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Este trabalho trata da estratificação social, e mais especificamente sobre a questão da relação entre posições de classe e modos de vida. O estudo da estratificação social se justifica pela relevância deste tema na sociologia, uma vez que sempre foi objeto de discussão, desde os autores clássicos até os contemporâneos. O aspecto dos modos de vida escolhido para a pesquisa foi o local de moradia. O objeto de estudo escolhido foi a cidade de São Carlos, e buscou-se analisar a relação entre as posições de classe e o local de moradia naquele município por meio de mapas e dados obtidos a partir do Censo 2000 do IBGE. A divisão da população em posições de classe foi feita por meio de um esquema baseado no de Erik Wright, e que foi considerado o mais adequado aos nossos objetivos e aos dados disponíveis. Os dados mostraram diferenças interessantes entre padrões de distribuição espacial de alguns conjuntos de posições de classe, levando-nos a crer que a posição de classe tem, sim, alguma influência nos modos de vida. / This work is about social stratification, and more specifically about the question of the relation between class locations and ways of life. The study of social stratification is self-justified by the relevance of this subject in sociology, as it has always been a discussion object since the classic authors to the contemporary ones. The aspect of the ways of life which we have chosen for this research was the place of living. The chosen object of study was the city of Sao Carlos, and we tried to analyze the relation between class locations and place of living in that city by using maps and data from the Census 2000, of IBGE. The division of the population within class locations was made by the use of a scheme based in Erik Wrights one, which we considered the most appropriate to our goals and with the available data. The maps and data had shown interesting differences between the patterns of spatial distribution of some sets of class locations. This has made us believe that the class location has, indeed, some sort of influence in the ways of life.

Este trabalho trata da estratificação social, e mais especificamente sobre a questão da relação entre posições de classe e modos de vida. O estudo da estratificação social se justifica pela relevância deste tema na sociologia, uma vez que sempre foi objeto de discussão, desde os autores clássicos até os contemporâneos. O aspecto dos modos de vida escolhido para a pesquisa foi o local de moradia. O objeto de estudo escolhido foi a cidade de São Carlos, e buscou-se analisar a relação entre as posições de classe e o local de moradia naquele município por meio de mapas e dados obtidos a partir do Censo 2000 do IBGE. A divisão da população em posições de classe foi feita por meio de um esquema baseado no de Erik Wright, e que foi considerado o mais adequado aos nossos objetivos e aos dados disponíveis. Os dados mostraram diferenças interessantes entre padrões de distribuição espacial de alguns conjuntos de posições de classe, levando-nos a crer que a posição de classe tem, sim, alguma influência nos modos de vida. / This work is about social stratification, and more specifically about the question of the relation between class locations and ways of life. The study of social stratification is self-justified by the relevance of this subject in sociology, as it has always been a discussion object since the classic authors to the contemporary ones. The aspect of the ways of life which we have chosen for this research was the place of living. The chosen object of study was the city of Sao Carlos, and we tried to analyze the relation between class locations and place of living in that city by using maps and data from the Census 2000, of IBGE. The division of the population within class locations was made by the use of a scheme based in Erik Wrights one, which we considered the most appropriate to our goals and with the available data. The maps and data had shown interesting differences between the patterns of spatial distribution of some sets of class locations. This has made us believe that the class location has, indeed, some sort of influence in the ways of life.

The main research questions for this local study of Tarkett AB, a floor manufacturer, are based on the central characteristics of the third industrial revolution: globalization, technological development, and organizational change. As a background to the local development and change towards the end of the twentieth century, I have chosen to emphasize, on the one hand, the increasing need of the industry for internationalization, rationalization, and productivity development after fordism and the demise of the regulated “real wages capitalism” in the middle of the 1970s, and, on the other, the work rights offensive of the labor movement in the 1970s and its continued struggle for economic and industrial authority. The method to analyze the essential traits of the organizational change process has aimed to construe a field of organizational change whose ideal types are based on taylorism, toyotism, flexible specialization, just-in-time, and lean production. Methods used to analyze change from the perspective of social structuration are also related to the theories of dynamic contradictory class locations, local hegemony, and gender. Apart from traditional source material and interviews, the study builds on the results from a study group consisting of a number of factory workers from Tarkett. Technological change and development (IT) of the work process on the factory floor has been analyzed as technological rationalization, quality development, work environment improvement, and as issues of gender relations and class positions at the work place. As regards the management process, leadership and control, centralization and decentralization concepts are vital. In matters concerning working conditions, including salaries, working hours, and job profiles (qualifications required for employment) are central. The management process was subject to changes that entailed deviations from the principles of traditional tayloristic management philosophy. Instead a participant change strategy implemented decentralized leadership functions in the shape of management by objectives via autonomous groups according to principles of ”responsible autonomy”. The investigation shows that computer-aided centralized control functions, competence improvement, and intensified ideological control worked together to change the management process. Decentralization of responsibility, the integration of white-collar like duties, the general competence development, and the higher demands on job qualifications, combined to render workers’ class locations more contradictory. This, together with ideological control and change, contributed to consolidate local hegemony.

The thermal control of a die is crucial for the development of high efficiency injection moulds. For successful thermal management, this research provides an effective control strategy to find sensor locations, identify thermal dynamic models, and design controllers. By applying a clustering method and sensitivity analysis, sensor locations are identified. The neural network and finite element analysis techniques enable the modeling to deal with various cycle-times for the moulding process and uncertain dynamics of a die. A combination of off-line training through finite element analysis and training using on-line learning algorithms and experimental data is used for the system identification. Based on the system identification which is experimentally validated using a real system, controllers are designed using fuzzy-logic and self-adaptive PID methods with backpropagation (BP) and radial basis function (RBF) neural networks to tune control parameters. Direct adaptive inverse control and additive feedforward control by adding direct adaptive inverse control to self-adaptive PID controllers are also provided. Through a comparative study, each controller’s performance is verified in terms of response time and tracking accuracy under different moulding processes with multiple cycle-times. Additionally, the improved cooling effectiveness of the conformal cooling channel designed in this study is presented by comparing with a conventional straight channel.

The question of how to design a congestion pricing scheme is difficult to answer and involves a number of complex decisions. This thesis is devoted to the quantitative parts of designing a congestion pricing scheme with link tolls in an urban car traffic network. The problem involves finding the number of tolled links, the link toll locations and their corresponding toll level. The road users are modeled in a static framework, with elastic travel demand. Assuming the toll locations to be fixed, we recognize a level setting problem as to find toll levels which maximize the social surplus. A heuristic procedure based on sensitivity analysis is developed to solve this optimization problem. In the numerical examples the heuristic is shown to converge towards the optimum for cases when all links are tollable, and when only some links are tollable. We formulate a combined toll location and level setting problem as to find both toll locations and toll levels which maximize the net social surplus, which is the social surplus minus the cost of collecting the tolls. The collection cost is assumed to be given for each possible toll location, and to be independent of toll level and traffic flow. We develop a new heuristic method which is based on repeated solutions of an approximation to the combined toll location and level setting problem. Also, a known heuristic method for locating a fixed number of toll facilities is extended, to find the optimal number of facilities to locate. Both heuristics are evaluated on two small networks, where our approximation procedure shows the best results. Our approximation procedure is also employed on the Sioux Falls network. The result is compared with different judgmental closed cordon structures, and the solution suggested by our method clearly improves the net social surplus more than any of the judgmental cordons.

<p>The question of how to design a congestion pricing scheme is difficult to answer and involves a number of complex decisions. This thesis is devoted to the quantitative parts of designing a congestion pricing scheme with link tolls in an urban car traffic network. The problem involves finding the number of tolled links, the link toll locations and their corresponding toll level. The road users are modeled in a static framework, with elastic travel demand.</p><p>Assuming the toll locations to be fixed, we recognize a level setting problem as to find toll levels which maximize the social surplus. A heuristic procedure based on sensitivity analysis is developed to solve this optimization problem. In the numerical examples the heuristic is shown to converge towards the optimum for cases when all links are tollable, and when only some links are tollable.</p><p>We formulate a combined toll location and level setting problem as to find both toll locations and toll levels which maximize the net social surplus, which is the social surplus minus the cost of collecting the tolls. The collection cost is assumed to be given for each possible toll location, and to be independent of toll level and traffic flow. We develop a new heuristic method which is based on repeated solutions of an approximation to the combined toll location and level setting problem. Also, a known heuristic method for locating a fixed number of toll facilities is extended, to find the optimal number of facilities to locate. Both heuristics are evaluated on two small networks, where our approximation procedure shows the best results.</p><p>Our approximation procedure is also employed on the Sioux Falls network. The result is compared with different judgmental closed cordon structures, and the solution suggested by our method clearly improves the net social surplus more than any of the judgmental cordons.</p>

Background: Research suggests sexual minority women have higher rates of substance use and mental health problems than straight women. Specifically, past studies have shown alcohol consumption and dependence rates are higher among sexual minority women, in addition to use of some drugs. Similarly, research shows mental health problems such as anxiety, depression and suicide rates are elevated among sexual minority women. These differences in mental health and substance use characteristics by sexual orientation may be explained by the negative health effects of social marginalization and the common use of drinking establishments for sexual minorities. Objective: The objective of this thesis is to compare substance use and mental health characteristics between lesbian/bisexual women and straight women, including: a) demographic variables; b) alcohol and drug consumption and dependence; c) the social context of substance use (i.e., use with others, motivations to use and locations of use); and, d) mental health characteristics. Methods: Data were obtained from a sample of residential treatment clients in treatment for primarily alcohol and/or cocaine problems. Respondents were asked to fill out self-administered questionnaires, which included details on demographics, substance use, mental health and the social context of use, as well as information on sexual orientation and gender identity. Bivariate and logistic regression analyses were performed to examine differences by sexual orientation. Results: Some sexual orientation differences were found regarding alcohol consumption and dependence during bivariate analysis. In logistic regression results, methamphetamine use was significantly (p<.01) elevated among bisexual women and tranquilizers use was elevated among lesbian and bisexual women when compared to straight women. Bivariate analysis revealed lesbian and bisexual women reported higher levels on motivations to use, but this difference was not significant in multivariate regression results. After regression adjustments, lesbian and bisexual women had higher levels of anxiety and higher rates of suicide attempts. Lastly, lesbian and bisexual women reported substance use with sex workers and sex clients more often than straight women, but no other differences in location and motivations to use were seen in the regression results. Conclusion: Among this sample of residential treatment clients, some mental health and substance use characteristic differences were found. These finding can assist in determining the best treatment practices for sexual minority women. / Graduate / 0347

The thermal control of a die is crucial for the development of high efficiency injection moulds. For successful thermal management, this research provides an effective control strategy to find sensor locations, identify thermal dynamic models, and design controllers. By applying a clustering method and sensitivity analysis, sensor locations are identified. The neural network and finite element analysis techniques enable the modeling to deal with various cycle-times for the moulding process and uncertain dynamics of a die. A combination of off-line training through finite element analysis and training using on-line learning algorithms and experimental data is used for the system identification. Based on the system identification which is experimentally validated using a real system, controllers are designed using fuzzy-logic and self-adaptive PID methods with backpropagation (BP) and radial basis function (RBF) neural networks to tune control parameters. Direct adaptive inverse control and additive feedforward control by adding direct adaptive inverse control to self-adaptive PID controllers are also provided. Through a comparative study, each controller’s performance is verified in terms of response time and tracking accuracy under different moulding processes with multiple cycle-times. Additionally, the improved cooling effectiveness of the conformal cooling channel designed in this study is presented by comparing with a conventional straight channel.

This thesis deals with social support - any help provided to a man by other people (both laymen and profesionals). The thesis tries to describe, evaluate and analyse some negative aspects of social support provided to the Romanies who live in a socially excluded locations (considering the concrete situation in Písek) and suggest suitable measures how to improve it. Although this thesis is conceived as theoretical, for completion it contains views of social workers from Písek who provide social support to the Romanies, and in case reports, there are mapped social nets and experiences of small sample of the Roma residents from Písek´s socially excluded locations.