The predictability of an upcoming word has been found to be a useful predictor in eye movement research, but is expensive to collect and subjective in nature. It would be desirable to have other predictors that are easier to collect and objective in nature if these predictors were capable of capturing the information stored in predictability. This paper contributes to this discussion by testing a possible predictor: conditional co-occurrence probability. This measure is a simple statistical representation of the relatedness of the current word to its context, based only on word co-occurrence patterns in data taken from the Internet. In the regression analyses, conditional co-occurrence probability acts like lexical frequency in predicting fixation durations, and its addition does not greatly improve the model fits. We conclude that readers do not seem to use the information contained within conditional co-occurrence probability during reading for meaning, and that similar simple measures of semantic relatedness are unlikely to be able to replace predictability as a predictor for fixation durations. Keywords: Co-occurrence probability, Cloze predictability, frequency, eye movement, fixation duration.

Vibrio spp., natural inhabitants of aquatic environments, are one of the most common causes of bacterial gastroenteritis in the world, being spread to humans via the ingestion of seafood, contaminated drinking water or exposure to seawater. The majority of Vibrio spp. are avirulent, but certain strains may sporadically be human pathogenic. Vibrio cholerae may cause cholera and fatal wound infections, Vibrio parahaemolyticus may cause gastroenteritis and Vibrio vulnificus may cause wound infections and sepsis. To expand current knowledge of the occurrence, ecological niche and persistence of potential human pathogenic Vibrio spp. in aquatic environments, occurrence and laboratory studies were performed. The seasonal variation of Vibrio spp. in clams and mussels from Mozambique and Sweden were studied, with isolated strains characterized and compared with those isolated from water samples collected in India. Results showed that the numbers of Vibrio spp. in Mozambican clams peaked during the warmer rainy season and that the dominating species was V. parahaemolyticus. Biochemical fingerprinting and virulence screened by PCR revealed a high similarity among strains from the different aquatic environments. However, isolate functional hemolytic analyses and antibiotic resistance patterns differed between strains; Swedish and Indian strains were less sensitive to the tested antibiotics and had a lower hemolytic capacity than those from Mozambique. Molecular analysis of bacterial DNA from Swedish mussels showed the presence of the three Vibrio spp. most commonly linked with human illness, as well as their associated virulence genes. The strains isolated from marine and clinical environments were equally and highly harmful to the tested eukaryotic cells. The persistence of clinical V. cholerae in aquatic environments was investigated in vivo. Strains were exposed to mussels, with bacterial uptake and elimination then examined. The mussels were able to avoid the most potent strain by complete closure of shells. The less potent strain was accumulated in mussel tissue in low levels and one marine control strain to a higher degree. Mussels eliminated the pathogenic strain less efficiently than they did the marine strain. One clinical and one marine strain were then exposed to 4°C for 21 days, with the temperature then increased to 20°C. The clinical strain was more prone to lose culturability than the marine strain at 4°C, the former performed significantly better in regaining culturability after the temperature up-shift. Subsequently, the persistence of the clinical strain in natural bottom sediment, incubating as above, was studied and results showed a similar decrease in culturable numbers in the sediment as in the water. As the clinical V. cholerae strains did not carry any of the standard set of virulence genes, the ability to change from non-culturable to culturable may be of great importance to strain pathogenicity. The results also show that natural bottom sediment may be a potential reservoir of human pathogenic Vibrio spp.

<p>Groundwater is an important water resource to be used to supplement the water demand for the City of Cape Town for present and future generations. Understanding the groundwater occurrence of the Table Mountain area is very important for future groundwater exploitation and management. Apart from the sea in the west, Table Mountain is mostly surrounded by the unconsolidated sediments including the Kirstenbosch, Newlands, and Oranjezicht areas. These areas are rich in groundwater resources, like springs / some of them were utilized, others not. However, there are few studies that focused on spring resource in this area. No up to date information is available for spring resources research and relative data is lacking from local research institutions. In fact, some of the spring resources in the Table Mountain area had been extracted and been utilized for local community for many years. Data and information newly obtained from this study about such groundwater resources will help future groundwater development and management. There are at least 13 springs in the selected study area. Those springs were investigated for groundwater occurrence, because spring is an important manifestation of the underlying aquifer through which groundwater dynamics can be detected. The main objective of the study was to sketch a clear picture of groundwater occurrence and to obtain an improved understanding of how geomorphology affects groundwater flow, its manifestation and quality. Water resources management is also important because this kind of water resource can be used to help meet the water demand of this local area in the future. There is relationship between the topographical features of the Table Mountain and spring occurrence. The research area delineated is used to interpret the relationship. Hydro-geochemical analysis is carried out to indicate the chemical components of the groundwater and to understand the groundwater type and water quality of this particular area. Based on the completed analysis and interpretation of factors influencing discharge and recharge, some good results were obtained and useful information is made available for first time.</p>

Three species of burnet moths (Zygaena filipendulae, Z. lonicerae and Z. viciae) were studied on the Baltic island Öland, Sweden, in order to reveal the habitat requirements of different life stages. Larvae were found among a higher cover of their most important host plant, Lotus corniculatus, Trifolium medium/pratense or Vicia spp., than were pupae or imagines, and were also observed on plants larger than randomly examined plants. Imagines actively selected nectar plants of Centaurea and Cirsium, growing in sunny conditions, but other red and violet Asteraceae flowers were also favoured. Pupae of Z. filipendulae appeared in taller vegetation than larvae and imagines, probably because the cocoons are spun high on stems of grasses and other plants. The chance of finding such suitable substrates rises with increasing vegetation height. A large scale analysis of occupancy patterns was also made, evaluating the relationship between burnet presence or absence and the area of meadows and pastures within 10 x 10 km grid cells in southern Sweden. All three species showed a positive relationship with increasing area of semi-natural grassland. Thresholds for the amount of habitat, below which the likelihood of occurrence declined more rapidly, could be distinguished around a 40-50 % probability of occurrence. Conservational work should aim at preserving and restoring open and sunny areas, rich in the respective host plants and nectar sources, but vegetation management must be executed with great care or late in the season to not harm unhatched pupae and to maintain substrates suitable for Z. filipendulae pupation.

Many piano teachers agree that suitable repertoire motivates their students to learn and practice their instrument. Asking students to learn different categories of repertoire might be a good approach for piano teachers to motivate and maintain their students’ musical interests. However, how do teachers evaluate what kinds of repertoire is presented in the teaching material that is available to them? The purpose of this study is to review the pieces found in North-American piano method books in order to provide an inventory of the different categories of repertoire found in each series and to calculate the proportion of piano repertoire belonging in each category. Consequently, this research will allow piano teachers to see more clearly which kinds of repertoire are in a method book and help select the most appropriate method books for their students.

Texture analysis has been used extensively in the computer-assisted interpretation of SAR sea ice imagery. Provision of maps which distinguish relevant ice types is significant for monitoring global warming and ship navigation. Due to the abundance of SAR imagery available, there exists a need to develop an automated approach for SAR sea ice interpretation. Grey level co-occurrence probability (<i>GLCP</i>) texture features are very popular for SAR sea ice classification. Although these features are used extensively in the literature, they have a tendency to erode and misclassify texture boundaries. Proposed is an advancement to the <i>GLCP</i> method which will preserve texture boundaries during image segmentation. This method exploits the relationship a pixel has with its closest neighbors and weights the texture measurement accordingly. These texture features are referred to as <i>WGLCP</i> (weighted <i>GLCP</i>) texture features. In this research, the <i>WGLCP</i> and <i>GLCP</i> feature sets are compared in terms of boundary preservation, unsupervised segmentation ability, robustness to increasing boundary density and computation time. The <i>WGLCP</i> method outperforms the <i>GLCP</i> method in all aspects except for computation time, where it suffers. From the comparative analysis, an inconsistency with the <i>GLCP</i> correlation statistic was observed, which motivated an investigative study into using this statistic for image segmentation. As the overall goal of the thesis is to improve SAR sea ice segmentation accuracy, the concepts developed from the study are applied to the image segmentation problem. The results indicate that for images with high contrast boundaries, the <i>GLCP</i> correlation statistical feature decreases segmentation accuracy. When comparing <i>WGLCP</i> and <i>GLCP</i> features for segmentation, the <i>WGLCP</i> features provide higher segmentation accuracy.

Yersinia enterocolitica are potentially pathogenic bacteria transmitted through the fecal oral route. Typical disease symptoms include those associated with gastrointestinal disease, although infection can also lead to more serious and invasive illnesses, particularly in sensitive populations. Previous surveys have detected Y. enterocolitica in surface water in various parts of the world, and studies have found drinking untreated water to be a possible risk factor for Y. enterocolitica infection. Methods available for the detection of Y. enterocolitica have been developed primarily for food and clinical samples and have not been tested extensively with water. More commonly used methods include culture based isolation of Yersinia spp. and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) based detection of Y. enterocolitica. Reports suggest that culture based methods available for the isolation of Y. enterocolitica may not be effective for environmental samples. Strain isolation using culture based methods is important, so that further subtyping information can be obtained for epidemiological investigations. In contrast, PCR based detection is more rapid, of higher throughput, can be highly specific and can target pathogenic strains within a species. The overall objective of this work was to evaluate culture based and PCR based methods for the detection of Y. enterocolitica in water, and to examine its prevalence in the Grand River watershed in Southwestern Ontario, Canada. Surface water in this watershed is used to provide all or part of the drinking water for approximately 500,000 people, as well as for recreational purposes. It is also one of the most heavily impacted watersheds in Canada by both agricultural and urban activities. Culture based studies compared two selective agars and four enrichment broths. Results showed that Cefsulodin Irgasan Novobiocin (CIN) agar and modified tryptic soy broth (mTSB) had greater potential for recovering Y. enterocolitica from surface water. Consequently, enrichment in mTSB followed by growth on CIN agar was used to isolate Yersinia from the Grand River. Yersinia strains were isolated from 52 out of 200 (26 %) surface water samples collected over a 17 month period. No seasonal trends were observed in isolation rates. Species isolated were typically considered to be non pathogenic species, although recent evidence suggests they may have potential virulence to humans. The majority of these strains have been found by other groups in surveys of aquatic environments. PCR methods developed targeted two Y. enterocolitica virulence genes: the ail gene, located in chromosomal DNA; and the yad A gene, located on a virulence plasmid. In surface water collected from the Grand River, the ail gene target was detected in 121 samples out of 319 (38 %) over a 29 month period and the yadA gene target was detected in 44 samples out of 206 (21 %) over a 20 month period. Both genes were detected more frequently when the water temperatures were colder. PCR-based studies conducted were quantitative, which has not previously been done with water samples. The median and maximum concentrations in samples positive for the ail gene were 40 and 2,000 cells/100 mL, and in samples positive for the yadA gene were 32 and 3,276 gene copies/100 mL, respectively. Overall results demonstrated that culture based methods are less sensitive than PCR based detection methods for specific detection of pathogenic Y. enterocolitica, suggesting that previous culture based surveys may have underestimated their potential prevalence. Furthermore, potentially pathogenic Y. enterocolitica may be present in the Grand River watershed. While Y. enterocolitica is relatively easily inactivated by traditional disinfection methods used in drinking water treatment processes, it is possible their presence poses a concern for recreational users and individuals drinking untreated water. This study suggests that further investigation is necessary to evaluate possible health risks associated with the occurrence of potentially pathogenic Y. enterocolitica in the Grand River. This work assists with the development of methods and information gathering for an emerging waterborne pathogen that has not been surveyed in the Grand River watershed, nor quantitatively surveyed in any water previously. Findings provide important information for drinking water providers and public health investigations.

Texture analysis has been used extensively in the computer-assisted interpretation of SAR sea ice imagery. Provision of maps which distinguish relevant ice types is significant for monitoring global warming and ship navigation. Due to the abundance of SAR imagery available, there exists a need to develop an automated approach for SAR sea ice interpretation. Grey level co-occurrence probability (<i>GLCP</i>) texture features are very popular for SAR sea ice classification. Although these features are used extensively in the literature, they have a tendency to erode and misclassify texture boundaries. Proposed is an advancement to the <i>GLCP</i> method which will preserve texture boundaries during image segmentation. This method exploits the relationship a pixel has with its closest neighbors and weights the texture measurement accordingly. These texture features are referred to as <i>WGLCP</i> (weighted <i>GLCP</i>) texture features. In this research, the <i>WGLCP</i> and <i>GLCP</i> feature sets are compared in terms of boundary preservation, unsupervised segmentation ability, robustness to increasing boundary density and computation time. The <i>WGLCP</i> method outperforms the <i>GLCP</i> method in all aspects except for computation time, where it suffers. From the comparative analysis, an inconsistency with the <i>GLCP</i> correlation statistic was observed, which motivated an investigative study into using this statistic for image segmentation. As the overall goal of the thesis is to improve SAR sea ice segmentation accuracy, the concepts developed from the study are applied to the image segmentation problem. The results indicate that for images with high contrast boundaries, the <i>GLCP</i> correlation statistical feature decreases segmentation accuracy. When comparing <i>WGLCP</i> and <i>GLCP</i> features for segmentation, the <i>WGLCP</i> features provide higher segmentation accuracy.

Yersinia enterocolitica are potentially pathogenic bacteria transmitted through the fecal oral route. Typical disease symptoms include those associated with gastrointestinal disease, although infection can also lead to more serious and invasive illnesses, particularly in sensitive populations. Previous surveys have detected Y. enterocolitica in surface water in various parts of the world, and studies have found drinking untreated water to be a possible risk factor for Y. enterocolitica infection. Methods available for the detection of Y. enterocolitica have been developed primarily for food and clinical samples and have not been tested extensively with water. More commonly used methods include culture based isolation of Yersinia spp. and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) based detection of Y. enterocolitica. Reports suggest that culture based methods available for the isolation of Y. enterocolitica may not be effective for environmental samples. Strain isolation using culture based methods is important, so that further subtyping information can be obtained for epidemiological investigations. In contrast, PCR based detection is more rapid, of higher throughput, can be highly specific and can target pathogenic strains within a species. The overall objective of this work was to evaluate culture based and PCR based methods for the detection of Y. enterocolitica in water, and to examine its prevalence in the Grand River watershed in Southwestern Ontario, Canada. Surface water in this watershed is used to provide all or part of the drinking water for approximately 500,000 people, as well as for recreational purposes. It is also one of the most heavily impacted watersheds in Canada by both agricultural and urban activities. Culture based studies compared two selective agars and four enrichment broths. Results showed that Cefsulodin Irgasan Novobiocin (CIN) agar and modified tryptic soy broth (mTSB) had greater potential for recovering Y. enterocolitica from surface water. Consequently, enrichment in mTSB followed by growth on CIN agar was used to isolate Yersinia from the Grand River. Yersinia strains were isolated from 52 out of 200 (26 %) surface water samples collected over a 17 month period. No seasonal trends were observed in isolation rates. Species isolated were typically considered to be non pathogenic species, although recent evidence suggests they may have potential virulence to humans. The majority of these strains have been found by other groups in surveys of aquatic environments. PCR methods developed targeted two Y. enterocolitica virulence genes: the ail gene, located in chromosomal DNA; and the yad A gene, located on a virulence plasmid. In surface water collected from the Grand River, the ail gene target was detected in 121 samples out of 319 (38 %) over a 29 month period and the yadA gene target was detected in 44 samples out of 206 (21 %) over a 20 month period. Both genes were detected more frequently when the water temperatures were colder. PCR-based studies conducted were quantitative, which has not previously been done with water samples. The median and maximum concentrations in samples positive for the ail gene were 40 and 2,000 cells/100 mL, and in samples positive for the yadA gene were 32 and 3,276 gene copies/100 mL, respectively. Overall results demonstrated that culture based methods are less sensitive than PCR based detection methods for specific detection of pathogenic Y. enterocolitica, suggesting that previous culture based surveys may have underestimated their potential prevalence. Furthermore, potentially pathogenic Y. enterocolitica may be present in the Grand River watershed. While Y. enterocolitica is relatively easily inactivated by traditional disinfection methods used in drinking water treatment processes, it is possible their presence poses a concern for recreational users and individuals drinking untreated water. This study suggests that further investigation is necessary to evaluate possible health risks associated with the occurrence of potentially pathogenic Y. enterocolitica in the Grand River. This work assists with the development of methods and information gathering for an emerging waterborne pathogen that has not been surveyed in the Grand River watershed, nor quantitatively surveyed in any water previously. Findings provide important information for drinking water providers and public health investigations.

Syftet med litteraturstudien var att undersöka förekomsten av karies och parodontit hos personer med Morbus Crohn. Metoden som användes var en allmän litteraturstudie. Materialet till litteraturstudien samlades in genom sökning i databaserna Cinahl, PubMed och ScienceDirect. De sökord som användes vid litteratursökningen i samtliga databaser var ”caries”, ”Crohn’s disease”, ”periodontal disease” och ”periodontitis”. Vetenskapliga artiklar som fick ingå i litteraturstudien begränsades till ”English”, ”humans” och ”title/abstract” alternativt ”abstract/title/keywords”. Litteraturstudiens resultat baserades på en sammanställning av resultaten från tolv vetenskapliga artiklar. Tio av de vetenskapliga artiklarna berörde förekomst av karies hos personer med Morbus Crohn och i sju av dem redovisades att en signifikant förhöjd förekomst av karies fanns hos dessa personer. Tre av de tio vetenskapliga artiklarna redogjorde för att det fanns en förhöjd förekomst av karies hos personer med Morbus Crohn men det framgick inte om den var signifikant eller ej. Fem av de tolv vetenskapliga artiklarna berörde förekomst av parodontit hos personer med Morbus Crohn och i fyra av dem redovisades att en signifikant förhöjd förekomst av parodontit fanns hos dessa personer. Den kvarvarande vetenskapliga artikeln som berörde förekomst av parodontit hos personer med Morbus Crohn redogjorde för att det inte fanns en liten men inte signifikant förhöjd förekomst av parodontit hos dessa personer. Tre av de tolv vetenskapliga artiklarna berörde både förekomst av karies och parodontit hos personer med Morbus Crohn. Slutsatsen med litteraturstudien är att personer med Morbus Crohn verkar ha ökad förekomst av karies och parodontit. / The aim of the study was to investigate the occurrence of dental caries and periodontitis in people with Crohn’s disease. The method that was used in this study was a general literature review. The material for the literature review was collected by searching in the databases Cinahl, PubMed and ScienceDirect. The keywords that were used in the searches in all of the databases were ”caries”, ”Crohn’s disease”, ”periodontal disease” and ”periodontitis”. The scientific articles that were included in the literature review were limited to ”English”, ”humans” and ”title/abstract” alternatively ”abstract/title/keywords”. The result of the literature review was based on a compilation of the results from twelve scientific articles. Ten of the twelve scientific articles concerned the occurrence of dental caries in people with Crohn’s disease and seven of them reported a significantly elevated prevalence of dental caries in these individuals. Three of the ten scientific articles reported that there was an elevated incidence of dental caries in people with Crohn’s disease but they did not show whether the elevated incidence was significant or not. Five of the twelve scientific articles concerned the occurrence of periodontitis in people with Crohn’s disease and four of them reported a significantly elevated prevalence of periodontitis in these individuals. The remaining scientific article that concerned the occurrence of periodontitis in people with Crohn’s disease reported that there was a slightly but no significantly elevated prevalence of periodontitis in people with Crohn’s disease. Three of the twelve scientific articles concerned both the occurrence of dental caries and periodontitis in people with Crohn’s disease. The conclusion of the literature review is that people with Crohn’s disease seems to have elevated occurrence of dental caries and periodontitis.