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Excessive sedimentation is a leading cause of aquatic life use impairments in Virginia. As required by the Clean Water Act, a total maximum daily load (TMDL) must be developed for impaired waters. When developing a TMDL for aquatic life use impairment where sediment has been identified as the primary pollutant, the target sediment load is often determined using a non-impaired reference watershed, i.e., the reference watershed approach (RWA). The RWA has historically been used in Virginia to establish TMDL target sediment loads because there is no numeric ambient water quality criterion for sediment. The difference between the sediment load generated by the reference watershed and the load generated by the impaired watershed is used to determine the sediment load reduction required to meet the TMDL target load in the impaired watershed. Recent quantification of the Chesapeake Bay TMDL based on Phase 5.3 of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Model (CBWM) offers a simpler and potentially more consistent method of calculating target sediment loads for impaired watersheds within the Chesapeake Bay watershed. Researchers in the Biological Systems Engineering department at Virginia Tech have developed the "disaggregate method" (DM) which uses landuse inputs to, and pollutant load outputs from, the CBWM to determine pollutant load reductions needed in watersheds whose areas are smaller than the smallest modeling segments generally used in the CBWM. The DM uses landuse-specific unit area loads from two CBWM model runs (an existing condition run and TMDL target load run) and a finer-scale, locally assessed landuse inventory to determine sediment loads. The DM is simpler and potential more consistent than the reference watershed approach. This study compared the reference watershed approach and the disaggregate method in terms of required sediment load reduction. Three sediment-impaired watersheds (Long Meadow Run, Taylor Creek and Turley Creek) within the Chesapeake Bay watershed were used for the study. Study results showed that the TMDL development method used to determine sediment loads would have noticeable effects on resulting sediment-load reduction requirements. For Taylor Creek, the RWA required 20.4 times greater reductions in sediment load (tons/yr) when compared to the DM. The RWA also required 9.2 and 10.4 times greater reductions for Turley Creek and Long Meadow Run watersheds, respectively. On a percentage basis, the RWA for reduction Taylor Creek was 7.3 times greater than that called for by the DM. The RWA called for 4.4 and 4.6 times greater percent reductions for Turley Creek and Long Meadow Run watersheds, respectively. An ancillary objective of this research was to compare the sediment load reductions required for the impaired and their respective RWA-reference watersheds, using the DM. This comparison revealed that, both Taylor Creek and Turley Creek watersheds required less sediment load reduction than their respective reference watersheds, while the load reductions required for Long Meadow Run were slightly greater than its reference watershed. There are several issues associated with either the RWA or the DM for developing sediment TMDLs. Those issues are discussed in detail. Recommendations the need for further studies, based in questions raised by the research presented here are also discussed. / Master of Science

Yes / While there is a growing literature on the experiences of disabled workers, this article presents an account of a work experience not frequently documented: being employed while living with dementia. It does this through the account of Elizabeth Draper, an NHS Hospital Trust manager, who received a diagnosis of dementia while employed. The article offers new ways of conceptualizing the struggles of disabled workers to continue with their project of self-becoming through work. It shows how work practices can enact violence through ‘non-recognition’ and how workers can subvert this violence to create opportunities for future development.

Assessment in patients with NMD consists principally of measures of motor impairment since they are well known by clinicians and their measures do not require much equipment. The conventional treatments in patients with NMD are above-all focused on the diminution of motor impairments by maintaining or improving joint mobility, muscle strength and endurance. Nevertheless, a reduction of motor impairments does not directly lead to a higher ability in performing daily activities. Therefore, activity limitations should be measured specifically. A new scale of activity limitations was first developed in children and adults with NMD. The use of the Rasch model provided a scale to assess the fundamental psychometric qualities. Secondly, relationships between motor impairments and activity limitations were investigated to verify the assumption that reduced motor impairments do not necessarily lead to higher activity levels. Finally, to complete the investigation of psychometric qualities, a longitudinal study of the developed questionnaire was carried out to evaluate its sensitivity to change. Chapter 1 presents the development of ACTIVLIM, a Rasch-built measure of activity limitations and its validation in children and adults with NMD. ACTIVLIM is a self-reported questionnaire that assesses the difficulties adult patients and parents of affected children perceive when they or their children perform daily activities. This questionnaire originally included 126 daily activities and was submitted to 369 patients. The Rasch model selected 22 daily activities to define a linear and unidimensional measure of activity limitations in patients with NMD. The validity and the reproducibility of the results were also studied. A second section of Chapter 1 demonstrates why the measure of activity limitations in children with NMD as assessed using the ACTIVLIM questionnaire is based upon the perception of their parents. A third section of Chapter 1 compares the difficulties self-perceived by the patients with the difficulties observed by external examiners. The agreement between both measures is very good, indicating that the use of ACTIVLIM as a self-reporting questionnaire is a valid method to assess activity limitations in patients with NMD. Chapter 2 investigates the relationships between motor impairments and activity limitations as measured with the ACTIVLIM questionnaire. As the anatomical basis and pathophysiology are different from one NMD to another, the relationships between impairments and activity limitations were investigated in six main diagnostic groups and in the whole sample without diagnostic distinction. Gait speed and muscle weakness in proximal and flexor muscle groups were significantly but moderately correlated to the activity limitations, indicating that the latter cannot simply be inferred from motor impairments but should be independently measured and treated. Chapter 3 investigates the sensitivity to change of the ACTIVLIM questionnaire. As NMD are progressive disorders, it is important that the ACTIVLIM questionnaire be able to assess the change over time in the activity level of patients with NMD in order to characterize the disease course and to quantify the effects of new treatments on activity limitations in these patients. Finally, the last section discusses the results of the different chapters and presents perspectives for future research.

Lagen (1993:387) om stöd och service till vissa funktionshindrade, LSS, är den svenska lag som skall tillförsäkra samhällsmedborgare med vissa specificerade funktionsnedsättningar stöd och service i syfte att uppnå goda levnadsvillkor och ges möjligheten att få leva som alla andra samhällsmedborgare genom delaktighet i utformandet av sitt egna liv. Det sker varje år en ökning i antal beviljade insatser utifrån lagen och år 2015 var det 117 200 st beviljade och verkställda LSS-insatser genomförda det året. Tidigare forskning belyser problematiska omständigheter gällande såväl geografiska som bedömningsskillnader i såväl utformande som bedömning av rätt till insatserna. Syftet med den här studien är att analysera hur offentliga dokument på tre nivåer i samhället konstruerar och reproducerar bärande begrepp och benämningar inom LSS (1993:387). Metoden för genomförandet är en kritisk diskursanalys av sex normerande texter i bedömning och utformandet av insatserna för att synliggöra vilka diskurser som används i skapandet av innehållet. Resultatet har analyserats utifrån en egenkonstruerad analysmodell utifrån Faircloughs tredimensionella analysmodell och domänteoretiska tankar. Resultatet tyder på att det finns flera nivåer i skapandet och reproduceringen av begreppsinnehållet och analysen innehåller tre huvuddiskurser som kan utläsas i materialet: diskursen av goda levnadsvillkor, få leva som alla andra och delaktighet. Detta exemplifieras och diskuteras i analys- och resultatkapitlet och studien avslutas med en slutdiskussion kring studiens upptäckter. / LSS (1993:387) the Act Concerning Support and Service for Persons with Certain Functional Impairments is the Swedish law to assure citizens with certain specified disabilities support and service in order to achieve good living conditions and be given the opportunity to live like any other citizen. Every year there is an increase in the number of approved actions of support under the Act. In year 2015 117 200 actions of support were granted and executed under the Act. Previous research highlights the problematic circumstances concerning geographical as well as differences in assessing the right to support from the Act. The purpose of this study is to analyze how public documents on three levels in society constructs and reproduces the guiding concepts and terms in the LSS (1993: 387). The method of implementation is a critical discourse analysis of six normative texts in the evaluation and design of efforts to visible the discourses used in the creation of the content. The results are analyzed on the basis of a self-constructed analysis model based of Faircloughs three dimensional analytic model and domain theoretical thoughts. The results suggest that there are three levels in the creation and reproduction of concepts and content analysis contains three main discourses that can be seen in the material: the discourse of good living, to live like everyone else and participation. This is exemplified in the discussion of the analysis and the results chapter and the study concludes with a final discussion on the study's findings.

Depuis son apparition à la fin de la seconde guerre mondiale, la pratique sportive des personnes atteintes de déficiences motrices a connu de nombreuses et rapides évolutions. Conçue initialement dans une logique rééducative, elle intègre de plus en plus le principe de performance en se rapprochant du mouvement sportif « ordinaire ». Toutefois, ce processus de sportivisation est variable selon l'espace social et culturel dans lequel il se réalise. Initié dans les années 1970, le mouvement handisportif guadeloupéen rencontre des difficultés récurrentes à s'organiser et à se fédérer. Au cours de ce travail, nous avons réalisé une enquête de terrain auprès des associations handisportives locales. Des entretiens avec les acteurs principaux de ce mouvement ont été menés, des archives recueillies et des observations directes et participantes effectuées afin de retracer l'histoire collective et de repérer les logiques individuelles mobilisées dans la structuration du mouvement handisport en Guadeloupe. Pour cela nous avons utilisé des outils de la socio-histoire et de l'analyse organisationnelle et traité les discours à partir d'une analyse des relations par opposition (ARO). Les principaux résultats mettent en évidence que les dynamiques associatives structurant la pratique sportive des personnes handicapées motrices en Guadeloupe sont imprégnées par une logique sportive doublée d'enjeux sociaux, culturels et identitaires. Ainsi, la thèse principale défendue au terme de cette recherche est que l'organisation du mouvement handisport en Guadeloupe est marquée par des stratégies fortement contextualisées où la conjugaison des identités – sportive, antillaise, de personne handicapée - produit des ajustements singuliers. / Since its apparition at the end of the second world word, the practice of sport for people suffering with motor deficiency has known numerous and quick evolutions. Initially conceived in the science of rehabilitation therapy, it now integrates more and more the principle of performance by getting closer to “ordinary” sport movements. However, this process of sportivisation is variable depending on the social and cultural context in which it is taking place. Initiated at the start of the 1970's, Guadeloupe's Movement for Sport for People with motor impairments has been meeting recurring difficulties in how to organise and federate itself. During this work, we have conducted a survey directly with the local disabled sport associations. Meetings with the principal actors of this movement had been taking place, archives had been gathered and both direct and participative observations had been carried out in order to retrace the collective history and to identify the individual theories utilised in the formation of Guadeloupe's Movement for Sport for Disabled People. For this we have used the tools of the socio-history and of the organizational analysis and handled the speeches with an analyse of the relationship by opposition (ARO). The main results bring to light that the associative dynamics which structure the sport practices of Guadeloupe's disabled people are impregnated by a sport logic combined with social, cultural and identity stakes. Therefore the principal thesis defended in the process of the research is that the organisation of Guadeloupe's Movement for Sport for Disabled People is impregnated by the highly contextual strategies where the identities -sport, Caribbean, disabled- produces some very particular adjustments.

The thesis deals with the theme of Quality of life of hearing impaired people during adolescence. It is divided into two parts - a theoretical one and a practical one. The theoretical part consists of three chapters - A person with hearing impairments, Quality of life and Selected factors affecting life of hearing impaired people. In these chapters we consider categorization, classification, etiology of hearing impaired people, and also consequences of hearing impairments. In the next part we deal with the historical view on the quality of life of hearing impaired people, its specification or measurements of the quality of life. In the last chapter of the theoretical part we choose particular factors which affect life of hearing impaired people - communication, upbringing and education, culture, sport, free time. The practical part of the thesis is focused on analysis and evaluation of a questionnaire-based survey in which 41 hearing impaired respondents at the age of 16 - 21 participated. The questionnaire-based survey is aimed at hearing impaired people's attitude to the quality of life - namely education, free time activities, interactions with intact population and doing activities together - including a preferable form of communication with intact people or present satisfaction in their lives....

The present study attempts to determine the specific interrelationship between a child’s intentional communicative act rate, maternal responsiveness and child temperament to help give further insight into the nature of the interaction. This present study also aims to determine the unique contributions of a child’s communicative act rate, parental responsiveness, and child temperament to a child’s later vocabulary size. Given the growing evidence that a child’s use of communicative acts has an effect on the rate of adult responses (Vallotton, 2009; Tamis-LeMonda et al., 2001) we predict that there will be a positive reciprocal relationship between a child’s communicative act rate at 7, 10, 13, and 20 months and the rate of parental responsiveness to the communicative act. The researchers also propose that individuals who are considered temperamentally difficult will exhibit slower language development than those with easy temperaments. As far as the unique contributions of the 3 areas to children’s vocabulary size, this particular research question is incomparable to any other in that it seeks to decipher the unique contributions of each. Twenty-two participants were selected from a larger sample of 70 children who were part of a previous study, which connected temperament and language acquisition at 7, 10, 13, and 20 months. To measure vocabulary, the MacArthur Communication Development Inventory: Sounds and Gestures was administered to the subjects of this study. The mothers were asked to complete the MCDI and to report about their children’s vocabulary comprehension at 7, 10, 13, and 20 months and production at 10, 13, 20 months. To measure a child’s communicative act rate, video samples were gathered from 22 mother and child pairs during play and book-reading at each of the four ages during a play and a book-reading activity as part of their original study. Individual sample times were used to calculate rates of communicative acts and canonical vocalizations. Each potential communicative act received codes to indicate: the means of communication, direction of the behavior toward the caregiver, and the purpose of communicative act. Each maternal response was coded using the following operational definitions: on-topic response, off- topic response (with or without linguistic mapping), and no response. According to our findings, child communicative act at 10 months is correlated to vocabulary production totals at 13 and 20 months. In addition, a child’s communicative act rate is highly correlated with parental linguistic mapping at 10 months. Parental responsiveness, defined as on topic linguistic mapping, was found to be positively correlated with a child’s word production totals at 13 and 20 months. Our findings support previous research examining parental responsiveness and child communicative act rate and their relationship to a child’s later vocabulary. The results of this study also determined that temperament did not correlate with a child’s prelinguistic communicative act rate, parental responsiveness, or later child vocabulary comprehension or production at the first linguistic stage (13 and 20 months). Results from previous studies have indicated a relationship between temperament and the aforementioned variables; however, our findings negate these earlier findings.

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Evidence-based practices utilized by social workers working with veterans experiencing physical (e.g., spinal cord injuries and loss of limbs) and/or mental health (e.g., posttraumatic stress disorder, depression, substance use) issues are widely used with this vulnerable population. The number of social workers integrating animal-assisted interventions (AAI) or animal-assisted therapy (AAT) as a complementary intervention to these practices is extremely limited. A significant amount of research has been published on AAI and AAT, yet there is a gap in research regarding AAI and AAT as effective complementary approaches when working with veterans. The qualitative method utilized in this study was interviews in which MSWs and LCSWs were asked to share personal experiences while employed at veteran-supported agencies and/or non-profit organizations. The qualitative method of interviews and content analysis were used to help identify the themes and sub-themes of this study. The themes and sub-themes supported the phrases and statements drawn from the seven interviews conducted for this study. Findings supported in this study addressed the value of the human-animal bond, how integrating AAI and AAT with evidence-based practices can assist the veteran in improving quality of life (e.g., a decrease in social isolation, increase in social activity, decrease in substance use), and how important it is to recognize the need to provide the education in this field to social workers. Findings from this study can help to provide the foundation for future research, can underscore the value of offering and integrating AAI and AAT education into more MSW programs, and can contribute to establishing policy where those who can benefit by AAI and AAT are given access to it.