The purpose of the essay has been to examine representations of immigrants in contemporary library and information science research in a Scandinavian context. By analyzing nine articles from the past decade we examine the perceptions that exist in the concepts of multiculturalism, culture, race, ethnicity, religion, gender and whiteness and what role and importance the library as a place is assigned in relation to immigrants as a user group. Our study consists of a qualitative text analysis, a critical oriented close reading method based on critical race and whiteness studies and intersectional theory. We have, with the help of Sara Ahmed´s theories of hegemonic whiteness, demonstrated how multiculturalism is partly presented as something desirable and good, partly as something potentially threatening. The discourse of multiculturalism can be said to express the notions of the other, which in the source material manifests itself by ascribing otherness to immigrants. We have, for example, examined how ethnical and cultural differences are highlighted by a separation of East and West, the library’s educational and assisting role in relation to immigrants as a user group as well as representations of whiteness, gender and clothes. In the analysis we point to a number of complex and paradoxical representations of multiculturalism and immigrants in earlier studies of the public library. With this study we wish to encourage further user studies to nuance these representations. The study is a two-year Master’s thesis in Library and Information Science written at Uppsala University.

KISS (Kinematic Support System) is a locally developed gait analysis system at Middle East Technical University (METU), and the performance of the system was evaluated before as a whole. However, such evaluations do not differentiate between the efficacy of the data acquisition system and the model-based gait analysis methodology. In this thesis, kinematic results of the KISS system will be compared with those of the Ankara University based commercial VICON (Oxford Metrics Ltd., Oxford, UK) system, in view of evaluating the performance of data acquisition system and the gait analysis methodology separately. This study is expected to provide guidelines for future developments on the KISS system.

This report presents the findings of a case study excavating the event of the ‘Critique’ (crit), the formative assessment method within a Fine Art Studio Practice curriculum. Arguments informed by critical postmodernism, education theories and contemporary art criticism are utilised to construct a dialectic of higher education, contemporary art and fine art studio practice. An emphasis is placed on the importance of agency, expressed through intentionality and critical thinking, with a recognition of the relationship between ‘the self’ and ‘the other’. Using critical discourse analysis, the disjunctions between the espoused and practiced curriculum are explored. The researcher analyses how the assessment practices of the case studied are influenced by unexamined agentic factors, such as inter-departmental relations, lecturers’ assumptions and prior learning, and structural determinants, such as the medium-specific Bachelor of Fine Art degree structure and prevailing artistic traditions. The research findings indicate that these are underpinned by tensions between two orientations, the espoused curriculum’s discourse-interest informed by critical theory, and the theory-in-use. The latter is shown to have unexamined modernist leanings towards formalism and a master-apprentice relationship between lecturer and students, which encourages reproduction rather than critical, creative thinking. The dominant discourses in the case studied construct a negative dialectic of the artist-student that can be seen to deny student agency and authorial responsibility. Findings suggest that students experience this as alienating, to the extent that to preserve their sense of self, they adopted surface and strategic approaches to learning. An argument is made for lecturers’ critically reflexive engagement with their teaching practice, and thereby to model ethical relationships between ‘self’ and ‘other’ during ‘crits’. In addition, emphasis is placed on how assessment practices should be more aligned with the espoused curriculum, so that the importance of a reflexive relationship between form and content, process and product, intentionality and interpretation is acknowledged.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-07-29T14:42:45Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao Marcos Humberto.pdf: 309390 bytes, checksum: 17847e7d57cdb47af008a9552ac17717 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-04-12 / Silicon is considered a beneficial element for plants and classified as a micronutrient. The use of Si brings innumerous for agriculture, particularly for grasses, up to now there are no reliable or efficient methodologies for quantifying available Si. Thus, methodologies able to quantify the available silicon in slags and fertilizers were evaluated. The aim of the work was to assess changes in the use of sodium carbonate + ammonium nitrate (NH4NO3 + Na2CO3) with disodium EDTA as extracting Si fertilizers through experiments with the cultivation of rice in an Oxisol and in a Haplortox Quartzipsamment soil typically displaced in a randomized design scheme in a green-house experiment in a factorial design with different sources, 5 Si extractors and 3 replicates. Extractions with four solutions were induced by autoclaving for 1 h at 121 °C in a water bath for 1:30 hours at 900 (± 30), also a standard Si extractor was used, consisting a solution that does not use an autoclave or water bath and rested for five days. The method using the autoclave was more efficient than the water bath and the best extracting solution was Na2CO3 0.1 mol L-1 + disodium EDTA 0.03 mol L-1 NH4NO3 and 0.2 mol L-1 / O Si (Silício) é considerado como sendo um elemento benéfico para as plantas e classificado como um micronutriente. Vários são os benefícios do Si para a agricultura, principalmente para as gramíneas, até o presente momento não existem metodologias confiáveis e eficientes para quantificar o Si disponível. Foram estudadas, então, metodologias capazes de quantificar o Si disponível em escória e fertilizantes. O objetivo do trabalho foi avaliar as variações do uso do Carbonato de Sódio + Nitrato de Amônio (Na2CO3+NH4NO3) com EDTA dissódico como extratores de Si em fertilizantes através de experimentos com a cultura de arroz em um Latossolo Vermelho distroférrico e um Neossolo Quartzarênico órtico típico, montado em delineamento inteiramente casualizado em casa-de-vegetação, com as soluções extratoras em esquema fatorial, com as diferentes fontes, 5 extratores de Si e 3 repetições. As extrações com as 4 soluções foram induzidas em autoclave por 1 h a 121º C e em banho-maria por 1:30 hora a 900 (±3º), além disso, foi utilizado o extrator S1 como padrão, que consistia em uma solução que não utilizou autoclave e nem banho-maria e repouso de 5 dias. O método utilizando a autoclave foi mais eficiente que o banho-maria e a melhor solução de extração foi com Na2CO3 0,1 mol L-1 + EDTA disódico 0,03 mol L-1 e NH4NO3 0,2 mol L-1.

Teil 1 Karsten Berndt Die Festlegung von Toleranzen ist eine alltägliche Aufgabenstellung des Konstrukteurs. Dabei bedingt die Berechnung nichtlinearer Toleranzketten einen erheblichen Zeitaufwand, wodurch meist auf deren genaue Berechnung vezichtet wird und Toleranzen stattdessen auf Basis von Erfahrungswerten festgelegt werden. Die vorgestellte Methodik zeigt Wege, wie schnell und frühzeitig im Konstruktionsprozess belastbare Aussagen zu Toleranzen komplexer Mechanismen getroffen werden können. Dazu werden sogenannte Sensitivitätsanalysen in der CAD-Software "Creo Elements" durchgeführt und ausgewertet. Das Ergebnis sind erste konkrete Toleranzfelder für alle den Mechanismus beschreibenden, geometrischen Abmessungen, welche sich als Startwerte für den anschließenden Toleranzsynthese/-analyseprozess eignen. Teil 2 Marko Ebermann Dieser zweite Vortragsteil behandelt eine mögliche Vorgehensweise zur Tolerierung von Geometrieabweichungen in der frühen Entwurfsphase am Beispiel des Koppelgliedes einer Verpackungsmaschine. Ausgangspunkt für die frühe Tolerierung bildet die im ersten Vortragsteil behandelte Sensitivitätsanalyse des Koppelgetriebes, welche Informationen zur Empfindlichkeit der Funktionsmaße bezüglich der Einhaltung der Schließmaßtoleranz lieferte. Die daraus abgeleitete Form- und Lagetolerierung des Koppelgliedes soll durch anschließende Toleranzamalysen die Tolerierung im Baugruppenkontext bestätigen und auf möglich Fertigungsverfahren abzielen, ohne die genaue Gestalt der Komponenten zu kennen. So können teure und zeitintensive Iterationsschleifen im Konstruktionsprozess minimiert und die Funktionalität frühzeitig gesichert werden.

Одной из наиболее важных проблем в деятельности аутсорсинговых компании является проблема формирования эффективной системы управления, которая бы реагировала на изменения внутренней и внешней среды компании. В настоящее время исследованию данного вопроса посвящено достаточно трудов. Но, несмотря на это, ряд вопросов, связанных с организационно-экономическим механизмом создания и функционирования системы управления, до сих пор остаются не решенными. Невозможно управлять тем, что нельзя достоверно оценить, это общеизвестный факт. Это и определяет актуальность исследования. Определение стратегии развития управления деятельностью предприятия происходит во время перехода из прогнозирования в планирование. Прогноз развития компании, области, страны – это разнообразие вариантов сценариев развития. Определение сценария – это и есть выбор стратегии. Цель исследования: разработка рекомендаций по совершенствованию методики анализа эффективности управления деятельностью аутсорсинговых компаний в России. Актуальность темы магистерской диссертации можно определить прежде всего тем, что невозможно обеспечить экономическую стабильность организации, если она являются финансово неустойчивой. / One of the most important problems in the activities of outsourcing companies is the problem of forming an effective management system that would respond to changes in the internal and external environment of the company. At present, enough works have been devoted to the study of this issue. But, despite this, a number of issues related to the organizational and economic mechanism for the creation and functioning of the management system still remain unresolved. It is impossible to manage what cannot be reliably estimated, this is a well-known fact. This determines the relevance of the study. Determination of the development strategy for managing the activities of the enterprise occurs during the transition from forecasting to planning. The forecast for the development of a company, region, country is a variety of options for development scenarios. Scenario definition is strategy choice. Purpose of the study: development of recommendations for improving the methodology for analyzing the effectiveness of managing the activities of outsourcing companies in Russia. The relevance of the topic of the master's thesis can be determined primarily by the fact that it is impossible to ensure the economic stability of an organization if it is financially unstable.

No / Traditional methods of dietary reconstruction do not allow the investigation of dietary variability within the lifetimes of individual hominins. However, laser ablation stable isotope analysis reveals that the ¿13C values of Paranthropus robustus individuals often changed seasonally and interannually. These data suggest that Paranthropus was not a dietary specialist and that by about 1.8 million years ago, savanna-based foods such as grasses or sedges or animals eating these foods made up an important but highly variable part of its diet.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Diabetes mellitus affects an estimated 285 million people worldwide, and a central component of diabetes pathophysiology is diminished pancreatic islet beta cell function resulting in the inability to manage blood glucose effectively. The beta cell is a highly specialized metabolic factory that possesses a number of specialized characteristics, chief among these a highly developed endoplasmic reticulum (ER). The sarco endoplasmic reticulum Ca2+ ATPase 2b (SERCA2b) pump maintains a steep Ca2+ gradient between the cytosol and ER lumen, and while the Pancreatic and duodenal homeobox 1 (Pdx-1) transcription factor is known to play an indispensable role in beta cell development and function, recent data also implicate Pdx-1 in the maintenance of ER health. Our data demonstrates that a decrease of beta cell Pdx-1 occurs in parallel with decreased SERCA2b expression in models of diabetes, while in silico analysis of the SERCA2b promoter reveals multiple putative Pdx-1 binding sites. We hypothesized that Pdx-1 loss under inflammatory and diabetic conditions leads to decreased SERCA2b with concomitant alterations in ER health. To test this, siRNA-mediated knockdown of Pdx-1 was performed in INS-1 cells. Results revealed reduced SERCA2b expression and decreased ER Ca2+, which was measured using an ER-targeted D4ER adenovirus and fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy. Co-transfection of human Pdx-1 with a reporter fused to the human SERCA2 promoter increased luciferase activity three-fold relative to the empty vector control, and direct binding of Pdx-1 to the proximal SERCA2 promoter was confirmed by chromatin immunoprecipitation. To determine whether restoration of SERCA2b could rescue ER stress induced by Pdx-1 loss, Pdx1+/- mice were fed high fat diet for 8 weeks. Isolated islets from these mice demonstrated increased expression of spliced Xbp1, signifying ER stress, while subsequent SERCA2b overexpression in isolated islets reduced spliced Xbp1 levels to that of wild-type controls. These results identify SERCA2b as a direct transcriptional target of Pdx-1 and define a novel role for altered ER Ca2+ regulation in Pdx-1 deficient states.

Since the dismantling of Apartheid in South Africa in 1994, the South African socio-political and economic landscape has been characterised by rapid change. In the ten years since the 'new' democratic South Africa emerged, transformation has become a dominant discourse that has driven much action and practice in a variety of public areas. One of the areas of focus for transformation has been Higher Education whereby the Department of Education aimed to do away with disparity caused by Apartheid segregation by reducing the number of Higher Education institutions from 36 to 21. This research draws on Foucauldian theory and post-colonial theories (in particular Edward Said and Frantz Fanon), and the concept of racialisation in an analysis of the incorporation of Rhodes University's East London campus into the University of Fort Hare. Ian Parker's discourse analytic approach which suggests that discourses support institutions, reproduce power relations and have ideological effects, was utilised to analyse the talk of students and staff at the three sites affected by the incorporation (viz. Rhodes, Grahamstown, Rhodes, East London and Fort Hare) as well as newspaper articles and public statements made by the two institutions. What emerged was that in post-Apartheid South Africa, institutional and geographic space is still racialised with virtually no reference to the historical and contextual foundations from which this emerged being made. In positioning space and institutions in this racialised manner a discourse of 'white' excellence and 'black' failure emerges with the notion of competence gaining legitimacy through an appeal to academic standards. In addition to this, transformation emerges as a signifier of shifting boundaries in a post-Apartheid society where racialised institutional, spatial and social boundaries evidently still exist discursively.

The education of intellectually disabled (ID) people is constructed within mass education systems as a problem requiring specialised intervention, separation from “normal” school contexts and the application of professional expertise. A social model of disability resists these practices from a human rights perspective and underpins an inclusive education approach. In this study, a post-structuralist disability studies theoretical framework, drawing particularly on the work of Foucault, was used to examine discourses that construct the intellectually disabled person as a subject of education. The study was conducted in Buffalo City, South Africa at a time when an inclusive education policy is being implemented in the country. The research questions were: What discourses are deployed in the representation and educational practices of those identified as ID? What are the effects of these discourses in constructing the ID subject and associated educational practice? The study utilises Q-methodology, a factor analytic method that yields whole patterns of responses for analysis. A process of sorting selected statements along the dimension of agree to disagree was completed by three groups of participants, namely adults with ID, parents of people with ID and professionals working with ID. Discourses of representation and of educational practice were identified through statistical and interpretive analysis, following the discourse analysis school of Q-methodology. The findings of this study reveal the operation of power in a medico-psychological gaze that makes ID visible and supervises disability expertise within education. Representations of ID suffused with religious notions support the exercise of pastoral power by disability experts. Human rights discourses in education can marginalise ID people if applied uncritically. Fixed notions of impairment constrain an intellectually disabled subject who is vulnerable and incompetent. This study argues instead for a theory of (poss)ability, underpinned by an understanding of the situational and shared nature of competence and a fluid conception of impairment. Human rights should be supplemented by an ethics of care and belonging in the community (ubuntu). A research agenda supporting this effort would examine the ways in which ID people work on themselves as subjects (subjectivisation) and explore the potential for resistance in this process.