Bakgrund: Hälsofördelarna med amning är välkända, och sedan 1992 försöker svenska sjukhus arbeta efter internationella amningsrekommendationer. Trots detta framkommer brister i vården och amningsstatistiken i Sverige sjunker. Syfte: Syftet med denna studie var att undersöka amningsdurationen hos förstföderskor, om den kunde associeras med vården de fått i samband med barnets födelse och första levnadsdygn, samt med mammornas skattning av amningsstöd vid amningsstart. Metod: Designen var en longitudinell kvantitativ tvärsnittsstudie och urvalet var icke slumpmässigt konsekutivt. I samband med utskrivning från BB, tillfrågades 63 mammor om att delta i en enkätstudie med frågor gällande vården de fått i relation till amning och 52 mammor besvarade enkäten. Efter nio till tolv månader blev de uppringda för en kortare uppföljning och 50 mammor valde att delta. Resultat: Medianen för durationen av exklusiv amning var tre månader och tre veckor och medianen för durationen av partiell amning var åtta månader. Amningsstödet på BB skattades högre vid det första mättillfället, men det påvisades inte ha något samband med amningsdurationen. Faktorer i vården såsom; hudnära vård, amning inom två timmar eller handgriplig amningshjälp, bidrog inte till någon skillnad i amningsduration. Däremot påverkades amningsdurationen negativt hos de barn som fått tillmatning på BB, med en kortare exklusiv amningsduration som följd, och de som fötts med kejsarsnitt, med kortare amningsduration såväl exklusivt som partiellt. Slutsats: Medianen för durationen av exklusiv amning var tre månader och tre veckor och medianen för durationen av partiell amning var åtta månader.  Faktorer i vården som inverkade negativt på amningsdurationen var tillmatning på BB samt att barnet fötts med kejsarsnitt. Däremot fanns ingen association mellan amningsduration och amningsstöd, hudnära vård, amning inom två timmar eller handgriplig hjälp. / Background: The health benefits of breastfeeding are well known and since 1992, Swedish hospitals aim to provide care according to international guidelines of breastfeeding support. Despite this, there are inadequacies in the care provided, and the frequency of breastfeeding in Sweden is statistically decreasing. Aim: The aim of this study was to investigate the duration of breastfeeding among primiparas, if the duration was associated with the provided care and with how the mothers valued the help and support they received at the initiation of breastfeeding. Method: A quantitative longitudinal with consecutive sample was conducted. At discharge from hospital, 63 mothers were asked if they wanted to participate in a survey about breastfeeding and the related care, and 52 mothers filled in the questionnaire. After nine to twelve months the participants were contacted by phone for a short follow-up, and 50 mothers chose to participate. Results: The median duration of exclusive breastfeeding was three months and three weeks and the median duration of partial breastfeeding was eight months. The evaluation of the breastfeeding support was higher at the first data collection but did not appear to correlate with the duration of breastfeeding. Of the investigated factors; skin-to-skin contact immediately after birth, breastfeeding within two hours after birth and hands-on support, none of them led to differences in breastfeeding duration. Breastfeeding duration was adversely affected if the infant was given formula at the maternity ward and if the infant was born by Caesarean section. Feeding by infant formula led to a shorter duration of exclusive breastfeeding and birth by Caesarean section led to a shorter duration of both exclusive and partial breastfeeding. Conclusion: The median duration of exclusive breastfeeding was three months and three weeks and the median duration of partial breastfeeding was eight months. The infant being given formula at the maternity ward, and being born by Caesarean section were factors that adversely affected the duration of breastfeeding. However, there was no association between breastfeeding duration and; perceived breastfeeding support, skin-to-skin-care, breastfeeding within two hours or hands-on support.

No description available.

Foreign accent can be everything from hardly detectable to rendering the second language speech unintelligible. It is assumed that certain aspects of a specific target language contribute more to making the foreign accented speech intelligible and listener friendly, than others. The present thesis examines a teaching strategy for Swedish pronunciation in second language education. The teaching strategy “Basic prosody” or BP, gives priority to temporal aspects of Swedish prosody, which means the temporal phonological contrasts word stress and quantity, as well as the durational realizations of these contrasts. BP does not prescribe any specific tonal realizations. This standpoint is based on the great regional variety in realization and distribution of Swedish word accents. The teaching strategy consists virtually of three directives: · Stress the proper word in the sentence. · Stress proper syllables in stressed words and make them longer. · Lengthen the proper segment – vowel or subsequent consonant – in the stressed syllable. These directives reflect the view that all phonological length is stress-induced, and that vowel length and consonant length are equally important as learning goals. BP is examined in the light of existing findings in the field of second language pronunciation and with respect to the phonetic correlates of Swedish stress and quantity. Five studies examine the relation between segment durations and the categorization made by native Swedish listeners. The results indicate that the postvocalic consonant duration contributes to quantity categorization as well as giving the proper duration to stressed syllables. Furthermore, native Swedish speakers are shown to apply the complementary /V: C/ - /VC:/ pattern also when speaking English and German, by lengthening postvocalic consonants. The correctness of the priority is not directly addressed but important aspects of BP are supported by earlier findings as well as the results from the present studies. / <p>För att köpa boken skicka en beställning till exp@ling.su.se/ To order the book send an e-mail to exp@ling.su.se</p>

Duration models are often concerned with time intervals between trades, longer durations indicating a lack of trading activities. In this thesis, we study parameter estimation for the Autoregressive Conditional Duration (ACD) and Stochastic Conditional Duration (SCD) models. Maximum likelihood methods can usually be used in the case of ACD models. However, the SCD models are based on the assumption that durations are generated by a dynamic stochastic latent variable which is often perturbed by Exponential, Weibull, Gamma or Log-Normal distributed innovations. This makes the use of maximum likelihood methods difficult. One alternative method of parameter estimation, in this case, consists in using quasi-maximum likelihood after transforming the original nonlinear model into a state-space model and using the Kalman filter, a similar filtering scheme or the Generalized Method of Moments (GMM). We use the nonlinear filter and GMM method to analyze the Quadratic Stochastic Conditional duration model as well.

(None) Technical Summary of Thesis: The topic of my thesis is currency crisis. Currency crises have been a recurrent feature of the international economy from the invention of paper money. They are not confined to particular economies or specific region. They take place in developed, emerging, and developing countries and are spread all over the globe. Countries that experience currency crises face economic losses that can be huge and disruptive. However, the exacted toll is not only financial and economic, but also human, social, and political. It is clear that the currency crisis is a real threat to financial stability and economic prosperity. The main objective of this thesis is to analyze the determinants of currency crises for twenty OECD countries and South Africa from 1970 through 1998. It systematically examines the role of economic fundamentals and contagion in the origins of currency crises and empirically attempts to identify the channels through which the crises are being transmitted. It also examines the links between the incidence of currency crises and the choice of exchange rate regimes as well as the impact of capital market liberalization policies on the occurrence of currency crises. The first chapter identifies the episodes of currency crisis in our data set. Determining true crisis periods is a vital step in the empirical studies and has direct impact on the reliability of their estimations and the relevant policy implications. We define a period as a crisis episode when the Exchange Market Pressure (EMP) index, which consists of changes in exchange rates, reserves, and interest rates, exceeds a threshold. In order to minimize the concerns regarding the accuracy of identified crisis episodes, we apply extreme value theory, which is a more objective approach compared to other methods. In this chapter, we also select the reference country, which a country’s currency pressure index should be built around, in a more systematic way rather than by arbitrary choice or descriptive reasoning. The second chapter studies the probability of a currency exiting a tranquil state into a crisis state. There is an extensive literature on currency crises that empirically evaluate the roots and causes of the crises. Despite the interesting results of the current empirical literature, only very few of them account for the influence of time on the probability of crises. We use duration models that rigorously incorporate the time factor into the likelihood functions and allow us to investigate how the amount of time that a currency has already spent in the tranquil state affects the stability of a currency. Our findings show that high values of volatility of unemployment rates, inflation rates, contagion factors (which mostly work through trade channels), unemployment rates, real effective exchange rate, trade openness, and size of economy increases the hazard of a crisis. We make use of several robustness checks, including running our models on two different crisis episodes sets that are identified based on monthly and quarterly type spells. The third chapter examines the links between the incidence of currency crises and the choice of exchange rate regimes as well as the impact of capital market liberalization policies on the occurrence of currency crises. As in our previous paper, duration analysis is our methodology to study the probability of a currency crisis occurrence under different exchange rate regimes and capital mobility policies. The third chapter finds that there is a significant link between the choice of exchange rate regime and the incidence of currency crises in our sample. Nevertheless, the results are sensitive to the choice of the de facto exchange rate system. Moreover, in our sample, capital control policies appear to be helpful in preventing low duration currency crises. The results are robust to a wide variety of sample and models checks.

ABSTRACT ESSAYS ON UNEMPLOYMENT IN TURKEY TaS&ccedil / i, H. Mehmet Ph.D., Department of Economics Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Aysit Tansel March 2005, 223 pages In this study we examine the Turkish labor market by using the Household Labor Force Survey data for the years 2000 and 2001. There are three main essays in this study. In the first essay, the determinants of transitions between the labor market states of employment, unemployment, and out-of-labor force are examined by using multinomial-logit models. We observe from the transitions out of employment that workers with low education and those working in the non-public sector have a higher risk of losing their job than those with higher education and those working in the public sector. In the second essay, grouped duration approach is used to find the determinants of unemployment duration and test whether there is an evidence of duration dependence in unemployment. In the third essay, we distinguish the first-time job-seekers from the other job-seekers, and analyze the determinants of unemployment duration for these groups, separately. The last two parts of this study shows the main characteristics of the short-term and long-term unemployed people in Turkey. We find that individual and demographic characteristics as well as local labor market conditions are important factors in explaining the duration of unemployment for working-age groups. We observe that individuals with higher education (i.e. graduated from a university) have shorter unemployment duration than those with lower education (i.e. primary, middle and high school graduates). Our overall findings (both from transition and duration applications) suggest that women are in the disadvantaged position in the Turkish labor market. Further, regardless of gender difference, we observe that labor market conditions are significant determinant of transitions in the labor market. The same is also observed in the unemployment duration part for all data as well as for both first-time and other job-seekers.

No description available.

A lo largo de los ultimos diez años los economistas hemos reconocido que en muchos casos las decisiones individuales se ven afectadas por las decisiones, los comportamientos las preferencias de otros agentes no solamente atraves del mercado sino tambien directamente por imitacion o aprendimiento, por el desarrollo de reglas sociales compartidas, por la difusion de informacion. Muchos estudios han estudiado estos mecanismos en varios contextos. Entre otros destacan la educacion, el mercado laboral, la criminalidad, las habitudines sanitarias. La relevancia de estos efectos de neighborhood es positiva y normativa a la vez. Por un lado, su existencia contribuye a la comprension de la extrema variabilidad de algunos fenomenos economicos entre grupos de individuos aparentemente homogeneos. Por otro lado, su existencia es una componente fundamental para el desarollo de intervenciones eficientes por parte del policy maker. Los estudios de la tesis analizan estos efectos en el contexto de las decisiones esscolares y en el mercado laboral. En el primer capitulo se muestra como la decision y el exito en completar la educacion segundaria por parte de los varones adolescentes afecta positivamente la de las mujeres de la misma edad residentes en las mismas ciudades. La muestra campionaria utilizada permite conlcuir que la correlacion entre los exitos de los varones y de las mujeres corresponde de hecho a una relacion causal entre las dos variables. Se concluye que cualquier intervencion que consiga aumentar la probabilidad de completar los estudios segundarios de los varones del uno por ciento tendrà como consequencia tambien un aumento de la probabilidad de las mujeres adolescentes de completar estos estudios entre 0.6 y 0.7 por ciento. En el segundo capitulo se evaluan los efectos sobre la durada del paro de pertenecer a un grupo social mas amplio.

Introduction: Breast milk is the best way to feed all infants. It results in better nutrition for the infant and to reduced rates of chronic disease later in childhood and adulthood. Breastfed babies have lower rates of infectious diseases and will not be exposed to contaminated infant formula, such as the recent experience with melamine in China. The WHO Expert Consultation on Infant Feeding recommended exclusive breastfeeding for six months, with the introduction of complementary foods and continued breastfeeding thereafter. It was also recommended by the WHO that breastfeeding continue beyond six months for up to two years and beyond. Breastmilk can provide the majority of nutrients for the first 12 months of life. Complementary foods were given in the second half year gradually. / However with the rapid economic development, the traditional home based obstetric system in China has changed. Following the change in women’s living styles, traditional infant feeding perceptions and practices have changed. Women now have high rates of returning to work after delivering a baby, especially in the urban areas, and more infants are being given infant formula and other substitutes for breastfeeding. Zhejiang Province is the one of fastest developing economic regions located in the mid Eastern coast of China. The breastfeeding rate has dropped rapidly since the 1970’s. This has significant implications for the child health in this region. A longitudinal study of breastfeeding was needed to provide the data necessary to implement a comprehensive health promotion program. Efforts are needed to promote breastfeeding, which should be one of the highest health promotion priorities. / The aim of this study was to document the prevalence and duration of breastfeeding and exclusive breastfeeding in city, suburban and rural areas in Zhejiang Province; analyze the factors determining the initiation and the duration of breastfeeding; document mothers’ knowledge about the benefits of breastfeeding; identify the prevalence of problems associated with breastfeeding and constraints to exclusive breastfeeding up to six months of life; document the prevalence of prelacteal feeds and finally to describe differences in breastfeeding between city, suburb and rural area. / Method: In order to achieve these objectives a longitudinal cohort study was undertaken of infant feeding practices in three locations in Zhejiang Province which represent city and suburban and rural areas. Mothers who delivered babies during 2004 and 2005 were randomly selected from the obstetric wards while in hospital and invited to voluntarily participate in the study. The mothers were interviewed in hospital and after discharge, were contacted by telephone three more times at 1, 3 and 6 months. The few mothers who could not be reached by telephone were interviewed during the scheduled routine immunisation clinics at their local MCH clinic. On each of these follow up occasions they were interviewed using a structured questionnaire to obtain details of infant feeding practices. A total of 1520 mothers were recruited in 4 hospitals located in city, suburb and rural areas. Almost all mothers (98%) agreed to participate. All data analyses were carried out using the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS), release 14.0 (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA). Descriptive techniques and survival analysis were used to document breastfeeding rates and duration. Cox regression analysis was undertaken to explore factors affecting breastfeeding. / Results: Of the total 1520 mothers were recruited into the study, 628 were from the city, 347 from the suburb and 535 from the rural area. Breastfeeding initiation rates were high in all three locations. Initially more than 95% of the mothers began breastfeeding, but only 50.3% babies averagely in three locations were being exclusively breastfed at discharge. The number of infants being exclusively breastfed prior to discharge was relatively low. Exclusive breastfeeding before discharge was positively related to delivery method, the first feed given to the baby, mother’s place of residence, mother’s age, mothers’ education level and family income. / ‘Any breastfeeding’ rates at discharge and at 1, 3 and 6 months were 96.9%, 96.0%, 89.7% and 76.7% respectively. ‘Exclusive breastfeeding’ rates at discharge, and at 1, 3, 6 months were 50.3%, 55.1%, 45.8% and 3.9% respectively. The average duration of ‘exclusive breastfeeding’ was 44.7 days (95% CI, 41.6-47.9). / Overall about half of mothers gave the babies prelacteal feeds before commencing breastfeeding. This situation was more common in city, compared with the suburban and rural mothers. The prelacteal feeding rates were 62.0%, 36.6% and 39.0% in city, suburb and rural area respectively. / The breastfeeding rates differed by location between the city, suburb and rural areas. ‘Any breastfeeding’ rates in the city, suburb and rural area at discharge were 96.5 %, 96.8 % and 97.4 % respectively, the ‘exclusive breastfeeding’ rates in city, suburb and rural area at discharge were 38.0%, 63.4 % and 61.0 % respectively. The rates of exclusive breastfeeding at six months were only 0.2%, 0.5 % and 7.2 % respectively, well below the Chinese and WHO targets. / The risk factors related to cessation of ‘any breastfeeding’ were ‘mother’s age’, ‘the time the decision to breastfeed was made’, ‘whether the infant was admitted to special care nursery’, ‘mother’s return to work within 6 months’, ‘the early feeding of water and /or other complementary foods, and location of mother’s usual residence. Factors negatively associated with ‘exclusive breastfeeding’ duration were early return to work and to place of residence, with the mothers living in the rural area exclusively breastfeeding for longer. / Delivery method was an important influence on breastfeeding. In this study the highest caesarean section rate was in the city (76%), with a similar rate in the suburbs (74%) and the lowest in the rural area (53%). Mothers who had a caesarean section were less likely to be exclusively breastfeeding on discharge (35.8% in city, 59.6% in the suburbs) compared to vaginal delivery where the rates were 45% and 74.4% respectively. The adjusted odds ratio for exclusive breastfeeding in caesarean section deliveries in the city and suburban mothers was 0.64 (95% CI 0.46, 0.88). / Conclusion: The study has descried the initiation and duration of breastfeeding (to six months) of babies in the different areas of Zhejiang Province. Separate information is provided on the prevalence of ‘any breastfeeding’ and ‘exclusive breastfeeding'. The factors that are associated with the initiation and duration of breastfeeding in Zhejiang Province are documented. Health promotion programs are needed to change some traditional inappropriate breastfeeding perceptions and to promote ‘exclusive breastfeeding’ in the first six months of life in Zhejiang. Education should be given and regulations should be introduced restricting hospital staff from recommending prelacteal and supplementary feeds unless warranted for medical reasons. The research also shows that there would be a benefit to breastfeeding if delivery and lactation leave were extended to six months and if the incidence of caesarean section could be reduced to levels more consistent with WHO expected levels.

There are many public health organizations with guidelines concerning the best first-aid treatment for burn injuries. The Australian and New Zealand Burn Association recommends that a burn wound should be cooled with tap water (8-20°C) for 20 minutes, up to three hours after the injury has occurred. However, the evidence that these guidelines are based on is inconclusive and contradictory. As a result of the conflicting published data, there is controversy over whether ice water or ice may confer any beneficial wound healing effects, and what temperature of water is optimal. In the wider community there are also many different alternative therapies believed to be beneficial for the treatment of burn injuries which do not have much evidence to support their use. In this study, patients were found to use agents such as Aloe vera, tea tree oil dressings, butter, toothpaste, papaya ointment and moisturizer on the burn wound. The aim of this work was to review the current field of first-aid treatment for burn injuries and obtain evidence for the optimum first aid treatment using a good animal model, with clinically relevant assessments of wound healing and scar formation. The mechanisms behind the best first aid treatment were also investigated in an effort to better understand and identify the factors involved in optimal wound healing. Studies showed that cool running water at 15°C and 2°C improved the speed of wound healing, gave a better cosmetic outcome and decreased amounts of scar tissue compared to untreated controls. Other treatments Aloe vera, tea tree oil dressings, ice and saliva did not improve wound healing compared to untreated controls. All cold treatments acted to decrease the subdermal temperature, however as the running water was beneficial for wound healing whereas the ice was not, this suggests that the running water acts through other non-thermal mechanisms. Further studies showed that immediate treatment with 15°C water for 20 minutes duration significantly improved the re-epithelialization for 2 weeks post-burn and decreased the distribution of scar tissue compared to untreated controls, however durations as short as 10 minutes and delays of treatment for 1 hour (and perhaps longer) were also beneficial. An audit of first aid used by pediatric patients demonstrated that although 86.1% of patients used first aid, only 12.1% applied the recommended first aid treatment of cold water for 20 or more minutes. For those that did use correct first aid, re-epithelialization time and number of hospital visits were significantly reduced for children with contact and flame burns, respectively. Inadequate first aid treatment was also found to be more common for children <3.5 years old and for friction burn injuries. These studies provide compelling evidence that correct first aid treatment of burn injuries results in improved clinical outcomes, which benefit the patient as well as health care providers. There is a definite need for greater public awareness concerning the correct first aid treatment to use for burn injuries.