Inom disciplinen kognitiv hörselvetenskap tillämpas en integrerad ansats där taluppfattning beskrivs ur både ett auditivt bottom-up-perspektiv och ett kognitivt top-down-perspektiv. Studien undersökte hur taluppfattning varierar med, respektive utan top-down-stöd och vad de kognitiva förmågorna uppmärksamhet, minne och inhiberingsförmåga hade för inverkan. Taluppfattningsförmåga utvärderades med hjälp av ett Speech-In-Noise-test (SIN-test) som bestod av tre deltest där enstaviga ord presenterades i en ofördelaktig miljö bestående av röster som talande i mun på varandra. I deltest 1 presenterades ord i uppåtgående förhållande till rösterna utan kognitivt stöd, i deltest 2 presenterades ord i nedåtgående förhållande till rösterna med kognitivt stöd och i deltest 3 presenterades ord i uppåtgående förhållande till rösterna med kognitivt stöd. Detta resulterade i identifiering av tre tröskelnivåer för taluppfattning. Kognitiva förmågor utvärderades med hjälp av Reading span test, Size Comparison span task (SIC-span) och Paced Auditory Serial-Addition Test (PASAT). Envägs variansanalys av taluppfattningstesten visade på signifikanta skillnader mellan alla tre testen. I test 2 identifierades lägst tröskelvärde, därefter test 3 och slutligen test 1. Korrelationsanalys visade på icke signifikanta samband mellan de tre SIN-testen. Av de kognitiva förmågorna och SIN- testen visade endast PASAT A på ett signifikant samband med SIN-test 2. Analys av de kognitiva förmågorna och differenserna mellan SIN-testen gav inga signifikanta samband. Slutligen vid analys av de kognitiva förmågorna hade PASAT A och PASAT B ett starkt positivt samband medan PASAT B och Reading span test hade ett starkt negativt samband. Resultaten i studien talade för att top-down-stöd ger bättre taluppfattningsförmåga och att uppmärksamhetskapacitet är en förmåga som har en signifikant inverkan på taluppfattning i nedåtgående förhållande till ett brus av röster.

<p>An influence at one trophic level can result in dynamic impacts also on other components of a food web. These dynamics are known as trophic cascades, and can be both top-down and bottom-up. After a near-collapse of the Baltic cod <i>Gadus morhua</i> stock in the 1980s, its main prey sprat <i>Sprattus sprattus</i> increased dramatically. The main food of sprat, marine copepods, decreased during the same time period, likely a combined effect of increased predation pressure from sprat and decreasing salinities. This shortage of food for sprat resulted in decreasing quality of sprat as a food source for common guillemots <i>Uria aalge</i>. However, a recent increase in fishing for sprat has again resulted in better feeding conditions for guillemots.</p><p>Human impacts on this simple food web can be complex. In the early 20th century, marine mammals were abundant and nutrient levels were low in the Baltic Sea. This thesis illustrate that this situation corresponded to lower fish biomass. A reduction of seals early in the century led to reduced top-down control, which resulted in increasing fish stocks. Later, in the 1950s, the largest inflow of salt water during the century mobilized accumulated phosphorus from the deep sediments, which stimulated nitrogen fixation. Combined with increasing anthropogenic nutrient loads, this led to increased primary production and a rapid change from an oligotrophic to a eutrophicated state. This change can be termed a regime shift, which also stimulated fish production. Subsequent over-fishing of cod likely caused a second regime shift, from a cod- to a clupeid- dominated state, which led to the described effects on the common guillemots.</p><p>Several factors affect the life-history of this long-lived seabird. Bycatches in gillnet fisheries is one factor directly affecting guillemot survival, and the proportion of bycatches increased during a period of increasing fishing effort. Surprisingly, avian cholera, a previously undocumented disease in common guillemots, was found at times to cause considerable adult mortality. Common guillemot life-history information can communicate the diversity of factors influencing marine ecosystems – hopefully this can increase our understanding of how complex even "simple" food webs are.</p>

Le travail de thèse consiste à construire un modèle pour une prospective énergétique à long terme dans le but d'estimer l'effet des politiques énergétiques et environnementales sur les choix technologiques futures des secteurs industriels. L'accent a été mis sur les industries grandes consommatrices d'énergie (IGCE), pour 29 pays européen et pour un horizon de temps allant jusqu'à 2050. L'outil de modélisation appliqué dans cette étude est le modèle TIMES (famille du modèle MARKAL, il s'agit d'un générateur de modèle d'optimisation de type Bottom-up basé sur la programmation linéaire). L'étude est réalisée dans le cadre d'un partenariat entre EDF R&D et le Centre de Mathématiques appliquées (CMA) de l'Ecole des Mines de Paris. Dans notre analyse, nous avons identifié pour chaque secteur industriel, plusieurs technologies concurrentes. Elles sont choisies par le modèle sous la base de leur coût global actualisé en intégrant l'ensemble des contraintes (prix d'énergie, taxe sur le CO2, plafond sur les émissions...). La capacité à installer dépend étroitement de la demande finale qu'il faut satisfaire pour chaque période sur l'ensemble de l'horizon de temps considéré. Selon les contraintes imposées, les résultats obtenus permettent de : <br/>- tracer l'image de l'industrie (profil de production technologique), <br/>- calculer les consommations énergétiques et les potentiels d'économies d'énergies réalisables, <br/>- estimer les émissions de dioxyde de carbone résultantes. Ce travail indique qu'il existe encore un important potentiel d'économies d'énergie et de réductions des émissions de dioxyde de carbone dans l'ensemble des secteurs industriels.

<p><strong>Abstract</strong></p><p><em>Bachelor thesis in political science by Alexander Hassan, autumn 2008, “Effects of external factors on a nations democratisation process during the transition from authoritarian to electoral democratic rule – A categorical analysis”</em></p><p><em>Supervisor: Tomas Sedelius</em></p><p>In recent years globalization has become a hot topic in understanding the world we live in today. Globalization has indeed had a great impact on international relations and with it a great influence on the domestic conditions that determine a nation’s possibilities. It is therefore rational to hold true that this also would apply to a nation’s democratic process. This basic notion is what lies as a foundation for the thesis, where the purpose of the study is to examine the relatively new field of the international context and its significance on democratisation.</p><p>The aim of the study is to examine and determine, through a categorical analysis, the different forms and roles that the external factors can take during the process leading up to the transition and implementation of an electoral democracy, the most basic form of democracy.</p><p>The thesis thus has demanded the study and infusion of all discourses within the field of democratisation processes, as the only way to produce the roles and forms of the international contexts impact on the domestic process is through the study and determination of the different domestic spheres associated with the process.</p><p>The different forms of external influences have been studied within the confines of the third wave of democracy, and their roles in the democratic process determined depending on the respective domestic spheres they affect. The significant result of the studies where chiefly that all forms of external influence have the possibility to affect the democratisation process indirectly as well as directly. Where direct influence is exerted within the political sphere of the nation; where the actual transition takes place, and the indirect influence is exerted through the socio-economical and cultural sphere; which exerts its influence in the process through the political sphere. </p><p>The results thus show that it is hard to draw the conclusion that an indirect form of influence would be superior to the direct approach or vice versa, as both are prevalent in successful democratic transitions.</p>

An influence at one trophic level can result in dynamic impacts also on other components of a food web. These dynamics are known as trophic cascades, and can be both top-down and bottom-up. After a near-collapse of the Baltic cod Gadus morhua stock in the 1980s, its main prey sprat Sprattus sprattus increased dramatically. The main food of sprat, marine copepods, decreased during the same time period, likely a combined effect of increased predation pressure from sprat and decreasing salinities. This shortage of food for sprat resulted in decreasing quality of sprat as a food source for common guillemots Uria aalge. However, a recent increase in fishing for sprat has again resulted in better feeding conditions for guillemots. Human impacts on this simple food web can be complex. In the early 20th century, marine mammals were abundant and nutrient levels were low in the Baltic Sea. This thesis illustrate that this situation corresponded to lower fish biomass. A reduction of seals early in the century led to reduced top-down control, which resulted in increasing fish stocks. Later, in the 1950s, the largest inflow of salt water during the century mobilized accumulated phosphorus from the deep sediments, which stimulated nitrogen fixation. Combined with increasing anthropogenic nutrient loads, this led to increased primary production and a rapid change from an oligotrophic to a eutrophicated state. This change can be termed a regime shift, which also stimulated fish production. Subsequent over-fishing of cod likely caused a second regime shift, from a cod- to a clupeid- dominated state, which led to the described effects on the common guillemots. Several factors affect the life-history of this long-lived seabird. Bycatches in gillnet fisheries is one factor directly affecting guillemot survival, and the proportion of bycatches increased during a period of increasing fishing effort. Surprisingly, avian cholera, a previously undocumented disease in common guillemots, was found at times to cause considerable adult mortality. Common guillemot life-history information can communicate the diversity of factors influencing marine ecosystems – hopefully this can increase our understanding of how complex even "simple" food webs are.

The aim of this thesis is to study the risk for two Swedish companies, Axfood and Volvo. To test the required return on equity, a bottom-up beta approach and a CAPM regression beta are used. This thesis concludes that the bottom-up beta gives a truer reflection and a more updated beta value than a CAPM regression beta on the firm’s current business mix, the CAPM beta takes only the past stock prices into consideration. The empirical results for Volvo conclude that the levered bottom-up beta is 1.09 and the CAPM β is 0.52 for Volvo. The empirical results for Axfood which is categorized as consumer goods sector implies that the levered bottom-up beta is 0.87 while the CAPM regression beta is 0.29.

L’esperienza estetica è un fenomeno complesso e articolato, caratterizzato da un particolare intreccio di processi percettivi, emotivi, cognitivi. Il dibattito sulla definizione del ruolo dei fattori che intervengono nell’esperienza estetica è molto controverso: diverse cornici teoriche enfatizzano o il ruolo dei fattori "bottom-up", riguardanti le caratteristiche visive e strutturali dell'opera d'arte come il colore e simmetria, o il ruolo dei fattori "top-down", relativi al bagaglio di conoscenze ed esperienze personali. Questa tesi presenta due studi volti ad approfondire, attraverso l'analisi dei movimenti oculari, l'influenza dei processi "bottom-up" e "top-down" sul comportamento visivo di adolescenti o adulti non esperti d’arte durante l'osservazione di opere d’arte pittorica. I dati ottenuti suggeriscono che processi intersoggettivi e relazionali giocano un ruolo essenziale nel guidare l’apprezzamento estetico di un quadro. Questi risultati innovativi supportano alcune recenti ipotesi teoriche relative alla natura intrinsecamente intersoggettiva dell’esperienza estetica. / Experiencing art is a complex and articulated phenomenon characterized by a peculiar weaving of perceptive, emotional, and cognitive processes. The debate on the definition of factors that contribute to the surfacing of an aesthetic experience is very controversial, partly because of the different weights assigned to the elements in the competition between “bottom-up” and “top-down” processes. Different theoretical frames emphasize the role of bottom-up factors - concerning the visual and structural characteristics of the artwork such as colour and symmetry - or top-down cognitive processes - concerning the cognitive feedback deriving from everyone’s cultural background and knowledge - in the building up of an aesthetic experience. In this work, two studies aiming at shedding some light on art appreciation are presented. These studies were designed to investigate, by means of the analysis of eye-movements, the influence of bottom-up and top-down processes on visual behavior while adolescents or adults naïve to art criticism were presented with representational paintings. Data suggest that intersubjective and relational processes intervene in first stages of aesthetic experience. These important and novel results support new theoretical proposals, which consider embodied intersubjective processes underpinning aesthetic experience.

The aim of this Bachelor thesis is to find keys to successful advocacy in a rural, Indian setting. The study is based on inductive, explorative research at a grassroots level, from a bottom-up perspective. Geographically, it takes place in the East Godavari District, in the state of Andhra Pradesh. At the centre of this study is the NGO:s Sujana and the Kadali Network, who are both advocating the rights of poor, marginalised and deprived people, as well as training people to carry out advocacy themselves. The theoretical framework for this thesis originates from theories within development communication, advocacy and Participatory Rural Appraisal. The research was carried out by making 16 individual interviews and 3 focus group interviews.  Findings from the interviews have been categorised into themes and analysed through meaning condensation. The result of this study shows that there are multiple ways in which grassroots movements in East Godavari conduct advocacy. The analysis states that advocacy can be successful in a short to medium time span; the most prominent keys to success being: having a driving spirit, being creative, developing networks and being knowledgeable about laws and rights. In a longer time span though, the advocacy and struggle for change is hampered by lack of, or conflicting, political interest from the local government and by conflicting economical interests from companies.

Tree series transformations computed by bottom-up and top-down tree series transducers are called bottom-up and top-down tree series transformations, respectively. (Functional) compositions of such transformations are investigated. It turns out that the class of bottomup tree series transformations over a commutative and complete semiring is closed under left-composition with linear bottom-up tree series transformations and right-composition with boolean deterministic bottom-up tree series transformations. Moreover, it is shown that the class of top-down tree series transformations over a commutative and complete semiring is closed under right-composition with linear, nondeleting top-down tree series transformations. Finally, the composition of a boolean, deterministic, total top-down tree series transformation with a linear top-down tree series transformation is shown to be a top-down tree series transformation.

The prevalent view in computer vision since Marr is that visual perception is a data-driven bottom-up process. In this view, image data is processed in a feed-forward fashion where a sequence of independent visual modules transforms simple low-level cues into more complex abstract perceptual units. Over the years, a variety of techniques has been developed using this paradigm. Yet an important realization is that low-level visual cues are generally so ambiguous that they could make purely bottom-up methods quite unsuccessful. These ambiguities cannot be resolved without taking account of high-level contextual information. In this thesis, we explore different ways of enriching early and mid-level computer vision modules with a capacity to extract and use contextual knowledge. Mainly, we integrate low-level image features with contextual information within uni&amp / #64257 / ed formulations where bottom-up and top-down processing take place simultaneously.