The purpose of this three-part study is to acquire greater knowledge of success in school and the factors that affects it, in order to better understand the school-related reality that students face every day. It is made up of a document study of some of the currently leading literature on academic and other types of success and of the Swedish steering documents that regulate the Swedish school system and a questionnaire based survey on what Swedish high school students believe it takes to succeed in school. Largely, the study finds that both inner factors, like personality traits and soft skills, and outer factors like school organization and good teachers, have a massive impact on academic outcome and therefore also adult outcome. The study largely finds that there are much empirical evidence suggesting that certain things affect achievement both positively and negatively. Nothing is left up to chance.

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Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:26:53Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2008-01-22Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T18:30:49Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 santos_srv_me_assis.pdf: 688225 bytes, checksum: 772b224ac36c9131688ae5580682190f (MD5) / Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / Ao entardecer est un recueil de contes écrits par le vicomte de Taunay qui ont été d’abord publiés dans des journaux et ensuite réunis par l’auteur lui-même dans un livre à ce moment intitulé Já Crepúsculo, en 1899. Toutefois, lors de sa mort à cette annéemême, le vicomte n’a pas vu l’impression de son livre, laissant une de ses dernières productions aux mains de son frère, Luiz Goffredo de Escragnolle Taunay, qui achève ce projet tout en faisant paraître le livre sous un titre plus léger et définitif, en 1901. Cette oeuvre, composée de six contes de différents genres discursifs, dans lesquels l’auteur démontre sa grande habilité narrative, explore les facettes tragiques, comiques, satiriques et ironiques qui caractérisent chacun des textes. Ainsi, pour “Pobre menino!”, “Cabeça e coração” et “Uma vingança”, on remarque le ton tragique; pour “Rapto original”, le ton comique-satirique; pour “Ciganinha”, le comique; et finalement pour “Estorvo”, le ton ironique-tragique. Outre cette versatilité, les narrateurs de tous ces textes présentent aussi quelques traits de modernité tels que l’intertextualité (aux moments où les références littéraires acquièrent des fonctions diverses), les digressions (dans les plusieurs voix qui s’insèrent ça et là), quelques moments métalinguistiques, le savoir-faire descriptif et le caractère urbain-culte du langage (fait qui amène l’auteur à distinguer les parlers et les pratiques culturelles provinciennes). / Ao entardecer: contos vários é uma coletânea de contos escritos pelo Visconde de Taunay que foram primeiramente publicados em jornais e depois reunidos pelo próprio autor em um livro previamente intitulado “Já Crepúsculo”, em 1899. Porém, com sua morte neste mesmo ano, o Visconde de Taunay não presenciou a impressão do seu livro, deixando um dos seus últimos trabalhos nas mãos de seu irmão Luiz Goffredo de Escragnolle Taunay, que conclui este projeto publicando o livro com um título mais suave e definitivo, em 1901. Ele é composto por seis contos de diferentes gêneros discursivos, nos quais o autor revela a sua grande habilidade narrativa, explorando as facetas trágicas, cômicas, satíricas e irônicas, que dão o tom a cada um dos textos. Assim, para “Pobre menino!”, “Cabeça e coração” e “Uma vingança”, observa-se o tom trágico; para “Rapto original”, o cômico-satírico; para “Ciganinha”, o cômico; e para “Estorvo”, o tom irônico-trágico. Além dessa versatilidade, estes narradores ainda apresentam alguns traços da modernidade como a intertextualidade (nos momentos em que as referências literárias desempenham funções diversas), as digressões (nas vozes outras que se inserem aqui e ali), alguns momentos metalingüísticos, a virtuosidade descritiva e o caráter urbano-culto da linguagem (que o leva a caracterizar os falares e as práticas culturais interioranas). Nesta fase já madura de sua vida, o Visconde de Taunay encontra, pois, no conto mais uma forma de atualizar suas idéias inovadoras, sua genialidade narrativa e seu espírito crítico em relação à sua época e à sociedade.

Infectious diseases are a major cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Streptococcus pneumoniae and Neisseria meningitidis are major causes of severe bacterial disease which can manifest as invasive disease such as bacteraemia and meningitis. Exposure to these pathogens is relatively widespread, yet only a minority of individuals develop invasive disease. A host genetic component to infectious disease susceptibility has been implied from twin and adoptee studies. A role for rare large effect genetic variants in predisposition to infection has been demonstrated through the study of individuals with primary immunodeficiencies. However, a majority of these studies have been undertaken in individuals with a history of recurrent disease or in multi-case families. The relative role of rare genetic variants of moderate to large effect at the population level has not been widely explored. This thesis presents effort made using next generation sequencing methods to identify rare genetic variants that lead to increased susceptibility to bacterial disease focussing on meningococcal disease, pleural infection(empyema), pneumococcal disease and sepsis phenotypes. Using an exome sequencing approach in 13 cases with invasive meningococcal disease, a novel mutation leading to a complement deficiency and increased risk of meningococcal infection was identified and functionally validated in one individual. This mutation in the CFP gene was demonstrated as leading to impaired properdin secretion. Further analysis implicated loss of function mutations in CD4 and ZAP70 as novel loci for meningococcal disease susceptibility. A case control association analysis for sepsis susceptibility highlighted the possible role for small Rho GTPases in sepsis pathology. By aggregating all rare predicted deleterious mutations in a gene, four genes in this pathway, (ROCK2, ARHGAP18, FYN and CDC42BPG) were implicated as having an excess of rare deleterious variants in sepsis samples compared to population controls. A similar approach identified low frequency genetic variants in the CD109 gene as predisposing to empyema susceptibility in children. Finally, preliminary evidence from adult individuals with invasive pneumococcal disease points to a potential role of the RNASE7 gene in invasive pneumococcal disease susceptibility. This association was primarily due to a predicted deleterious missense mutation present in cases and absent in controls. Taken together, these results have identified a number of potential loci with rare variants associated with susceptibility to severe phenotypes of bacterial diseases.

Sickle cell disease is a monogenic blood disorder in which the clinical course and disease severity vary widely among patients. In order for physicians to make more informed decisions regarding the treatment and management of disease, it would be useful to be able to predict disease severity. We focus on two primary modulators of disease severity in sickle cell patients, hemolysis and fetal hemoglobin (HbF). This dissertation evaluates methodology to identify genetic variants associated with severity of sickle cell disease and develops new methodology of genetic risk prediction to predict disease severity in sickle cell patients based on levels of HbF. Hemolysis is a trait that is influenced by multiple correlated phenotypes (lactate dehydrogenase, reticulocytes, bilirubin and aspartate transaminase). There are several approaches to statistical analyses of multiple correlated phenotypes. The first part of this dissertation evaluates the use of principal component analysis (PCA) and compares it to the alternative approach of examining the results of multiple univariate phenotypes individually. We will focus on the question of if and under what conditions we gain more power using a summarized phenotype from PCA in a genome wide association study (GWAS) rather than conducting multiple individual GWAS. We find that the there is more power gained from the PCA approach when there is a strong intercorrelation between the phenotypes. The second part of this dissertation proposes a novel method of genetic risk prediction for continuous traits using an ensemble of genetic models. We aim to show through a simulation and prediction of HbF that the proposed method is more robust to the inclusion of false positives and yields more stable predictions than computing a GRS and 10 fold cross validation. The third part of this dissertation introduces a Bayesian-based clustering approach to produce clusters of sickle cell anemia patients based on their "predicted genetic profiles" of HbF. We then examine the genetic profiles of individuals in the extreme clusters to determine which genes contribute more prominently to the genetic profile so that we may potentially identify genes that are highly influential in the regulation of extremely high and low values of HbF.

How does the role of parenting and marriage relate to personality development over three age decades in adulthood? To examine this, participants (T1AgeRange = 20 to 55) self-reported on their personality traits (at the domain and aspect level) and investments in their children and relationship partners in up to four annual measurement occasions. Consistent with the predictions of social investment theory, being a parent (NParent = 260; NNever-Parent = 359) or being married (NMarried = 341; NNever-Married = 255) was associated with a more mature personality, especially in terms of agreeableness. The magnitude of differences between parents and never parents (and married and never married participants) in personality trait levels differed as a function of age decade, and for some of the personality traits, the pattern of level differences across the three age decades were explained by different rates of change among parents and never parents (and married and never married participants). Most notable, the difference between parents and never parents in levels of agreeableness and its politeness aspect that emerged during the 30s age decade (and continued into the 40s age decade) was due to the greater increase among parents in these traits from the late 20s to the early 30s. Parents’ investment in their children and married participants’ investment in their spouse was related to personality trait levels but not personality trait change, which is inconsistent with the predictions of social investment theory. Overall, these results indicate the importance for future research to focus on both the acute effects of an event and the ongoing effects of a role on personality development.

The primary objective of this study was to explore the relationship between personality and employability using a sample of 100 employees at a meat producing company in South Africa. A secondary objective was to determine if personality could be used to predict employability, and whether individuals from different demographic groups differed regarding their employability. The instruments used were the sixteen personality factor inventory (16PF) and the Van Der Heidje employability measure. The research findings indicated that the personality factors of submissiveness and seriousness correlated to the employability dimensions of anticipation/ optimization and occupational expertise respectively. Openness and corporate sense were also correlated, with anxiety in particular correlating with the overall employability measure. Differences between the race groups and employability were also noted. Particular interventions aimed at improving individual career decision making and employability practices within the organisation concluded the study. / M.A. (Industrial and Organisational Psychology)

Most human traits are influenced by a combination of genetic and environmental effects. Heritability expresses the proportion of trait variance that can be explained by genetic factors, and the 1980s heralded the beginning of studies that aimed to pinpoint genetic loci that contribute to trait variation, also known as quantitative trait loci (QTLs). Subsequently, the availability of cheap, high-resolution genotyping chips ushered in the era of genome-wide association studies (GWAS). These genetic studies have discovered many associations between single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and complex traits, but these associations do not explain the genetic component of these traits entirely. This is known as the ‘missing heritability’ problem. Within this thesis, 40 medically-relevant human complex traits are studied in order to identify new QTLs. These traits include eye biometric traits, blood biochemical traits and anthropometric traits measured in approximately 28,000 individuals belonging to family-based samples from the general Scottish population (the Generation Scotland study) or from population isolates from Croatian (Korčula, Vis) or Scottish (Shetland, Orkney) islands. These individuals had been genotyped using commercially-available arrays, and unobserved genotypes were imputed using the Haplotype Reference Consortium (HRC) dataset. In parallel to standard GWAS, these traits are analysed using two other statistical genetics approaches: variance component linkage analysis and regional heritability (RH) mapping. Each study is analysed separately, in order to detect study-specific genetic effects that may not generalise across populations. At the same time, because most traits are available in several studies, this also enables meta-analysis, which boosts the power of discovery and can reveal cross-study genetic effects. These methods are a priori complementary to each other, exploiting different aspects of human genetic variation, such as the segregation of variants within families (identity by descent, IBD), or the presence of the same variant throughout the general population (identity by state, IBS). The strengths and weaknesses of these methods are systematically assessed by applying them to real and simulated datasets.

Psychopathy is a maladaptive personality disorder associated with a host of negative outcomes, including criminal behavior, psychopathology, and self-harm. Factor 1 (F1) and Factor 2 (F2) psychopathy show differential associations with psychopathology. However, evidence suggests that the statistical interaction of F1 and F2 may be more important in understanding associations with psychopathology. Findings regarding the interactive effects of F1 and F2 are mixed, as both potentiating and protective effects have emerged. Moreover, there is only scant research exploring the statistical impact of gender on these interactive effects. Furthermore, approaches to measuring F1 (e.g. clinical interview versus self-report) are based on different conceptualizations of F1, which may influence the strength and direction of the interactive effects. Study 1 aims to explore the influence of F1 and F2 on psychopathology by using both person-centered and variable-centered approaches on a sample of over 1,500 offenders. Study 2 seeks to replicate these findings among 227 drug users and 234 college students. Across analytic methods in Study 1, there were very cases in which F1 influenced the association between F2 and psychopathology, and there were no significant three-way gender interactions. Furthermore, the conceptualization of F1 across psychopathy measures did not impact the interactive effects of F1 and F2. Similar findings emerged in Study 2. These findings suggest that F2 is likely driving the relations between psychopathy and other forms of psychopathology, and that F1 plays less of a role in interacting with F2 than previously believed.

This study was conducted in an effort to determine whether or not the degree of growth in practical skills, personal and social development, and knowledge of subject matter content which an adolescent demonstrates is significantly related to the assumption of leadership roles in the classroom.