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Background: Climate change has increased the frequency, intensity, duration, and spatial extent of some extreme weather events, for instance heat waves. Societies today are experiencing an ongoing change in the population structure yielding an increasing proportion elderly due to increased longevity, resulting in higher prevalence of chronic and degenerative diseases. Literature suggests that the elderly and certain susceptible subgroups with chronic disease are among the most vulnerable to heat waves and elevated temperatures. Aim: The main aims of this thesis were to expand the scientific knowledge on the short-term effects of extreme heat on mortality for the general population and certain susceptible groups in society, to investigate the development of this relationship over time and to attribute mortality to observed climate change. Methods: Daily numbers of deaths and daily meteorological observations during three different periods were collected for present day Stockholm County, Sweden. The analyses of the relationship between mortality and temperature extremes were analysed using a time series approach. The regression models assumed the daily counts of mortality to follow an overdispersed Poisson distribution and adjustments were made for time-trends as well as confounding factors. Results: The literature review of recent studies identified a strong relationship between heat and heat waves and increasing death rates among the elderly, particularly for respiratory and cardiovascular mortality. A statistically significant increase in total daily mortality during heat extremes in all decades investigated, as well as over the entire period, during the period 1901-2009 with a declining trend over time for the relative risk associated with heat extremes, was reported in paper II. For the period 1901-2009 cold extremes significantly increased mortality, with a more disperse pattern over individual decades and no declining trend over time. Paper III attributed increased mortality due to climate change between 1900-1929 and 1980-2009. This increase was mainly due to a large number of excess heat extremes in the latter time period. Furthermore certain subgroups of the population above 50, were in paper IV found to have significantly increased mortality during heat waves as compared to non-heat wave days. Conclusions: Although the relative risk of dying during extreme temperature events appears to have fallen in Stockholm, Sweden, such events still pose a threat to public health. The elderly population and certain susceptible subgroups of the population experience higher relative risks of dying on heat waves days as compared to normal summer days. Some of the groups most susceptible during heat waves were identified. In order to minimize future impacts of heat waves on public health, identifying susceptible subgroups in an ageing society as well as develop strategies to reduce the impact of future temperature extremes on public health will be important.

Tidigare forskning beskriver att stress är en riskfaktor för ohälsa och det är ett arbetsmiljöproblem. Ohälsa bland unga kvinnor ökar i dagens samhälle. Syftet med studien var att finna olika kvalité i stresskänsla hos unga kvinnor och hur deras arbetssituation kan inverka på deras arbetsrelaterade stressupplevelse. För att få mer kunskap kring ämnet stress, har det undersökts hur kvinnor berörs av stress i deras arbetssituation och hur kvinnorna hanterar sin stressupplevelse på deras arbetsplats. Åtta kvinnor som dagligen upplevde arbetsrelaterad stress samt arbetat minst i sex månader, intervjuades. Kravet för att delta i studien var att de hade arbetat minst i sex månader.  Analysen resulterade i temana känslor, ohälsa, känsla av tidsbrist och hanteringsstrategier. Magknip, ångest, hög arbetsbörda och tidsbrist kunde vara orsaker till stressupplevelse. Med hjälp av planering, strukturering, ventilera med kollegor och listor kunde kvinnorna hantera sin stresskänsla. Stress som uppstår på arbetet kan beröra kvinnornas hälsa negativt.

The relationship between alcohol consumption and alcohol-related violence has been firmly established in a wide array of studies concerning various forms of violence including intimate partner violence, domestic violence as well as sexual assault. One factor which has been highlighted as having a moderating effect on the relationship between alcohol consumption and alcohol-related aggression is the specific aggression-related alcohol expectancies concerning the effects of alcohol consumption on aggressive behaviour. In light of the prevalence of alcohol-related violence in South African communities it becomes important to examine the specific factors that moderate the relationship between alcohol consumption and alcohol-related aggression and violence. The aim of this study was to examine aggressionrelated alcohol expectancies as a moderating factor in the relationship between alcohol consumption and alcohol-related aggression and to examine the possible influence of exposure to community alcohol-related aggression in the formulation of aggression-related alcohol expectancies. The main objectives of this were to examine aggression-related alcohol expectancies as well as exposure to community alcohol-related aggression as domains for intervention to prevent alcohol-related violence. The focus is on establishing alternative areas for intervention aimed at the reduction of alcohol-related violence, specifically domestic violence and sexual assault, in South African communities. The sample was gathered through non-probability sampling methods and consisted of 262 undergraduate students from psychology courses. The study is a quantitative study employing a cross-sectional survey design. A significant relationship was found between alcohol consumption and alcoholrelated aggression with aggression-related alcohol expectancies moderating this relationship,leading to higher alcohol-related aggression. Exposure to community alcohol-related aggression did not predict aggression-related alcohol expectancies. / Magister Psychologiae - MPsych

Arbetsmarknadens förändringar i form av högre arbetstakt, tillfälliga anställningar och krav på flexibla arbetsvillkor, gör att allt fler upplever stress i arbetslivet. Långvarig stress medför stora hälsorisker för individen. Eftersom många av dagens sjukskrivningar beror på stressrelaterade sjukdomar, såsom depression och utmattning är det viktigt att studera metoder för stresshantering på arbetsplatsen. Beröring i form av massage kan minska stress hos individer samt fungerar som ett komplement i behandlingen för stressrelaterade sjukdomar. Ett fältexperiment med 28 tjänstemän utfördes för att undersöka om en kortvarig massage på arbetstid kunde inverka positivt på den arbetsrelaterade stressen jämfört med en avslappningsövning och vanlig rast. Studien visade signifikant minskning av stressnivån efter massageinterventionen. Resultatet ger en antydan om att upplevelsen av stress går att reducera med hjälp av fysisk beröring. Stickprovets storlek samt förväntnings- effektens inverkan på resultatet diskuteras.

Code search is an integral part of software development and program comprehension. The difficulty of code search lies in the inability to guess the exact words used in the code. Therefore, it is crucial for keyword-based code search to expand queries with semantically related words, e.g., synonyms and abbreviations, to increase the search effectiveness. However, it is limited to rely on resources such as English dictionaries and WordNet to obtain semantically related words in software, because many words that are semantically related in software are not semantically related in English. On the other hand, many words that are semantically related in English are not semantically related in software. This thesis proposes a simple and general technique to automatically infer semantically re- lated words (referred to as rPairs) in software by leveraging the context of words in comments and code. In addition, we propose a ranking algorithm on the rPair results and study cross-project rPairs on two sets of software with similar functionality, i.e., media browsers and operating sys- tems. We achieve a reasonable accuracy in nine large and popular code bases written in C and Java. Our further evaluation against the state of art shows that our technique can achieve a higher precision and recall. In addition, the proposed ranking algorithm improves the rPair extraction accuracy by bringing correct rPairs to the top of the list. Our cross-project study successfully discovers overlapping rPairs among projects of similar functionality and finds that cross-project rPairs are more likely to be correct than project-specific rPairs. Since the cross-project rPairs are highly likely to be general for software of the same type, the discovered overlapping rPairs can benefit other projects of the same type that have not been anaylyzed.

Females exhibit lower sudomotor response than males, which has been attributed to physiological differences between sexes. It is well accepted that non-thermal factors (i.e. baroreceptors and osmoreceptors) can influence thermoeffector responses. Even though there are sex-related differences in baroreceptor modulation of thermoeffector responses, it remains unknown if differences in osmoreceptor modulation could explain the lower sudomotor response in females. Therefore, we examined if there are sex-related differences in osmoreceptor modulation of sweating and cutaneous vascular conductance (CVC). A group of nine males and nine females were passively heated while in an isosmotic and hyperosmotic state. The onset and thermosensitivity of sweating and CVC were calculated and compared between groups and conditions. We show that the delay in onset of sweating and CVC is similar between sexes. However, thermosensitivity of sweating was lower in females than males. We conclude that hyperosmolality does not modulate the decreased sudomotor activity in females.

Migration and mobility processes are thought to be important (yet complex) modulators of health related risk and vulnerability as experienced by people who use drugs. Few studies in Canada have examined this relationship, and there is no research available addressing this specific aspect of health and well-being in people who use drugs in Ottawa-Gatineau. While migration can be defined as a permanent (or near permanent) relocation process, mobility refers to a person's temporary or short-term movement between geographic locations (Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, 2001). Understanding how the reasons for mobility and migration, typically described as “push and pull” factors, and the processes itself impact on the local community is invaluable for informing intervention in terms of type, location and timing and identifying solutions to reduce the inequalities resulting in and from the migration process. This cross-sectional study aimed to assess the prevalence and geography of mobility and migration among study participants, characterize the circumstances surrounding the mobility and migration process, and explore their impact on health related outcomes, among people who use drugs in Ottawa-Gatineau, Canada. Understanding the prevalence, patterns and characteristics of mobility and migration events may offer greater insight into the associated health risks, which in turn will assist in the development of targeted health and social services for this group. We hypothesized that the act of moving itself, as well as type of mobility and migration (i.e. specific push and pull factors), may be associated with health risk behaviours and health outcomes. People 18 years or older currently living in Ottawa-Gatineau, and who used illicit drugs in the past six months were recruited using respondent-driven sampling. Geography of lifetime migration was mapped, and health related outcomes and access to social support services were evaluated against lifetime and recent migration and travel. Quantitative analysis of health and social support related outcomes was carried out by comparison of means and proportions between groups, and complemented by qualitative exploration of push and pull factors and effects of the last mobility and migration events. Our study identified a heterogeneous inner-city population of people who use drugs where widespread homelessness, incarceration, low income and a high degree of mobility and migration placed individuals at varying levels of health-related vulnerability. Participants moved to Ottawa-Gatineau from all over Canada and other countries, but most arrived from within Ontario. Multiple factors were involved in the decision to migrate and in choosing Ottawa-Gatineau in particular. Escaping a negative environment and seeking out family connections were the most commonly cited “push and pull” factors, respectively. Maintaining family connections was also identified as a major reason for mobility or lack thereof among travelers and non-travelers alike. There was evidence to suggest that the mobility and migration processes affected health, drug use and access to resources among some of the participants and for a wide variety of reasons. Comparing the two groups using t-test for means and Chi-square (or Fisher’s exact) test for proportions, we found crack cocaine and injection drug users who migrated recently to be poorly connected to harm reduction services and thus at particularly high risk for blood-borne infections and other drug-related harms. Similarly, participants using crack cocaine or injection drugs and who traveled were significantly less likely to access social support services. In this study we have shown that within a broad cohort of people who use drugs in Ottawa-Gatineau, subjects are a highly mobile group, and face a considerable number of environmental challenges that predispose individuals to increasing risk behaviour even when using drugs only occasionally. This vulnerability is greatest in the period following migration. While push and pull factors may vary by place, a common theme identified in this study is the perceived and actual positive influence of family. Further research employing a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods using a socioecological, intersectionality and lifecourse approach (Egan, et al., 2011) may provide added insights into the role of family in modulating vulnerability through social connectedness and support among drug users as they navigate the mobility and migration process.

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This dissertation consists of four papers aimed at understanding the complex relationship between employment and health. One paper is a systematic review of the return to work literature, while the other three papers used secondary data from three cohorts of people with HIV to examine the association between employment and health-related quality of life. The systematic review looked at longitudinal studies that reported health outcomes associated with return to work in relation to other employment trajectories. This review supported the beneficial effect of return to work on health in a variety of populations, times, and settings, and also found evidence that poor health interferes with the prospects of returning to work. Two other papers looked at the association between employment and health-related quality of life in people with HIV; one paper used a cross-sectional sample of people with HIV, while the other paper used a longitudinal sample of men who have sex with men. These two studies found evidence to support the association between employment and both physical and mental health-related quality of life. They also found that employment had a stronger relationship with physical than mental health, suggesting an adaptation process to the experience of unemployment. Finally, another paper examined the cross-sectional association between job security and quality of life in men and women living with HIV. This study found that job security offered additional mental health quality of life benefits, over and above participation in employment alone, for men living with HIV. On the other hand, women benefited from the availability of work, but the perception of job security failed to offer additional health benefits. The current level of evidence on the relationship between work and health in HIV needs to be strengthened by further research to develop and support practical clinical and policy recommendations.