This dissertation is about reading instruction in six mixed-aged classes, called child schools, with six and seven year old children. The overall questions of this study were: How did the teachers in child schools organise work in general and reading instruction in particular? How did they handle for example the increasing range of variation concerning knowledge and skills that goes together with increasing variation of age? With respect to reading the investigation also examined the content of reading instruction and the extent to which teachers took into account those factors that, according to reading research, are important for the acquisition of reading skills? Overall the research aimed to examine how the reading ability of the pupils developed during their first years at school. Six child schools were included in the study. The data collection extended over three years and contained field studies, interviews with the staff and reading tests with the pupils. Reading theories were used to analyse the form of the reading instruction and Basil Bernstein's theory of visible and invisible pedagogy was used to analyse pedagogical practice in its context. With one exception a visible pedagogy dominated in all the child schools. During lessons designated "my own work" the pupils were allowed to plan their work. This weak framing allowed the pupils to sort themselves into groups of more or less successful learners. In reading instruction, elements of two different models for instruction were combined, e.g. the whole language and the basal reading approach. My conclusion is that this combination is effective in a mixed-age group. Pupils at different competence levels benefit from different approaches. The reading comprehension of the child school pupils did not differ from the levels obtained with comparable pupils in national surveys. The test results, like the learning conditions varied between the schools. In my view the test results were not merely a consequence of the instruction, but also of other circumstances that interacted with the pedagogy.

Societies in the developed world are becoming increasingly diverse as they experience growth in the number and size of minority groups, including visible minorities, immigrants, and, in some countries, Indigenous peoples. Societys institutions, including the health care system and its professional groups, are increasingly challenged to enhance their understanding of and respect for such societal diversity in providing services, and to work to reflect this diversity in the makeup of their membership. While many of the health care professions, including nursing, have acknowledged the importance of inclusion of individuals from diverse groups, their successes in meeting targeted increases have been limited. The purpose of this research was to elicit stories of nursing leadership that successfully promoted diversity and enhanced inclusiveness within the profession. The research problem was stated as follows: What were the experiences and stories of nurse leaders who successfully provided leadership to increase diversity and inclusion within the profession? The study used modified narrative inquiry research methods. The research was built on a conceptual framework consisting of three major concepts: diversity, critical leadership, and professional closure. The study focused on the stories of five Canadian nurse leaders who described and explained through their stories their leadership characteristics and challenges. Their stories of promoting diversity and inclusion were explored from a critical perspective, using literature found primarily in the fields of nursing and education to guide the exploration.<p> These leaders stories revealed their understanding that the nursing profession currently expected its members to represent the norm-- white middle class females. The stories showed that the participating nurse leaders generally had views of diversity that were broader than culture, ethnicity and race, the views that were most commonly addressed in the mainstream nursing literature. Their broad views of diversity included difference based on gender, sexual orientation, and ability. These views often arose from personal experiences of difference related to ethnicity, language, country of origin, gender, presence of an accent, or family circumstances. The leaders interviewed indicated that they saw a lack of tolerance for difference within the profession, but not simply in relation to cultural or physical difference. They described a lack of acceptance within the profession of different ways of thinking and beingreferred to in the study as diversity of thought. They reported that the profession expected and reinforced conformist thinking and tended to support the status quo.<p> The study findings contributed to an expanded understanding of the conceptual approach of critical leadership as a process to support diversity and promote inclusion in the profession. A conceptual framework for critical leadership, based on the work of Foster (1986; 1989) and Ryan (2006a; 2006b) was enhanced and expanded as a result of the study findings. Critical leadership involved critique, transformation, education, ethics, and inclusion. The study findings supported the view that the profession of nursing, perhaps inadvertently, limited access to the profession by marginalized groups. This process was called professional closure, and occurred as a result of increasing entrance requirements, inconsistent language requirements, and segmenting minority groups in lower paid practical nurse and front line positions, with little opportunity for advancement.<p> These findings about diversity and leadership, and about leadership for diversity, challenged the nursing profession to look beyond its day-to-day busyness, and to move beyond its current locked-down, controlled, risk-averse practices. The study findings challenged the profession to embrace the possibilities of increasing its diversity and inclusiveness, with the ultimate goal of building a better, stronger, more just profession and a better, stronger, more just society.<p> The study has significant implications for theory, practice, research and policy in the profession. From a theoretical perspective, the study pointed to the need for the nursing profession to contemplate its social obligations with respect to promoting social justice in society. The study findings suggest that the profession might engage in national level policy discussions committed to increasing the diversity of the profession in order to reflect the community it serves. This study suggests the need for additional qualitative and quantitative studies on critical leadership to further develop the conceptualizations that evolved in this study. Policy discussions are implicated to address approaches to difference, inclusion, culture, cultural competence, cultural safety, affirmative action and inclusive policy in nursing, nursing education and health care institutions.

Des recherches récentes mettent en avant que l'application de la Loi sur l'équité en matière d'emploi connaît différents blocages communicationnels en milieu organisationnel. Ce mémoire a pour objectif d'en cerner les motifs afin d'émettre des pistes de solution. Notre but est de comprendre le fonctionnement précis des phénomènes communicationnels relatifs à l'application de la Loi entre l'employeur, le représentant des employéEs et les employéEs. Pour atteindre notre objectif, nous avons effectué une étude de cas dans une organisation représentative du Québec qui entre dans les critères d'application de la Loi. Notre fondement théorique a été l'analyse systémique. Nous avons constaté que certains des concepts centraux de la Loi avaient une connotation péjorative pour les acteurs internes-employéEs. Cet élément a une incidence sur les phénomènes communicationnels liés à l'application de la Loi. De plus, nous avons repéré des boucles de causalité circulaire entre le peu de phénomènes communicationnels portant sur l'équité/diversité et le peu de phénomènes communicationnels d'évaluation réalisés au niveau du suivi. Le suivi porte en effet principalement sur les chiffres de représentation des minorités visibles et quasiment pas sur les actions menées pour l'équité des employéEs. En outre, les phénomènes communicationnels de consultations sont inexistants dans la mesure où les employéEs n'ont pas de représentant et l'employeur ne participe aux consultations que pour approuver les actions relatives à l'application de la Loi. Ainsi, avons-nous mis en lumière d'autres blocages que ceux déjà constatés, qui nous ont amenée à des recommandations. ______________________________________________________________________________ MOTS-CLÉS DE L’AUTEUR : Loi sur l’équité en matière d’emploi, Minorités visibles, Différences culturelles, Système, Communication.

El objeto de la presente tesis es el desarrollo de metodologías analíticas rápidas para optimizar los procesos de degradación de colorantes orgánicos presentes en aguas residuales. Se ha llevado a cabo una revisión bibliográfica acerca de dichos procesos y las técnicas analíticas utilizadas para su monitorización y la identificación de posibles intermedios. Se han establecido nuevas metodologías analíticas basadas en herramientas quimiométricas tales como diseño de experimentos para optimizar procesos de fotodegradación con y sin catalizador. Se ha empleado resolución de curvas multivariante para la determinación simultánea de colorantes e intermedios durante estos procesos. Dado que la velocidad de degradación es el parámetro mas utilizado para evaluar la eficiencia de las fotodegradaciones se han evaluado todas las constantes involucradas en la degradación y/o la adsorción sobre el catalizador mediante HS-MCR-ALS. Se ha establecido una metodología analítica rápida para la determinación de colorantes basada en cromatografía de inyección secuencial (SIC). / The main aim of this thesis is the development of rapid analytical methodologies to optimize the photodegradation processes of organic azo dyes from industrial wastewater. A bibliographic review has been done concerning the most employed processes for dye removal and the analytical techniques used for the monitoring and the identification of intermediates. New analytical methodologies based on chemometric tools such as experimental designs have been established to optimize photodegradation processes with and without using heterogeneous catalysts. Multivariate curve resolution has been employed to determine simultaneously different dyes and intermediates along degradation processes. Since the degradation rate is the most employed parameter to evaluate the photodegradation efficiency all the kinetic constants involved in the degradation and/or the adsorption of the dye onto the catalyst have been evaluated by HS-MCR-ALS. Furthermore a rapid analytical methodology for dye determination based on sequential injection chromatography (SIC) has been established.

An algorithm for the derivation of atmospheric and surface biophysical products from the MEdium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer Instrument (MERIS) on board ENVIronmental SATellite (ENVISAT/MERIS) Level 1b data over land has been developed. Georectified aerosol optical thickness (AOT), columnar water vapor (CWV), spectral surface reflectance and chlorophyll fluorescence (CF) maps are generated. Emphasis has been put on implementing a robust software able to provide those products on an operational manner, making no use of ancillary parameters apart from those attached to MERIS images. For this reason, it has been named Self-Contained Atmospheric Parameters Estimation from MERIS data (SCAPE-M). The fundamentals of the algorithm and the validation of the derived products are presented in this thesis. Errors of ±0.03, ±4% and ±8% have been estimated for AOT, CWV and surface reflectance retrievals, respectively, by means of a sensitivity analysis. More than 200 MERIS images have been processed in order to assess the method performance under a range of atmospheric and geographical conditions. A good comparison is found between SCAPE-M AOT retrievals and ground-based measurements taken during the SPectra bARrax Campaigns (SPARC) 2003 and 2004, except for a date when an episode of Saharan dust intrusion was detected. Comparison of SCAPE-M retrievals with data from AErosol RObotic NETwork (AERONET) stations showed a square Pearson's correlation coefficient R2 of about 0.7-0.8. Those values grow up to more than 0.9 in the case of CWV after comparison with the same stations. A good correlation is also found with the ESA Level 2 official CWV product, although slight different performances with varying surface elevation are detected. Retrieved surface reflectance maps have been intercompared with reflectance data derived from MERIS images by the Bremen AErosol Retrieval (BAER) method in the first place.

No description available.

L'imprégnation, étape cruciale de la préparation de catalyseurs supportés pour l'hydrotraitement de coupes pétrolières (CoMo / -Al2O3) , a été étudiée dans ce travail. L'objectif principal a été de déterminer les phénomènes physico-chimiques et les interactions entre la surface du support et les espèces en solution se produisant pendant cette étape puis faire le lien avec l'activité du catalyseur final.La formation directe et la stabilité de la solution (3 Co2+ ; H4Co2Mo10O386-) ont été étudiées de manière poussée en fonction du pH, de la concentration, du rapport Co/Mo. Cela a nécessité le développement de méthodes analytiques quantitatives (spectrométries Raman et UV-visible), réalisées via SIMPLISMA, un algorithme de traitement des données par analyses factorielles. L'étude de l'imprégnation de la solution (3 Co2+ ; H4Co2Mo10O386-) sur -Al2O3 a mené à une meilleure compréhension de cette étape. Il a été montré que la conservation de cette espèce sur le support dépend principalement de la densité en atomes de Mo / nm², mais également du rapport Co/Mo et du pH initial de la solution d'imprégnation, tous ces paramètres étant liés entre eux. Cette étude a mis en évidence le rôle majeur du support, via ses propriétés surfaciques.L'intérêt d'utiliser (3 Co2+ ; H4Co2Mo10O386-) pour préparer de tels catalyseurs réside dans la proximité du cobalt et du molybdène. La phase active résultante est très bien dispersée et hautement promue, et ce même si le précurseur est décomposé sur le support lors de l'imprégnation. Enfin, la méthodologie développée au cours de ce travail est transposable à la préparation de tout type de catalyseur supporté.

Mes travaux de recherche concernent la synthèse et la caractérisation des nanoclusters stabilisés pardes ligands thiolés, et plus particulièrement des nanoclusters d'or et d'argent. L'étude de ces clusterspar des méthodes de caractérisation optique en solution, séparation sur le gel d'électrophorèse et laspectrométrie de masse à haute résolution a permis de sonder quelques propriétés structurelles etélectroniques. L'originalité de ce travail de thèse vient, du couplage d'un spectromètre de masse avecun laser accordable en longueur d'onde UV/Visible pour étudier les propriétés optiques de clusters enphase gazeuse. En effet, ce travail a permis d'obtenir le premier spectre sur des mesures optiques deces espèces.Une partie de ce travail est consacrée à la synthèse et la caractérisation des nanoclusters d'or stabiliséspar les glutathions allant de Au4(SG) 4 à Au25(SG) 18. Les expériences de fragmentation induite parcollision sont réalisées sur les clusters afin de sonder leurs structures. Nous avons développé unenouvelle méthode basée sur l'analyse des structures isotopiques expérimentales pour déterminer lenombre d'électrons accommodés le coeur métallique.Ces études expérimentales ont été étendues à d'autres systèmes tels que les clusters d'argent stabiliséspar les glutathions. Deux méthodes de synthèse des clusters Agx(SG)y ont été développées aulaboratoire. Dans le cadre de ce travail, pour la première fois, nous avons pu déterminer la stichométriede ces clusters Ag31(SG) 19 et Ag15(SG) 11.

Mes travaux de recherche concernent la synthèse et la caractérisation des nanoclusters stabilisés pardes ligands thiolés, et plus particulièrement des nanoclusters d'or et d'argent. L'étude de ces clusterspar des méthodes de caractérisation optique en solution, séparation sur le gel d'électrophorèse et laspectrométrie de masse à haute résolution a permis de sonder quelques propriétés structurelles etélectroniques. L'originalité de ce travail de thèse vient, du couplage d'un spectromètre de masse avecun laser accordable en longueur d'onde UV/Visible pour étudier les propriétés optiques de clusters enphase gazeuse. En effet, ce travail a permis d'obtenir le premier spectre sur des mesures optiques deces espèces.Une partie de ce travail est consacrée à la synthèse et la caractérisation des nanoclusters d'or stabiliséspar les glutathions allant de Au4(SG) 4 à Au25(SG) 18. Les expériences de fragmentation induite parcollision sont réalisées sur les clusters afin de sonder leurs structures. Nous avons développé unenouvelle méthode basée sur l'analyse des structures isotopiques expérimentales pour déterminer lenombre d'électrons accommodés le coeur métallique.Ces études expérimentales ont été étendues à d'autres systèmes tels que les clusters d'argent stabiliséspar les glutathions. Deux méthodes de synthèse des clusters Agx(SG)y ont été développées aulaboratoire. Dans le cadre de ce travail, pour la première fois, nous avons pu déterminer la stichométriede ces clusters Ag31(SG) 19 et Ag15(SG) 11.

The principle of democratic governance is a defining feature of co-operative organizations. Members of the board of directors are the elected representatives of the membership, and as democratic organizations, there is an expectation that co-operatives should have adequate representation of member groups on their boards. However, empirical evidence indicates that many Canadian co-operative boards embody a diversity problem: there is little diversity in board representational characteristics. The main objective of this study is to identify key barriers and facilitators of representational diversity in co-operative leadership structures. To this end, two core research questions are posed. First, how do boards achieve diversity? Second, how do diverse boards maintain their diversity? Board diversity is defined as at least 30 per cent female representation on the board. Factors in four key areas believed to affect board diversity levels are identified: problem recognition; formal diversity policies; proactive recruitment strategies; and responsive governance. For each area, two specific theoretical propositions are posited and examined.<p>Two credit union boards of directors are selected as case studies. The first case is the Surrey Metro Savings Board of Directors between 1995 and 2002, which was homogenous in terms of its demographic composition. The second case is the Coast Capital Savings Board of Directors between 2001 and 2006, which was diverse in terms of its demographic composition. In view of the theoretical propositions that fall under the four main areas of inquiry, each case is examined separately, after which a cross-case analysis is conducted. <p>The case study findings support the view that, to achieve diversity, boards must recognize representational homogeneity as problematic, make diversity a priority issue, and take deliberate action towards increasing their diversity levels. These findings also support the view that, to maintain their diversity, diverse boards must have an inclusive governance approach and provide all board members with meaningful opportunities to participate in decision making processes. This study contributes to a greater understanding of how co-operative organizations can rectify the under representation of key groups within their own organizations and communities, and empower those who typically sit on the margins of economic, social and political power.