The past research concerning pets mostly focused on the assistance rendered by pets. Due to the climate of lesser child and never-go marry, more and more people treat pets like their children indeed. What they care does not limit to practical purposes such as guard and accompany, but also the pet¡¦s needs. They are willing to offer their pets all sorts of foods, goods and services so that their pets are happy with. On the other hand, the video technology reaches its maturity and is widely applied to mobile communication, house monitoring, and kindergarten monitoring. In addition, such technology is accessed to pet hotels, pet parlors, pet sitters and pet clinics where the pet owners can surf on their 3G phones to watch their pets at any time. This study aims to explore the pet owners¡¦ recognition of perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use and use intention in terms of video technology. This study is based on the framework of TAM, using raising attitude as external variable whereas subjective norm as independent variable to willingness to use. The questionnaires were sent to the pet owners through random sampling in Taiwan. 481 copies were retrieved and conducted SPSS and AMOS analysis. The findings indicate that all hypotheses are validated except two hypotheses- one is the pet owners ¡¥s mental propensity toward their pets is not related to the perceived ease of use of video technology, the other is perceived ease of use is not related to use intention. Therefore, the results confirm that¡G1. The feelings of the pet owners for their pets incur positive impact on their recognition toward the perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use of video technology, 2. With subjective norm, the pet owners are more willing to use video technology. 3. If video technology facilitated easy caring for pets, the pet owners could easily recognize its perceived usefulness. 4. If the pet owners consider video technology perceived usefulness for keeping their pets, they have no intention to use such device to care about their pets. 5. For pet business sectors, it is imperative to make use of video technology in order to convince the pet owners of its conveniences which can be always appealing to the pet owners.

On May 2011, the Environmental Protection Administration launched a policy to cut the use of disposable cups. This policy obliges non-alcoholic beverage stores to give customers incentives for bringing their own cups or recycling disposable cups. Because college students often buy take-out non-alcoholic beverage, this study aimed to explore how psychological variables might affect their intent to bringing their own cups. Results from this study may provide some suggestions for the policy above. This study started with a focus group interview with 31 college students. This interview gave me a preliminary understanding of students¡¦ intent to bring their own cups and the related psychological factors. I then combined the findings from this interview and literature review to design the framework and questionnaire for this study. Following Kotler and Lee¡¦s (2008) concept of social marketing, the questionnaire was mainly designed to assess five variables: policy incentive, benefit of bringing own cups, cost of bringing own cups, convenience in buying cups, and convenience in washing cups. A convenience sample of 197 students in National Sun Yat-sen University participated. The results suggest the higher the profit or the lower the cost for bringing own cups, the stronger will be students¡¦ intent to do so. However, the other three variables had no significant effect. In addition, the analysis showed female students were more intended to bring their own cups than male students did. Students from different departments also differed in their intent, but the differences were small. Based on these findings, several policy recommendations were proposed.

The modeling of electromagnetic phenomena described by the Maxwell's equations is of critical importance in many practical applications. The numerical simulation of these equations is challenging and much more involved than initially believed. Consequently, many discretization techniques, most of them quite complicated, have been proposed. In this dissertation, we present and analyze a new methodology for approximation of the time-harmonic Maxwell's equations. It is an extension of the negative-norm least-squares finite element approach which has been applied successfully to a variety of other problems. The main advantages of our method are that it uses simple, piecewise polynomial, finite element spaces, while giving quasi-optimal approximation, even for solutions with low regularity (such as the ones found in practical applications). The numerical solution can be efficiently computed using standard and well-known tools, such as iterative methods and eigensolvers for symmetric and positive definite systems (e.g. PCG and LOBPCG) and reconditioners for second-order problems (e.g. Multigrid). Additionally, approximation of varying polynomial degrees is allowed and spurious eigenmodes are provably avoided. We consider the following problems related to the Maxwell's equations in the frequency domain: the magnetostatic problem, the electrostatic problem, the eigenvalue problem and the full time-harmonic system. For each of these problems, we present a natural (very) weak variational formulation assuming minimal regularity of the solution. In each case, we prove error estimates for the approximation with two different discrete least-squares methods. We also show how to deal with problems posed on domains that are multiply connected or have multiple boundary components. Besides the theoretical analysis of the methods, the dissertation provides various numerical results in two and three dimensions that illustrate and support the theory.

No description available.

<p><strong>Abstract</strong><strong></strong></p><p>This thesis is centered on the economic condition and background of immigrants living in Sweden, with focus on Araby, Växjö. To guide us through this enormous work we formulated research questions, which are:</p><ul><li>Why have foreigners (immigrants) a greater risk of becoming economic vulnerable? </li><li>How does economic vulnerability effect families with children?</li><li>What strategies do families adopt under hard economic conditions? </li><li>What strategies does the society adopt in assisting families, by economic aid, that are economic vulnerable?  </li></ul><p>Our sample was from a school where we administered an open ended questionnaire to selected students and we also had a comprehensive interview session with ten families in the community so as to have a complete picture of their living condition and how they think people are economically vulnerable.</p><p>We concentrated on the causes, consequences and strategies of how economic vulnerability is handled by immigrants in Sweden. In our analysis we found out, though our respondents’ answers, that the causes of economic vulnerable are background, language, priorities et cetera. For the consequences we have health and social network, living environment and material resources and finally for the strategies we have borrowing, prioritizing and working. Amongst the theories used are micro and macro perspectives, identity, independence, social and economic capital, social exclusions and norms.</p><p>In conclusions we can say economic vulnerability varies depending on the individual involved, foreigners (immigrants) are more liable to this vulnerability due to the language difficulty, inadequate knowledge about Swedish society, and the relationship between the society and their own network.</p> / <p><strong>Sammanfattning</strong></p><p>Denna studie handlar om ekonomisk utsatthet och ekonomiska förutsättningar för människor med utländsk bakgrund i Sverige. Fokuset är lagt på barnfamiljer i Växjö och främst i stadsdelen Araby.  Våra frågeställningar är:</p><ul><li>Varför löper barnfamiljer med utländsk bakgrund större risk att hamna i ekonomisk utsatthet?  <strong></strong></li></ul><ul><li>Hur påverkar den ekonomiska utsattheten barnfamiljer?</li><li>Vilka strategier använder sig barnfamiljer med utländsk bakgrund som befinner sig i en ekonomisk utsatt situation av? Det vill säga ekonomisk utsatthet utifrån ett mikroperspektiv.</li><li> Vilka strategier använder sig samhället av för att hantera ekonomisk utsatthet bland barnfamiljer, till exempel med hjälp av ekonomiskt bistånd, det vill säga hur ekonomisk utsatthet kan ses utifrån ett makroperspektiv.  </li></ul><p>För att undersöka dessa frågor har vi varit på en skola och där gett ut ett öppet frågeformulär till elever i femte och sjätte klass. Vidare har vi gjort en omfattande intervjuundersökning innehållande tio intervjuer med familjer med utländsk bakgrund om hur de tänker och uppfattar ekonomisk utsatthet.</p><p>Vi har koncentrerat oss på orsaker, konsekvenser och strategier av hur människor mer utländsk bakgrund hanterar ekonomisk utsatthet.  Vi har tittat närmare på ekonomisk utsatthet utifrån både ett mikro- och ett makroperspektiv. Andra begrepp vi använt är identitet, självständighet, socialt- och ekonomiskt kapital, normer och social exkludering.  </p><p>I vår analys pekar vi på olika faktorer som orsakar ekonomisk utsatthet, dessa är: bakgrund, språk, prioriteringar och arbetsmarknadsetablering. Konsekvenserna av ekonomisk utsatthet är hälsa, nätverk, bostadsområde, boendeförhållanden, och materiella resurser. Slutligen de strategier vi har identifierat som viktiga för att hantera ekonomisk utsatthet är, låna, prioritera och att söka arbete.</p><p>Våra slutsatser är att det finns varierande uppfattningar om ekonomisk utsatthet, beroende på individens identitet och kontext. Människor med utländsk bakgrund hamnar oftare i ekonomisk utsatthet på grund av språkbarriärer och därmed svårigheter att förstå det svenska samhället och dess normer. <strong></strong></p>

Zugl.: Hamburg, Univ., Diss., 2008

Zugl.: Hamburg, Univ., Diss., 2007

An Instructable Software Agent (ISA) is a software agent that humans can teach through Natural Instruction Methods (NIMs)—methods humans naturally use to teach one another. Some examples of NIMs include giving demonstrations, guided practice sessions, and definitions of concepts. If software agents were instructable, humans would be able to impart knowledge to software systems though a more natural interface. In this dissertation, I address generating benchmarks for evaluating the learning ability of ISAs despite the important differences that may exist between human learners and ISAs. I first present three years of case studies uncovering the challenges of such a comparison and then make recommendations for future studies. The main contributions of this dissertation are 1. a theory of using humans to evaluate the learning ability of Instructable Software Agents (ISAs), 2. a refined method for developing curricula and benchmarks for evaluating ISAs, including a scalable lab configuration for performing human benchmarking and a suite of accompanying software tools, and 3. the case studies themselves, amounting to an in-depth ethnographic study of the issues involved in using humans to develop curricula and benchmarks for ISAs. / text

This essay, entitled Masculinities and Femininities in Vilhelm Moberg's Raskens and Mans kvinna, is about the masculinities and the femininities that are depicted in Vilhelm Moberg's two novels Raskens (1927) and Mans kvinna (1933). The theory consists of masculinity studies and femininity studies which are complemented with historical research about masculinity and femininity. In my analysis I found several motives concerning the masculinities and femininities. The motives are infidelity, possession of property and land, appearance, revenge, violence and alcohol. The ideal man in Moberg's novels is tall, strong and strong-willed. The two male main characters, Rasken and Håkan, have this in common, even though they have very different goals in their lives. One thing that is different about the masculinities portrayed in the novels is that possession of property and land is depicted as desirable in Raskens, while freedom from property is desirable in Mans kvinna. The ideal woman, at least the woman who is desired by the men in the novels, is young and beautiful, but also hardworking and industrious. At large, it is a traditional and norm based image of the woman and the man that is described in the novels. However, Moberg problematises these images by showing the women's vulnerability and how the men's "manly" behaviour leads to destructiveness.

In this report, you will be able to read about how the teacher with the help of others can / should do to support the aggressive pupil towards a more healthy behavior.