<p>In this text about the mathematics education in a primary school in the Gambia, I am researching what this mathematics education consists of and what surrounding factors might be affecting it. The pupils of the school in question speak several different languages. This language situation is one of the factors considered in the research. A connection between the real life led by the pupils and their mathematics education was a second factor. The third factor is financial resources or the lack thereof. I wanted to see if a lack of sufficient financial resources was visible in forming the education and the teaching of the pupils. The teaching of mathematics in the school seemed to be based on behaviourism, but could perhaps take benefit from the ethnomathematics perspective. Through observations, analyzing documents and an interview, I realized that the government had set ambitious objectives for the teachers to follow, but due to lack of economical resources, as far as my study found, these are not achieved. As ambitious objectives, which are not followed by sufficient funding is an issue not only applicable in Gambian schools and since Sweden is a growing multicultural society, I can use my knowledge from this study in my work in Swedish schools.</p> / MFS - Minor Field Studies

<p>This study concerns the experiences and feelings students in intermediate school gain from the changing room to sports class. It is a qualitative study with a socio-cultural approach, which has been analysed in a hermeneutic way. The students’ voices have been heard through interviews and questionnaires, and furthermore, to get a broader perspective, adults working in school, have also been interviewed. The study shows that many children feel discomfort without clothes in the changing room, furthermore that the absence of adults in this room may add to exercise of power amongst the student, like abuse, direct- and indirect threats or to exclude someone from the group. As a result, this could lead to consequences like students absence from school, lies and feelings of guilt. It could also influence other subjects in school if the absence is high or if the student has difficulties in concentrating in other subjects due to anxiety. The study also shows how important it is for all adults present in school to be observant and sensitive to what students say or to how they react in different situations since bullying and abuse is hard to talk about.</p>

<p>This is a Minor Field Study (MFS) which is a scholarship financed by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA). It was conducted in the province of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa in 2007/2008. The purpose of this study is to understand the role of the political representative in the system of political representation and it will test the different theories of political representation based on interests or identity. This study is concerned with the function of the political representatives as they are the link between the system of representation and the electorate. Since the election system is designed for political representation based on interest and the voting in South Africa suggests voting based on identity/race the representatives must balance these different signals.</p>

In this text about the mathematics education in a primary school in the Gambia, I am researching what this mathematics education consists of and what surrounding factors might be affecting it. The pupils of the school in question speak several different languages. This language situation is one of the factors considered in the research. A connection between the real life led by the pupils and their mathematics education was a second factor. The third factor is financial resources or the lack thereof. I wanted to see if a lack of sufficient financial resources was visible in forming the education and the teaching of the pupils. The teaching of mathematics in the school seemed to be based on behaviourism, but could perhaps take benefit from the ethnomathematics perspective. Through observations, analyzing documents and an interview, I realized that the government had set ambitious objectives for the teachers to follow, but due to lack of economical resources, as far as my study found, these are not achieved. As ambitious objectives, which are not followed by sufficient funding is an issue not only applicable in Gambian schools and since Sweden is a growing multicultural society, I can use my knowledge from this study in my work in Swedish schools. / MFS - Minor Field Studies

This paper introduces Express Location, a mobile web application, supporting drivers in delivery service in the daily coordination of work. Remote communication and cooperation takes place on a shared map view around the drivers’ locations and next stop, through a drawing/doodling tool and multiple visual object representations. The aim is to understand the working situation and the use of locations in the daily work to better support the coordination of mobile delivery work. / <p>© (2011) ACM. This is the author’s version of the work. It is posted here by permission of ACM for your personal use. Not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in <em>CSCW '11 Proceedings of the ACM 2011 conference on Computer supported cooperative work</em> http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1958824.1958956</p>

Ziel der Dissertation war die Überprüfung der klinischen Wirksamkeit von Natriumsalicylat bei respiratorischen Erkrankungen von Mastputen unter Feldbedingungen. Bisher existieren keine konkreten Richtlinien bzw. Modelle zum Versuchsaufbau beim Geflügel, und explizit bei der Pute, zur Durchführung einer derartigen Studie. Daher stellten sowohl die Konzeption als auch die Implementierung eines Studiendesigns zur Untersuchung der Wirksamkeit eines Antiphlogistikums bei der Mastpute unter Feldbedingungen eine zusätzliche elementare Zielsetzung dieser Promotion dar. Die in dieser Dissertationsschrift entwickelten Feldstudien orientieren sich an den Leitlinien der good clinical practice sowie der guideline for the conduct of efficacy studies for non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs und entsprechen der Wertigkeitsklasse Ia der evidenzbasierten Veterinärmedizin. Jede der drei Feldstudien wurde als kontrollierte, randomisierte und verblindete Parallelgruppenstudie in verschiedenen Regionen Deutschlands durchgeführt und gliederte sich in eine viertägige experimentelle Phase (EP) und eine siebentägige postexperimentelle Phase (PoP). Die zunächst definierten Arbeitshypothesen bekamen entsprechende Beurteilungskriterien zugewiesen. Unter deren Nutzung erfolgte die spätere Evaluierung, inwieweit die entzündungshemmende Wirkung von Natriumsalicylat imstande war, den Heilungsprozess der respiratorischen Grunderkrankung zu beschleunigen und eine verbesserte restitutio ad integrum hervorzurufen.

This study was sponsored by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) as a Minor Field Study. Background: The treatment of leprosy patients in endemic countries is free of charge. Despite that, leprosy is still a disease that is spreading and can lead to severe consequences such as disability. With leprosy comes also social stigma, discrimination and poverty which often affect the decision of seeking treatment at an early stage, or even treatment at all until the resulting disability forces the patient to seek help. With this study I wish to increase the knowledge of the importance of compliance and education in health care system with patients with leprosy, and to enlightening how nurses can promote this in their daily work. Problem rationale: Even though the importance of seeking early treatment is known, people tend not to seek treatment because of reasons such as stigma. As a nurse, one has responsibilities to care for the whole patient and to give the right information to handle the situation, but because of factors, such as stigma, it constitutes a challenge for nurses within the care of leprosy. Aim: To investigate nurses’ experiences of educating patients with leprosy, with emphasis on aspects of how to handle compliance problems in the treatment and how to support a patient with leprosy. Method: A qualitative study based on interviews held according to an interview guide with semi-structured questions. Result: The findings in this study emphasize the significance of education in order to gain and maintain compliance of treatment with the patients with leprosy even though nurses had many different ways of supporting by education. The findings were divided in to four main categories with in total eleven subcategories to present the techniques and methods of supporting the patients. Discussion: The importance of supporting the patients with leprosy in different ways by education has showed very clearly in the study. Though, at the same time nurses educate with medical knowledge, the patients are the experts in this case of the lived knowledge and this could be a problem to satisfy both aspects unless they complement each other. To do so, a dialog and a relationship of trust must be present between thepatient and the nurse, and this could be done through giving the patients time to express themselves and ask their questions of concern. When the questions and thoughts have been heard, the nurse can satisfy the patient’s need in a more accurate way and continue to support the patient with education and encouragement.

Personnel selection validation studies are routinely conducted in contemporary organizations for selecting and placing employees. Although numerous studies have been conducted with the goal of identifying new predictors, less research was focused on the criterion side. In the current paper, across three studies and five samples, I examined the role played by rater motivation in validation studies. I proposed that rater motivation would impact criterion-related validity of various predictors, the reliability, and the variance of performance ratings. In Study 1, these hypotheses were tested in two samples with varied operationalizations of predictors and of rater motivation. In Study 2, I developed and tested a theoretically based brief intervention designed to increase rater motivation. Study 3 examined directly the link between rater motivation and accuracy. The results suggest that rater motivation is important and should be considered in validation studies. Rater motivation impacted the criterion related validity of the predictors and the reliability of the ratings. Also, motivated raters showed higher convergence between subjective and objective ratings. The intervention resulted in increased response rates and more reliable ratings. Strengths, limitations and directions for future research are discussed.

This study concerns the experiences and feelings students in intermediate school gain from the changing room to sports class. It is a qualitative study with a socio-cultural approach, which has been analysed in a hermeneutic way. The students’ voices have been heard through interviews and questionnaires, and furthermore, to get a broader perspective, adults working in school, have also been interviewed. The study shows that many children feel discomfort without clothes in the changing room, furthermore that the absence of adults in this room may add to exercise of power amongst the student, like abuse, direct- and indirect threats or to exclude someone from the group. As a result, this could lead to consequences like students absence from school, lies and feelings of guilt. It could also influence other subjects in school if the absence is high or if the student has difficulties in concentrating in other subjects due to anxiety. The study also shows how important it is for all adults present in school to be observant and sensitive to what students say or to how they react in different situations since bullying and abuse is hard to talk about.

The aim of this thesis was to explore the spatiality’s affect on refugee’s sense of safety in the Osire refugee settlement in Namibia. The gathered empirics together with previous research and theories should lead to a design for a spatial information system. The system should contribute to peoples’ understanding of their environments’ whole structure as well as showing the way to the health centre and the police station, thus increasing their sense of psychological and physical safety. A wish was also to breathe life into the point of intersection of spatial information design and human science. The methods used to enable this were first and foremost a field study in the settlement to experience and acquire first-hand information. In addition observation, introspection and several interviews were conducted. As a result I established safety to be an issue that could be solved with spatial design. Refugees expressed that not knowing your environment or finding your way leaves you scared, uncomfortable and confused. With the use of a spatial information system safety can literally be created, as demonstrated in the design proposal. The conclusion is that much could be done to spatially solve complex issues as long as it’s addressed from that perspective.