The purpose of this study was to illuminate the barriers to persistence underprepared students at the community college experience after the initial successful completion of one semester. A qualitative interview study, grounded in phenomenology, was implemented. Participants were identified through a process of purposeful selection, which included the following criteria: (a) beginning the development reading sequence at the most basic level (DEV 65) and passing that course; (b) immediately enrolling in a subsequent semester at the institution; and (c) exiting the institution before acquiring any credit-bearing English coursework. The examination of institutional archival data resulted in 42 potential participants. Participants were recruited via telephone and mail, and of the 42 attempted telephone and 39 mailed contacts, five individuals volunteered to participate in the study. Each participant was interviewed individually, with sessions varying in length between 51 and 119 minutes. Immediately after each interview was complete, the audio recording was listened to in its entirety and transcribed verbatim. The resulting transcripts were analyzed through a modified version of Devinish's (2002) applied method for phenomenological explication of interview transcripts. This involved a multi-layered process of recursive analysis beginning with line-by-line open coding, extracting 333 natural meaning units (NMU). In a second stage of analysis, the NMU were further sorted, analyzed, and grouped to arrive at 46 central themes. The third stage of analysis involved collating and grouping central themes into related fields employing a concept map to form at 13 interpretive themes. The final stage of analysis included a further examination of the 13 interpretive themes, where each was rank ordered by importance (frequency x intensity = priority) and then synthesized with data from lesser themes, which resulted in the following six explicative themes: (a) significant environmental stressors; (b) a sense of self-sufficiency and independency; (c) reading problems; (d) a belief in the power of perseverance; (e) instructor characteristics; and (f) financial aid restrictions. These six explicative themes captured the essence of what it meant for the participants to be an underprepared student at the college and identified the perceived barriers to persistence.

The purpose of the present study was to investigate response allocation amongst two concurrently available computerized slot machines, one dispensing Losses Disguised as Wins (LDWs) while the other did not. Both payouts were equal in the beginning and became consistently worst for the LDW machine by lowering the payout each phase. LDWs are slot machine outcomes, participants bet on a slot machine and win back less than their wager. This may be a problem because participants may react to LDWs as a win, misleading the participant to think they are winning more than they actually are. In the present study the LDW outcome payout started at 80 percent payback and decrease by 20 percent each phase and non LDW, maintained at 400 percent payback over 12 percent of the trials. Twenty individuals were recruited by the researcher. Results indicated that a higher percentages of spins were allocated to the machine dispensing LDW. These results suggest that gamblers have a preference for LDW machines because of the reinforcement of the misleading factors that may indicated a win. Keywords: Gambling, LDW, slot machine, visual basic

Submitted by Ana Valéria de Jesus Moura (anavaleria_131@hotmail.com) on 2014-07-24T20:49:40Z No. of bitstreams: 1 TeseDoutoradoRafaelXerez.pdf: 1871413 bytes, checksum: 2a682bb2ba0ffc4094ef064471a871d5 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Ana Valéria de Jesus Moura (anavaleria_131@hotmail.com) on 2014-07-24T20:49:51Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 TeseDoutoradoRafaelXerez.pdf: 1871413 bytes, checksum: 2a682bb2ba0ffc4094ef064471a871d5 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2014-07-24T20:49:51Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 TeseDoutoradoRafaelXerez.pdf: 1871413 bytes, checksum: 2a682bb2ba0ffc4094ef064471a871d5 (MD5) / A concretização de direito fundamental consiste na transposição do direito fundamental enquanto “dever ser”, contido na norma, para a condição de “ser”, manifestado como conduta efetivamente praticada. Concretizar direito fundamental significa, portanto, transformá-lo em realidade. A concretização de direitos fundamentais envolve aspectos teóricos, os quais buscam estabelecer os fundamentos para efetivação dos direitos fundamentais, bem como aspectos práticos, voltados à interpretação e aplicação das normas de direito fundamental. Dessa forma, pode-se definir a concretização dos direitos fundamentais como o conjunto de ideias e práticas orientadas à atribuição de máxima eficácia às normas de direito fundamental, com a finalidade de efetivação destes direitos. É possível identificar quatro dimensões distintas da concretização dos direitos fundamentais, quais sejam: a) dimensão teórica, b) dimensão metódica, c) dimensão fática e d) dimensão estética. Estas dimensões existem simultaneamente e encontram-se imbricadas. A compreensão da concretização dos direitos fundamentais, portanto, depende da análise destas dimensões, consideradas não como elementos isolados, mas como partes indissociáveis de um mesmo fenômeno. Em sua dimensão teórica, a concretização dos direitos fundamentais consiste na teoria que compreende as normas de direito fundamental como normas de conduta dotadas de aplicabilidade imediata, incidentes sobre as relações mantidas com a Administração Pública e entre particulares. Esta dimensão fornece os fundamentos teóricos necessários à atividade de interpretação/aplicação das normas de direito fundamental. Em face da natureza prática do direito, a concretização dos direitos fundamentais não pode ser limitada a uma dimensão teórica. De nada adiantaria a construção de uma teoria da concretização dos direitos fundamentais se esta não fosse acompanhada de um método de interpretação/aplicação das normas de direito fundamental capaz de efetivá-los no caso concreto. Em sua dimensão metódica, a concretização dos direitos fundamentais pode ser entendida como o método para interpretação/aplicação das normas de direito fundamental, compreendidas como normas de conduta, dotadas de aplicabilidade imediata, que possibilita a construção da norma do caso concreto com fundamento naquelas. A concretização dos direitos fundamentais não poder ser analisada, exclusivamente, sob uma perspectiva normativa dissociada da realidade. Em sua dimensão fática, a concretização dos direitos fundamentais pode ser compreendida como as condutas humanas efetivamente praticadas que materializam posições subjetivas de vantagem abstratamente previstas em normas de direito fundamental. A concretização dos direitos fundamentais não resulta de uma operação lógico-dedutiva, mas, antes, manifesta-se como um ato expressivo capaz de gerar uma experiência estética. A experiência estética produzida pela norma jurídica resultante da aplicação de norma de direito fundamental consiste na dimensão estética da concretização dos direitos fundamentais. Sob uma perspectiva estética, os espíritos apolíneo e dionisíaco, juntos e harmonizados, deverão inspirar o aplicador da norma jurídica na construção da norma do caso concreto. Somente com o equilíbrio entre norma e vida, segurança e liberdade, Apolo e Dionísio, é possível a concretização dos direitos fundamentais. Alcançado este intento, o direito torna-se arte e a justiça, realidade.

This dissertation deals with processes how to work with applications of office package by Microsoft Office from the ambience of NET Framework through the programming language Visual Basic.NET. These processes are used to develop the application for calibration of balance. The result of this application is a calibration sheet as a document of Microsoft Word text editor and a workbook of spreadsheet Microsoft Excel comparing calculations in the application with formulas of spreadsheet Excel.

The aim of this study was to reveal mechanisms of pH change in wood ant nests. Contents of basic cations and glucose brought in ant food, i.e., honeydew and prey, into the nests were measured. Manipulation experiment was carried out to test effects of glucose and Ca2+ cations brought by ants into the nest on increase in pH.

Bakgrund: Hjärt-kärlsjukdomar är den vanligaste orsaken till död och ateroskleros är den dominerande formen av hjärtkärlsjukdomar. Risken att drabbas av ateroskleros ökar hos kvinnor efter menopaus och därför undersöks det om östrogen kan skydda mot ateroskleros. Syfte: Syftet med studien var att undersöka om ateroskleros kan behandlas med östrogen hos postmenopausala kvinnor. Metod: Metoden som användes i litteraturarbetet var litteratursökningar i databasen Pubmed. Begränsningar till sökningar gjordes genom att endast kliniska studier från år 2012 eller efter användes. Sökord ” estrogen atherosclerosis” och ”estrogen LDL” användes. För att välja artiklar lästes deras abstract igenom för att sedan se om några artiklar besvarade litteraturstudiens frågeställning. Det var 5 artiklar som valdes ut och analyserades. Resultat: Östrogenbehandling till postmenopausala kvinnor ledde till att LDL minskade och HDL ökade. För att mäta aterosklerosutveckling användes förändringshastigheten i förtjockningen av halspulsådern vilket är ett mått på CIMT. För att mäta CIMT användes ultraljud. En förändring i CIMT sågs enbart i 1 av 4 studier. För att mäta inflammation användes C-reaktivt protein (CRP). CRP-nivåerna ökade i 2 av 3 studier. Diskussion: De olika studierna visar att effekten av östrogenbehandling är dosberoende. Förhållandet mellan det dåliga och goda kolesterolet förbättrades. Också inflammationsbenägenheten ökade samtidigt som CIMT inte förändrades så mycket. Aterosklerosbehandling bör minska CIMT vilket östrogenbehandlingen misslyckas att göra. Östrogenbehandlingen höjde CRP och denna ökning speglar istället en ökad, inte minskad, inflammation och den ökningen innebär att östrogen i så fall kan vara en trolig riskfaktor för aterosklerosutveckling. Slutsats: Slutsatsen som dras i detta arbete är att ateroskleros inte kan behandlas med östrogen. De sammanfattade resultaten visar till del att östrogenbehandling gör att CRP ökar och östrogen kan inte heller, på ett övertygande sätt, minska CIMT. De gynnsamma förändringar av östrogen som ses i halterna HDL- och LDL-kolesterol verkar, enligt resultatet, inte ha den nyckelroll i aterosklerosutvecklingen som tidigare studier visat utan det är troligen istället inflammationen som spelar den rollen. Dagens behandling baseras på att förändra kolesterolvärdet samt LDL och HDL och de statiner som idag används har som sidoeffekt att minska inflammationen. Resultatet i detta arbete är hämtade från endast fem artiklar och det behövs fler studier för att helt kunna utvärdera effekten av östrogenbehandling i samband med aterosklerosutveckling. / Background: The most common reason in the Western world for death is cardiovascular disease and atherosclerosis is the predominant form of cardiovascular disease. The risk of atherosclerosis for women when they reach menopaus and therefore estrogen therapy is evaluated as treatment for atherosclerosis. Aim: The aim of this study was to examine the effects of estrogens on the progress of atherosclerosis and if atherosclerosis can be treated with estrogen in postmenopausal women. Method: The method used in this study was literature searches in the database Pubmed. Limitations to the searches were made by only using clinical trials published after year 2012. Key words “estrogen atherosclerosis” and “estrogen LDL” were used. To choose articles the abstract was read through to see if any of the articles answered the purpose of this study and five articles was chosen thereby for further evalution. Results: The results from the studies were that LDL-cholesterol decreased and HDL-cholesterol increased with estrogen therapy. The rate of change in the carotid intima-media thickness, CIMT, were used as a mesure of the atherosclerosis. A change in the rate of CIMT was found only in one out of four studies. The inflammation was measured by using C-reactive protein (CRP). CRP levels increased in two out of three studies.  Discussion: The different study show that the effects of estrogen therapy are dose-dependent. The ratio between LDL and HDL was improved which indicates better cholesterol levels. The inflammation was increased and very small effects on CIMT were seen. Treatment for atherosclerosis should decrease the rate of change of CIMT which estrogen therapy failed to do. Estrogen treatment increased CRP and this increase reflects an increased, not decreased, inflammation and the increase means that estrogen could likely be a factor of risk for developing atherosclerosis. Conclusion: The conclusion from this study is that atherosclerosis cannot be treated with estrogen. The results showed that estrogen treatment increased CRP and did not lead to a clinically significant decrease in CIMT. LDL and HDL levels as measured in this study could not be correlated to the development of atherosclerosis. It is instead likely that the inflammation has an important role in the development of atherosclerosis. Atherosclerosis is most often treated by statins nowadays, which on top of improving cholesterol blood levels also have anti-inflammatory effects. This literature study is based only on five studies, and more study needs to be done to be able to clarify the different effects of estrogen therapy on atherosclerosis.

Submitted by Israel Vieira Neto (israel.vieiraneto@ufpe.br) on 2015-03-06T16:34:43Z No. of bitstreams: 2 TESE NATASHA DE ANDRADE FALCÃO.pdf: 623803 bytes, checksum: b07a48408c98f9cf1d9500fcd1b3e377 (MD5) license_rdf: 1232 bytes, checksum: 66e71c371cc565284e70f40736c94386 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2015-03-06T16:34:43Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 TESE NATASHA DE ANDRADE FALCÃO.pdf: 623803 bytes, checksum: b07a48408c98f9cf1d9500fcd1b3e377 (MD5) license_rdf: 1232 bytes, checksum: 66e71c371cc565284e70f40736c94386 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-08-13 / CNPq / This study intends to provide a comprehensive analysis of the decentralization of basic public education in Brazil. It uses as reference the implementation of FUNDEF - Fund for Maintenance and Development of the Fundamental Education and Valorization of Teaching - to identify the impact of the decentralization on the students’ performance, as well as on the school’s efficiency. For this, a panel data from the school census between 1996 and 2006 is used. First, the impact of decentralization on students’ performance - failure, dropout and age-grade distortion rates - is estimated through the use of differencesin- differences models. An analysis on how the different local conditions might affect these results is also presented. After this, the efficiency of municipal and state schools is compared using a double bootstrap procedure that takes into account the effects of the local context on the estimated efficiency scores. Results indicate that there was an increase in failure rates and, more importantly, these results might be affected by local characteristics such as city size and political participation. Related to the efficiency estimations, results indicate that state schools are relatively more efficient and, local conditions would impact differently the efficiency of these two school types.

Orientador : Celio Cardoso Guimarães / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Matematica, Estatistica e Ciencia da Computação / Made available in DSpace on 2018-07-15T02:31:21Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Cetolo_MariaTerezaAzevedo_M.pdf: 1424263 bytes, checksum: 72c7c54716150e70a15545e8dc25a7a9 (MD5) Previous issue date: 1980 / Resumo: Neste trabalho é descrita a implementação de um sistema multi usuário ("Time sharing") em torno da linguagem BASIC escrito em linguagem de montagem do Intel 8080. São elaboradas as modificações no interpretador para torná-lo reentrante as estruturas de dados para compartilhamento de memória, o sistema de escalonamento do processador e as rotinas de Entrada/Saída para interface com o "hardware" e com o sistema de arquivos do COBRA 400 / Abstract: This paper describes an implementation of a BASIC time-sharing system an a COBRA-400. The system was developed starting from a BASIC Interpreter written in Intel 8080 Assembly/language. We describe the changes in the interpreter in order to make it reentrant, the data structures for sharing memory among user processes and the scheduler organization. Input/Output / routines were also rewritten for compatibility with the COBRA-400 hardware and file system / Mestrado / Mestre em Ciência da Computação

Livsformerna på jorden delas systematiskt in i de tre domänerna bakterier, arkéer och eukaryoter. Arkéer är de mikroorganismer som lever i extrema miljöer såsom hetvattenkällor, sjöar med hög salthalt och i miljöer med extrema pH-värden. De kan existera i miljöer där inga andra organismer överlever men förekommer även rikligt överallt runtomkring oss, exempelvis i människans mage och som normalflora i munnen. Vissa bakterier och arkéer har genen för enzymet ammoniak monooxygenas (AMO). Detta enzym spelar en viktig roll vid rening av avloppsvatten genom att oxidera ammonium till nitrit. Syftet med detta examensarbete har varit att detektera arkéer i prover av aktivt slam vilket gjordes genom att optimera en Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) baserad metod. Först pelleterades slamproverna via centrifugering för att kunna preparera DNA. Detta DNA användes som templat för optimering av PCR med specifika primers för AMO genen hos arkéer. De PCR produkter som erhölls från det optimerade programmet klonades och transformerades in i Escherichia coli. Därefter sekvenserades PCR produkterna för att identifiera vilka ammonium oxiderande arkéer som fanns i proverna. De amplifierade gensekvenserna visade god överensstämmelse med den förväntade nukleotidsekvensen för arkéer. Samtliga gensekvenser passade bäst in på icke odlingsbara arkéer enligt databasen BLAST. Genom att välja bort icke odlingsbara arkéer i sökningen kunde arkéen Nitrosopumilus maritimus identifieras, vilket är en av få odlade arkéer med AMO-genen sekvens bestämd.

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