Vi gör dagligen bedömningar av risker i situationer av alla de slag. Trafiken är en av de situationer där riskbedömningar är särskilt viktiga och hur korrekt bedömningen blir beror på hur vi upplever riskerna, vilket i hög grad varierar från person till person. Hypotesen i detta examensarbete är: Kvinnliga bilister upplever större subjektiv risk i trafiken än manliga bilister. Undersökningen av hypotesens giltighet utfördes med hjälp av intervjuer av 20 män och kvinnor. Frågorna syftade till att ta reda på deltagarnas subjektiva upplevelser av trafikrisker. Resultaten pekade på att det finns en tendens till skillnad i hur de båda könen upplever risker i trafiken. Kunskap om hur kvinnor och män upplever risker i trafiken är användbara för att göra olika trafiksituationer säkrare och därmed minska antalet olyckor. Ännu ett steg i denna strävan är att undersöka hur stressfaktorer påverkar riskuppfattningen i en trafiksituation.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Food, Nutrition, Dietetics, and Health / Tandalayo Kidd / HIV and nutrition status are interrelated. Nutrition problems associated with HIV or its treatment occur in nearly all people living with HIV (PLHIV) and can be indicative of the stage and progression of infection. On the other hand, adequate nutrition ensures good nutrition status, immune function, improved treatment outcome, and quality of life. The growing problems of HIV and AIDS in Indonesia require health professionals, including dietitians, to mobilize for HIV care and control. However, studies have demonstrated health care workers to have prejudicial attitudes towards PLHIV, which may further jeopardize the quality of care. The objective of this study was to implement the attribution theory to improve HIV-related knowledge and attitudes among dietetics students. It is hypothesized that given the opportunity to revisit the antecedent of their stigma, dietetic students might be able to improve their attitudes and emotional reactions to HIV. Results from the cross-sectional study confirmed the attribution theory, showing that the stigmatizing attitudes were influenced by both personal values and environmental factors. The study also found that greater knowledge about HIV was associated with a better attitude toward PLHIV. This and the fact that universities differed in how they educated dietetic students about HIV, raise questions on the current dietetic curriculum in Indonesia and the teaching conduct in each dietetic school. These notions were studied in the second study, using a qualitative approach to inquire lecturers and school administrators. Four major themes emerged from the analysis confirming that HIV discourse in dietetic schools in Indonesia is very limited since it is not mandatory in the curriculum, lecturers are reluctant to talk about HIV, and there is apparent restriction to work with the key population. The way the lecturers attribute HIV with blames of personal responsibility and fear of contagion, heavily influence their teaching conduct. The intervention model with transformative learning supported the hypothesis that given the opportunity to reflect and re-question their judgment, students were able to improve their knowledge and reduce their stigmatizing attitudes. Overall, these studies give a warning to policy makers in health and education sectors as well as the school administrators that dietetics students have negative attitudes towards PLHIV and this stigma is associated with lack of knowledge about HIV, hence the need to improve response from both sectors. This study also serves as a strong call to provide more opportunities to students to learn about HIV and to reach out to the patients and key population to instill better understanding and acceptance to HIV.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / This study is an extension of work previously performed by Linder et al. (1997). It sought to explore university Physics I tutors’ conceptualization of Physics I tutorials and their conceptualization on issues relating to observations and interactions during tutoring, through involvement in a reflective practicum. The study was premised on socio-cultural constructivism, co-operative learning, situated learning theory and reflective practice.The study developed over two phases. In phase one the reflective thinking processes of the tutors were explored. Upon reflection on the literature the research context was further developed which allowed a final exploration into the tutors’ conceptualisations of the Physics I tutoring context. During this final exploration, i.e. the second phase, tutors were exposed to an organized, longitudinal sensitisation session, i.e. tutor-training over a period of nine months. Tutors were introduced to co-operative learning and the various processes of reflective practices namely, follow-me, modelling and joint experimentation, reflection-inaction and reflection-on-action.Analysis of the data was carried out using the phenomenographic research perspective. Ananalysis of the categories of description was used to demonstrate the tutors’ ability to reflect,based on their conceptual understanding of and interactions during the physics tutoring. These categories favoured the development of extended criteria to enhance reflection amongst physics tutors. These extended criteria were then used as a basis to suggest a model to support reflection amongst Physics I tutors.

This thesis reports on an exploratory study to see to what extent an instrument could be developed to measure the strategically innovative environment of life assurance organisations in Southern Africa. This instrument was applied to a number of life assurance organisations in Southern Africa and the results plotted on a four quadrant matrix, developed for this study, to illustrate to what extent certain variables could contribute in establishing a strategically innovative environment. The main contribution of this study is to explain the interaction between the knowledge economy, intellectual capital, the corporate curriculum, learning theory and strategic innovation. This study argues that the interaction between these components is key in developing human capital which in turn is an important component of strategic innovation. Furthermore, the instrument developed for this study can be used to evaluate other organisations, thus ultimately assisting them in becoming strategically innovative as well. It was found that life assurance organisations in Southern Africa could be regarded as moderately strategically innovative. The degree of strategic innovation varies according to the presence and integration of certain variables set out for the organisation. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Information Science / unrestricted

Gamingindustrien är idag en verksamhet som årligen omsätter flera miljarder kronor. Forskning har indikerat att dess utövare, så kallade gamers, betraktar karaktärerna i spelen som mindre könsstereotypa än de som inte spelar (Gillentine 2007). Syftet med studien var därför att undersöka huruvida gamers faktiskt skattade könsstereotypa karaktärer som mindre stereotypa än icke-gamers. En förstudie gjordes utifrån vars resultat fem karaktärer valdes ut som exempel på könsstereotypa karaktärer. I en enkät skattade sedan 134 deltagare graden av könsstereotypi för dessa samt ett antal icke-stereotypa karaktärer. Vidare fick respondenterna, utöver att svara på frågor hämtade från Videogame Experience Survey (Terlecki & Newcombe, 2005), även skatta sin inställning till negativ forskning om gamers. Resultatet visade på en signifikant korrelation mellan en identifikation som gamer och att dessa gav en lägre skattning av könsstereotypi hos stereotypa karaktärer. Dock visade sig kön vara en lika stor prediktor då kvinnor i högre grad än män skattade karaktärerna som mer stereotyp. Utifrån Social Identity Theory och Banduras Social Learning Theory diskuterade studien möjligheten att skillnaderna mellan gamers och de som inte identifierar sig som gamers beror på kombinerade effekter av gamers identitetsbildning och vilja att försvara denna, samt subkulturens och spelens normalisering av könsstereotypier. Mot bakgrund av denna studie skulle det i framtiden vara av intresse att studera effekten gaming har på kvinnliga gamers och om de faktiskt blir mer accepterande gentemot könsstereotyper i videospel. / Today, gaming is an industry which has a turnover of several billion SEK. Research has shown that people who play videogames, so called gamers, see the characters as being less stereotypical than people who do not game (Gillentine 2007). The aim of the paper was therefore to see whether gamers truly did consider stereotypical characters as less stereotypical than non-gamers did. Five gender stereotypical characters were chosen as examples by conducting a pilot study. Using a survey, 134 participants graded the characters as more or less stereotypical. Besides answering the questions taken from Videogame Experience Survey (Terlecki & Newcombe, 2005), the participants were further asked to grade their own attitudes towards negative research done on gaming. The results showed that there was a significant correlation between identifying oneself as a gamer and a lower grading of gender stereotypicality of the stereotypical characters. However, gender turned out to be an equal indicator, as women in a larger extent than men graded the characters as more stereotypical. From the point of view of Social Identity Theory and Banduras Social Learning Theory it is possible to view the difference between gamers and non-gamers is based on a combination of two things; the gamers identity formation and the need to defend it, and the games normalisation of gender stereotypes. In light of this study, it would be interesting to further look at the effects gaming has on female gamers and whether they truly do become more accepting towards gender stereotypes in video games.

It was the purpose of this research, to develop and test an artificially intelligent, learner-based, computer-assisted physics tutor. The resulting expert system is named ARPHY, an acronym for ARtificially intelligent PHYsics tutor. The research was conducted in two phases. In the first phase of the research, the system was constructed using Ausubel's advance organizer as a guiding learning theory. The content of accelerated motion was encoded into this organizer after sub-classification according to the learning types identified by Gagnds. The measurement of the student's level of learning was accomplished through the development of questioning strategies based upon Bloom's taxonomy of educational objectives. The second phase of this research consisted of the testing of ARPHY. Volunteers from four levels of first-semester physics classes at North Texas State University were instructed that their goal was to solve three complex physics problems related to accelerated motion. The only students initially instructed by ARPHY were from the class of physics majors. When the threshold values of the pedagogical parameters stabilized, indicating the fact that ARPHY's instructional technique had adapted to the class' learning style, students from other classes were tutored. Nine of the ten students correctly solved the three problems after being tutored for an average of 116 minutes. ARPHY's pedagogical parameters stabilized after 6.3 students. The remaining students, each from a different class, were tutored, allowing ARPHY to self-improve, resulting in a new tutorial strategy after each session. It is recommended that future research into intelligent tutoring systems for science incorporate the principles and theories of learning which this research was based upon. An authoring system based upon the control structure of ARPHY should be developed, since the modular design of this system will allow any field which can be organized into a net-archy of problems, principles, and concepts, to be tutored.

Many workforce-related shortages in the marine transportation industry can be attributed to low birth rates, high levels of upcoming retirements, and evolving occupational complexities of the industry. These challenges may soon place the marine transportation industry in a workforce crisis within some high-demand occupations. This explanatory case study examines how the Marine Institute of Memorial University of Newfoundland’s learns and adapts its practices to more effectively attract, recruit, and retain students for a career at sea. The study applies organizational learning theory as a practical lens to better understand the phenomenon of learning at the organizational level, how it occurs, and the processes involved which enable transformation. The study looks at communicative and collaborative processes of members, including collective thinking, reflection on past experiences, and dialogue, which combined, enable changing conventional ways of thinking. The findings describe how the organization constructs solutions, how it learns and reacts to workforce complexities.

This thesis explores eating habits among seven second-generation immigrants born, raised and living in Scania, southern Sweden. It does so by using a thematic analysis of data gathered through semi-structured interviews. The theoretical framework combines Douglas’ symbolism, Bandura’s social learning theory and acculturation models. The results show that interviewees maintain memories from childhood and emotions attached to eating habits; parents play an important role in shaping the individuals’ habits as well as their successful assimilation of the majority traditions. Moreover, there is a general preference for social eating rather than eating alone, and a strong connection between traditional food and cultural belonging. Differences in eating habits were recognized as reasons of discrimination and feelings of alienation. However, thanks to their parent’s influence, interviewees negotiate the different cultural realities they live in. The findings contribute to research in the sociology of food and eating and can be employed in policy development.

<div>Recovering combinatorial structures from noisy observations is a recurrent problem in many application domains, including, but not limited to, natural language processing, computer vision, genetics, health care, and automation. For instance, dependency parsing in natural language processing entails recovering parse trees from sentences which are inherently ambiguous. From a computational standpoint, such problems are typically intractable and call for designing efficient approximation or randomized algorithms with provable guarantees. From a statistical standpoint, algorithms that recover the desired structure using an optimal number of samples are of paramount importance.</div><div><br></div><div>We tackle several such problems in this thesis and obtain computationally and statistically efficient procedures. We demonstrate optimality of our methods by proving fundamental lower bounds on the number of samples needed by any method for recovering the desired structures. Specifically, the thesis makes the following contributions:</div><div><br></div><div>(i) We develop polynomial-time algorithms for learning linear structural equation models --- which are a widely used class of models for performing causal inference --- that recover the correct directed acyclic graph structure under identifiability conditions that are weaker than existing conditions. We also show that the sample complexity of our method is information-theoretically optimal.</div><div><br></div><div>(ii) We develop polynomial-time algorithms for learning the underlying graphical game from observations of the behavior of self-interested agents. The key combinatorial problem here is to recover the Nash equilibria set of the true game from behavioral data. We obtain fundamental lower bounds on the number of samples required for learning games and show that our method is statistically optimal.</div><div><br></div><div>(iii) Lastly, departing from the generative model framework, we consider the problem of structured prediction where the goal is to learn predictors from data that predict complex structured objects directly from a given input. We develop efficient learning algorithms that learn structured predictors by approximating the partition function and obtain generalization guarantees for our method. We demonstrate that randomization can not only improve efficiency but also generalization to unseen data.</div><div><br></div>

As gender stereotypes could lead to adherence to rape myths later in life, it is important to study the potential development of gender role stereotypes. Based on the theoretical approach of Bandura’s social learning, this mixed methods study sought to expand the literature on children observing gender stereotypes through film viewing. A content analysis of verbal and body language of the highest grossing animated films between 2017-2019 was conducted. The results indicated that most main characters displayed both traditional and non-traditional gender role stereotypes, which is indicative of gender role flexibility. This shows promise that there could be a moderating affect with gender role flexibility, but further research is needed. However, the results found that there was no significant difference between the amount of gender role stereotypes across all the films. It was concluded that there is still a concern for children to be indoctrinated with traditional gender role stereotypes.