This is a qualitative study about child poverty within the school environment. The purpose is to examine how financial resources can affect the social standings of teenagers and how that affects them in school; how the school system view and work with child poverty as well as how they act within the legal framework that requires the school to be free of charge. This was done through analyzing earlier research and conducting five interviews with personnel at three schools for children ages 13-15. Our results show that social standing can be affected by a lack of financial resources, partially due to not having certain mobile phones or brand clothing, partially because they cannot afford to join in on social activities. Furthermore, teenagers view child poverty as shameful and a risk factor for social exclusion. The schools all saw child poverty as a problem that they work with through preemptive methods.

Syftet med denna studie var att undersöka hur gymnasieelever översätter mellan tre matematiska språkformer (symbolspråk, matematiskt språk och vardags-språk). Studien använde ett slags test, en kunskapsdiagnos, för att undersöka detta. Gymnasieelever från samma program i tre olika årskurser fick möjlighet att delta i studien. Diagnosen var uppdelad i tre översättningsområden: från matematiskt språk till symbolspråk, från symbolspråk till matematiskt språk och till sist från symbolspråk till vardagsspråk. Resultatet visar att gymnasieeleverna, oavsett årskurs, har problem med översättningarna. Bland annat använde eleverna fel operationstecken, missade att sätta ut väsentliga parenteser och blandade i vissa fall de olika språkformerna i samma mening. Eleverna lyckades bäst med översättningen från symbolspråk till matematiskt språk, och de allra flesta kände till symbolen för ”mindre än”. / The purpose of this study was to investigate how upper secondary school students translate between three mathematical language forms (symbolic language, mathematical language and everyday language). The study used a test (a diagnosis), to investigate this. Upper secondary school students belonging to the same program in three different grades were given the opportunity to take part in the study. The diagnosis was divided into three translation areas: from mathematical language to symbolic language, from symbolic language to mathematical language and finally from symbolic language to everyday language. The result shows that upper secondary school students, regardless of grade, have problems with the translations. Among other things, the students used the wrong operation signs, missed writing crucial parentheses and in some cases, they mixed the various language forms in the same sentence. The students were most successful with the translation from symbolic language to mathematical language, and the vast majority had knowledge of the "less than" - symbol.

Today, individuals can relatively easily meet and communicate with each other over great distances due to increased mobility and advances in communication technology. This also allows intimate relationships to be maintained over large geographical distances. Despite these developments, long-distance relationships (LDRs), i.e. intimate relationships maintained over geographical distance, remain understudied. The present thesis aims to fill this knowledge gap and investigates how intimate partners who live so far away from each other that they cannot meet every day make their relationship ongoing beyond face-to-face interaction. Theoretically, this study departs from a symbolic interactionist viewpoint that invites us to study phenomena from the actor’s perspective. Conceptually, the thesis builds on the recent development in sociology of intimate lives that sees intimacy as a relational quality that has to be worked on to be sustained, and that focuses on the practices that make a relationship a relationship. Empirically, the thesis is based upon 19 in-depth interviews with individuals from Latvia with long-distance relationship experience. The thesis consists of four articles. Article I studies the context in which LDRs in Latvia are maintained, focusing on the normative constraints that complicate LDR maintenance. Article II analyses how intimacy is practiced over geographical distance. Article III examines how long-distance partners manage the experience of the time they are together and the time they are geographically apart. Article IV explores the aspect of idealization in LDRs. Overall, the thesis argues for the critical role of imagination in relationship maintenance. The relationship maintenance strategies identified within the articles are imagination-based mediated communication (creating sensual/embodied intimacy, emotional intimacy, daily intimacy and imagined individual intimacy); time-work strategies that enable long-distance partners to deal with the spatiotemporal borders of the time together and the time apart; and creating bi-directional idealization. The thesis is also one of the few works in the field of intimate lives in Eastern Europe and analyses the normative complications that long-distance partners face in their relationship maintenance in Latvia.

Physiotherapy in Sweden has developed from a practical, hands-on, assistant job predominantly taught at college level to a university-based academic discipline emphasising evidence-based practice and research. Women are in majority although an increasing number of men have entered the profession. Women and men physiotherapists tend to undertake different career paths. The overall aim of the present thesis was to use a gender perspective to describe and analyse attitudes to the professional role, health care work and the development of the profession among actors engaged in physiotherapy education. A questionnaire was distributed in 1997 to all Swedish physiotherapy students in the second semester of the education (n=273). The same cohort was investigated in 1999 at the completion of the education. The response rate was 93 percent at both occasions. For an international comparison, the same questionnaire was distributed in 1997 and in 1999 to a group of Canadian physiotherapy students in their first and last semesters (n=60). Qualitative research interviews were conducted with 8 novices in physiotherapy and with 14 women educators in academia. Five focus group discussions with clinical supervisors were conducted (10 women and 5 men). Methods used were Grounded theory, factor analysis, logistic regression and path analysis. Feminist theories and Bourdieu's theory of culture constituted a theoretical framework Four ideal types were identified among the novices representing attitudes to the professional role. The Treater and The Supervisor were attitudes found among the women, whereas The Coach and The Entrepreneur were attitudes among the men. Type of health care facility was important for their positioning in the organisational hierarchy. Swedish students favour future employment in private practice. Sports medicine clinics and fitness centres are health care facilities highly endorsed, as is health promotion. Neither care of elderly nor hospital work are preferable fields of practice. Research is not favoured. Men students are more likely to have chosen the profession because of their interest in physical activity and sports. They are also more likely to prefer owning a private clinic and working with alternative approaches such as fitness training in sports medicine clinics. Women students are more likely to prefer an employment in private practice. The Canadian men students favour private practice whereas the women prefer the public sector of health care. The academic educators experience a gap between theory and practice which causes conflicting messages to students. Competing professions, emergent societal change and a conservative clinical practice constitute threats to the profession. The uniqueness of professional competency, theoretical development and new arenas such as home rehabilitation, consulting and research constitute a vision for future development of the profession. Masculinity is highly valued for status and power whereas femininity symbolises empathy and caring. The clinical supervisors update their theoretical knowledge base through supervision of students, but claim that students lack hands-on skills. Stress at work, unequal power relations in the hierarchy and restructuring of health care are factors that influence work satisfaction negatively. To conclude, gendered habitus, different symbolic capital and different attitudes towards health care work and development of the profession were found in the sub-fields of physiotherapy. / digitalisering@umu

This investigation explores the meanings primary school teachers who apply outdoor learning and teaching methods associate withthe places that encompass their teaching practices. A symbolic interactionist framework coupled with a social constructionistorientation was employed to analyze data collected from semi-structured interviews and photo elicitation techniques. The findingsillustrated that meaning ascribed to place derived from the interactional processes between the study’s respondents and thephysical setting within which educational interventions occurred. The nature of these interactions also appeared to be highlyinfluenced by the social worlds in which informants participated and their featured social processes. The results elucidated that theattribution of meaning to learning landscapes was impacted by school administrational factors, institutionalized school practices,the respondents’ university education and the perspectives they held about outdoor teaching and learning. Findings from thisenquiry make progress towards gaining an insight into the social construction of meanings ascribed to outdoor learningenvironments. Additionally, they contribute to a theoretical discussion regarding the impact of social contexts encompassingteaching and learning interventions on the educational potential of outdoor places.

Engineers are a group of individuals who are attractive when companies are in need for competence in technology. Today it is a shortage of these competences in the labor market. Because of this there has grown a competition among companies when they strive to recruit the best engineers. Therefore companies spend more resources on marketing themselves as an attractive employer. This study was set out to find what engineers think is an attractive employer through a demographic perspective. Another objective was to understand what Employer Brand (EB) is and understand what a successful EB consists of. The study was based on a survey where 147 engineers from Umeå University participated. The study showed that age, years at work and number of terms studied plays an important role to explain how an engineer student rate as a good employer. Further on can we conclude from a theoretic perspective that EB is a complex concept when creating a brand. Although, the study shows that by interacting with the target group is a god indicator to seen as a future employer for engineer students and as a good brand.

Le télescopage créatif est un principe algorithmique développé depuis les années 1990 en combinatoire et en calcul formel, notamment depuis les travaux de Doron Zeilberger, pour calculer avec des sommes et intégrales paramétrées, que ce soit pour trouver des formes explicites ou pour justifier des identités intégrales ou sommatoires. Le procédé est particulièrement adapté à une grande famille de fonctions et suites données par des équations linéaires différentielles et de récurrences, que ce soient des fonctions spéciales de l'analyse, des suites de la combinatoire, ou des familles de polynômes orthogonaux. Dans ce mémoire, je retrace l'évolution des algorithmes et de mes contributions pour adapter le procédé à des classes de fonctions de plus en plus générales, du cadre initial des suites hypergéométriques, données par des récurrences d'ordre 1, aux cas de fonctions données par des équations d'ordre supérieur, ceci jusqu'aux fonctions données par des idéaux non zéro-dimensionnels. La difficulté d'obtenir des implantations rapides dans tous ces cas repose sur le calcul d'un certificat justifiant l'application du télescopage créatif, ce certificat étant par nature de grande taille. Ceci m'a motivé dans l'étude de la complexité du procédé. Plusieurs pistes d'amélioration ont été explorées, d'abord en essayant de maintenir compact ce certificat, puis en obtenant des algorithmes validés sans passer par son calcul. Comme souvent, l'estimation des tailles arithmétiques des objets intervenant dans le telescopage créatif a à la fois guidé le développement de nouveaux algorithmes plus efficaces et permis leur estimation théorique de complexité. Pour finir, j'indique brièvement la direction qu'a prise mes travaux récents sur le sujet, vers la preuve formelle, et qui font ressortir des pistes pour une meilleure justification de l'application du télescopage créatif.

I ett samhälle där datorspelare anses vistas i en högst amoralisk miljö, vill vi med den här studien granska hur etik och moral ter sig i den virtuella världen via ett symboliskt interaktionistiskt perspektiv. Genom kvalitativa intervjuer har elva spelare av onlinespel fått redogöra för sin egen upplevelse av den interaktion de genomgår dagligen. Med hjälp av utförliga teorier kring etik och moral, symbolisk interaktionism och spelkultur har studien ett brett teoretiskt underlag som appliceras i en hermeneutisk analys. Resultatet visar att etik och moral existerar i onlinespel, samtidigt som amoraliteten. Det verkar röra sig om två olika kulturer. Studien lägger sin fokus på den förstnämnda och beskriver både vad fenomenet består i, och hur det ter sig. Essensen handlar om den sociala aspekten, det vi kan kalla för socialitet. Vi fann essensen utifrån fem teman, som alla rör grupp, socialitet och samspel. Slutsatsen visar att det finns en moralisk spelkultur och en amoralisk, baserat på graden av socialitet och inlevelse. Den moraliska spelkulturen skapas och återskapas utifrån spelarnas meningsskapande, sociala behov och den virtuella världens flexibilitet.   Nyckelbegrepp: Etik, Moral, Onlinespel, Spelkultur, Symbolisk interaktionism. / In a society in which gamers are considered to engage in an amoral environment, we intended with this study to examine how ethics and morality appears in the virtual world through a symbolic interactionist perspective. Through qualitative interviews eleven gamers have been able to give their own views about their experiences of the interaction they undergo daily. With help from detailed theories about ethics and morality, symbolic interactionism and gaming culture, this study has a wide theoretical foundation which applies in a hermeneutical analysis. The results show that ethics and morality exists within online games, as well as an amoral gaming culture. It appears to be two cultures, in which this study puts its focus on the first and describes both what the phenomenon is made of, and how it appears. The essence is about the social aspect, what we call sociality. This essence was found through five themes, all regarding group, sociality and interaction. The conclusion shows that there is a moral gaming culture as well as an amoral one, based on the degree of sociality and immersion. The moral gaming culture is created and recreated from the creation of meaning and social needs through the gamers as well as the flexibility of the virtual world.   Keywords: Ethics, Morality, Online game, Game culture, Symbolic interactionism.

The purpose of this study is to explore that mathematics provides a convenient formalism for studying classical database management system problems. There are two main parts in this study, devoted respectively to using mathematical theory of relations and using logical theory to study database management systems. In the first part we focus on relational model and relational algebra. The second part deals with the application of mathematical logic to database management systems, where logic may be used both as a inference system and as a representation language. The features and logical mechanisms of Prolog programming language have been studied. A sample logical database model is developed and tested, using the logic programming language Prolog. / Department of Computer Science

The main focus of this research is to use graph-theoretic formulations to develop an automated algorithm for the generation of sensitivity equations. The idea is to combine the benefits of direct differentiation with that of graph-theoretic formulation. The primary deliverable of this work is the developed software module which can derive the system equations and the sensitivity equations directly from the linear graph of the system. Sensitivity analysis refers to the study of changes in system behaviour brought about by the changes in model parameters. Due to the rapid increase in the sizes and complexities of the models being analyzed, it is important to extend the capabilities of the current tools of sensitivity analysis, and an automated, efficient, and accurate method for the generation of sensitivity equations is highly desirable. In this work, a graph-theoretic algorithm is developed to generate the sensitivity equations. In the current implementation, the proposed algorithm uses direct differentiation to generate sensitivity equations at the component level and graph-theoretic methods to assemble the equation fragments to form the sensitivity equations. This way certain amount of control can be established over the size and complexity of the generated sensitivity equations. The implementation of the algorithm is based on a commercial software package \verb MapleSim[Multibody] and can generate governing and sensitivity equations for multibody models created in MapleSim. In this thesis, the algorithm is tested on various mechanical, hydraulic, electro-chemical, multibody, and multi-domain systems. The generated sensitivity information are used to perform design optimization and parametric importance studies. The sensitivity results are validated using finite difference formulations. The results demonstrate that graph-theoretic sensitivity analysis is an automated, accurate, algorithmic method of generation for sensitivity equations, which enables the user to have some control over the form and complexity of the generated equations. The results show that the graph-theoretic method is more efficient than the finite difference approach. It is also demonstrated that the efficiency of the generated equations are at par or better than the equation obtained by direct differentiation.