Pasiklydau temų miške vieną dieną. Kiekviena smulkmena atrodė įdomi ir verta aptarimo... Kad suprasčiau, kas man iš tiesų rūpi, nusprendžiau rašyti dienoraštį. Susikūriau sau užduotį – rašyti dienoraštį kas dieną ir taip visą mėnesį. Mėnesis praėjo, o karuselė vis dar sukosi. Reikėjo naujos užduoties... Išvažiavus į Švediją atlikti praktikos, užsivedžiau naują sąsiuvinį ir pildžiau jį du mėnesius. Praktika baigėsi, grįžau į savo šalį. Negalėjau nustoti rašiusi, jaučiau, jog tai mano darbo dalis. Kai sutikau tris žymius nepažįstamuosius – Eugenijų Delakrua, Paulių Klė ir Edvardą Munchą ir pradėjau skaityti jų dienoraščius, užsivedžiau naują sąsiuvinį ant viršelio užrašiusi „Nr. 4“. Šie dailininkai savo dienoraščiuose pasiūlė naujų žiūrėjimo taškų į savo pačios dienoraščio rašymą bei kūrybą. Tai buvo akstinas rūpestingam dailininko dienoraščio svarstymui. / One day I felt lost in the forest of topics. Every single thing seemed to be interesting and worth to discuss… I decided to write a diary to understand what is the most important to me. I started with a task – to write a diary every day for a period of a month. The month ended, but the carousel was still spinning. I needed a new task. I was writing my second journal during the practice in foreign country for two months, also every day. The practice was finished – I could not stop writing – It was a part of my work I felt. I took a blank Journal and wrote "No. 4" on the cover when I met three famous strangers and started to read their diaries - Edvard Munch, Paul Klee and Eugene Delacroix. They offered me new perspectives on my own writing and working. It was the reason to start with a serious discussion about the diaries of artists.

This study explored social judgment theory’s utility in a political comedy context. As a model of attitude change, social judgment theory describes attitude changes that occur in receivers of persuasive messages. Given that the type of humor used in the political comedy context requires the audience to interpret the message, audience processing of the humor is thought to resemble the processing of persuasive messages. This study explored the assumptions of social judgment theory in both a political comedy and a traditional news context. In order to explore how satiric messages impact the attitude change process, clips of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart or CBS News programs were shown to participants.Participants reported their attitudes and ego involvement regarding taxes and the job market prior to and after viewing the clips, which allowed attitude change to be identified. In addition, measures of audience activity, including ego involvement and political participation, were collected to explore the interplay of audience activity in attitude change. This project offered some support of social judgment theory’s utility in a political comedy context and reinforced the active audience assumption. / Department of Communication Studies

It is estimated that over 30 million people are exposed to arsenic from drinking contaminated groundwater in Bangladesh. Furthermore, due to the use of contaminated water for irrigation purposes, arsenic and other toxic elements are entering the food chain of Bangladeshis. In this thesis, the total levels of toxic elements (As, Cd, Pb) and essential elements (Mn, Se, Zn) in 1,120 samples of Bangladeshi foods (including rice, vegetables, fish) and non-foods (betel quid and baked clay) imported into the United Kingdom were determined. From this analysis, it is concluded that Bangladeshis are exposed to high levels of toxic elements. Inorganic arsenic levels in Bangladeshi rice can be very high, especially from regions with high arsenic in groundwater. However, there is a lack of studies in the literature regarding arsenic levels in rice from regions in Bangladesh with relatively low levels of arsenic in the groundwater. Therefore, rice from one such region (Sylhet district) was analysed. The results indicated that boro (mean 71.7 µg/kg) and aman (mean 85.7 µg/kg) rice from Sylhet contained between 2 to 4-fold lower levels of arsenic, compared to other regions of Bangladesh thus far reported in the literature. Arsenic speciation was carried out on a selection of rice (aromatic and non-aromatic) from Sylhet region and this revealed 70% (mean value) as inorganic arsenic (AsIII and AsV), which is similar to rice grown in other regions of Bangladesh. Importantly, it was found that the arsenic levels of aromatic rice (mean 48.5 µg/kg) from Sylhet region was over 40% lower than that of non-aromatic rice (mean 81 µg/kg). The aromatic rice also contained higher levels of essential elements (such as Se and Zn). It was calculated that for an individual consuming 0.5 kg of rice per day, switching from consumption of non-aromatic rice to aromatic rice would increase Se and Zn intake by 46% and 23% respectively. Arsenic speciation was also carried out on other Bangladeshi food and non-food items, including fish, betel quid and baked clay, to obtain a better insight into exposure to toxic arsenic species. High levels of arsenic (range 3.8-13.1 mg/kg) and lead (range 21-26.7 mg/kg) were detected in the baked clay samples, which are consumed by some Bangladeshi women in an ancient practice known as geophagy. The efficiency of arsenic extraction from baked clay was 33% of the total arsenic present and the main arsenic species present was inorganic AsV (100%); AsIII was not detected in these samples. Millions of Bangladeshis chew betel quid and this contained predominantly AsIII species (extraction efficiency was 100%). Arsenic and lead intake from eating baked clay could exceed the provisional maximum tolerable daily intake (PMTDI) by 2- and 5-fold respectively. For the first time, arsenic speciation in Bangladeshi fish is reported. Hilsha, which is a very popular fish in Bangladesh, contained 2.55 mg/day (mean value) of total arsenic. Extraction efficiencies (%) were 59 – 89 for fish flesh, over 69% of arsenic present in the extract was dimethyl arsenic acid (DMA) species with about 11% arsenobetaine (AsBet) and 19% arsenosugar. These studies reveal that rice, betel quids and baked clay can be a significant source of exposure to inorganic arsenic and DMA in Bangladeshis. Exposure to cadmium is linked with kidney disease and over 20 million people in Bangladesh suffer from chronic kidney disease. Results obtained showed that the daily intake of cadmium by the Bangladeshi population from baked clay (mean 17 µg/day), rice (mean 18.6 µg/day) and certain leafy vegetables (mean 12 µg/day) was higher total daily intake compared to other countries. Surprisingly, puffed rice, which is commonly consumed by Bangladeshis, contained much higher levels of cadmium (mean 67.9 µg/kg) and lead (mean 98 µg/kg), compared to uncooked rice (cadmium, 37.2 µg/kg; lead, 18.9 µg/kg). This may be related to the illegal practice of using urea for whitening puffed rice in Bangladesh. Exposure to manganese in the Bangladeshi population through drinking water has been previously highlighted as a possible health problem, although the intake from foods and non-food has not been reported. The daily manganese intake by Bangladeshis was calculated to be 20.3 mg/day, which is higher than any other country in the world thus far reported. Betel quid components have high levels of manganese and this was reflected by higher urinary manganese the mean urinary Mn levels in chewers (1.93 µg/L, SD 1.8) was significantly higher (3.1 fold; P = 0.009) compared to non-chewers (0.62 µg/L, SD 0.4). Bangladeshi women who eat baked clay and chew betel quids are likely to be exposed to high levels of arsenic, lead and other toxic elements. This is particularly of concern for pregnant women as these metals can be transferred to the unborn baby through the placenta. For assessing the risk of exposure to toxic elements versus intake of essential elements from the same foods, a Food Toxicity Scale (FTS) was devised in order to identify foods that are beneficial or harmful. FTS values were obtained by calculating the toxic elements : essential elements ratio (As:Se, As:Zn etc) and the value obtained subsequently multiplied by toxic element concentration and the quantity of the particular food consumed per day. The higher the FTS value, the greater the risk of exposure to harmful elements. Rice and leafy vegetables had the highest FTS values, partly because large quantities of these foods are consumed. However, lentils and animal products (such as small fish) had relatively lower FTS values compared to other foods. Total daily intake of arsenic (306 µg/day), selenium (90.4 µg/day), cadmium (34.6 µg/day), lead (74.4 µg/day), manganese (20.3 mg/day) and zinc (11.2 mg/day) in the Bangladeshi population was calculated. The intake of arsenic and manganese exceeds the PMTDI for these elements. Water was the highest source of arsenic exposure in Bangladeshis followed by rice. For cadmium and lead, rice and leafy vegetables were the key contributors to the daily intake. The results presented in this thesis show that Bangladeshis are exposed to high levels of toxic elements and how modifications can be made to their diet to not only reduce their exposure to toxic elements but also increase the intake of essential elements. This could be achieved by a combination of the following: (i) reducing the intake of rice (by about 50%); (ii) switching to eating aromatic rice; (iii) increasing the intake of animal products (meat, fish etc.); (iv) decreasing the intake of certain leafy vegetables; and (v) stopping or reducing the practice of eating baked clay and chewing betel quid.

Background: Studies of assessing dietary fluoride intake in children have employed different dietary methods mainly “2-day duplicate” and “3-day food diary” methods. However, none of these methods have been validated or standardised. Main aims: The main aims of the current study were to develop a better understanding of strengths and weaknesses of dietary assessment methods “2-day duplicate plate” and “3-day food diary” by comparing dietary fluoride intake estimated by each method and evaluate the validity of the two methods for estimating dietary fluoride intake in young children. Methods: Sixty one healthy 4-6 year old children living in fluoridated area of the north-east of England since birth were recruited via 10 primary schools. Dietary information was collected using “2-day duplicate plate” and “3-day food diary” methods. Two 24-h urine samples and two samples of post brushing expectorate (a mixture of saliva, toothpaste and water used to rinse after brushing) from each child. Completeness of 24-h urine samples was checked using urinary excretion of creatinine and urinary flow rate. Validity of the two dietary assessment methods was checked by measuring urinary excretion of nitrogen and potassium as independent validity checks. Total daily fluoride intake from diet and toothpaste ingestion and urinary fluoride excretion was determined for each child. Results: All participated children completed all aspects of the study. According to the validity criteria, dietary data of 58 (95%) children, when collected by the 3-day food diary, were considered valid. However, when the dietary data were collected by the 2-day duplicate plate method, the data for 46 (75%) children were viewed as valid. Mean total dietary fluoride intake was 0.533 mg/d by the 3-day food diary method and 0.583 mg/d by the 2-day duplicate plate method. No statistically significant difference in total dietary fluoride intake was observed between the two methods. The mean difference in estimated dietary fluoride intake by the two dietary assessment methods was -0.050 mg/d with 95% limits of agreement of -0.501 to + 0.401 mg/d. Conclusion: Either the 3-day food diary or the 2-day duplicate plate method can be used when investigating mean total daily dietary fluoride intake of a population. However the methods cannot be used interchangeably at the individual level.

Previous studies have shown that activity loss in unaccompanied refugee children is common. During the asylum process, inactivity, uncertainty and anxiety disorders, which may occur after trauma, can result in passivity. Unaccompanied refugee children are, according to the UN, children and young people under 18 years of age who have fled from their home country without an accompanying parent or guardian. The purpose of this study was to describe different activities and their significance for unaccompanied refugee children. The method used was a literature review. Data collection was done through literature searches in different databases PubMed, CINAHL, Web of Science and Google Scholar and a manual search through reference lists. The search resulted in 18 relevant scientific articles, and was limited to articles that were no more than 11 years old and written in English or Swedish. The result from the analysis gave three main categories which are: 'Structure in everyday life gives a good feeling', 'Activities for pleasure can increase participation', 'School as support for finding new roles'. The result showed the importance of activities for unaccompanied refugee children, as they were perceived to have a positive impact on health and to give more energy and recovery. It also emerged that activities contributed to participation, balance and better health. The results showed the importance of activity for unaccompanied refugee children. Conclusions to be drawn from this study is to make the needed support visible for the refugee children in terms of activity training and that the creation of meaningful activities and that these may prevent or reduce loss of activity. Further research on activity needs  for unaccompanied refugee children is needed, to highlight and develop what occupational therapists  can contribute with in form of using the activity as a goal and means to facilitate the unaccompanied refugee children in their situation.

The presented thesis discusses an investigation conducted into the improvement of employee experiences of stress in the workplace. It is estimated that 11.4 million working days were lost in 2008-2009 due to stress-related outcomes, and that stress was described as the top cause of long-term sickness absence in 70% of all public-sector organisations in 2010-2011 (CIPD, 2011a). Indeed major studies have associated chronic stress with individual outcomes such as increased cardiovascular disease, depression and burnout. The work, conducted within one department of a borough council organisation in the East of England, had two main objectives: the discovery of 'daily hassles' that comprise organisational stressors for staff and the intervention design aimed at improvement of stress. A novel mixed-methods approach combining quantitative surveys with Appreciative Inquiry (AI) was utilised, with five phases of inquiry conducted. The surveys (Stages 1 and 5) were utilised to assess the experience of work-related stress and Burnout. Stages 2, 3 and 4 were employee completion of daily logs, semi-structured interviews and focus groups. The ultimate aim of the qualitative work was to design a number of interventions for the improvement of stress. A local stress theory, designed via the mixing of convergent qualitative and quantitative outcomes, found that professional efficacy, relationships and creativity buffered the impact of three major stressors: (too many) demands, (lack of) managerial support and (poorly communicated) organisational change. These translated into concrete examples of procedural 'hassles' and a number of organisational interventions were designed with staff and subsequently implemented into the organisation. It is concluded that the methodology used was fruitful without being largely resource-demanding for either employees/participants or the organisation. Also while the mixing of AI methodologies with quantitative surveys can appear contradictory, it is demonstrated that the pragmatic approach taken led to strong research and practitioner-based outcomes. Lastly the work has demonstrated both originality and new knowledge in a variety of areas, as well as opening a number of future research questions and avenues.

In today’s lexicon a ‘Daily Constitutional’ usually refers to a daily walk. But in actuality, a ‘Daily Constitutional’ is something that one does on a daily basis that is beneficial to one’s constitution or healthful(1); and one’s constitution being the aggregate of a person’s physical and psychological characteristics(2). With this definition, the daily constitutional refers to any daily activity that improves a person’s physical or mental health. At various stages in my life I may have understood my constitutional to be any number of things and it was not until I came into my own did I truly discover my Daily Constitutional, the creative process. In the following thesis I will be covering my thoughts and opinions on the creative process as well as my role of Artist in a larger art community. The thesis consists of six chapters, each being a letter I wrote for Daily Constitutional, A Publication for the Artist’s Voice as the Editor-in-Chief. I created the Daily Constitutional in 2005 in order to provide my contemporary colleagues with an opportunity to once again have a voice in the art world. The publication is entirely submission based with an international open call. Each semi-annual issue is created out of the submissions received and composed by a rotating panel of six artists and has been ongoing throughout my tenure at Virginia Commonwealth University. The mission of the publication is to provide an outlet and forum for the individual Artist’s voice, rather than the cacophony that is the art world at large (galleries, critics, curators, museums, patrons and finally the artists themselves). To provide a place to express, exchange and discuss, without interpretation, the artist’s opinions, ideas and discoveries within one’s practice. This publication can only be made possible, through a collaboration of individual Artists.(3) This document was created with Adobe InDesign CS2. 1. “constitutional.” Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Random House, Inc. 03 May. 2009. . 2. “constitution.” Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Random House, Inc. 03 May. 2009. . 3. “Mission Statement,” Daily Constitutional, A Publication for the Artist’s Voice, 2005-09, http://www.dailyconstitutional.org/mission_statement.html

Although sleep has been linked to changes in positive and negative affect across the lifespan, the prediction of sleep from affect has not been explored completely. As such, the main objective of this study was to examine the association between affect and sleep across the adult lifespan, using a novel gauge of affect, the positivity ratio. Both subjective and objective assessments of sleep were used in analyses. This study was an archival analysis of data collected as a part of the Midlife in the United States Study (MIDUS-II), with participants ranging from 34 to 83 years of age. Results revealed the positivity ratio to be a significant predictor of self-reported sleep quality and global sleep, but not of objective sleep measures. Additionally, the positivity ratio was found to increase with age and appears to predict better global sleep and sleep quality across all age groups. Implications of the findings are discussed.

L'objectif de cette thèse est de mieux documenter les différentes manières d'habiter des adolescents de zones urbaines sensibles (ZUS) franciliennes en prenant appui sur l'analyse de leurs pratiques de mobilité quotidienne. Elle vise à répondre aux trois questions suivantes :-les adolescents de ZUS ont-ils une mobilité spécifique par rapport aux autres adolescents ? -la diversité géographique des ZUS et l'hétérogénéité sociale des adolescents de ces quartiers se traduisent-elles par des pratiques de mobilité différenciée et, au final, par différentes manières d'habiter un quartier ségrégué ? -selon la manière dont ils habitent leur quartier, certains adolescents de ZUS subissent-ils plus que les autres les externalités négatives de la ségrégation urbaine ? Les mobilités quotidiennes jouent ainsi un rôle fondamental à l'adolescence car elles sont le support du passage progressif du monde familier au domaine public urbain. Elles mettent notamment à l'épreuve les habitudes d'action que les adolescents ont acquises dans leur quartier de résidence ou dans leur famille. Elles donnent ainsi lieu à des interactions, qui si elles sont d'une autre nature que dans ces deux sphères, n'en sont pas moins socialisantes. Les pratiques de mobilité participent de ce fait aux différentes manières d'habiter des adolescents, tout autant que les interactions quotidiennes qu'ils ont dans leur famille ou dans leur quartier. Se focaliser sur les ZUS permet alors d'enrichir les approches traditionnelles de la ségrégation, qui insistent sur une influence néfaste du cadre urbain sur les adolescents et ne prennent pas en compte les effets socialisants de leurs pratiques de mobilité. Nous montrons que ces pratiques sont cependant déterminées par trois éléments principaux : l'environnement social, économique et géographique des adolescents ; les dispositions qu'ils ont acquises dans la sphère familiale ou leur quartier de résidence ; les épreuves de co-présence avec des citadins d'un autre milieu social et résidentiel dont ils ont déjà fait l'expérience. Pour répondre à nos questions de recherche, nous nous appuyons sur des matériaux statistiques (l'enquête global transports et des indicateurs d'accès en transports en commun aux principales aménités urbaines franciliennes), une ethnographie d'un an dans une maison de quartier d'une ZUS de grande couronne ainsi que des projets de recherche-action dans sept établissements scolaires. Ces projets articulent quatre-vingt douze entretiens semi-directifs d'une heure et des ateliers thématiques sur la mobilité (photographies et écriture de textes). Ces matériaux nous ont permis de mettre en évidence les contraintes spécifiques qui pèsent sur la mobilité des adolescents de ZUS, mais également d'élaborer sept manières typiques d'habiter un quartier ségrégué ou à proximité. L'objectif de la construction de cette typologie n'est alors pas de classer stricto sensu les adolescents, mais de comprendre et d'expliquer pourquoi, dans un contexte donné, ils habitent de telle ou telle manière leur quartier / This PHD aims at documenting the spatial mobility practices of the teenagers who live in segregated neighbourhoods, so as to promote an understanding of life in such places and to explore potential desegregation effects of increased mobility. This issue is addressed here through the case of the "Zones urbaines sensibles" (ZUS) in the Parisian region, mainly the “cités” as coined by the French. So as to understand what distinguishes the teenagers who live in ZUS from the others, so as to understand also what divides them, we have chosen to apprehend them under the double angle of their district and social background. That double angle allows to take into account the social socio-spatial distinctions within the ZUS but also to question the theory of a gradual replacement of the social issue by “a new urban issue” : social problems would no longer be apprehended as class conflicts centred on work but as segregation. The fact of taking into account the mobility capacities of the teenagers living in ZUS without disregarding the influence of their residential and social environment on these practices leads us then to wonder whether the working and lower middle-class teenagers of ZUS have a specific and homogeneous use of space inside and outside their district?In order to answer this question, we mainly focused on three materials : the Parisian metropolitan mobility survey, an ethnographic survey of about one year with young boys frequenting the local community centres of a municipality in the outer suburbs, seven in-school research projects consisting in about ninety-two one-hour interviews as well as thematic work on mobility in class (photos and writing mainly). These materials reveal seven predominant ways of using the space inside and outside the neighbourhood including public transportation. These seven predominant ways, influenced by social and territorial variables, depict the heterogeneity of the inhabitants of the ZUS

This Master thesis aims at testing the intertemporal substitution hypothesis (ISH) for small and medium enterprises in Bosnia and Herzegovina. We predicted a positive relationship between the hours worked and the transitory changes in wages, and tested the hypothesis using the data collected via surveys of small entrepreneurs in North-Western Bosnia and Herzegovina; collecting data on daily income and the hours worked. The estimated wage elasticities are positive and different from zero, according to which it appears that the hypothesis of negative wage elasticities has no empirical evidence in the case of Bosnian and Herzegovinian entrepreneurs. This result implies that the intertemporal labour substitution hypothesis found supportive evidence and that we can reject the daily targeting hypothesis. We also argue that entrepreneurs tend to pursue profits across working days because their main motive for running a business is the accumulation of capital and wealth, so that they follow the pattern of intertemporal labour substitution. The findings can be explained by an unfavourable business climate in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which is a result of a long-lasting transition process the country is still undergoing. Keywords: labour supply, elasticity, intertemporal substitution, daily targeting, SMEs,...