The aim of this paper is to contribute to the understanding of how Filipino female returnees cope with the experience of labour trafficking when reintegrated into their home communities, and how this coping relate to existing research on comparable returnee experiences. The empirical material consists of qualitative interviews with five returnees, conducted during an eight-week stay in the Philippines. The study identifies coping strategies adapted upon return, and analyzes them in the light of the local context and previous studies in the field. The results of the study indicate that, according to the women’s descriptions, strategies related to the escape/avoidance coping type are adapted to a higher extent than other types of coping strategies. These strategies seem to be highly related to the experience or fear of becoming victims of gossiping neighbours and/or patronizing family members. Distancing through humour was also appearing to a great extent in all the interviews, as well as seeking social support. It was found that the strategies expressed by the women were mostly emotion-focused or dysfunctional as opposed to problem-focused, but in many cases active as opposed to passive. The most common social support resources appearing in the interviews were the family, the church, and the supporting organization. The experiences of the respondents have a lot in common with the experiences brought forward in other studies in the same field, though it is important to be aware of the different social and cultural settings in which most of the existing research has been implemented. With this study, the author hopes to contribute to a better understanding of what kind of support Filipino female labour trafficking returnees are in need of, and how to further develop the support system for them and similar groups.

Increased demand for reliable public transit is motivating new and innovative transportation solutions. Monorail trains are quickly being established as transportation solutions for dense urban areas, due to their unobtrusive infrastructure. To obtain maximum value from investments made, the infrastructure is required to last longer than typical reinforced concrete. This thesis will explore the use of glass-fibre reinforced polymer (GFRP) bars as reinforcement in concrete guideway beams as a means of avoiding the deterioration problems that plague steel-reinforced concrete. This thesis includes a two part investigation: a full-scale field application of a GFRP-reinforced concrete guideway beam (690 mm x 1,500 mm x 11,600 mm), compared to a typical steel-reinforced beam (both installed on a 1.86 km long monorail test track); and a laboratory study of a scaled-down version of the GFRP-reinforced beam to better predict behaviour beyond typical service load levels. A total of 450 test passes of a two-car monorail train were observed over the two instrumented beams on the track. These passes were performed at vehicle loads ranging from fully unloaded for the first testing phase, up to the maximum allowable design service load. At each stage of testing, vehicle speeds ranged from as low as 5 km/h to as high as 90 km/h, allowing for the dynamic behaviour of the guideway to be observed and quantified. Deflections, strains, and cracks were recorded and compared with code/guideline limitations as well as to numerical predictions to determine which design tools were most effective and could predict behaviour accurately. In the laboratory, the half-scale GFRP-reinforced beam was tested statically to failure, and the behaviour was compared to the same modelling tools used in the field study. Based on the testing performed, the GFRP-reinforced concrete beams performed satisfactorily and met all serviceability requirements, but did not perform as well as the steel-reinforced beam (as a result of the reduced stiffness of GFRP). The use of non-prestressed GFRP-reinforced beams should be limited to applications where spans are of comparable length to the field study. To maintain satisfactory performance, guideway spans significantly longer will need to continue to be design as prestressed beams. / Thesis (Master, Civil Engineering) -- Queen's University, 2014-01-31 15:15:31.307

In Tanzania development has been on the agenda for a long time and one of the steps that has been taken to try to affect change is through communication and information. Under the first president of Tanzania, Julius Nyere, the media was monopolized and utilized as a tool for the government to push its agenda for development. Today, however, the media looks a bit differ-ent from the time of Nyerere, with a majority of privately owned media. Despite the focus on development the situation in public health is still poor, with both communicable diseases (i.e. HIV/AIDS and malaria) and non-communicable diseases (i.e. cancer and diabetes) claiming a lot of premature deaths. This thesis is a minor field study, financed by a scholarship from the Swedish International Development Agency (Sida). Its purpose is to examine the professional ideals of Tanzanian journalism today when it comes to health reporting and the development in public health. To fulfil this purpose interviews were conducted with journalists at three Anglophone daily newspapers (Daily News, The Citizen and The Guardian) in the economic capital, Dar es Salaam. Initially a quantitative content analysis was conducted. How the journalists feel that they can live up to their ideals and what obstacles they see in doing so was also examined. The study showed that the journalists want to contribute to the development, but that their ideals in how to do so differ. The most prevalent ideal was that the media should work to in­form and to educate the public. At the government owned newspaper, Daily News, the united front of the media and the government lived on. They felt responsible to stick to the govern­ment agenda. However, they also expressed that they felt responsible towards the ordinary people. The journalists felt that they could not live up to their ideals, especially the ideal of being the voice of the voiceless, because of the economic situation of the newspaper. The economic situation also affected the privately owned newspapers. The more active role of watchdog was more prevalent at these newspapers but was rarely practiced due to lack of resources. / Minor Field Study (Sida)

Företag leds av människor. Människor som lever i ett samhälle med en lång historia. I denna avhandling argumenteras för att historiskt framsprungna ideal för företagsledning och företagsledare är av stor betydelse i nuet. För att förstå dagens mångfacetterade praktik – här studeras ett företag och dess ledning över en längre period - måste historiens avlagringar blottläggas. Modern företagsledning ses här som en roll för någon att iklä sig – en roll som tycks handla om sådant som ”strategi” och ”kultur”. Företagsledare skall fastlägga strategier och skapa kulturer. Men hur skall detta göras? Och hur skall företagsledare vara i övrigt? Här finns djupare tankar och känslor hos människor – sådant som handlar om vem ”jag” är. Industrialismens historia har producerat typiska svar på sådana frågor. För företagsledare är en central del av svaret ofta ”jag är en man”. Ideal för män är viktiga som ideal för företagsledare, och tvärtom. Praktisk företagsledning kan därmed ses som en blandning av modernt instrumentellt handlande i termer av strategi och kultur och något mindre moderna handlingar som handlar om vem jag är i tingens ordning. Är jag till exempel en Tuffing eller en Expert? Avhandlingen utmynnar i en återupptäckt av ytterligare en aspekt: det som varken är modernt eller helt omodernt. / Diss. Stockholm : Handelshögsk., 2002

In contemporary software development, an emergent understanding of the problem domain and envisioned goals forms the basis of designing, testing and development activities. Lack of a common understanding of the domain can result in costly rework or client dissatisfaction. Research shows that the development of shared understanding in this context is a complex and error-prone process and there is room for improvement. Is this because practitioners are not following suggested practice from literature? Or are the actual barriers to shared understanding not being addressed by current tools and techniques? Is the development of shared domain understanding even viewed as problematic (or even important) by practitioners? These are some questions that need to be investigated in order to effectively design process improvements and tool support in this area, yet there is little information related to this. This study takes a multi-case study approach, which incorporate semi-structured interviews with representative from ten small-to-medium organisations. This study focuses on the vendor’s perspective and includes a mix of application domains. Result of the interviews is analysed to discover themes and patterns related to an analysis framework constructed from the literature review. The findings indicate that vendors perceive the process of developing shared application-domain understanding with their clients as being both problematic and important to a successful implementation. Twelve barriers have been identified from the analysis. The results also confirm that the process of sharing understanding development is generally perceived as being evolutionary and collaborative. This process is described by most interviewees comprises iterative phases of elicitation, confirmation and refinement of the understanding. A definite preference for face-to-face interaction is evident at regular times throughout development, particularly in early stages, although the importance of ad-hoc communications by phone or email, as domain knowledge needs arise, is also emphasised. Access to cooperative domain-expert throughout development is generally seen as a critical success factor. Several companies report using in-house domain-expert as client “proxies” in this regard. There is a mix of attitudes apparent regarding the direct communications of developers with client stakeholders. This ranged from insisting that developers are involved from initial elicitation and “kick-off” meetings, to “shielding” developers almost entirely from client. In terms of representations of understanding, participants relate natural-language, screen-shots, mock-ups, prototypes and product-demonstrations as the most useful artefacts for sharing and confirming understanding of the problem domain. They emphasise the importance of flexibility and client familiarity with the representations. In general, there is no clear separation between problem and solution spaces evident when the interviewees discussed representations of understanding, and the preference seems to be for concrete rather than abstract representations. In conclusion, comparisons between the findings and literature generally confirm contemporary thinking regarding domain knowledge sharing, although a number of barriers were given particular emphasis in this field study. The use of computer-based tool support is not widespread and the need to improve the domain knowledge sharing process and tool support in practice is widely acknowledged by the participants in this investigation. This study has identified some fruitful areas of research in this regard.

Menstrual hygiene management (MHM) has for long been a neglected topic within development research, policy and practice, despite findings recognising how insufficient MHM poses obstacles to women and girls’ well-being and quality of life. Those living in low-resource settings are especially vulnerable to such challenges. This thesis aims to provide empirical evidence for the relationship between improved MHM and human development. Amartya Sen’s capability approach serves as the starting point, suggesting that development is the process of expanding capabilities to lead a life one has reason to value. It is argued that the use of menstrual cups enables the achievement of capabilities, by removing obstacles to these. This hypothesis is tested using material collected during a field study in Uganda. Two groups of women and girls have been interviewed and compared – one in which everyone is using menstrual cups, and one in which everyone is using pads or cloths. The results show that capabilities to a larger extent are achieved among the women and girls using menstrual cups, than among those using pads or cloths. Moreover, obstacles to capabilities were predominantly present in the second group. The findings thereby support the theoretical argument, demonstrating that the use of menstrual cups removes obstacles – positively impacting capabilities. This highlights the importance of considering MHM as a key aspect of sustainable development.

In the last years, the number of freely available Linked and Open Data datasets has multiplied into tens of thousands. The numbers of applications taking advantage of it, however, have not. Thus, large portions of potentially valuable data remain unexploited and are inaccessible for lay users. Therefore the upfront investment in releasing data in the first place is hard to justify. The lack of applications needs to be addressed in order not to undermine efforts put into Linked and Open Data. In existing research, strong indicators can be found that the dearth of applications is due to a lack of pragmatic, working architectures supporting these applications and guiding developers. In this thesis, a new architecture for the integration and application of Linked and Open Data is presented. Fundamental design decisions are backed up by two studies: firstly, based on real-world Linked and Open Data samples, characteristic properties are identified. A key finding is the fact that large amounts of structured data display tabular structures, do not use clear licensing and involve multiple different file formats. Secondly, following on from that study, a comparison of storage choices in relevant query scenarios is made. It includes the de-facto standard storage choice in this domain, Triples Stores, as well as relational and NoSQL approaches. Results show significant performance deficiencies of some technologies in certain scenarios. Consequently, when integrating Linked and Open Data in scenarios with application-specific entities, the first choice of storage is relational databases. Combining these findings and related best practices of existing research, a prototype framework is implemented using Java 8 and Hibernate. As a proof-of-concept it is employed in an existing Linked and Open Data integration project. Thereby, it is shown that a best practice architectural component is introduced successfully, while development effort to implement specific program code can be simplified. Thus, the present work provides an important foundation for the development of semantic applications based on Linked and Open Data and potentially leads to a broader adoption of such applications.

Since the Soviet collapse in 1991, Cuba tried intensively to attract foreign direct investments in order to improve the economic situation. The first reform was made in 1995, which was not a success, since both foreign direct investment and joint ventures decreased in the beginning of the 21st Century. In response, the government implemented a new law concerning foreign direct investment in 2014, with more relaxed regulations and increased benefits for the investors. This study aimed to examine whether the 2014 reform had solved the problems that existed under the previous law and the new reforms had helped Cuba’s exports. The purpose was therefore to investigate to which industry foreign direct investment should be allocated. The study took two approaches. First, it applied the Revealed Comparative Advantage model to distinguish effective from ineffective industries. It included a field study that aimed to gain understanding of the effect the new law has had so far, and whether it could improve exports. In addition, the field study attempted to determine where foreign direct investment should be allocated. The results indicated that Cuba has a comparative advantage in two industries: mining and agriculture. These industries were therefore examined in the field study. Key findings showed that ongoing issues, such as bureaucracy, lack of legal security and the wage policies of government employment agencies still exist, despite the introduction of new legislation. However, the new law may create increasing export possibilities in the food and mining industries, since Cuba has an outwardly-orientated policy and large factor proportions in agriculture and mining that could be exploited. / Minor Field Study (MFS)

This study is a Minor Field Study and is funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA). At the end of 2016 there were 1.4 million people living with HIV in Tanzania; That same year approximately 55.000 people were newly infected with the disease. The most frequent route of infection is through mother to child transmission (MTCT). The risk of transmission can be reduced with the help of medication and other strategies, called prevention of mother-to-child-transmission (PMTCT) of HIV. Tanzania is working actively with these prevention programs, however the rates of MTCT still remains high in the country. Due to their profession, nurses play a significant role in these prevention programs. They have an important role in educating the patients and encouraging a healthier lifestyle. Therefore, it is important to investigate nurses' experiences of working with PMTCT of HIV to gain knowledge and valuable information of their experiences. The aim of the study is to investigate local nurses' experiences of working with PMTCT of HIV in the Rufiji area in Tanzania. The data of the study have been collected through individual interviews with six nurses using a semi-structured guide with open questions. The nurses' experiences of working with PMTCT of HIV covers three key areas. First, they work actively with motivating the mothers in several significant areas, such as motivating the mothers to take a voluntary HIV-test and bringing their partners to undertake the HIV-test. Second, the nurses described the importance of counseling the mothers and their partners. One part in counseling is to get the mother's mind ready to receive the result of the HIV-test. Third, the nurses experienced stigma as something they all had to be aware of and meet in their everyday work life. Stigma from the community and relatives is one reason for poor adherence from the mothers to the PMTCT program.

A alelopatia, na qual uma espécie causa efeitos negativos sobre outra através da liberação de substâncias químicas, é um fenômeno que pode afetar comunidades vegetais. Em alguns casos, o estabelecimento de arbustos aromáticos em formações densas, com apenas poucas espécies ocorrendo em suas proximidades, é um padrão que tem sido relacionado aos efeitos fitotóxicos dos voláteis que os mesmos liberam. Em campos dos sul do Brasil, esse padrão de estabelecimento frequentemente ocorre para as espécies arbustivas aromáticas Heterothalamus psiadioides Less e Baccharis patens Baker, indicando a possibilidade de alelopatia. Dessa forma, o presente estudo teve como objetivo determinar se H. psiadioides e B. patens são fitotóxicas e se isso implica em efeitos negativos sobre a comunidade vegetal na qual os arbustos ocorrem. Em ensaios em laboratório, os efeitos dos voláteis liberados diretamente das folhas frescas e secas de H. psiadioides e B. patens foram testados sobre a germinação e o crescimento das plantas-alvo alface e cebola nas quatro estações do ano. Em um estudo em campo, foram avaliadas cobertura e biomassa vegetal, número de mudas, diversidade, riqueza, e variáveis de estrutura da vegetação no entorno de ambas as espécies arbustivas e onde não havia arbustos. Nos bioensaios, os voláteis de H. psiadioides e B. patens causaram inibição na porcentagem e velocidade de germinação e redução no tamanho da raiz e da parte aérea das plantas-alvo, sendo que folhas frescas apresentaram maior fitotoxidez. Esses parâmetros foram mais afetados por H. psiadioides que por B. patens em todas as estações, e os efeitos de ambas foram menores no verão. Em relação à investigação em campo, que objetivou avaliar os efeitos da espécie muito fitotóxica H. psiadioides sobre a comunidade vegetal, não foram observadas evidências de alelopatia. Houve maior riqueza e diversidade próximo a H. psiadioides, devido à menor cobertura de gramíneas dominantes. Variáveis de estrutura da vegetação e intensidade de luz explicaram os padrões observados de forma mais conclusiva que alelopatia. Esse estudo sugere que o potencial alelopático de plantas pode ser superestimado em bioensaios e que estudos em campo são necessários para demonstrar se efeitos alelopáticos são realmente relevantes em comunidades vegetais. Ainda, o trabalho ressalta a importância de conduzir estudos mais realistas em laboratório e de utilizar controles em estudos em campo. / Allelopathy, in which a species causes negative effects on another through the release of chemical substances, is a phenomenon that may affect plant communities. In some cases, the establishment of aromatic shrubs in dense stands, with few other species occurring in their surroundings, has been related to the phytotoxic effects of volatiles released by these shrubs. In South Brazilian grasslands, this pattern of establishment often occurs for the aromatic shrub species Heterothalamus psiadioides Less and Baccharis patens Baker, indicating the possibility of allelopathy. Thus, this study aimed to determine if H. psiadioides and B. patens are phytotoxic and if this implicates in negative effects on the plant community in which the shrubs occur. In laboratory assays, the effects of the volatiles released directly from fresh and dry leaves of H. psiadioides and B. patens on germination and growth of the target plants lettuce and onion were evaluated in four seasons. A field study was carried out, in which vegetation cover and biomass, number of seedlings, diversity, richness, and variables of vegetation structure were evaluated in the surroundings of both species and where there were not shrubs. In the bioassays, H. psiadioides and B. patens volatiles inhibited the germination rate and speed of germination and reduced the root and shoot length of the target plants, with fresh leaves showing higher phytotoxicity. These parameters were more strongly affected by H. psiadioides than by B. patens in all seasons, and effects of the both shrubs were lower in summer. In relation to the field investigation that aimed to quantify the effects of the highly phytotoxic H. psiadioides on the plant community, no evidences of allelopathy were found. Richness and diversity were higher near H. psiadioides, due to lower cover of dominant grasses. Variables of vegetation structure and light intensity explained vegetation patterns more conclusively than allelopathy. This study emphasizes that the allelopathic potential of plants can be overestimated in bioassays, and that field studies are necessary to elucidate if allelopathic effects are in fact significant in plant communities. Still, the relevance of conducting more realistic laboratory studies and of using controls in field studies is highlighted.