Listening comprehension and listening strategies plays a crucial role in the process of acquiring a language. This study aims to investigate to what extent the listening skill is practised in upper secondary schools in the south of Sweden. Research studies within the field of listening are few which indicates that the listening skill is not considered as essential in second language teaching as the other three skills: reading, writing and speaking. Previous studies indicate that teachers should educate students metacognitive awareness when teaching listening. The results summarize the teachers’ answers, reflections and attitudes conducted from semi-structured interviews. The analysis of the results focuses on the four categories distinguished from the teachers’ answers: Teaching Approaches, National Exams, The Individual Student and Metacognitive Awareness. Some of the teachers do not possess the knowledge of how to teach listening that develops students' listening proficiency. As a conclusion, the study shows that a hierarchy exists among the four skills to which teachers adjust to, and this may be detrimental in achieving educational aims.

Les recherches menées pour comprendre les troubles du spectre autistique (TSA) et la schizophrénie (SZ) ont communément utilisé une approche dite descendante, partant du diagnostic clinique pour investiguer des phénotypes intermédiaires cérébraux ainsi que des variations génétiques associées. Des études transdiagnostiques récentes ont remis en question ces frontières nosologiques, et suggèrent des mécanismes étiologiques imbriqués. L’approche montante propose de composer des groupes de porteurs d’un même variant génétique afin d’investiguer leur contribution aux conditions neuropsychiatriques (NPs) associées. Les variations du nombre de copies (CNV, perte ou gain d’un fragment d’ADN) figurent parmi les facteurs biologiques les plus associés aux NPs, et sont dès lors des candidats particulièrement appropriés. Les CNVs induisant un risque pour des conditions similaires, nous posons l’hypothèse que des classes entières de CNVs convergent sur des dimensions d’altérations cérébrales qui contribuent aux NPs. L’imagerie fonctionnelle au repos (rs-fMRI) s’est révélée un outil prometteur en psychiatrie, mais presqu’aucune étude n’a été menée pour comprendre l’impact des CNVs sur la connectivité fonctionnelle cérébrale (FC). Nos objectifs étaient de: 1) Caractériser l’effet des CNVs sur la FC; 2) Rechercher la présence des motifs conférés par ces signatures biologiques dans des conditions idiopathiques; 3) Tester si la suppression de gènes intolérants à l’haploinsuffisance réorganise la FC de manière indépendante à leur localisation dans le génome. Nous avons agrégé des données de rs-fMRI chez: 502 porteurs de 8 CNVs associées aux NPs (CNVs-NP), de 4 CNVs sans association établie, ainsi que de porteurs de CNVs-NPs éparses; 756 sujets ayant un diagnostic de TSA, de SZ, ou de trouble déficitaire de l’attention/hyperactivité (TDAH), et 5377 contrôles. Les analyses du connectome entier ont montré un effet de dosage génique positif pour les CNVs 22q11.2 et 1q21.1, et négatif pour le 16p11.2. La taille de l’effet des CNVs sur la FC était corrélée au niveau de risque psychiatrique conféré par le CNV. En accord avec leurs effets sur la cognition, l’effet des délétions sur la FC était plus élevé que celui des duplications. Nous avons identifié des similarités entre les motifs cérébraux conférés par les CNVs-NP, et l’architecture fonctionnelle des individus avec NPs. Le niveau de similarité était associé à la sévérité du CNV, et était plus fort avec la SZ et les TSA qu’avec les TDAH. La comparaison des motifs conférés par les délétions les plus sévères (16p11.2, 22q11.2) à l’échelle fonctionnelle, et d’expression génique, nous a confirmé l’existence présumée de relation entre les mutations elles-mêmes. À l’aide d’une mesure d’intolérance aux mutations (pLI), nous avons pu inclure tous les porteurs de CNVs disponibles, et ainsi identifier un profil d’haploinsuffisance impliquant le thalamus, le cortex antérieur cingulaire, et le réseau somato-moteur, associé à une diminution de mesure d’intelligence générale. Enfin, une analyse d’exploration factorielle nous a permis de confirmer la contribution de ces régions cérébrales à 3 composantes latentes partagées entre les CNVs et les NPs. Nos résultats ouvrent de nouvelles perspectives dans la compréhension des mécanismes polygéniques à l’oeuvre dans les maladies mentales, ainsi que des effets pléiotropiques des CNVs. / Research on Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and schizophrenia (SZ) has mainly adopted a ‘top-down’ approach, starting from psychiatric diagnosis, and moving to intermediate brain phenotypes and underlying genetic factors. Recent cross-disorder studies have raised questions about diagnostic boundaries and pleiotropic mechanisms. By contrast, the recruitment of groups based on the presence of a genetic risk factor allows for the investigation of molecular pathways related to a particular risk for neuropsychiatric conditions (NPs). Copy number variants (CNVs, loss or gain of a DNA segment), which confer high risk for NPs are natural candidates to conduct such bottom-up approaches. Because CNVs have a similar range of adverse effects on NPs, we hypothesized that entire classes of CNVs may converge upon shared connectivity dimensions contributing to mental illness. Resting-state functional MRI (rs-fMRI) studies have provided critical insight into the architecture of brain networks involved in NPs, but so far only a few studies have investigated networks modulated by CNVs. We aimed at 1) Delineating the effects of neuropsychiatric variants on functional connectivity (FC), 2) Investigating whether the alterations associated with CNVs are also found among idiopathic psychiatric populations, 3) Testing whether deletions reorganize FC along general dimensions, irrespective of their localization in the genome. We gathered rsfMRI data on 502 carriers of eight NP-CNVs (high-risk), four CNVs without prior association to NPs as well as carriers of eight scarcer NP-CNVs. We also analyzed 756 subjects with idiopathic ASD, SZ, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and 5,377 controls. Connectome-wide analyses showed a positive gene dosage effect for the 22q11.2 and 1q21.1 CNVs, and a negative association for the 16p11.2 CNV. The effect size of CNVs on relative FC (mean-connectivity adjusted) was correlated with the known level of NP-risk conferred by CNVs. Consistent with results on cognition, we also reported that deletions had a larger effect size on FC than duplications. We identified similarities between high-risk CNV profiles and the connectivity architecture of individuals with NPs. The level of similarity was associated with mutation severity and was strongest in SZ, followed by ASD, and ADHD. The similarity was driven by the thalamus, and the posterior cingulate cortex, previously identified as hubs in transdiagnostic psychiatric studies. These results raised questions about shared mechanisms across CNVs. By comparing deletions at the 16p11.2 and 22q11.2 loci, we identified similarities at the connectivity, and at the gene expression level. We extended this work by pooling all deletions available for analysis. We asked if connectivity alterations were associated with the severity of deletions scored using pLI, a measure of intolerance to haploinsufficiency. The haploinsufficiency profile involved the thalamus, anterior cingulate cortex, and somatomotor network and was correlated with lower general intelligence and higher autism severity scores in 3 unselected and disease cohorts. An exploratory factor analysis confirmed the contribution of these regions to three latent components shared across CNVs and NPs. Our results open new avenues for understanding polygenicity in psychiatric conditions, and the pleiotropic effect of CNVs on cognition and on risk for neuropsychiatric disorders.

This project is a study of the wastescape - a network of waste - of Bhubaneswar and Cuttack in Odisha, India.  The study incorporates key locations, e.g. landfills, urban wastelands and waste warehouses; major actors in the formal and informal waste sector; and flows of waste through economic and social systems. Drawing from the studies, multiple interventions within the wastescape are proposed for improvement of the economic, ecologic and social situation. An important aspect of the project is the development of an approach for how to, as architects, work with big, complex, contingent networks; how to map and understand such a system; and how to determine where to intervene. To improve the existing wastescape, interventions must consciously and holistically address multiple scales; levels of formal-informal; and phases within the waste cycle. The study includes a vast amount of possible interventions. Some of the interventions are further detailed to show feasibility; impact on the wastescape; and synergies with other interventions within the wastescape. / Projektet “Wastescape of Bhubaneswar & Cuttack” är en studie av ett nätverk av skräpflöden genom Bhubaneswar och Cuttack i Odisha, Indien. Studien inkorporerar viktiga platser, t.ex. deponier, urbana ödemarker och lokaler för skräphandel; stora aktörer i den formella och informella skräpsektorn; och flöden av skräp genom ekonomiska och sociala system. Utifrån dessa studier, ett flertal interventioner i “the wastescape” föreslås för att förbättra den ekonomiska, ekologiska och sociala situationen. En viktig aspekt av arbetet är utvecklingen av ett sätt att, som arkitekt, arbeta med storskaliga, komplexa och inter-beroende nätverk; hur sådana system kan kartläggas och förstås; samt hur det går att avgöra vart och hur interventioner passar in i “the wastescape”. För att förbättra “the wastescape”, interventioner måste medvetet och holistiskt adressera multipla skalor; nivåer av formell-informell; och faser i skräpets kretslopp. Studien innehåller ett stort nummer av möjliga interventioner. Några av dessa interventioner är ytterligare detaljerade för att visa på genomförbarhet; påverkan på “the wastescape”; och synergier gentemot andra interventioner i “the wastescape”.

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This work is dedicated to methods used for object detection in images. There is a summary of several approaches and algorithms to solve this matter, especially AdaBoost algorithm with its improvement, WaldBoost and several features used for object detection. Vital part of this work is dedicated to extending training datasets for classifier training and extending the current object detection framework with histogram of gradients features implementation. Integral part of this work is analysis of results by experiments evaluation.

No description available.

Cities are highly unequal systems and rapid, top-down development is increasingly causing segregation between people of different socio-economic statuses through gentrification. In response, a bottom-up, more community centred approach is often proposed, yet this method also not without significant issues. In this thesis I investigate the role of the designer as a mediator, facilitator and translator between the top-down and bottom-up approaches to urban development. Using Grønland, Oslo as a case study, I start by gathering high-level research in order to understand the large-scale strategies that the municipality and private developers have for the area. In the second section, I undertake on-the-ground research in order to understand the everyday issues that people who live in, or use, the area face. In the final section I propose a research laboratory and makerspace that can activate the local community, providing the resources in order for everyday people to be able to have a positive impact on their city, in addition to gathering long-term, in-depth research on the area in order to influence the future of Grønland. This thesis is written as a working document that can, and should, be used by a wide range of people, from the municipality to local residents, and is designed to be added to as the project develops.

Health economists, national decision-makers and global health specialists have been interested in calculating the cost of a disease for many years. Only more recently they started to generate more comprehensive frameworks and tools to estimate the full range of healthcare related costs of illness in a user’s perspective in resource-poor settings. There is now an ongoing trend to guide health policy, and identify the most effective ways to achieve universal health coverage. The user fee exemptions health financing schemes, which grounded the tuberculosis control strategy, have been designed to improve access to essential care for ill individuals with a low capacity to pay. After decades of functioning and substantial progress in tuberculosis detection rate and treatment success, this thesis analyses the extent of the coverage (financial and social protection) of two disease control programs in West Africa. Learning from the concept of the medical poverty trap (Whitehead, Dahlgren, et Evans 2001) and available framework related to the economic consequences of illness (McIntyre et al. 2006), a conceptual framework and a data collection tool have been developed to incorporate the direct, indirect and intangible costs and consequences of illness incurred by chronic patients. In several ways, we have sought to provide baseline for comprehensive analysis and standardized methodology to allow comparison across settings, and to contribute to the development of evidence-based knowledge.<p><p>To begin, filling a knowledge gap (Russell 2004), we have performed microeconomic research on the households’ costs-and-consequences-of-tuberculosis in Burkina Faso and Benin. The two case studies have been conducted both in rural and urban resource-poor settings between 2007 and 2009. This thesis provides new empirical findings on the remaining financial, social and ‘healthcare delivery related organizational’ barriers to access diagnosis and treatment services that are delivered free-of-charge to the population. The direct costs associated with illness incurred by the tuberculosis pulmonary smear-positive patients have constituted a severe economic burden for these households living in permanent budget constraints. Most of these people have spent catastrophic health expenditure to cure tuberculosis and, at the same time, have faced income loss caused by the care-seeking. To cope with the substantial direct and indirect costs of tuberculosis, the patients have shipped their families in impoverishing strategies to mobilize funds for health such as depleting savings, being indebted and even selling livestock and property. Damaging asset portfolios of the disease-affected households on the long run, the coping strategies result in a public health threat. In resource-poor settings, the lack of financial protection for health may impose inability to meet basic needs such as the rights to education, housing, food, social capital and access to primary healthcare. Special feature of our work lies in the breakdown of the information gathered. We have been able to demonstrate significant differences in the volume and nature of the amounts spent across the successive stages of the care-seeking pathway. Notably, pre-diagnosis spending has been proved critical both in the rural and urban contexts. Moreover, disaggregated cost data across income quintiles have highlighted inequities in relation to the direct costs and to the risk of incurring catastrophic health expenditure because of tuberculosis. As part of the case studies, the tuberculosis control strategies have failed to protect the most vulnerable care users from delayed diagnosis and treatment, from important spending even during treatment – including significant medical costs, and from hidden costs that might have been exacerbated by poor health systems. To such devastating situations, the tuberculosis patients have had to endure other difficulties; we mean intangible costs such as pain and suffering including stigmatization and social exclusion as a result of being ill or attending tuberculosis care facilities. The analysis of all the social and economic consequences for tuberculosis-affected households over the entire care-seeking pathway has been identified as an essential element of future cost-of-illness evaluations, as well as the need to conduct benefit incidence assessment to measure equity.<p><p>This work has allowed identifying a series of policy weaknesses related to the three dimensions of the universal health coverage for tuberculosis (healthcare services, population and financial protection coverage). The findings have highlighted a gap between the standard costs foreseen by the national programs and the costs in real life. This has suggested that the current strategies lack of patient-centered care, context-oriented approaches and systemic vision resulting in a quality issue in healthcare delivery system (e.g. hidden healthcare related costs). Besides, various adverse effects on households have been raised as potential consequences of illness; such as illness poverty trap, social stigma, possible exclusion from services and participation, and overburdened individuals. These effects have disclosed the lack of social protection at the country level and call for the inclusion of tuberculosis patients in national social schemes. A last policy gap refers to the lack of financial protection and remaining inequities with regards to catastrophic health expenditure still occurring under use fee exemptions strategies. Thereby, one year before 2015 – the deadline set for the Millennium Development Goals – it is a matter of priority for Benin and Burkina Faso and many other countries to tackle adverse effects of the remaining social, economic and health policy and system related barriers to tuberculosis control. These factors have led us to emphasize the need for countries to develop sustainable knowledge. <p><p>National decision-makers urgently need to document the failures and bottlenecks. Drawing on the findings, we have considered different ways to strengthen local capacity and generate bottom-up decision-making. To get there, we have shaped a decision framework intended to produce local evidence on the root causes of the lack of policy responsiveness, synthesize available evidence, develop data-driven policies, and translate them into actions.<p><p>Beyond this, we have demonstrated that controlling tuberculosis was much more complex than providing free services. The socio-economic context in which people affected by this disease live cannot be dissociated from health policy. The implications of microeconomic research on the households’ costs and responses to tuberculosis may have a larger scope than informing implementation and adaptation of national disease-specific strategies. They can be of great interest to support the definition of guiding principles for further research on social protection schemes, and to produce evidence-based targets and indicators for the reduction and the monitoring of economic burden of illness. In this thesis, we have build on prevailing debates in the field and formulated different assumptions and proposals to inform the WHO Global Strategy and Targets for Tuberculosis Prevention, Care and Control After 2015. For us, to reflect poor populations’ needs and experiences, global stakeholders should endorse bottom-up and systemic policy-making approaches towards sustainable people-centered health systems.<p><p>The findings of the thesis and the various global and national challenges that have emerged from case studies are crucial as the problems we have seen for tuberculosis in West Africa are not limited to this illness, and far outweigh the geographical context of developing countries.<p><p><p>Keywords: Catastrophic health expenditure, Coping strategies, Cost-of-illness studies, Direct, indirect and intangible costs, Evidence-based Public health, Financial and Social protection for health, Health Economics, Health Policy and Systems, Informed Decision-making, Knowledge translation, People-centered policy-making, Systemic approach, Universal Health Coverage<p> / Doctorat en Sciences de la santé publique / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

The need for modern transportation systems together with the high demand for sustainable pavements under applied loads have led to a great deal of research on concrete pavements worldwide. Development of finite element techniques enabled researchers to analyse the concrete pavement under a combination of axle group loadings and environmental effects. Consequently, mechanistic approaches for designing of concrete pavements were developed based on results of finite element analyses. However, unpredictable failure modes of concrete pavements associated with expensive maintenance and rehabilitation costs have led to the use of empiricalmechanistic approach in concrete pavement design. Despite progressive knowledge of concrete pavement behaviour under applied loads, concrete pavements still suffer from deterioration due to crack initiation and propagation, indicating the need for further research. Cracks can be related to fatigue of the concrete and/or erosion of materials in sub-layers. Although longitudinal, midedge and corner cracks are the most common damage modes in concrete pavements, Austroads method for concrete pavement design was developed based on traditional mid-edge bottom-up transverse cracking introduced by Packard and Tayabji (1985). Research presented in this thesis aims to address the most common fatigue related distresses in concrete pavements. It uses comprehensive finite element models and analyses to determine the structural behaviour of concrete pavements under vehicular loads and environmental effects. Results of this research are supported by laboratory tests and an experimental field test. Results of this research indicate that the induced tensile stresses within the concrete pavement are significantly affected by vehicle speed, differential temperature gradient and loss of moisture content. Subsequently, the interaction between the above mentioned factors and concrete damage modes are discussed. Typical dynamic amplifications of different axle groups are presented. A new fatigue test setup is also developed to take into consideration effects of pavement curvature on fatigue life of the concrete. Ultimately, results of the research presented in this thesis are employed to develop a new guide for designing concrete pavements with zero maintenance of fatigue damage.

In New Zealand, the development of wind energy is occurring predominantly at a large scale level with very little opportunity for local people to become involved, either financially or conceptually. These conditions are creating situations of conflict between communities and wind energy developers – and are limiting the potential of the New Zealand wind energy industry. The inception of community ownership in small scale wind farms, developed in Europe in the late 20th Century, has helped to make a vital connection between wind energy and end users. Arguably, community wind farms are able to alleviate public concerns of wind energy’s impact on landscapes, amongst a wide range of other advantages. In Austria, community wind farms have offered significant development opportunities to local people, ushered in distributed generation, and all the while increasing the amount of renewable energy in the electricity mix. This thesis investigates whether community small scale wind (SSW) farms, such as those developed in Austria, are a viable and feasible option for the New Zealand context. The approach of this thesis examines the history of the Austrian wind industry and explores several community wind farm developments. In addition, interviews with stakeholders from Austria and New Zealand were conducted to develop an understanding of impressions and processes in developing community wind energy (CWE) in the New Zealand context. From this research an assessment of the transfer of the Austrian framework to the New Zealand situation is offered, with analysis of the differences between the wind energy industries in the two countries. Furthermore, future strategies are suggested for CWE development in New Zealand with recommendations for an integrated governmental approach. This research determines that the feasibility for the transfer of the Austrian framework development of ‘grassroots’ community wind farms in the next 10 years is relatively unlikely without greater support assistance from the New Zealand Government. This is principally due to the restricted economic viability of community wind farms and also significant regulatory and policy limitations. In the mid to long term, the New Zealand government should take an integrated approach to assist the development of community wind farms which includes: a collaborative government planning approach on the issue; detailed assessment of the introduction of feed-in tariff mechanisms and controlled activity status (RMA) for community wind farms; and development of limited liability company law for community energy companies. In the short term, however, the most feasible option available for the formation of community wind farms lies in quasi community developments with corporate partnerships.