Thesis (M. Ed.)--York University, 2001. Graduate Programme in Education. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 125-126). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/yorku/fullcit?pMQ67766.

Thesis (B.S.)--University of Missouri, School of Mines and Metallurgy, 1912. / The entire thesis text is included in file. Typescript. Illustrated by authors. Title from title screen of thesis/dissertation PDF file (viewed February 23, 2010) Includes bibliographical references (p. 34-37).

Teacher educators use children's thinking activities as a means to prepare prospective teachers to teach mathematics. Research in methods courses and student teaching practica has shown these types of activities help prospective teachers deepen their own mathematical knowledge as well as better understand how children think. This study investigates prospective teachers' perceptions in a mathematics for teaching course when using children's thinking activities. Specifically, this study documents how four case study students perceived of the activities, their own and children's mathematical thinking, and the role of language in mathematics teaching and learning.Observations, interviews, and written class work were analyzed through the generation of themes within and across cases. It was found that all of the participants perceived the children's thinking activities as beneficial to providing insight into how children think mathematically. In contrast, two of the four participants did not perceive the activities as supportive of their own mathematical learning. However, the participants' reflections, both on children's mathematical thinking and their own, showed that all participants grappled with important mathematical concepts. Specifically, through consideration of their own thinking, children's strategies, and children's understanding, participants discussed the fractional whole, the meaning of operations, and connections among strategies, among other topics. This difference between how the participants perceived the use of children's thinking activities and what was evidenced through their reflections suggests that participants might have felt a stigma in studying elementary mathematics.While the participants did not often reflect on the role of language in teaching and learning mathematics, they did articulate various ideas regarding language and mathematics, in particular regarding the instruction of English Language Learners (ELLs). They discussed ways to help ELLs acquire mathematical language, which three participants saw as more than just vocabulary. All participants also thought it was important for children to express their mathematical understanding. However, two participants seemed to conceive of a unique way to express that understanding. This finding suggests that prospective teachers need to be critically exposed to literature regarding mathematics instruction of language-minority children.

This study examines educational leadership internship experiences at four public University System of Georgia universities. It is a qualitative multiple case study. The research presented contributes to the literature by providing information about leadership training through internship programs that was collected via interviews with program faculty and documentary analysis. Presentation of the data in this manner offers a comprehensive description of internship experiences at four universities within the state of Georgia. This description helps explain the linkages between classroom knowledge and its application as it relates to the internship experience. This study also utilizes cross-case analysis. Following the comprehensive presentation of each individual case, the four cases are considered together, and analyzed for similarities and differences. The purpose for analyzing the data in this manner is to provide both an in-depth analysis of each program and an understanding of the similarities and differences in internship experiences throughout the state of Georgia. The research presented in this inquiry contributes to the literature by providing information about internship programs through interviews with program faculty and data collected from the programs. The findings of this study could be of interest to university personnel as they examine and modify their criteria for designing internship experiences. Additionally, this investigation contributes to the literature by providing a comprehensive description of internship experiences at four universities. Through this study, the voices of the university personnel and information from the data collected provide insight into the overall experience of the educational leadership internship. Finally, this study provides insight into the correlation between classroom knowledge and the application of this knowledge within the field through internships.

Popiežius Benediktas XVI 2011 m. sausio 22 d., susitikęs su Romos Rotos tribunolo teisėjais ir darbuotojais, kalbėjosi apie kandidatų santuokai paruošimą ir labiausiai atkreipė dėmesį į veiksmus, kuriuos būtina atlikti prieš laiminant santuoką. Bažnyčia santuokai visuomet skyrė didelį dėmesį: pasiruošimas santuokai yra apsuptas ypatingu rūpesčiu, globa bei įvairiomis normomis. Bažnyčia teisinėmis priemonėmis reguliuoja įvairias iš santuokinio ryšio kylančias sutuoktinių gyvenimo sritis. Ir ne tik patį santuokos sudarymą, bet ir pasiruošimą santuokai bei kitus veiksmus, kuriuos būtina atlikti prieš laiminant santuoką. O tai, kas susiję su santuoka ir jos galiojimu, visada kelia daug emocijų. Apsisprendimas kurti šeimą yra svarbus ir iš kandidatų santuokai reikalauja atsakingo pasiruošimo. Vis dažniau kalbama apie santuokos krizę, formuojasi paviršutiniškas požiūris į šeimos gyvenimą, propaguojamos laisvos nepastovios sąjungos. Katalikų Bažnyčia turi savo požiūrį į santuoką. Ji iškelia šią instituciją kaip neišardomą vyro ir moters sąjungą, ją pavadindama sandora. Bažnyčia santuoką laiko sakramentu, o sakramentus išimtinai tvarko tik Bažnyčia. Todėl būtent Bažnyčia nurodo normas. t. y., ko reikia, kad priimti sakramentai būtų galiojantys ir teisėti. Bažnyčia laikosi nuostatos, kad tarp tikinčiųjų galioja tik bažnytinė santuoka. Dabartinė tikėjimo krizė įtakoja, kad net ir krikščionys santuoką sudaro rimtai neįsisąmoninę, ką iš tiesų reiškia santuoka, kokia jos esmė, kam... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / Meeting with the judges of the Roman Rota and its staff on the 22nd of December, 2011, pope Benedict XVI talked over personal preparation for entering marriage and, especially, mentioned some requirements necessary to fulfill before allowing the spouses to express their matrimonial consent sacramentaly. The Church always, in a special way, takes care of marriage and, in order to protect and maintain it in a deep Christian spirit, furnishes not only relative canonical norms, but also provides certain pastoral assistance for the spouses enabling them responsibly and fruitfully be predisposed toward the holiness and duties of their new state and, afterwards, to contract their conjugal covenant validly and legitimately. Recently, mainly due to the superficial attitudes that flourish among the faithful toward understanding the dignity and aims of Christian marriage and the lack of adequate preparation that precedes its celebration, this institution undergoes some crisis. In this context, the role of the pastors of the Church making provisions to organize duly the assistance to the parties instructing them about the essence, rights and obligations of marriage, at the same time, investigating about the evidence that nothing stands against its valid and licit celebration, appears to be of essential value. Only after carrying out the necessary inquiries and diligently observing the norms issued by the local conference of bishops, the pastors can proceed to assist at a marriage. A... [to full text]

This thesis presents the preparation of vertically aligned carbon nanotubes using porous anodic alumina templates via thermal chemical vapour deposition. The characteristics of prepared carbon nanotubes in terms of tube diameter, length, density, uniformity and alignment were investigated. The formation of porous anodic alumina membranes was studied. In order to prepare well-ordered porous anodic alumina templates, three approaches towards anodization of aluminium were examined. Effects of Al surface morphology and anodization conditions on the formation of the porous anodic alumina membrane were investigated. Co catalyst was electrochemically deposited at the bottom of the pores of porous anodic alumina templates by applying an alternating current. Prior to the AC electrodeposition, the barrier layer at the base of the pores was thinned in order to facilitate the deposition process. The thinning effect of three barrier layer thinning approaches was examined. The effect of electrodeposition duration on the pore filling was investigated. Carbon nanotubes were grown using Co-loaded porous anodic alumina templates via thermal chemical vapour deposition of C₂H₄. Effects of the presence of the Co catalyst, the amount of Co deposited at the bottom of the pores and the presence of water vapour on the carbon nanotube growth were examined. The characteristics of the grown carbon nanotubes in terms of tube diameter, length, density, uniformity and alignment were investigated. Moreover, a post-treatment after the carbon nanotube growth was proposed in order to obtain vertically aligned carbon nanotubes. In addition, vertically aligned carbon nanotubes were grown on Si chips. Two methods were used to prepare a catalytic layer on the Si chips for carbon nanotube growth.

The purpose of this dissertation is to resolve an apparent conflict between the services that tax preparers provide and the tax preparation services taxpayers seek. Some literature demonstrates that tax professionals equate client advocacy with taking aggressive tax positions and minimizing taxes. Other literature suggests taxpayers seek to increase accuracy and reduce the probability of tax audit when they hire a tax professional. This difference is an "expectation gap."The methodology employed to examine this issue is a survey of tax professionals at various levels of expertise. This survey asks tax preparers what they believe motivates their clients to seek professional tax preparation services. It also asks how aggressive a tax professional should be in minimizing clients' taxes. A similar survey sent to taxpayers who use the services of a tax preparer asked the same questions about taxpayers' primary motivation in seeking professional tax preparation services and then about how they believe their tax preparer would answer the questions about aggressive tax reporting.This dissertation extends the research in several ways. In previous studies, taxpayer motivation has been determined by using a simple checklist or an open-ended question. Instead of using these approaches, I developed a scale using methods that rigorously test for validity. In measuring client advocacy, I use a scale that has been recently developed and used in the literature. While previous research has shown the disparity between what tax professionals provide and what taxpayers want, no study has asked each group how they believe the other group will respond. This will provide a measure of the degree of understanding each group has of the other.This research show that there is an expectation gap between taxpayers and their tax preparers at all levels, and that this gap is statistically significant. However, the actual size of the gap is small; accuracy and client advocacy have the largest gaps. Additional findings are that timesavings is more important to taxpayers with children, that contact with the IRS is correlated with a lower desire to avoid it, and that lower tax knowledge is correlated with stronger desire for an accurate return.

This paper analyzes the relationship between the merger announcement returns and the bidding firms' preparations for mergers. In this study, merger preparations are defined as bidding firms' adaptive actions of changing their executives prior to mergers. An analysis of the relative effectiveness of merger preparations is conducted through event study for univariate tests. In addition, a regression for multivariate tests analyzes incentives for making merger preparations. The results of these studies indicate that (1) hiring of new executives from outside the target proves to be the most effective merger preparation, (2) firms who make merger preparations have higher returns, and (3) hiring of new executives from the targets proves to have negative effects on bidding firms' returns, though this can vary based on the relative size of the target.

No description available.

Human behavior relies on the accumulation of task-relevant information to narrow the range of possible responses to a single response. How do we utilize advance information that can help us select and prepare responses to a task? How is this performance benefit facilitated in the brain? Previous literature suggests a subset of brain regions involved in cue-specific processing. We investigated how informative cues affect brain processing. Specifically, to what extent is activity modulated for stimulus-related and response-related cues versus neutral cues in control- and processing-related regions? Participants made manual responses to the identity of face or place stimuli in a variation of the response cuing paradigm while fMRI BOLD signal was recorded. Prior to the stimulus, a letter cue indicating the upcoming stimulus type (face or place) or response hand (left or right) or a neutral cue was presented. We proposed three hypotheses: 1) control-related activity (e.g., prefrontal, parietal) would increase for cued vs. uncued trials; 2) activity in face and place processing regions and left and right premotor regions would activate for their respective cues, although all cues were letters; and 3) stimulus processing regions would also be activated by response cues, and vice versa.