Dans ce travail, nous proposons des procédures de test paramétriques et nonparamétrique localement et asymptotiquement optimales au sens de Hajek et Le Cam, pour trois modèles d'asymétrie. La construction de modèles d'asymétrie est un sujet de recherche qui a connu un grand développement ces dernières années, et l'obtention des tests optimaux (pour trois modèles différents) est une étape essentielle en vue de leur mise en application. Notre approche est fondée sur la théorie de Le Cam d'une part, pour obtenir les propriétés de normalité asymptotique, bases de la construction des tests paramétriques optimaux, et la théorie de Hajek d'autre part, qui, via un principe d'invariance permet d'obtenir les procédures non-paramétriques. Nous considérons dans ce travail deux classes de distributions univariées asymétriques, l'une fondée sur un développement d'Edgeworth (décrit dans le Chapitre 1), et l'autre construite en utilisant un paramètre d'échelle différent pour les valeurs positives et négatives (le modèle de Fechner, décrit dans le Chapitre 2). Le modèle d'asymétrie elliptique étudié dans le dernier chapitre est une généralisation multivariée du modèle du Chapitre 2. Pour chacun de ces modèles, nous proposons de tester l'hypothèse de symétrie par rapport à un centre fixé, puis par rapport à un centre non spécifié. Après avoir décrit le modèle pour lequel nous construisons les procédures optimales, nous obtenons la propriété de normalité locale asymptotique. A partir de ce résultat, nous sommes capable de construire les tests paramétriques localement et asymptotiquement optimaux. Ces tests ne sont toutefois valides que si la densité sous-jacente f est correctement spécifiée. Ils ont donc le mérite de déterminer les bornes d'efficacité paramétrique, mais sont difficilement applicables. Nous adaptons donc ces tests afin de pouvoir tester les hypothèses de symétrie par rapport à un centre fixé ou non, lorsque la densité sous-jacente est considérée comme un paramètre de nuisance. Les tests que nous obtenons restent localement et asymptotiquement optimaux sous f, mais restent valides sous une large classe de densités. A partir des propriétés d'invariance du sous-modèle identifié par l'hypothèse nulle, nous obtenons les tests de rangs signés localement et asymptotiquement optimaux sous f, et valide sous une vaste classe de densité. Nous présentons en particulier, les tests fondés sur les scores normaux (ou tests de van der Waerden), qui sont optimaux sous des hypothèses Gaussiennes, tout en étant valides si cette hypothèse n'est pas vérifiée. Afin de comparer les performances des tests paramétriques et non paramétriques présentés, nous calculons les efficacités asymptotiques relatives des tests non paramétriques par rapport aux tests pseudo-Gaussiens, sous une vaste classe de densités non-Gaussiennes, et nous proposons quelques simulations.

<p>THE AIM OF THIS STUDY WAS TO INVESTIGATE YOUNG ADULTS EXPERIENCE´ OF RESIDENTIAL TREATMENT. THE STUDY WAS QUALITATIVE, BASED ON INTERVIEWS WITH FIVE RESPONDENTS WHO HAD STAYED AT A TREATMENT HOME FOR A LONG PERIOD OF TIME. THE FOCUS WAS ON THE RESPONDENTS´ EXPERIENCES OF MILIEU THERAPY AND THEIR VIEW ON NORMALITY. THE RESULTS WERE ANALYZED FROM EARLIER RESEARCH, THEORIES FROM SYMBOLIC-INTERACTIONISM AND ANTONOVSKYS´ THEORY ABOUT SENSE OF COHERENCE. THE RESULTS SHOWED THAT THE RESPONDENTS HAD TO EXAGGERATE THEIR DYSFUNCTIONAL BEHAVIOUR IN ORDER TO FIT AMONG THE OTHER RESIDENTS. THE GROUP OF RESIDENTS HAD A MAJOR IMPACT ON THE RESPONDENTS´ EXPERIENCE OF THE STAY. THEY ALSO EXPERIENCED THAT SOCIO-PSYCHOLOGICAL PROBLEMS WERE CONTAGIOUS WITHIN THE GROUP. AFTER THE TREATMENT THE RESPONDENTS FELT MORE SECURE IN THEMSELVES AND HAD A BETTER CONNECTION WITH THEIR FAMILIES. NORMALIZATION THROUGH EDUCATION SEEMS TO HAVE TAKEN PLACE SINCE ALL THE RESPONDENTS EXCEPT ONE ARE INVOLVED IN AN EDUCATION-PROGRAM NOW.</p>

The purpose of this doctoral thesis is to describe and analyse how school children are constructed into being pupils at risk. The research questions focus on what governing practices and techniques are used for and how power relations are expressed in a pedagogical practice. An ethnographic case study was conducted. Empirical data was collected during one year’s time comprising documents (pupils’ written material, teachers’ logbooks), classroom observations, and interviews with teachers as well as interviews with pupils and their mothers. For analytical purposes the material was divided into three main fields: What is said – speech, What is written – text and What is done – action. This was analysed by applying some central terms derived from Michel Foucault: governmentality, genealogy, pastoral power, regulation and examination processes. How pupils’ deviate behaviour is currently interpreted and dealt with in a pedagogical practice was of particular interest here. The outcome of this study suggests that teachers are part of a normalisation process, steering each other on the basis of conceptions and ideas rooted in the power and knowledge generally applied to the ”good school” of today. In Foucaultian terms this could be described as a process in which teachers constitute themselves as moral subjects. The teachers’ own conviction of governing ”the good school” can, however, be contrasted by their deeply rooted conceptions of pupils. Pupils are compared and categorised on the basis of judgments of what normality is. These normalising judgments can be understood in the light of the schools’ task and function in society. This task and schools’ function are not quite visible in the pedagogical practice and conceptions of deviance become more comprehensible. The predominant conception is that pupils should be responsible subjects equipped with internalised self-regulatory techniques. Whenever this does not appear to be the case, a need for various kinds of expert knowledge is created with the intention of directing pupils and parents towards what is conceived as normality. While schools’ and teachers’ failure is temporary, judgements of pupils’ deviance prevail throughout their school years. Pupils’ own strategies are not of relevance for the pedagogical practice. An ensuing effect of this is the construction of risk zones by the very pedagogical practice that considers children irresponsible objects. This doctoral thesis results in a suggestion as to how we could benefit from the challenging power constituted by pupils.

Vi har i denna studie använt oss av ett kvalitativt angreppssätt för att undersöka 19 domar gällande ”barn som far illa” enligt 2§ lagen med särskilda bestämmelser om vård av unga (LVU). Studiens syfte var att undersöka hur Socialnämnden i sina yttranden till Förvaltningsrätten argumenterar för tvångsvården. Studien har inspirerat av diskursanalys som metod och teori samt applicerat det teoretiska begreppet normalitet som ett analytiskt verktyg. Resultatet visar att socialnämnden argumenterar utifrån föräldrars tillkortakommanden och det onormala föräldraskapet i förhållande till barns odefinierade behov. Vidare framkommer att argumentationer förs utifrån lagstiftningen rekvisit för att uppnå rättslig relevans. / We have used a qualitative approach to analyze 19 verdicts according to 2§ The Young Persons Act (LVU) about maltreated children. The purpose with this study was to investigate how the Social Welfare argues to the administrative court. This study was inspired by discourse analyze as method and theory with a theoretical concept of normality as an analytical tool. The result show that the Social Welfare argues about parents shortcoming and the abnormal parenthood in relations to childrens undefined needs. The result also show that the Social Welfare argues for compulsory care in terms of legal requirements to achieve legal relevance.

Master of Science / Department of Statistics / Paul I. Nelson / Capture-Recaputre (CR) experiments stemmed from the study of wildlife and are widely used in areas such as ecology, epidemiology, evaluation of census undercounts, and software testing, to estimate population size, survival rate, and other population parameters. The basic idea of the design is to use “overlapping” information contained in multiple samples from the population. In this report, we focus on the simplest form of Capture-Recapture experiments, namely, a two-sample Capture-Recapture design, which is conventionally called the “Petersen Method.” We study and compare the performance of three methods of constructing confidence intervals for the population size based on a Capture-Recapture design, asymptotic normality estimation, Chapman estimation, and “inverting a chi-square test” estimation, in terms of coverage rate and mean interval width. Simulation studies are carried out and analyzed using R and SAS. It turns out that the “inverting a chi-square test” estimation is better than the other two methods. A possible solution to the “zero recapture” problem is put forward. We find that if population size is at least a few thousand, two-sample CR estimation provides reasonable estimates of the population size.

This essay aims to examine how the disabled figure is represented in motion pictures and if these representations differ when the actors are disabled. It aims to shed some light on the social construction of normality and disability. The theoretical framework is that of stigma, social interaction and Crip Theory and the method we use is discourse analysis. The movies in which we examine this are as follow: Hur många lingon finns det i världen?, Hur många kramar finns det i världen?, Café de Flore and Le huitième jour. Our conclusion is that known stereotypes did not occur as much as limited course of action and the tendency to treat the disabled character as a group and not as individuals. Our result also indicates that the story of the disabled figure is not the one that is being told and how their humanity is something that has to be confirmed instead of being self-evident.

Den här studien undersöker fenomenet studiero i två sjundeklasser på en högstadieskola i Sverige. Klasserna har observerats under lektionstid vid sex tillfällen och intervjuer har gjorts med sex elever och två pedagoger. Fokus ligger på elevernas upplevelse av studiero, vilka möjligheter eleverna har att forma sin arbetsmiljö samt hur eleverna ser på sitt inflytande och delaktighet. Det jag under min fältstudie har funnit är att elever och pedagoger är samstämmiga om vad studiero är, men att den bäst förstås när den störs. Då blir även andra processer tydliga så som skapandet av normer, elevernas socialiseringsprocess och det vänliga maktutövandet. Dock verkar det som om eleverna inte är fullständigt medvetna om sina möjligheter till påverkan och inflytande i skapandet av sin arbetsmiljö. / This study examines the learning conditions in two seventh grade classes at a high school in Sweden. The classes have been observed during lessons on six occasions and interviews have been done with six students and two educators. The focus is the students' experience of learning conditions in the classroom, what opportunities the students have to shape their work environment and how the students experience their participation. What I have found during my fieldwork is that students and educators agree on what good and calm learning conditions are, but that learning conditions are best understood when it is disrupted. Then other processes also become clear, such as the creation of norms, the students' socialization process and the friendly exercise of power. However, it seems that the students are not fully aware of the opportunities given when they participate in the creation of their work environment.

Este trabalho procura apresentar através de uma análise do conjunto das obras de Canguilhem uma crítica da razão médica prática, tal como sugere num de seus escritos. Vale dizer que embora ele tenha afirmado não pretender renovar a medicina, procurando apenas ajudá-la a pensar sobre seus pressupostos e conceitos fundamentais, em nosso entender, ao realizar uma crítica à hegemonia do modelo médico científico-moderno e ao operar o desvelamento de sua ideologia de controle da vida, acabou por delinear os contornos de uma nova racionalidade médica que, por se ancorar numa definição de medicina como arte que se coloca a serviço da capacidade de resistência vital, pode vir a fazer frente à mecanização da vida, à normalização dos indivíduos e à gestão sociopolítica médica da vida cotidiana. Assim, é adotando o ponto de vista canguilhemiano de que a ideia de normalidade como normalização mais se identifica à medicina científica moderna que opera com a ideia de norma como média estatística e tipo ideal, do que a uma medicina que considera que na natureza há apenas normalidade como normatividade, que procuramos ao fim de nosso trabalho vislumbrar outro horizonte para as práticas e a ética do cuidado em saúde na atualidade. / This work seeks to present, through the analysis of Canguilhems complete work, a critique of the practical reasoning in medicine, as suggested by the author himself. Although he has not intended to renovate medicine, his intention was to help thinking about its assumptions and fundamental concepts. It is believed that, by criticizing the hegemony of the modern scientific-medical model and operating the unveiling of its ideology of control over life, he ended up outlining the contours of a new medical rationale. This approach is based on the definition of medicine as a type of art which is at the service of a vital resistance capacity. This way, it can cope with the mechanization of life, the normalization of individuals and sociopolitical medical management of everyday life. Thus, by adopting Canguilhems perspective, the idea of normality as normalization is more related to the modern scientific medicine that works with the idea of statistical average and the ideal type than the medicine which considers that, in nature, there is only normality as normativity. At the end of this work, the aim is to glimpse another horizon for the practices and the ethics of current health care.

Variable selection procedures for high dimensional data have been proposed and studied by a large amount of literature in the last few years. Most of the previous research focuses on the selection properties as well as the point estimation properties. In this paper, our goal is to construct the confidence intervals for some low-dimensional parameters in the high-dimensional setting. The models we study are the partially penalized linear and accelerated failure time models in the high-dimensional setting. In our model setup, all variables are split into two groups. The first group consists of a relatively small number of variables that are more interesting. The second group consists of a large amount of variables that can be potentially correlated with the response variable. We propose an approach that selects the variables from the second group and produces confidence intervals for the parameters in the first group. We show the sign consistency of the selection procedure and give a bound on the estimation error. Based on this result, we provide the sufficient conditions for the asymptotic normality of the low-dimensional parameters. The high-dimensional selection consistency and the low-dimensional asymptotic normality are developed for both linear and AFT models with high-dimensional data.

Zero-inflated data abound in ecological studies as well as in other scientific and quantitative fields. Nonparametric regression with zero-inflated response may be studied via the zero-inflated generalized additive model (ZIGAM). ZIGAM assumes that the conditional distribution of the response variable belongs to the zero-inflated 1-parameter exponential family which is a probabilistic mixture of the zero atom and the 1-parameter exponential family, where the zero atom accounts for an excess of zeroes in the data. We propose the constrained zero-inflated generalized additive model (COZIGAM) for analyzing zero-inflated data, with the further assumption that the probability of non-zero-inflation is some monotone function of the (non-zero-inflated) exponential family distribution mean. When the latter assumption obtains, the new approach provides a unified framework for modeling zero-inflated data, which is more parsimonious and efficient than the unconstrained ZIGAM. We develop an iterative algorithm for model estimation based on the penalized likelihood approach, and derive formulas for constructing confidence intervals of the maximum penalized likelihood estimator. Some asymptotic properties including the consistency of the regression function estimator and the limiting distribution of the parametric estimator are derived. We also propose a Bayesian model selection criterion for choosing between the unconstrained and the constrained ZIGAMs. We consider several useful extensions of the COZIGAM, including imposing additive-component-specific proportional and partial constraints, and incorporating threshold effects to account for regime shift phenomena. The new methods are illustrated with both simulated data and real applications. An R package COZIGAM has been developed for model fitting and model selection with zero-inflated data.