A 3D-printed microfluidic lab-on-a-disc (LOAD) device was designed and manufactured using a low cost ( ̃£1600) consumer grade fused deposition modelling (FDM) Ultimaker 2+ 3D printer with imbedded microfluidic channels 1 mm wide, 400 μm depth and with a volumetric capacity of approximate 23 μl. FDM printers are not typically used, or are capable, of producing the fine detailed structures required for microfluidic fabrication; in addition 3D-printed objects can suffer from poor optical transparency. However, in this work, imbedded microfluidic channels were produced and the optical transparency of the device was improved though manufacture optimisation to such a point that optical colourimetric assays can be performed in a microfluidic cuvette device with sample path length of 500 μm and volumetric capacity of 190 μl. When acetone vapour treatment was used, it was possible to improve transparency of plastic samples by up to a further 30%. The LOAD device is capable of being spun using an unmodified optical disc drive (ODD), demonstrating the centrifugation based separation of plasma from whole blood in a low-cost FDM 3D-printed microfluidic LOAD device. A cholesterol assay and glucose assay was developed and optimised using cholesterol oxidase (ChOx) or glucose oxidase (GlOx) respectively and horseradish peroxidase (HRP) for the oxidative coupling of chromotropic acid (CTA) and 4-aminoantipyrine (AAP). This produced a blue quinoneimine dye with a broad absorbance peaking at 590 nm for the quantification of cholesterol/glucose in solution. The colourimetric enzymatic cascade assays were developed for use within low-cost FDM 3D-printed microfluidic devices to demonstrate the capabilities and functionality of the devices. For comparison, the assay was run in standard 96 well plates with a commercial plate reader. The results demonstrated that the quantification of 0-10 mM glucose solution using a 3D-printed microfluidic optical device had a performance comparable to a plate reader assay; glucose assay in whole blood samples R2 = 0.96.

Author's first name and surname: BSc. Josef Hovorka Title of the master thesis: ETHICS IN SPORT Department: Institute for Sociology, Philosophy and Ethics Supervisor: Prof. PhDr. Anna Hogenová, CSc. Year of presentation: 2012 Abstract: The aim of the thesis is to present a new approach to the topic "Ethics in Sport", to initiate a change in the attitude to sport, to create a preventive-educative programme and to change the approach to the education not only of athlets, but also of chidren and the youth in general in the Czech Republic. Keywords: Game, Whole, Tune, Olympism, Doping, Fair Play I agree the thesis to be lent within the library service.

Syftet med den här uppsatsen är övergripande att beskriva och diskutera några speciallärares arbetsmetoder inom läs- och skrivutveckling i grundskolan. Urval och utbildningsnivå för de elever som beskrivs har varit från förskoleklass till årskurs fem. Uppsatsen bygger på ett induktivt förhållningssätt. De teoretiska perspektiv som presenteras är Phonics och Whole language, eftersom att dessa perspektiv hjälper läsaren att få en helhetsbild av olika synsätt inom läsning och skrivning. Uppsatsens analysarbete har inspirerats av ett fenomenografiskt förhållningssätt. Ett fenomenografiskt förhållningssätt söker sig till att ta reda på hur det förhåller sig. Denna uppsats handlar om sex speciallärares beskrivning av fenomenet arbetsmetoder inom läs- och skrivutveckling. Arbetsmetoderna innefattar gemensam undervisning i mindre grupp och enskild undervisning som framförallt fokuserar på de alfabetiska principerna och kopplingar till fonem och grafem. Speciallärarna betonade det förebyggande arbetet som viktigt. Några speciallärare ansåg att digitala lärplattor var bra verktyg i arbetet med elevers läs- och skrivutveckling och att läsning och skrivande i grupp skapade god kunskapsutveckling för den enskilde eleven. Slutligen diskuteras det om det är möjligt att skapa en generell verktygslåda för speciallärare? En av slutsatserna är att den professionella verktygslådan kan se olika ut, bland annat beroende av vilken kunskapssyn specialläraren har.

The topic of educating today’s youth has become an increasing multi-faceted task with rigorous accountability metrics handed down from all of the different branches of government. Schools are faced with providing more than just instructing the three R’s; they are taxed with educating the whole child. This qualitative study explored the community schools model in an urban elementary school. Specifically, the study attempted to understand the perceived impact this model has on community members, parents, and administrators at one particular elementary school. Data were collected through a series of open-ended interviews and coded for inductive analysis. There were four emerging themes: impact of leader, hub of the community, safe environment, and education of the whole child, which surfaced from the data analysis of the open-ended interviews. A document review also provided additional information that was included in the findings. The need for additional quantitative and qualitative research was also suggested.

Legionella bacteria, the causative agent of Legionaries’ disease and Pontiac fever, are ubiquitous in fresh-water environments including man-made water systems. Incidence of legionellosis is increasing in the United States resulting in thousands of cases every year. Infection via aerosols generated by showers, faucets, cooling towers, spas, fountains, and other water fixtures has been identified as the primary source of transmission. Legionella bacteria pose a significant public health threat, particularly in health care and long term care settings as Legionella can readily colonize the plumbing systems and infect the vulnerable patient population. One species, Legionella pneumophila (Lp), is responsible for over 90% of the known cases of Legionnaires’ disease. The importance of genetic diversity of Lp and non-pneumophila strains in human disease remains an area of ongoing research. Little is known in regard to the phylogenetic diversity of environmental strains, particularly strains that colonize facilities with high risk populations such as hospitals. Whole-genome sequencing (WGS) analysis, is an emerging tool used to support epidemiological investigation of cases of legionellosis and can be used to describe and establish phylogenetic relationships between environmental strains and clinical cases. The advantage of this method is the ability to differentiate bacteria down to the level of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). However, it was unknown whether current WGS methods accurately represent the potential SNP diversity among Lp isolates from the same environmental sample. It is unclear as to why certain strains tend be associated with clinical cases more than others, but certain genes referred to as virulence factors may be related to the relative pathogenicity of Legionella strains. Further investigation into virulence factors and antibiotic resistance factors could be used in future risk assessment of environmental Legionella. Additionally, Legionella have the potential for high genetic diversity due to recombination events, and gene transfer can occur between distinct Legionella species and strains. There is a lack of research on the potential sharing of virulence factor genes between Legionella strains typically associated with disease and those considered to be non-virulent. The goal of the work presented in this thesis is to describe the diversity of phylogenetic relationships between Lp isolates found in hospital premise plumbing systems, to estimate the genetic diversity among Lp found in the same environmental sample, and to identify virulence and antibiotic resistance genes shared between Legionella strains. A better understanding of the genetic diversity of environmental Lp could inform future surveillance and outbreak investigations by demonstrating the need to collect samples from multiple sites within a facility, and identifying shared virulence and antibiotic resistance genes between Legionella species and strains could apprise future risk assessment. WGS was utilized to describe the phylogenetic relationships of 81 Lp isolates from five hospitals. Individual hospitals were found to have distinct strains of Lp. For some strains, highly conserved subpopulations were collected from the same room over time, whereas other strains did not cluster by room. Using prospectively collected isolates from two hospitals, the mean number of SNP differences among isolates from the same environmental sample was found to differ between hospitals (0.4 versus 7.5). The presence of virulence factors and antibiotic resistance genes in Legionella species and strains was described. An analysis of 10 virulence factor genes revealed that Lp likely did not share these genes with Legionella anisa, a species generally considered to be non-virulent. Within Lp strains there was no clear difference between the Lp strains considered to be more virulent and those considered to be less virulent. A few antibiotic resistance genes were also identified. Following an in vitro assay, only the identified genes associated with macrolide resistance, LpeA and LpeB, were found to impact a quantifiable measure of antimicrobial resistance. The results of these studies emphasize the importance of understanding the context of an individual facility in Legionella related studies. Importantly, the observations or trends of one facility should not necessarily be applied to another. Legionella genetic diversity was highly conserved in some facilities, whereas in others there was greater diversity as measured by SNP differences. Within sample SNP differences was also variable between hospitals. The virulence findings gave a clear indication of the limited virulence capacity of L. anisa. These findings could explain the limited potential of L. anisa to cause disease in humans. However, a lack of difference among Lp strains may be cause to reassess the potential risk of these other strains especially in diagnostic practices. Finally, some strains of Lp have genes that may contribute to resistance to the leading antibiotic treatments for Legionnaires’ disease. Overall, this research further demonstrates the power of WGS as multiple questions can be addressed using this methodology.

Reports indicate that the worldwide energy consumption and fossil fuel energy production level will have an opposite trend in the coming two decades. The former will continue to increase while the later will decrease. Therefore, additional sources of energy need to be developed. Field pennycress (Thlaspi, arvense L.) has been found to be an ideal source of energy because it has prolific yield and has no value as food. We demonstrated conventional and catalytic fast pyrolysis of whole pennycress biomass in a fluidized bed reactor. Characterization studies on field pennycress showed that the biomass had a potential to be converted to energy-rich bio-fuel. Thermogravimetric and kinetic study on field pennycress provided vital information on the degradation behavior of the feedstock. A parametric study was conducted on conventional rapid pyrolysis by using the effects model. The optimum experimental condition that gave maximum liquid yield was found to be at a temperature of 500 °C and a gas flow rate of 24 l/min. The catalysts used for catalytic fast pyrolysis were HZSM-5, a commercial catalyst, and red mud, an alumina industry waste material. The liquid products obtained from pennycress were found to have better qualities compared to a typical lignocellulosic feedstocks pyrolysis bio-oil. The bio-oil from the red mud catalyzed experiment had almost neutral pH of 6.5 and the pH in the case of HZSM-5 was 5.7. In comparison to bio-oil from conventional rapid pyrolysis, HZSM-5 and red mud reduced the viscosity of the bio-oil by 3 and 5 times, respectively. However, red mud was only found to be effective in improving the higher heating value (HHV) of the bio-oil from 33.18 MJ/kg (dry basis) in conventional pyrolysis to 35.7 MJ/Kg (dry basis). The HHV of HZSM-5 catalyzed bio-oil was 33.63 MJ/kg. The composition of non-condensable gases and the chemical makeup of the bio-oil from the two catalysts were different, suggesting that the reaction pathways could be different. HZSM-5 had higher selectivity for aromatics whereas red mud produced longer aliphatic chains. The bio-oil obtained from red mud catalytic pyrolysis of field pennycress is a promising alternative energy source that could replace petroleum fuels after some upgrading.

Background: Older adults walk more slowly than healthy young adults at fast and normal walking speeds. These age-associated changes in mobility impact upon daily function. A slower gait, for example, may reduce the older adult’s ability to safely cross at traffic intersections due to the time restriction. Recent research has demonstrated whole body vibration (WBV) can improve the strength and power (Roelants, Delecluse & Verschueren, 2004; Russo et al., 2003; Verschueren, Roelants, Delecluse, Swinnen, Vanderschueren & Boonen, 2004) of community dwelling elderly females, and the mobility of nursing home residents (Bautmans, Van Hees, Lemper & Mets, 2005; Bruyere et al., 2005). To date, no published research has examined the impact WBV has on the gait parameters of community dwelling elderly females. The research was conducted in three phases. Phase One – Development of a WBV Platform: This phase outlines the development of a WBV platform (ACUWBV) that was designed and built for this research. A unique aspect of the ACUWBV was the method of adjusting WBV amplitude and therefore intensity. Current WBV technology, using tilting oscillations, requires the individual to increase their stance width. The ACUWBV allowed for the adjustment of WBV amplitude while maintaining the same stance width. The reliability and accuracy of the ACUWBV eccentric cam was measured during this phase of the research. Although an intraclass correlation coefficient of 0.4 was calculated and is considered an indication of low reliability, calculations of typical error (TE -95% error range) for each amplitude indicated the error to be small in the overall precision of the instrument. Specifically, at a frequency of 20 Hz, the expected WBV acceleration ranges for amplitudes of 0.5 mm and 1.0 mm were 7.58 m.s-2 to 8.85 m.s-2 (TE = 0.02 mm) and 16.90 m.s-2 to 17.53 m.s.-2 (TE = 0.01 mm), respectively. Phase Two – Pilot Study: This phase established the response of elderly community-dwelling female fast gait to WBV. Seven elderly female participants attended three WBV sessions per week for three weeks. Participants performed fast walks over an electronic walkway (GAITRite) at the end of each WBV session. A time-series graph displayed a linear increase in stride velocity over the three week intervention period. Conversely, stride time, stance time and double support time exhibited linear decreases. However, stride time (p=0.04) and stance time (p=0.04) were the only variables that exhibited a significant difference. It was concluded that the linear changes in stride velocity, stride time, stance time and double support time warranted further investigation with a larger sample size within a longer intervention period. Phase Three – Major Study: Phase three was an extension of phase two. This WBV intervention study was performed over a twelve week period. Twenty-two elderly female participants were placed in one of two groups. Group one (placebo/WBV; Group; n=12) was exposed to a placebo intervention for the first six weeks followed by a six week WBV intervention. Group two (Group WBV/placebo; n=10) was exposed to WBV for the first six weeks and a placebo intervention for the following six weeks. Group placebo/WBV exhibited no change in stride velocity during the placebo period, but a seven per cent increase during the six week WBV period (p=0.005). The changes in stride velocity coincided with increases in stride length (p=0.017), and reductions in stride time (p=0.007), stance time (p=0.001) and double support time (p=0.001). Group WBV/Placebo demonstrated stride velocity to increase by five per cent during the WBV period. Although the time-series graphs demonstrated improvements in stride velocity to be associated with decreases in stride time, stance time, and double support time, the changes failed to reach significance. Single support time and stride length showed no change over the WBV period. The improvements shown by group WBV/placebo from the first six weeks of WBV were maintained during the six week placebo (detraining) period. In summary, WBV was an effective intervention for enhancing the walking speed of community dwelling elderly female gait. This form of exercise may have positive outcomes on the daily function of elderly females, which in turn may improve their quality of life.

This study deals with the problem of evaluating curriculum documents which prescribe or make recommendations for curricular change. In 1980 a number of state and national education authorities in Australia released documents which contained proposals for reformulating the curriculum. Several of these proposals took the form of prescribing or recommending a core curriculum while others opted for a whole curriculum approach to the problem of the selection and transmission of educational knowledge. Although these are presented as practical documents - as proposals for action - they also contain theoretical and ideological components which are usually understated. It is the contention of this study that the evaluation of such proposals should not be based solely on their pragmatic or technical aspects but that their theoretical adequacy and links with ideology should also be taken into consideration. To this end, four of these documents have been selected, two of each type of proposals, and are used to provide material to develop criteria for making evaluative decisions about the theoretical and ideological aspects of curriculum proposals. Internal criteria, based on an analysis of the coherence and consistency of curriculum proposals, are derived by relating the proposals to one of two general theories of education. External criteria derive from a meta-critique where an attempt is made to formulate broader propositions which recognise the existence of opposition among various assumptions and are inclusive of those in conflict.

In NSW during the last decade there has been strong interest in promoting theories that espoused a naturalistic and wholistic approach to the teaching of reading and writing. One such theory is the Whole Language Approach to teaching reading and writing. The work of Brian Cambourne is integral to this approach and his theory is that the principles of how young children learn to become successful talkers can be applied to how children best learn to become successful readers and writers. This study was concerned with the teachers' perceptions of their classroom practice and whether these perceptions - relating to the teaching and evaluation/assessment of reading and writing - reflected a whole language approach or a non-whole language approach. The results of this study indicate that although teachers perceive that they predominantly favour classroom practices that are considered as whole language, they still employ some practices that are not considered to be whole language. Also, some perceptions of classroom practice indicate that not all whole language strategies are popular with teachers.

<p>Läsning av barnlitteratur anses i den svenska läroplanen vara en viktig del av undervisningen då den kan bidra till personlighetsutveckling, kulturell förståelse och motivation till vidare läsning. Att lära sig läsa är en förutsättning för att kunna tillgodogöra sig skönlitteraturen. Ett sätt är genom läsinlärningsmetoden whole language som med hjälp av kiwiböckerna fått genomslag i flera svenska skolor. Kiwimaterialet är ämnat för att skapa läsförståelse samt läsintresse och är baserat på småböcker från Nya Zeeland. Då både val av läsinlärningsmetod och barnlitteratur är viktiga delar i elevers läsutveckling, väcktes en undran om det går att sammanföra traditionell barnlitteraturläsning med kiwiböckernas systematiska upplägg och färdiga bokmaterial. Syftet med uppsatsen är därför att undersöka vilken syn whole language inspirerade lärare idag har på barnlitteratur och i vilken utsträckning den används. Uppsatsen är grundad på stoff som inhämtats i två olika länder; Sverige och Nya Zeeland. Metoder som används är semi- strukturerade intervjuer av lärare, enkäter med elever och observationer av klassrumssituationer, vilket gör studien till en kvalitativ undersökning med kvantitativa inslag. Resultatet visar att lärare i Nya Zeeland i högre grad styrs av det material de använder i läsundervisningen, medan barnlitteraturen används i underhållningssyfte genom enskild- och högläsning. Resultatet visar också att materialet skapar lust till läsning. I Sverige däremot framhåller lärare även skönlitteraturens viktiga roll för förmedling av kultur och fostran. Denna skillnad är i sig inte underlig då ländernas olika läroplaner ålägger sina lärare att arbeta mot olika mål. Synen på barnlitteraturens viktiga roll för personlighetsutveckling bibehålles därmed hos de svenska lärarna även om de influerats av material och metoder från ett land med andra tillvägagångssätt. Läroplanerna har här en viktig betydelse för undervisningen i de olika nationerna.</p><p>The reading of children’s literature is in the Swedish curriculum thought of to be an important part of the teaching since it can contribute to personal development, cultural understanding and motivation to continuing reading. To learn how to read is a presumption to be able to profit by fiction literature. One way is through the reading program Whole language that with the help of the Kiwi books has had a breakthrough in the Swedish schools. The Kiwi material is made to create reading understanding and reading enjoyment and is based on books from New Zealand. Because both the choosing of reading program and children’s literature are important part of the pupils reading development a curiosity was woken if the reading of children’s literature can be combined with the structured disposition and existing material of the kiwi books. The purpose of the essay is therefore to examine what impression whole language inspired teachers have on children’s literature today and to what extent it is used. The essay is based on information gathered in two different countries; Sweden and New Zealand. The methods used are semi structured interviews with teachers, surveys with pupils and observations of classroom events, which make this study a qualitative examination with quantitative parts. The results show that teachers in New Zeeland are more frequently governed by the material used in the reading programs, while the children’s literature is used for entertainment through private reading and reading in groups. The results also show that the material gives the pupils appreciation of reading. In Sweden however, the teachers emphasize the important part the fiction literature plays for mediation of culture and foster. This difference is in no way peculiar because the curriculum’s in the different countries obligate their teachers to work towards diverse goals. The important role the children’s literature has is therefore kept by the Swedish teachers even though they are influenced by materials and methods from a country with other procedures. The curriculum plays a very important role for the teaching in the different countries.</p>