Childlessness in the Czech Republic, Germany, and Austria Abstract The main goal of this thesis is to examine and compare the state of childlessness in the Czech Republic, the Federal Republic of Germany and Austria. In Germany particularly, childlessness has become a phenomenon and a society-wide issue. Austria, where childlessness is at a high level in comparison with other European countries is in a similar situation. Data analysis in this thesis showed that childlessness is more widespread in the former West Germany and Austria than in the Czech Republic and former East Germany. This difference is caused, among other things, by the pro-natal policies adopted in the former communist countries which led to a temporary increase in total fertility rate. Further, the thesis deals with the perception of parenthood and childlessness in society on the basis of the European Values Study 2008 international survey and with the relationship between the ideal and preferred number of children on the basis of the Eurobarometer 2006 international survey. The results of the surveys show that childlessness cannot be considered as a new kind of lifestyle, and that the preferred family form still involves two children. Considerable part of the study focuses on the causes and consequences of childlessness and its possible...

This study enquires into the influence of the philosophical stance of a narrative pastoral therapist in therapeutic groups for people living with depression within a church context. For the purpose of this study, a philosophical stance is defined as a metaphorical position which represents the therapist's epistemological stance and which shapes his or her interactions with the therapy group members. An explanation of the building blocks of the therapist's preferred philosophical stance is provided, the influence of modern and postmodern discourses in developing such a stance is discussed, and the effects of the therapist's philosophical stance on the group members are explored. The research is directed towards everyone who is involved in pastoral therapeutic groups for people with depression. The study found that concepts such as 'relational', 'collaborative', 'participatory approach', 'mutual care,', 'self-other growth' and 'co-creation' highlight some of the most helpful contributions provided by the therapist's preferred philosophical stance. / Philosophy, Practical and Systematic Theology / Thesis (M. Th. (Practical Theology with specialisation in Pastoral Therapy))-

Synen på vad som utgör akademisk skrivkompetens varierar över tid och i olika kulturer. Förmågan att strukturera texter på ett logiskt och begripligt sätt kan dock ses som en universell vetenskaplig kompetens oavsett skrivmiljö, liksom förmågan att värdera kunskap och ta ställning i relation till olika källor. Denna studies syfte är att undersöka och kategorisera förekomsten av markörer för textuell organisation och ställnings­tagande i en grupp gymnasieelevers utredande texter samt att undersöka sambandet mellan bruket av dessa markörer och texternas betyg. Studiens korpus består av 18 utredande elevtexter, jämnt fördelade mellan betygen A, C och E. Texterna har analyserats genom kvalitativ närläsning med en analysmodell avsedd att fånga uttryck för textuell organisation och ställningstagande. Resultatet visar att elevernas bruk av organisations- och ställningstagandemarkörer varierar, men att det finns mönster i användandet som har kopplingar till texternas betyg. A-texterna utmärker sig genom en större variation av organisations- och ställningstagandeuttryck än texterna med lägre betyg. Markörer för textuell organisation och ställningstagande används i A- och C-texterna främst för att belysa och jämföra olika perspektiv, medan E-skribenterna i högre grad använder samma markörer för att förklara och ge uttryck för personliga åsikter om ämnet. I materialet som helhet finns få exempel på källkritiska värderingar. En slutsats av resultatet är att eleverna befinner sig olika långt ifrån de normer som kännetecknar akademiskt skrivande. Framförallt E-texterna innehåller drag som inte är funktionella i vetenskapliga sammanhang. Detta väcker frågor om hur undervisningen om akademiskt skrivande bör utformas för att möta elevernas utvecklingsbehov – på såväl språklig som innehållsmässig nivå. / The idea of what constitutes academic writing competence varies through time and in different cultures. However, the ability to structure texts in a logical and comprehensible way can be seen as a universal scholarly competence regardless of writing context, like the ability to appraise knowledge and take a stance concerning different sources. The aim of this study is to investigate and categorize the occurrence of textual organizational markers and stance markers in explanatory texts written by a group of high school students, and to investigate the relation between the use of these markers and the grading of the texts. The corpus of the study consists of 18 explanatory student texts, equally divided between grades A, C and E. The texts have been analyzed through qualitative close reading using an analytical model designed to capture organizational markers and stance markers. The result shows that the students’ usage of these markers varies, but that patterns of usage connected to the grades of the texts can be identified. The A-texts excel through a larger variation of organizational markers and stance markers than the texts given lower grades. In the A- and C-texts organizational markers and stance markers are used primarily to illustrate and compare different perspectives, while in the E-texts the students use the same markers to explain and express personal opinions on the subject. The material as a whole contains very few examples of critical evaluation of sources. A conclusion of the result is that the students are at different distances from the norms that distinguish academic writing. Especially the E-texts contain many features that are not functional in academic contexts. This raises questions about how the teaching of academic writing should be designed to suit the students’ needs for writing development – on the level of language as well as content.

Title: Effect of standing shooting position on precision of repeated shots of Hard Task Rangers. Objectives: The aim of this work is to find out in which standing stance will be the most precise shots with double tap shots. Methods: In this thesis was used descriptive analysis when collecting data about standing shooting stance problematic. Mainly through studying of literature and lecturing videos on this subject. Testing was used in the actual collecting data about shooting performance. The measurement was used to collect data on the weight, height and stability of the examined shooters. Data analysis was performed when evaluating individual shooting performance. Results: It has been found out, based on data from a group of twelve shooters from Hard Task Rangers, that even though the standing position is the furthers part of the shooting pyramid, it still provides a solid foundation for all subsequent parts of the shooters performance. Furthermore, it was found that the best standing position for firing repeated shots (double tap) was the stance called Quality universal stance. This thesis is probably the first literary study to analyze in more detail the standing shooting stance in its various forms when comparing individual attitudes and its advantages in dynamic and defensive shooting....

Bakgrund: Knäskador är vanligt förekommande bland yngre fysiskt aktiva personer. Ofta skadas flera strukturer samtidigt vilket medför att den mekaniska stabiliteten i knäleden försämras samt att den neuromuskulära funktionen i benet försämras, vilket påverkar den posturala kontrollen samt stabiliteten på knät. För att upptäcka instabilitet behövs mer utmanande och specifika test som Star Excursion Balance Test (SEBT). I dagsläget saknas studier gjorda med SEBT på en svensk population. Fysioterapeuter är beroende av tillförlitliga instrument för att kunna göra en korrekt bedömning. Syfte: Syftet med studien var att undersöka test-retest reliabiliteten för SEBT samt att undersöka samtidig validitet mellan SEBT och Unilateral Stance test (UST) för personer med knäproblematik.Syftet var dessutom att undersöka hur den posturala kontrollen var för personer i åldrarna 20-30 år med knäproblematik mätt med SEBT och UST. Metod: Studien var gjord med en icke experimentell design som var både deskriptiv och korrelerande. Alla tester gjordes vid ett tillfälle med 5 minuters vila mellan testerna. I studien ingick 30 personer med diagnostiserad alternativt självupplevd knäproblematik i åldern 20-30 år som studerade på Biomedicinskt centrum vid Uppsala Universitet. Resultat: Den posturala kontrollen för testpersonerna (n=30) var uppmätt till god både mätt med både SEBT och UST. Validiteten mellan SEBT och UST var låg r=0,3 (p=0,12). Test-retest reliabiliteten för SEBT var god r=0,74 (p=0.00013). Konklusion: SEBT har en god interbedömarreliabilitet. Korrelationen mellan UST och SEBT var låg. SEBT är ett test som är ett väldigt specifikt test där man behöver både material och tid för utförandet. Det behövs mer studier för att få fram om testet går att användas effektivt på allmänna kliniker som ett utvärderingsinstrument för postural kontroll. Keywords: Postural balance, Dynamic balance, Reliability, Validity, Star excursion balance test (SEBT), Unilateral stance test (UST), knee injury.

The present compilation thesis investigates the use of a pattern that is commonly found in academic writing, namely the introductory it pattern (e.g. it is interesting to note the difference). The main aim is to shed further light on the formal and functional characteristics of the pattern in academic writing. When relevant, the thesis also investigates functionally related constructions. The focus is on learner use, but reference corpora of published writing and non-native-speaker student writing have also been utilized for comparison. The thesis encompasses an introductory survey (a “kappa”) and four articles. The material comes from six different corpora: ALEC, BATMAT, BAWE, LOCRA, MICUSP and VESPA. Factors such as native-speaker status, discipline, level of achievement (lower-graded vs. higher-graded texts) and level of expertise in academic writing are investigated in the articles. In more detail, Articles 1 and 2 examine the formal (syntactic) characteristics of the introductory it pattern. The pattern is studied using modified versions of two previous syntactic classifications. Articles 3 and 4 investigate the functional characteristics of the pattern. In Article 3, a functional classification is developed and used to categorize the instances. Article 4 examines the stance-marking function of the pattern in relation to functionally related constructions (e.g. stance adverbs such as possibly and stance noun + prepositional phrase combinations like the possibility of). The introductory it pattern was found to be relatively invariable in the sense that a small set of formal and functional realizations made up the bulk of the tokens. The learners, especially those whose texts received a lower grade, made particularly frequent use of high-frequency realizations of the pattern. The thesis highlights the importance of not limiting investigations of this kind to comparisons across native-speaker status, as this is only one of the several factors that can influence the distribution. By exploring the potential importance of many different factors from both a formal and a functional perspective, the thesis paints a more complete picture of the introductory it pattern in academic writing, of use in, for instance, second-language instruction.

De nombreux domaines ont intérêt à étudier les points de vue exprimés en ligne, que ce soit à des fins de marketing, de cybersécurité ou de recherche avec l'essor des humanités numériques. Nous proposons dans ce manuscrit deux contributions au domaine de la fouille de points de vue, axées sur la difficulté à obtenir des données annotées de qualité sur les médias sociaux. Notre première contribution est un jeu de données volumineux et complexe de 22853 profils Twitter actifs durant la campagne présidentielle française de 2017. C'est l'un des rares jeux de données considérant plus de deux points de vue et, à notre connaissance, le premier avec un grand nombre de profils et le premier proposant des communautés politiques recouvrantes. Ce jeu de données peut être utilisé tel quel pour étudier les mécanismes de campagne sur Twitter ou pour évaluer des modèles de détection de points de vue ou des outils d'analyse de réseaux. Nous proposons ensuite deux modèles génériques semi-supervisés de détection de points de vue, utilisant une poignée de profils-graines, pour lesquels nous connaissons le point de vue, afin de catégoriser le reste des profils en exploitant différentes proximités inter-profils. En effet, les modèles actuels sont généralement fondés sur les spécificités de certaines plateformes sociales, ce qui ne permet pas l'intégration de la multitude de signaux disponibles. En construisant des proximités à partir de différents types d'éléments disponibles sur les médias sociaux, nous pouvons détecter des profils suffisamment proches pour supposer qu'ils partagent une position similaire sur un sujet donné, quelle que soit la plateforme. Notre premier modèle est un modèle ensembliste séquentiel propageant les points de vue grâce à un graphe multicouche représentant les proximités entre les profils. En utilisant des jeux de données provenant de deux plateformes, nous montrons qu'en combinant plusieurs types de proximité, nous pouvons correctement étiqueter 98% des profils. Notre deuxième modèle nous permet d'observer l'évolution des points de vue des profils pendant un événement, avec seulement un profil-graine par point de vue. Ce modèle confirme qu'une grande majorité de profils ne changent pas de position sur les médias sociaux, ou n'expriment pas leur revirement. / Numerous domains have interests in studying the viewpoints expressed online, be it for marketing, cybersecurity, or research purposes with the rise of computational social sciences. We propose in this manuscript two contributions to the field of stance detection, focused around the difficulty of obtaining annotated data of quality on social medias. Our first contribution is a large and complex dataset of 22853 Twitter profiles active during the French presidential campaign of 2017. This is one of the rare datasets that considers a non-binary stance classification and, to our knowledge, the first one with a large number of profiles, and the first one proposing overlapping political communities. This dataset can be used as-is to study the campaign mechanisms on Twitter, or used to test stance detection models or network analysis tools. We then propose two semi-supervised generic stance detection models using a handful of seed profiles for which we know the stance to classify the rest of the profiles by exploiting various proximities. Indeed, current stance detection models are usually grounded on the specificities of some social platforms, which is unfortunate since it does not allow the integration of the multitude of available signals. By infering proximities from differents types of elements available on social medias, we can detect profiles close enough to assume they share a similar stance on a given subject. Our first model is a sequential ensemble algorithm which propagates stances thanks to a multi-layer graph representing proximities between profiles. Using datasets from two platforms, we show that, by combining several types of proximities, we can achieve excellent results. Our second model allows us to observe the evolution of profiles' stances during an event with as little as one seed profile by stance. This model confirms that a large majority of profiles do not change their stance on social medias, or do not express their change of heart.

Bakgrund: Psykisk sjukdom utgör en fjärde del av Sveriges sjukdomsbörda men fördomar mot personer med psykisk sjukdom är ingen ovanlig företeelse i dagens samhälle. Patienter med psykisk sjukdom har lika rätt till en god vård som alla andra. En grundutbildad sjuksköterska ska kunna vårda dessa patienter. Det framkommer dock att patienter med psykisk sjukdom inte har lika förutsättningar och hälsoutfall som patienter utan psykisk sjukdom. Patienterna upplever ett behov av trygghet och förtroende för sina vårdare men sjuksköterskor visar en tendens att agera annorlunda mot dessa patienter. Syfte: Att beskriva sjuksköterskors inställning till att vårda patienter med psykisk sjukdom i den somatiska slutenvården. Metod: En litteratursökning har genomförts för att skapa en översikt över vetenskapliga artiklar om grundutbildade sjuksköterskors inställning till vårdandet av patienter med psykisk sjukdom inom den somatiska vården. Åtta vetenskapliga artiklar, fyra kvantitativa och fyra kvalitativa, har analyserats och ligger till grund för resultatet. För sökningen användes databasen PubMed. Resultat: Resultatet tyder på att de negativa inställningarna till psykisk sjukdom överväger över de positiva. De framträdande orsakerna är framförallt brist på kunskap och erfarenhet, arbetsmiljöns påverkan, föreställningar om patienters beteende, negativa känslor såsom rädsla, frustation och ilska samt uppfattningen att vården av patienter med psykisk sjukdom inte ingår i yrkesrollen hos somatiska sjuksköterskor. De få positiva inställningar som framkommit grundar sig på faktorer som tillräcklig kunskap, goda erfarenheter, en anpassad arbetsmiljö och en holistisk syn på omvårdnad där även vård av patienter med psykisk sjukdom ingår. Diskussion: I resultatdiskussionen resoneras det kring hur sjuksköterskans arbete försvåras av de faktorer som beskrivs ligga bakom de negativa inställningarna. Sjuksköterskor behöver mer stöd i form av arbetsmiljöfaktorer som tid, bemanning och anpassning av vårdutrymmen. Utifrån den teoretiska referensramen beskrivs hur vårdrelationen påverkas av sjuksköterskors inställning och vad detta innebär för den vård patienter med psykisk sjukdom får inom somatiken. Förståelse för patienten är en viktig förutsättning för en bra vårdrelation. När vårdrelationen inte fungerar riskerar mötet mellan patienten och sjuksköterskan bli negativt och på så sätt skapas det negativa vårderfarenheter för både patienten och sjuksköterskan. / Background: Mental illness makes up a quarter of Sweden's disease burden but prejudice against people with mental illness is not an unusual phenomenon in today's society. Patients with mental illness have the same right to good health care as everyone else. General nurses with no specialist training should be able to care for these patients. It appears, however, that patients with mental illness do not receive health care under the same conditions and do not have the same health outcomes as patients without mental illness. These patients experience a need for security and trust in their caregivers but nurses show a tendency to act differently towards these patients. Aim: To describe nurses' stance on caring for patients with mental illness in somatic inpatient care settings. Method: A literature review has been made of scientific articles on general nurses' stance on caring for patients with mental illness in somatic care. Eight scientific articles, four quantitative and four qualitative, have been analysed and provide the base for the results. PubMed was used as database. Result: The results indicate that negative attitudes outweigh positive attitudes. The revealed causes of negative attitudes are mainly lack of knowledge and experience, work environment factors, preconceptions about patients' behaviour, negative emotions such as fear, frustration and anger, as well as the perception that caring for patients with mental illness is not part of the work of somatic care nurses. The few positive attitudes that have emerged are based on factors such as knowledge, good experience, an adjusted work environment and a holistic view of nursing care, which includes the care of patients with mental illness. Discussion: In the result discussion it is reasoned about how nurses’ work is being complicated by the factors described as causing negative attitudes. Nurses need more support in terms of work environment improvements such as more time, better staffing and adjusted care settings. The theoretical framework is used to clarify how the nurse-patient relationship is affected by nurses' attitudes and what implications this has on the care these patients received within somatic health care. Being understood is important for patients as a premise for a good nurse-patient relationship. With a dysfunctional nurse-patient relationship there is a risk for the nurse-patient encounter to be negative, which in its turn creates negative health care experiences for both patients and nurses.

By understanding and mimicking characteristics of postural control used by animals, scientist and engineers may develop standing autonomous robots that work safely within home environments, and treatment strategies that help people overcome postural impairments. To increase our understanding of postural control we developed physical and computational models of standing posture to explain the interrelation of stance width and feedback gain in controlling the stability and dynamics of the postural response. These models facilitated precise analysis of mechanical dynamics and their effects on compliant feedback control, and provided a physical implementation to verify predictions developed from simulation. We show that a scaling of active feedback gain is required to maintain postural stability. These results are consistent with previous studies that have shown that a correlation exists between increased stance width and decreased postural responses. However, these studies have not quantified the relation between stance and the active control of standing posture. This scaling of gains that we show is dependent on the changing kinematic relations of the mechanical structure as it undergoes stance width adjustments. Specifically, we show that increasing stance width increases the leverage of the mechanical system. Feedback gains must be reduced by the reciprocal of the increase in mechanical leverage in order to maintain a consistent postural response; otherwise, the system may become unstable with increasing oscillations. We also showed that increasing magnitudes of intrinsic stiffness increases postural stability by facilitating stable responses over larger ranges of active feedback gain and increasing the stability of responses by decreasing settling time, oscillations, and displacement magnitude. The conclusions of this study were that the variation of mechanical leverage is responsible for changing the dynamics of the response during stance width variation, and that scaling of feedback gains with the changing mechanical leverage of stance width variations is required to maintain consistent response dynamics across stance widths.

WHY SHOULD TURKEY CONTINUE WITH STRONG FISCAL ADJUSTEMENT? LESSONS DERIVED FROM THE PAST AgAR PASLI, Mediha M.S., Department of Economics Supervisor: Associate Prof. Dr. Nadir &Ouml / CAL November 2006, 87 pages Turkey managed to produce a strong fiscal adjustment during the period of 1999-2005 with the annual average of close to 5 percent. Moreover, with the help of this tight fiscal stance, Turkey&rsquo / s public debt has been reduced from the peak of 90.5 percent of GNP in 2001 to 55.8 percent in 2005. Although this is a major achievement both in terms of the size and the speed, the challenge for Turkey is now to continue with fiscal adjustment in order to further reduce its public debt level which still poses a sizeable vulnerability risk for the economy. Therefore, in order to provide an answer to the sustainability question, this thesis first aims to (i) measure the fiscal adjustment in Turkey at the general government level during 1999-2005 period, (ii) analyze sources of fiscal adjustment based on the economic classification, institutional breakdown, and cyclical and structural components. After understanding size and sources of adjustment, the reduction in public debt will be decomposed into its parts including the contribution come from primary surplus. This will shed light on whether Turkey could still rely on those factors for further reduction in public debt in the future.