I denna uppsats beskrivs en studie av attityder till brytning. Genom ett masktest har attitydernatill finsk och engelsk brytning hos ett femtiotal gymnasieelever på en skola i Mellansverigeundersökts. I en enkät har eleverna angett bedömningar av egenskaper hos sex påhittade läraresom ansöker om att bli deras nya samhällskunskapslärare. Dessa sökande har bedömts utifrånröstprov. En av dessa har talat med stark finsk brytning, en med stark engelsk brytning, en medlätt engelsk brytning och tre har talat standardsvenska. Samma talare har stått bakom de tvåengelska varianterna, men detta har informanterna inte informerats om. Då alla kandidaternaför positionen har läst upp samma personliga brev skulle bedömningarna utgå ifrån det intryckeleverna fick av deras sätt att tala. Som ett tillägg skulle eleverna dessutom rangordna talarnaefter preferens. Syftet har varit att avgöra om och i vilken utsträckning art och grad av brytningpåverkar ungdomarnas uppfattningar av talarna som personer.Undersökningens resultat visar att art och grad av brytning påverkar hur människor blirbetraktade i samhället. Informanterna värderade standardsvenskan och den lätta engelskabrytningen högre än de starka brytningarna och gav dem högre placeringar i rangordningen.Mellan de två starka brytningarna föredrog man starkt den engelska brytningen framför denfinska brytningen. Inga säkra slutsatser kan dock dras om attityder till finsk brytning specifiktdå en stor minoritet inte uppfattade denna som finsk. Ändå verkar det spela roll hur stark ensbrytning är och vilken brytning det rör sig om för hur man blir bedömd i samhället.

We consider the motion of a Brownian particle trapped in an arbitrary bounded two or three-dimensional domain, whose boundary is reflecting except for a small absorbing window through which the particle can escape. We use the method of matched asymptotic expansions to calculate the mean first passage time, defined as the time taken for the Brownian particle to escape from the domain through the absorbing window. This is known as the narrow escape problem. Since the mean escape time diverges as the window shrinks, the calculation is a singular perturbation problem. We extend our results to include N absorbing windows of varying length in two dimensions and varying radius in three dimensions. We present findings in two dimensions for the unit disk, unit square and ellipse and in three dimensions for the unit sphere. The narrow escape problem has various applications in many fields including finance, biology, and statistical mechanics. / Science, Faculty of / Mathematics, Department of / Graduate

abstract: The present study aims to gain deeper insights into language attitudes in the educational context while contributing to the emerging field of advanced mixed, second language and heritage language (HL) courses. Considering that the majority of heritage language learners (HLLs) and second language learners (L2s) in the United States (US) are enrolled in mixed classrooms (Beaudrie, 2012; Carreira, 2016a, 2016b), the study of language attitudes regarding monolingual varieties, bilingual varieties, and L2 varieties is crucial to inform pedagogical best practices that serve both types of learners. Additionally, by analyzing the language attitudes of both types of students toward these three Spanish language varieties, this study demonstrates the importance of incorporating linguistic variation into the classroom to address the linguistic hierarchies that exist in such a context. Thus, the results are relevant to the fields of sociolinguistics, L2 and HL pedagogy. The study employs matched-guise tasks at two points during the semester, as well as end-term semi-structured interviews. As different linguistic components of a language trigger different attitudes, the findings show that native-like phonetic and phonological features of Spanish speakers afford positive attitudes, as do a formal lexicon and academic register. However, morphosyntactic features do not have any effect on forming an individual’s language attitudes. To illustrate, the results of the matched-guise tasks show that native and HL varieties were generally evaluated positively, while L2 varieties were evaluated negatively. Interviews revealed native-like accent and pronunciation as the detrimental cause of negative attitudes toward the L2 variety. In contrast to the phonetic/phonological evaluations made by participants, both HLLs and L2s did agree that L2s speak a “proper” and “professional” Spanish. Furthermore, heritage Spanish was described as the “least formal” and “incorrect” Spanish variety in comparison to the L2 variety due to dominant stereotypes and ideologies and the incorporation of lexical characteristics of US Spanish. Based on these findings, this study has the potential to make an invaluable contribution to understanding how language attitudes and instructional practices in the classroom context intersect with a social justice movement to improve mixed courses in a social, critical, and conscious way. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Spanish 2020

Bilaterally independent (mismatched) hearing aids cannot replicate the natural timing and level cues between ears, and hence, may result in negative consequences for localization and speech perception in spatially-separated noise performance. Five gain reduction patterns were used to evaluate the impact of bilaterally mismatched gain reduction schemes on localization and speech perception performance in noise, compared to an unaltered bilaterally linear time-invariant amplification scheme (reference scheme), in which audibility was optimized. The bilaterally mismatched gain reduction schemes were later matched (synchronized) between ears to explore the possibility of restoring the deteriorated performance due to the mismatched schemes. Sound quality and listening-effort ratings among different gain reduction patterns were assessed, as well as the relationship between self-reported localization ability in daily life and measured localization performance in a laboratory setting. Twenty-four bilateral hearing aid users were enrolled in this study and tested in a virtual environment with insert earphones. The results indicated that bilaterally mismatched gain reduction schemes had a negative impact on localization, compared to the reference scheme; whereas matching gain reduction schemes between ears improved the deteriorated localization performance. In contrast, the use of bilaterally mismatched gain reductions did not negatively impact the speech perception performance in noise. Matching the gain reduction scheme between ears actually resulted in reduced speech perception performance, compared to the mismatched gain reductions. Self-reported localization abilities were not found to be strongly related to the measured localization performance in this study. Finally, these five different gain reduction patterns did not result in significantly different overall sound quality ratings and listening-effort ratings for hearing aid users. However, the use of gain reductions (mismatched or matched) reduced the perceived noise intrusiveness, compared to the use of reference schemes. It is unclear why there was a discrepancy between the results of the localization and speech perception performance in the present study. It is likely that hearing-impaired listeners do not use binaural cues in the localization task in the same manner as in the speech perception task.

Länder med det officiella språket engelska dominerar idag inom import och industri. Som konsekvens började engelskan utöva ett starkt inflytande på andra språk och språkdomäner, bland annat skönhetsbranschen i Sverige. Syftet med denna uppsats är att inventera bruket av engelska skönhetslånord i svenska språket samt att undersöka undermedvetna attityder till dem. Studien bygger på två delundersökningar: en korpusundersökning och en attitydundersökning. Korpusundersökningen ämnar inventera nyare engelska skönhetslånord som inte är belagda i SAOL:s 12:e upplaga, med fokus på direktlån och betydelselån. Dessutom undersöks lånordens frekvens samt deras integrering till svenska språkets struktur. Materialet bestående av 575 belägg har samlats in från 12 tidningsnummer. Metodanalysen innebar beräkningen av de olika lånordens frekvens samt en analys av lånordens integrering till svenskan utifrån ett mångfaldigt perspektiv: på formnivå, på menings- samt frasnivå, på morfologisk nivå och på ortografisk nivå. Attitydundersökningen har genomförts med hjälp av ett matched guise-test. Dess stimulustext handlade om en sminkrutin och matched guise-testet gjordes på 91 informanter. Resultat av korpusundersökningen visar att de 575 beläggen fördelar sig på 31 olika lånord, där huvuddelen utgörs av direktlån. Det finns endast fyra olika betydelselån, men de förekommer ofta. Detta faktum återspeglas i materialets högfrekventa lånord mask, serum och foundation, där de första två är betydelselån. Lånordens integrering ses på formnivå, på menings- respektive frasnivå och på morfologisk nivå. Deras ursprungliga ortografi har dock bevarats. På formnivå är de flesta av de flerledade beläggen sammanskrivna. På menings- och frasnivå innehåller de flesta meningar inga andra engelska lån. Huvuddelen adjektiv respektive particip står i attributiv position, med inhemska huvudord. Alla verb har svenska subjekt och objekt. Runt 75 % av beläggen ingår i en större fras, oftast nominalfraser. På morfologisk nivå har både direktlånen och betydelselånen anpassats i samma utsträckning, runt 50 % vardera, dock är flera betydelselån anpassade. Båda uppvisar också främst böjda former, men direktlånen omfattar flera avledda och hybrida former.  Enligt attitydundersökningen är svenskar i stort sett negativa till engelska skönhetslånord, men det beror också på målgrupp. Resultaten utifrån variablerna visar att yngre, kvinnliga, lågutbildade och starkt branschintresserade individer är mer positiva till engelska än de andra grupperna. Personer med ett starkt branschintresse är dock mest positivt inställda till engelska av alla. När engelskan är positivt värderad så är det oftast på kompetensdimensionen, i vissa fall på dynamik och sällan på superioritet (relaterad till en traditionell offentlig gemenskap). Svenskan står starkare när det gäller sociabilitet och superioritet.

The project deals with a theoretical design of passive ultra-high frequency radio identification (UHF RFID) tag for the measurement of liquid levels. Liquid level has an influence on the input impedance of an RFID tag antenna. The changes of input impedance have been used to distinguish individual liquid levels. Furthermore, this project presents optimization methods for the highest efficiency of an UHF RFID tag in Matlab and it aims to design a suitable antenna within CST MICROWAVE STUDIO.

The thesis deals with the detection of the nerve fiber layer disruptions in retina scans. The introduction presents an overview of the human eye fysiology and analyses the input image data. The thesis continues with an investigation of two texture analysis methods. While the method of adapted filters does not produce very good results, the method of brightness assessment is shown to work satisfactorily. The final part of the thesis describes the implemented tool for the detection of the nerve fiber layer disruptions.

Matched instances of the quantum satisfiability problem have an interesting property: They always have a product state solution. However, it is not clear how to find such a solution efficiently. Recenttly some progress on this question has been made by considering restricted instances of this problem. In this note we consider a different restriction of the problem which turns out to be solvable by techniques of linear algebra.

Prior researchers have shown that school-aged staff can identify behavior function and function-matched interventions following training. Limited research has been done with preschool staff on the process of identifying function of behavior and selecting function-matched interventions to decrease problem behavior. A multiple baseline across participants’ design was used to measure preschool teachers’ accuracy of identification of behavior function and function-matched interventions. Participants analyzed descriptive data to identify function of behavior and select function-matched interventions. Results from this study demonstrated that preschool teachers can independently identify function-matched and nonfunction matched interventions with greater accuracy after training.

abstract: Silicon photovoltaics is the dominant contribution to the global solar energy production. As increasing conversion efficiency has become one of the most important factors to lower the cost of photovoltaic systems, the idea of making a multijunction solar cell based on a silicon bottom cell has attracted broad interest. Here the potential of using dilute nitride GaNPAs alloys for a lattice-matched 3-terminal 2-junction Si-based tandem solar cell through multiscale modeling is investigated. To calculate the electronic band structure of dilute nitride alloys with relatively low computational cost, the sp^3 d^5 s^* s_N tight-binding model is chosen, as it has been demonstrated to obtain quantitatively correct trends for the lowest conduction band near Γ, L, and X for dilute-N GaNAs. A genetic algorithm is used to optimize the sp^3 d^5 s^* tight-binding model for pure GaP and GaAs for their optical properties. Then the optimized sp^3 d^5 s^* s_N parametrizations are obtained for GaNP and GaNAs by fitting to experimental bandgap values. After that, a virtual crystal approach gives the Hamiltonian for GaNPAs alloys. From their tight-binding Hamiltonian, the first-order optical response functions of dilute nitride GaNAs, GaNP, and GaNPAs are calculated. As the N mole fraction varies, the calculated critical optical features vary with the correct trends, and agree well with experiment. The calculated optical properties are then used as input for the solar device simulations based on Silvaco ATLAS. For device simulation, a bottom cell model is first constructed to generate performance results that agree well with a demonstrated high-efficiency Si heterojunction interdigitated back contact (IBC) solar cell reported by Kaneka. The front a-Si/c-Si interface is then replaced by a GaP/Si interface for the investigation of the sensitivity of the GaP/Si interface to interface defects in terms of degradation of the IBC cell performance, where we find that an electric field that induces strong band bending can significantly mitigate the impact of the interfacial traps. Finally, a lattice-matched 3-terminal 2-junction tandem model is built for performance simulation by stacking a dilute nitride GaNP(As) cell on the Si IBC cell connected through a GaP/Si interface. The two subcells operate quasi-independently. In this 3-terminal tandem model, traps at the GaP/Si interface still significantly impact the performance of the Si subcell, but their effects on the GaNP subcell are relatively small. Assuming the interfacial traps are well passivated, the tandem efficiency surpasses that of a single-junction Si cell, with values close to 33% based on realistic parameters. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Electrical Engineering 2019