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No description available.

This thesis is based on studies in Butajira district in the south central part of Ethiopia and one study in the Ethio-Swedish Children's Hospital in Addis Ababa. The Butajira project has a continuous demographic surveillance system, established in 1987 in a sample of 10 communities with a total baseline population of about 30,000. The project includes the development and evaluation of a system for continuous registration of vital events and provides a baseline population and sampling frame for health related research activities. The thesis used different study designs within the surveillance system. A carriership study was undertaken to determine the potential bacterial respiratory pathogens among under-five children. A clinical study was done to investigate aetiological agents among young infants (below 3 months) with pneumonia, sepsis and meningitis in a hospital setting. Interview studies were carried out on mothers' perceptions of illness and practices in the care of children with acute respiratory infections. Within the surveillance system, patterns of under-five mortality were analysed. A nested case-referent design was applied to assess public health and behavioural determinants of mortality. A cohort study was performed among under-fives in three communities to estimate the magnitude of illness burden, particularly from ARI, as well as to assess determinants of ARI morbidity. Among 1126 under-five children, 85% were found to harbour H. influenzae, 83% M. catarrhalis and 90% S. pneumoniae in the nasopharynx. The hospital-based study isolated S. pneumoniae, Streptococcus group A, Salmonella group B, E. coli and H. influenzae in the age group below 3 months. The study of mothers' perceptions and practices, showed that mothers do know the symptoms of measles and whooping cough, while they do not recognize pneumonia as an illness entity and are not aware of fast breathing as an important sign of pneumonia. The mortality studies showed a high infant and under-five mortality rate. ARI was responsible for one fifth of the under-five mortality and almost one third of the infant mortality rate. Cause of death in the case-referent study was determined using a validated verbal autopsy method. Breast-feeding and supplementary feeding were demonstrated to be strongly protective when controlling for parental and environmental determinants of mortality. A one year prospective home surveillance study showed that illness was reported in 5.8% of 1,216 person-years. ARI contributed half of this illness load and was particularly associated with parental factors. Among sanitation factors, the absence of piped water was an important determinant of morbidity. Among housing factors, the type of roof and lighting source for the house, and among parental factors, illiteracy of either parents and having a farmer as a father, were found to be independently associated with increased morbidity. Among health and behavioural factors, preterm delivery and lack of immunization were associated with increased morbidity. The results of the studies of this thesis have been utilized to design an intervention case management package. The intervention study and evaluation of its impact is now on-going. / <p>Diss. (sammanfattning) Umeå : Umeå universitet, 1994, härtill 7 uppsatser.</p> / digitalisering@umu.se

We have from our research, conducted in Guardamar del Segura, Spain, discovered that most of the communication between native Spaniards and immigrant Bulgarians is negative non-verbal communication which leads to a division between the two groups. The result of high unemployment and social stress, which the current situation in Spain provides, tend to create stronger ties inside the groups and at the same time enlarge the distance towards other groups. Also, the large amount of nonverbal communication such as observing each other’s behavior leads in this case to negative stereotyping and prejudices that creates and maintain the different group’s relations in the society.

Syftet med denna undersökning är att utforska på vilka sätt den musikaliska bakgrunden ochden musikaliska identiteten avspeglar sig på yrkesmusiker i deras yrkesutövande, när detavspeglar sig som tydligast och vilken period i deras musikaliska bakgrund som de anser varitmest betydelsefull. Kvalitativa intervjuer har genomförts med tre musiker i olika åldrar. Denmusikaliska bakgrunden, vilka åldrar som varit av störst betydelse och på vilka sätt de anser attderas musikaliska bakgrund skiner igenom i deras instrumentalspel har diskuterats iintervjuerna. I tidigare studier har man konstaterat att den musikaliska bakgrunden har en storinverkan på hur man utför sitt yrke. Miljön och de erfarenheter man fått från sin uppväxtskapar en trygghet som man tenderar att hålla fast vid.Resultatet från denna undersökning visar att samtliga intervjuade anser att den musikaliskabakgrunden har stor betydelse för hur de utför den kreativa process som musikeryrket innebär.Musik som föräldrar och syskon lyssnar på i barndomshemmet visar sig har stor betydelse förhur de identifierar sig musikaliskt, men de sena tonåren visar sig vara av allra störst betydelse.De menar också att det är i tonåren man blir mer självständig och att det är då man börjar tamusiken på allvar, vilket leder till de att ser tillbaka på den tiden som mest betydelsefulla ochutvecklande.Den musikaliska bakgrunden visar sig avspegla sig som tydligast när man spelar i andramusikstilar än den som man är mest van vid.

In this thesis, I/O signal recognizers, called VIRTUALBLOCKS, are synthesized to interface with a SYSTEM UNDER TEST (SUT). Methods for automated synthesis of virtualblocks allow us to simulate environment interfaces with SUT and also perform fault detection on SUT. Such methods must be able to recognize incoming sequences of signals from SUT, and upon the signal recognition determine the proper outgoing sequences of signals to SUT. We characterize our systems into four distinctive systems: system under test, AUXILIARY SYSTEM, controller and external environment. The auxiliary system is represented as a form of condition system Petri net (virtualblocks) and interacts with SUT along with the interaction among the controller and the external environment. Fault detection is performed by subsystems called DETECTBLOCKS synthesized from the virtualblocks. We present construction procedures for virtualblocks andamp; detectblocks and discuss the notion of LEGALITY and DETECTABILITY. Finally, we illustrate our approach using a model of a scanner control unit.

Studiens syfte var att få kunskap om förhållanden som kan leda till ett förändringsarbete som är lyckosamt. Det vi ville undersöka var hur en ledare ska bete sig/handla för att få en lyckad organisationsförändring men även varför och på vilket sätt kommunikationen är viktig vid en förändring? Metoden som användes var kvalitativ och vårt empiriska material skaffades genom intervjuer. I vår studie deltog fem respondenter. Genom analys av teori och intervjumaterial har vi kommit fram till slutsatsen att man måste ha egenskaper från både transformativt och transaktionellt ledarskap. Vi anser att man behöver ha många egenskaper från det transformativa ledarskapet men att man även behöver vara auktoritär i sitt ledarskap, vilket man kan se hos en transaktionell ledare. Kommunikation och delaktighet var två element som ständigt dök upp i teorin och under intervjuerna som viktiga delar i förändringsarbete

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Markov decision processes (MDPs) have proven to be a useful model for sequential decision- theoretic reasoning under uncertainty, yet they require the specification of a reward function that can require sophisticated human judgement to assess relevant tradeoffs. This dissertation casts the problem of specifying rewards as one of preference elicitation and aims to minimize the degree of precision with which a reward function must be specified while still allowing optimal or near-optimal policies to be produced. We demonstrate how robust policies can be computed for MDPs given only partial reward information using the minimax regret criterion. Minimax regret offers an intuitive bound on loss; however, it is computationally intractable in general. This work develops techniques for exploiting MDP structure to allow for offline precomputation that enables efficient online minimax regret computation. To complement this exact approach we develop several general approximations that offer both upper and lower bounds on minimax regret. We further show how approximations can be improved online during the elicitation procedure to balance accuracy and efficiency. To effectively reduce regret, we investigate a spectrum of elicitation approaches that range from the computationally-demanding optimal selection of complex queries about full MDP policies (which are informative, but, we believe, cognitively difficult) to the heuristic selection of simple queries that focus on a small set of reward parameters. Results are demonstrated on MDPs drawn from the domains of assistive technology and autonomic computing. Finally we demonstrate our framework on a realistic website optimization domain, per- forming elicitation on websites with tens of thousands of webpages. We show that minimax regret can be efficiently computed, and develop informative and cognitively reasonable queries that quickly lower minimax regret, producing policies that offer significant improvement in the design of the underlying websites.

Lowry's controversial and enigmatic book has spawned diverse critical analyses geared toward arriving at a single understanding of the novel; however, what too many of these works fail to take into account is the eclectic nature of Lowry's techniques as well as his themes. Hence, though we usually get a very clear picture of one approach to the book in these individual exercises in explication, when we turn once again to the story itself, we are apt to be a bit confused as to exactly how the design that they offer governs the unity of the book. Therefore, in order to glean the author's intent, one must take a more comprehensive, a rhetorical, view of the piece.For future reference, chapter one -- "A Review of Criticism" -summarizes and evaluates book reviews and critical studies done on Under the Volcano, the critical studies being organized into source, theme and technique analyses, respectively,Chapter two, "Rhetorical Analysis Defined," considers the critical theories of Edward Corbett, Mark Schorer and Wayne Booth to adumbrate the notion that a rhetorical analysis addresses the writer's intent, his work and thee work's impact upon its aud4ence to evaluate the effectiveness of a piece of literature. As an illustration, Lowry's essay "Garden of Etla" is explicated rhetorically here.In chapter three, "A Rhetorical Analysis of Under the Volcano," a chapter-by-chapter, detailed approach to the novel is used in order to illuminate the techniques which promote and define Lowry's themes. The techniques include those that establish stream of consciousness (interior monologues and dialogues), those that determine its direction (syntax, time and space montage, and mechanical devices) and those that add depth and dimension (figures of speech, puns and distorted English).The last chapter, "Malcolm Lowry's 'Design-Governing Postures, ," examines unifying structures which range the entire book and which thereby impose order on it. These designs include Lowry's use of the traditional unities, leitmotifs, parodies, symbolic structures, formal arrangements and "cyclic" themes.Critics of the novel contend that though enjoying isolated moments of direction and lucidness, Under the Volcano fails to convey it purpose effectively because the themes are nebulous and because the techniques segment rather than solidify the story. By explicating the book rhetorically, however, one learns to understand and appreciate the techniques that Lowry employs to amplify the fragmentation endured by the Consul, the people closest to him and, in fact, the entire world around him. Indeed, Lowry offers up a cogent cautionary vision of a twentieth-century world disintegrating because it lacks that force singularly capable of unifying it -- love.