Syftet med studien var att ta reda på hur man kan främja lek för barn med autistiska symptom som bor på korttidsboenden. En kvalitativ intervjuundersökning gjordes med sex deltagare och analyserades sedan genom en tolkande fenomenologisk analys (IPA). Fyra huvudteman med tillhörande två underteman var valdes ut. Dessa var 1) Personal (personal och tid samt attityd och inställning), 2) Miljöns betydelse (fysiska samt psykiska miljön), 3) Verksamhetens struktur (genomförandeplaner samt kunskap) samt 4) Strategier för lek (lekens anpassning till barnet samt hjälp att styra upp leken). Uppdelning av ansvarsområden hos personalen, utbildning om lek för barn med autistiska symptom samt införande av lek som ett delmål i både verksamhetsplan samt barns individuella genomförandeplaner är föreslagna faktorer för främjandet av lek.

Older people have a greater array of choices for retirement living than any other generation before them. Deciding on where to live is a major dilemma for them. What are the factors that contribute to this making this life-changing decision? How do older people cope with the transition to new accommodation? This research considers the experience of older people who have made the shift to a retirement complex. It also contemplates their attitudes and perceptions and those of older people who may, at some point in their lives, have this decision taken from them and find they are directed into care. The focus of the research was to hear and record the ‘voice’ of a purposeful sample of older people by exploring their experience of shifting into one of four levels at retirement complexes; villa, serviced apartment, resthome or hospital. The research also delved into the attitudes towards a potential shift of those who remain in their family home. Thirty-five participants, ranging in age from 66 to 95-years were located into three groups according to their living situation. They were interviewed using an unstructured interview process and information from these interviews was catergorised into sixteen themes. The data were sifted through, in order to discover similarities and differences between participants and groups. Findings were then compared with available literature to offer further endorsement or to proffer an alternative perspective to the existing information. These findings also indicate areas where further research could be carried out to gain a more holistic oversight in order to reduce the stress for older people moving from their family home.

The occurrence of work related musculoskeletal disorders (WRMD) has been a focus of much research and the prevalence of upper extremity disorders (UED) has also been explored. Most of the studies addressing WRMD among hairstylists considered the biomechanical demands of the industry, with a few studies acknowledging the psychosocial risk factors as precipitators of the upper extremity pain. This qualitative study contributes to an understanding of the biopsychosocial factors linked to the experience of pain, and how the process of adjustment to pain impacted the performance of roles at work and home of female hairstylists. The PEO model (Law et al., 1996) was used to describe the impact of pain on roles and the adjustment process in the management of roles, and facilitated an understanding of the occupational performance issues face by the stylists experiencing upper extremity pain.

Deliberative democrats have argued that democracy requires citizens to seek consensus, using a familiar style of principle-based moral argument. However, critics like Iris Young object that deliberative democracy’s favoured model of reasoning is inadequate for resolving deep value conflicts. She and others have suggested that the aim of improving understanding across political differences could be achieved if our conception of legitimate democratic discourse were broadened to include a significant role for narrative. The question is whether such a revision would amount to abandoning the deliberative democratic goal of seeking reasonable resolutions of value conflict. This thesis argues that a narrative approach to deliberative democracy can realize its commitment to reasoned justification, while preserving the significance of differing perspectives and promoting mutual understanding. The narrative-contextualist approach is developed and illustrated with reference to public debate over issues such as cultural accommodation and historical justice.

The occurrence of work related musculoskeletal disorders (WRMD) has been a focus of much research and the prevalence of upper extremity disorders (UED) has also been explored. Most of the studies addressing WRMD among hairstylists considered the biomechanical demands of the industry, with a few studies acknowledging the psychosocial risk factors as precipitators of the upper extremity pain. This qualitative study contributes to an understanding of the biopsychosocial factors linked to the experience of pain, and how the process of adjustment to pain impacted the performance of roles at work and home of female hairstylists. The PEO model (Law et al., 1996) was used to describe the impact of pain on roles and the adjustment process in the management of roles, and facilitated an understanding of the occupational performance issues face by the stylists experiencing upper extremity pain.

In metaethics, moral irrealists argue that moral facts are neither ontologically real nor mind-independent. In moral semantics, irrealists who are descriptivist error theorists argue that typical moral claims attempt to report descriptive moral facts but that such facts do not exist, so typical moral claims are descriptively false or erroneous. Moral irrealists who are non-descriptivists, such as Mark Timmons, argue for a different function of moral claims. Timmons argues that moral claims attempt to guide action. He further maintains that moral claims can be true or false, but not according to a descriptivist function (he affirms cognitivism but denies descriptivism). I lay out Timmons‘ semantics and grapple with a number of objections to his view. I conclude that Timmons ought to discard his contextual truth-apt semantics and his non-descriptivism; instead he should defend the prescriptive, or evaluative, function of moral claims within an overarching descriptivist error theory. / Graduate / 0422

This dissertation explains the extent and durability of the institutions of territorial autonomy in multinational states. Its main argument is that the viability of territorial autonomy hinges on the relative economic importance of the minority-inhabited region for the central government. If the fiscal resources of the minority-inhabited region are critical for the funding of the central government’s policy objectives, autonomy is likely to be limited and short lived. If those resources are not as crucial for the governability of the entire state, autonomy is likely to be more extensive and durable. The importance of the minority-inhabited region depends on two sets of factors. The first is the relative level of economic development of majority and minority-inhabited areas. The second is the strategy of governance adopted by the central state elites. Strategies of governance determine the extent of the fiscal burden that the central government will place on the population of the state, thereby exerting significant influence on accommodative outcomes. The theoretical framework developed in this dissertation refers to statist (high spending) and laissez-faire (low spending) strategies of governance. The framework is tested in four multinational states: the former Yugoslavia, the former Czechoslovakia, Canada and Spain. The empirical chapters combine structured-focused comparison with longitudinal case study analysis. The cases largely bear out the hypotheses presented in the dissertation. However, analysis of the cases also demonstrates the importance of minority-group influence at the central state level in accounting for accommodative outcomes. In cases where minority elites have extensive influence at the centre, attempts at limiting the autonomy of minority-inhabited regions tend to be unsuccessful. This thesis contributes to a greater understanding of the design and durability of the institutions of territorial autonomy, which have important consequences for the stability and viability of multinational states.

This dissertation explains the extent and durability of the institutions of territorial autonomy in multinational states. Its main argument is that the viability of territorial autonomy hinges on the relative economic importance of the minority-inhabited region for the central government. If the fiscal resources of the minority-inhabited region are critical for the funding of the central government’s policy objectives, autonomy is likely to be limited and short lived. If those resources are not as crucial for the governability of the entire state, autonomy is likely to be more extensive and durable. The importance of the minority-inhabited region depends on two sets of factors. The first is the relative level of economic development of majority and minority-inhabited areas. The second is the strategy of governance adopted by the central state elites. Strategies of governance determine the extent of the fiscal burden that the central government will place on the population of the state, thereby exerting significant influence on accommodative outcomes. The theoretical framework developed in this dissertation refers to statist (high spending) and laissez-faire (low spending) strategies of governance. The framework is tested in four multinational states: the former Yugoslavia, the former Czechoslovakia, Canada and Spain. The empirical chapters combine structured-focused comparison with longitudinal case study analysis. The cases largely bear out the hypotheses presented in the dissertation. However, analysis of the cases also demonstrates the importance of minority-group influence at the central state level in accounting for accommodative outcomes. In cases where minority elites have extensive influence at the centre, attempts at limiting the autonomy of minority-inhabited regions tend to be unsuccessful. This thesis contributes to a greater understanding of the design and durability of the institutions of territorial autonomy, which have important consequences for the stability and viability of multinational states.

Phonetic accommodation is the process whereby speakers in an interaction modify their speech in response to their interlocutor. The social-psychological theory of Communication Accommodation Theory (Giles 1973) predicts that speakers will converge towards (become more similar to) their interlocutors in order to decrease social distance, whereas they will diverge from (become less similar to) their interlocutors to accentuate distinctiveness or show disdain. Previous studies have found that phonetic accommodation is affected by many social, situational and linguistic factors (Abrego-Collier et al. 2011; Black 2012; Babel 2009, 2010, 2012; Babel et al. 2012; Kim, Horton & Bradlow 2011; Nielsen 2011; Pardo et al. 2012). With respect to accommodation across dialects, a handful of studies have suggested that the perceptual salience of the various differences between two dialects might affect the pattern; however, these studies make conflicting predictions. Trudgill (1986) predicts that speakers will converge more towards the more salient dialectal differences, while Kim et al. (2011) and Babel (2009, 2010) suggest the opposite: that speakers will converge on the less salient differences. This thesis investigates how the perceptual salience of 6 differences between Buenos Aires Spanish and Madrid Spanish affect the pattern of phonetic accommodation in conversation. The results are considered both in terms of the magnitude of the changes that the participants make as well as the direction of the change (convergence or divergence). The results show that perceptual salience has a significant effect on the magnitude of the change, with all participants making greater changes as perceptual salience increases. On the other hand, perceptual salience was found not to have a consistent effect for all speakers on the likelihood of converging or diverging on the dialectal differences. I argue that the lack of consistent effect of salience on the direction of the change stems from individual differences in motivation to take on the opposing dialect norms and issues of personal identity, whereas the very consistent effect of salience on the magnitude of the change suggests that there is something more basic or systematic about how salience interacts with the extent to which speakers accommodate.

Myopia is a major cause of vision loss throughout the world. High myopia is associated with severe eye diseases like maculopathy, retinal detachment and glaucoma. The prevalence of myopia is increasing, and varies by country and by ethnic group. In some Asian populations the prevalence is 70%-80%.  This thesis includes five experiments. In experiment I we investigated the effects of added positive and negative spherical aberration on accommodative response accuracy. We found that the accommodative response can be altered by modulating the spherical aberration of the eye with soft contact lenses. There was an improvement in the accommodative response slopes and a decrease in the lag of accommodation with the negative spherical aberration lenses compared to positive spherical aberration lenses.  In experiment II we investigated whether the negative spherical aberration in contact lenses could be tolerated visually in terms of wearability and comfort. We found that all the subjects were satisfied with the contact lens comfort, distance and near vision and the stability of the vision with the lenses. The accommodative response was stable through out the treatment period. In experiment III we investigated the efficacy of a novel dual treatment for the improvement of accommodative accuracy and dynamics in myopes. The spherical aberration of the eye was effectively altered to negative in the treatment group as predicted. In the control group as expected there was no significant change in the spherical aberration of the eye with and without contact lenses. The treatment lenses decreased the lag of accommodation and increased the accommodative response slope at 3 months. In the experiment IV we investigated the effect of the treatment lenses used in the previous experiment on high and low contrast visual acuities after a one year treatment period. The results showed a significant improvement in both high and low contrast visual acuities after the one year period in the treatment group compared to the control group, even though it was not clinically significant. In experiment V we investigated the intrasession repeatability of peripheral aberrations using COAS-HD VR aberrometer and also reported the distribution of higher order aberrations in a group of young emmetropes. There was no significant difference in the variance of total higher-order RMS between on- and off-axis measurements. There was a significant change in the horizontal coma, spherical aberration and higher-order RMS with off-axis angle along the horizontal visual field. We demonstrated that fast, repeatable and valid peripheral aberration measurements can be obtained with this instrument. This thesis contributes new results in this field of myopia, aberration and accommodation.