This thesis examines the Europeanization process with a focus on the structure of influence and the role of agency in influencing the domestic change of the EU candidate states. In order to understand these qualities of the Europeanization process I discuss the current literature on Europeanization and critically evaluate contemporary conceptualization of the structure of influence. An assessment of the five mechanisms of Europeanization first advanced by Heather Grabbe—models, financial and technical aid, benchmarking and monitoring, advice and twinning, and gate-keeping—is then conducted in order to show that Europeanization can be discussed both conceptually and empirically. The categories reveal the important role that the structure of influence and windows of opportunity play in influencing the outcome of Europeanization. Throughout this thesis I argue that the Europeanization process is governed by a multi-leveled structure of influence that is affected by the actors’ ability to capitalize on windows of opportunity. Moreover, I conclude that the outcomes of the Europeanization process are shaped by the structure of influence and windows of opportunity available to each level of actors. / Graduate

Zugl.: Hamburg, Techn. Univ., Diss., 2006

Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-02T00:03:44Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 tese_10271_representation_of_multi_level_domains_on_the_web_2016 - freddy.pdf: 1850597 bytes, checksum: 49e1ac6068e9ec186891d6c01f4acab9 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-09-28 / Estratégias de modelagem conceitual e representação de conhecimento frequentemente tratam entidades em dois níveis: um nível de classes e um nível de indivíduos que instanciam essas classes. Em vários domínios, porém, as próprias classes podem estar sujeitas a categorização, resultando em classes de classes (ou metaclasses). Ao representar estes domínios, é preciso capturar não apenas as entidades de diferentes níveis de classificação, mas também as suas relações (possivelmente complexas). No domínio de taxonomias biológicas, por exemplo, um dado organismo (por exemplo, o leão Cecil morto em 2015 no Parque Nacional Hwange no Zimbábue) é classificado em diversos táxons (como, por exemplo, Animal, Mamífero, Carnívoro, Leão), e cada um desses táxons é classificado por um ranking taxonômico (por exemplo, Reino, Classe, Ordem, Espécie). Assim, para representar o conhecimento referente a esse domínio, é necessário representar entidades em níveis diferentes de classificação. Por exemplo, Cecil é uma instância de Leão, que é uma instância de Espécie. Espécie, por sua vez, é uma instância de Ranking Taxonômico. Além disso, quando representamos esses domínios, é preciso capturar não somente as entidades diferentes níveis de classificação, mas também suas (possivelmente complicadas) relações. Por exemplo, nós gostaríamos de afirmar que instâncias do gênero Panthera também devem ser instâncias de exatamente uma instância de Espécie (por exemplo, Leão). A necessidade de suporte à representação de domínios que lidam com múltiplos níveis de classificação deu origem a uma área de investigação chamada modelagem multi-nível. Observa-se que a representação de modelos com múltiplos níveis é um desafio em linguagens atuais da Web Semântica, como há pouco apoio para orientar o modelador na produção correta de ontologias multi-nível, especialmente por causa das nuanças de restrições que se aplicam a entidades de diferentes níveis de classificação e suas relações. A fim de lidar com esses desafios de representação, definimos um vocabulário que pode ser usado como base para a definição de ontologias multi-nível em OWL, juntamente com restrições de integridade e regras de derivação. É oferecida uma ferramenta que recebe como entrada um modelo de domínio, verifica conformidade com as restrições de integridade propostas e produz como saída um modelo enriquecido com informações derivadas. Neste processo, é empregada uma teoria axiomática chamada MLT (uma Teoria de Modelagem Multi-Nível). O conteúdo da plataforma Wikidata foi utilizado para demonstrar que o vocabulário poderia evitar inconsistências na representação multi-nível em um cenário real.

Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-02T00:04:06Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 tese_10529_foundations_for_ontology_based_multi_level_conceptual_modeling_2012 - victorio.pdf: 6142526 bytes, checksum: 3e3483b04f4e9b86ab648e66104ac1e2 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-12-16 / Considerando que modelos conceituais são produzidos com o objetivo de representar certos aspectos do mundo físico e social de acordo com uma conceituação específica e que ontologias buscam descrever conceituações, tem havido crescente interesse no uso de ontologias para fornecer uma base teórica sólida para a disciplina de modelagem conceitual. Esse interesse deu origem a uma área de pesquisa denominada modelagem conceitual baseada em ontologias, com avanços significativos na modelagem conceitual nas últimas décadas. Apesar desses avanços, a modelagem baseada em ontologias não provê suporte adequado à modelagem de domínios que exigem a representação de categorias de indivíduos e de categorias de categorias (ou tipos de tipos). A representação de entidades de vários "níveis" de classificação tem sido o foco de uma área de pesquisa distinta denominada modelagem multi-nível. As iniciativas em modelagem multi-nível visam a contornar as limitações impostas pelo paradigma convencional de modelagem em dois níveis. Apesar das contribuições relevantes das áreas de modelagem multi-nível e de modelagem conceitual baseada em ontologias, a combinação dessas duas áreas ainda não recebeu a devida atenção. Este trabalho explora essa lacuna propondo o uso combinado de teorias formais para a modelagem multi-nível e de ontologias de fundamentação para apoiar o que chamamos de modelagem conceitual multi-nível baseada em ontologias. Para fornecer uma abordagem bem fundamentada à modelagem conceitual multi-nível, desenvolvemos uma teoria chamada MLT. MLT caracteriza formalmente a natureza dos níveis de classificação e define precisamente as relações que podem ocorrer entre elementos de diferentes níveis de classificação. A fim de aproveitar os benefícios do uso de ontologias de fundamentação na modelagem de domínios que abrangem vários níveis de classificação, combinamos MLT com uma ontologia de fundamentação. Essa combinação resulta em uma abordagem de modelagem que apoia a construção de modelos conceituais multi-níveis em um espectro de níveis de especificidade, desde ontologias de fundamentação até modelos conceituas de domínios específicos. Para demonstrar a aplicabilidade da nossa abordagem de modelagem conceitual multi-nível baseada em ontologias, a empregamos para desenvolver uma ontologia núcleo para estruturas organizacionais, um domínio que abrange vários níveis de classificação. Além disso, mostramos como MLT pode ser usada como uma teoria de referência para esclarecer a semântica e aumentar a expressividade de UML no que diz respeito à representação de modelos de multi-níveis. O perfil UML produzido viabiliza a aplicação prática de MLT pela comunidade de modelagem conceitual.

Purpose: The purpose of this research program was three-fold. First it aimed to determine the effectiveness of smoking cessation interventions in increasing cessation rates in smokers with cerebrovascular disease and whether smoking cessation reduces stroke recurrence. Second it aimed to determine the prognostic influence of smoking and its association with stroke severity, disability, length of stay in hospital and mortality. Third it aimed to identify multi-level correlates of smoking cessation in Canadians who reported stroke symptoms in a large population based survey. Methods: Two systematic reviews and meta-analyses were performed to achieve the first objective. For the second objective, a retrospective cohort study was undertaken using variables from the Registry of the Canadian Stroke Network. Finally, the third objective was achieved by analyzing respondents from the Canadian Community Health Survey. Results: There is a paucity of intervention studies examining the effectiveness of smoking cessation in smokers with cerebrovascular disease. Most intervention studies that were found, failed to employ evidence-based approaches to smoking cessation. No evidence was found in regards to the effect of smoking cessation on stroke recurrence. We found smokers had strokes at a younger age compared to non-smokers. We found that in transient ischemic attacks and intracerbral haemorrhage, smoking was a significant predictor of stroke severity, disability, length of stay in hospital and 1 year mortality. Correlates of smoking cessation among Canadians who have experienced symptoms of a stroke included: higher education and income, implementation of household and vehicle smoking restrictions, access to a general practitioner and the use of smoking cessation pharmacotherapies and counselling support. Co-morbidities such as depression and alcohol consumption reduced the likelihood of successful cessation. Conclusions: This three-phase research program elucidated the gaps in intervention research for this population along with co-morbidities that hinder success in cessation. Smoking negatively impacted outcomes such as disability, hospital length of stay and mortality in patients with transient ischemic attacks and intracerebral haemorrhage strokes. Future interventions should take into account modifiable smoking cessation correlates in order to increase cessation rates in smokers with cerebrovascular disease.

Accurate and reasonable contract time is important to all aspects of a highway construction project. Unreasonably short contract times can raise the bid price, restrict qualified bidders from submitting bids, reduce the quality of the work, and increase the potential for legal disputes. Conversely, unreasonably long contract times encourage less qualified contractors to submit a bid and are a general inconvenience to the traveling public. The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) recognizes this, and has recommended that all state highway agencies develop a standardized method for estimating contract performance time. To date, the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) does not have an established method. One major portion of this work is the development of the framework for a multi-level time estimating system to aid in the establishment of contract performance times. This system parallels the VDOT cost estimating process, refining estimates as design details become available along the Project Development Concurrent Engineering Process (PDCEP). Three distinct stages exist along the PDCEP that will facilitate the use of a tool for estimating contract time. Sufficient information to begin the conceptual estimate is known as the project enters the six year plan. The parametric estimate may commence as the project enters the scoping phase. Finally, details for the pre-advertisement time estimate are available upon project field inspection. The second major component of this work, the pre-advertisement estimating database system (BIDDS – Bid Item Duration Data System) was constructed during this work. BIDDS uses project information and characteristics to filter through historical performance time data, returning production data from similar projects. Production data is returned at the bid item level to assist in the estimation of production rates, for calculating activity durations. / Master of Science

As the use of unmanned vehicles continues to grow, so does the need for systems to safely test and operate these vehicles. While there are safety systems designed for this purpose, they are often developed for a specific vehicle platform. The Multi-Level Emergency Stop (MLES) system provides three user-defined emergency response contingencies that can be adapted to a wide variety of unmanned vehicles. The Multi-Level Emergency Stop system is designed to be an ad-on safety system that can be integrated into ground, air, or surface unmanned vehicles. A complete MLES system consists of a hand held transmitter and a vehicle mounted receiver. The three levels of contingencies are controlled by three switches on the transmitter. These switches engage and disengage contacts located in the receiver via a wireless link. The function of these contacts is determined by the user for each unique application. Presented in this thesis is the detailed hardware design and software layout of the Multi-Level Emergency Stop system. Also included are the performance results and operational tests. / Master of Science

A new power conditioning system (PCS) for superconductive magnetic energy storage (SMES) is developed and its prototype test system is built and tested. The PCS uses IGBTs for high-speed PWM operation and has a multi-level chopper-VSC structure. The prototype test system has three-level that can handle up to 250-kVA with a 1800-V DC link, a 200-A maximum load current , and a switching frequency reaching 20-kHz with the help of zero-current-transition (ZCT) soft-switching. This PCS has a great number of advantages over conventional ones in terms of size, speed, and cost. Conventional PCSs use thyristors, due to the power capacity of the SMES system. The speed limit of the thyristor uses a six-pulse operation that generates a high harmonic. To reduce the harmonic, multiple PCSs are connected together with phase-matching transformers that need to be precise to be effective in reducing the harmonics. So, the system becomes large and expensive. In addition, the dynamic range of the PCSs are also limited by the six-pulse operation, because it limits the useful area of the PCS applications. By employing a high-speed PWM, the new PCS can reduce the harmonics without using the transformers reducing size and cost, and has wide dynamic range. However, the speed of a switching device is generally inversely proportional to its power handling capacity. Therefore, employing a multi-level structure is one method of extending the power-handling capability of the high-speed device. Switching loss is another factor that limits the speed of the switch, but it can be reduced by soft-switching techniques. The 20-kHz switching frequency can be obtained with the help of the ZCT soft-switching technique, which can reduce about 90% of switching losses from the IGBT during both turn-on and turn-off transients. There are two different topologies of the PCS; the current source converter (CSC) type and the chopper and voltage source converter (VSC) type. In terms of the SMES system efficiency, the chopper-VSC type shows a less volt-ampere requirement of the power device. Therefore, the new PCS system has a chopper-VSC structure. Since the chopper-VSC structure consists of multiple legs that can be modularized, a power electronics building block (PEBB) leg is a good choice; all of the system problems caused by the high frequency can be solved within the PEBB leg. The VSC is built with three of the PEBB legs. Three-phase AC is implemented with a three-level space vector modulation (SVM) that can reduce the number of switching and harmonic contents from the output current. A closed-loop control system is also implemented for the VSC, and shows 600-Hz control bandwidth. The multi-level structure used requires too many high-speed switches. However, not all of them are used at the same time during normal multi-level operation. A new multi-level topology is suggested that requires only two high-speed switches, regardless of the number of levels. Other switches can be replaced with slow-speed switches that can allow additional cost savings. / Ph. D.

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship among student civic knowledge scores and several different variables each at the student, classroom/school, and national levels using the IEA CIVED study international data set collected in 1999 from 27 countries. The student level predictors included two elements of socioeconomic status (a student's parental education, their home literacy level measured by the number of books at home), student's perception of an open classroom climate, student aspiration of obtaining higher education, and other variables that were identified as relevant to the dependent variable in the literature. The classroom/school level predictors included teacher's degree in civics, in-service training, teaching confidence, and school safety in addition to the compositional variable created as the classroom/school averages by aggregating the student level variables. Then I investigated whether instructional methods focusing on the student activities the teacher employed in the classroom and an open classroom climate were associated after accounting for the above student and school level background variables. National level variables such as GNP, GINI index, democratic system, public education expenditure, and etc. as well as compositional variables obtained by aggregating the classroom/school variables were also added to the model to investigate if they were associated with students' civic knowledge scores and whether they could explain between nations variability. The study used a three-level hierarchical linear model to analyze the data, with number of students, N=56,579, number of classrooms/schools, J=3443, and number of countries, K=27. Some of the key findings was that there were significant variations of civics knowledge among nations, and significant variations of civic knowledge scores between school and within nations, no statistically significant association between teacher's practice and civics knowledge scores, however the student perception of an open classroom climate was significant at all 3 levels. These findings were interpreted in terms of policies and practices that could be implemented to improve students' civic knowledge. / Ph. D.

Humans have the ability to synchronise with sounds divided by equal intervals and predict when the next sound is coming, as opposed to reacting to them. By creating a pulse within ourselves based on these recurrent sounds we are able to, for instance, play music and dance. A stable pulse can be maintained accurately even without external stimuli for up to about two seconds. Previous research showed that this limit could be extended to about eight seconds if the pulse was supported by a sound pattern with a facilitating temporal structure, which also seemed to be slowing down infinitely. The present study used the same type of multi-level pattern, but with longer playing time and stricter instructions for the participants. Just as in the seminal study the participants had to hit a drumstick against a drum pad according to their inner representation of the pulse when hearing the stimuli, for both increasing and decreasing tempi. In addition, the present study featured four different rates of tempo change. The results showed that the produced time interval could be extended to around 16 seconds for decreasing tempo with the slowest rate of change. / Människor har förmågan att synkronisera med ljud separerade av lika långa tidsintervalleroch förutse när nästa ljud kommer, istället för att bara reagera på dem. Genom att skapa en inre puls baserad på dessa återkommande ljud kan vi till exempel spela musik och dansa. En stabil puls kan upprätthållas även utan externa stimuli i upp till omkring två sekunder. Tidigareforskning visade att denna gräns kunde förlängas till omkring åtta sekunder om pulsenstöddesav ett ljudmönster med en underlättande temporal struktur, som också verkade sakta ner i oändlighet. Den aktuella studien använde sig av samma typ av stimuli, men med längre speltid och striktare instruktioner till deltagarna. Precis som i den första studien var deltagarnas uppgift att slå en trumstock mot en trumplatta baserat på deras inre representation av pulsen när dom hörde stimulit, för både ökande och avtagandetempo. Dessutom så innehöllden aktuella studienfyra olika grader av tempoändringar.Resultaten visade att det producerade tidsintervallet kunde ökas till nästan 16 sekunderför avtagandetempo med den långsammaste graden av ändring.