<p>Quality Control is a term often used within production and is referring to managing processes so they produce capable products. Within Quality Control, process capability index is a common measure to oversee processes. Safety Region Plots were introduced to do this graphically. In Albing & Vännman (2010) the concept of Safety Region Plots is expanded to incorporate an elliptical shape. The method of Elliptical Safety Region Plots assumes a normally distributed data. In this paper we are looking at the robustness of the Elliptical Safety Region Plots if we can assume a symmetrically, but non-normal, distribution. In the results we can conclude that an adjustment is required for symmetric, but non-normal, data if the method in Albing & Vännman (2010) is going to be used. An eventual adjustment is discussed in discussions. To easily be able to use the Elliptical Safety Region Plots mentioned in Albing & Vännman (2010) we have developed a program in RExcel.</p>

Quality Control is a term often used within production and is referring to managing processes so they produce capable products. Within Quality Control, process capability index is a common measure to oversee processes. Safety Region Plots were introduced to do this graphically. In Albing &amp; Vännman (2010) the concept of Safety Region Plots is expanded to incorporate an elliptical shape. The method of Elliptical Safety Region Plots assumes a normally distributed data. In this paper we are looking at the robustness of the Elliptical Safety Region Plots if we can assume a symmetrically, but non-normal, distribution. In the results we can conclude that an adjustment is required for symmetric, but non-normal, data if the method in Albing &amp; Vännman (2010) is going to be used. An eventual adjustment is discussed in discussions. To easily be able to use the Elliptical Safety Region Plots mentioned in Albing &amp; Vännman (2010) we have developed a program in RExcel.

The aim of this master thesis is to contribute to a deeper understanding of women’s experiences in regard to menstrually related suffering. These particular experiences are examined in relation to notions of normality and authenticity. The study designed for this purpose is based on the life world of women in order to explore these ideas. The visceral signs originating from within the body are generally understood to be undetectable when working properly. Such is not the case for many women who menstruate. The cyclical change in physical and mental states associated with the menstrual cycle provide an opportunity to study how going in and out of different ways of being in the world influence human experience. Thematic interviews were conducted asking ten women living in Sweden to share their experiences of suffering related to the menstrual cycle. A phenomenological approach with focus on the body was used to study how changing ways of being in the world contribute to the construction of illness and health. Beginning with discussions about their experiences of suffering revealed that women thought in terms of when they felt like themselves and when they did not. Organization of time was interrelated with how women understood their experiences. Emphasizing recurring negative experiences lead to contemplation about causes of suffering and comparison of different states of being. The lack of ‘one’s selfness’ due to what is commonly referred to as PMS represents the dilemma these women describe. The need to have control over the outward representation of one’s self is discussed in light of different medical technologies like SSRI antidepressant use and hormonal therapies which revealed that women saw the origins of their suffering to be a product of society but tightly connected to their identity as women and were not willing to be without a menstrual cycle. Phenomenological ideas about embodiment were used to understand how suffering was seen both as a sign of health and as a part of the self.

My project is about attitudes towards disabled people, about our fear for those who are different, about acceptance, ideals and normality.My inspiration has been prosthesis, and mostly people that are born without limbs. Through my research I have come across a lot of questions. Such as, why is a prosthesis so important and for whom? Why is it so important to be normal? What is normal and for who? People that are born different se upon themselves as normal, until they realize that others don’t. Many of them want to learn how to deal with life without prosthesis. And therefore they reject these. Sometimes the prosthesis is aids that are highly necessary. But they are also a way to blend in. When someone get severely ill or are born with a defect the society want to rehabilitate this person at any price. The goal is not to make the disability to something that you accept but something you should cure. This is of course necessary in some cases and I believe that we do this with the best of intentions. But sometimes we do this because we don’t believe in being different and the strive to be the “ideal-human being” is an obsession for us. The “ideal- human being” that nobody ever can be and especially not those with a disability. What is normal has change from different epochs and are different in different cultures. We learn what is normal and not normal, what are acceptable and about values so we can survive in our society. It is a social construction and it is safe. This safety can be a problem when it comes to be able to understand and accept that there are people that look, think and acts in a different way. It can be a seed for prejudices.During this project I realized that this is not only about visible disability. It is about hidden disability and that concern all of us.I believe that we all have some kind of disability. It is a matter of definition. We have to learn how to live with, accept and appreciate what is ugly, odd, unpleasant and unique. It is about values and to reassess.

Background: Studies have shown that 66 children and teenagers in Sweden suffers from brain tumor every year. Children and teenagers who can´t participate in the regular school for a longer time for whatever reason, have by the school law the right to education in hospitals or institutions. Education that take place in other places than school most try to follow the same guidelines as his/hers usual school.  This applies to students in elementary school, compulsory school, special school, Sami school, secondary school and upper secondary school. Purpose:  The purpose of this study was to find out how three teachers at a hospital school plans their work with children in grade from 1 to 3, who suffer from cancer, especially brain tumor.  How can the teachers at the hospital school plan and organize their teaching so that it´s possible for the children whit brain tumor to feel as normal as possible. How does the common work between the consultant nurse, teachers at the hospitals and their ordinary school prevent the children to feel like an outsider? Method: I have chosen to do a qualitative study followed by three interviews whit three informants who works at a hospital school. One interview with the head of the unit, one interview with the special education teacher and one interview with the consultant nurse who works as a contact for the affected students. Conclusions: The result of my thesis is primarily that it`s important to have a good contact, communication and attitude to the students, so that their time at the hospitalschool will be as normal as possible. And in that way minimize the risk to feel and bee seen as a outsider. Result: Hospitalschool is a very god communal operation for those students who needs it.

One of sociology´s to assess the effects of political decision. According to sociologist Anders Persson the society is changing, and in that change social fear appear. In the reaction of social fear some people are being excluded. In that more narrow frame for normality laws are created that makes some parents and their children “the other”. Nine years ago the sociologist Eva Kärfve published a book that was very critical to the newborn psychiatrics diagnosing of children as a way of segregating groups in society. I am sad to say but she was right. According to the theory of Howard Becker I use a social interaction perspective to understand and interpret people´s actions. This perspective means that people through their actions creates phenomena in society. Becker´s book Tricks of the trade gives tools to investigate situations in society. The purpose of this study is to through a case study increase the understanding of a parent´s experiences in a case where municipality moved a pupil against the parents will. The method is case study, where the bulk is an interview with a pupil´s parents. The study shows the steps of human interaction that lead to the moving of a pupil against the parents will. The result indicates that the decision of what a violation of the norm is decides if the new law is to be executed. I present the school´s action from a view of the society and conclude with the questions: If we are using laws instead of giving schools economic resources, is that really what we want? If just one child is taken away from his school for the wrong reasons, is that not a case too much? The sociology is supposed to plead people without a voice cause. Reflect a structure of society and elucidate problems according to different theoretic perspectives. For me personally, the area of problem preceded the method. This study had not been what it is without the case. It takes a great deal of courage to invite a stranger to one´s home and talk about painful experiences. In the end I like to purpose that life is for everybody. / 0709902656

The purpose of the study was to examine how exercise of authority social worker´s view and work with normality has changed. Together with the role of changes in society, as LSS (Act concerning Support and Service for Disabled), user influence and the principle of normalization had in this context. The material has been collected through a qualitative method with semi-structured interviews which were held with eight social workers. Three of them had not been active within the field of this study for more than ten years and five of them are currently working. The collected material was analyzed through the theoretical perspective social constructivism and the theoretical concept case management. The results of this study shows that exercise of authority social worker´s have slightly different views on the priorities in the concepts of normality and user influence, both over time and between those who are working today. The conclusion of this study is that respondents have basically the same view of the application of normalization and user influence in their work. However, they have different personal beliefs about what the terms mean.

abstract: For this thesis a Monte Carlo simulation was conducted to investigate the robustness of three latent interaction modeling approaches (constrained product indicator, generalized appended product indicator (GAPI), and latent moderated structural equations (LMS)) under high degrees of nonnormality of the exogenous indicators, which have not been investigated in previous literature. Results showed that the constrained product indicator and LMS approaches yielded biased estimates of the interaction effect when the exogenous indicators were highly nonnormal. When the violation of nonnormality was not severe (symmetric with excess kurtosis < 1), the LMS approach with ML estimation yielded the most precise latent interaction effect estimates. The LMS approach with ML estimation also had the highest statistical power among the three approaches, given that the actual Type-I error rates of the Wald and likelihood ratio test of interaction effect were acceptable. In highly nonnormal conditions, only the GAPI approach with ML estimation yielded unbiased latent interaction effect estimates, with an acceptable actual Type-I error rate of both the Wald test and likelihood ratio test of interaction effect. No support for the use of the Satorra-Bentler or Yuan-Bentler ML corrections was found across all three methods. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.A. Psychology 2010

Background: Concerns have been well documented about women either dying or developing severe morbidities from prolonged and obstructed labour. These concerns have noted that maternity care during labour has not been of a sufficient standard to improve the outcome for women giving birth in Malawi. This ‘failure to save’ women remains, despite assertions that obstructed and prolonged labour can be prevented through appropriate decision making during the progress and management of labour. Midwives in Malawi form the majority of maternity healthcare workers and an important aspect of their decision-making role is to assess the progress of labour when caring for women in labour. To date, there has been limited exploration of either midwifery decision making during labour or the contextual factors that influence midwives’ decision making. The aim of this study was to explore how Malawian midwives make decisions during the first stage of labour in a hospital setting and to identify the contextual factors that influence their decision making. Design and Method: Using a qualitative ethnographic research approach, 27 participant observations, 26 follow-up interviews and document reviews comprised the data collection. Nine Malawian nurse-midwives who worked at a tertiary (n=5) and a secondary referral hospital (n=4), with a mixture of qualifications and experiences, participated. Each nurse midwife was observed three times with subsequent follow-up interviews. Interviews were conducted in a vernacular language, audio-taped, transcribed, translated into English and back translated into vernacular language. Qualitative data analysis software, NVivo 10, was used to assist with data management for the analysis. All data was analysed using the principle of theme and category formation. Findings: Three major themes were identified - contextual factors influencing midwifery decision making - the role of cue acquisition - the role of the partograph during care of women in the first stage of labour. Integration of the themes has led to the development of a proposed conceptual model of ‘supporting normality’ during the first stage of labour, which suggests that the midwives strived to make decisions during the care of women in labour with the aim of supporting the normal physiological processes of labour. The first theme illustrates that for Malawian midwives, decision making is a complex and contextually dependent undertaking. In everyday practice, decision making was influenced by multiple and competing factors but the midwives developed strategies to manage and control the context of their practice and facilitate decision making. The role of cue acquisition comprised a six-stage subprocess illustrating the ways in which midwives utilise assessment data to reason and make decisions during the care of women in labour. These processes involved the midwives building a case for each woman’s labour progression by piecing together segments of information they obtained. This process was striking when there was uncertainty in a woman’s progress of labour as they used deductive thinking by cross-checking data obtained across the labour progression span. There was a constant forward and backward moving of thought processes supported by actions that uncovered real case-building evidence for informing decisions about whether to intervene or not. The model further indicates the role of the partograph, which alerted midwives to the presence of progress or non-progress of labour. Although the partograph acted as an adjunct to the midwives’ decision making that could indicate opportunities for early intervention in labour if labour appeared not to be progressing, the midwives were sometimes cautious about its interpretation. This thesis has expanded on current theoretical knowledge of decision making by elaborating on the processes midwives employ to make decisions as they care for women in labour. It also illuminates the impact of contextual factors on decision making, and elucidates various strategies midwives use to advance their professional role. The emerging conceptual model provides implications for future midwifery practice, education and policy both in Malawi and worldwide.

Dans cette thèse nous appliquons le calcul de Malliavin afin d’obtenir la propriété de normalité asymptotique locale (LAN) à partir d’observations discrètes de certains processus de diffusion uniformément elliptique avec sauts. Dans le Chapitre 2 nous révisons la preuve de la propriété de normalité mixte asymptotique locale (LAMN) pour des processus de diffusion avec sauts à partir d’observations continues, et comme conséquence nous obtenons la propriété LAN en supposant l’ergodicité du processus. Dans le Chapitre 3 nous établissons la propriété LAN pour un processus de Lévy simple dont les paramètres de dérive et de diffusion ainsi que l’intensité sont inconnus. Dans le Chapitre 4, à l’aide du calcul de Malliavin et des estimées de densité de transition, nous démontrons que la propriété LAN est vérifiée pour un processus de diffusion à sauts dont le coefficient de dérive dépends d’un paramètre inconnu. Finalement, dans la même direction nous obtenons dans le Chapitre 5 la propriété LAN pour un processus de diffusion à sauts où les deux paramètres inconnus interviennent dans les coefficients de dérive et de diffusion. / In this thesis we apply the Malliavin calculus in order to obtain the local asymptotic normality (LAN) property from discrete observations for certain uniformly elliptic diffusion processes with jumps. In Chapter 2 we review the proof of the local asymptotic mixed normality (LAMN) property for diffusion processes with jumps from continuous observations, and as a consequence, we derive the LAN property when supposing the ergodicity of the process. In Chapter 3 we establish the LAN property for a simple Lévy process whose drift and diffusion parameters as well as its intensity are unknown. In Chapter 4, using techniques of the Malliavin calculus and the estimates of the transition density, we prove that the LAN property is satisfied for a jump-diffusion process whose drift coefficient depends on an unknown parameter. Finally, in the same direction we obtain in Chapter 5 the LAN property for a jump-diffusion process where two unknown parameters determine the drift and diffusion coefficients of the jump-diffusion process.