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Bas van Fraassen argues that inference to the best explanation (IBE) is a probabilistically incoherent rule (1989). Anyone following IBE is open to being Dutch booked. According to one of the most interesting and popular responses to van Fraassen’s argument, van Fraassen misrepresents IBE in probabilistic terms. With the proper probabilistic representation, it is claimed, IBE is not inconsistent with Bayesian rationality constraints. Building on the work of IBE’s proponents, I first propose a minimal account of what makes one explanation better than another. I then argue that, even on this minimal account, the alternative probabilistic model of IBE does not work, and hence fails to successfully respond to van Fraassen’s argument.

This thesis provides an in-depth analyze of expressed sequence tags (EST) that represent pieces of eukaryotic mRNA by using unsupervised hidden Markov model (HMM). ESTs are short nucleotide sequences that are used primarily for rapid identificationof new genes with potential coding regions (CDS). ESTs are made by sequencing on double-stranded cDNA and the synthesizedESTs are stored in digital form, usually in FASTA format. Since sequencing is often randomized and that parts of mRNA contain non-coding regions, some ESTs will not represent CDS.It is desired to remove these unwanted ESTs if the purpose is to identifygenes associated with CDS. Application of stochastic HMM allow identification of region contents in a EST. Softwares like ESTScanuse HMM in which a training of the HMM is done by supervised learning with annotated data. However, because there are not always annotated data at hand this thesis focus on the ability to train an HMM with unsupervised learning on data containing ESTs, both with and without CDS. But the data used for training is not annotated, i.e. the regions that an EST consists of are unknown. In this thesis a new HMM is introduced where the parameters of the HMM are in focus so that they are reasonablyconsistent with biologically important regionsof an mRNA such as the Kozak sequence, poly(A)-signals and poly(A)-tails to guide the training and decoding correctly with ESTs to proper statesin the HMM. Transition probabilities in the HMMhas been adapted so that it represents the mean length and distribution of the different regions in mRNA. Testing of the HMM's specificity and sensitivityhave been performed via BLAST by blasting each EST and compare the BLAST results with the HMM prediction results.A regression analysis test shows that the length of ESTs used when training the HMM is significantly important, the longer the better. The final resultsshows that it is possible to train an HMM with unsupervised machine learning but to be comparable to supervised machine learning as ESTScan, further expansion of the HMM is necessary such as frame-shift correction of ESTs byimproving the HMM's ability to choose correctly positioned start codons or nucleotides. Usually the false positive results are because of incorrectly positioned start codons leadingto too short CDS lengths. Since no frame-shift correction is implemented, short predicted CDS lengths are not acceptable and is hence not counted as coding regionsduring prediction. However, when there is a lack of supervised models then unsupervised HMM is a potential replacement with stable performance and able to be adapted forany eukaryotic organism.

The child perspective is a complex area primarily because of its many ways of interpretation but also because children are considered to be less competent than adults. Our hypothesis was that adults in court-proceedings make decisions in the child’s place. The aim of this study was to investigate the judicial meaning of the child perspective in “Socialtjänstlagen” (SoL) and “lag om särskilda bestämmelser om vård av unga” (LVU). The purpose was also to explore how the child perspective was presented in rulings from the Public Court according to LVU 3§, in the prerequisite “annat socialt nedbrytande beteende”. The choice of method was based on our main purpose and therefore the legal dogmatic and the qualitative methods were applied. The child perspective in Swedish legislation emphasizes the child’s best interest and the child’s right to be heard. There have been problems recognizing children’s legitimate interests which are one of the reasons why adults are considered to protect those interests by speaking for the child although they may have different interests. The result was that the child’s voice was inadequately asserted in legal processes which indicated that the child perspective wasn’t used as intended according to the law and government bill.

Sammanfattning Vi har gjort en kritisk diskursanalys av AC:s (Adoptionscentrum) medlemstidning under perioderna; 1975-1985, 1986-1996, 1997-2006. Frågeställningen lyder: Hur konstitueras diskursen om ”det goda adoptivföräldraskapet” genom AC:s medlemstidning? Vilka är möjlighetsvillkoren och vilka konsekvenser innebär diskursen? Vårt syfte har varit att förstå diskursen om ”det goda adoptivföräldraskapet”. Vi har utgått ifrån socialkonstruktioniskt, poststrukturalistiskt perspektiv och språkfilosofi. Vårt huvudsakliga resultat har visat sig vara att AC konstituerar diskurser som producerar och reproducerar ett antal normativa föreställningar om föräldraskap, familj och individer som bygger på socialt konstruerade föreställningar om vad som är en ”riktig” familj, bra föräldraegenskaper och barnets bästa. Diskursen ”det goda adoptivföräldraskapet” uppnås genom aktivt medlemskap i adoptionsorganisationen AC. Begreppet ”barnets bästa” har visat sig vara en flytande signifikant för att konstituera olika diskurser som alla handlar om att etablera eller upprätthålla AC som organisation. Genom barnets bästa har AC fått möjlighet att legitimera sina egna verksamhetsområden, styra över vem som är lämplig förälder, vem som får bilda familj och vika barn som är tillgängliga för adoption. Ytterligare resultat har visat på att AC under perioden fått ökad makt genom att förmedlingen av adoptivbarn har övergått till adoptivorganisationerna. Således har statens makt och inflytande fördelats över ytterligare en instans. / Abstract This essay is a critical discourse analysis on AC’s (Adoption Centre Organisation, Sweden) magazine for members during three periods; 1975-1985, 1986-1996, 1997-2006. Our main question is how discursive statements are made on “the good adoptive parenthood” in this magazine? What possible changeable meanings and truths are given by the discourses? Our aim is to understand the discourse “the good adoptive parenthood”. The theoretical framework consists of knowledge of social constructivism, post structural perspective and philosophy of language. Our main results are that AC constitutes discourses that produce and reproduce a number of assumptions about parenthood, family and individuals as normative and influenced by social constructed assumptions about what is; a “real” family, a good parenthood or “the child’s best interest”. The discourse of “the good adoptive parenthood” is gained through membership in the adoption organisation AC. The claim of “the child’s best interest” has in this essay being found as a fluent significant to constitute a variety of discourses, which all aim to establish and maintain the organisation. Through the principle of “the child’s best interest”, AC has found a way to legitimate their own fields, to decide who is a suitable parent, who shall form a family, and which child will be available for adoption. Further result shows that AC during the studied period has gained increased legal and governmental power in the field of adoption. As a result, the governmental power and influence in the adoption field has been divided through additional authorities.

MPLS-Based Best-Effort Traffic Engineering Jerapong Rojanarowan 120 Pages Directed by Dr. Henry L. Owen The objective of this research is to develop a multipath traffic engineering framework for best-effort traffic in Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) networks so as to deliver more equal shares of bandwidth to best-effort users as compared to the traditional shortest-path algorithm. The proposed framework is static and the input to the traffic engineering algorithm is restricted to network topology. Performance evaluation of this framework is conducted by simulation using ns-2 network simulator. In a multi-service capable network, some portion of the bandwidth is reserved for guaranteed services and the leftover portion is dedicated to best-effort service. This research examines the problem of traffic engineering for the remaining network bandwidth that is utilized by best-effort traffic where demands are not known a priori. This framework will result in making the limited available best-effort traffic bandwidth more equitably shared by the best-effort flows over a wide range of demands. Traditional traffic engineering research has not examined best-effort traffic.

The pantherine lineage of cats diverged from the remainder of modern Felidae less than 11 million years ago. This clade consists of the five big cats of the genus Panthera, the lion, tiger, jaguar, leopard, and snow leopard, as well as the closely related clouded leopard, which diverged from Panthera approximately 6 million years ago. A significant problem exists with respect to the precise phylogeny of these highly threatened great cats. Within the past four years, despite multiple publications on the subject, no two studies have reconstructed the phylogeny of Panthera with the same topology, showing particular discordance with respect to sister-taxa relationships to the lion and the position of the enigmatic snow leopard. The evolutionary relationship among these cats remains unresolved partially due to their recent and rapid radiation 3-5 million years ago, individual speciation events occurring within less than 1 million years, and probable introgression between lineages following their divergence. We assembled a 47.6 kb dataset using novel and published DNA sequence data from the autosomes, both sex chromosomes and the mitochondrial genome. This dataset was analyzed both as a supermatrix and with respect to individual partitions using maximum likelihood and Bayesian phylogeny inference. Since discord may exist among gene segments in a multilocus dataset due to their unique evolutionary histories, inference was also performed using Bayesian estimation of species trees (BEST) to form a robust consensus topology. Incongruent topologies for autosomal loci indicated phylogenetic signal conflict within the corresponding segments. We resequenced four mitochondrial and three nuclear gene segments used in recent attempts to reconstruct felid phylogeny. The newly generated data was combined with available GenBank sequence data from all published studies to highlight phylogenetic disparities stemming either from the amplification of a mitochondrial to nuclear translocation event, or errors in species identification. We provide an alternative, highly supported interpretation of the evolutionary history of the pantherine lineage using 39 single-copy regions of the felid Y chromosome and supportive phylogenetic evidence from a revised mitochondrial partition. These efforts result in a highly corroborated set of species relationships that open up new avenues for the study of speciation genomics and understanding the historical events surrounding the origin of the members of this lineage.

European Union&amp / #8217 / s Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC) Directive forms a comprehensive framework for industries mentioned in the Annex 1 of the Directive concentrating on the reduction of the environmental impacts of the industrial activities which can be implemented by the BREF Documents that provide guidelines for each sector. Among those industries, textile is a water and energy intensive one. In the present study, gains in terms of energy and water consumptions were assessed in a denim producing textile mill following the adaptation of related BAT measures. In this respect, installation of flow meters, use of semi-counter current rinsing applications / minimization of wash waters in the water softening plant, reuse of concentrate stream from reverse osmosis plant and compressor cooling waters resulted in reduction from 6,000 to 4,850 tone/day of total water consumption in the period of January&amp / #8217 / 05-December&amp / #8217 / 07. Consequently, specific water consumption in the mill was decreased from 78 to 55 L/kg textile by 29:5% which is close to lower limit of the range suggested in BREF Textile Document (i.e. 50-100 L/kg fabric). Use of waste heat from finishing wastewater streams in heating up the washing waters, heat-insulation and maintenance applications in addition to BAT measures taken for water minimization reduced specific energy consumption from 0.0100 to 0.0091 Gcal/kg textile resulting in 9% reduction in the period of January&amp / #8217 / 05-December&amp / #8217 / 07, although, energy consumption was increased from 786 to 804 Gcal/day. This achieved level of specific energy consumption was in the reference range mentioned in BREF Textile Document (i.e. 8-20 kWh/kg fabric).

Abstact During the past several years,many facilites have tranfered to some foreign sties rapidly,and suffered the declined dilemma.The low cost,high quality,and differential are only one of the essential strategic factors to survive for any enterprise.To focus the knowledge management and create the enterprise intelligence asset will make sure of the prosperous business activities in the future. The fields of Paint and Resin are regarded as the conventional industries ,and divided to the ¡§formulation¡¨ characteristics.The storing,sharing,and creating of these knowledge,concering to the formulations and applications of their related products,have been recognized as the most important core competency advantages. The thesis is concentrated on the two fields of ¡§paint¡¨ and ¡§resin¡¨.The following research procedures are proposed as: (A) paper survey (B)the published reports (C)questionnaire(D)casestudies(E)survey the modules and interfaces of K.M. sofetwares in Taiwan,(F)then construct the K.M. manafement systen and web-site by the integration of business process re-engineering and prototyping. The conclusions could be proposed as: 1. The situations of K.M.for ¡§paint¡¨ and ¡§resin¡¨ fields¡G Even only the 12.9% of questionaired companies have established their K.M.system.However,the importance and urgency of K.M.system are well recognized. The division or classifications of knowedege contents can be based on the functional departments during the daily business operation.As wells,10 indices of knowedege management performance reviews are proposed.Some further proposed 12 possible problems or difficulties could be occurred in the futuer 2. the reseach of K.M.software¡Gthese modules including,system management, ,news broadcasting,community, paper workflow,resource management,E.I.P.,meeting management, ,e-learningdata-besed system,full-text searching,etc. 3.Cases studies for the two leading companies: To conclude the critical success factors of K.M. systems are¡Gthe pressure outside the enterprise,the full supports of owner or C.E.O.,the reasonable management system, high levels of human resource,and the well-training of M.I.S.people 4.To prototype the K.M.system and K.M. web-site is quite possible and helpful for the further K.M.project,and will help C.E.O. and some managers to recognize and support the K.M. project afterwards Key words¡GK.M.(knowledge management),B.P.R.(business process re-engineering),prototyping,enterprise intelligence asset,best practise¡Acommunity,paint,resin.

The aim of the study was to examine collaboration and professional perspectives on the best interest of the child in regards to working with unaccompanied asylum seeking children. Firstly, our result show that counselling is available for the unaccompanied children from case workers, staff, school counsellors and emergency psychiatric care. All of the participants in this study describe the need for long-term counselling for unaccompanied children, however, providing the long-term counselling is not the primary purpose of the organisations in question. Therefore an additional service-provider working with counselling is a necessity. Secondly, the study explores the participants’ professional perspectives on the best interest of the child. The participating professionals work with the best interest of the child in accordance with their level of education and professional role. At the same time, they stress the fact that time, resources and other factors have an influence on their ability to keep the best interest of the child in focus. Finally, the study addresses collaboration between the service providing organisations. Collaboration does exist, but the participants wish for a development and transparency in the collaboration in order to clarify the responsibilities of each organisation. / Studiens syfte var att undersöka samverkan och professionellas perspektiv på barnets bästa i arbetet med ensamkommande barn genom besvarandet av tre frågeställningar. Den första frågeställningen rör de möjligheter till psykosocialt stöd som finns för ensamkommande barn. Vårt resultat visar att möjligheter finns i form av stöd hos handläggare, personal och skolkurator samt BUPs akutmottagning. Verksamheternas primära syfte är dock inte långsiktigt behandlande stödsamtal, vilket är något som samtliga respondenter anser att många ensamkommande barn är i behov av. Det behövs alltså ytterligare en aktör vars syfte är att arbeta med psykosocialt stöd för dessa barn. Den andra frågeställningen undersöker hur respondenterna ser på begreppet barnets bästa utifrån sitt professionella perspektiv. Samtliga respondenter har uppgett att de arbetar efter bästa förmåga i relation till sin yrkesroll och utbildningsnivå. Respondenterna påtalar samtidigt att tid, resurser och andra omgivningsfaktorer påverkar deras möjligheter att arbeta för barnets bästa. Studiens sista frågeställning berör samverkan mellan de verksamheter som tagit del i studien. Resultatet belyser att samverkan mellan verksamheterna existerar, men att respondenterna önskar en utveckling och transparens i samverkan för att tydliggöra samtligas uppgifter.