This study investigates the driving forces of political participation in the Netherlands from a perspective of political equality. Following an article by Jan Teorell (2006) a procedural approach of political equality is examined by studying whether resources or incentives make up the primary driving forces of political participation. An equality hypothesis is derived from normative democratic theory perspectives of participation. The hypothesis is divided in two parts. 1a. and 1b. state that resources should have no direct impact on political participation and incentives should have a direct impact on political participation. Hypotheses 2.a. and 2.b. state that resources do not have an impact on incentives known to impact political participation and that incentives have an impact on resources known to impact political participation. The Dutch panel data LISS (Longitudinal Internet Studies for the Social Sciences) is used and cross-lagged effect models test the hypotheses. The panel data approach improves on previous research in that it ensures the correct temporal order of cause and effect. This helps us better understand the causal relationships at hand compared to previous cross-sectional approaches in the literature. This also enables us to disentangle the effects of all different factors on each other. The results show that while incentives do have some effect on political participation, resources remain significant when controlling for incentives. Furthermore, the results show that resources and incentives are tangled and have several reciprocal relationships with each other as well as political participation itself. In light of these findings, it is concluded that opportunities for political participation are not equal in the Netherlands, despite it being a least-likely case for political inequality. Additionally, the relationships between resources, incentives and political participation in relation to political equality are more complex than normally assumed in the literature.

Orientador: Adriano Garcia Chiarello / Resumo: O efeito da redução do habitat natural na biodiversidade é idiossincrática a respeito das relações que se estabelecem entre as espécies e as características das paisagens modificadas pelo homem. Nesse contexto, as evidências científicas evidenciam cada vez mais a importância de se utilizar não somente a escala espacial na interpretação das respostas da biodiversidade, mas também a escala temporal. A correlação dos parâmetros biológicos atuais com características do ambiente pretérito mostra que respostas atrasadas das espécies às modificações podem ocorrer após um distúrbio ambiental, o que como consequência, gera interpretação errôneas da relação das espécies com os ambientes da paisagem no presente, o que vem a comprometer as subsequentes tomadas de decisão de viés conservacionista. A fim de compreender como espécies de mamíferos de médio e grande porte neotropicais estão respondendo à paisagens de Cerrado que passaram por redução de habitat ao longo de um intervalo temporal de 48 anos, a presente tese objetivou em seus capítulos: (i) caracterizar a trajetória e a transição das classes de cobertura e uso do solo de três paisagens modificadas pelo homem, (ii) Detectar a existência de respostas atrasadas de sete espécies de mamíferos neotropicais de médio e grande porte em relação ao ambiente nativo dessas três paisagens e (iii) detectar a existência de limiares ecológicos nas respostas de seis espécies de mamíferos neotropicais a ambientes nativo e antrópico. As três paisage... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: The effect of habitat reduction on biodiversity is idiosyncratic regarding the established relationships among species and the traits of human-modified landscapes. In this manner novel scientific evidences point to the importance of considering not only the spatial scale on the interpretation of species responses, but also the temporal scale. The correlation between biological parameters of the present and environmental traits of the past show that species might present delayed responses after a disturbance event, and as consequence, species responses to current landscape traits may be misleading for conservation purposes and environmental management actions. In order to understand how the neotropical medium and large-sized mammals are responding to human-modified landscapes of Cerrado under a 48-years interval of disturbance, the present dissertation aimed in their three chapters: (i) to describe land use and land cover trajectory and native vegetation transition of three human-modified landscapes, (ii) to detect the existence of time-lagged responses among seven neotropical medium and large-sized mammal species to their the natural environment and (iii) to detect the existence of ecological threshold responses of six neotropical medium and large-sized mammal species to natural and human-modified environments. The three studied landscapes are located in the northeastern region of São Paulo State and harbor important protected remnants of Cerrado and Atlantic Rainforest under... (Complete abstract click electronic access below) / Doutor

Current literature lacks longitudinal understandings of the association between childhood sexual/physical violence, alcohol use, depressive symptoms, and indiscriminant sexual behaviors among young women, as well as the racial/ethnic differences in these associations. Therefore, using the 1994-2008 National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, this study examined a) heterogeneous growth trajectories of problem alcohol use during the transition from adolescents to young adulthood and the impact of childhood sexual/physical violence on drinking trajectories, b) the long-term impact of childhood sexual/physical violence on alcohol use and depressive symptoms, and c) the structural associations between childhood sexual/physical violence and indiscriminant sexual behaviors by examining alcohol use and depressive symptoms as mediators between White and African-American women. First, with 1,702 women, LCGM was used to identify trajectories of problem alcohol use using the first three waves. Four trajectories of problem alcohol use emerged: stable abstainers; decliners (moderate-low); incliners (low-moderate); and rapid incliners (low-high). From the bivariate level analyses, in reference to stable abstainers, White women who experienced childhood sexual/physical violence were more likely to be rapid incliners (low-high). Second, with 1,756 women, autoregressive cross-lagged path models were performed to test longitudinal associations between childhood sexual/physical violence, problem alcohol use, and depressive symptoms of White and African-American women. Both groups demonstrated significant association between childhood sexual/physical violence and subsequent development of depressive symptoms, while only White women demonstrated significant association with subsequent problem alcohol use. Third, with 1,388 women, SEM and multigroup SEM were used to test pathways between childhood sexual/physical violence and indiscriminant sexual behaviors for White and African-American women. SEM indicates that problem alcohol use and depressive symptoms mediated the proposed relationship. Multigroup SEM indicates that, for White women, both problem alcohol use and depressive symptoms mediated the association between childhood sexual/physical violence and indiscriminant sexual behaviors, while only depressive symptoms mediated the proposed association for African-American women. These findings highlight the importance of designing and providing effective prevention and treatment programs for women who experienced childhood sexual/physical violence to interrupt subsequent problem alcohol use, depressive symptoms, and indiscriminant sexual behaviors. / text

本研究主要目的在探討不同治療階段中創傷後成長與因應策略之關係。由於過去創傷後成長與因應策略之間的研究，均是將創傷後成長視為個體因應後的結果，而忽略創傷後成長的經驗對個體的影響，因此本研究透過雙面神模式的理論，以更多元的角度來檢視「創傷後成長」，並將追蹤三個時間點，根據不同治療階段進一步提出三個假設模式，並採用交叉延宕分析（Cross-lagged analyses）來檢驗。 研究方法採立意取樣，以中部某教學醫學之乳房中心的乳癌患者為對象，共262 人，蒐集患者之「基本資料」、「創傷後成長」及「因應策略」，並在術後三個月、術後六個月及術後一年進行問卷調查。資料分析以探索性因素分析將因應策略分為三個因素：「自我導向因應」、「社會導向因應」及「逃避因應」，並與創傷後成長進行交叉延宕分析。 研究主要發現如下：（一）診斷時年齡愈小及教育程度愈高者，可以預測術後三個月較高的「自我導向因應」、「社會導向因應」及「創傷後成長」；（二）術後三個月到六個月之間，「自我導向因應」與「創傷後成長」呈現互惠關係，即術後三個月較高的「自我導向因應」可以預測術後六個月較高的「創傷後成長」，而術後三個月較高的「創傷後成長」也可以預測術後六個月較高的「自我導向因應」；（三）術後六個月的「創傷後成長」可以預測術後一年的「社會導向因應」，即在術後六個月時「創傷後成長」愈高，可以預測後續較高的「社會導向因應」；（四）三個時間點中，「逃避因應」均無法預測「創傷後成長」，「創傷後成長」亦無法預測「逃避因應」。 最後將根據研究結果提出其貢獻與實務運用，並依據研究限制提出相關建議，以供臨床工作者與未來研究學者參考。 / This study is aimed to investigate the relationships between coping strategies and Posttraumatic Growth (PTG) on three different timing of the breast cancer treatment. According to Janus-Faced Model, PTG is assumed as both a coping effort and a coping result. In order to investigate the possible relationships between coping strategies and PTG, three hypothetic models were proposed and tested by cross-lagged analyses. By purposive sampling, 262 participants were recruited from the breast center unit at a hospital in central Taiwan. Demographic and disease-related information were gathered after surgery. The Posttraumatic Growth Inventory (PTGI) and the Brief Coping Orientations to Problems Experienced scale (Brief COPE) were assessed 3, 6 and 12 months later. The Brief COPE included 3 factors: self-sufficient coping, socially-supported coping and avoidant coping. Each was assumed to associate with PTG differently. Results of the current study were as follows: 1. Younger patients or women of higher education level reported more PTG, self-sufficient coping and socially-supported coping at T1. 2. The reciprocal relation was found between self-sufficient coping and PTG within 6 months postsurgery, which indicated the positive effect of T1 self-sufficient coping on T2 PTG, as well as the reciprocal effects of T1 PTG on T2 self-sufficient coping. 3. Higher level of PTG at T2 predicted more socially-supported coping at T3. 4. Within 1 year postsurgery, there were no significant cross-lagged effects between avoidant coping and PTG, but only autoregressive correlations within constructs over time. Implications of these findings are discussed, along with potential directions for future research.

Since the inverse problem in Diffusive Optical Tomography (DOT) is nonlinear and severely ill-posed, only low resolution reconstructions are feasible when noise is added to the data nowadays. The purpose of this thesis is to improve image reconstruction in DOT of the main optical properties of tissues with some novel mathematical methods. We have used the Landweber (L) method, the Landweber-Kaczmarz (LK) method and its improved Loping-Landweber-Kaczmarz (L-LK) method combined with sparsity or with total variation regularizations for single and simultaneous image reconstructions of the absorption and scattering coefficients. The sparsity method assumes the existence of a sparse solution which has a simple description and is superposed onto a known background. The sparsity method is solved using a smooth gradient and a soft thresholding operator. Moreover, we have proposed an improved sparsity method. For the total variation reconstruction imaging, we have used the split Bregman method and the lagged diffusivity method. For the total variation method, we also have implemented a memory-efficient method to minimise the storage of large Hessian matrices. In addition, an individual and simultaneous contrast value reconstructions are presented using the level set (LS) method. Besides, the shape derivative of DOT based on the RTE is derived using shape sensitivity analysis, and some reconstructions for the absorption coefficient are presented using this shape derivative via the LS method.\\Whereas most of the approaches for solving the nonlinear problem of DOT make use of the diffusion approximation (DA) to the radiative transfer equation (RTE) to model the propagation of the light in tissue, the accuracy of the DA is not satisfactory in situations where the medium is not scattering dominant, in particular close to the light sources and to the boundary, as well as inside low-scattering or non-scattering regions. Therefore, we have solved the inverse problem in DOT by the more accurate time-dependant RTE in two dimensions.

Små och medelstora företag är betydelsefulla för en växande ekonomi och utgör 99 % av samtliga företag i Sverige. Nya idéer och innovationer skapas ofta av småföretag som växer snabbt vilket ger incitament till att skapa en miljö som bidrar till att små och medelstora företag kan driva, innovera och skapa nödvändiga jobb. Små och medelstora företag spelar därför en betydande roll för sysselsättningen och ekonomin som helhet vilket gör studier på detta område relevant. Små och medelstora företag står inför ett flertal svårigheter jämfört med större företag. En faktor som påverkar företagens möjlighet till att växa är en begränsad tillgång till finansiering. Större företag är mer benägna att låna pengar vilket också denresursbaserade teorin förutspår. Tillgång till finansiering kan ses som en konkurrensfördel och leder till fler investeringar vilket stimulerar tillväxten och därmed sysselsättningen.Resursbaserade teorin utgår från konkurrenskraftiga resurser hos företag och kommer att i denna studie att användas till att identifiera företagsspecifika faktorer som på något sätt kan förklara sysselsättningen hos små och medelstora företag. Studien inriktar sig på hotellbranschen med restaurangverksamhet på den svenska marknaden. I uppsatsen undersöksdet hur skuldsättningsgraden, tillväxten, storleken, ålder och fördröjd variabel av antal anställda påverkar antalet anställda. Studien baseras på en kvantitativ undersökning med deduktivt angreppssätt över tidsperioden 2008 till 2016. Resultatet redovisas i en univariat analys i form av deskriptiv statistik, bivariat analys bestående av en korrelationsanalys samt en multivariat analys i form av en regressionsanalys. Det empiriska resultatet indikerar på att större företag med högre skuldsättningsgrad är mer benägna att anställda fler. En slutsats är att tillgången till ekonomiska resurser ger företagen konkurrensfördelar, fler möjligheter att överleva, tillväxt och ökad efterfråga på arbetskraft. / Small and medium-sized enterprise are important for a growing economy and make up 99% of all companies in Sweden. New ideas and innovations are often created by small businesses that grow fast, which gives incentives to create a platform that helps small and medium-sized enterprises drive, innovate and create necessary jobs. Small and medium-sized enterprisestherefore play a significant role in employment and the economy as a whole, which makes studies in this area relevant. The companies face a number of difficulties compared with larger companies. A factor that affect small and medium-sized enterprises ability to grow is a limited access to funding. Larger companies are more likely to borrow money, which also predicts the resource-based theory. Access to finance can be seen as a competitive advantageand leads to more investment, stimulating growth and hence employment.Based on the resource-based theory of competitiveness of a company, this study will be used to identify company specific factors that in some way can explain the employment of small and medium-sized enterprises. The study focuses on the hotel industry with restaurant activities in the Swedish market. The paper examines how debt, growth, size, age and lagged variable of the number of employees affects the number of employees. The study is based ona quantitative study with a deductive approach over the period 2008 to 2016. The result is presented in a univariate analysis in the form of descriptive statistics, bivariate analysis consisting of a correlation analysis and a multivariate analysis in the form of a regression analysis. The empirical result indicates that larger companies with higher debt ratios are more likely to employ more. One conclusion is that access to financial resources gives businesses competitive advantages, more opportunities for survival, growth and increased demand for labor.

Toute perturbation dans les systèmes linéaires peut gravement dégrader la performance des méthodes itératives lorsque les directions conjuguées sont constituées. Ce problème peut être partiellement résolu par les méthodes du gradient à retards, qui ne garantissent pas la descente de la fonction quadratique, mais peuvent améliorer la convergence par rapport aux méthodes traditionnelles. Les travaux ultérieurs se sont concentrés sur les méthodes du gradient alternées avec deux ou plusieurs types de pas afin d'interrompre le zigzag. Des papiers récents ont suggéré que la révélation d'information de second ordre avec des pas à retards pourrait réduire de manière asymptotique les espaces de recherche dans des dimensions de plus en plus petites. Ceci a conduit aux méthodes du gradient avec alignement dans lesquelles l'étape essentielle et l'étape auxiliaire sont effectuées en alternance. Des expériences numériques ont démontré leur efficacité. Cette thèse considère d'abord des méthodes du gradient efficaces pour résoudre les systèmes linéaires symétriques définis positifs. Nous commençons par étudier une méthode alternée avec la propriété de terminaison finie à deux dimensions. Ensuite, nous déduisons davantage de propriétés spectrales pour les méthodes du gradient traditionnelles. Ces propriétés nous permettent d’élargir la famille de méthodes du gradient avec alignement et d’établir la convergence de nouvelles méthodes. Nous traitons également les itérations de gradient comme un processus peu coûteux intégré aux méthodes de splitting. En particulier, nous abordons le problème de l’estimation de paramètre et suggérons d’utiliser les méthodes du gradient rapide comme solveurs internes à faible précision. Dans le cas parallèle, nous nous concentrons sur les formulations avec retards pour lesquelles il est possible de réduire les coûts de communication. Nous présentons également de nouvelles propriétés et méthodes pour les itérations de gradient s-dimensionnelles. En résumé, cette thèse s'intéresse aux trois sujets interreliés dans lesquelles les itérations de gradient peuvent être utilisées en tant que solveurs efficaces, qu’outils intégrés pour les méthodes de splitting et que solveurs parallèles pour réduire la communication. Des exemples numériques sont présentés à la fin de chaque sujet pour appuyer nos résultats théoriques. / Any perturbation in linear systems may severely degrade the performance of iterative methods when conjugate directions are constructed. This issue can be partially remedied by lagged gradient methods, which does not guarantee descent in the quadratic function but can improve the convergence compared with traditional gradient methods. Later work focused on alternate gradient methods with two or more steplengths in order to break the zigzag pattern. Recent papers suggested that revealing of second-order information along with lagged steps could reduce asymptotically the search spaces in smaller and smaller dimensions. This led to gradient methods with alignment in which essential and auxiliary steps are conducted alternately. Numerical experiments have demonstrated their effectiveness. This dissertation first considers efficient gradient methods for solving symmetric positive definite linear systems. We begin by studying an alternate method with two-dimensional finite termination property. Then we derive more spectral properties for traditional steplengths. These properties allow us to expand the family of gradient methods with alignment and establish the convergence of new methods. We also treat gradient iterations as an inexpensive process embedded in splitting methods. In particular we address the parameter estimation problem and suggest to use fast gradient methods as low-precision inner solvers. For the parallel case we focus on the lagged formulations for which it is possible to reduce communication costs. We also present some new properties and methods for s-dimensional gradient iterations. To sum up, this dissertation is concerned with three inter-related topics in which gradient iterations can be employed as efficient solvers, as embedded tools for splitting methods and as parallel solvers for reducing communication. Numerical examples are presented at the end of each topic to support our theoretical findings.

Les progrès continus dans les techniques du stockage et de la collection des données permettent d'observer et d'enregistrer des processus d’une façon presque continue. Des exemples incluent des données climatiques, des valeurs de transactions financières, des modèles des niveaux de pollution, etc. Pour analyser ces processus, nous avons besoin des outils statistiques appropriés. Une technique très connue est l'analyse de données fonctionnelles (ADF).<p><p>L'objectif principal de ce projet de doctorat est d'analyser la dépendance temporelle de l’ADF. Cette dépendance se produit, par exemple, si les données sont constituées à partir d'un processus en temps continu qui a été découpé en segments, les jours par exemple. Nous sommes alors dans le cadre des séries temporelles fonctionnelles.<p><p>La première partie de la thèse concerne la régression linéaire fonctionnelle, une extension de la régression multivariée. Nous avons découvert une méthode, basé sur les données, pour choisir la dimension de l’estimateur. Contrairement aux résultats existants, cette méthode n’exige pas d'assomptions invérifiables. <p><p>Dans la deuxième partie, on analyse les modèles linéaires fonctionnels dynamiques (MLFD), afin d'étendre les modèles linéaires, déjà reconnu, dans un cadre de la dépendance temporelle. Nous obtenons des estimateurs et des tests statistiques par des méthodes d’analyse harmonique. Nous nous inspirons par des idées de Brillinger qui a étudié ces models dans un contexte d’espaces vectoriels. / Doctorat en Sciences / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

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