As a very promising material of copper diffusion barrier for next generation microelectronics, Ru has already obtained a considerable attention recently. In this dissertation, we investigated ruthenium and ruthenium oxide electrochemical properties and the application as a copper diffusion barrier. Cu under potential deposition (UPD) on the RuOx formed electrochemically was first observed. Strong binding interaction, manifesting by the observed Cu UPD process, exists between Cu and Ru as well as its conductive ruthenium oxide. Since UPD can be conformally formed on the electrode surface, which enable Ru and RuOx has a potential application in the next generation anode. The [Cl-] and pH dependent experiment were conducted, both of them will affect UPD Cu on Ru oxide. We also found the Cu deposition is thermodynamically favored on RuOx formed electrochemically. We have studied the Ru thin film (5nm) as a copper diffusion barrier. It can successfully block Cu diffusion annealed at 300 oC for 10min under vacuum, and fail at 450 oC. We think the silicidation process at the interface between Ru and Si. PVD Cu/Ru/Si and ECP Cu/Ru/Si were compared each other during copper diffusion study. It was observed that ECP Cu is easy to diffuse through Ru barrier. The function of RuOx in diffusion study on Cu/Ru/Si stack was discussed. In pH 5 Cu2+ solution, Ru and Pt electrochemical behavior were investigated. A sharp difference was observed compared to low pH value. The mechanism in pH 5 Cu2+ solution was interpreted. An interesting compound (posnjakite) was obtained during the electrochemical process. An appropriate formation mechanism was proposed. Also Cu2O was formed in the process. We found oxygen reduction reaction is a key factor to cause this phenomenon.

Copper under-potential deposition (UPD) on iridium was studied due to important implications it presents to the semiconductor industry. Copper UPD allows controlled superfilling on sub-micrometer trenches; iridium has characteristics to prevent copper interconnect penetration into the surrounding dielectric. Copper UPD is not favored on iridium oxides but data shows copper over-potential deposition when lower oxidation state Ir oxide is formed. Effect of anions in solution on silver UPD at platinum (Pt) electrodes was studied with the electrochemical quartz crystal microbalance. Silver UPD forms about one monolayer in the three different electrolytes employed. When phosphoric acid is used, silver oxide growth is identified due to presence of low coverage hydrous oxide species at potentials prior to the monolayer oxide region oxide region.

Research suggests that roughly 25% of women and 10% of men within the United States were sexually abused at some point during childhood. With such high rates of victimization affecting society, the current study explores a population of children under the age of 6 who were suspected of being sexually victimized and thus admitted to a children’s advocacy center (CAC) for evaluation. This investigation contributes to the literature concerning child sexual abuse (CSA) by exploring the characteristics of these alleged victims, the characteristics of their suspected offenders, the alleged victim’s familial demographics characteristics, and by looking at the data pertaining to the incarceration rates of the suspected offenders identified within the sample.

L’adaptation au changement global à l’échelle des bassins versants requiert la sélection des mesures d’adaptation efficace dans un contexte d’incertitudes élevées concernant les conditions futures. Étant donné l’interdépendance entre les usagers de l’eau à l’échelle d’un bassin versant, des accords sont nécessaires pour mettre en place les mesures d’adaptation les plus efficaces. Cette thèse développe une approche pour : sélectionner un programme de mesures d’adaptation coût-efficace dans un contexte d’incertitudes liées au changement climatique ; et pour définir une répartition équitable du coût d’un tel programme de mesures entre les différentes parties prenantes. Le cadre méthodologique développé intègre les deux principales approches habituellement utilisées pour la planification de l’adaptation. La première, intitulée « Top-down» (Descendante), évalue l’impact de différents scénarios climatiques au niveau global sur les ressources en eau à l’échelle locale. La deuxième approche, appelée « Bottom-up » (Ascendante), commence par évaluer la vulnérabilité au niveau local pour ensuite identifier des mesures d’adaptation qui permettront de faire face à un futur incertain. Les résultats des approches précédentes, appliquées dans le bassin versant de l’Orb (France), ont été intégrés au moyen d’un modèle d’optimisation pour sélectionner une combinaison coût-efficace de mesures d’adaptation, considérant la possibilité de développer de nouvelles infrastructures, mais aussi de mettre en place des mesures d’économie d’eau dans les ménages ou d’amélioration de l’efficacité de l’irrigation. Le modèle est ensuite utilisé pour explorer les arbitrages possibles entre différents objectifs de planification et identifier des mesures d’adaptation robustes et de moindre regret. La question de la répartition du coût du plan d’adaptation est ensuite considérée depuis deux perspectives complémentaires. Le processus de négociation entre les acteurs impliqués est modélisé au moyen de la théorie des jeux coopératifs pour définir des scénarios de répartition des coûts équitables. Ces scénarios sont ensuite comparés avec des règles de répartition des coûts basées sur différents principes de justice sociale évaluées avec les acteurs locaux pour apporter des éléments de discussion au processus de négociation. Le cadre méthodologique interdisciplinaire développé durant cette thèse contribue à combler l’écart entre les méthodes Top-down (descendantes) et Bottom-up (ascendantes) pour informer la définition de plan d’adaptation coût-efficace et équitable à l’échelle locale. / Adaptation to global change challenges at the river basin scale requires selecting from demand and supply management measures in a context of high uncertainty on future conditions. Given the interdependency of water users, agreements need to be found at the local level to implement the most effective adaptation measures. Therefore, this thesis develops an approach combining economics and water resources engineering to: select a cost-effective programme of adaptation measures in the context of climate change uncertainty; and define an equitable allocation of the cost of the adaptation plan between the stakeholders involved. The framework developed integrates inputs from the two main approaches commonly used to plan for adaptation. The first, referred to as “top-down”, estimates the impact on the local water resources from different climate change scenarios at the global level. Conversely, the second, called “bottom-up”, starts by assessing vulnerability at the local level to then identify adaptation measures to face an uncertain future. Outcomes from the previous approaches applied in the Orb River basin (France) are integrated to select a cost-effective combination of adaptation measures through a least-cost optimization model developed at the river basin scale. Supply-side infrastructure development measures are considered, as well as demand-side household water conservation measures or irrigation efficiency improvement. The model is then used to investigate the trade-offs between different planning objectives and to identify robust and least-regret adaptation measures. The issue of allocating the cost of the adaptation plan is considered from two complementary perspectives. The outcome of a negotiation process between the stakeholders is modelled through the implementation of cooperative game theory to define cost allocation scenarios. These results are then compared with cost allocation rules based on social justice principles to provide contrasted insights into a negotiation process. The interdisciplinary framework developed during this thesis combines economics and water resources engineering methods, creating a promising means of bridging the gap between bottom-up and top-down approaches and supporting the definition of cost-effective and equitable adaptation plans at the local level.

Syfte:Syftet med denna studie är att öka förståelsen för hur ledarskapet inom restauranger i Malmö har använt sig av krishantering före och under Corona krisen. Metod:Semistrukturerade intervjuer har genomförts med sex olika respondenter inom ledningen från olika restauranger i Malmö Kommun. Slutsats:Vår studie har visat en hög grad av okunskap samt negativa relationer till förberedning av en krishanteringsplan bland ledningen som undersöktes i restaurangbranschen i Malmö, dock har ledningen förstått det viktiga inom att skapa en krishanteringsplan efter att krisen slog ut. Restaurangerna i fråga har kämpat dagligen mot den negativa påverkan som pandemin har tillfört oavsett kunskap kring krishantering eller ej, vilket visar att ledarnas tillvägagångssätt som respondenterna har visat stämmer väl överens med egenskaperna som lyfts upp i teorikapitlet kring hur en ledare bör agera under kriser. Originalitet / värde:Denna studie har testat och jämfört tidigare studier kring krishanteringsteorier samt ledarskap under kris; Bernstein (2004), Schoenberg (2005), (Coombs &amp; Holloday, 2006).Modellerna har testats av skribenterna under den nya Coronakrisen 2020 inom restaurangbranschen. Nyckelord:Kris, krishantering, ledning, ledarskap, ledarskap under kris, kommunikation, kriskommunikation / <p>Utfördes hemmifrån PGA Corona</p>

Cette thèse traite du problème où une équipe d'agents coopératifs et autonomes, évoluant dans un environnement stochastique partiellement observable, et œuvrant à la résolution d'une tâche complexe, doit modifier dynamiquement sa composition durant l'exécution de la tâche afin de s'adapter à l'évolution de celle-ci. Il s'agit d'un problème qui n'a été que peu étudié dans le domaine de la planification multi-agents. Pourtant, il existe de nombreuses situations où l'équipe d'agent mobilisée est amenée à changer au fil de l'exécution de la tâche.Nous nous intéressons plus particulièrement au cas où les agents peuvent décider d'eux-même de quitter ou de rejoindre l'équipe opérationnelle. Certaines fois, utiliser peu d'agents peut être bénéfique si les coûts induits par l'utilisation des agents sont trop prohibitifs. Inversement, il peut parfois être utile de faire appel à plus d'agents si la situation empire et que les compétences de certains agents se révèlent être de précieux atouts.Afin de proposer un modèle de décision qui permette de représenter ces situations, nous nous basons sur les processus décisionnels de Markov décentralisés et partiellement observables, un modèle standard utilisé dans le cadre de la planification multi-agents sous incertitude. Nous étendons ce modèle afin de permettre aux agents d'entrer et sortir du système. On parle alors de système ouvert. Nous présentons également deux algorithmes de résolution basés sur les populaires méthodes de recherche arborescente Monte-Carlo. Le premier de ces algorithmes nous permet de construire des politiques jointes séparables via des calculs de meilleures réponses successives, tandis que le second construit des politiques jointes non séparables en évaluant les équipes dans chaque situation via un système de classement Elo. Nous évaluons nos méthodes sur de nouveaux jeux de tests qui permettent de mettre en lumière les caractéristiques des systèmes ouverts. / This thesis addresses the problem where a team of cooperative and autonomous agents, working in a stochastic and partially observable environment towards solving a complex task, needs toe dynamically modify its structure during the process execution, so as to adapt to the evolution of the task. It is a problem that has been seldom studied in the field of multi-agent planning. However, there are many situations where the team of agents is likely to evolve over time.We are particularly interested in the case where the agents can decide for themselves to leave or join the operational team. Sometimes, using few agents can be for the greater good. Conversely, it can sometimes be useful to call on more agents if the situation gets worse and the skills of some agents turn out to be valuable assets.In order to propose a decision model that can represent those situations, we base upon the decentralized and partially observable Markov decision processes, the standard model for planning under uncertainty in decentralized multi-agent settings. We extend this model to allow agents to enter and exit the system. This is what is called agent openness. We then present two planning algorithms based on the popular Monte-Carlo Tree Search methods. The first algorithm builds separable joint policies by computing series of best responses individual policies, while the second algorithm builds non-separable joint policies by ranking the teams in each situation via an Elo rating system. We evaluate our methods on new benchmarks that allow to highlight some interesting features of open systems.

Thesis (M.Sc. (Computer Science)) -- University of Limpopo, 2015 / This study investigates the potential of using graphemes, instead of phonemes, as acoustic sub-word units for monolingual and cross-lingual speech recognition for some of the under-resourced languages of the Limpopo Province, namely, IsiNdebele, Sepedi and Tshivenda. The performance of a grapheme-based recognition system is compared to that of phoneme-based recognition system. For each selected under-resourced language, automatic speech recognition (ASR) system based on the use of hidden Markov models (HMMs) was developed using both graphemes and phonemes as acoustic sub-word units. The ASR framework used models emission distributions by 16 Gaussian Mixture Models (GMMs) with 2 mixture increments. A third-order n-gram language model was used in all experiments. Identical speech datasets were used for each experiment per language. The LWAZI speech corpora and the National Centre for Human Language Technologies (NCHLT) speech corpora were used for training and testing the tied-state context-dependent acoustic models. The performance of all systems was evaluated at the word-level recognition using word error rate (WER). The results of our study show that grapheme-based continuous speech recognition, which copes with the problem of low-quality or unavailable pronunciation dictionaries, is comparable to phoneme-based recognition for the selected under-resourced languages in both the monolingual and cross-lingual speech recognition tasks. The study significantly demonstrates that context-dependent grapheme-based sub-word units can be reliable for small and medium-large vocabulary speech recognition tasks for these languages. / Telkom SA

付記する学位プログラム名: 充実した健康長寿社会を築く総合医療開発リーダー育成プログラム / 京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(人間健康科学) / 甲第22388号 / 人健博第74号 / 新制||人健||5(附属図書館) / 京都大学大学院医学研究科人間健康科学系専攻 / (主査)教授 黒木 裕士, 教授 高桑 徹也, 教授 妻木 範行 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Human Health Sciences / Kyoto University / DFAM

This dissertation critically analyses the business rescue regime, with a specific focus on those attributes of the regime which detrimentally affect creditors. The main aspects which will be critically analysed include, the moratorium, the effect of business rescue on suretyships and the costs of business rescue. Examples will be used to illustrate the ways in which the business rescue regime is disproportionately slanted in favour of debtor companies as opposed to their creditors. Proposals as to how the regime can be developed to balance the competing interests of debtor companies and their creditors will also be made. / Mini Dissertation (LLM (Corporate Law))--University of Pretoria, 2020. / Mercantile Law / LLM (Corporate Law) / Unrestricted

Flertal tidigare studier visar att första linjens chefer inom omsorgen har svårighet att upprätta en hållbar arbetsmiljö och ett hållbart ledarskap. Världen har nu drabbats av en pandemi, med ett ökat tryck på sjukvården och ökad belastning inom omsorgen för vårdpersonal såväl som chefer. Syftet var att undersöka om chefer inom omsorgen upplever en hållbar arbetsmiljöunder Covid-pandemin och vilka förväntningar de har inför framtiden. För att få en ökad förståelse för omsorgscheferna upplevelse av sin arbetssituation under rådande pandemi genomfördes undersökningen med intervjuer. Deltagarna var sex verksamhetschefer/enhetschefer inom äldreomsorgen i två kommuner i Sverige. Studien visar på att omsorgscheferna inte upplevt någon större påverkan på deras hållbarhet i ledarskapet under covid-pandemin. Förändringen i ledarskap uttrycker sig i form av ett förändrat arbetssätt och ett ökat stöd till medarbetarna. Den största utmaningen för cheferna är bemanning och tillgång till skyddsmaterial. Det mest tidskrävande arbete angavs som smittspårning och bemanning. Faktorer som ansågs viktiga för en hållbar arbetsmiljö är dialogen och relationer. Något som även framkom i studien att omsorgscheferna utvecklat en oro för att missa information samt känslan av kontroll var extra tydlig. Omsorgens chefer har en ökad arbetsbelastning i samband med pandemin i form av tillämpning av nya arbetsuppgifter, hitta nya kommunikationsvägar, samt ge ökat stöd till medarbetare. Det organisatoriska stödet till cheferna upplever mer parten som gott. Genomgående var att samtliga chefer uttrycker en förändring i sättet att leda, samtliga har utvecklat en större ödmjukhet och relationerna inom arbetsgruppen har fått mer fokus under pågående pandemi, något omsorgscheferna kommer fortsätta arbeta och fokusera på i framtiden.