Globally, neonatal mortality has remained basically unchanged for the last three to four decades and every year almost four million newborns die before reaching one month of age. This persistent mortality is related to an invisibility of the newborn child in policies and statistics and a neglect of health care decision-makers, planners and practitioners to deliver a perinatal continuum of care. In recent years attention has however been brought to the unchanged neonatal mortality in an effort to improve survival. The present thesis seeks to increase understanding of obstacles for better neonatal survival. The studies performed are undertaken as sub-studies to the NeoKIP project in Quang Ninh province in northern Vietnam, a randomized controlled trial of knowledge implementation for improved neonatal survival (Neonatal Health – Knowledge Into Practice, ISRCTN 44599712). In the first paper we investigated and discussed the scope of invisibility of neonatal mortality through measuring the accuracy of official statistics on neonatal deaths. The second paper reports an inquiry of determinants of neonatal mortality by use of a population-based case-referent design. Paper III and IV analyse delivery care utilization and care seeking patterns prior to and at delivery using narratives and GIS technique. There was a substantial under-reporting of neonatal mortality in the official statistics, with study results showing a four times higher neonatal mortality rate in Quang Ninh province than reported to the Ministry of Health. This neonatal mortality rate of 16/1000 live births (as compared to 4.2/1000 in official reports) was unevenly distributed in the province, showing large geographical discrepancies. In the rural and remote areas of Vietnam education level is lower and the concentrations of ethnic minorities and poor households are higher. Ethnic minority belonging was associated with a more than doubled risk of neonatal death compared to the hegemonic group of Kinh (OR 2.08 CI 95 % 1.39 – 3.10). This increased risk was independent of household economic status or maternal education level. Neonatal mortality was also associated with home deliveries, non-attendance to antenatal care and distance to the health care facilities. However, ethnic minority mothers still had an increased risk of experiencing a neonatal death even if they attended antenatal care, delivered at or lived close to a health facility. The invisibility of the neonatal period in health information systems hides the true width of the neonatal mortality challenge. By not acknowledging the problem, the marginalization of already disadvantaged groups continues, leaving ethnic minority babies with an elevated risk of dying during the first month in life. This example of ethnic inequity highlights the importance to target those most in need. The studies of the present thesis should therefore be looked upon as a contribution to the struggle to illuminate the global burden of neonatal mortality.

Wireless sensor networks are attractive largely because they need no wired infrastructure. But precisely this feature makes them energy constrained, and the consequences of this hard energy constraint are the overall topic of this thesis. We are in particular concerned with principles for energy efficient wireless communication and the energy-wise trade-off between sensing and radio communication. Radio transmission between sensors incurs both a fixed energy cost from radio circuit processing, and a variable energy cost related to the level of radiated energy. We here find that transmission techniques that are otherwise considered efficient consumes too much processing energy. Currently available sensor node radios typically have a maximum output power that is too limited to benefit from transmission-efficient, but processing-intensive, techniques. Our results provide new design guidelines for the radio output power. With increasing transmission energy -- with increasing distance -- the considered techniques should be applied in the following order: output power control, polarisation receiver diversity, error correcting codes, multi-hop communication, and cooperative multiple-input multiple-output transmissions. To assess the measurement capability of the network as a whole, and to facilitate a study of the sensing-communication trade-off, we devise a new metric: the network measurement capacity. It is based on the number of different measurement sequences that a network can provide, and is hence a measure of the network's readiness to meet a large number of possible events. Optimised multi-hop routing under this metric reveals that the energy consumed for sensing has decisive impact on the best multi-hop routes. We also find support for the use of hierarchical heterogeneous network structures. Model parameter uncertainties have large impact on our results and we use probability theory as logic to include them consistently. Our analysis shows that common assumptions can give misleading results, and our analysis of radio channel measurements confirms the inadequacy of the Rayleigh fading channel model. / wisenet

This thesis analyses how romanies look upon schooling and how they reflect upon the possibility of getting an education. Many inquiries relating to romanies have been published in Sweden but very few are based on fieldwork among romanies. The aim of this thesis is therefore to through fieldwork focus on how romanies themselves look upon their educational situation. The main questions for this study are: How is the image of romanies as a problem constructed in school? How are romanies separated from other students? How is the interplay between romanies and school representatives formed? How do romanies look upon the possibility of getting an education and does their perception differ from the usual official apprehension? An important conclusion concerns how social workers and teachers continuously categorize romanies as different. The group is constantly differentiated from other ethnic groups and is often the target of integration projects. This leads to a constant stigmatization of the group but also to “weak power”. In certain situations where the ethnic identity may be an advantage the ethnic identity is over communicated while it is under communicated in an inferior situation.

<p>Background: Malaria is the leading cause of death of Uganda&rsquo / s children under 5 years of age and the number-one cause of illness in adults in Uganda. The success of malaria treatment strategies is closely linked to the behavior of patients and caretakers of young children. In the case of malaria this includes accessing appropriate treatment for&nbsp / suspected malaria in time. In Bungokho Sub County, in spite of the efforts by district health workers and the Ministry of Health to implement the malaria control, prevention and treatment strategies, pregnant women and caretakers of children under 5 years of age continue to present late for treatment in the health units resulting in possible avoidable&nbsp / death or disability. Aim and objectives: The aim of this study was to explore the factors that lead to late presentation of children and pregnant women with malaria for treatment at health units. This was done by exploring the perceptions of caregivers of children under five years and pregnant women on the community&rsquo / s knowledge and understanding of the&nbsp / symptoms and treatment of malaria / and describing perceptions of caregivers and pregnant women on health care provision at the health units and alternative treatment for malaria. Methods :The study was conducted in Bungokho Health sub-district, in Mbale district, Eastern Uganda over a two month period in 2009. It was a descriptive exploratory study using qualitative research methods. Four focus groups were carried out, two with caregivers of children under 5 years and two with pregnant women, with each focus group consisting of eight participants. Two caregivers and two pregnant women were identified from the focus groups for further indepth interviews. Four in-depth interviews were conducted with health unit staff from Bungokho HCVI. Notes were taken and observations made during the focus groups and interviews. The proceedings were audio-taped and recordings used to expand and clarify notes. Thematic content analysis was used to analyze the data and identify recurrent themes from the focus group discussions and&nbsp / interviews of the reasons for late presentation for malaria treatment. Results: All caregivers were women, a significant majority of whom were peasants who had not gone beyond the primary education. Caregivers were aware of the general symptoms of malaria but associated more serious or dangerous symptoms with other causes including&nbsp / witchcraft. Pregnant women, on the other hand, seemed to have sound knowledge of both the general and dangerous symptoms of malaria and were likely to attend the health&nbsp / units timeously for reatment. Religious beliefs and practices, particularly belief in the healing ability of prayers prevented early reporting of malaria cases to health units leading&nbsp / to late presentation. Alternative treatment of malaria from traditional herbalists was also sought by the communities particularly when the intensity of malaria was at its peak during the rainy season. Poverty in the community seemed to play a big role in shaping community preference for treatment sources, as well as early presentation to the health&nbsp / units. It was found that the anticipated cost of laboratory tests and sundries at the health units deterred caregivers from taking children under five to health units. There was therefore a strong reliance (and preference for) community medicine distributor&rsquo / s (CMDs) because of free services and easy access. Lack of support from spouses (in particular husbands) coupled with the rude behavior of health workers towards caregivers and pregnant women discouraged visits to health units. The long waiting time and intermittent drug stock-outs also created a negative perception of service at the health units. Conclusions and recommendations: There is need for further sensitization of communities on the need to seek prompt treatment for children under five years of age at the health units (that is, within 24 hours of the onset of fever). Training and supervision of CMDs should be strengthened to ensure consistent supply of drugs, correct dosage of anti-malarial medication and improvements in the referrals to the health units. In order to improve&nbsp / service delivery at the health units, there is need to review and strengthen human resource management of the health units, including staffing requirements and management&nbsp / practices, such as support and supervision, patient care standards and client feedback mechanisms. It is also important that there are adequate stocks of anti-malarial drugs&nbsp / and laboratory supplies at health units.</p>

The growing demand for UI test automation has triggered the development of many tools. Researchers and developers have been continuously working to further improvise the existing approaches. If we look at GUI test evolution we can observe a clear progress from manual testing towards complete automation. Numerous approaches have been made to automate the GUI testing process. Record and playback tools, key-word driven methodologies, event flow exploration strategies, model based approaches are continuously evolving with higher level of automation. Similarly, new ideas and strategies to make these tests efficient are also emerging. Optimization of this resource consuming activity is another very important aspect in this area.  Dependencies between different tests can create deadlock scenarios, while running larger test suites. A concept of Ordered Test Suite can be used to cope with such dependencies. Following the Model Driven Architecture initiative by Object Management Group, a new global trend of Model Driven Engineering is creating a big sensation in the field of model based software development. Using the same principle, studies have also been made to automatically generate tests from models. Behavioral models can be made using the model driven approaches and these models can be analyzed to generate tests automatically. This master thesis addresses different approaches made for Graphical User Interface test automation, some optimization issues and solutions, a case study done at a software company to automate User Interface testing and a model driven approach for automatic test case generation.

Detta är en kvalitativ studie om över- och underordning i heterosexuella pars vardag. Carin Holmbergs (1993) avhandling " Det kallas kärlek" är min största hjälp och det är från den jag hämtat större delen av de teorier jag använt. Holmbergs (1993) teorier om könsmakt är min utgångspunkt. Det var hennes avhandling som lade grunden och väckte mitt intresse för att göra en liknande studie. Jag gjorde fyra gruppintervjuer med en mindre observation. De slutsatser jag kan dra utifrån det empiriska materialet är att kvinnorna i regel är underordnade männen ifråga om att det är kvinnorna som tar på sig det största ansvaret för hemmet sysslor och befriar männen från att ta ansvar. Männen är de som valt bort vissa sysslor hemma och kan då göra de saker de själva tycker är roligast. Jag kan inte se något tydlig över- och underordning i mina informanters sätt att agera under intervjuerna.

During its first few decades, the People¡¦s Liberation Army Air Force strategy was primarily formulated to support the ground forces¡¦ needs. Serious changes in the way the PLAAF thought about its future really began as a result of Deng Xiaoping¡¦s 1985 ¡§strategic decision¡¨ that directed the armed forces to change from preparation for an ¡§early, major, and nuclear war¡¨ to preparation for ¡§local war.¡¨ These changes included writing new teaching materials, conducting research on combination of offensive and defensive capabilities, and doing research on campaign and strategic theory. Wang Hai initiated the concept of combination of offensive and defensive operations in 1987, but it did not receive much publicity. Since the Gulf war, the PLAAF has been grappling with the demands of a radically changed its strategy that underscored the technological obsolescence of their armaments and so fundamentally affected the missions of the air forces that its traditional training principles and objective were largely inapplicable to. In late 1999, the PLAAF¡¦s commander, Liu Shunyao, began to emphasize the need to fight offensive battles and declare PLAAF¡¦s strategy of combination of offensive and defensive operations to build a People¡¦s Liberation Army capable of waging ¡§local war under high-tech conditions.¡¨ In a future high-tech local war, the PLAAF will be called up as the first one to encounter the enemy and fight until the last minute. It is gradually transitioning from a support service into an independent one and from a national territory air defense type of air force into one that conducts combination of offensive and defensive operations. The PLAAF is working on its way to reform its military conformation, adjust its military training guidelines and renew its old equipment. By establishing an all-weather and attack-defense air force to battle in a modern high-tech environment, it is expected to acquire the full ability to perform ¡§local war under high-tech conditions.¡¨ The purposes of the thesis are as follows: 1. Illustrate the tendency and contents of current air power theories and wars. 2. Illustrate the stages of PLAAF¡¦s development and the roles and performances it takes on in the wars. 3. Clarify the theoretic contents of PLAAF¡¦s air power in each stage. 4. Conclude the present and future contents and actions of the PLAAF¡¦s air power on the theoretic and practical aspects. 5. Analyze the future developments and challenges of PLAAF¡¦s air power. Expected to focus on the discussion on the theoretic and practical aspects, the thesis was organized as a modal for explaining the PLAAF¡¦s air power and to be used as the referential basis to illustrate the developments of the past, present and future PLAAF¡¦s air power.

With increasing global change pressures such as urbanization and climate change, cities of the future will experience difficulties in efficiently managing scarcer and less reliable water resources. However, projections of future global change pressures are plagued with uncertainties. This increases the difficulty in developing urban water systems that are adaptable to future uncertainty. A major component of an urban water system is the distribution system, which constitutes approximately 80-85% of the total cost of the water supply system (Swamee and Sharma, 2008). Traditionally, water distribution systems (WDS) are designed using deterministic assumptions of main model input variables such as water availability and water demand. However, these deterministic assumptions are no longer valid due to the inherent uncertainties associated with them. Hence, a new design approach is required, one that recognizes these inherent uncertainties and develops more adaptable and flexible systems capable of using their active capacity to act or respond to future alterations in a timely, performance-efficient, and cost-effective manner. This study develops a framework for the design of flexible WDS that are adaptable to new, different, or changing requirements. The framework consists of two main parts. The first part consists of several components that are important in the pre and post--processing of the least-cost design methodology of a flexible WDS. These components include: the description of uncertainties affecting WDS design, identification of potential flexibility options for WDS, generation of flexibility through optimization, and a method for assessing of flexibility. For assessment a suite of performance metrics is developed that reflect the degree of flexibility of a distribution system. These metrics focus on the capability of the WDS to respond and react to future changes. The uncertainties description focuses on the spatial and temporal variation of future demand. The second part consists of two optimization models for the design of centralized and decentralized WDS respectively. The first model generates flexible, staged development plans for the incremental growth of a centralized WDS. The second model supports the development of clustered/decentralized WDS. It is argued that these clustered systems promote flexibility as they provide internal degrees of freedom, allowing many different combinations of distribution systems to be considered. For both models a unique genetic algorithm based flexibility optimization (GAFO) model was developed that maximizes the flexibility of a WDS at the least cost. The efficacy of the developed framework and tools are demonstrated through two case study applications on real networks in Uganda. The first application looks at the design of a centralized WDS in Mbale, a small town in Eastern Uganda. Results from this application indicate that the flexibility framework is able to generate a more flexible design of the centralized system that is 4% - 50% less expensive than a conventionally designed system when compared against several future scenarios. In addition, this application highlights that the flexible design has a lower regret under different scenarios when compared to the conventionally designed system (a difference of 11.2m3/US$). The second application analyzes the design of a decentralized network in the town of Aura, a small town in Northern Uganda. A comparison of a decentralized system to a centralized system is performed, and the results indicate that the decentralized system is 24% - 34% less expensive and that these cost savings are associated with the ability of the decentralized system to be staged in a way that traces the urban growth trajectory more closely. The decentralized clustered WDS also has a lower regret (a difference of 17.7m3/US$) associated with the potential future conditions in comparison with the conventionally centralized system and hence is more flexible.

Abstract Objectives: Diarrheal disease is a global health challenge that assumes gigantic importance with regard to child health in developing countries like Pakistan. Prompt medical attention and proper use of Oral Re-hydration Therapy (ORT) by mothers helps prevent dehydration and secondary complications among affected children. However, ORT use among mothers in Pakistan is low. This study seeks to examine how various socio-demographic factors impact the use of ORT and dispensary treatment among mothers of children affected with diarrhea. Methods:Data from Pakistan Demographic Health Survey (2012-2013) was used for the study. The study sample consisted of women aged 15-49 years old resident in Punjab region (N= 505) with children under five years old who had diarrhea within two weeks of the survey. Chi-square tests and logistic regression analyses were used to determine relationships between maternal socio-demographic characteristics and use of ORT and dispensary care. P-values Results: After controlling for place of residence, educational level and frequency of watching television, caregivers whose children had fever with diarrheal episodes had nearly two-fold increased odds of using ORT treatment [OR= 1.9, (95% CI: 1.28-2.82)], compared to those whose children did not have fever. Similarly poor and middle class socioeconomic status (SES) participants had 3 times increased odds [OR= 2.76, [95% CI: 1.1 -6.89)] of using dispensary treatment when compared to upper class mothers. Place of residence was not a significant predictor of ORT or dispensary use. Discussion: These findings are consistent with other studies that show that mothers’ socioeconomic status are a good indicator of their knowledge about ORT use, and health care seeking behavior. On the other hand, maternal place of residence was not a significant predictor of ORT use, or consultation at a dispensary, even though other studies have found significant associations. Conclusion: Interventions aimed at improving low-income mothers’ knowledge about diarrhea management can include lay medical personnel, such as dispensers, who are often the easily accessible medical resource to this population. Therefore, dispensers should be provided with further training to increase their knowledge and skills in treating children with diarrhea. Future studies that are more rigorous should be conducted to examine this public health issue.

Wind turbines often operate under cold weather conditions where icing may occur. Icing causes the blade sections to stall prematurely reducing the power production at a given wind speed. The unsteady aerodynamic loads associated with icing can accelerate blade structural fatigue and creates safety concerns. In this work, the combined blade element-momentum theory is used to compute the air loads on the baseline rotor blades, prior to icing. At each blade section, a Lagrangian particle trajectory model is used to model the water droplet trajectories and their impact on the blade surface. An extended Messinger model is next used to solve the conservation of mass, momentum, and energy equations in the boundary layer over the surface, and to determine ice accretion rate. Finally, the aerodynamic characteristics of the iced blade sections are estimated using XFOIL, which initiate the next iteration step for the computation of air loads via combined blade element theory. The procedure repeats until a desired exposure time is achieved. The performance degradation is then predicted, based on the aerodynamic characteristics of the final iced blades. The 2-D ice shapes obtained are compared against experimental data at several representative atmospheric conditions with acceptable agreement. The performance of a generic experimental wind turbine rotor exposed to icing climate is simulated to obtain the power loss and identify the critical locations on the blade. The results suggest the outboard of the blade is more prone to ice accumulation causing considerable loss of lift at these sections. Also, the blades operating at a higher pitch are expected to accumulate more ice. The loss in power ranges from 10% to 50% of the rated power for different pitch settings under the same operating conditions.