This study takes a phenomenological approach to squirt kayaking. It looks to examine mystical states of consciousness, as defined by William James, and flow theory, as defined by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, and focuses on what these experiences mean for participants of the squirt kayaking community. The study poses three research questions. (1) Do squirt kayakers experience mystical states of consciousness through squirt kayaking, and what does this experience mean? (2) Do squirt kayakers experience flow states of consciousness through squirt kayaking, and how was this experienced? (3) What is the mystery zombie or the mystery trance state, and how is it experienced? By posting messages on online message boards dedicated to squirt kayakers twenty participants responded to the post and were then contacted by telephone for an interview based off of an original questionnaire created for this study. The results show that mysticism and flow does occur through the squirt kayaking medium. Four primary themes emerged from the data about the experience and are as follows: defies expression, serious leisure, different realm, and the trance. Results indicate that there is not a distinctive difference between mysticism and flow, although further research should be done to support this. Also this study would suggest that further research be conducted concerning the build-up of carbon dioxide in the brain and its effects on mystical experiences. Implications of this research to look to challenge the concept of mysticism and flow by broadening what recreation offers its participants. Keywords: charc, flow, mystery trance, mystery zombie, mysticism

Rivers and streams are sensitive to alterations in their watersheds and one of the greatest disturbances is from urban development. An urban stream channel in the Atlanta metropolitan area in the Georgia Piedmont was studied to establish the nature of adjustment the channel form was experiencing. This study compared a degraded channel with a channel influenced by stabilization efforts in the same stream reach, in order to investigate the behavior of channel adjustments towards a greater stability. Measurements of the short-term changes in channel cross-sectional area and bed-material volume, following a series of threshold flow events, were taken in the reach and the variation in bed sediment texture was also investigated. Results showed that channel banks were stable compared to more mobile beds and that urban effects continued to dictate sedimentation. Rehabilitation measures were aggrading channels in their reaches and were likely perpetuating the instability of upstream channels.

In today’s global market, China attracts great attention due to its rapid growing economy. Organizations from different countries take advantage of this, and move production to China. The noteworthy aspect of this situation is that most of these companies are Multi National Enterprises. These MNEs are aggressive in their expansion due to possession of major capabilities and possibilities to confront barriers and take economic risks. However, there are smaller companies with fewer resources that are more limited and choose not to move production to China. What drives these companies to bypass the well documented advantages with a production process in there? This research aims to fill that gap. This deductive research is based on Swedish SMEs that have been inquired to rank the most influential drivers behind their decision to move or not to move production to China. The investigation is conducted quantitatively by a survey. Another aspect of the survey which strengthens the result is the core strategies of the SMEs, which are asked to be ranked in order to reveal the most dominant one. The results analysis signifies that the key-drivers and the core strategy together influence the decision, to either move or not to move. However, the generalizability is negatively affected by the low level of participants. Therefore, in-depth analysis has been conducted, which highlights that the results do reveal a connection between the drivers and the core strategy and how they influence the decision. This research reveals the most influential processes for Swedish SMEs, which can further be considered by other SMEs that are in the process of making a decision to move or not to move production to China.

This study takes a phenomenological approach to squirt kayaking. It looks to examine mystical states of consciousness, as defined by William James, and flow theory, as defined by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, and focuses on what these experiences mean for participants of the squirt kayaking community. The study poses three research questions. (1) Do squirt kayakers experience mystical states of consciousness through squirt kayaking, and what does this experience mean? (2) Do squirt kayakers experience flow states of consciousness through squirt kayaking, and how was this experienced? (3) What is the mystery zombie or the mystery trance state, and how is it experienced?By posting messages on online message boards dedicated to squirt kayakers twenty participants responded to the post and were then contacted by telephone for an interview based off of an original questionnaire created for this study. The results show that mysticism and flow does occur through the squirt kayaking medium. Four primary themes emerged from the data about the experience and are as follows: defies expression, serious leisure, different realm, and the trance.Results indicate that there is not a distinctive difference between mysticism and flow, although further research should be done to support this. Also this study would suggest that further research be conducted concerning the build-up of carbon dioxide in the brain and its effects on mystical experiences. Implications of this research to look to challenge the concept of mysticism and flow by broadening what recreation offers its participants. Keywords: charc, flow, mystery trance, mystery zombie, mysticism

Die vorliegende Arbeit befasst sich mit dem Versuch der Optimierung von Simulated Annealing. Genauer gesagt, werden Simulationsergebnisse für einfache Spinglassysteme in Abhängigkeit von verschiedenen Nachbarschaftsmodellen berechnet – jeweils unter Verwendung des optimalen Abkühlverlaufs. Ziel ist es, eine Faustregel für die dynamische Anpassung der Nachbarschaftsbeziehung während einer Annealing-Simulation zu finden. / The thesis at hand presents an attempt to optimize simulated annealing. In particular, annealing results are computed based on different move class definitions for Ising spin systems while simultaneously applying an existing algorithm to determine the optimal temperature schedule for each case. The aim is to find a rule of thumb for dynamic adjustment of the move class during an annealing run.

Europos Sąjungos pilietybės koncepcija, pirmiausia pristatyta Mastrichto sutartimi (1992 m.), vėliau patikslinta Amsterdamo sutartimi (1997 m.), ilgai buvo laikoma tuščiu pažadu. Nors pradžioje ši simbolinės reikšmės koncepcija nesukūrė naujų teisių, tačiau dabar tapo esmine kylančioje Europos santvarkoje. Dėl Teisingumo Teismo dinamiškos praktikos ir jos kodifikavimo naujojoje Direktyvoje 2004/38/EB dėl Sąjungos piliečių ir jų šeimos narių teisės laisvai judėti ir gyventi valstybių narių teritorijoje koncepcijos vaidmuo pradėjo keistis. Europos Sąjungos pilietybė pamažu tampa tiesioginiu teisių šaltiniu išeinant už ekonominio konteksto ribų. Darbe analizuojama ekonomiškai neaktyvių Europos Sąjungos piliečių teisė laisvai judėti ir įsikurti Sąjungos teritorijoje. Pagrindinis darbo tikslas – aptarti esamą ir potencialiai galimą laisvo judėjimo principo išplėtimą ekonomiškai neaktyvių Sąjungos piliečių atžvilgiu. Pirmoje darbo dalyje akcentuojamas Europos Sąjungos pilietybės principas kaip nepriklausomas ekonomiškai neaktyvių Europos Sąjungos piliečių teisių šaltinis. Analizuojamas teisės laisvai judėti turinys, ypač daug dėmesio skiriama Sutarties 17 ir 18 straipsnių analizei, siekiant nustatyti, kokias naujoves skatina ir problemas kelia šių straipsnių taikymas naujausioje Teisingumo Teismo praktikoje, t.y., ar Sutarties 17-18 straipsnių nuostatos sukuria autonomišką ir tiesioginę teisę laisvai judėti ir įsikurti Europos Sąjungoje; ar pakeičia “išimtinai vidaus situacijos”... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / First introduced by the Maastricht Treaty, and subsequently revised by the Amsterdam Treaty, European Union (EU) citizenship long remained an empty promise. Even if it did not offer much in terms of new rights at first, EU citizenship has now become a key element of the rising European polity. Recently, indeed, and thanks primarily to the European Court of Justice’s (ECJ) case-law and its codification in Directive 2004/38/EC on the rights of movement and residence of EU citizens and their family, things have started to change. European citizenship is slowly becoming a direct source of rights outside the economic context. This academic master work explores the right of economically inactive EU citizens to move and reside freely within the territory of European Union. The main purpose of this work is to review the existing and potential extension as well as challenges to the principle of free movement of economically inactive EU citizens. Part I of this work highlights the principle of EU citizenship as an independent source of rights of economically inactive people. This part explores the material scope of free movement rights concentrating on the added value of Articles 17-18 EC: whether the new provisions introduce an autonomous and directly effective right to move and reside in a Member State; whether Article 17 and 18 change the law as it relates to ‘wholly internal situations’; whether Articles 17 and 18 contribute to the creation of new substantive rights for EU... [to full text]

The past decade has seen a tremendous growth in the amount of biomedical literature, specifically in the area of bioinformatics. As a result, biomedical text categorization has become a central task for providing researchers with literature appropriate for their specific information needs. Pan et al. have explored a method that automatically identifies information-bearing sentence fragments within scientific text. Their proposed method aims to automatically classify sentence fragments into certain sets of categories defined to satisfy specific types of information needs. The categories are grouped into five different dimensions known as Focus, Polarity, Certainty, Evidence, and Trend. The reason that fragments are used as the unit of classification is that the class value along each of these dimensions can change mid-sentence. In order to automatically annotate sentence fragments along the five dimensions, automatically breaking sentences into fragments is a necessary step. The performance of the classifier depends on the sentence fragments. In this study, we investigate the problem of automatic fragmentation of biomedical sentences, which is a fundamental layer in the multi-dimensional fragment classification. In addition, we believe that our proposed fragmentation algorithm can be used in other domains such as sentiment analysis. The goal of sentiment analysis is often to classify the polarity (positive or negative) of a given text. Sentiment classification can be conducted at different levels such as document, sentence, or phrase (fragment) level. Our proposed fragmentation algorithm can be used as a prerequisite for phrase-level sentiment categorization which aims to automatically capture multiple sentiments within a sentence. / Thesis (Master, Computing) -- Queen's University, 2009-09-25 10:08:04.429

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The overall aim of this thesis has been to investigate the meaning of the capability to move in order to identify and describe this capability from the perspective of the one who moves in relation to specific movements. It has been my ambition to develop ways to explicate, and thereby open up for discussion, what might form an educational goal in the context of movements and movement activities in the school subject of physical education and health (PEH). In this study I have used a practical epistemological perspective on capability to move, a perspective that challenges the traditional distinction between mental and physical skills as well as between theoretical and practical knowledge. Movement actions, or ways of moving, are seen as expressions of knowing. In order to explore an understanding of the knowing involved in specific ways of moving, observations of  actors’ ways of moving and their own experiences of moving were brought together. Informants from three different arenas took part: from PEH in upper secondary school, from athletics and from free-skiing. The results of the analyses suggest it is possible to describe practitioners’ developed knowing as a number of specific ways of knowing that are in turn related to specific ways of moving. Examples of such specific ways of moving may be discerning and modifying one’s own rotational velocity and navigating one’s (bodily) awareness. Additionally, exploring learners’ pre-knowing of a movement ‘as something’ may be fruitful when planning the teaching and learning of capability to move. I have suggested that these specific ways of knowing might be regarded as educational goals in PEH. In conducting this study, I have also had the ambition to contribute to the ongoing discussion of what ‘ability’ in the PEH context might mean. In considering specific ways of knowing in moving, the implicit and taken-for-granted meaning of ‘standards of excellence’ and ‘sports ability’can be discussed, and challenged. / <p>At the time of the doctoral defense, the following papers were unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 2: In press. Paper 4: Epub ahead of print.</p>

The overall aim of this thesis has been to investigate the meaning of the capability to move in order to identify and describe this capability from the perspective of the one who moves in relation to specific movements. It has been my ambition to develop ways to explicate, and thereby open up for discussion, what might form an educational goal in the context of movements and movement activities in the school subject of physical education and health (PEH). In this study I have used a practical epistemological perspective on capability to move, a perspective that challenges the traditional distinction between mental and physical skills as well as between theoretical and practical knowledge. Movement actions, or ways of moving, are seen as expressions of knowing. In order to explore an understanding of the knowing involved in specific ways of moving, observations of  actors’ ways of moving and their own experiences of moving were brought together. Informants from three different arenas took part: from PEH in upper secondary school, from athletics and from free-skiing. The results of the analyses suggest it is possible to describe practitioners’ developed knowing as a number of specific ways of knowing that are in turn related to specific ways of moving. Examples of such specific ways of moving may be discerning and modifying one’s own rotational velocity and navigating one’s (bodily) awareness. Additionally, exploring learners’ pre-knowing of a movement ‘as something’ may be fruitful when planning the teaching and learning of capability to move. I have suggested that these specific ways of knowing might be regarded as educational goals in PEH. In conducting this study, I have also had the ambition to contribute to the ongoing discussion of what ‘ability’ in the PEH context might mean. In considering specific ways of knowing in moving, the implicit and taken-for-granted meaning of ‘standards of excellence’ and ‘sports ability’can be discussed, and challenged. / <p>At the time of the doctoral defense, the following papers were unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 2: In press. Paper 4: Epub ahead of print. </p>