>Magister Scientiae - MSc / Nanomedicines are loosely defined as medicines that seek to apply nanotechnology. Currently, nanomedicines are available for clinical use, including treatments for cancer, high cholesterol, hepatitis, COVID-19 vaccination, among other uses (Patra et al., 2018; Gao et al., 2021). Most of the nanomedicines meet the definition of medicines according to various national legislations. Consequently, these products are regulated as medicines. Nanomedicines present major differences in biological details and increased complexity of clinical use. They integrate different technology subsets from therapeutics to imaging and integrated non-invasive diagnosis (Gaspar, 2007). These complexities require extra regulatory effort.

Software engineering as a profession has since early on in its conception been focused with how to best maximize the quality of software. Quality in this regard is both objectively measurable things (like speed, size, and cost) and less measurable things (like conciseness, elegance, and customer satisfaction). A large part of this came from the software crisis in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s where many projects either failed, cost much more in time or money, or was inefficient or of low quality. Due to this, new technologies were developed to help combat these issues. Techniques like maintaining documentation, CASE tools, object-oriented programming etc. Today, one of the ways seen to improve quality is by employing good software practices. These are often a set of informal rules on how to write your programs, what to factor in when designing, and how to manage the project. Ranging from how testing should be done, the use of version control, continuous integration, and more. The purpose of this thesis is to make a case study on how a project employing good software practices compares to a project with limited use of it. To do this, a part of a software project was remade focusing on using good software practices during development. The chosen project was MU analysis - a project with the intent of analyzing meteor echoes and looking for signs of meteors or meteor trails. This project was rewritten in a combination of Python and C, with the system in focus being the event searcher and the converter. After the completion of the rewrite,the project was analyzed using a set of qualitative attributes as guidelines for the performance for each project. These were then examined between each project, comparing each qualitative attribute and each software practice used. It was found that making a rewrite with focus on good software practices, most relevant quality attributes increased. It was concluded that focusing on good software practices increases the quality of the software if emphasis is put on when to employ which strategies.

This study aimed to provide information about the quality of the evidence on reading fluency instruction for at-risk students and students with reading/learning disabilities as a way to evaluate whether an instructional strategy is evidence-based and has potential for classroom use. An extensive search process with inclusion and exclusion criteria yielded a total of 18 studies to be included in the present study: 12 group design studies and six single-subject design studies. The quality indicators proposed by Gersten et al. (Except Child 71:149–164, 2005) and Horner et al. (Except Child 71:165–179, 2005) were applied to evaluate the quality of selected fluency intervention studies. Results revealed that (a) most group design studies provided little information about the intervention and agent for the comparison group, (b) internal and social validity were not clearly stated in single-subject design studies, and (c) procedural fidelity in assessment and intervention implementation was inadequately addressed in both group design and single-subject design studies. Lack of methodological rigor, which hampers determinations of the effectiveness of fluency instruction, the current status of intervention studies, and future directions are discussed.

The Classroom Practice Inventory (CPI) was developed as a tool to provide descriptive information about the practices used in classrooms to address the developmental needs of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Data from a multi-site study examining the outcomes for preschool students with ASD served in three types of classroom models indicate that the CPI produces reliable and valid assessments of practices used in classrooms. Items on the CPI can be used to discriminate among classroom models and can be used to provide descriptive information about classrooms following a prescribed comprehensive treatment model as well as those providing an eclectic model of services. Implications for the future use of the CPI are discussed.

Many family-based treatments for pediatric obesity teach specific parenting practices related to weight management. Although youth in these programs show increases in positive health behaviors and reductions in the extent to which they are overweight, most remain overweight after treatment. A recent trend is to create tailored programs for subgroups of families. We examine the possibility of tailoring based on family context, highlighting 3 aspects of family context that have been studied in relation to pediatric obesity: parenting style, family stress, and family emotional climate. We argue that family context may moderate treatment outcomes by altering the effectiveness of health-related parenting practices and discuss the implications of this argument for designing and evaluating tailored programs.

E-commerce offers business organisations significant operational and strategic opportunities. However, the implementation of effective e-commerce-based business models is not without serious organisational technological challenges. Some of these challenges tend to hinder the implementation of e-commerce in small to medium-sized organisations. The objective of this research is to shed some light on these challenges. Based on the results of this study, some lessons learned and their practical implications are underscored.

The objective of this empirical investigation is to gain insights into the operational strategies, practices and characteristics of 130 manufacturing, 61 services and 86 public sector organizations. Based on this survey-based research conducted in the USA, it is concluded that operational lessons learned from the manufacturing experience may improve the operations of service and public sector organizations. In this context, benchmarking manufacturing organizations' operational know-how may prove to be a worthy investment for service and public sector organizations.

The integration of mental health services in primary care settings has expanded rapidly in recent years with psychologists being at the forefront of efforts to promote healthy behaviors, reduce disease, and care for behavioral, emotional, and developmental needs to promote overall health and well-being for children and families (Asarnow, Kolko, Miranda,&Kazak, 2017; Stancin& Perrin, 2014). While there are many psychologists working in pediatric primary care (PPC), little is known about the specific activities that these psychologists engage in, the training they receive, or funding mechanisms that support their work. This study sought to address this gap in the literature through a survey of psychologists working in PPC. An anonymous online survey was disseminated to members of professional organizations and listservs who were identified as having interest in PPC. Psychologists (N-65) currently practicing in PPC completed the survey by reporting on clinical roles and practices, professional training, practice settings, and funding supports in PPC settings. Results indicate that psychologists assume a number of roles in PPC including providing individual and family therapy, conducting screenings for child mental health concerns, and providing consultation to medical colleagues. Many psychologists also provide supervision and offer educational opportunities for those in related fields, such as medicine and social work. Engagement in research activities was identified as a secondary activity. It was reported that a number of clinical activities were not billed for on a regular basis. Additional areas of research will be discussed along with implications for clinical services in PPC..

Grammar constitutes one of the core components of a language. It is thus problematic that a gap can be found between steering documents and teacher practices in Sweden. The steering documents provide minimal guidance for teachers regarding grammar instruction, which leads to teachers instead relying on their own beliefs to determine their practices. This qualitative study uses semi-structured interviews to examine to what degree the beliefs and practices in relation to English grammar instruction of four teachers in the southern part of Sweden align with three theoretical approaches to grammar teaching from the reviewed research: focus on formS (FonFs), focus on meaning and focus on form (FonF). The results are characterized by individuality in both teachers’ beliefs and practices, but can also be seen to be fundamentally similar in that, for each teacher, the steering documents provide minimal guidance, and factors such as context and the centrality of the learner in grammar instruction are important. All teachers show tendencies toward the three theoretical approaches, but their actual alignment shifts and varies depending on context. We conclude that the absence of direction from the steering documents has the potential to result in disparate and fractured grammar instruction that can negatively impact the learner. This is therefore an important area that should be further researched to ensure that teachers receive sufficient guidance for providing English grammar instruction.

The essential characteristic of the future is uncertainty. A basic feature of the economy, and life in general, is that decisions are made under conditions of uncertainty-the future is unknowable. Having reliable guidelines or indicators that provide discipline and signposts to the future is required for the process of successful investing. Conditions are constantly changing, and there are no rewards for replaying the same old game over and over. To answer for this demand, continued from the previous studies (Choi, 1996; Choi et al., 1997a; Choi et al., 1997b; Choi et al., 1999), this study developed the restaurant industry business cycle models and examined financial practices of the high and low performing firms over the industry cycles. The U.S. restaurant industry demonstrated three cycles (peak to peak or trough to trough) for the period of 1970 through 1998. The restaurant industry peaked in 1973, 1979, and 1989. The industry troughed in 1970, 1974, 1980, and 1991. The mean duration of the restaurant industry cycles is 8 years (SD: 2) calculated by peak to peak and 6.5 years (SD: 2.08) calculated by trough to trough. Expansion takes an average of 6 years in the restaurant industry but declines sharply after it reaches the peak taking average 1.33 years. The restaurant industry experienced high growth (boom) every five years on average. The troughs of the growth cycles, contrasted to the peaks of the growth cycles, coincided with those of the restaurant industry business cycles in each case except one (1985). During that year a low growth phase interrupted industry business expansion but did not terminate it. Restaurant industry growth cycles, then, tend to be relatively symmetrical: since 1970 the average duration was about 2.25 years for both expansion (L-H) and contraction (H-L). In contrast, the restaurant industry business cycles in the same period show a strong asymmetry: the expansions lasted on the average 6 years; the contractions, 1.33 years. The expansions have varied in duration much more than the high growth phases have (the respective standard deviations are 2.58 and 0.95 years). This study supports the view that the cyclical fluctuations of the growth of the restaurant industry can be projected by measuring and analyzing series of economic indicators and each economic indicator has specific characteristics in terms of time lags, and thus can be classified into leading, coincident, and lagging indicators. This study formed a set of composite indices with twelve indicators classified in the leading category, six as coincident, and twenty as lagging. The high performing firms' financial practices regarding investment decisions measured by capital spending, and price earning ratio, and part of financing and dividend decisions measured by market value of common share outstanding are independent of the cyclical fluctuations of the industry cycles. But, their practices regarding dividend decisions measured by the earning per share, investment decision measured by cash flow per share, and financing decisions measured by asset value per share and long term debt level are dependent on the events (Expansion/Contractions) in the Restaurant Industry Cycles. Conclusively, high performers exercise their capital investment (reflected by capital spending) and equity management (reflected by common share outstanding and P/E ratio) independently while being less influenced by the industry swings. They exercise, however, their working capital management (reflected by cash flow per share), earning management (reflected by EPS), asset management, and long term debt management quite dependently while being more influenced by the industry swings. The financial practices exercised by the low performing firms are independent from the events in the industry cycle. Although some financial practices are related to the events in the industry cycle, the directions are opposite to the events in the industry cycle. Specifically, for all of the selected financial strategies except common share outstanding and long-term debt, the low performers practice them independently from the cyclical fluctuations of the industry cycles. Even for common share outstanding and long-term debt strategies, they practiced their strategies in opposite directions to the events (Expansion/Contractions) in the Restaurant Industry Cycles. It is expected that the above results can be used for improving investment performance through understanding the cyclical behavior of the economy and the restaurant industry. With that model, investors should be able to take part in the upswings while avoiding the cyclical downturns, and to structure a portfolio that keeps risk to a minimum. This should then presumably result in competitive investment decisions of firms, thereby improving the effectiveness of resource allocation. / Ph. D.