Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1973. / Transcript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliography.

Thèse (M.A.)--Université Laval, 2004. / Bibliogr.: f. 198-208. Publié aussi en version électronique.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Illinois State University, 1995. / Title from title page screen, viewed May 2, 2006. Dissertation Committee: John A. Dossey (chair), Stephen H. Friedberg, Beverly S. Rich, Kenneth Strand, Jane O. Swafford. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 93-97) and abstract. Also available in print.

While there is extensive research on adult conceptualisations of mental illness, as well as on children’s understanding of physical health and illness, research on children’s conceptualisations of mental illness is limited. The primary aim of this thesis is to provide a detailed account of children’s and adolescents’ conceptualisations of depression. In the first study, individual semi-structured interviews with primary school pupils (N=105) from two age groups (mean ages: 8.9 and 11.8 years) were conducted, with the use of depression and control vignettes, to elicit children’s depression concepts, help-seeking intentions and desired social distance. Children’s depression conceptualisations were organised according to the common-sense model of illness representations (CSM). Quantitative content analysis was performed to allow for descriptive analysis; in turn, inferential statistics were used to examine age, gender and self-reported direct and indirect experience differences. Children differentiated between depression and control vignettes, however did not spontaneously label depression or recognised the mental health nature of difficulties. Children provided a wide variety of possible causes that reflected common risk factors for depression, primarily referring to interpersonal factors. Children considered negative consequences of untreated depression, and identified that depressed characters need help. They suggested numerous sources of help, which were mainly informal. Children considered depression to be curable and would seek help primarily from parents if depressed. Older children showed more sophisticated conceptualisations of depression. No substantial gender or experience differences were found. Subsequently, a single session school-based mental health literacy intervention on adolescent depression, adapted from an intervention created by NHS mental health professionals, was developed, using the mental health literacy and CSM frameworks. The second study consists of a pilot evaluation of the intervention, using a controlled before and after design, to examine the effect of the intervention on young people’s depression literacy, help-seeking and help-providing intentions as well as social distance. Young people’s depression literacy was measured by the Adolescent Concepts of Depression Questionnaire (ACDQ), developed for the purposes of this study. Exploratory factor analysis was conducted to indicate the factor structure of the ACDQ, which was in turn used to examine participants’ baseline depression literacy and the effect of age, gender, current depressive symptomatology and direct/ indirect experience with depression and other mental illness (Study 2a). In turn, the effectiveness of the intervention is presented (Study 2b). 339 adolescents (mean age: 13.4 years, 168 female) were allocated to either the intervention (N=171) or a control group (N=168), and completed the ACDQ one week before and following the intervention. Mixed results were found for gender, depressive symptoms and experience differences. Mixed ANOVA was conducted between time and group; the results show that the intervention was effective in informing young people’s depression literacy (ACDQ total score), and specifically in young people’s knowledge of treatment options for depression (treatment subscale), perceived curability of depression (curability subscale), symptom recognition, help-seeking and help-providing intentions. No significant improvements were found for social distance, perceived helpfulness of sources of help, and two of the ACDQ subscales. The contribution of this thesis lies upon the detailed examination of children and adolescent depression conceptualisations, adding to the limited evidence base, especially in children’s mental health literacy. The pilot evaluation of the intervention is promising, and upon re-evaluation could be standardised and implemented in Scottish schools. Implications for clinical practice and mental health literacy are also discussed.

abstract: People may conceptualize God as benevolent and as authoritarian. This research investigates the influence of these God-concepts on prosocial behavior; specifically whether such concepts differentially predict a set of beliefs about the self and the world, volunteer motivations, and intentions to volunteer for secular causes. Two studies, one correlation and one experimental, were conducted among college students who were Christians and indicated they believe that God exists. A measurement model of the concepts of Benevolent and Authoritarian God was first tested, and a conceptual path model was then analyzed. I found that concepts of a benevolent God were associated with a benevolent self-identity, perceived moral and religious obligations to help, and a high sense of personal responsibility with a total positive indirect effect on intentions to volunteer - mainly via internal motivations. In contrast, concepts of an authoritarian God were associated with a perceived religious obligation, having a positive indirect effect on intentions to volunteer via external motivations; but also with a low benevolent self-identity and low personal responsibility associated with amotivation (the disinclination to volunteer). Thus, there was a null total indirect effect of belief in an authoritarian God on intentions to volunteer. Future directions including the use of religious primes are discussed. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Psychology 2012

The classification task requires learning a decision boundary between classes by making use of training examples from each. A potential challenge for this task is the class imbalance problem, which occurs when there are many training instances available for a single class, the majority class, and few training instances for the other, the minority class [58]. In this case, it is no longer clear how to separate the majority class from something for which we have little to no knowledge. More worrying, often the minority class is the class of interest, e.g. for detecting abnormal conditions from streaming sensor data. The one-class classification (OCC) paradigm addresses this scenario by casting the task as learning a decision boundary around the majority class with no need for minority class instances [110]. OCC has been thoroughly investigated, e.g. [20, 60, 90, 110], and many one-class classifiers have been proposed. One approach for improving one-class classifier performance on static data sets is learning in the context of concepts: the majority class is broken down into its constituent sub-concepts and a classifier is induced over each [100]. Modern machine learning research, however, is concerned with data streams: where potentially infinite amounts of data arrive quickly and need to be processed as they arrive. In these cases it is not possible to store all of the instances in memory, nor is it practical to wait until “the end of the data stream” before learning. An example is network intrusion detection: detecting an attack on the computer network should occur as soon as practicable. Many one-class classifiers for data streams have been described in the literature, e.g. [33, 108], and it is worth investigating whether the approach of learning in the context of concepts can be successfully applied to the OCC task for data streams as well. This thesis identifies that the idea of breaking the majority class into subconcepts to simplify the OCC problem has been demonstrated for static data sets, [100], but has not been applied in data streams. The primary contribution to the literature made by this thesis is the identification of how the majority class’s sub-concept structure can be used to improve the classification performance of streaming one-class classifiers while mitigating the challenges posed by the data stream environment. Three frameworks are developed, each using this knowledge to a different degree. These are applied with a selection of streaming one-class classifiers to both synthetic and benchmark data streams with performance compared to that of the one-class classifier learning independently. These results are analyzed and it is shown that scenarios exist where knowledge of sub-concepts can be used to improve one-class classifier performance.

The subject of this diploma is the theory of pre-concepts and their diagnosis carried out on fifth grade students of elementary schools. The theoretical part of this diploma contains chapters related to the constructivist teaching methods, the role of a teacher and students in such teaching method, theory of pre-concepts and their diagnosis and primary education in relation to the subject technical education. The practical part of this diploma focuses on the diagnosis of pre-concepts carried out by questionnaire in which several diagnostical methods have been used unfinished sentences, mind maps and scaling. Afterwards its results have been processed and expressed in transparent diagrams and charts.

A preocupação com a questão ambiental vem, nas últimas décadas, ganhando cada vez mais espaço para discussão, deixando de pertencer apenas a uma ou outra área do conhecimento formal para invadir todas as instâncias sociais e do saber, mesmo aquele saber que não goza de um estatuto científico, como acontece com a chamada “Ciência ambiental”. Dessa forma, os conceitos ambientais fazem parte de um universo muito amplo de indivíduos, que representam os mais variados grupos e interesses, fato que por si só já caracteriza importância dessa questão. A presente dissertação trata dos principais conceitos ambientais utilizados em instituições pública, privada e não-governamental buscando estabelecer as possíveis semelhanças e/ou divergências conceituais existentes no emprego dos mesmos por essas entidades e a relação com o desenvolvimento de seu trabalho. Para tanto, foram entrevistados agentes que pertencessem e representassem essas três classes operacionais. A pesquisa foi realizada em dois momentos que corresponderam à aplicação de um questionário previamente elaborado e aplicado aos agentes entrevistados por meio de entrevista e a construção de uma tabela de classificação dos resultados, respectivamente. Percebeu-se a fragmentação da realidade das relações humanas em realidade ambiental e realidade social; exclusão de abordagens e a imprecisão ou abrangência de termos conceituais. / The concern with the environmental issue has achieved, in the past decades, a larger space for discussion, broadening its range from a few areas of formal knowledge into other social and knowledge fields, including knowledge fields deprived of scientific status, as occurs with the so-called “environment science”. Thus, the environmental concepts take part in a quite broad universe of individuals, who represent a wide range of groups and interests, a fact that, per se, characterizes the importance of this issue. The present dissertation addresses the main environmental concepts used in public, private and non-governmental institutions, attempting to establish potential conceptual similarities and/or divergences existent in the employment of the same by these organizations and the relationship with the development of their work. With this purpose, agents that belong and represent these three operational classes were interviewed. The study was carried out at two moments that corresponded to the application of a previously elaborated questionnaire applied to the interviewees and the development of a table for classification of results, respectively. A fragmentation of the reality of human relations into environmental reality and social reality, exclusion of approaches, and the inaccuracy or range of conceptual terms were observed.

155 f. / Submitted by Suelen Reis (suziy.ellen@gmail.com) on 2013-05-06T17:06:04Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao Robson Mattos.pdf: 755038 bytes, checksum: 9d4c08e94e86cb08fd9344b4cece3eb3 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Maria Auxiliadora Lopes(silopes@ufba.br) on 2013-06-12T20:07:41Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao Robson Mattos.pdf: 755038 bytes, checksum: 9d4c08e94e86cb08fd9344b4cece3eb3 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2013-06-12T20:07:41Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao Robson Mattos.pdf: 755038 bytes, checksum: 9d4c08e94e86cb08fd9344b4cece3eb3 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009 / Este trabalho objetivou investigar, no cotidiano escolar de crianças de turmas do Ensino Fundamental I em uma escola da rede pública no município de Vitória da Conquista (BA), a relação dos Jogos com a construção dos conceitos Matemáticos. Este estudo de caráter qualitativo tem como respaldo teórico diversos autores, cujas produções trazem contribuições quanto aos Jogos e ao ensino da Matemática: Boyer (1974), Brenelli (1996), Brougère (2000), Chateau (1987), D‘Ambrósio (1998),Huizinga (2007), Kishimoto (2007), Kamii (2003a), Machado (1991a), Piaget (1975),Santos (2000), Vygotsky (1984), entre outros. Do ponto de vista metodológico, privilegiou-se a observação in loco, com registro fotográfico, entrevistas com as educadoras das turmas selecionadas para a pesquisa e um grupo focal, analisando como se estabelece a relação dos Jogos com o Ensino da Matemática. Destaca-se neste estudo a relação existente entre os Jogos e sua função pedagógica de aprendizagem no ensino da Matemática no contexto escolar, apresentando reflexões conceituais em torno desta relação. O estudo proporciona a compreensão da Matemática vivenciada em sala de aula, bem como possibilita a reflexão dessas educadoras sobre suas práticas pedagógicas. A análise dos achados da pesquisa possibilitou a identificação da importância pedagógica dos Jogos no Ensino da Matemática e sua contribuição na construção de conceitos nessa área, permitindo, também, a reflexão sobre a forma como os Jogos são trabalhados em sala de aula, onde, muitas vezes, são aplicados como jogos de exercícios e não como Jogos de construção. / Salvador

Field and greenhouse research was conducted in 2009 and 2010 on herbicide applications enabled by the integration of Optimum GAT crop traits providing for resistance to glyphosate and certain ALS-inhibiting herbicides. The herbicide concepts were evaluated for control of several winter and summer annual weed species, as well as the effect of the resulting weed control on grain yield of Optimum GAT soybean. The combination of chlorimuron + rimsulfuron did not provide sufficient efficacy on the winter annual grass species little barley and annual bluegrass. Factors contributing the sub-lethal activity include: 1) a relatively low inherent sensitivity of the species to these herbicides, 2) a significant reduction in herbicide efficacy with increases in weed plant height, and 3) a lack of herbicide enhancement with more aggressive foliar adjuvants. The tank-mixture of glyphosate with chlorimuron + rimsulfuron was frequently necessary to achieve a maximum herbicide activity above 90% on annual bluegrass and little barley. Optimum GAT herbicide treatments including chlorimuron + rimsulfuron + flumioxazin in field experiments provided the greatest control of horseweed and common waterhemp in glyphosate-susceptible and -resistant populations. The addition of chlorimuron + rimsulfuron to glyphosate and 2,4-D improved horseweed control above glyphosate and 2,4-D applied alone even as weed height increased with applications made closer to soybean planting. However, removal of competitive vegetation with herbicide combinations including chlorimuron + rimsulfuron selected for emergence of ALS-resistant common waterhemp. Inclusion of flumioxazin with chlorimuron + rimsulfuron was beneficial for control of common waterhemp when applied 7 days before planting. However, chlorimuron + rimsulfuron + flumioxazin provided only 80% control of common waterhemp in a glyphosate-resistant population which demonstrates opportunity for improvement in herbicide concepts enabled by Optimum GAT. Grain yield of Optimum GAT soybean was greatest for herbicide treatments which provided effective weed management throughout the growing season which were the herbicide treatments applied the closest to soybean planting (7 days before planting). Optimum GAT herbicide concepts for corn include chlorimuron + thifensulfruon + tribenuron, chlorimuron + rimsulfuron, and rimsulfuron + tribenuron + mesotrione. These herbicides provided similar to slightly increased control of annual morningglory (Ipomoea spp.) in comparison to glyphosate alone. The addition of atrazine increased the consistency of control of annual morningglory for any herbicide treatment with additional residual activity at 28 days after treatment. Optimum GAT enabled herbicide concepts can improve control of some problematic weed species, including some glyphosate-resistant weed populations, compared to current herbicide tactics that rely primarily on glyphosate for weed control in commercial glyphosate-resistant soybean and corn. However, the integration of postemergence soybean herbicides beyond the ALS chemistry is necessary to provide a broader spectrum of weed control when considering the challenges of managing both glyphosate- and ALS-resistant weed species that are becoming more frequent in commercial fields.