Introdução - Desde 2009, a legislação do Programa de Alimentação Escolar Nacional (PNAE) estabelece que, do total dos recursos financeiros alocados pelo governo federal aos estados e municípios para a alimentação escolar, pelo menos 30 por cento devem ser usados na compra de produtos diretamente da agricultura familiar. Objetivos Descrever as principais características da venda direta da agricultura familiar para o PNAE, em municípios do estado de São Paulo e as mudanças com relação à produção, comercialização e renda dos agricultores que possam ter ocorrido depois do início desta venda até 2012. Métodos Para melhor compreensão da vinculação PNAE com a agricultura familiar, foi construído um modelo lógico desta iniciativa. Foram entrevistados os principais atores que participaram da elaboração da legislação. Para a descrição da venda e das mudanças, foram entrevistados, em 2012, 110 agricultores familiares que venderam diretamente para o PNAE em 16 municípios do estado de São Paulo. Resultados A maioria dos agricultores começou a vender para o PNAE em 2011, era do sexo masculino (75,4 por cento ), entre 41 e 60 anos (57,3 por cento ) e vendeu através de associação ou cooperativa (81,8 por cento ). A maioria dos produtos vendidos era composta por grande variedade de produtos frescos. A totalidade ou parte da produção de 42 por cento dos agricultores era orgânica, mas apenas quatro deles (8,7 por cento ) eram certificados; 64 por cento dos agricultores não tinham sido contactados pelo nutricionista do município para a identificação dos alimentos produzidos; 65 por cento não receberam apoio do nutricionista durante o processo de venda; 54 por cento receberam apoio de alguma instituição da agricultura; para 44 por cento dos agricultores, o preço pago pelo PNAE era maior do que outros mercados. Após o início da venda para o PNAE, 76 por cento aumentaram sua renda; 34,6 por cento passaram a produzir novos produtos para comercializar; a maioria relatou aumento da quantidade produzida (63,6 por cento ) e da área cultivada (55 por cento ); cerca de um terço (36,4 por cento ) mudou a maneira de planejar a produção; um pouco mais que a metade (52,7 por cento ) afirmou que passou a utilizar mais técnicas e/ou insumos e 40,9 por cento relataram ter investido mais em infraestrutura. Conclusão Os resultados mostraram que a vinculação entre o PNAE e a agricultura familiar permitiu a comercialização de produtos frescos e saudáveis para as escolas e parece ter contribuído para mudanças positivas na produção e comercialização, assim como para o aumento da renda dos agricultores. No entanto, a fim de maximizar os resultados, é necessário fortalecer o apoio aos agricultores por parte dos nutricionistas e entidades de assistência técnica a nível local. / Introduction - Since 2009, legislation of the National School Feeding Program (PNAE, for its initials in Portuguese) states that out of the total financial resources allocated by the federal government to the states and municipalities for school feeding, at least 30 per cent must be used to purchase products directly from family farming. Objectives To describe the main characteristics of the direct sales from family farming to PNAE in municipalities of São Paulo state and the changes related to production, marketing and farmers´ income that may have occurred after the beginning of the sales up to 2012. Methods To better understand the linkage between PNAE and family farming, a logic model of this initiative was developed. Key actors who participated in the drafting of the legislation were interviewed. For characterirization of the sales and the changes, interviews were carried out, in 2012, with 110 farmers who sold directly to PNAE in 16 municipalities of São Paulo state. Results The majority of the farmers began selling to PNAE in 2011, was male (75.4 per cent ), between 41 and 60 years (57.3 per cent ) and sold through an association or cooperative (81,8 per cent ). The majority of the sales consisted of a wide variety of fresh produce. All or part of the production of 42 per cent farmers was organic, but only four of them (8.7 per cent ) were certified; 64 per cent of farmers had not been contacted by the program´s nutritionist for identification of their production; 65 per cent did not receive support from the nutritionist during the sale process; 54 per cent received support from some institution of agriculture; to 44 per cent of the farmers, the price paid by PNAE was higher than other markets. After starting selling to PNAE, 76 per cent had their income increased; 34.6 per cent began to produce new products; the majority reported increases in the amount produced (63.6 per cent ) and in the cropland (55 per cent ); about a third (36.4 per cent ) changed the way of planning the production; slightly more than half (52.7 per cent ) started using more techniques and/or agricultural inputs, and 40.9 per cent reported having invested more in infraestructure. Conclusion - The results showed that the linkage between PNAE and family farming allowed the marketing of fresh and healthy products for the schools and may have contributed with positive changes in the production and marketing, as well as to the increase of farmers\' income. However, in order to maximize results, there is a need to strenghten the support to farmers by the nutritionists and institutions of technical assistance at local level.

VitalSmarts® Crucial Conversations™ general program theory might be a possible countermeasure addressing organizational culture and communication factors affecting quality and safety. This practice inquiry reports: a VitalSmarts® Crucial Conversations™ general program logic model, a major medical center's Crucial Conversations™ historical implementation program logic model, a clinical exemplar central line associated blood stream infection program logic model; and, findings that describe the fidelity of the major medical center's Crucial Conversations™ historical implementation and clinical exemplar central line associated blood stream infection program logic model to the VitalSmarts® Crucial Conversations™ general program logic model. The results demonstrated there was no fidelity between the major medical center's Crucial Conversations™ program logic model and the VitalSmarts® Crucial Conversations™ general program logic model. The clinical exemplar CLABSI program logic model and VitalSmarts® Crucial Conversations™ general program logic model fidelity differed in intended outcomes. The results might suggest that program adaptability along with program fidelity are factors that influence program strength, and these factors must be uniquely balanced within organizational dynamics to realize intended outcomes. The formative evaluation and program logic model might be a feasible methodology and applicable tool for exploring quality and safety within complex adaptive systems, such as organizational culture, where constraints possibly could exclude more rigorous scientific methodologies until factors are more understood.

Kyoto University (京都大学) / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(工学) / 甲第16818号 / 工博第3539号 / 新制||工||1535(附属図書館) / 29493 / 京都大学大学院工学研究科都市社会工学専攻 / (主査)教授 小林 潔司, 教授 大津 宏康, 教授 河野 広隆 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当

Model generation and minimal model generation are useful for tasks such as model checking, query answering and for debugging of logical specifications. Due to this variety of applications, several minimality criteria and model generation methods for classical logics have been studied. Minimal model generation for modal logics how ever did not receive the same attention from the research community. This thesis aims to fill this gap by investigating minimality criteria and designing minimal model generation procedures for all the sublogics of the multi-modal logic S5(m) and their extensions with universal modalities. All the procedures are minimal model sound and complete, in the sense that they generate all and only minimal models. The starting point of the investigation is the definition of a Herbrand semantics for modal logics on which a syntactic minimality criterion is devised. The syntactic nature of the minimality criterion allows for an efficient minimal model generation procedure, but, on the other hand, the resulting minimal models can be redundant or semantically non minimal with respect to each other. To overcome the syntactic limitations of the first minimality criterion, the thesis moves from minimal modal Herbrand models to semantic minimality criteria based on subset-simulation. At first, theoretical procedures for the generation of models minimal modulo subset-simulation are presented. These procedures for the generation of models minimal modulo subset-simulation are minimal model sound and complete, but they might not terminate. The minimality criterion and the procedures are then refined in such a way that termination can be ensured while preserving minimal model soundness and completeness.

No description available.

According to a recent report from the National Center for Educational Statistics, approximately 20% of the United States' high-school aged population is at risk of dropping out of high school, an outcome that strongly limits participation in economic and educational opportunities. The importance of earning a high school diploma has increased many local districts' efforts to close graduation gaps across the student population. Accordingly, this study evaluated a recuperative environmental leadership and service (EL&S) program in a northwestern local district to ascertain its effectiveness in providing at-risk students the personal and academic support required for high school graduation. Following the logic model program theory, this study examined the program's effectiveness in redirecting off-track students by comparing on time (4 year) and extended-time (> 4 years) graduation rates of at-risk students who did participate (n = 96) and did not participate (n = 76) in the EL&S. Through an ANCOVA, the 4 year and extended graduation rates, 68.3% and 89.1%, respectively, were analyzed and found to be higher than the on-time and extended-time graduation rates for the local district, 65.8% and 68.5%. Results indicated that the EL&S does statistically increase the participants' likelihood of graduating from high school. These findings illustrate the utility of EL&S interventions for at-risk students who have experienced multiple indicators of educational failure. Replication or adaptation of this EL&S program could provide social change benefits to educational stakeholders seeking to close the graduation gap; to families seeking educative and personal support for at-risk students; and to struggling students desiring to contribute to the economic, educative, and social growth of their community.

Four years following the refugee crisis of 2015, Uppsala Stadsmission’s integration program “Mötesplatsen” begun its activity offering a ‘meeting place’ for unaccompanied young adults, who had received temporary residence according to the Swedish Upper Secondary School Act. The program offered individual support and guidance in their contact with the Swedish agencies, civic information, help in searching and applying for jobs and school homework assistance. The first aim of this study is to conduct an outcome evaluation, that is to assess whether and to what extent the intended outcomes of Mötesplatsen were achieved. The second aim is to identify the program’s underlying assumptions about how the program’s planned activities are thought to lead to the desired outcomes. The study is structured in accordance with evaluation theory and practice, making use of a logic model framework to identify Mötesplatsen’s program components, which in turn, is used to inform the outcome evaluation and the explication of the program’s underlying assumptions. The results of the study indicated that the services at Mötesplatsen had a positive effect on the conditions of the participants across most areas of receiving support. Participants reported improvements in their requirements to finding a job, did comparatively better in their educational pursuits, were assisted in legal/administrative questions or other questions, acquired civic information about the Swedish society and generally felt a sense of community throughout their involvement with the program. Overall, the progress observed in their individual conditions and prospects contributed to the empowerment of the participants across the areas which they sought help in. Furthermore, the results pointed towards assumptions mainly concerned with how the program’s planned activities are thought to produce the intended outcomes, showcasing the causal relationships between these components. / Fyra år efter flyktingkrisen 2015 startade Uppsala Stadsmissions integrationsprojekt Mötesplatsen sin verksamhet med att erbjuda en mötesplats för ensamkommande unga vuxna, som fått tillfälligt uppehållstillstånd enligt Gymnasielagen. Programmet erbjöd individuellt stöd och vägledning i deras kontakt med de svenska myndigheterna, samhällsinformation, hjälp med att söka och hitta jobb samt läxhjälp i skolan. Det första syftet med denna studie är att genomföra en utvärdering av utfall, det vill säga att bedöma om och i vilken utsträckning Mötesplatsens avsedda utfall uppnåddes. Det andra syftet är att identifiera programmets underliggande antaganden om hur programmets planerade aktiviteter anses leda till önskade resultat. Studien är uppbyggd i enlighet med utvärderingsteori och praktik, med hjälp av en logisk modellram för att identifiera Mötesplatsens programkomponenter, som i sin tur används för att informera utvärderingen och förklaringen av programmets underliggande antaganden. Resultaten av studien visade att tjänsterna på Mötesplatsen hade en positiv effekt på deltagarnas villkor inom de flesta stödområden. Deltagarna rapporterade förbättringar i sina förutsättningar för att hitta jobb, klarade sig jämförelsevis bättre i sin utbildning, fick hjälp i juridiska/administrativa frågor eller andra frågor, fick information om det svenska samhället och kände generellt en känsla av gemenskap under hela sitt engagemang i programmet. Sammantaget bidrog de framsteg i deras individuella villkor och framtidsutsikter till att deltagarna hade mer egenmakt inom de områden som de sökte hjälp inom. Dessutom pekade resultaten på de antaganden som främst handlade om hur programmets planerade aktiviteter tros ge de avsedda resultaten, vilka i sin tur visade orsakssambanden mellan dessa komponenter.

Pushdown systems equip a finite state system with an unbounded stack memory, and are thus infinite state. By recording the call history on the stack, these systems provide a natural model for recursive procedure calls. Model-checking for pushdown systems has been well-studied. Tools implementing pushdown model-checking (e.g. Moped) are an essential back-end component of high-profile software model checkers such as SLAM, Blast and Terminator. Higher-order pushdown systems define a more complex memory structure: a higher-order stack is a stack of lower-order stacks. These systems form a robust hierarchy closely related to the Caucal hierarchy and higher-order recursion schemes. This latter connection demonstrates their importance as models for programs with higher-order functions. We study the global model-checking problem for (higher-order) pushdown systems. In particular, we present a new algorithm for computing the winning regions of a parity game played over an order-1 pushdown system. We then show how to compute the winning regions of two-player reachability games over order-n pushdown systems. These algorithms extend the saturation methods of Bouajjani, Esparza and Maler for order-1 pushdown systems, and Bouajjani and Meyer for higher-order pushdown systems with a single control state. These techniques begin with an automaton recognising (higher-order) stacks, and iteratively add new transitions until the automaton becomes saturated. The reachability result, presented at FoSSaCS 2007 and in the LMCS journal, is the main contribution of the thesis. We break the saturation paradigm by adding new states to the automaton during the iteration. We identify the fixed points required for termination by tracking the updates that are applied, rather than by observing the transition structure. We give a number of applications of this result to LTL model-checking, branching-time model-checking, non-emptiness of higher-order pushdown automata and Büchi games. Our second major contribution is the first application of the saturation technique to parity games. We begin with a mu-calculus characterisation of the winning region. This formula alternates greatest and least fixed point operators over a kind of reachability formula. Hence, we can use a version of our reachability algorithm, and modifications of the Büchi techniques, to compute the required result. The main advantages of this approach compared to existing techniques due to Cachat, Serre and Vardi et al. are that it is direct and that it is not immediately exponential in the number of control states, although the worst-case complexity remains the same.

No description available.

Considerable resources worldwide are invested in the research and development of future transportation technology. The foreseen direction and therefore research of future personalised transportation is focused on Battery Electric Vehicles (BEV) or hybrid combinations that use hydrogen fuel cells. These new transport energy systems are consider most to replace the current vehicles powered by the internal combustion engine (ICE). The research work presented in this thesis mainly focuses on the development of a software control system for future BEV prototype vehicles - a generic intelligent control system (GICS). The system design adopts a modular design concept and intelligent control. The whole system consists of four modules being communication, power supply, motor driver and transmission module. Each module uses a microcontroller as the brain and builds an embedded control system within the module. The control and communication between the modules is based on a group of specific parameters and the status of a state machine. In order to effectively implement intelligent control and simplify the system structure and programming, a generic intelligent fuzzy logic model that can be configured to a specific application with a near real-time buffered communication methodology is developed. The tests made on the fuzzy control model and the near real-time buffered communication gave a very positive outcome. The implementation of the fuzzy control and the communication methodology in each of the modules results in a communication between the modules with a steady speed, better reliability and system stability. These modules link together through the communication channels and form a multi-agent collaborative system (MACS). As the controllers are designed based on the parametric concept, the system is able to be implemented to future new modules and therefore allow prototype vehicle control systems to be developed more efficiently. The MACS is based on the core components of the control system - fuzzy logic controller (FLC), Serial Communication and Analogue input control software modules. Further work is carried out as an attempt to integrate the control software with a hardware design for a generic electric propulsion drive (GEPD). This thesis therefore outlines the design and considerations in software and hardware integration in addition to the GICS. The output from this thesis being the construction of soft programming modules for embedded microcontroller based control system has been accepted and presented at two international conferences; one in Wellington, New Zealand[1] the second in Acireale, Italy[2].