning, no research can be found on how the physiotherapists with the new syllabus experience can facilitate the patient's adherence. Purpose: Examine how newly graduated physiotherapists, who began their education at Uppsala University in the autumn 2014 or later, experience that they can facilitate adherence with home-based exercise programs for patients in primary care. Method: Qualitative descriptive design. Data was collected through five semi-structured interviews with five newly graduated physiotherapists and was conducted with a qualitative content analysis. Results: The data resulted in seven categories and 19 subcategories. The seven categories consisted of "Personalizing training arrangements and follow-up", "Increasing the patient’s understanding of home-based exercise", "Applying social support in home-based exercise", "Chart and incite motivation for home-based exercise", "Explore patient behavior and well-being", "Establish good patient contact" and "Workplace assets". Conclusion: The result presented many strategies that already have been explored. All categories except "Workplace assets" reflected a behavioral medicine perspective. This perspective might be of value for future physiotherapists to facilitate adherence with home-based exercise programs in primary care.

Introduction: Home-based care is an important part of the health care sector globally. But there is a lack of studies of the working conditions for health care workers within home-based care. Aim: The aim of the study is to illuminate the different experiences of working within home-based care for healthcare workers in economically poor communities.   Method: A qualitative research, data was collected through six semi-structured interviews and data was analysed by content analysis. Results: Three categories and eight sub-categories was identified in the data analysis: The Community; Working Conditions in the Community, Safety in the Community & Attitudes in the Community, The Family; The Family Affects the Patient & The Family Affects the Work Tasks and The Health Care Worker; Helping Beyond the Work Tasks, Emotional Involvement & Job Satisfaction. Conclusion: The study presents different challenges such as safety- and attitudes in the community but also the love for the work in the community.

Magister Artium (Development Studies) - MA(DVS) / In South Africa, since 2000, an increase of awareness in community involvement has become apparent, owing to the response from people to the need to be more engaged in decisions pertaining to their community. This positive move echoes an increasing acknowledgement by those in authority that community participation is essential to the main demands of renewing democracy, expanding service provision and constructing robust communities. The development of innovative patterns of participation development means that local communities should be empowered to participate in decision making, whilst government establishments need to have the determination and ability to respond to various community needs. The Human Immunodeficiency Virus/Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (HIV/AIDS) pandemic has placed an enormous responsibility on public health services, such as South African hospitals, which are already functioning with limited resources. This has shifted the load of nursing to family members and communities as public health services are often stretched beyond their limits. Several community or home-based care programmes and facilities have materialised in reply to this necessity. In the context of participation of communities, the duty of community involvement in health plays a vital role in the future of public health in South Africa. Accordingly, this research was conducted to explore the nature and extent of community participation within the HIV/AIDS context in the Dunoon suburb in the Western Cape. An empirical research design, which consisted of qualitative methods, was used in this exploratory study to investigate the nature and extent of home-based care as an alternative strategy to institutional care. The research population was comprised of community members at the Dunoon informal settlement, the home-based workers employed at Heavenly Promise NGO, as well as staff and management of the Caltex/Chevron Refinery, members of Project Management 4 Africa (PM4A) and representatives of the Department of Social Development (DSD), which together constitute the partnership that is dedicated to combating the spread of HIV/AIDS in Dunoon. In general, the research findings demonstrate that home-based caregivers displayed strong levels of participation right from the outset of the project. The findings also established that participation among the community members was a combination of passive, weak and non-participatory, whereas home-based carers displayed a level of active participation. Furthermore, home-based care staff played a key role in decision making, while carers essentially undertook the work in the community. Hence, home-based care and communities participating in health matters are considered to be substantial as home care focuses primarily on palliative care of the patient at home, with the support of the family and the immediate community. Consequently, it is hoped that this research will prove significant and will enhance the existing knowledge of the potential benefits of home-based care as an alternative strategy to institutional care.

L’objectif de ce travail était d’’évaluer les effets d’un programme d’incitation et d’éducation à l’activité physique, à domicile chez des patients post-AVC en phase subaiguë, sur la performance au test de marche de 6 minutes (TM6M) et son maintien à six mois de l’arrêt du programme. Il s’agissait d’un essai clinique comparative, prospective, randomisée, en simple aveugle et monocentrique. La population de l’étude était composée de 84 patients post-AVC (Age 61.7 ± 13.2 ans, délai de l’AVC 2.5 ± 1.5 mois). Quarante-deux patients ont été randomisé pour le GE et 42 patients pour le GC. Le GE a suivi un programme d’incitation à l’AP à domicile pendant 6 mois. Trois moyens d’incitation ont été utilisés ; un accéléromètre (Armband Sensewear, Bodymedia), des appels téléphoniques hebdomadaires et des visites à domicile toutes les trois semaines. Également, une séance d’éducation sur l’AP et la fixation des objectives en termes du nombre de pas et de la durée de l’AP a été réalisée avant de commencer le protocole. Le GC a reçu simplement une information sur les bienfaits de l’AP et sur le niveau d’activité à réaliser selon les recommandations de pratique post-AVC. Les critères d’évaluation secondaires ont été l’échelle « fonctionnal ambulation classification » (FAC), l’indice de barthel (IB), l’indice moteur (IM), la qualité de vie (Euroqol-5D), la composition corporelle, le questionnaire « Health Care Comunication Questionnaire » (HCCQ), l’Echelle Visuelle Analogique de la douleur (EVA), le questionnaire Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) et questionnaire Multidimensionnal fatigue Inventory 20 (MFI-20). Les patients ont été évalué avant (T0), après l’intervention (T1) et six mois après l’arrêt du programme (T2). Les résultats montrent une augmentation significative de la distance de marche parcoure entre T0 et T1 pour le GE (18%, p<0.001), malgré cette augmentation, il n’y a pas de différence entre GE et GC à T1 (p=0.30). Une augmentation significative du score de FAC (+0.75, p=0.02) a été constaté pour le GE à T1, cette augmentation était différente entre les deux groupes (p=0.0013). A l’inverse, une diminution significative du score MFI-20 (-4.6, p<0.001) a été constaté pour le GE à T1, cette diminution était différente entre les deux groupes (p<0.001). A T2 les effets du programme sur le périmètre de marche (p=0.75), la capacité fonctionnelle (p=0.17) et la fatigue (p=0,74) se sont maintenus. Aucun effet n’a été constaté pour le reste des variables. De plus, en fin d’intervention le GE atteint les recommandations d’AP par jour, en termes de pas (5955 ± 5475) et de durée (105 ± 75 minutes). / The aim of the study was to evaluate the effect of a home-based physical activity incentive program on the 6 minutes walking distance performance (6MWT) and its evolution, 6 months after the end of the program. This is a comparative, prospective, randomized, single-blind and monocentric clinical trial. Participants were 84 post-stroke patients (average age 61.7 ± 13.2 years, time since stroke 2.5 ± 1.5 months). Forty-two patients were randomly assigned to an experimental group (EG) and the other forty-two to a control group (CG). EG followed a home-based physical activity incentive program for 6 months. Three incentive methods have been used; an accelerometer (Armband Sensewear, Bodymedia), weekly telephone calls, and home visits every three weeks. In addition, educational session about physical activity and information about physical activity recommendations were conducted before the start of the protocol. CG received general information about physical activity benefits and post-stroke practicing activity recommendations. Other assessment criteria were functional ambulatory classification (FAC), barthel index (BI), motricity index (MI), quality of life (Euroqol-5D), body composition, the health care communication questionnaire (HCCQ), visual analog scale of pain (VAS), the hospital anxiety and depression scale (HADS), the multidimensional fatigue inventory 20 questionnaire (MFI-20). Patients were evaluated before intervention (T0), after intervention (T1) and 6 months after the end of the program (T2). Walking distance increased significantly in the EG between T0 and T1 (18%, p<0.001); however, there was not a significantly difference between EG and CG at T1 (p=0.30). The score of FAC increased significantly (+0.75, p=0.02) in EG at T1, but it was different between EG and CG (p=0.0013). Furthermore, MFI-20 score decreased significantly at T1 (-4.6, p<0.001) for the EG, it results was different between both groups (p<0.001). The program effects on walking distance (p=0.75), functional ability (p=0.17), and fatigue (p=0.74) at T2 were maintained. No significant effect of other variables was found. In addition, at the end of the program, the EG achieved the physical activity recommendation per day, step number (5955 ± 5475) and activity duration (105 ± 75 minutes).

Magister Artium (Social Work) - MA(SW) / Ever since United Nations’ declaration of 1994 as the Year of the Family, the study and understanding of families has taken center stage, albeit with constant references to ‘normal’ versus ‘deviant’ families based on structural functionalism theory’s rigid definitions of what a ‘normal’ family should be. On the other hand HIV/AIDS has attracted much attention too because of its life threatening traits, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa where Zimbabwe lies. Efforts to fight the epidemic have seen the mushrooming of innovative programs, which include home–based care (HBC) services for those infected with HIV. However, although HIV and AIDS has clearly had adverse impacts on families, it is rarely discussed within perspectives that integrate family dynamics. To fill this gap this study has explored how HBC, as a response to HIV and AIDS, may change our understanding of families. Research data was gathered within the participatory action research design through methods such as focus group discussions by 35 HBC volunteers and patients, interviews of 26 of these, review of relevant family policies and other interactive participatory exercises by which research participants expressed their opinions through drawings. The evaluation showed that households were not always synonymous with families, although a thin line divided the two. Further, survival considerations are the leading priority why people find themselves in families within HBC settings. However, survival options available to women are exploitative and this has kept those in HBC settings reeling under the burden of demanding but unrewarded care work and domestic household jobs. The study teaches that families cannot be understood in aggregated terms and that individuals dictate what families become, not the other way round. The research essentially recommends policy revisions to reflect unique realities found in HBC settings, and among female HBC volunteers. This should be coupled with awareness campaigns in communities and further research on families.

Research has shown that parental involvement plays a crucial role in the academic achievement of students. A parent's involvement in a child's literacy development, especially in the Black Caribbean American community, is important because it helps the child become a life-long reader. The purpose of this phenomenological research study was to investigate the at-home literacy involvement of Black Caribbean American parents with their K-2 children in a small private religious school. Based upon Epstein's work on parental involvement, as well as Hoover-Dempsey and Sandler's role construction theory, the current study explored these parents' at-home literacy activities with their children, their perceived barriers to further involvement, and their receptivity to school support to overcome those barriers. Eight parents were interviewed. Inductive analyses, including repeated reading, color coding, and generating themes, were used to analyze the data. The findings revealed positive parental support in at-home literacy activities. Parents read to and played literacy games with their children, assisted with homework, and used a variety of materials including books and technology. Parents indicated a lack of communication between them and the school regarding what literacy instruction was being provided at school. Social change can come about by providing this information to the school staff and having them take action that assists all parents to become more effectively involved in their children's at-home literacy activities. This involvement may, in turn, result in improved reading skills and overall academic performance.