Comparison of Authentic and Simplified Texts : A case study of Wuthering Heights

The aim of this essay is to explore in what way Graded Readers are different from authentic texts against the background of English as a Second Language (ESL) and the use of authentic and simplified text in ESL teaching. The material used for this purpose is the authentic text of Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë and two upper-intermediate Graded Readers from two different publishers. The study uses the software readability-score and manual analysis to examine the texts with regards to lexical choice, language structure and story. The study showed that the Graded Readers are simplified in all aspects studied. Moreover, the Graded Readers differ from each other as well, most notably in the style of the text due to sentence structure and story simplification. This could imply that different authors of Graded Readers adopt different styles when simplifying text and that the grading levels are not comparable between different publishers.

Simplified follow-up after medical abortion using a low-sensitivity urinary pregnancy test and a pictorial instruction sheet in Rajasthan, India : study protocol and intervention adaptation of a randomised control trial

The World Health Organisation suggests that simplification of the medical abortion regime will contribute to an increased acceptability of medical abortion, among women as well as providers. It is expected that a home-based follow-up after a medical abortion will increase the willingness to opt for medical abortion as well as decrease the workload and service costs in the clinic. Trial design The study is a randomised, controlled, non-superiority trial . Methods Women screened to participate in the study are those with unwanted pregnancies and gestational ages equal to or less than nine weeks. Eligible women randomised to the home-based assessment group will use a low-sensitivity pregnancy test and a pictorial instruction sheet at home, while the women in the clinic follow-up group will return to the clinic for routine follow-up carried out by a doctor. The primary objective of the study is to evaluate the effectiveness of home-based assessment using a low-sensitivity pregnancy test and a pictorial instruction sheet 10-14 days after an early medical abortion. Providers or research assistants will not be blinded during outcome assessment. To ensure feasibility of the self-assessment intervention an adaption phase took place at the selected study sites before study initiation. This was to optimise and tailor-make the intervention and the study procedures and resulted in the development of the pictorial instruction sheet for how to use the low-sensitivity pregnancy test and the danger signs after a medical abortion. Discussion In this paper, we will describe the study protocol for a randomised control trial investigating the efficacy of simplified follow-up in terms of home-based assessment, 10-14 days after a medical abortion. Moreover, a description of the adaptation phase is included for a better understanding of the implementation of the intervention in a setting where literacy is low and the road-connections are poor. Trial registration: Clinicaltrials.gov NCT01827995. Registered 04 May 2013

A simplified heat pump model for use in solar plus heat pump system simulation studies

Solar plus heat pump systems are often very complex in design, with sometimes special heat pump arrangements and control. Therefore detailed heat pump models can give very slow system simulations and still not so accurate results compared to real heat pump performance in a system. The idea here is to start from a standard measured performance map of test points for a heat pump according to EN 14825 and then determine characteristic parameters for a simplified correlation based model of the heat pump. By plotting heat pump test data in different ways including power input and output form and not only as COP, a simplified relation could be seen. By using the same methodology as in the EN 12975 QDT part in the collector test standard it could be shown that a very simple model could describe the heat pump test data very accurately, by identifying 4 parameters in the correlation equation found. © 2012 The Authors.

“Who wants to go repeatedly to the hospital?” : Perceptions and experiences of simplified medical abortion in Rajasthan, India

The aim of this study is to explore women's experiences and perceptions of home use of misoprostol and of the self-assessment of the outcome of early medical abortion in a low-resource setting in India. In-depth interviews were conducted with 20 women seeking early medical abortion, who administered misoprostol at home and assessed their own outcome of abortion using a low-sensitivity pregnancy test. With home use of misoprostol, women were able to avoid inconvenience of travel, child care, and housework, and maintain confidentiality. The use of a low-sensitivity pregnancy test alleviated women's anxieties about retained products. Majority said they would prefer medical abortion involving a single visit in future. This study provides nuanced understanding of how women manage a simplified medical abortion in the context of low literacy and limited communication facilities. Service delivery guidelines should be revised to allow women to have medical abortion with fewer visits.

The illusion of creation of the text

Is it really possible to create a (literary) text? It is actually impossible as to create an authentic text we need an authentic context which is impossible to create. So all the literary txets we have are not authentic and are not created authentically.

"Att gå med det i huvudet"-vägen från text till föreställning. : En scenografs arbetsprocess

Jag har försökt att sammanställa dels en enskild scenografs; Calle von Gegerfelts arbetsprocess i successiva steg, för att se hur denne arbetar fram en scenografi, dels har jag i en tabell försökt sammanställa flera scenografers arbetsprocesser för att se om det finns steg som är lika, och som gäller för flera scenografer. I resultatet av dessa sammanställningar har jag kunnat se hur von Gegerfelt steg för steg arbetar fram sin scenografi ända fram till teaterhändelsen. Det har framkommit att han har en lång process med rent tankearbete där omedvetna processer är tydliga och hur dessa successivt övergår till mer konkret arbete med händerna, för att till sist lämna över själva byggandet av scenografin och sömnaden av kläderna till andra. Vissa av dessa steg har han gemensamt med andra scenografer, men dessa har beskrivit de stegen med andra ord och på annat sätt, men man kan se att de hör ihop.

Malnutrition hos äldre patienter på sjukhus : Metoder för bedömning av nutritionsstatus samt sjuksköterskans rutiner och attityder i samband med prevention

Syftet med studien var att beskriva subjektiva multifaktoriella metoder som sjuksköterskor kan använda för att identifiera äldre patienter med malnutrition och patienter med risk för att utveckla malnutriion. Syftet var vidare att redogöra för vilka undersökningar som sjuksköterskor i kliniskt arbete använder för att bedöma patienters nutrionsstatus med samt att belysa sjuksköterskors attityder till prevention av malnutritionstillstånd. Studien genomfördes som en systematisk litteraturstudie. De vetenskapliga artiklar (n=17) som ingick i studiens resultat söktes i databaserna ELIN@Dalarna och CINAHL. De sökord som användes var malnutrition, nutrition, undernutrition, elderly, screening, assessment, MNA, SGA, nurses och attitudes i olika kombinationer. Genom analys och granskning av de vetenskapliga artiklarna framkom det i resultatet att SGA, MNA, Simplified Model Malnourishment och NUFFE var subjektiva multifaktoriella metoder som sjuksköterskor kan använda för identifiering av äldre patienter med malnutrition eller risk för malnutrition. Den vanligaste undersökningen som sjuksköterskor bedömde patienters nutritionsstatus med var vägning. Andra undersökningar var mätning, BMI, intervju om normal vikt och viktförlust, observation av patienten, kostregistrering samt nutritionsplan i journalen. Sjuksköterskor upplevde att sjukhusledningen inte förväntade sig att bedömning av patienters nutritionsstatus skulle ske vid inskrivning samt att ansvarsfördelningen mellan sjuksköterskor och läkare var oklar. Det förekom att sjuksköterskor var ointresserade av behandling av malnutrition, men majoriteten var mycket intresserade. Många sjuksköterskor kände att deras kunskaper inom nutrition var otillräckliga för arbetet.

A Contour-based Separation of VerticallyAttached Traffic Signs

This report presents an algorithm for locating the cut points for and separatingvertically attached traffic signs in Sweden. This algorithm provides severaladvanced digital image processing features: binary image which representsvisual object and its complex rectangle background with number one and zerorespectively, improved cross correlation which shows the similarity of 2Dobjects and filters traffic sign candidates, simplified shape decompositionwhich smoothes contour of visual object iteratively in order to reduce whitenoises, flipping point detection which locates black noises candidates, chasmfilling algorithm which eliminates black noises, determines the final cut pointsand separates originally attached traffic signs into individual ones. At each step,the mediate results as well as the efficiency in practice would be presented toshow the advantages and disadvantages of the developed algorithm. Thisreport concentrates on contour-based recognition of Swedish traffic signs. Thegeneral shapes cover upward triangle, downward triangle, circle, rectangle andoctagon. At last, a demonstration program would be presented to show howthe algorithm works in real-time environment.

Vägen till jämställdhet - Kvinnor i styrelserum eller män i förskolan? : En kritisk analys av den svenska jämställdhetsdiskursen

Equality between the sexes has been discussed in Sweden for more than 50 years. In the 60´s and during the 70´s the discourse that dominated the debate was based on the assumption that both men and women needed to liberate themselves from their traditional gender roles. In this approach information and education was perceived as the key to equality. During the 80´s however, power and subordination became the main focal point of concern within this debate, and focus upon changing the patriarchal power structures dominating society were perceived as the principal key for establishing equality between the sexes. Today, the latter discourse still dominates both the scientific and the political perspective upon equality. By examining the debate on equality from two different fields of occupation this paper tries to analyse the fact that the Swedish equality discourse looks very different on male - versus female domination. Although the proportion of male teachers in Swedish preschools is about 3 % and the amount of women serving as public company directors is about 20 %, the current discourse views male dominance within the business sector as problematic, whilst, the dominance of women in the preschool childcare sector as less problematic. In respect of the theory supported by Bourdieu (1999), Hirdman (1990 & 2003) and Foucault (1998 & 2002) this paper advocates that the discourse is biased and simplified and that a perspective that only focuses on areas of male domination sets the wrong priorities. With regards to equality ideals prevalent throughout Norway this paper concludes that the Swedish equality discourse needs a broader and more open approach to assure that Swedish institutions promote equality between men and women in the best possible way.

Imágenes de Hispanoamérica : Un análisis crítico de material didáctico de ELE

This paper investigates how Latin America and its cultures are represented in textbooks on Spanish as a foreign language. The study aims at investigating how much attention and of what type is dedicated to Latin America in the investigated material, whether the textbooks contribute to giving a varied and nuanced image of the Spanish-American cultures and how this relates to the educational goal of promoting an intercultural competence.A qualitative method of analysis has been applied in order to carry out the analysis of three textbooks for intermediate levels of language studies: Caminando 3, Alegria and De acuerdo.The results of the investigation show that the investigated textbooks mostly present a simplified, ethnocentric, homogenized and sometimes postcolonial image of the Spanish-American cultures. Texts where the culture constitutes the context and not the subject can promote a process of identification and consequently an intercultural competence.The study’s main conclusions show that Spanish-American cultures are underrepresented in the investigated material and that a non-native perspective dominates in the majority of the texts. This combined with the lack of variety and profundity, may have consequences for the promotion of an intercultural competence and for teachers’ work with textbooks and cultural content.

Load and Season Adapted Solar Collectors

In Sweden solar irradiation and space heating loads are unevenly distributed over the year. Domestic hot water loads may be nearly constant. Test results on solar collector performance are often reported as yearly output of a certain collector at fixed temperatures, e g 25, 50 and 75 C. These data are not suitable for dimensioning of solar systems, because the actual performance of the collector depends heavily on solar fraction and load distribution over the year.At higher latitudes it is difficult to attain high solar fractions for buildings, due to overheating in summer and small marginal output for added collector area. Solar collectors with internal reflectors offer possibilities to evade overheating problems and deliver more energy at seasons when the load is higher. There are methods for estimating the yearly angular irradiation distribution, but there is a lack of methods for describing the load and the storage in such a way as to enable optical design of season and load adapted collectors.This report describes two methods for estimation of solar system performance with relevance for season and load adaption. Results regarding attainable solar fractions as a function of collector features, load profiles, load levels and storage characteristics are reported. The first method uses monthly collector output data at fixed temperatures from the simulation program MINSUN for estimating solar fractions for different load profiles and load levels. The load level is defined as estimated yearly collector output at constant collector temperature divided be yearly load. This table may examplify the results:CollectorLoadLoadSolar Improvementtypeprofile levelfractionover flat plateFlat plateDHW 75 %59 %Load adaptedDHW 75 %66 %12 %Flat plateSpace heating 50 %22 %Load adaptedSpace heating 50 %28 %29 %The second method utilises simulations with one-hour timesteps for collectors connected to a simplified storage and a variable load. Collector output, optical and thermal losses, heat overproduction, load level and storage temperature are presented as functions of solar incidence angles. These data are suitable for optical design of load adapted solar collectors. Results for a Stockholm location indicate that a solar combisystem with a solar fraction around 30 % should have collectors that reduce heat production at solar heights above 30 degrees and have optimum efficiency for solar heights between 8 and 30 degrees.

Parabolic dish reflectors for solar applications approximated by simple surfaces

Two different concentrating mirrors have been constructed that resemble parabolic dish reflectors. Both mirrors are made of slightly curved strips of flat, bendable material. The strips of the most simplified mirror have only large-radius circles and straight lines as boundaries. The necessary equations for making the mirrors have been derived. Also a simple way to make a stiff, lightweight frame and support for the mirror strips has been developed. Models of the mirrors have been built and successfully used for cooking and baking.This report is an extended version of a paper to be published in Solar Energy that contains complete derivations of all mirror design equations.