Abstract The term aftercare is largelyexplained by means of the contextual and ideological conditions for treatmentwhich are to be found in juvenile care facilities. The development of the livesof young people who have been placed in care facilities is dependent ontherapeutic relationships, professional separations, continuing follow-ups andan even transition from control to autonomy. The aim of this study was toexamine the steering mechanisms behind the execution and planning of aftercareat a youth facility for care or residence. The aim was further defined throughthe specification of the following questions: 1. How are the concepts ofresocialisation and aftercare define and delimit? 2. What criteria, standpointsand underlying reasons form the basis for the development of resocialisationand aftercare? 3. What characterises the work of the staff during the treatmentprocess? 4. What implications and specific needs are highlighted in the work ofresocialisation and aftercare?  The studyis based on a qualitative methodology where five semi-structured in-depthinterviews were carried out. The result shows that the organisation itselfdefines the concepts of resocialisation and aftercare through an integratedtreatment process. The core of the process consists of relational andstructurally close therapeutic work which forms the basis of a developmentalprocess in which the young person moves towards an independent life. It ishowever clear that the therapists experience the separation between therapistand young person as being problematic. Further, there is an expressed demandfor clearer time frames for finishing the process, more even transitionsbetween the treatment and structures and demands of the aftercare, and fordevelopmental work with the young persons’ networks and socialisation tocontinue. In the final discussion an integrated and investigatory clarificationof the implications of the aftercare process is suggested.    Key words: aftercare, youth, treatment,facilities, separation, therapeutic relationships / Sammanfattning Begreppeteftervård förklaras i hög grad via de kontextuella och behandlingsideologiskavillkor som råder på de ungdomsvårdande institutionerna. Institutionsplaceradeungdomars livsutveckling är beroende av terapeutiska relationer, professionellaseparationer, återkommande uppföljningar och en jämn övergång från kontrolltill autonomi. Denna studie syftar till att undersöka styrande drivkrafter iutförandet och planerandet av arbetet med eftervård vid ett hem för vård ochboende för ungdomar. Syftet konkretiseras genom frågeställningarna: 1. Hurdefinieras och avgränsas begreppen utsluss och eftervård? 2. Vilka kriterier,ställningstaganden och bevekelsegrunder utgör grunden för utformandet av utslussoch eftervård? 3. Vad kännetecknar personalens arbete underbehandlingsprocessen? 4. Vilka implikationer och specifika behov uppmärksammasi arbetet med utsluss och eftervård? Studien bygger på en kvalitativmetodansats där fem halvstrukturerade djupintervjuer genomfördes. Resultatetvisar att verksamheten definierar begreppen utsluss och eftervård genom enintegrerad behandlingsprocess. Processens kärna består av ett relations- ochstrukturnära terapeutiskt arbete som blir utgångspunkten för en förändringsprocessdär ungdomen utvecklas mot ett självständigt liv. Det framgår emellertid attterapeuterna upplever separationen mellan terapeut och ungdom somproblematiska. Vidare efterfrågas tydligare tidsramar för avslut, jämnareövergångar mellan behandlingen och eftervårdens strukturer och krav samt attett fortsatt utvecklingsarbete med den unges nätverk och socialiseringfortskrider. I slutdiskussionen föreslås ett integrerat och utredande synsättav eftervårdsprocessens implikationer.   Nyckelord: eftervård, ungdomar,behandling, institutioner, separation, terapeutisk relation

Bakgrund: Skilsmässor är vanligt förekommande och barns upplevelser av föräldrarnas separation handlar ofta om att de känner sig stressade och förvirrade. Tidigare studier visar, att skilsmässan medförde stora förändringar för barnen. Påfrestningar i familjesituationen efter skilsmässan påverkade barnens känslor, vilket ofta yttrade sig i en sorg efter förlusten av att inte vara en hel familj längre. Syfte: Syftet med studien var att beskriva skolsköterskans erfarenheter av skolbarns hälsa och hälsofrämjande arbete i samband med föräldrars separation. Metod: Metoden som användes var en intervjustudie med kvalitativ ansats. Som analys metod användes innehållsanalys av Graneheim och Lundman (2004). Resultat: Vid analysen av intervjumaterialet framkom mest likheter men även skillnader i skolsköterskornas erfarenheter, vilket resulterade i tre huvudkategorier med tillhörande underkategorier. De huvudkategorier som framkom var Att uppmärksamma beteendeförändringar; Att främja hälsan genom personligt stöd samt Att främja hälsan genom samverkande stöd. Slutsats: Ur ett helhetsperspektiv upplevde de flesta skolsköterskor att skolbarnens hälsa i samband med föräldrars separation var bra och att skolsköterskorna var nöjda med det hälsofrämjande arbetet kring detta. / Background: Divorce is common in today’s´ society, and children’s´ experience of parental separation is often that they feel stressed and confused. Previous studies show that the divorce resulted in major changes for the children and that the pressure in the family situation after divorce affects children's feelings. The children in these studies often spoke of the grief after the loss of not being a family anymore. Aim: The purpose of this study is to describe school nurse experiences of school children's health and health promotion in the context of parental separation. Method: The methods used were an interview study with a qualitative approach and Granheim and Lundman´s (2004) content analysis method. Results: The analysis of the result of the interviews showed many similarities but also differences in the school nurses' experiences, which resulted in three major categories with associated subcategories. The main categories that emerged were Paying attention to behavioral changes; Promoting health through personal support and Promoting health through collaborative support. Conclusion: From an overall perspective a majority of school nurses that participated experienced that school children's health in the context of parental separation was satisfactory. The school nurses also stated that they were satisfied with the health promotion work around children of divorced parents.

My main objective is to gain a firm understanding of the correlation between the defect chemistry and the properties of Ba-based perovskite structure proton-conducting ceramics, especially B-site doped BaCeO3, so as to allow the engineering of these compounds with the desired properties for the application in devices; develop membranes of mixed protonic-electronic conductors suitable for hydrogen separation from gas mixtures; and further advance hydrogen separation technology by gaining fundamental understanding about electrochemical separation mechanism. BZCY proton conductors with various compositions have been synthesized and characterized. The absence of low-angle supercell reflections indicates a random B-site cation distribution. The substitution of Zr led to a decrease in cell volume and an enhanced structural stability against reactions with CO2. The total conductivity for BZCY pellets increased with temperature increased and decreased as the zirconium content increased at each fixed temperature. Dense Ni-BZCY composite membranes have been successfully fabricated for evaluating hydrogen permeability and stability. Doping Zirconium in the B-site only slightly reduced the hydrogen permeation at high temperatures, but dramatically increased the chemical stability in CO2- and H2O-containing gases. Among the compositions studied, the Ni-BZCY7 exhibited both highest H2 permeation rate and good chemistry stability, thus having potential for practical applications.

Current membrane technology, based on polymeric materials, is subject to a limiting tradeoff between productivity (permeability) and efficiency (selectivity). Other materials with better gas separation performance exist, such as zeolites and carbon molecular sieves, but the physical characteristics of these materials inhibit industrial scale membrane preparation. This research focuses on the application of hybrid membrane technology, which has shown the ability to combine the advantageous properties of these materials, to a system comprised of carbon molecular sieves dispersed in the upper bound polymer 6FDA-6FpDA. Hybrid membranes require effective mass transfer across the interface between the two phases. This work shows the sensitivity of the component materials to processing conditions and the importance of consistency in gas separation membrane production. In particular, milling the sieves to reduce the size and using chemical linkage agents to bond to the polymer have potential to alter the separation performance of the respective materials. Analysis of multiple factors in this work provides important information regarding the source of unexpected properties in the hybrid membranes. Hybrid membrane testing in this work shows a need for active control of particle agglomerates within the dope prior to casting for effective membrane production. Continual sonication during the preparation of the casting dope was able to prevent the excessive agglomerates present in earlier trials. Further reduction of stresses generated during the casting process was also necessary to produce membranes with enhanced selectivity. Annealing the hybrid films above the polymer Tg appears to repair the interfacial morphology and produce effective membranes. The application of this process to enhance the gas separation performance of 6FDA-6FpDA represents the first known report of successful selectivity improvement in an upper bound polymer using the hybrid membrane approach.

Music recordings contain the mixed contribution of multiple overlapping instruments. In order to better understand the music, it would be beneficial to understand each instrument independently. This thesis focuses on separating the individual instrument recordings within a song. In particular, we propose novel algorithms for separating instrument recordings given only their mixture. When the number of source signals does not exceed the number of mixture signals, we focus on a subclass of source separation algorithms based on joint diagonalization. Each approach leverages a different form of source structure. We introduce repetitive structure as an alternative that leverages unique repetition patterns in music and compare its performance against the other techniques. When the number of source signals exceeds the number of mixtures (i.e. the underdetermined problem), we focus on spectrogram factorization techniques for source separation. We extend single-channel techniques to utilize the additional spatial information in multichannel recordings, and use phase information to improve the estimation of the underlying components.

The separation and reattachment of the suction surface boundary layer in a low pressure turbine is characterized using large-eddy simulation at Re=68,000 based on freestream velocity and suction surface length. A high pass filtered Smagorinsky model is used for modeling the sub-grid scales. The onset of time mean separation is at s=so = 0:61 and reattachment at s=so = 0:81, extending over 20% of the suction surface. The boundary layer is convectively unstable with a maximum reverse flow velocity of about 13% of freestream. The breakdown to turbulence occurs over a very short distance of suction surface which is followed by reattachment. Detailed investigations into the structure and kinematics of the bubble and turbulence statistics are presented. The vortex shed from the bubble, convects downstream and interacts with the trailing edge vortices increasing the turbulence intensity. On the suction side, dominant hairpin structures near the transitional and turbulent flow regime are observed. These hairpin vortices are carried by the freestream even downstream of the trailing edge of the blade with a possibility of reaching the next stage. Longitudinal streaks that evolve from the breakdown of hairpin vortices formed near the leading edge are observed on the pressure surface.

Energy efficient purification of hydrogen is an important technological challenge with broad applications in the chemical, petrochemical, metallurgical, pharmaceutical, textile and energy industries. Palladium-alloy membranes are particularly suited to this problem due to their high hydrogen permeability, thermal stability, and virtually infinite selectivity. In current systems hydrogen flux is observed to be inversely proportional to membrane thickness which is indicative of the interstitial diffusion mechanism of hydrogen permeation. This observation, along with the high cost of palladium, has motivated continuous efforts to decrease membrane thickness. Theoretical modeling of membrane performance predicts that as membrane thickness continues to decrease, eventually the permeation rate will no longer be limited by diffusion through the bulk Pd but will become limited by desorption from the permeate surface. If it exists, this is a vital transition to pinpoint due to the fact that below this thickness membrane operating conditions will have a drastically different effect on hydrogen permeation behavior and no additional performance enhancements will result from further decreasing thickness. A handful of experimental results in the open literature contradict these modeling predictions. A new model is developed in this work to explain these contradictions by considering the non-ideal behavior of hydrogen solution into metals which has been neglected in previous models. Additionally, it has been demonstrated that hydrogen permeation through bulk Pd depends on membrane microstructure, making deposition conditions and post-deposition thermal treatment important issues for repeatable performance. The interplay of these issues on the performance of ultra-thin, Pd-Ag alloy hydrogen separating membranes is experimentally investigated. It is demonstrated that the hydrogen permeation behavior of sub-micrometer thick Pd-Ag alloy membranes exhibits diffusion-limited behavior in the context of the new model. The microstructure evolution during annealing is characterized and a correlation is drawn with the observed transient hydrogen permeation behavior during initial testing of a new membrane. In addition, two distinct failure modes of the microfabricated membranes are observed and the implications for future Pd-based membrane research are discussed.

Mixed matrix nanocomposite membranes composed of a crosslinkable polyimide matrix and high-silica molecular sieve particles were developed for purifying natural gas. It was shown that ideal mixed matrix effects were not possible without sieve surface modification. A previously developed Grignard procedure was utilized to deposit magnesium hydroxide nanostructures on the sieve surface in order to enhance polymer adhesion. Analyses of Grignard-treated sieves pointed to the formation of non-selective voids within the surface deposited layer. These voids were suspected to lead to lower-than-expected membrane performance. In order to improve membrane transport, a reactive sizing procedure was developed to fill these voids with polyimide-miscible material. In a serendipitous discovery, as-received sieves--when treated with this reactive sizing procedure--resulted in nearly identical membrane performance as reactive-sized, Grignard-treated sieves. This observation lead to the speculation of a non-ideal transport mechanism in mixed matrix membranes.

Traditional gas separation technologies are thermally-driven and can have adverse environmental and economic impacts. Gas separation membrane processes are not thermally-driven and have low capital and operational costs which make them attractive alternatives to traditional technologies. Polymers are easily processed into large, defect-free membrane modules which have made polymeric membranes the industrial standard; however, polymers show separation efficiency-productivity trade-offs and are often not thermally or chemically robust. Molecular sieves, such as zeolites, have gas separation properties that exceed polymeric materials and are more thermally and chemically robust. Unfortunately, formation of large, defect-free molecular sieve membranes is not economically feasible. Mixed matrix membranes (MMMs) combine the ease of processing polymeric materials with the superior transport properties of molecular sieves by dispersing molecular sieve particles in polymer matrices to enhance the performance of the polymers. MMMs with high molecular sieve loadings were made using polyvinyl acetate (PVAc) and various molecular sieves. Successful formation of these MMMs required substantial modifications to low loading MMM formation techniques. The gas separation properties of these MMMs show significant improvements over PVAc properties, especially for high pressure mixed carbon dioxide-methane feeds that are of great industrial relevance.

In this thesis we develop algorithms for estimating broadband source signals from a mixture using only two sensors. This is motivated by what is known in the literature as cocktail party effect, the ability of human beings to listen to the desired source from a mixture of sources with at most two ears. Such a study lets us, achieve a better understanding of the auditory pathway in the brain and confirmation of the results from physiology and psychoacoustics, have a clue to search for an equivalent structure in the brain which corresponds to the modification which improves the algorithm, come up with a benchmark system to automate the evaluation of the systems like 'surround sound', perform speech recognition in noisy environments. Moreover, it is possible that, what we learn about the replication of the functional units in the brain may help us in replacing those using signal processing units for patients suffering due to the defects in these units. There are two parts to the thesis. In the first part we assume the source signals to be broadband and having strong spectral overlap. Channel is assumed to have a few strong multipaths. We propose an algorithm to estimate all the strong multi-paths from each source to the sensors for more than two sources with measurement from two sensors. Because the channel matrix is not invertible when the number of sources is more than the number of sensors, we make use of the estimates of the multi-path delays for each source to improve the SIR of the sources. In the second part we look at a specific scenario of colored signals and channel being one with a prominent direct path. Speech signals as the sources in a weakly reverberant room and a pair of microphones as the sensors satisfy these conditions. We consider the case with and without a head like structure between the microphones. The head like structure we used was a cubical block of wood. We propose an algorithm for separating sources under such a scenario. We identify the features of speech and the channel which makes it possible for the human auditory system to solve the cocktail party problem. These properties are the same as that satisfied by our model. The algorithm works well in a partly acoustically treated room, (with three persons speaking and two microphones and data acquired using standard PC setup) and not so well in a heavily reverberant scenario. We see that there are similarities in the processing steps involved in the algorithm and what we know of the way our auditory system works, especially so in the regions before the auditory cortex in the auditory pathway. Based on the above experiments we give reasons to support the hypothesis about why all the known organisms need to have only two ears and not more but may have more than two eyes to their advantage. Our results also indicate that part of pitch estimation for individual sources might be occurring in the brain after separating the individual source components. This might solve the dilemma of having to do multi-pitch estimation. Recent works suggest that there are parallel pathways in the brain up to the primary auditory cortex which deal with temporal cue based processing and spatial cue based processing. Our model seem to mimic the pathway which makes use of the spatial cues.