Approximately 5 to 14% of school age children are affected by mathematics learning disabilities. With the implementation of inclusion, many of these children are now being educated in the regular education class- room setting and may require additional support to be successful in algebra. Therefore, teachers need to know what interventions are available to them to facilitate the algebraic learning of students with mathemat- ics learning disabilities. This systematic literature review aims to identify, and critically analyze, interventions that could be used when teaching algebra to these students. The five included articles focused on interven- tions that can be used in algebra, specifically when solving equations. In the analysis of the five studies two types of interventions emerged: the concrete-representational-abstract model and graphic organizers. The concrete-representational-abstract model seems to show it can be used successfully in a variety of scenarios involving solving equations. The use of graphic organizers also seems to be helpful when teaching higher- level algebra content that may be difficult to represent concretely. This review discovered many practical implications for teachers. Namely, that the concrete-representational-abstract model of intervention is easy to implement, effective over short periods of time and appears to positively influence the achievement of all students in an inclusive classroom setting. The graphic organizer showed similar results in that it is easy to implement and appears to improve all students’ learning. This review provided a good starting point for teachers to identify interventions that could be useful in algebra; however, more research still needs to be done. Future research is suggested in inclusive classroom settings where the general education teacher is the instructor and also on higher-level algebra concepts.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 25-28, 1999 / Riviera Hotel and Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada / The Transportable Range Augmentation and Control System (TRACS), Mobile Telemetry System (MTS), is a versatile system capable of supporting anywhere when called upon. The MTS is designed to operate anywhere on land. It is unknown how the system will perform on a floating platform without a stabilizing gimbal. The operation of a tracking system at sea generally require the use of a three-axis pedestal. The MTS is a two-axis pedestal. This paper is a report on how the MTS responds to simulated ocean-motion. Testing the system on a body of water is very expensive, especially out in the desert. The MTS was tested in the desert area of Las Cruces, New Mexico in the parking lot of EMI Technologies, prime contractor, using two forklifts to simulate ship motion in the pitch and yaw planes. The location is perfect for crossover dynamics tests. The tests conducted were for the purpose of determining if the MTS could auto-track a moving signal in space while it also moves due to “simulated ocean swells” that increase the generated tracking error signal levels in an opposite or in addition to the ones generated from the space vehicle. There is no gyroscopic correction. Successful results of the tests could preclude the use of a gyroscopically stabilized gimbaled platform necessary to keep the tracking system steady for auto-tracking a target during “6 degrees of freedom” disturbances. Several thousand dollars can be saved if the concept can be proven.

The aim of this study was to examine what Swedish elite athletes’ experiences, opinions and ideas are about Swedish sports journalism. We wanted to understand how sports journalism works through the athletes’ point of view, since there is a symbiotic relationship between professional sports and the media. To approach this we carried out a qualitative study based on seven personal interviews with elite athletes representing seven different sports. The theoretical frames used in this study are symbolic interactionism, the agenda-setting theory, framing theory and the sports media complex.The result shows that according to the athletes the journalistic content depends on a range of components, the most important being the relation between the journalists and the athletes, which is mainly based upon the journalist’s knowledge and participation. The sports media complex, which explains the symbiosis between sports and media, is very explicit in our results and so is how journalists set the agenda for the audience. We discuss whether distorted coverage and insufficient knowledge can result in the citizens not getting a chance to fully understand the reality of sports in Sweden and how stereotypical journalism communicate certain meanings and values about sports to the audience.

<p><strong><strong><p>This thesis has its focus</p>on media portrayal of a large political institution; the European Union. Articles from two nations daily newspapers have been analyzed in order to examine how the European Union is described and framed for their readers. The newspapers that was chosen for this study and from which the material was collected, were the Swedish newspaper <em><em>Svenska Dagbladet </em></em>the American newspaper <em><em>The New York Times</em></em>. The material was taken from three periods of time, and by this the results did not only serve a presentiment on how the media reports about the subject, but also an idea over the media’s coverage character over time. Also, by analyzing articles from newspapers from different countries, the material could give an answer to whether there is any difference in media reporting and coverage about the European Union over nation borders. </strong></strong></p><p>Theories that have been under observation for this study, and which have functioned as tools for the analyzing process are: the agenda-setting theory, media ideology, framing, media logic and political communication. Further inspirations that have been under consideration and of values through the development of this thesis are thoughts from the modern theorist Jürgen Habermas, and earlier studies that have been made on the subject in matter, for example ones by Lars Palm and Vanni Tjernström.</p><p>Results from this study showed that there were differences between the two nations way of reporting about the subject, and also that changes over time have occurred. Mostly, it was the Swedish news reporting that showed evident change over the three investigated periods. This can be explained by the countries over all changed relationship towards the European Union. Further did results from this study show that the American articles included more actors and subjects, compared to the Swedish articles. This can be a factor of the American articles longer character.</p>

The theory proposed here is that the Supreme Court behaves in a strategic manner at the agenda-setting stage in order to vote sincerely on the merits. To test this, I measure the impact issue salience and ideological distance between Congress and the Supreme Court has on the agenda. The results indicate that whether the Supreme Court behaves either sincerely or strategically depends on the policy area. The strategic nature of the Supreme Court at the agenda-setting phase may be in large part why some research shows that the Court behaves sincerely when voting on the merits. By behaving strategically at the agenda-setting phase, the Court is free to vote sincerely in later parts of the judicial process.

Directing texts are inadequate in their various approaches to teaching the concepts of stage-composition. The goal of this thesis was to show that, for an approach to stage composition to be judged adequate, it must systematically provide the student of directing with a firm grounding in design and compositional principles as they relate to the total stage picture. Nineteen texts were studied and their presentations of compositional principles were analyzed. Eight texts are included in an in-depth structural analysis. The texts analyzed are Fundamentals of Play Directing by Alexander Dean, The Art of Play Production by John Dolman, Play Direction by John Deitrich, Principles of Theatre Art by H. D. Albright, W. P. Halstead, and Lee Mitchell, Directing Methods by Albert and Bertha Johnson, Play Directing by Francis Hodge, Creating Theatre by August Staub and Creative Play Directing by Robert Cohen and John Harrop. The analysis of these texts includes a detailed comparison of terminology· and approaches to the presentation of compositional principles. Of the nineteen texts included in this investigation, only one, Creating Theatre by August Staub, presented a systematic approach to design fundamentals and compositional principals as they relate to the director's function. Also included in this thesis are the writer's criteria for judging the adequacy of approaches to composition in any directing text. The conclusion reached by the writer is that the authors of texts on directing, as well as the schools that offer programs in theatre arts, need to emphasize design fundamentals as an essential element in any theatre student's training.

A sharp increase in caesarean section (CS) rates at the Muhimbili National Referral Hospital (MNH) – a tertiary referral hospital in Tanzania – by 50% in 2000–2011, was associated with concomitant increase in maternal complications and deaths and inconsistent improvement in newborn outcomes. The aims of this thesis were to explore care providers’ in-depth perspective of the reasons for these high rates of CS, and to evaluate and improve standards of care for the most common indica-tions of CS, obstructed labour and fetal distress, which are also major causes of adverse maternal and neonatal outcomes. This thesis reports an investigation performed at MNH, Tanzania. For Paper I, qualitative methods were employed and demonstrated how care providers dismissed their responsibility for the rising CS rate; and, instead, projected the causes onto factors beyond their control. Additionally, dysfunctinal teamwork, transparency, and previous poorly conducted clinical audits led to fear of blame among care providers in cases of poor outcome that subsequently encougared defensive practise by assigning unnecessary CS. Papers II and III evaluated stand-ards of care using a criteria-based audit (CBA) of obstructed labour and fetal dis-tress. After implementing audit-feedback recommendations, the standards of diag-nosis of fetal distress improved by 16% and obstructed labour by 7%. Similarly, the standards of management preceding CS improved tenfold for fetal distress and doubled for obstructed labour. The impact of the CBA process was evaluated by comparing the maternal and perinatal outcomes categorized into Robson groups (Paper IV) of all deliveries occurring before and after the audit process (n=27,960). After the CBA process, there was a 50% risk reduction of severe perinatal morbidi-ty/mortality for patients with obstructed labour. The overall CS rates increased by 10%, and this was attributed to an increase in the CS rate among breech, term preg-nancies (Robson group 6), and preterm pregnancies (Robson group 10) that specifi-cally had reduced risk of poor perinatal outcome. The overall neonatal distress rates were also reduced by 20%, and this was attributed to a decrease in the neonatal distress rate among low-risk, term pregnancies (Robson group 3). Importantly, the increased rates of poor perinatal outcomes were associated with referred patients that had higher risk of neonatal distress and PMR than non–referred patients, after CBA process.  In conclusion, the studies managed to educate the care providers to take on their roles as decision-makers and medical experts to minimize unnecessary CS, using the available resources. Care providers’ commitment to achieve the best practice should be sustained and effort for stepwise upgrading quality of obstetric care should be supported by the hospital management from the primary to tertiary referral level.

Bakgrund Den senaste tiden har en signifikant ökning av hållbarhetsrelaterade frågor skett i media samtidigt som företag nu i allt större utsträckning redovisar om hållbarhet. Media har en central roll i dagens samhälle och hållbarhet har vuxit fram som en av näringslivets viktigaste samtidsfrågor. Studier med en kombination av media och hållbarhet är ett givande fält för forskning. Syfte Syftet med denna studie är att förklara sambandet mellan medias hållbarhetsexponering av företag och företagens upprättande och omfattning av en hållbarhetsredovisning. Metod Denna kvantitativa studie formas utifrån en deduktiv ansats där hypoteser formuleras med bakgrund i befintliga teorier. En tvärsnittsdesign tillämpas för att mäta förekomsten och variationen av ett visst fenomen vid en viss tidpunkt. Sekundärdata används som empiriskt underlag. Studien fokuserar på företag noterade på Nasdaq Stockholm. Slutsats Studiens resultat visar att företags exponering i media påverkar företags upprättande och omfattning av en hållbarhetsredovisning positivt. Storlek, bransch, lönsamhet och antal dotterbolag är faktorer som också signifikant påverkar. Det går således att konstatera att media är en primär faktor till varför företag väljer att hållbarhetsredovisa. För varje nyhetsartikel media publicerar om ett företag i en hållbarhetskontext, är det företaget 2,491 gånger mer benäget att upprätta en hållbarhetsredovisning. Studien visar även att en ökad exponering i media leder till en mer omfattande hållbarhetsredovisning. / Introduction Lately, there has been a significant increase in sustainability related issues in media, while companies increasingly are reporting on sustainability. Media has a central role in today's society, and sustainability is emerging as one of the most contemporary issues in the business industry. Studies with a combination of media and sustainability are a fruitful field for future research. Purpose The aim of this study is to explain the relationship between medias sustainability exposure of companies and these companies' establishment and extent of a sustainability report. Method This quantitative study is pursued through a deductive approach in which the hypotheses are formulated with a background in existing theories. A cross-sectional design is used to measure the presence and the variation of a given phenomena at a certain time. Secondary data is used as the empirical basis. The study focuses on companies listed at Nasdaq Stockholm. Conclusion The results of this study indicate that medias' sustainability exposure of companies affects companies' establishment and extent of a sustainability report. Size, industry, profitability and number of subsidiaries are also significant factors. We have found that media is a primary factor in explaining why companies choose to report on sustainability issues. For every news story about a given company in a sustainability context – the likelihood of that company establishing a sustainability report is increased by 2,491. This study also proves that increased media exposure leads to a more extensive sustainability reporting.

This thesis explores the implications of democratisation on the regulation of health care providers. It examines the reforms in relation to two regulatory policies in the pharmaceutical market of the National Health Insurance (NHI) in South Korea – the separation of prescribing and dispensing (SPD) and the pharmaceutical pricing policy – conducted in two periods – the 1980s under the authoritarian regime and the 1990s under the democratised regime. The misuse and overuse of drugs had long been recognised as a problem for the NHI, and the tight regulation of the SPD and pharmaceutical pricing as potential solutions. Democratisation seems unlikely to tighten the government’s regulation of the SPD and pharmaceutical prices. On the one hand, the Korean authoritarian regime was known as being capable of conducting top-down regulation of societal groups, and democratisation as having liberalised the government-society relationship. On the other, pharmaceutical regulation is a sophisticated and detached issue, which restricts the ability of laypeople to mobilise and exert bottom-up pressure for regulation. Nevertheless, the authoritarian government failed to tighten, and even loosened these regulations, whereas the democratised government tightened them. This thesis explains this puzzle by focusing on the features of the agenda-setting process and the articulation of policy issues therein. In the 1980s, the SPD and the pharmaceutical reimbursement pricing policy were administrative issues, discussed exclusively between bureaucrats and the central associations of health care providers, which resulted in loose regulation. In contrast, in the 1990s, reform-oriented professionals and NGOs raised these issues and put them on the political agenda, which motivated the government to conduct tighter regulation. This thesis suggests some general implications of democratisation on the politics of regulation. The hierarchical and exclusive authoritarian policy network aims to realise policy goals set by ruling elites; however, for other policy issues, societal partners can utilise this network to promote their preferred policies. Democratisation, which promotes competitive elections and political rights, allows previously excluded policy actors to participate in policy-making networks. These new actors include professionals and activists who are able to understand regulatory issues and articulate them in ways that are salient to politicians and the general public, which will motivate the government to tighten the regulation governing its traditional policy partners.

The present study examined Garland's cognitive mediation theory of goal setting in a three-minute basketball shooting task. The effects of different goal conditions were also investigated along with achievement motivation and self-motivation as mediating constructs of performance. Subjects (N=150) were males and females, assigned to one of five goal conditions: "do your best", easy, moderate, hard, and improbable. Results indicated no performance differences between the different goal conditions, with subjects in the "do your best" condition performing as well as subjects in the other goal conditions. Results also yielded partial support for Garland's cognitive mediation theory with task goals influencing performance through its influence on performance expectancy. Furthermore, a negative correlation between achievement motivation and performance was found for females in the improbable goal condition and a positive correlation was found between self-motivation and performance for females in the easy goal condition.