The purpose of this study was to determine whether or not significant relationships existed between dispositional factors (self-consciousness, anxiety, approach coping style) predictive of choking under pressure in competition with factors associated with healthy psychological functioning (dispositional mindfulness and dimensions of psychological well-being). Choking under pressure has been identified as a factor that not only negatively impacts an athlete’s level of success in competition, but also the athlete’s psychological well-being. Despite these negative effects, minimal interventions exist to address choking under pressure. Mindfulness is a construct that has received attention for its positive effect in the lives of individuals, both in daily living and symptom-relief for a host of issues. As such, the relationships between factors associated with choking-susceptibility, mindfulness, and psychological well-being were examined in the current study to determine if the development of a mindfulness intervention for athletes identified as “choking-susceptible” is appropriate. The sample for this study included 95 Division I athletes from large Southwestern and Western universities. The data were analyzed using univariate and multiple linear regressions and correlational analysis. The findings of this study revealed significant negative relationships between two out of the three dispositional choking-susceptibility factors (self-consciousness and anxiety), mindfulness, and psychological well-being. Given the significance of these findings, the development and evaluation of a mindfulness-based choking intervention is warranted. / text

This study examined the use of information sources in college choice processing of historically-under-represented students from four different types of colleges who traditionally have not been studied in previous research. Historically under-represented types of students included students who were older than 24 years of age, African-Americans, Latinos, and low SES. The four types of colleges included a traditional public university, public community college, proprietary university, and proprietary college. Students from similar college programs of study were surveyed regarding their demographics to determine their categorization as historically under-represented and their use of information sources. Administrators from the selected colleges were interviewed and surveyed. Five students from each college were then interviewed. While most college choice processing research and the development of models are based on traditional college students, this study demonstrated that historically under-represented students generally utilize information sources and perform their college choice processing differently from traditional college students. These differences question the applicability of college choice processing models, such as Hossler and Gallagher's three stage model, without revisions. These revisions include redefinition of the stages and how they are executed in order to embrace the lack of college choices of historically under-represented students due to their lack of college informational motivators. The use of alternate information sources by historically-under-represented students and their motivational impact that differ from those utilized by traditional college students demonstrated the need to employ these sources within traditional colleges in order to increase college access for historically-under-represented students. This includes the utilization of non-traditional college informational motivators, such as the media, spouses, employers, and children, access to college informational motivators for students and their parents at all levels of schooling, and greater college access for older adults/parents. This study provided evidence that historically-underrepresented students still experience deficiencies in their access to college due to their lack of access to traditional information sources and their resulting compensation by utilizing alternative sources which were motivational as well as informational.

Promised some decades ago by researchers in artificial intelligence and robotics as an imminent breakthrough in our everyday lives, a robotic assistant that could work with us in our home and our workplace is a dream still far from being fulfilled. The work presented in this thesis aims at bringing this future vision a little closer to realization. Here, we start from the assumption that an efficient robotic helper should not impose constraints on users' activities, but rather perform its tasks unobtrusively to fulfill its goals and to facilitate people in achieving their objectives.  Also, the helper should be able to consider the outcome of possible future actions by the human users, to assess how those would affect the environment with respect to the agent's objectives, and to predict when its support will be needed. In this thesis we address two highly interconnected problems that are essential for the cohabitation of people and service robots: robot task planning and human activity recognition. First, we present human-aware planning, that is, our approach to robot high-level symbolic reasoning for plan generation. Human-aware planning can be applied in situations where there is a controllable agent, the robot, whose actions we can plan, and one or more uncontrollable agents, the human users, whose future actions we can only try to predict. In our approach, therefore, the knowledge of the users' current and future activities is an important prerequisite. We define human-aware as a new type of planning problem, we formalize the extensions needed by a classical planner to solve such a problem, and we present the implementation of a planner that satisfies all identified requirements. In this thesis we explore also a second issue, which is a prerequisite to the first one: human activity monitoring in intelligent environments. We adopt a knowledge driven approach to activity recognition, whereby a constraint-based domain description is used to correlate sensor readings to human activities. We validate our solutions to both human-aware planning and activity recognition both theoretically and experimentally, describing a number of explanatory examples and test runs in a real environment.

The study evaluated the Mutant Prevention Concentration (MPC) of Pradofloxacin on three Escherichia coli (E.coli) strains, 2 wildtypes and one first-step gyrA resistant mutant. We also measured the value of AUC (Under the Concentration)/MPC that prevents growth of resistant mutants. It is of importance to reach a concentration above MPC that prevent E.coli from developing resistance against the antibiotic. We used an in vitro kinetic model where we added bacteria? and antibiotic. The culture flask was attached to a pump with an adjustable pump-speed. This made it possible to dilute the antibiotics in a satisfying elimination half-life (t1/2= 7 hours) pace. Samples were removed with a syringe at different times in the study. The samples where then cultured on agar- plates to enable counting of the viable colonies after incubation. The optimal concentration to completely eradicate both E.coli wildtypes Nu14 and MG1655 with Pradofloxacin was Cmax ≥8 times MPC and AUC/MPC then became73. Additional experiments needs to be done on the resistant mutant LM378 before we can determine the optimal concentration. But results so far indicate that the concentration of Cmax would be about 8-12 timesMPC to completely eradicate that mutant.

Abstract This paper investigates how to individualize the tuition in English by using ability groupings. The study is primarily focusing on the group of under-achieving ability pupils since teachers have a special responsibility for those pupils who experience difficulties in attaining the goals that have been set for their education, according to the Curriculum for compulsory school Lpo 94. The main research question was if the groupings were positive or negative for the under-achieving pupils at school X, i.e. the compulsory school under investigation. In addition I also wanted to find out if the ability groupings at school X responded to the steering documents, i.e. the Curriculum in compulsory school and the Education Act. The study is based on primary data in the forms of interviews, with four English teachers, and questionnaires, answered by the under-achieving ability pupils. Conclusions were drawn that the ability groupings seemed to be mostly negative concerning the under-achieving pupils. The groupings at school X are not supported in any steering documents either since the groupings are not temporary, they do to some extent put the pupils at a certain grade level and on a certain track which violates the Education Act. One of the conclusions in this paper is also that there should be clearer guidelines on how to approach this phenomenon.

Bayesian process control is a statistical process control (SPC) scheme that uses the posterior state probabilities as the control statistic. The key issue is to decide when to restore the process based on real-time observations. Such problems have been extensively studied in the framework of partially observable Markov decision processes (POMDP), with particular emphasis on the structure of optimal control policy. Almost all existing structural results on the optimal policies are limited to the two-state processes, where the class of control-limit policy is optimal. However, the two-state model is a gross simplification, as real production processes almost always involve multiple states. For example, a machine in the production system often has multiple failure modes differing in their effects; the deterioration process can often be divided into multiple stages with different degradation levels; the condition of a complex multi-unit system also requires a multi-state representation. We investigate the optimal control policies for multi-state processes with fixed sampling scheme, in which information about the process is represented by a belief vector within a high dimensional probability simplex. It is well known that obtaining structural results for such high-dimensional POMDP is challenging. Firstly, we prove that for an infinite-horizon process subject to multiple competing assignable causes, a so-called conditional control limit policy is optimal. The optimal policy divides the belief space into two individually connected regions, which have analytical bounds. Next, we address a finite-horizon process with at least one absorbing state and show that a structured optimal policy can be established by transforming the belief space into a polar coordinate system, where a so-called polar control limit policy is optimal. Our model is general enough to include many existing models in the literature as special cases. The structural results also lead to significantly efficient algorithms for computing the optimal policies. In addition, we characterize the condition for some out-of-control state to be more desirable than the in-control state. The existence of such counterintuitive situation indicates that multi-state process control is drastically different from the two-state case.

Darbuotojų materialinės atsakomybės normos darbo teisiniuose santykiuose turi didelę teorinę ir praktinę reikšmę. Šiame darbe pateikti Kauno miesto apylinkės teismo 2000-2006 metais išnagrinėtų bylų dėl darbuotojų materialinės atsakomybės pagal darbo teisę apibendrinimai. Darbe apibūdinama darbuotojų materialinės atsakomybės samprata, darbuotojų materialinės atsakomybės rūšys, analizuojamos 2000 – 2006 metais Kauno miesto apylinkės teisme išnagrinėtos bylos dėl darbuotojų materialinės atsakomybės, pateikiama šių bylų statistika ir išsami analizė pagal sąlygas materialinei atsakomybei atsirasti, analizuojamos darbdavių, darbuotojų ir teismo, nagrinėjančio darbo ginčus dėl darbuotojų materialinės atsakomybės pagal darbo teisę, daromos klaidos. Darbo pabaigoje pateiktose išvadose atskleidžiamos praktinės bylų nagrinėjime pastebėtos problemos, pateikiami galimi jų sprendimo būdai. / The norms of the material liability of the employees in the legal relations of work have a significant theoretical and practical meaning. This work presents the summaries of the cases investigated by Kaunas City District Court in 2000-2006 regarding the employees’ material liability under labour law. The work describes the concept of the material liability of the employees, the sorts of the employees’ material liability, analyses the cases investigated by Kaunas City District Court in 2000-2006 regarding the employees’ material liability, presents the statistics of these cases and a thorough analysis on the basis of the conditions that cause material liability, analyses the mistakes done by the employers, employees and the court that examines the labour disputes regarding the employees’ material liability under labour law. In the end of the work there are presented the conclusions, which reveal the practical problems noticed in the investigation of cases, and there are presented the possible methods, how to solve them.

Šiame darbe siekiama atskleisti socialinės rizikos šeimų požiūrį į gaunamą paramą, kaip ji vertinama, ar realiai prieinama ir reikalinga; kiek šeimos pačios įgalinamos pamatyti ir spręsti savo problemas, rinktis tinkamus pagalbos būdus; ką reiškia ir kokius jausmus sukelia socialinės rizikos šeimos statusas, ar turi įtakos didesnei paramai gauti. / This work tries to unfold the attitude of families under social risk to the support, how it is valued, if it is affordable and needful; how the families are able to notice and to solve their problems, to select appropriate ways of the support; what does it mean for them to be as a family under social risk, and if it is a way to get major support.

Lietuvos visuomenė prieš daugiau nei penkiolika metų visuotiniame referendume priėmė aukščiausios teisinės galios aktą Lietuvoje - LR Konstituciją, kurios preambulėje įtvirtinta, kad Lietuva sieks tapti atvira, teisinga, darnia pilietine visuomene ir teisine valstybe. Tačiau beveik du dešimtmečius nepriklausomoje valstybėje besiformuojančios teisinė, socialinė, ekonominė ir politinė sistemos liudija, kad mūsų visuomenėje įsigalėjo tokia vertybių sistema, kurioje tokia vertybė kaip teisė yra ignoruojama ir atmetama, t.y. stipriai paplito teisinio nihilizmo reiškinys. Šiame darbe analizuojami teisinio nihilizmo kaip socialinio reiškinio ypatumai, jo priežastys bei įveikimo galimybės Lietuvoje. Teisinio nihilizmo reiškinio pagrindiniai šaltiniai ir priežastys mūsų valstybėje būtų tokie: „aklas“ rėmimasis teisinio pozityvizmo samprata, kuriai būdinga teise pripažinti bet kokį, net ir žmogaus teises pažeidžiantį įstatymą, ydingas teisėkūros procesas, spragos konstituciniame reguliavime, nesusiformavęs pilietinės (atviros) visuomenės institutas, bendros krašto socialinės ekonominės programos vizijos stoka, menkas teisminės valdžios autoritetas, arši politinių jėgų konkurencija, plačiai paplitęs korupcijos reiškinys. Darbe siūloma kompleksiškai spręsti teisinio nihilizmo problemą. Visų pirma, turi būti imamasi visų įmanomų priemonių, kurios skatintų piliečių teisinės sąmonės formavimąsi bei teisinės kultūros lygio kilimą mūsų visuomenėje. Daugybė socialinių faktorių... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / Lithuanian society adopted Constitution of the Republic of Lithuania 15 years ago, where it have been fortified, that Lithuania will strive for an open, just, harmonious civil society and State under the rule of law. But the legal, social, economical, political systems, which have been developing for the last two decades in our independent state, proclaim that in our society have settled such system of values, where law as a social value has been ingnored and declined. There have been analyzed the phenomenon of legal nihilism, it’s causes and the possibilities to overcome it in Lithuania in this work. The main causes and sources of legal nihilism are: the predominant ideology of legal positivism in our society, which claims that legal validity must be strictly separated from questions of morality, faulty law-making process, breach of constitutional regulation, unsettled institucijon of civil society, the lack of vision of common social – economical programmme, poor reputation of judiciary power, savage competition of political powers, outspread phenomenon of corruption. There have been suggestions to solve the problem of legal nihilism by integrated process in the work. Foremost, there have to be assumed all measures, which stimulate the formation of legal conscious and rise of legal culture in our society. Lots of social factors evidence the need of situations for civil society, because only an opened, democratically thinking, leading, actively defending human... [to full text]

Bayesian process control is a statistical process control (SPC) scheme that uses the posterior state probabilities as the control statistic. The key issue is to decide when to restore the process based on real-time observations. Such problems have been extensively studied in the framework of partially observable Markov decision processes (POMDP), with particular emphasis on the structure of optimal control policy. Almost all existing structural results on the optimal policies are limited to the two-state processes, where the class of control-limit policy is optimal. However, the two-state model is a gross simplification, as real production processes almost always involve multiple states. For example, a machine in the production system often has multiple failure modes differing in their effects; the deterioration process can often be divided into multiple stages with different degradation levels; the condition of a complex multi-unit system also requires a multi-state representation. We investigate the optimal control policies for multi-state processes with fixed sampling scheme, in which information about the process is represented by a belief vector within a high dimensional probability simplex. It is well known that obtaining structural results for such high-dimensional POMDP is challenging. Firstly, we prove that for an infinite-horizon process subject to multiple competing assignable causes, a so-called conditional control limit policy is optimal. The optimal policy divides the belief space into two individually connected regions, which have analytical bounds. Next, we address a finite-horizon process with at least one absorbing state and show that a structured optimal policy can be established by transforming the belief space into a polar coordinate system, where a so-called polar control limit policy is optimal. Our model is general enough to include many existing models in the literature as special cases. The structural results also lead to significantly efficient algorithms for computing the optimal policies. In addition, we characterize the condition for some out-of-control state to be more desirable than the in-control state. The existence of such counterintuitive situation indicates that multi-state process control is drastically different from the two-state case.