Today, the web is constantly growing, expanding global information space and more and more data is being processed and sourced online. The amount of electronically accessible and available online information is overwhelming. Increasingly, recommendation systems, which engage in some form of automated personalisation, are hugely prevalent on the web and have been extensively studied in the research literature. Several issues still remain unsolved including high sparsity situation and cold starts (how to recommend content to users who have had little or no prior interaction with the system). Recent work has demonstrated a potential solution in the form of cross-domain user modeling. This thesis will explore the design, implementation and testing of a cross-domain approach using social media data to model rich and effective user preferences and provide empirical evidence of the effectiveness of the approach based on direct real-world user feedback, deconstructing a cross-system news recommendation service where user models are generated via social media data. This will be accomplished by identifying the availability of a source domain from which to draw resources for recommendations and the availability of user profiles that capture a wide range of user interests from different domains. This thesis also demonstrates the viability of generating user models from social media data and evidences that the automated cross-domain approach can be superior to explicit filtering using self-declared preferences and can be further augmented when placing the user with the ability to maintain control over such models. The reasons for these results are qualitatively examined in order to understand why such effects occur, indicating that different models are capturing widely different areas within a user's preference space.

abstract: The rise of print book culture in sixteenth-century England had profound effects on understandings of identity that are reflected in the prose, poetry, and drama of the age. Drawing on assemblage and actor-network theory, this dissertation argues that models of identity constructed in relation to books in Renaissance England are neither static nor self-contained, arising instead out of a collaborative engagement with books as physical objects that tap into historically specific cultural discourses. Renaissance representations of book usage blur the boundary between human beings and their books, both as textual carriers and as physical artifacts. The first chapter outlines the relationship between book history and assemblage theory to examine how books contribute to the assembly of the human subject in different ways for readers, owners, and authors and to lay a theoretical and historical foundation for reading cultural assemblages in later chapters. The second chapter studies how authors and sometimes printers attempt as makers of books to construct public identities through them. The chapter focuses on how Edmund Spenser’s Shepheardes Calender and Isabella Whitney’s poetry anthologies play with texts and paratexts in order to create the illusion of control over the resulting authorial persona, even while acknowledging that the book itself is a deterritorialized element of their own identities with particular agencies of its own. The third chapter investigates how Renaissance drama represents human beings using books to curate their identity assemblages both publicly and inwardly, particularly as depicted in the work of Thomas Kyd, William Shakespeare, and the author of Arden of Faversham. The successes and failures of these assemblages on the stage reflect anxieties about the book as an agentive object in an assembled identity. The fourth chapter examines the prose work of Philip Sidney, Roger Ascham, and Fulke Greville, considering the obsession with travel books and writing as a reflection of wider notions about the permeability and possible contamination by foreign influences of the self constructed through books and writings related to travel. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation English 2015

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico / Este estudo teve como temática a escolarização no sistema socioeducativo brasileiro. Buscou-se a partir de bibliografia especializada efetuar a análise da escolarização de adolescentes em conflito com a lei em cumprimento de medida socioeducativa de internação, ou seja, privados de liberdade. A dissertação foi construída prioritariamente a partir de documentos acadêmicos disponibilizadas no portal da CAPES e em sites de universidades brasileiras. Buscou-se realizar um balanço da produção científica sobre o tema no país, tendo como recorte os textos produzidos na área de concentração educação. O período temporal foi delimitado entre janeiro de 2010 e maio de 2015. A produção analisada é composta por 20 dissertações de mestrado e três teses de doutorado, totalizando 23 documentos acadêmicos. Após a seleção, os documentos foram sistematizados através do instrumento metodológico de pesquisa, Mapa Conceitual, e posteriormente, pelo software ATLAS.ti, o que colaborou para análise e comparação dos documentos estudados, permitindo identificar os temas discutidos, os autores utilizados e as temáticas e subtemáticas pouco estudadas ou não mencionadas no que tange a escolarização de adolescentes internados. O objetivo central do estudo foi analisar de que modo os documentos acadêmicos acessados apresentavam a escolarização dos adolescentes em cumprimento de medida socioeducativa de internação. Percebeu-se que a escola acaba sendo, equivocadamente, responsabilizada pelo caráter pedagógico e educativo proposto pela socioeducação. Verificou-se que a escolarização para adolescentes institucionalizados em unidades socioeducativas de privação de liberdade apresenta todas as mazelas da escolarização extra-muros, e incorpora, na maioria das vezes, aspectos punitivos, repressivos e disciplinares das unidades de internação. A escolarização não tem sido realizada de forma a garantir esse direito aos adolescentes. O estudo sinalizou os encaminhamentos nacionais para a promulgação das Diretrizes Nacionais para a escolarização em unidades socioeducativas, que tendem a amenizar a situação. Ao escamotear a má qualidade da escola e negar o direito a uma educação escolar qualitativa, entende-se que os adolescentes vivenciam o não direito à escolarização, restando a estes apenas a inclusão precária no sistema de ensino, e posteriormente, o processo de culpabilização da vítima, pautado em um discurso meritocrático, que reafirma o adolescente como desinteressado pela escola, incapaz de seguir seu processo de escolarização e mal comportado, pois interessado apenas em novos atos infracionais. / This study hadas theme the schooling in the brazilian socio-educational system. From of specialized literature was done the analysis of schooling of adolescents in conflict with the law who were in fulfillment of the internment social-educational institution, in other words, deprived of freedom. The dissertation was concluded priority from of academics documents available on portal of CAPES in the sites of brazilian university. We sought to realize a balance of the scientific production about the thematic in the country. We selected mainly the texts done in the educational area. The period was delimitated between January 2010 and may 2015. The production analyzed is composed to 20 masters of dissertation and three doctoral theses, totalizing 23 academics documents. After the selection, the documents were systematized through of methodological tools of research, Conceptual Map, and then, was used the ATLAS.ti software, it collaborated to analyze and comparison of the documents studied, identifying the discussed themes, the used authors and the thematic and sub thematic little studied or not mentioned with regard the schooling of interns adolescents. The main objective of this study was consider how the accessed the academic documents presenting the schooling of the adolescents in fulfillment of the internmentsocial educational institution. It was perceived that the schoolhas been liable the pedagogical and educational proposed by socioeducacional. It was found that the schooling to adolescents institutionalized in socio-educational unitsof deprived freedom presents all the ills of schooling extramural, and incorporates, a lot of time, punitive aspects, repressive and disciplinarians of internmentof units. The schooling have not been realized to ensure this right to adolescents.This study signalized national referrals to the enactment of the National Guidelines to schooling in socio educational units, which tend to soften this situation. To hide the low quality of the school and deny the rights to qualitative schooling, it understands that the adolescents experience the lack rights to schooling, leaving these only the precarious inclusion in the education system, and posteriorly, the process of victim guilt, based on meritocratic discourse, that reaffirms the adolescent as disinterested to school, incapable to follow own process of schooling and badly behaved, because only interested in new infractions.

This paper is a balance of the Peruvian economic policies, taken by government inthe last decade. We focus on determining, based on the available literature, whetheror not these polices have improved the economic well-being of poor people. Furthermore,this balance allow us to give the agenda for future research on these areas, aswell as to shed some light about the pro-poor necessary policies. There are several policies that have been taken into account in this balance. Macroeconomicpolicies; trade and investment policies; specific sector promotion policies(agriculture, industry and mining sector); labor (both formal and informal), capitaland land markets; regulation of goods and services markets (telecommunications andelectricity); taxation policies; public expenditure; security and risk management mechanismsand, finally, regional policies. / La década de 1990, en el Perú, estuvo marcada por un conjunto de profundos cambios en materia de política económica. Este trabajo hace un balance de las políticas económicas tomadas en función de su contribución al empeoramiento o mejoramiento del nivel de vida de los pobres. Asimismo, este balance nos permite arrojar algunas luces acerca de las políticas necesarias, así como darnos cuenta de cuáles son los temas no abordados y las investigaciones pendientes para los futuros años de investigación. Las políticas consideradas se refieren a la política macroeconómica; el comercio internacional y la inversión; las políticas sectoriales (sector agrícola, industrial y minero); los mercados de trabajo (formal e informal), capital y tierras para zonas urbanas y rurales; la regulación de los mercados de bienes y servicios (telecomunicaciones y electricidad); la tributación; el gasto público; la seguridad y los mecanismos de manejo de riesgos y, por último, las políticas regionales.

Resumo Introdução: Desde meados da década de 1980 existem evidências científicas sólidas para que a episiotomia não seja praticada de modo rotineiro, porém, ela continua sendo amplamente realizada, no Brasil inclusive. A alfabetização em saúde compreende a capacidade de buscar informações e convertê-las em ações. Os livros para gestantes comercializados no país podem ou não contribuir para a alfabetização em saúde da mulher no que se refere à episiotomia. Objetivo: Descrever o conteúdo relativo à episiotomia de livros sobre gravidez e parto disponíveis no Brasil e analisar seus possíveis efeitos de sentido. Métodos: Foram selecionados 11 livros sobre gravidez publicados no Brasil a partir de buscas em lojas virtuais. Todo o conteúdo sobre episiotomia foi destacado para leitura. Conforme aporte teórico de Patrick Charaudeau, esse conteúdo foi descrito quanto a identificação e qualificação da episiotomia, qualificação de seus riscos e benefícios e qualificação das alternativas à episiotomia. Resultados: Apenas quatro livros mencionam a episiotomia, que é identificada também como corte, incisão, procedimento, intervenção, entre outros termos. De modo geral, a episiotomia é qualificada quanto ao que ela supostamente evita, a lesão perineal, que seria também um dos seus principais benefícios, segundo as obras analisadas, o que não condiz com as evidências científicas. Os riscos da episiotomia, quando abordados, são minimizados e os métodos de proteção do períneo raramente são expostos. Os livros analisados refletem o atual panorama da assistência ao parto no Brasil, em que a episiotomia ou é um procedimento invisível ou tem seus efeitos adversos minimizados ou mesmo ignorados. Conclusão: O discurso das obras está descolado das evidências científicas no que se refere à episiotomia. Os textos analisados reforçam a posição do médico como detentor do conhecimento e não contribuem para a alfabetização em saúde da mulher. / Abstract Introduction: Since the mid-1980s, there has been sound scientific evidence showing that episiotomy should not be used on a routine basis, even though its use largely persists to this day, including in Brazil. Health literacy means the ability to search for information and convert it into action. Childbirth and pregnancy books sold in Brazil may or may not help improve womens health literacy regarding episiotomy. Objective: To describe the content of books about pregnancy and childbirth which are available in Brazil, mainly as far as episiotomy is concerned, and to analyze their possible meaning effects. Methods: Eleven childbirth books published in Brazil were selected from online stores. All the content related to episiotomy was highlighted for further reading. As proposed by Patrick Charaudeau, the texts highlighted were described as to identification and qualification of episiotomy, qualification of episiotomy risks and benefits and qualification of alternative methods. Results: Only four books mention episiotomy, and it is also referred to as cut, incision, procedure, intervention, among other designations. Altogether, episiotomy is qualified as to what it is supposed to prevent, perineal tear. According to the literature analyzed, the prevention of perineal tear would be one of the main benefits from episiotomy, which does not match the evidence. Whenever mentioned, risks of episiotomy are understated and the protection of the perineum through alternative methods is stated scarcely. The books analyzed reflect the current state of Brazils childbirth practices, where episiotomy is either invisible or has its side effects either understated or disregarded. Conclusion: The books discourse regarding episiotomy is not supported by scientific evidence. The texts analyzed reinforce the physicians authority as knowledge keeper and do not help improve womens health literacy.

The location of the available research literature and its relationship to the pedagogy of the female high voice is the subject of this thesis. The nature and pedagogy of the female high voice are described in the first four chapters. The next two chapters discuss maintenance of the voice in conventional and experimental repertoire. Chapter seven is a summary of all the pedagogy. The last chapter is a comparison of the nature and the pedagogy of the female high voice with recommended areas for further research. For instance, more information is needed to understand the acoustic factors of vibrato, singer's formant, and high energy levels in the female high voice.

In this study I present an analysis of the structures of four works by Sir Thomas More: The History of Richard III, the 'Dialogue of Counsel' in Book I of Utopia, The Dialogue Concerning Heresies, and The Dialogue of Comfort in Tribulation. My basic thesis is that Thomas More was a superb literary artist and a master of the art of literary dialogue, and that beneath the often apparently rambling and digressive surface of each of these literary works, there is a 'deep structure' that is highly coherent and even tightly organised. I also show that More's use of dialogue in each of the three dialogues is genuinely dialectical—that the individual speakers in the three literary dialogues make a genuine contribution to thedevelopment of the argument—and that the movement from speaker to speaker in the History of Richard III is also genuinely dialectical— anticipating the art of the three later dialogues. To this end I have provided an interpretive reading/analysis of each of the works, focussing on More's "art of dialogue" in the passages of direct and indirect speech in Richard III, and in the dialogues between Hythloday and Persona More in Book I of Utopia, between Chancellor More and the Messenger in the Dialogue Concerning Heresies, and between Vincent and Anthony in the Dialogue of Comfort. The thesis also includes a major bibliographical appendix, consisting of about two thousand items of More scholarship organised according to topic. (The Bibliography is quite comprehensive covering all of More's works and also background studies and biographies.) The appendix is provided both as part of my argument and as a tool for further research. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

The rapid growth of touchscreen mobile devices has opened up many new opportunities for exploring Content-based Image Retrieval (CBIR) techniques, e.g., it has enabled the development of intuitive and natural user interfaces to facilitate the Query-by-Drawing (QbD) image search paradigm. Although ubiquitous mobile computing holds the promise of drastically changing the ways users search for images from large image repositories, there is yet no comprehensive and systematic study that examines the factors that influence the usability, user behaviours and task performance of a QbD image search mobile application (App). No guidelines and principles exist for designing fundamental user interface components such as the colour picker and little is known how its different designs affect system usability and task performance. Little research exists that examines how different user interface designs affect the ways users draw the queries and how users go about the search process for different types of tasks. The questions of whether or not it is possible or how well users can perform QbD image search by drawing from memory of previously-seen images are unexplored. An understanding of these questions is very important and useful in the development of effective and user-friendly systems for a QbD image search App on touchscreen mobile devices. This PhD project attempts to answer these questions and more by examining the factors that influence the usability and task performance of a QbD painting search mobile application. Starting with a comprehensive literature review and current mobile App review of various related fields, we first designed and implemented a Client-Server painting search mobile App based on an existing CBIR algorithm as the research platform for collecting empirical data; we then conducted a focus group study from whose findings we re-designed the user interfaces of our QbD App. An online survey about art preference was carried out, and we designed four comprehensive user studies and recruited a total of 123 participants to take part in the experiments. Both qualitative and quantitative measures are collected and analysed to discover the various factors that influence the usability and task performance of the interface designs of a QbD image search mobile App and the memory drawing over time. Finally, we made recommendations and suggestions on the design and implementation of various interface components of the QbD image search mobile App based on our findings. This thesis presents the following contributions summarised as: 1) We build a flexible platform that can be used for research in drawing-related fields, such as a new QbD technique or interface tests and psychological study. 2)We present a comprehensive and systematic review of the methods and techniques related to the investigation of QbD image search mobile App. 3) We propose a new way of categorising colour picker: ‘1D-1D-1D’, ‘1D-2D’, and ‘3D’ colour picker. 4) The rationales of choosing stimuli are proposed and a real-world painting database is built. 5) We also develop a variety of novel methodologies for experimental design, data collection and data analysis, and we formulated a new protocol for assessing drawing accuracy and search result. 6) We propose some colour picker design guidelines through a series of experiments and the analysis of comprehensive experimental data. 7) Although indeed memory decays over time, we found the participants are able to draw from the memory of a painting with simple compositional structure (6-7 colour blobs), even for the paintings viewed a month ago. And finally, 8) the experiments also provide valuable insights into how general users draw and modify a query, and judge the result relevance for different tasks on mobile phones, as well as search pattern and memorisation strategy, which also extend a scientific understanding of using current Query-by-Drawing techniques for real world image search.

We briefly motivate and present a new online bibliography on schema evolution, an area which has recently gained much interest in both research and practice.

More than 200 compositions have been written for solo trombone and organ since the nineteenth century, including contributions from notable composers such as Franz Liszt, Gustav Holst, Gardner Read, Petr Eben, and Jan Koetsier. This repertoire represents a significant part of the solo literature for the trombone, but it is largely unknown to both trombonists and organists. The purpose of this document is to provide a historical perspective of this literature from the nineteenth century to the present, to compile a complete bibliography of compositions for trombone and organ, and to determine the current state of performance of this repertoire. This current state of performance has been determined through an internet survey, a study of recital programs printed in the ITA Journal, a study of recordings of this literature, and interviews and correspondence with well-known performers of these compositions. It is the intention of this author that this document will serve to make the repertoire for trombone and organ more accessible and more widely known to both trombonists and organists.