This thesis focuses on the use of interpreters in Swedish healthcare. The overall aim was to explore how individuals, healthcare professionals and family members experience and perceive the use of interpreters in healthcare. The study design was explorative and descriptive. The thesis included Serbo-Croatian(Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian)speaking individuals(n=17), healthcare professionals(n=24), official documents(n=60)and family members(n=10)of individuals using interpreters in healthcare. Individual interviews, written descriptions, review of official documents in the form of incident reports from a single case study and focus group interviews were used to collect data. Data were analyzed using phenomenography, qualitative content analysis and qualitative data analysis of focus group interviews. The overall finding from all perspectives was the wish to have a qualified interpreter whose role was as a communication aid but also as a practical and informative guide in healthcare. The perception of a qualified interpreter was someone highly skilled in medical terminology, Swedish and individuals’ native language with ability to adapt to different dialects, wearing non-provocative and neutral clothes, of the same gender, with a professional attitude and preferably in personal contact through face-to-face interaction. Besides being a communication aid, the interpreter was perceived as having an important role in helping individuals to find the right way to and within the healthcare system because foreign-born individuals were unable to understand information in healthcare. Another aspect was to have a well-developed organization with good cooperation between the parties involved in the interpretation situation, such as patients, interpreter, interpreter agency, family members and healthcare professionals to offer a good interpretation situation. In conclusion, the use of an interpreter was determined by individual and healthcare situational factors. Individualized holistic healthcare can be achieved by offering and using high-quality interpreters and cooperation within a well-developed interpreter organization.   Keywords: communication, healthcare service, patient-safe quality care, qualitative data collection, qualitative data analysis, users’ perceptions/experiences, utilization of interpreters.

Economic statistics are often taken as given facts, assumed to describe exactly, actual phenomena in society. Many economic series are published in various forms from preliminary, via revisions to definitive estimates. Preliminary series are issued for a number of central economic processes in order to allow for rapid, up-to-date signals. This dissertation focuses on qualitative aspects of available data, and effects of possible inaccuracy when data are used for economic modelling, analysis and planning. Four main questions are addressed: How to characterize quality of data for central economic time series? What effects may possible inaccuracies in data have when used in econometric modelling? What effects do inaccuracies and errors in data have when models are used for economic analysis and planning? Is it possible to specify a criterion for deciding the cost-effective quality of data to be produced as input for economic policy analysis? The various realizations of economic variables often show considerable systematic as well as stochastic discrepancies for the same quantity. Preliminary series are generally found to be of questionable quality, but still considerably better than simple trend forecasts. Compared with the situation in a few other industrialized countries, the variability of Swedish economic statistics is, though, not extraordinary. Illustrations of effects of using inaccurate data, especially of combining preliminary, revised and definitive observations in the same model, are presented. Such inconsistent combinations of various realizations are in actual fact found in many open sources. Inclusion of preliminary series tends to indicate stronger changes in the economy than when definite observations are used throughout. The study is concluded with a section on cost-benefit aspects of economic statistics, and a sketch model for appraising data of variable quality is proposed. / Diss. Stockholm : Handelshögsk.

The aim of this study is to examine how work at music departments in public libraries has changed with time. To analyze this, the role of music libraries as well as music library users, selection, holdings, acquisition and technological development have been examined. The examined data consists of qualitative interviews with music librarians and library assistants at public libraries in Sweden. To get a time perspective, handbooks and articles about music departments in libraries have also been analyzed. This study emanates from Sanna Talja’s discourse analysis of music libraries in Finland. In her study of Finnish music libraries she has found three discourses that give the library different roles in society. The first discourse, The General Education Repertoire, states that the role of the music library is to educate the citizens by supplying a broad record collection with “classics” from all kinds of genres. The second discourse, The Alternative Repertoire, states that the role of the library is to be an alternative to commercial music and the record industry by providing alternative music, that can’t be found everywhere. The third discourse, The Demand Repertoire, states that the role of the library is to satisfy the library users’ needs and thus adapt the collection and acquisitions to the local demand. The study shows that all three discourses are present at the public libraries examined in this master’s thesis. My interviewees state that they want to offer a broad collection with all genres represented but they find it also important to provide alternative music that is difficult to find elsewhere. At the same time, a demand repertoire, where the collection is more adapted to users’ wishes and needs, gets more common and librarians have a less critical attitude towards certain genres that were formerly banned at public libraries. The study also shows that work at public libraries has changed a lot with time. The music departments started with only listening service, began later to loan their music collections to the users and now even provide music files that can be downloaded and played on mp3-players. Loan figures of phonograms remain high, but have started to drop, which can partly be due to downloading and the fact that the number of young music library users, such as adolescents, has gone down. The technological development has also changed work at the music library, among other things information research, acquisition and selection. Even though technological development has changed the work and tasks at music libraries, the role of the librarian is still quite the same. An important task still is to search for and provide information even though the strategies and facilities are different.

This thesis presents a framework for motor vehicle detection-tracking surveillance systems. Given an optimized object detection template, the feasibility and effectiveness of the methodology is considered for vehicle counting applications, implementing both a filtering operation of false detection, based on the speed variability in each segment of traffic state, and an occlusion handling technique which considers the unusual affine transformation of tracking subspace, as well as its highly fluctuating averaged acceleration data. The result presents the overall performance considering the trade-off relationship between true detection rate and false detection rate. The filtering operation achieved significant success in removing the majority of non-vehicle elements that do not move like a vehicle. The occlusion handling technique employed also improved the systems performance, contributing counts that would otherwise be lost. For all video samples tested, the proposed framework obtained high correct count (>93% correct counting rate) while simultaneously minimizing the false count rate. For future research, the author recommends the use of more sophisticated filters for specific sets of conditions as well as the implementation of discriminative classifier for detecting different occlusion cases.

The Atlanta region will soon be faced with a choice as to how it will go about planning for and implementing its next regional fare collection system that will replace the current BREEZE system. In 2006, MARTA became the first transit agency in the United States to implement an all contactless smartcard for use on its services. However, there have been many advances in new technologies and the consumer payment preferences have evolved since the initial implementation. These developments, coupled with the rapid consumer adoption of smartphones and changing attitudes within the financial payments industry towards transit properties, have recently led four major transit agencies within North America to implement new fare collection systems based on open payments, the development of mobile ticketing applications, or a combination. This research uses a case study methodology to answer several questions related to the planning and implementation of regional fare collection systems in Chicago (CTA), Dallas (DART), Philadelphia (SEPTA) and Toronto (TTC). Based on the experience of the case study agencies, the implementation of Atlanta's next fare collection system is sure to be a long and arduous process. However, by utilizing the lessons learned from DART, CTA, SEPTA and TTC, MARTA and the other regional operators (Cobb Community Transit, Gwinnett County Transit and the Georgia Regional Transportation Authority) will be better poised to provide their patrons with additional means of paying fares while, at the same, minimizing the disruption to the existing fare collection system during the transition period.

<p>In the academic world, open access institutional repositories (IRs) are beginning to play a vital role in storing and disseminating scholarly communication. Through this method, higher education institutions are able to showcase their intellectual outputs and to contribute to sharing and building knowledge. This evolutionary process of scholarly communication is an important feature of knowledge societies. Furthermore, IRs allow scholars to make known the research they are involved in, which can result in their academic reputation improving, as well as the reputations of the institutions they represent.</p> <p>The purpose of this study is to examine the processes of establishing IRs in the four tertiary education institutions in the Western Cape, which form part of the Cape Higher Education Consortium (CHEC). Within this consortium is the collaborative library project, the Cape Library Consortium (CALICO), which represents the four academic library services. The researcher investigated whether the four Western Cape Higher Education Institutions have established IRs and their experiences in doing so. They are examined in the light of the guidelines for successful IRs already established in the international professional literature on IRs. Throughout the study, the partnerships that are needed for the success of IRs, with a specific emphasis on the crucial role that the librarian might play in this regard, are a central focus.</p> <p>The study is a qualitative case study, relying on interviews with key informants from the four HEIs and analysing policy and other supporting documents. The study confirms comment in the literature that IRs evolve in &ldquo / messy&rdquo / and &ldquo / spotty&rdquo / ways. The key findings might be summarised in the form of four assertions:</p> <ul> <li>&ldquo / It is all about people&rdquo / </li> <li>Philosophical differences are significant</li> <li>Context and history cannot be ignored</li> <li>The role of the university library is ambiguous.</li> </ul> <p>It is hoped that the study of fledgling IR projects might provide insights useful to the broader IR research and professional literature.</p>

L'objet de ce mémoire consiste à réfléchir à l'influence philosophique, stylistique et esthétique qu'exercent les mécanismes de la collection sur les pratiques textuelles d'Italo Calvino (1923-1985) : Les villes invisibles, Palomar et Collection de sable. Afin de décrire la collection comme pratique et de la définir comme mode de pensée, notre étude prendra appui sur les travaux des plus importants théoriciens de la collection que sont Jean Baudrillard, Walter Benjamin, Krzysztof Pomian, Roger Cardinal, John Elsner et Dominique Pety. Le premier chapitre permettra de démontrer qu'en valorisant l'unique et le singulier tout en étant nécessairement sériels et pluriels, les recueils de Calvino empruntent leur forme et leur thématique à la collection ; poétique de la sérialité, écriture de la liste, multiplication des dispositifs d'emboîtement et exigence de classement sont autant de signes de cette littérature du recensement qui seront étudiés. Ce premier chapitre sera aussi l'occasion de montrer que la collection, en tant que mode d'appropriation du savoir, constitue pour Italo Calvino une composante du champ épistémologique. À son image, les recueils de l'écrivain italien produisent un réseau d'échos qui multiplient les correspondances entre les textes qu'ils rassemblent ; la dernière partie de ce premier chapitre envisagera ce système comme un cabinet de curiosités hypertextuel. Le deuxième chapitre, quant à lui, abordera la dimension éthique de la collection qui s'ouvre chez Calvino sur les questions conjointes du souvenir, de la mémoire et de la « récollection ». Dans Les villes invisibles, Palomar et Collection de sable, en effet, l'écrivain met en branle une entreprise de mémoire individuelle et collective qui repose sur la collecte de traces mnésiques. Ce chapitre permettra d'éprouver avec l'auteur les limites de son projet et de se poser, avec lui, la question suivante : est-il vraiment possible de collectionner le sable? S'il peut effectivement être recueilli, il reste qu'une interrogation subsiste : le sable totalise-t-il vraiment la mémoire qu'il tente de préserver et, éventuellement, de ranimer? ______________________________________________________________________________ MOTS-CLÉS DE L’AUTEUR : Italo Calvino, Collection, Mémoire, Encyclopédie, Cabinet de curiosités, Les villes invisibles, Palomar, Collection de sable

La question du statut des objets issus des sociétés extra-occidentales conservés dans les musées occidentaux restait posée, jusqu'à récemment, dans les termes du paradigme construit au cours du vingtième siècle opposant le statut ethnographique au statut esthétique, et à partir d'une conception intrinsèque du statut des objets. La controverse suscitée par l'annonce du projet du musée du quai Branly au sein des communautés anthropologique et muséale en témoigne. Cette recherche propose de renouveler l'approche du statut des objets extra-occidentaux en adoptant une conception extrinsèque du statut des objets. Elle repose sur deux analyses sémiotiques successives de l'exposition permanente du musée du quai Branly. La première vise à analyser séparément et exhaustivement les registres médiatiques de l'espace, scriptovisuel et audiovisuel qui composent, avec le registre des objets, l'exposition : la seconde à analyser, au sein d'un corpus restreint d'unités d'exposition, l'interaction des registres, dans le but final d'identifier les processus interprétatifs producteurs du sens des objets. L'objectif de cette double analyse consiste à vérifier que l'exposition permanente du musée du quai Branly assigne le statut d'objet de patrimoine aux objets issus des sociétés extra-occidentales qu'il conserve. La première partie de la thèse est consacrée à restituer la construction de la question de recherche, qui porte sur le caractère patrimonial du statut des objets de musée extra-occidentaux, et à rendre compte des moyens méthodologiques mis en œuvre pour y répondre. La deuxième partie, consacrée aux résultats de l'analyse séparée des registres, confirme que les marqueurs nécessaires à l'assignation du statut patrimonial des objets extra-occidentaux, les mondes d'origines ailleurs et muséaux, sont bien certifiés dans l'exposition. Elle montre également la mobilisation particulière du registre de l'espace. L'ensemble incite à formuler l'hypothèse que l'espace ne constitue pas un interprétant des objets, que les mondes d'origine ailleurs et muséaux occupent une place secondaire dans l'assignation du statut des objets et, finalement, que les objets sont les principaux interprétants des objets. Enfin, la troisième partie permet de vérifier que la certification de l'appartenance des objets à leur double monde d'origine est bien réalisée par le traitement muséal, l'exposition assigne donc bien le statut de patrimoine aux objets exposés, mais elle montre aussi que les éléments de la certification apparaissent comme secondaires, tandis que la production du sens des objets par la relation entre les objets favorise l'assignation d'un autre statut de l'objet : le statut de curiosité. En s'appuyant sur la production de la signification des objets par le dispositif d'exposition pour le visiteur, cette recherche permet de penser, plus largement, la capacité de l'exposition à proposer un discours neutre qui modifie son opérativité, et qui permet à l'institution muséale de se placer dans une posture de délégation du sens produit par l'exposition. ______________________________________________________________________________

The question of how to design a congestion pricing scheme is difficult to answer and involves a number of complex decisions. This thesis is devoted to the quantitative parts of designing a congestion pricing scheme with link tolls in an urban car traffic network. The problem involves finding the number of tolled links, the link toll locations and their corresponding toll level. The road users are modeled in a static framework, with elastic travel demand. Assuming the toll locations to be fixed, we recognize a level setting problem as to find toll levels which maximize the social surplus. A heuristic procedure based on sensitivity analysis is developed to solve this optimization problem. In the numerical examples the heuristic is shown to converge towards the optimum for cases when all links are tollable, and when only some links are tollable. We formulate a combined toll location and level setting problem as to find both toll locations and toll levels which maximize the net social surplus, which is the social surplus minus the cost of collecting the tolls. The collection cost is assumed to be given for each possible toll location, and to be independent of toll level and traffic flow. We develop a new heuristic method which is based on repeated solutions of an approximation to the combined toll location and level setting problem. Also, a known heuristic method for locating a fixed number of toll facilities is extended, to find the optimal number of facilities to locate. Both heuristics are evaluated on two small networks, where our approximation procedure shows the best results. Our approximation procedure is also employed on the Sioux Falls network. The result is compared with different judgmental closed cordon structures, and the solution suggested by our method clearly improves the net social surplus more than any of the judgmental cordons.

Advance technology such as various types of automatic data acquisitions, management, and networking systems has created a tremendous capability for managers to access valuable production information to improve their operation quality and efficiency. Signal processing and data mining techniques are more popular than ever in many fields including intelligent manufacturing. As data sets increase in size, their exploration, manipulation, and analysis become more complicated and resource consuming. Timely synthesized information such as functional data is needed for product design, process trouble-shooting, quality/efficiency improvement and resource allocation decisions. A major obstacle in those intelligent manufacturing system is that tools for processing a large volume of information coming from numerous stages on manufacturing operations are not available. Thus, the underlying theme of this thesis is to reduce the size of data in a mathematical rigorous framework, and apply existing or new procedures to the reduced-size data for various decision-making purposes. This thesis, first, proposes {it Wavelet-based Random-effect Model} which can generate multiple functional data signals which have wide fluctuations(between-signal variations) in the time domain. The random-effect wavelet atom position in the model has {it locally focused impact} which can be distinguished from other traditional random-effect models in biological field. For the data-size reduction, in order to deal with heterogeneously selected wavelet coefficients for different single curves, this thesis introduces the newly-defined {it Wavelet Vertical Energy} metric of multiple curves and utilizes it for the efficient data reduction method. The newly proposed method in this thesis will select important positions for the whole set of multiple curves by comparison between every vertical energy metrics and a threshold ({it Vertical Energy Threshold; VET}) which will be optimally decided based on an objective function. The objective function balances the reconstruction error against a data reduction ratio. Based on class membership information of each signal obtained, this thesis proposes the {it Vertical Group-Wise Threshold} method to increase the discriminative capability of the reduced-size data so that the reduced data set retains salient differences between classes as much as possible. A real-life example (Tonnage data) shows our proposed method is promising.