This dissertation examines the structure of epistemological claims made about science within the field of science and technology studies (STS). The social constructivist invocation to put science in "context" necessarily implies a logic of justification. Made explicit, this logic of justification provides a basis on which to adjudicate meta-scientific claims. The appeal to context blurs internal and external references, offers an ontological starting point for STS accounts of science, serves as the basis for methodological debate, and refers to values which anchor a notion of scientific objectivity. Hence: Contexts are assumed to exist. Contexts can be accessed and demarcated from other contexts in which they may be embedded; as a result, contexts are not paradigm-bound. Since contexts exist, the elements composing them are taken to exist in some logical and ontological relation to one another. Contexts are taken to affect scientific practice. Since contexts affect scientific practice some logical and ontological relation exists among the elements of the context, a given scientific practice, and the world that practice describes. Contexts are taken as temporally stable; infinite regress is not an immediate consequence of a local explanation of scientific practice. Since contexts exist in a stable, ontological relationship to the scientific practice they interpret or explain, criteria for justifying one context-based perspective over another are necessarily implied. Contexts necessarily imply justificatory criteria and imply a means for adjudicating among contexts and context-based statements. Since contexts imply a logic of justification independent of the scientific practice being examined meta-scientific evidence consists of observation statements. Context-based observation statements can, initially, be adjudicated a priori. A form of meta-scientific realism exists. If a form of meta-scientific realism exists, we can determine which contexts explain scientific practice and which do not. As a result we have epistemological claims about science which can be adjudicated on realist grounds which are not just the product of designated contexts. The future of STS turns on articulating a meta-scientific realism in relation to scientific practice and truths about the world. Finally, I advocate a contingent foundationalism on which STS can be made relevant to an understanding of science and technology. / Ph. D.

The Web, containing a large amount of useful information and resources, is expanding rapidly. Collecting domain-specific documents/information from the Web is one of the most important methods to build digital libraries for the scientific community. Focused Crawlers can selectively retrieve Web documents relevant to a specific domain to build collections for domain-specific search engines or digital libraries. Traditional focused crawlers normally adopting the simple Vector Space Model and local Web search algorithms typically only find relevant Web pages with low precision. Recall also often is low, since they explore a limited sub-graph of the Web that surrounds the starting URL set, and will ignore relevant pages outside this sub-graph. In this work, we investigated how to apply an inductive machine learning algorithm and meta-search technique, to the traditional focused crawling process, to overcome the above mentioned problems and to improve performance. We proposed a novel hybrid focused crawling framework based on Genetic Programming (GP) and meta-search. We showed that our novel hybrid framework can be applied to traditional focused crawlers to accurately find more relevant Web documents for the use of digital libraries and domain-specific search engines. The framework is validated through experiments performed on test documents from the Open Directory Project. Our studies have shown that improvement can be achieved relative to the traditional focused crawler if genetic programming and meta-search methods are introduced into the focused crawling process. / Ph. D.

The main purpose of this study was to conduct a meta-analysis with data collected from seven schools in Southwest Virginia school district. Data was collected for students who were referred to the Student Assistance Programs at each school. Tracking forms were used to record data for each student. Each tracking form was completed by the Student Assistance Program coordinators for their respective schools. This research was conducted in order to evaluate measurable performance outcomes of Student Assistance Programs. The results highlight the positive effects that Student Assistance Programs, SAP members, and other individuals associated with Student Assistance Programs have on students in need. The positive effect from participation in Student Assistance Programs is encouraging. However, recommendations are made for future research and implications of the current research are discussed. The need for additional research on this topic is prominent throughout this document. / Ph. D.

The dairy industry today is beginning to dedicate more focus on the growth of the calf from birth to first breeding to better improve the milk production as well as the overall performance of the individual cows. While the development of the rumen is one of the most vital contributors to the performance of the calf, it remains unknown what molecular mechanisms are responsible for the development of the rumen, and more specifically the proliferation of rumen epithelial cells. The objectives of this study were to investigate the existing data on rumen development through meta-analysis and to explore the effects of sodium butyrate and lipopolysaccharide (LPS) on rumen development in calves through experiment. In the first study a meta-analysis was performed to summarize the literature on calf performance and derive equations that relate rumen (e.g., rumen pH, reticulorumen weight, papillae area) and non-rumen factors (e.g., feed composition, form of feed, housing) to animal performance (e.g., intake of milk replacer (MR), starter, and forage; average daily gain (ADG); and feed efficiency). We looked at four different relationships to further investigate the connections between rumen, non-rumen, and performance factors. In the first and second relationships of interest, the effect of dietary and environmental variables on rumen variables and performance variables were examined, respectively. The third relationship of interest was how rumen variables influenced performance variables. The final relationship of interest was investigating the additive effects of the rumen, dietary, and environmental variables on the performance variables. Forward selection, multiple regression was used to derive equations to select variables that explained variation in the response variable in each model. Results showed that the variation in calf ADG was explained by daily forage intake, calves that were weaned, total starter intake, and total MR intake (concordance correlation coefficient (CCC) = 0.976). The variation in feed to gain ratio was explained by the weight of the ruminal contents, daily forage, MR, and starter intakes, percent of starter in the diet, and total starter intake (CCC = 0.992). The variation in daily forage intake was explained by the percent of the diet that was starter or MR (CCC = 0.998). The variation in daily starter intake was explained by the percent of acid detergent fiber in the starter, a pelleted starter (versus a texturized), diets including starter and forage (versus a milk replacer only diet), and the percent of the diet that was MR (CCC = 0.998). The variation in daily MR intake was explained by the percent of the diet that was starter, final body weight, ruminal propionate concentration, and daily starter intake (CCC = 0.918). Based on these analyses, although dietary and environmental factors are closely associated with calf performance, ruminal factors such as volatile fatty acid (VFA) concentration and ruminal contents appear to have additional, additive influences on calf performance. In the second study, 24 Holstein bull calves were challenged with oral doses of LPS and sodium butyrate. The hypothesis here was that LPS and sodium butyrate would instigate rumen cell proliferation independently and additively. Calves were assigned to one of four treatments: control (CON; n=5), butyrate (BUTY; n=5), LPS only (LPS-O) (n=6), or LPS plus butyrate (LPSB; n=6). All treatments were administered orally twice daily consisting of either: 0.9% saline (CON); 11 mM sodium butyrate (BUTY); LPS ranging from 2.5 to 40 µg/kg metabolic body weight (BW0.75, LPS), or both butyrate and LPS (LPSB). Calves were fed milk replacer (22% CP, 20% fat, as-fed) and starter (20% CP, 3% fat, as-fed) based on metabolic BW, or about 12% BW of MR and 3% BW of starter. Feed intake, fecal and respiratory scores, and rectal temperature were recorded daily. Calf BW, hip height, jugular blood samples, and rumen content samples (via oroesophageal tube) were collected weekly. Calves were weaned at 6 wk of age and euthanized at 8 wk of age, whereupon ruminal weights and ruminal samples for papillae area and epithelial thickness were collected. Blood and rumen samples were analyzed for concentrations of beta-hydroxybutyrate, glucose, LPS-binding protein, and VFA. Data were analyzed as a 2x2 factorial with the repeated effect of week. Three non-orthogonal contrasts (CON versus the average of all other treatments; LPS-O versus LPSB, and LPSB versus BUTY) were investigated. Feed intake, health measures, and blood metabolites did not differ by treatment. Calf BW increased by week (P < 0.0001). Irrespective of week, LPS calves weighed more and had higher ADG than BUTY calves (P = 0.020). Irrespective of week, withers height was greater in LPS compared to CON (P = 0.006). Rumen pH and rumen VFA concentrations did not differ by treatment but did decrease and increase, respectively, with week in conjunction with increased starter intake. Total empty forestomach (P = 0.014) and reticulorumen weights (P = 0.012) were greater in LPSB compared to BUTY. Overall, LPS and sodium butyrate appeared to have synergistically affected some, but not all rumen measurements without affecting calf growth, intake, or health. Results from the meta-analysis emphasize the importance of continuing to focus on the solid feed intake of the calf from birth through weaning. Implications from the LPS study are imperative to other dairy scientists who will attempt to further study the effects of LPS on the rumen. / Master of Science in Life Sciences / Dairy calves are born with an under-developed stomach. The stomach has four compartments: the rumen, reticulum, omasum, and abomasum. The rumen is the largest component where finger-like projections called papillae grow to absorb nutrients for the calf. It is vital to the calf that the rumen develops not only the papillae to absorb nutrients but also to foster a microbe-rich environment so the microbes can act as a defense mechanism for the calf to aid in fighting disease. While it is known that things like solid feed support the development of the rumen, the mechanism behind how that is happening still remains unclear in the literature. The objective of this study was first to better understand the relationships that exist in the literature between dietary, environmental, and ruminal factors, and second to investigate the claim that certain components of the bacteria in the rumen are stimulating rumen development independently and additively with sodium butyrate. In order to investigate the relationships amongst the dietary, environmental, and ruminal parameters, a computer program called R Studio was used to analyze over 30 different models that extracted data from a database that included a collection of 36 studies from the literature. This is also known as a meta-analysis. The associations of interest that we found were: average daily gain (ADG) of the calf was associated with daily forage intake, calves that were weaned, total starter intake, and total MR intake. Feed efficiency of the calf was associated with the weight of the ruminal contents, daily forage, milk replacer (MR), and starter intakes, percent of the diet composed of starter, and total starter intake. Daily forage intake was associated with the percent of the diet that was starter or MR. Daily starter intake was associated with acid detergent fiber in the starter, a pelleted starter (versus a texturized starter), diets including starter and forage (versus a MR only diet), and the percent of the diet that was MR. Daily MR intake was associated with the percentage of the diet that was starter, final body weight (BW), ruminal propionate concentration, and daily starter intake. These relationships emphasized that although dietary and environmental factors are more closely associated with calf performance, ruminal factors such as rumen contents and volatile fatty acid concentrations appear to have additional, additive influences on calf performance. The second part of the study objective was to explore an idea that, to our knowledge, has not been published in the literature. In the second study, 24 dairy calves were challenged with oral doses of a gram-negative bacteria lipopolysaccharide (LPS), and a short-chain fatty acid sodium butyrate. The hypothesis in this study was that the LPS and sodium butyrate would trigger metabolic pathways on the rumen cell membranes to a greater extent together, versus independently, to increase the amount of cells growing. Calves were assigned to one of four treatments: control (CON), butyrate (BUTY), LPS only (LPS-O), or LPS plus butyrate (LPSB). To study this effect, each treatment group was administered their respective treatment orally as a liquid twice daily. To measure the results, the following data was collected: feed intake, fecal and respiratory scores, rectal temperature BW, hip and withers height, blood samples, rumen content and pH samples, papillae area, epithelial thickness, and organ weights. Blood and rumen samples were analyzed for blood metabolites and volatile fatty acids concentrations respectively. Data were analyzed and results showed no difference amongst feed intake, health measures, rumen pH, rumen VFA concentration, and blood metabolites by treatment. Calves on the LPS treatment weighed more and had higher ADG than BUTY treatment calves. Withers height was higher in the LPS group when compared to CON. Stomach weights were higher in the LPSB group when compared to the BUTY group.

Yes / Living in an area with high levels of child poverty predisposes children to poorer mental and physical health. ActEarly is a 5-year research programme that comprises a large number of interventions (>20) with citizen science and co-production embedded. It aims to improve the health and well-being of children and families living in two areas of the UK with high levels of deprivation; Bradford in West Yorkshire, and the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. This protocol outlines the meta-evaluation (an evaluation of evaluations) of the ActEarly programme from a systems perspective, where individual interventions are viewed as events in the wider policy system across the two geographical areas. It includes investigating the programme's impact on early life health and well-being outcomes, interdisciplinary prevention research collaboration and capacity building, and local and national decision making. The ActEarly meta-evaluation will follow and adapt the five iterative stages of the 'Evaluation of Programmes in Complex Adaptive Systems' (ENCOMPASS) framework for evaluation of public health programmes in complex adaptive systems. Theory-based and mixed-methods approaches will be used to investigate the fidelity of the ActEarly research programme, and whether, why and how ActEarly contributes to changes in the policy system, and whether alternative explanations can be ruled out. Ripple effects and systems mapping will be used to explore the relationships between interventions and their outcomes, and the degree to which the ActEarly programme encouraged interdisciplinary and prevention research collaboration as intended. A computer simulation model ("LifeSim") will also be used to evaluate the scale of the potential long-term benefits of cross-sectoral action to tackle the financial, educational and health disadvantages faced by children in Bradford and Tower Hamlets. Together, these approaches will be used to evaluate ActEarly's dynamic programme outputs at different system levels and measure the programme's system changes on early life health and well-being. This meta-evaluation protocol presents our plans for using and adapting the ENCOMPASS framework to evaluate the system-wide impact of the early life health and well-being programme, ActEarly. Due to the collaborative and non-linear nature of the work, we reserve the option to change and query some of our evaluation choices based on the feedback we receive from stakeholders to ensure that our evaluation remains relevant and fit for purpose. / This work was supported by the UK Prevention Research Partnership (MR/S037527/1), which is funded by the British Heart Foundation, Cancer Research UK, Chief Scientist Office of the Scottish Government Health and Social Care Directorates, Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, Economic and Social Research Council, Health and Social Care Research and Development Division (Welsh Government), Medical Research Council, National Institute for Health Research, Natural Environment Research Council, Public Health Agency (Northern Ireland), The Health Foundation and Wellcome.

Secure the Shadow is a collection of short-shorts and flash fiction, which draws heavily on the conventions of fables, parables and fairy tales to consider modern themes, desires and cruelties. The collection is linked by a meta-fictional fascination with the act of storytelling -- the liminal psychological space between the real and unreal, fantasy and delusion, seen and unseen, predator and prey. The collection also maps the topography of loss -- it explores what it means, and how it feels, to lose and to be lost. / MFA

Yes / Objective: Past research has suggested that social influences on drinking can be manipulated with subsequent reductions in alcohol intake. However, the experimental evidence for this and the best strategies to positively change these social influences have not been meta-analyzed. This research addressed these gaps. Method: Randomized controlled trials testing social influence-based interventions on adults’ drinking were systematically reviewed and meta-analyzed. The behavior change techniques used in each study were coded and the effect sizes showing the impact of each intervention on (a) social influence and (b) alcohol intake were calculated. Meta-regressions identified the association between these effect sizes, as well as the effect of specific behavior change techniques on social influences. Results: Forty-one studies comprising 17445 participants were included. Changes in social influences were significantly associated with changes in alcohol intake. However, even moderate-to-large changes in social influences corresponded with only a small change in drinking behavior and changing social influences did not reduce alcohol-related problems. Providing normative information about others’ behavior and experiences was the most effective technique to change social influences. Conclusions: Social influences and normative beliefs can be changed in drinkers, particularly by providing normative information about how much others’ drink. However, even generating large changes in these constructs are likely to engender only small changes in alcohol intake. / NHS Leeds, UK.

Sustainable organisational performance imperatives that generate shareholder value are strategy, execution, culture, structure, talent, innovation, leadership and growth. These superannuated management practices are still valid. Today it is even more vital to contrive and rethink these imperatives to renew business excellence in an undefined market space, the circular economy, and to reverse engineer product offerings. At the root of performance remain team members, team leaders and managers with their neurological representations, states of consciousness, abstract levels of awareness and the higher levels of thought. These thoughts create their reality and the way they create meaning of and contributing to this world. It also provides choice and generates excellence, performance and the success of the organisation. The principal purpose of this research has been to develop an Integrated Meta-model of Team Excellence by aligning the life-cycle of an employee, management-leadership, team culture, diversity and climate in view of the pressures of the business environment in order to execute an excellent performance outcome at the operational level to provide customer service and drive shareholder value. The first objective of the research was to model team excellence to enable performance so that the current performance level in a team can be determined, developmental opportunities can be identified and excellent performance parameters can be deliberated on for emulation, recruitment team fit and placement. Two instruments were applied for profiling. The thinking preferences were profiled with the Inventory of Work and Attitude Motivation Instrument (iWAM®) and the Values System Questionnaire (VSQ®) was used to profile and analyse the complexity of value structures as drivers of organisational performance. Contrastive analyses were conducted for the managers, team leaders and teams with the conclusion that a manager, a team leader and team members can create the fundamental conditions for emotionally and socially intelligent ability and capacity to facilitate performance. The capacity to model thinking preferences of outliers and poor performers and engineer a contextual Model of Excellence for a specific team in a specific environment distinguishes the work of Merlevede in that it has at its core a more accurate approach to identify areas of development, selection, team fit, design of appropriate coaching and mentoring interventions to improve and sustain team performance. / PhD (Business Administration), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015

Sustainable organisational performance imperatives that generate shareholder value are strategy, execution, culture, structure, talent, innovation, leadership and growth. These superannuated management practices are still valid. Today it is even more vital to contrive and rethink these imperatives to renew business excellence in an undefined market space, the circular economy, and to reverse engineer product offerings. At the root of performance remain team members, team leaders and managers with their neurological representations, states of consciousness, abstract levels of awareness and the higher levels of thought. These thoughts create their reality and the way they create meaning of and contributing to this world. It also provides choice and generates excellence, performance and the success of the organisation. The principal purpose of this research has been to develop an Integrated Meta-model of Team Excellence by aligning the life-cycle of an employee, management-leadership, team culture, diversity and climate in view of the pressures of the business environment in order to execute an excellent performance outcome at the operational level to provide customer service and drive shareholder value. The first objective of the research was to model team excellence to enable performance so that the current performance level in a team can be determined, developmental opportunities can be identified and excellent performance parameters can be deliberated on for emulation, recruitment team fit and placement. Two instruments were applied for profiling. The thinking preferences were profiled with the Inventory of Work and Attitude Motivation Instrument (iWAM®) and the Values System Questionnaire (VSQ®) was used to profile and analyse the complexity of value structures as drivers of organisational performance. Contrastive analyses were conducted for the managers, team leaders and teams with the conclusion that a manager, a team leader and team members can create the fundamental conditions for emotionally and socially intelligent ability and capacity to facilitate performance. The capacity to model thinking preferences of outliers and poor performers and engineer a contextual Model of Excellence for a specific team in a specific environment distinguishes the work of Merlevede in that it has at its core a more accurate approach to identify areas of development, selection, team fit, design of appropriate coaching and mentoring interventions to improve and sustain team performance. / PhD (Business Administration), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015

More and more complex semi-automated systems are being developed, aiding human operators to collect and analyze data and information and even to recommend decisions and act upon these. The goal of such development is often to support the operators make better decisions faster, while at the same time decrease their workload. However, these promises are not always fulfilled and several incidents have highlighted the fact that the introduction of automated technologies might instead increase the need for human involvement andexpertise in the tasks carried out. The significance of communicating information regarding an automated system's performance and to explain its strengths and limitations to its operators is strongly highlighted within the system transparencyand operator-centered automation literature. However, it is not common that feedback containing system qualifiers is incorporated into the primary displays of the automated system, obscuring its transparency. In this thesis, we deal with the investigation of the effects of explaining and visualizing system reasoning and performance parameters in different domains on the operators' trust, workload and performance. Different proof-of-concept prototypes have been designed with transparency characteristics in mind, and quantitative and qualitative evaluations together with operators of these systems have been carried out. Our results show that the effects of automation transparency can positively influence the performance and trust calibration of operators of complex systems, yet possibly at the costs of higher workload and longer decision-making times. Further, this thesis provides recommendations for designers and developers of automated systems in terms of general design concepts and guidelines for developing transparent automated systems for the future. / Fler och fler komplexa semiautomatiserade system utvecklas idag, vilka hjälper operatörer att samla in och analysera data och information och även att rekommendera beslut och agera på dessa. Det yttersta målet med implementeringen av automatiserade system är ofta att hjälpa operatörerna att fatta bättre beslut snabbare och samtidigt minska deras arbetsbelastning. Dock blir detta inte alltid fallet och flera olyckor har uppmärksammat faktumet att introduktionen av automatiserade system istället kan öka behovet av mänsklig inblandning och expertis. Inom forskningsområden såsom automationstransparens och operatörscentrerad automation har vikten av att kommunicera information angående automationens prestanda betonats, likaså att förklara dess styrkor och svagheter för operatörerna. Dock är det inte vanligt att sådan meta-information inkorporeras i de automatiska systemens primära användargränssnitt, vilket kan försvåra det för operatörerna att tillgodogöra sig denna information. I denna avhandling undersöks effekterna av att förklara och visualisera semiautomatiserade systems resonerande och prestanda i olika domäner på operatörernas tillit till systemen, deras upplevda arbetsbörda och deras prestation. Olika konceptprototyper har designats med inkorporerade transparensegenskaper och kvalitativa och kvantitativa utvärderingar tillsammans med operatörer av dessa system har genomförts. Resultaten visar att automationstransparens kan ha positiva effekter på operatörers prestanda och tillitskalibrering, dock med möjliga kostnader i form av högre upplevd arbetsbelastning och längre beslutstider. Avhandlingen erbjuder även rekommendationer till designers och utvecklare i form av generella riktlinjer och designegenskaper vid utvecklandet av framtida transparenta semiautomatiserade stödsystem. / <p>The author is also affiliated to the university of Skövde</p><p>This research has been founded by The Swedish Governmental Agency for InnovationSystems (Vinnova) through the National Aviation Engineering Research Program(NFFP5-2009-01315) and supported by Saab AB.</p>