The migration morbidity hypothesis suggests that stress events inherent in immigration contribute to an increase in psychopathology. Assessing and investigating migration-morbidity among children of Mexican origin and Mexican American mothers living in the United States is the focus of the current study. Participants in the study were 133 students in 3rd, 4th, and 5th grades residing in the U.S. A replication of the ASEBA Teacher Report Form (TRF) Post-Traumatic Stress Problems (PTSP) scale factor structure was conducted to determine its utility for children of Mexican and Mexican American mothers. Item-level confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to evaluate the adequacy of the PTSP scale model. Three models were evaluated using a CFI, RMSEA, and WRMR to determine fit. Results using dichotomous TRF responses and omitting item 8, which includes information about a child's ability to concentrate, yielded a CFI = 0.956, RMSEA = 0.071, and WRMR = 0.862. Standardized factor loadings ranged from 0.484 to 0.976. The ASEBA TRF was used to gather information about a teacher's perception of problem behaviors in the classroom. Information was gathered for two groups: children of Mexican and children of Mexican American mothers residing in south Texas. An ANOVA determined that teachers observed a statistically significant difference (p = .04, d = 0.37) in happiness between groups with children born of Mexican origin mothers and rated as less happy than their peers born to Mexican American mothers. Children did not differ in other measures of behavior. The students resided in a primarily Mexican American/Mexican community, which could have impacted the results. In addition, the sensitive nature of the study may have impacted the low return rate. Implications of the study and their impact on education and immigrant mental health are discussed.

The diploma thesis deals with the mental health of war journalists in the period when this profession is undergoing significant changes. In the theoretical part, the thesis has the ambition to briefly describe the main development points of this profession from its inception to the present, which we define as a period of new wars. This is characterized by the increased danger faced by war journalists, as their originally respected, protected status has become the target of murder and kidnapping. The work of a war journalist has been transformed mainly in countries where media houses no longer have the funds to run foreign newsrooms and pay for the journeys of their journalists. Therefore, the phenomenon of freelance journalism has flourished, which gives journalists freedom at the cost of poor financial rewards and reduced security. However, the main topic of the work is the mental health of war journalists. Work stress, burnout syndrome, depression and post-traumatic disorder are mentioned as the main psychological pitfalls that the war journalist faces. An anomaly is identified that although an ordinary woman is more likely to develop PTSD than a man, a war journalist has the same probability as her male equivalent. Thus, the research part, through conducting semi-structured interviews, focuses...

Many companies have traveling salesmen that market and sell their products.This results in much traveling by car due to the daily customer visits. Thiscauses costs for the company, in form of travel expenses compensation, and environmentaleffects, in form of carbon dioxide pollution. As many companies arecertified according to environmental management systems, such as ISO 14001,the environmental work becomes more and more important as the environmentalconsciousness increases every day for companies, authorities and public.The main task of this thesis is to compute reasonable limits on the mileage ofthe salesmen; these limits are based on specific conditions for each salesman’sdistrict. The objective is to implement a heuristic algorithm that optimizes thecustomer tours for an arbitrary chosen month, which will represent a “standard”month. The output of the algorithm, the computed distances, will constitute amileage limit for the salesman.The algorithm consists of a constructive heuristic that builds an initial solution,which is modified if infeasible. This solution is then improved by a local searchalgorithm preceding a genetic algorithm, which task is to improve the toursseparately.This method for computing mileage limits for traveling salesmen generates goodsolutions in form of realistic tours. The mileage limits could be improved if theinput data were more accurate and adjusted to each district, but the suggestedmethod does what it is supposed to do.

<p>Many companies have traveling salesmen that market and sell their products.This results in much traveling by car due to the daily customer visits. Thiscauses costs for the company, in form of travel expenses compensation, and environmentaleffects, in form of carbon dioxide pollution. As many companies arecertified according to environmental management systems, such as ISO 14001,the environmental work becomes more and more important as the environmentalconsciousness increases every day for companies, authorities and public.The main task of this thesis is to compute reasonable limits on the mileage ofthe salesmen; these limits are based on specific conditions for each salesman’sdistrict. The objective is to implement a heuristic algorithm that optimizes thecustomer tours for an arbitrary chosen month, which will represent a “standard”month. The output of the algorithm, the computed distances, will constitute amileage limit for the salesman.The algorithm consists of a constructive heuristic that builds an initial solution,which is modified if infeasible. This solution is then improved by a local searchalgorithm preceding a genetic algorithm, which task is to improve the toursseparately.This method for computing mileage limits for traveling salesmen generates goodsolutions in form of realistic tours. The mileage limits could be improved if theinput data were more accurate and adjusted to each district, but the suggestedmethod does what it is supposed to do.</p>

Increasing congestion and environmental concerns have evoked an interest in promoting urban Public Transport (PT) the last decades. In 2012 the City of Stockholm adopted an “Urban mobility strategy” stating that public transport, cycling and walking should be prioritised over cars in central Stockholm. One of the most important factors influencing the modal choice is the travel time ratio between car and PT travel. According to earlier studies Public Transport Traffic Signal Priority (PTSP) can reduce travel times for public transport with only small negative impacts on other traffic. Conditional PTSP can also help to regulate the PT service. Thus PTSP may support drivers’ decision to change travel mode from car to PT, thus supporting adopted policy goals. Conventional control strategies for coordinated traffic signals have pre-set timings based on traffic surveys. Some traffic adaptation based on real time detector actuations can also take place within the frames of the pre-set cycle time. PTSP changes the signal timings, within pre-set limits, when a PT vehicle is detected. Self-optimising control strategies use a traffic model to predict the traffic flows from traffic counts, and determine the signal changes in real-time by minimising a cost function including delay, number of stops etc. PTSP is included directly in the optimisation by giving PT vehicles a higher weight compared to cars. In this thesis the fundamentals of signal control theory are reviewed as well as unconditional and conditional PTSP criteria and strategies. A simulation based method for evaluation of impacts of different PTSP strategies in coordinated controlled traffic signals is implemented. The simulation setup includes Software-In-the-Loop (SIL) signal controller simulators running the same control logic as used in field. Such simulation models can be useful to test and fine tune PTSP before being implemented in field. Simulations with a SIL setup also enable comparisons of signal control strategies or systems on equal terms, not practically or economically possible in field studies. The implemented SIL simulation model was used to evaluate the impacts on buses and other traffic from the different PTSP functions used in the “PRIBUSS” PTSP method. Short green time extensions showed travel time reductions for buses, with almost no travel time increase for other traffic. Long green time extensions gave somewhat larger benefits for the buses, but more delay to other traffic. Red truncation gave less travel time savings to the prioritised buses and more extra delay for cross street traffic, compared to green extensions. Double red truncation and Extra phase showed some additional travel time savings to the buses, but had the largest negative impact on other traffic. A combination of PRIBUSS functions showed the best results. Depending on the structure of the signal coordination and the location of the bus stops different PTSP functions may be needed. Based on the conclusions from the evaluation of the different PRIBUSS functions a conditional “differential on-time-status” based PTSP strategy was proposed and tested in the SIL simulation environment. The proposed method is focusing on direct travel time savings as well as on reduced bus bunching. The two self-optimising signal control systems Utopia/Spot and ImFlow were tested, and their impacts were compared to conventional control including PTSP with the PRIBUSS method in a SIL simulation environment. The aim was to test if commercially available self-optimising control systems can reduce the overall delay per person by applying more sophisticated PTSP. Both systems reduced the delay for buses, cyclists and pedestrians at a cost of increased delay and increased number of stops compared to the existing conventional control used in field. The total delay for all road users was reduced substantially. / Intresset för att påverka resvanorna i våra städer så att kollektivtrafikandelen ökar har växt de senaste decennierna på grund av en ökad trängsel i gatunätet samt ökad miljömedvetenhet. Stockholms stad har antagit ”Framkomlighetsstrategin” som innebär att kollektivtrafik, gång och cykel ska prioriteras framför biltrafik i centrala Stockholm. En av de faktorer som påverkar färdmedelsvalet mest är restidskvoten mellan bil och kollektivtrafik. Tidigare studier har visat att kollektivtrafikprioritering i trafiksignaler kan minska körtiden för kollektivtrafiken väsentligt, med små eller inga negativa konsekvenser för övrig trafik. Villkorlig prioritering kan dessutom förbättra kollektivtrafikens regularitet. Kollektivtrafikprioritering i trafiksignaler kan på så sätt hjälpa till att förbättra kollektivtrafikens attraktivitet och därigenom öka kollektivtrafikandelen. Samordnade trafiksignaler styrda med konventionell teknik har en fast tidsättning framtagen med insamlade historiska trafikdata som grund. Viss trafikstyrning kan åstadkommas inom ramen för den fasta omloppstiden. Om bussprioritering finns ändras signalväxlingen av prioriteringsfunktionerna när en buss detekteras, inom vissa begränsningar för att hålla ihop det samordnade systemet. Självoptimerande signalstyrning bygger på att fordonsrörelserna genom systemet predikteras med en trafikmodell utifrån trafikräkningar med detektorer. Signaltidsättningen bestäms sedan i realtid genom att minimera en kostnadsfunktion som innehåller fördröjning, antal stopp mm. för de modellerade fordonsrörelserna. Kollektivtrafiken prioriteras genom att dess fordon detekteras separat från övrig trafik, och ges en högre vikt i optimeringen av signaltidssättningen. I denna avhandling beskrivs de teoretiska grunderna för trafiksignalstyrning, liksom metoder och kriterier för villkorlig och ovillkorlig signalprioritering av kollektivtrafik. En simuleringsbaserad metod för att utvärdera effekterna av olika signalprioritering har implementerats. Denna använder styrapparatsimulatorer med samma programmering som styrapparaterna på gatan, inklusive prioriteringsfunktioner. Sådana simuleringar kan vara ett användbart verktyg för att justera in prioriteringsfunktionerna innan dessa implementeras i signalstyrningen på gatan. Simuleringar med styrapparatsimulatorer möjliggör också jämförelser av olika styrstrategier under kontrollerade förhållanden som inte vore praktiskt, eller ekonomiskt möjliga att genomföra i fält. I den framtagna simuleringsmiljön har effekterna av de olika prioriteringsfunktionerna i PRIBUSS utvärderats. Korta (maxtids-)förlängningar gav körtidsvinster för bussar och knappast några restidsförsämringar för övrig trafik. Långa förlängningar (fråntidsförlängning och återtagen start) gav ytterligare restidsvinster för busstrafiken, men ökad fördröjning för övrig trafik. Avkortning gav, jämfört med förlängningar, mindre restidsvinster för busstrafiken och mer störning för övrig trafik. De mer komplicerade funktionerna Dubbel avkortning och extrafas gav viss ytterligare restidsvinst för bussarna, men hade den största inverkan på övrig trafik. Bäst resultat uppkom dock med en kombination av PRIBUSS funktioner. Beroende på samordningens struktur och busshållplatsernas placering i förhållande till trafiksignalerna kan olika prioriteringsfunktioner ge större eller mindre nytta. Baserat på utvärderingen av de olika PRIBUSS funktionernas effekter på bussar och övrig trafik har en tidhållningsbaserad differentierad prioriteringsstrategi föreslagits, som förutom att skapa direkta restidvinster också försöker motverka ihopklumpning av bussar. Denna strategi har implementerats och testats i den framtagna simuleringsmiljön. Med hjälp av simuleringar har de självoptimerande signalstyrsystemen Utopia/Spot och ImFlow testats och jämförts med konventionell styrning, inklusive bussprioritering med PRIBUSS. Syftet med denna studie var att undersöka om fördröjningen per person i trafiknätet kan minskas genom bättre kollektivtrafikprioritering med hjälp av ett kommersiellt tillgängligt självoptimerande signalstyrsystem. De båda testade systemen gav minskad fördröjning för kollektivtrafik, gående och cyklister, men ökad fördröjning och antal stopp för biltrafik. Den totala fördröjningen minskades betydligt med de båda testade självoptimerande signalstyrsystemen. / <p>QC 20140513</p>