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I den här uppsatsen studeras hur avvikande visuella uttryck kan användas inom design för att utmana normer. I uppsatsen undersöks hur designen av tidningen Bang utmanar normativa dikotomier som funktion/form, maskulint/feminint och original/imitation. Uppsatsen tar avstamp främst i queerteori, såsom Judith Butlers resonemang om original och imitation, Fanny Ambjörnssons undersökning av färgen rosa och Judith Halberstams studier av ”queera misslyckanden” i animerad film. Dessa teorier används i en fallstudie av Bangs design för att förstå hur avvikande uttryck kan utmana normer. Fallstudien görs genom analys av tre lösnummer av Bang och diskussioner om normkritisk design i media. Fallstudien inkluderar också en intervju med Lotta Sjöberg, skaparen av den normkritiska facebookgruppen Family Living – the true story. Utifrån detta material undersöks hur normkritisk design blir subversiv, såväl som vilka problem som kan finnas med strategin. Slutligen dras slutsatsen att normkritisk design erbjuder ett icke-essentialistiskt sätt att förhålla sig till normer och design. / This is a study on how deviant visual expressions can be used within design in order to challenge norms. The essay examines how normative dichotomies such as function/form, masculine/feminine and original/imitation are challenged within the magazine Bang’s design. The essay mainly draws on queer theory, such as Judith Butler’s ideas on original and imitation, Fanny Ambjörnsson’s study of the colour pink and Judith Halberstam’s theories on ”queer failures” within animated film. These theories are used in a case study of Bang’s design in order to understand how deviant expressions can challenge norms. In the case study, three issues of Bang and media discussions on norm critical design are analysed. The case study also includes an interview with Lotta Sjöberg, creator of the norm critical Facebook group Family Living – the true story. This material is examined in order to explain how norm critical design becomes subversive, as well as potential problems with the strategy. Finally, the essay concludes that norm critical design offers a non-essential way of relating to norms and design.

Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka pedagogers normer kring populärkulturell film i förskolanutifrån pedagogers perspektiv. Studien genomfördes utifrån en kvalitativ metod. Tvåförskollärare och en barnskötare intervjuades för att få en förståelse kring ämnet. Vi valde istudien att kalla de intervjuade för pedagoger, då vi finner att alla som arbetar i förskolan harett betydande ansvar för barns utveckling i olika ämnen. Vårt fokus är deras syn och tankaroch inte vilken titel de har i förskolan. När vi skriver generell film menar vi filmen som inteär kopplad till populärkulturen. Resultatet av detta examensarbete sammanfattas som attpedagoger har normer angående populärkulturell film och att pedagoger har en rädsla förvåldet som förekommer i filmer och tv-serier. Den generella filmens funktion är på förskolanatt vara tidsfördriv, lugnande medel och lärandeverktyg medan populärkulturell film inteanvänds i lärandesyfte utan mest som tidsfördriv. Pedagogerna anser att film kan användassom lärandeverktyg inom temat. Pedagoger menar att kunskap inom film kan användas för attskapa och dramatisera film men tids- och kunskapsbrist begränsar dessa möjligheter. Utifrånpedagogernas perspektiv är populärkulturen ett komplext ämne men de ser möjligheter tilllärande genom användandet av populärkulturens innehåll.

In a time of expanding globalization and worldwide interconnectedness through the Internet, the need for a better understanding of diverse cultures has taken on a new urgency. One way people learn about cultures other than their own is through the news media. Yet journalists have long been criticized for their inability to represent the complexities of cultures. The concept of cultural competence has been used to enhance cultural understanding in a variety of professions, including health care, social work, psychology, business and public relations. This dissertation applied the concept of cultural competence to journalists, using as theoretical frameworks the social construction of reality and concepts related to social cognition. The study explored factors that contribute to or hinder the cultural competence of journalists, including multimedia journalistic practices that influence the cultural competence of reporters and their news coverage. To answer the research questions posed in this dissertation, an extensive case study was conducted in a multimedia journalism laboratory at Temple University in Philadelphia, PA, in which student reporters produce news pieces about urban neighborhoods. The research involved 223 surveys, 28 observations of students reporting in the field, and 71 in-depth interviews with student reporters, news sources, neighborhood representatives, and lab professors. A textual analysis also was conducted of selected multimedia news packages produced by the student reporters. Five key factors were found to influence the cultural competence of journalists: awareness of self; awareness of the complexity of "insider" or "outsider" status; use of journalistic ethics, norms and routines; knowledge of the other, and skills and attributes that influence knowledge of the other. New multimedia journalistic practices were found to provide the potential to move journalists and their news texts toward more cultural competence. This study provides new meaning for what it means to be a journalist as one who dwells in the borderlands, occupying liminal spaces and promoting understanding over current norms of objectivity. This new meaning could be supported by journalism education programs that encourage future reporters to strive for a culturally competent approach to reporting and news production that promotes understanding for themselves and their audiences. / Mass Media and Communication

Dynamical systems are mathematical models of physical phenomena widely used throughout the world today. When a dynamical system is too large to effectively use, we turn to model reduction to obtain a smaller dynamical system that preserves the behavior of the original. In many cases these models depend on one or more parameters other than time, which leads to the field of parametric model reduction. Constructing a parametric reduced-order model (ROM) is not an easy task, and for very large parametric systems it can be difficult to know how well a ROM models the original system, since this usually involves many computations with the full-order system, which is precisely what we want to avoid. Building off of efficient 𝐻-infinity approximations, we develop a greedy algorithm for efficiently modeling large-scale parametric dynamical systems in an 𝐻₂-sense. We demonstrate the effectiveness of this greedy search on a fluid problem, a mechanics problem, and a thermal problem. We also investigate Bayesian optimization for solving the optimization subproblem, and end with extending this algorithm to work with MIMO systems. / Master of Science / In the past century, mathematical modeling and simulation has become the third pillar of scientific discovery and understanding, alongside theory and experimentation. Mathematical models are used every day, and are essential to modern engineering problems. Some of these mathematical models depend on quantities other than just time, parameters such as the viscosity of a fluid or the strength of a spring. These models can sometimes become so large and complicated that it can take a very long time to run simulations with the models. In such a case, we use parametric model reduction to come up with a much smaller and faster model that behaves like the original model. But when these large models vary highly with the parameters, it can also become very expensive to reduce these models accurately. Algorithms already exist for quickly computing reduced-order models (ROMs) with respect to one measure of how "good" the ROM is. In this thesis we develop an algorithm for quickly computing the ROM with respect to a different measure - one that is more closely tied to how the models are simulated.

This thesis deals with the control of a highly maneuverable miniature helicopter about trajectories, generated online, from a library of prespecified maneuvers. Linearizing the nonlinear equations describing the helicopter dynamics about the prespecified, library maneuvers results in a hybrid linear time-varying (LTV) model. Two control approaches are used to design controllers corresponding to each library maneuver: the standard L2-induced norm approach and an approach which also uses the L2-induced norm as a performance measure while accounting for uncertain initial states. Each control approach is evaluated in closed-loop simulation with a nonlinear helicopter model. The controllers are set to drive the helicopter model to track desired trajectories in the presence of disturbances such as wind gusts, turbulence, sensor noise, and uncertain initial conditions. For the specific plant formulations and trajectories presented, performance is comparable for both control approaches; however, it is possible to improve controller performance by exploiting some of the features of the approach accounting for uncertain initial states. These improvements in performance are topics for future work along with implementation of the presented approaches and results on a remote control helicopter. / Master of Science

Improving the learning and success of students in undergraduate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) courses has become an increased focus of education researchers within the past decade. As part of these efforts, discipline-based education research (DBER) has emerged within STEM education as a way to address discipline-specific challenges for teaching and learning, by combining expert knowledge of the various STEM disciplines with knowledge about teaching and learning (Dolan et al., 2018; National Research Council, 2012). Particularly important to furthering DBER and improving STEM education are interdisciplinary studies that examine how the teaching and learning of specific concepts develop among and across various STEM disciplines... / Ph. D. / Dissertation proposal

Exotic species often invade new areas and displace native species. The problems associated with such invasions are well known, but for many exotic species, experimental work has not yet been done to predict which, and under what conditions they may become a problem. Two greenhouse experiments were devised to investigate the plasticity, shade tolerance, and phenotypic differences of full-siblings from 3 populations of Cardamine impatiens, a Eurasian species potentially invasive in North America. Potted plants were subjected to 0, 54, 76, or 91% shade created by neutral density shade cloth application. In addition, the impact of a cold pre-treatment of seedlings on the growth and reproductive output of C. impatiens plants was examined. In our first experiment, we subjected Cardamine impatiens to non-shaded cages, 54%, or 76% shade intensity. Plants died very quickly, so LD50 data were used as a relative measure of fitness, and relative growth indices were calculated over time. Other relative measures of fitness included canopy area, leaf area, number of leaves, number of leaves per canopy area, and final plant weight. Plants in cages with no shade treatment grew faster than those in cages with shade cloth and final plant weight decreased as shade treatment percentage increased. In each population, the number of leaves increased over time and the number of leaves per canopy area decreased over time under shade treatments. Our second experiment involved the application of 54%, 76%, and 91% shade intensity. The additional shade treatment of 91% was applied to determine the extent of plant tolerance and plasticity in response to light reduction. Due to high plant mortality in our first experiment, we treated Cardamine impatiens with a 4 week cold period prior to treatment, which simulates its biennial growth form in its natural western Virginia region habitat. Since this second experiment took place later in the year, day length was extended to more accurately duplicate the conditions during the first experiment. LD50 calculations were not necessary, and 7 of the 135 plants produced seed. Relative measures of fitness included canopy area, leaf area, number of leaves, number of leaves per canopy area, and final plant weights. As in experiment one, the number of leaves per plant increased over time, final plant weight decreased as shade treatment increased, and the number of leaves per canopy area decreased as shade treatment increased. From these two experiments, we determined that Cardamine impatiens is a species that exhibits phenotypic plasticity and therefore may pose a threat as an invasive species. C. impatiens is able to grow and exhibit plasticity of plant architecture under the conditions of very low light. The number of leaves per canopy area decreased as shade increased, suggesting that C. impatiens is highly adaptable to low light conditions, and therefore may be exhibiting phenotypic plasticity by reallocating its resources by producing fewer leaves while maintaining canopy area. This data along with other C. impatiens traits such as high levels needed for seed production, its persistence in seed banks, along with a lack of known major enemies, indicates that they have a great capacity to invade a wide variety of habitats. We also determined that a cold treatment is necessary in order for C. impatiens to obtain optimal growth and reproduction. / Master of Science

I Sverige finns det mer än 2000 tätorter. Majoriteten av dessa är landsbygdstätorter, där det bor mindre än 3000 personer. Mycket fokus finns idag kring städer och det urbana, med fenomen som förtätning och den gröna staden i fokus. Detta är en effekt av den urbana normen, som länge har dominerat samhällsutvecklingen. Resultatet av det urbana fokuset är något som lätt skapar en känsla av att landsbygden och dess tätorter blir bortglömda, eller rent av ignorerade. Detta kandidatarbete syftar till att undersöka hur kommuner hanterar dessa landsbygdstätorter i sin översiktsplanering, och se vilka skillnader som finns mellan större och mindre kommuner. Arbetet genomfördes med hjälp av en fallstudie och en dokumentstudie av plandokument från Karlskrona kommun och Torsås kommun, där tre landsbygdstätorter i varje kommun blivit undersökta. Analysen av empirin gjordes med hjälp av ett teoretiskt ramverk som baserades på befintlig kunskap om den urbana normen och effekterna av tillväxt på landsbygden. Av analysen framgår det att det i senare versioner av översiktsplanerna har blivit ett större fokus på landsbygden och dess utveckling. Sammanfattningsvis framgår det att kommunerna nu ger ett mer rättvist utrymme för planering av landsbygdstätorter. Slutligen dras slutsatser på skillnaderna mellan större och mindre kommuner.

Women’s rights to safe abortion have become recognized as a human rights imperative, and within the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women(CEDAW), States are obligated to ensure access to abortion. Despite this, abortion laws vary around the world. This suggests that norms of liberalized abortion laws stick better in some contexts than others. This study analyzes and compares norms related to abortion of the Philippines and the Republic of Ireland, in relation to the CEDAW Committee, through the lens of norm translation. The purpose is to explore to what extent the theoretical framework of norm translation can be used to understand how the government in the Philippines and respectively, Ireland, interact with human rights norms of liberalized abortion laws in the context of CEDAW, and if these interactions have produced legislative change. The study uses a qualitative content analysis to examine reports submitted as part of CEDAW’s monitoring procedure. The study concludes that the CEDAW Committees’ ideas on abortion coincide with those supported bythe State Party of the Philippines and Ireland, to some extent; norm translation can describe this to a great extent; norm translation can help us understand how the State Parties’ produce norm consistent measures and policies to a great extent; norm translation cannot describe why humanrights norms of liberalized abortion laws appear to have stuck better in Ireland than in the Philippines.