This project (1) examined the relationship between expectations of rejection and type of support seeking among college students reporting a stigmatized identity, and (2) explored differences in expectations of rejection and indirect support seeking by visible (e.g., minority race, overweight) versus concealable (e.g., mental illness, sexual identity) stigmas. Prior research has shown individuals expecting rejection are less willing to seek support or disclose stigmatized identities. This prior work has indicated individuals expecting rejection may seek support in indirect ways, which ironically contributes to rejection they encounter. Indirect support seeking does not include disclosure and is vague in its attempts to seek solace or advice. This project involved two studies, one that examined trait level expectations of rejection (i.e., rejection sensitivity or RS), and one that that examined state level expectations of rejection. Study 1 2016 Appalachian Student Research Forum Page 53 consisted of secondary analysis of data from an online study entitled “Perceptions of Identity among University Students”. 408 participants completed this study and received SONA participation credit in psychology courses. Of the total sample, 20% (n = 81) reported a stigmatized characteristic, while 31% of those with stigma was classified as visible (e.g., weight; race) and 69% was classified as concealable (e.g., mental illness). Results revealed no significant differences in RS between those with and without stigma (p > .05). Those with concealable stigmas reported more RS than those with visible stigmas (t = -3.15, p < .05), but RS was not significantly related to more indirect support seeking strategies (p > .05). Study 2 consisted of 147 college students with a stigmatized identity (41% visible, 59% concealable) that participated in an online letter writing experiment. College students were randomly assigned to one of three writing conditions: anticipating rejection, anticipating acceptance, and neutral. In all conditions participants were asked to type a letter to someone about an identity-related event. Expectations of rejection was manipulated by varying to whom participants wrote letters (someone they knew would be rejecting, accepting, or someone they did not feel strongly about). Letters were coded for indirect support seeking by two independent coders. Any discrepancies were discussed to consensus. Results showed a non-significant effect of letter writing condition overall. However, a significant interaction was indicated for those reporting a visible stigma. Specifically, those with visible stigmas used more indirect seeking strategies when expecting rejection. Considering both Studies 1 and 2, trait rejection expectations were not significantly related to indirect seeking for individuals with stigma. Although state rejection expectations of rejection were related to more indirect seeking among those with stigmatized identities, the impact of them may depend on type of stigma. In spite of those with concealable identities having more trait RS, those with visible stigmas may be more impacted by situations that call attention to their stigmatized identity and choose to seek support more indirectly. Still, future research is needed to address limitations of this work such as whether the support network from whom support is being sought are similarly stigmatized.

Darbo tikslas - įvertinti 13 – 16 metų moksleivių fizinį išsivystymą bei jų aktyvumą 2005 – 2006 metais. Skyriuje „Literatūros apžvalga“ supažindinama su vaiko biologijos tyrimų raida, vaikų augimo ir vystymosi ypatumais, vaik�� augimų ir brendimų, kaip svarbiais bendros sveikatos būklės rodikliais, antropometriniais matavimais, apžvelgiamos moksleivių morfologinės būklės poslinkiais per pastaruosius 20 metų. Nurodomos naujai patvirtintos antropometrinių tyrimų normos. Skyriuje „ Darbo rezultatai „ vertinami 2005 – 2006 metų rugsėjo – spalio mėn. tyrimų metų surinkti 13 – 16 metų moksleivių antropometriniai parametrai, analizuojamas fizinis aktyvumas bei nustatomas ryšys tarp dviejų kintamųjų: ūgio ir šuolio į tolį bei ūgio ir atsilenkimų skaičiaus per 30s, taip pat kūno masės ir šuolio į tolį bei kūno masės ir atsilenkimų skaičiaus per 30s. Išanalizavus duomenis, suformuojamos galutinės išvados. Ryšys tarp moksleivių fizinio išsivystymo bei fizinio aktyvumo kūno kultūros pamokose yra vidutinis. 2006 metais 13 – 16 metų merginų padaugėjo aukštaūgių ir vidutinio ūgio merginų ir sumažėjo žemaūgių, negu buvo 2005 metais. Vaikinų 13 – 16 metų nei 2005, nei 2006 metais nebuvo aukštaūgių, be to 2006 metais padaugėjo žemaūgių, negu buvo 2005 metais. Tyrimų duomenis rodo, kad 2006 metais 13 – 16 metų merginų sumažėjo turinčių per didelę kūno masę, taip pat sumažėjo turinčių vidutinę masę, padaugėjo - mažos kūno masės, negu 2005 metais. Vaikinų 13 – 16 metų, pagal duomenis... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / The goal of the work (paper) is to evaluate the physical development and activity of the 13-16- year – old pupils in 2005 – 2006. In the part “The Review of the Literature” it is acquainted with the development of the teenagers’ biological researches, with some peculiarities of teenagers’ growing and development, with the their growing and maturation as the most important parameters of the common health’s condition, with anthropometrical measures; the changing of pupils’ morphological condition during the last 20 years is reviewed. The recently confirmed and recommended standards of pupils’ anthropometrical researches are indicated. In the part “The Results of the Work (Paper)” the collected in September – October 2005 – 2006 anthropometrical parameters of the 13 – 16 - year - old pupils are evaluated; the physical activity during is analyzed and the relation between this component is clarified: the height and the jumping into the length as well as the height the rejections’ number per 30s, in addition to this the weight and the jumping into the length as well as the weight and the rejections’ number per 30s. After analyzing of all the data, the last conclusion were drown. The relation between pupils’ physical development and physical activity is average. The number of the 13 – 16 – year – old high and middle – high girls is increased in 2006 in comparison to 2005. There are not high boys in the group of the 13 – 16 – year – old boys nor in 2006 neither in 2005; in addition... [to full text]

Stressrelaterad psykisk ohälsa ökar mest och står för den längsta varaktigheten bland sjukskrivningarna. Förändringar i sjukförsäkringssystemet och beslut om att minska sjuktalen har gett konsekvenser som ökat antal avslag om sjukpenning. Syftet med studien var att undersöka erfarenheter av avslag om sjukpenning från Försäkringskassan hos personer med stressrelaterad psykisk ohälsa för att beskriva och förstå vad det får för betydelse för deras sjukdomsbild och återhämtning. Studien är kvalitativ och har genomförts genom semistrukturerade intervjuer med fem personer som drabbats av stressrelaterad psykisk ohälsa och fått avslag om sjukpenning från Försäkringskassan. Materialet som samlats genom intervjuerna har analyserats med Ulrich Becks teorin om risksamhället och Randall Collins teori om symboliska interaktionskedjor samt tidigare forskning. Resultatet i studien indikerar att avslag om sjukpenning påverkar sjukdomsbilden och möjligheten till återhämtning negativt för personer som drabbats av stressrelaterad psykisk ohälsa. Respondenterna upplevde att avslaget förlängt sjukdomstiden, genom minskad möjlighet till återhämtning och förvärrad sjukdomsbild. Resultatet visar även på en samlad bild av upplevelsen av avslaget om sjukpenning från Försäkringskassan. Personerna upplever inte att handläggare på Försäkringskassan tror dem och därmed känner de sig kränkta. / Stress-related disorders have increased and accounts for the longest duration of sick leave. Changes in the health insurance system and decisions to reduce the sick-leave have had consequences such as an increased number of rejection of sickness benefits. The aim of this study was to investigate the experience for people having a stress-related disorder and being rejected sickness benefits from the Social Insurance Fund, to describe and understand the importance for their disease image and recovery. The study is qualitative and has been conducted through semistructured interviews with five participants who suffered from stress-related disorders and received a refusal of sickness benefits from the Social Insurance Fund. The material gathered through the interviews has been analyzed with Ulrich Beck’s theory of risk society and Randall Collin’s theory of symbolic interaction-chains and previous research. The result of this study indicates that the refusal of sickness benefits affects the recovery rate negatively for the participants in the study. The participants felt that the refusal extended the disease time, and they experienced reduced opportunities to recover and a worse diseases image. The result also shows a consistent picture of the experience of receiving a refusal of sickness benefits from the Swedish Social Insurance Agency. The participants do not feel that the case officers at the Social Security Fund believe them and thus they feel offended.

This master’s thesis work was performed at Optimum Biometric Labs, OBL, located in Karlskrona, Sweden. Optimum Biometric Labs perform independent scenario evaluations to companies who develop biometric devices. The company has a product Optimum preConTM which is surveillance and diagnosis tool for biometric systems. This thesis work’s objective was to develop a conceptual model and implement it as an additional layer above the biometric layer with intelligence about the biometric users. The layer is influenced by the general procedure of biometrics in a multimodal behavioural way. It is working in an unsupervised way and performs in an unsupervised manner. While biometric systems are increasingly adopted the technologies have some inherent problems such as false match and false non-match. In practice, a rejected user can not be interpreted as an impostor since the user simply might have problems using his/her biometric feature. The proposed methods in this project are dealing with these problems when analysing biometric usage in runtime. Another fact which may give rise to false rejections is template aging; a phenomenon where the enrolled user’s template is too old compared towards the user’s current biometric feature. A theoretical approach of template aging was known; however since the analysis of template aging detection was correlated with potential system flaws such as device defects or human generated risks such as impostor attacks this task would become difficult to solve in an unsupervised system but when ignoring the definition of template aging, the detection of similar effects was possible. One of the objectives of this project was to detect template aging in a predictive sense; this task failed to be carried out because the absence of basis performing this kind of tasks. The developed program performs abnormality detection at each incoming event from a biometric system. Each verification attempt is assumed to be from a genuine user unless any deviation according to the user&apos;s history is found, an abnormality. The possibility of an impostor attack depends on the degree of the abnormality. The application makes relative decisions between fraud possibilities or if genuine user was the source of what caused the deviations. This is presented as an alarm with the degree of impostor possibility. This intelligent layer has increased Optimum preCon´s capacity as a surveillance tool for biometrics. This product is an efficient complement to biometric systems in a steady up-going worldwide market.

Les travaux présentés dans ce mémoire s'inscrivent dans la thématique de la transmission d'énergie sans fil, appliquée à l'alimentation à distance de capteurs, de réseaux de capteurs et d'actionneurs à faible consommation. Cette étude porte sur la conception, la caractérisation, et la mesure d'un circuit Rectenna (Rectifying antenna) à double polarisation circulaire à 2.45 GHz, compact et à rendement de conversion RF-DC optimisé. Un outil d'analyse globale basé sur la méthode itérative a été développé et exploité pour valider la faisabilité de cette analyse. La diode Schottky a été modélisée en utilisant une impédance de surface. La rectenna à double polarisation circulaire, réalisée en technologie micro-ruban, a été validée expérimentalement. Elle est caractérisée par la rejection de la 2ème harmonique et une possibilité de recevoir les deux sens de polarisation LHCP et RHCP par l'intermédiaire de 2 accès. Le rendement mesuré avec une densité de puissance de 0.525 mW/cm² est de l'ordre de 63%, tandis que la tension DC obtenue aux bornes d'une charge optimale de 1.6 kohm est de 2.82 V / The work presented in this thesis is within the subject of wireless power transmission, power applied to the remote sensors, networks of sensors and actuators with low power consumption. This study focuses on the design, characterization, and measurement of a rectenna circuit (rectifying antenna) with dual circular polarization at 2.45 GHz, and optimisation of the conversion efficiency. A global analysis tool, based on the iterative method was developed and used to validate the feasibility of this concept by this method. The Schottky diode was modeled using surface impedance. The dual circular polarization rectenna with microstrip technology has been optimized and characterized experimentally operating at 2.45 GHz. It includes the property of harmonic rejections. Two accesses can receive either direction LHCP or RHCP sense. The conversion efficiency of 63% has been measured with a power density of 0.525 mW/cm². A DC voltage of 2.82V was measured across an optimum load of 1.6 kohm