In this thesis we examine exchange rates and monetary policy of four emerging Asian countries, namely Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and South Korea. We model equilibrium exchange rates using a general behavioural specification consistent with a variety of theoretical approaches; and short-run dynamics using a general non-linear adjustment model. We find in all countries examined, equilibrium nominal and real exchange rates are a function of permanent relative output and one or more variables from domestic and foreign price levels, nominal and real interest rate differentials, the level of and changes in net foreign assets, and a time trend. These results imply that individual countries present significant elements of idiosyncratic behaviour, casting doubt on empirical models using panel-data techniques. We also obtain evidence of non-linear exchange rate dynamics, with the speed of adjustment to equilibrium being in all cases a function of the size, and in two cases, the sign of the misalignment term. With respect to monetary policy, we examined these countries' monetary policy reaction function based on an open economy augmented Taylor rule including the exchange rate and the foreign interest rate. Using a formal testing approach, our tests reject linearity, suggesting that monetary authorities in these four emerging economies are subject to nonlinear inflation effects and that they respond more vigorously to inflation when it is further from the target. Our results also lead us to speculate that policymakers in three countries may have been attempting to keep inflation within the range, while those in the other country may have been pursuing a point inflation target. Finally, we also find monetary policy is asymmetric as policy makers respond differently to upward and downward deviations of inflation away from the target.

The present research aims at examining the interaction between transition from centrally planned economies to market based economies and its subsequent effects on populations’ happiness and life satisfaction in Algeria, Egypt and Morocco. It also aims at advising policy makers on how economic policies may affect population’s subjective well-being. It is widely accepted that economic reforms affect individuals’ lives. In contrast, the populations’ values, attitudes and perceptions may also play a major role in the success of these reforms. The first study examines the determinants of happiness and life satisfaction by gender in Algeria and their attitudes and perceptions towards economic policies’ reforms. The survey reports that the female population in Algeria is happier and more satisfied with life than its male counterpart. It has been found that healthier individuals and those in the medium level of income are most likely to be happier and satisfied with their lives. Also, happiness is inversely “U-shaped” in age for the female population contradicting previous studies. Although, both genders believe that rapid market reforms do not have a negative impact on national stability, and are confident with the major companies, privatisation is found to be most likely having a negative effect on the life satisfaction among the male population. The second study examines the changes in the levels of life satisfaction in Egypt and Morocco over the first decade of the present century. It has been found that Egyptian women’ satisfaction with life is “U-shaped” in age, whereas in income that applies only to those at the medium, upper-medium and high levels of income. By contrast, Egyptian men are satisfied at all income levels. In Morocco, unemployed men and women are found to be satisfied with their lives in the beginning of the decade contradicting previous findings. While in the late 2000s, among the employed populations, females and males at the medium and the upper medium levels of income are satisfied, along with the lower level for women and the higher level for men. The third study examines the effect of relative income on individuals’ self-reported life satisfaction, assuming that the individual’s subjective judgement of his or her life satisfaction depends on both absolute and relative incomes. Absolute refers to the individual’s income, relative is the income of others around him or her called a reference group. The findings are that Algerians and Moroccans feel ambitious when self-reporting their levels of life satisfaction and referring their income to others’ income, but Egyptians feel jealous.

Chapter 1: Relative Concerns and the Choice of Fertility Empirical research has shown that people exhibit relative concerns, they value social status. If they value their children's status as well, what effect will that have on their decisions as parents? This paper argues that parents and potential parents are in competition for status and rank in the generation of their children; as a consequence richer agents may cut back on the number of children they have and invest more in each child to prevent children of lower income agents from mimicking their own children. This effect need not be uniform so that equilibrium fertility may e.g. be a U-shaped function of income, even when agents would privately like to increase fertility when they receive greater income. These findings have wide ramifications: they may contribute to our understanding of the working of the demographic transition; they also suggest that the low fertility traps seen in some developed countries are rather strongly entrenched phenomena; and they o er a new explanation for voluntary childlessness. Chapter 2: Relative Concerns and Primogeniture While pervasive in the past, differential treatment of children, i.e. different levels of attention and parental investments into children of the same parent, has become rare in modern societies. This paper offers an explanation based on technological change which has rendered the success of a child more uncertain for a parent who is deciding on how much to invest into each of his children. Within a framework of concerns for social status (or relative concerns), agents decide on how many children to have and how much to invest in each child. When their altruism towards each child is decreasing in the total number of children, it is shown that they may solve the trade-off between low investment, high marginal return children (that come in large numbers and hence hurt parental altruism) and high investment, low marginal return children (that come in low numbers) by demanding both types and hence practice differential treatment. Uncertainty over status or rank outcomes of children reduces the range of equilibrium investment levels intro children so that the difference in the numbers they come in is reduced. Eventually the concern for return dominates and differential treatment disappears. Chapter 3: Co-Evolution of Institutions and Preferences: the case of the (human) mating market This paper explores the institutions that may emerge in response to mating preferences being constrained in their complexity in that they can only be conditioned on gender not other characteristics of the carrier of the preferences. When the cognitive capacity of the species allows a sophisticated institutional setup of one gender proposing and the other accepting or rejecting to be adopted, this setup is shown to be able to structure the mating allocation process such that preferences evolve to forms that, conditional on the setup, are optimal despite the constraint on complexity. Nature can be thought of as delegating information processing to the institutional setup. In an application to humans it is shown that the mechanism of the model can help explain why men and women may exhibit opposed preferences in traits such as looks and cleverness. The anecdotal fact that women do not marry down while men do can be interpreted as a maladaptation of female preferences to modern marriage markets.

The role of nitric acid (HNO3) on the atmospheric corrosion of metals has so far received little or no attention. However, the last decades of decreasing sulphur dioxide (SO2) levels and unchanged HNO3 levels in many industrialized countries have resulted in an increased interest in possible HNO3-induced atmospheric corrosion effects. In this study a new method was developed for studying the corrosion effects of HNO3 on metals at well-defined laboratory exposure conditions. The method has enabled studies to be performed on the influence of individual exposure parameters, namely HNO3-concentration, air velocity, temperature and relative humidity, as well as comparisons with newly generated field exposure data. The corrosion rate and deposition rate of HNO3 on copper was shown to follow a linear increase with HNO3 concentration. The deposition velocity (Vd) of HNO3 increased up to an air velocity of 11.8 cm s-1. Only at a higher air velocity (35.4 cm s-1) the Vd on copper was lower than the Vd on an ideal absorbent, implying the Vd of HNO3 at lower air velocities to be mass-transport limited. Within the investigated temperature range of 15 to 35 ºC only a minor decrease in the HNO3-induced copper corrosion rate could be observed. The effect of relative humidity (RH) was more evident. Already at 20 % RH a significant corrosion rate could be measured and at 65 % RH the Vd of HNO3 on copper, zinc and carbon steel reached maximum and nearly ideal absorption conditions. During identical exposure conditions in HNO3-containing atmosphere, the corrosion rate of carbon steel was nearly three times higher than that of copper and zinc. The HNO3-induced corrosion effect of copper, zinc and steel turned out to be significantly higher than that induced by SO2 alone or in combination with either NO2 or O3. This is mainly attributed to the much higher water solubility and reactivity of HNO3 compared to SO2, NO2 and O3. Relative to SO2, zinc exhibits the highest sensitivity to HNO3, followed by copper, and carbon steel with the lowest sensitivity. Extrapolation of laboratory data to an assumed average outdoor wind velocity of 3.6 m s-1 enabled a good comparison with field data. Despite the fact that ambient SO2 levels are still much higher than HNO3 levels, the results show that HNO3 plays a significant role for the atmospheric corrosion of copper and zinc, but not for carbon steel. The results generated within this doctoral study emphasize the importance of further research on the influence of HNO3 on degradation of other materials, e.g. stone and glass, as well as of other metals.

La présente recherche, qui porte sur la perception d'enseignants au sujet des enjeux de l'intégration du développement d'une pensée critique dans le contexte de programmes d'éducation relative à l'environnement (ERE) tente : a) de comprendre, la conception qu'ont les enseignants de la pensée critique en ERE; b) d'identifier, les moyens utilisés par les enseignants pour favoriser le développement d'une pensée critique chez les élèves dans le contexte de programmes d'ERE ; c) de discerner, les obstacles et leviers perçus par les enseignants relativement à l'intégration de stratégies visant le développement de la pensée critique d'élèves dans le contexte de programmes d'ERE. Le mémoire est composé de cinq sections : 1) la problématique 2) le cadre conceptuel 3) la méthodologie 4) la présentation et l'analyse des résultats 5) la discussion. La section portant sur la problématique soulève d'abord ce qui peut poser problème dans notre société de consommation et les conséquences sur la détérioration de l'environnement. Nous poursuivons avec des éléments de définition et de problémation sur l'importance d'éduquer à la citoyenneté et l'environnement. À partir de là nous présentons le construit d'une citoyenneté environnementale plus particulièrement avec sa troisième composante, l'exercice d'une pensée critique, que nous jugeons pertinent d'intégrer dans un contexte de programmes d'ERE. Les concepts qui constituent notre choix, éclairent la problématique. Le premier concept est celui de la citoyenneté environnementale de Boutet (2000), celui-ci a l'avantage de définir l'ERE de façon plus didactique en identifiant des objets d'apprentissage. Le deuxième concept a été développé par Gagnon (2008), qui a identifié des composantes rendant possible l'élaboration d'une définition opérationnelle de la pensée critique en éducation. La section méthodologique expose la démarche permettant l'atteinte des objectifs de recherche en présentant d'abord les huit enseignants qui ont participé à la recherche en ERE, quatre du Projet Groupe d'Aide pour la Recherche et l'Aménagement de la Faune (GARAF), trois du projet Recherche-Action pour la résolution de problème (RA : RPC) et un enseignant d'une [i.e. d'un] établissement vert Brundtland. La méthode de collecte de données consistait à faire des entrevues semi-dirigées auprès des enseignants. La section de présentation et d'analyse des résultats permet de décrire la conception qu'ont les enseignants de la pensée critique et comment elle peut être mobilisée dans le contexte de programmes d'ERE auprès de leurs élèves. La discussion qui suit permet enfin d'identifier des moyens pour améliorer la formation des enseignants afin que leurs interventions favorisent le développement de la pensée critique de leurs élèves et, en conséquence, la formation de citoyens et de citoyennes plus critiques.

Bakgrund: Stroke har visat sig påverka patientens kognitiva och fysiska hälsa negativt. Rollen som vårdgivare i hemmet kan komma som en chock för den vårdande partnern och beror på en hög fysisk samt psykisk vårdbörda. Detta kan resultera i en försämrad hälsa för den närstående. Syfte: Syftet med litteraturöversikten var att beskriva hur närstående upplevde situationen som vårdgivare till sin partner som drabbats av stroke. Metod: En litteraturöversikt valdes där sexton vetenskapliga artiklar har inkluderats. Resultat: Litteraturöversiktens resultat speglade till stor del närstående kvinnors upplevelser av att vårda sin partner som drabbats av stroke. I analysen framträdde sju teman; Information, Hemsituation, Ekonomi, Fysisk- och psykisk ohälsa, Förlorad självständighet, Relationer och Socialt stöd. Slutsats: Närstående upplevde att de inte fick tillräckligt med information, stöd eller uppföljning från vårdpersonal, vilket påverkade deras fysiska- och psykiska hälsa. Stödgrupper upplevdes av de anhöriga som positivt och bidrog till bättre förutsättningar för den vårdgivande rollen. / Background: Suffering from stroke has proven to negatively affect the patient in manners of cognitive and physical health. The new situation may become of a chock to the caring spouse due to increased physical and psychological caring obligation that may result in deteriorated health for the spouse. Aim: The aim of this study was to describe how relatives experienced the situation as a care provider for their partner who has suffered a stroke. Method: A literature review that included sixteen scientific articles. Result: The results of the literature review largely reflected female relative’s experiences of caring for their partner who had suffered a stroke. The analysis revealed seven headlines; Information, Situation at home, Economy, Physical- and psychological illness, Lost independence, Relationships and Social support. Conclusion: Relatives experienced that they did not receive enough information, support and follow-up from health care professionals, which affected their physical- and psychological health. Support groups were experienced by relatives as positive and contributed to better conditions for the caregiving role.

Bakgrund: Den tekniska utvecklingen har möjliggjort för många, om än inte alla, med obotliga sjukdomar, att kunna tillbringa sin sista tid i hemmet. Hemmiljön ger förutsättningar för gemensamhet och jämlikhet där både patienter och närstående kan utföra vardagliga aktiviteter tillsammans som förut.  Närstående tar där ett stort ansvar med varierande arbetsuppgifter. Tidigare studier har visat att närstående lider av både fysisk och psykisk ohälsa. Sjuksköterskans roll inom palliativ vård är att arbeta utifrån de fyra hörnstenarna för att förbättra livskvalitet hos patienten och även kunna erbjuda stöd till närstående. Syfte:Att beskriva närståendes upplevelser av att vårda en familjemedlem i hemmet vid livets slutskede. Metod:En litteraturöversikt har genomförts med tio kvalitativa vetenskapliga artiklar. Artiklarna hämtades från databaserna CINAHL Complete, PubMed och Nursing & Allied Health och publicerades mellan 2006–2016. Analysen av artiklarna har skett genom att söka likheter och skillnader enligt Fribergs (2012) metod. Resultat: Resultaten framställdes i tre huvudteman: närståendes upplevelser av att ta ansvar i omvårdnaden, närståendes upplevelser av sin tillvaro och närståendes upplevelser av stöd från hälso- och sjukvårdpersonalen. En del närstående beskrev att det kändes naturligt att vårda sin familjemedlem. Andra upplevde att det förväntades av dem att kliva in och ta ansvar i vårdarrollen både från den sjuke familjemedlemmen och från vårdpersonalen. De beskrev att de upplevde detta som ett stort ansvar och en börda. Närståendes tillvaro speglades av maktlöshet, osäkerhet och rädsla. De använde sig av olika strategier för att hantera sin situation och för att finna mening i det som skedde. En del närstående uppskattade hjälp och stöd från vårdspersonalen medan andra såg brister i hjälpinsatser och bemötande. Diskussion:Författarna diskuterade metodens styrkor och svagheter. Med Antonovskys modell för känsla av sammanhang (KASAM) som teoretisk referensram och Katie Erikssons konsensusbegrepp ”människan” diskuterades resultatet mot bakgrund av litteraturöversikten. Författarna fann att närstående behövde information och kunskap för att uppfatta och begripa sin situation. Stöd och resurser var av stor betydelse för att kunna hantera sin situation och finna mening i sin tillvaro. Därutöver diskuterades närståendes meningsskapande i vårdarrollen. / Background: The technological development has made it possible for many people with incurable diseases to spend their last days at home. The home creates solidarity and equality where both patients and relatives can perform everyday activities together as before. Relatives take a great responsibility with varied tasks in the care for their ill family member at home. The role of the nurses working at the palliative care unit, based on the four cornerstones, is to be able to improve the quality of life of the patient, but also to offer support to the relatives. Aim: To describe the relatives’ experiences of caring for a family member at home at the end of life. Method: A literature review was performed with ten qualitative research articles. The articles retrieved from databases CINAHL Complete, PubMed and Nursing & Allied Health, and published between 2006 and 2016. The analysis of the articles has been done by searching the similarities and differences according to Friberg`s (2012) method. Results: The result is presented in three main themes: The relatives’ experiences of taking responsibility of the care, the relatives’ experiences of their own life situations and the relatives’ experiences of the support they get from health care professionals. Many relatives described that it is natural to provide care for their family members. Some felt that they were expected to step in and take responsibility over the caregiving role both by the patient and the nursing staff. They expressed that they felt a huge responsibility and burden. The feelings of the relatives were characterised by powerlessness, insecurity, incompetence and apprehension. They used different strategies to deal with and to find a meaning in their situations. Many of them appreciated the help and support they got from the health care professionals, while others perceived that there was a lack of help and supportive approach. Discussion: The authors discussed the strengths and weaknesses of the method. The results were discussed with the help of Antonovsky's model of sense of coherence (SOC) and Katie Eriksson’s “human” consensus concept. Relatives need information and knowledge in order to grasp and comprehend their situations. Support and resources are of a great importance for the relatives to be able to deal with their situations and find a meaning to understand the situation that they are involved in. Additionally, relatives´ creations of meaning in their caring roles were discussed.

Alzheimers sjukdom ökar stadigt och beräknas ha stigit till det dubbla år 2050. När en närstående drabbas utav Alzheimers sjukdom förändras även livet för den anhörige. Som sjuksköterska är det av stor vikt att ha kännedom om det för att på bästa sätt ge den anhörige den information och det stöd som behövs. Att involvera den anhörige i den sjukes vård är av stor vikt för att få en så optimal vård som möjligt. Syftet var att belysa anhörigas upplevesle av att leva med en person med Alzheimers sjukdom. Studien genomfördes som en litteraturstudie där tio vetenskapliga artiklar kvalitetsgranskades, analyserades och kodades. Kodningen resulterade i sex olika kategorier. Resultatet visar på att den anhöriges liv vänds upp och ner när en närstående drabbas utav Alzheimers sjukdom. Behovet av information gällande Alzheimers sjukdom och stöd i form av olika vårdinsatser under hela sjukdomsprocessen är stort. Sjuksköterskan efterlyser fler verktyg och mer kunskap om Alzheimers sjukdom för att kunna ge en optimal vård. Det här styrktes av att de anhöriga kände sig dåligt förberedda på att ge vård på grund av kunskapsbristen. / Alzheimer´s disease is growing steadily and is expected to have risen to the double by 2050. When a loved one is affected by Alzheimer´s disease it also changes the lives of the relative. As a nurse, it is very important to be aware of this to be able to give the relative information and the necessary support in the best way. Involving the relative in the care of the loved one´s health is very important to get as optimal care possible. The aim was to highlight the relative`s experience of living with a person with Alzheimers´s disease. The study was conducted as a literature review of ten scientific articles, the articles were reviewed, analyzed and coded. The coding resulted i six different categories. The results show that the relative´s life is turned up side down when a loved one is suffering from Alzheimer´s disease. The need of information about Alzheimer´s diease and support of various health care initiatives throughout the disease process is big. The nurse calls for more tools and more knowledge about Alzheimer´s disease in order to provide optimal care. This was strengthened when the relatives felt ill-prepared to provide care because the lack of knowledge.

Syftet med studien var att beskriva och analysera anhörigas delaktighet i och upplevelse av vården på äldreboende av närstående äldre med beteendemässiga och psykiska symtom vid demens. Vidare var syftet att beskriva och analysera hur anhörigrollen kan ha förändrats i samband med den närstående äldres flytt från egen bostad till äldreboende. Fem kvalitativa intervjuer genomfördes med anhöriga till närstående äldre bosatta vid ett specifikt boende. Studiens resultat visade att anhörigrollen förändrats efter flytt till äldreboende. Majoriteten av respondenterna hade tidigare agerat anhörigvårdare i hemmet och efter deras närstående äldres flytt till äldreboende, beskrev de blandade känslor av exempelvis lättnad och ensamhet. Vidare visade resultatet att respondenterna hade en positiv upplevelse av vården och kände sig delaktiga i vården av sin närstående bosatt vid boendet. / The aim of this study was to describe and analyse relative’s involvement and experience of the care in a nursing home for a next of kin who was an older person with behavioural and psychological symptoms of dementia, and how the role as a relative changed after the elderly’s move from their own home to a nursing home. We conducted five qualitative interviews with relatives related to elderly residing at a nursing home. The results showed that the role as a relative changed after their related elderly’s move to nursing home. The majority of the respondents had previously acted as a caretaker in the home and after their related elderly’s move to nursing home they described mixed feelings of relief and loneliness. The results showed that the respondents had a positive experience of the care and felt involved in the care of their related elderly residing in the nursing home.

Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited / Reissued 5 May 2017 to correct misspelled Second Reader’s name on title page. / The number of disconnected youth, those ages 16 to 24 who are not in school and are not employed, has reached significant levels in the United States and Western Europe. This trend is coupled with the fact that more and more foreign fighters are joining Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in Iraq and Syria. In particular, Western youth have been the target of radicalization by ISIS and other terrorist groups, and the appeal and lure of such groups seem unlikely to subside. A similar trend is also evident among youth in Muslim countries where the number of foreign fighters to terrorist groups seems unlikely to decrease. According to recent estimates, over 28,000 foreign fighters have joined ISIS in Syria and Iraq since 2011. The fact that so many youth have been radicalized to join terrorist groups is a cause for concern that requires closer scrutiny, understanding, and action by Western and other governments. The explanations and motivations as to why youth join terrorist groups abound; these include lack of education, poverty, religion discrimination, family background, and political and economic marginalization, among others. This research seeks to answer the question, are the youth in the United States, who are disconnected, more likely to become radicalized to terrorism? To answer this, various theoretical frameworks were researched and examined, such as relative deprivation, social movement theory, and psychological perspectives, to shed light on understanding this issue. / Director, Personnel Support Services and Benefits, Transportation Security Administration