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Building computer agents that can utilize the meanings in the text of Web documents is a promising extension of current search technology. Concept-based information retrieval applies "intelligent" agents to identify Web documents that match user queries. A new concept-based information retrieval framework, Hybrid Ontology-based Textual Information Retrieval (HOTIR), is introduced in this thesis. HOTIR accepts conventional keyword-based queries, translates them into concept-based queries, enriches definitions of concepts with supplementary knowledge from a knowledge base, and ranks documents by aggregating "equivalent" concepts identified in them. The concept-based queries in HOTIR are organized in a hierarchy of concepts (HofC) and definitions of concepts are added from a knowledge base to enhance their meanings. The knowledge base is a modified ontology (ModOnt) that can enrich the HofC with concept definitions in the form of related-concepts, terms, their importance values, and their relations. The ModOnt relies on an adaptive assignment of term importance (AATI) scheme that continuously updates the importance of terms/concepts using Web documents. The identified concepts in a Web document that match those in the HofC are evaluated using ordered weighted averaging (OWA) operators, and documents are ranked according to the degree to which they satisfy the HofC. The case studies and experiments presented in the thesis are designed to validate the performance of HOTIR. / Computer Engineering

The purpose of this action research study is to challenge accepted practice in ESL writing with the implementation of an experimental syllabus informed by a sociocultural approach, specifically Vygotsky's (1987) assertion of the key role that awareness and control of theoretical concepts plays in cognitive development. Following Gal'perin and Davydov, the classroom approach implemented here is essentially concerned with L2 development as the internalization, appropriation and control of conceptual meaning in the context of the goal-oriented activities of teaching and learning. This research and pedagogy calls attention to the importance of the quality and sequence of instruction, in which full and explicit attention is given to an abstract conceptual framework before learners proceed to explore concrete instantiations of the abstract concepts in question.Halliday's (1978) social semiotic understanding of language, text and context was the central concept presented to a mixed ESL and native-speaking composition class, and various activities and exercises were designed in keeping with the principles guiding this 16-week research project. Learners made use of didactic models and verbalization activities, including extensive collaborative writing, as they worked with the concepts and explored the ways in which the target academic discourse reflects Halliday's theory of language in use. These concepts were then applied in the writing of research, re-writing for a new audience, and reflection papers. Writing development was tracked using T-Unit analysis, lexical density measures, rhetorical move analysis and the ratings from three expert raters, who graded the resulting papers for language use, analysis and organization. In analysis, this proficiency development is related to evidence of re-mediated thought as the students collaborate to complete the assigned writing tasks.The findings of three case studies provide general support for the implementation of concept-based instruction and a theoretical and explicit attention to requisite aspects of the target discourse in ESL writing pedagogy. There is clear evidence that the concept-based approach fosters awareness and control over relevant features of the target language necessary for successful participation in academic discourse communities.

The Institute of Medicine and the National League of Nursing have called for curricular reform that promotes high first-time pass rates on the National Counsel of Licensure Examination for Registered Nurses (NCLEX-RN). A campus in the southeastern region of the United States implemented a concept-based curriculum; however, the effect on the first-time NCLEX-RN pass rates was unknown. The purpose of this comparative study was to determine if the concept-based curriculum improved student scores on the NCLEX-RN. Dreyfus' model of learning guided this study because of the andragogy tenets, which in turn supported the concept-based curricula. The research questions examined the differences in NCLEX-RN pass rates, Diagnostic, and Readiness exam scores between students taught with a content-based and those taught with the concept-based curriculum. The chi-square test for pass rates and MANOVA for test scores was employed to analyze archival test data from 237 participants, 100 who had studied under the content-based and 137 under a concept-based curriculum. Participants included all nursing graduates from the years 2008-2014 who had taken the NCLEX-RN exam. Results indicated that concept-based curriculum had significantly better first-time pass rates on the NCLEX-RN exam (85%) than did content-based curriculum (73%). Results also indicated that the concept-based curriculum had a higher Diagnostic exam mean score (64.77) as compared to the content-based curriculum (61.19) as well as Readiness exam mean score (70.99) as compared to the content-based curriculum (61.19). Implications for positive social change include providing the research site with results that support shifting the curriculum of the nursing program to a more innovative, concept-based approach to improve exam scores and first-time pass rates.

Isaacson's (2004) dissertation chronicles the implementation of a constructivist instructional approach at Southwood Elementary School. Southwood's faculty experienced a change of principals, which the Tri-Partite Theory of Organizational Change and Succession, a theory of organizational entropy, predicts could lead to organizational entropy. This study examines the dynamics of the change in principal, as well as Isaacson's recommendation to study teachers' perceptions regarding the maintenance of the constructivist approach. This study answers three questions: 1) Are faculty still using constructivist strategies? 2) What are teacher perceptions regarding the maintenance and support of constructivist philosophy? 3) Is there congruence between what literature identifies as constructivist strategies and what teachers identify as constructivism and classroom practice? This study uses three sources. First, literature identified constructivist strategies and approaches. Second, teachers and principal were interviewed regarding an array of issues, such as their understanding constructivism, their perception of maintaining the constructivist philosophy, and student and teacher classroom roles. Third, classrooms were observed and scored using the Constructivist Teaching Inventory (CTI) as a rubric.The primary and an outside researcher identified four common themes that all support constructivist practices and philosophies: questioning, student-centered learning, active learning and the social influence on learning. Classroom observations, three for each of the interviewed teachers, were scored using the Constructivist Teaching Inventory.Southwood faculty and staff developed professional learning communities (PLC), which support and maintain constructivist strategies. PLCs are supports for new teachers in developing constructivist strategies. CTI results indicate that teachers are implementing constructivist strategies. Constructivist strategies could be impleme nted by telling teachers what to say or do, without understanding the why behind the actions. Although the principal, who initiated application of constructivist strategies retired and was replaced in 2004, constructivist strategies remain in use. The changes that occur with change in leadership, as predicted in the Tri-Partite Theory, were managed at Southwood by an internal replanning process of establishing PLCs. This study lends credence to the importance of professional learning communities as a constructivist change strategy, which finessed the entropy organizations face with leadership changes by establishing PLCs as a socialization process.

This thesis aims to bring together the area of pragmatics in second language learning (SLL), and dynamic assessment (DA), and in doing so offer an alternative way of both assessing pragmatics and providing its instruction. DA aims to provide a detailed analysis of not only a learner’s current stage of development, but also their still developing abilities. Unifying instruction and assessment, the learner and a mediator co-construct a task, with the mediator providing assistance when necessary. By examining both the types of mediation practices and their frequency, insights can be gained as to the learner’s still maturing abilities, and future potential. DA also aims to uncover sources of learner difficulty, offering a diagnostic function as part of assessment. Drawing on conversation analysis research, the work of Gal’Perin and DA methodology, this study carried out a DA of the speech act of requesting in spoken interaction, assessing the effectiveness with which the DA promoted development in the learners. Further, the ability of the DA to uncover specific locations of learner difficulty was examined, as well as the ways in which the interlocutors successfully negotiated the opening and closing of mediation sequences. Six Japanese EFL learners in a university context co-constructed a number of role-play type language tasks with the researcher. In the first stage of the study, the researcher did not offer support to the learners, while in the following stage, mediation was provided when appropriate. The findings were used to inform the enrichment programme (EP) portion of the study, in which the learners met with the researcher for a period of four weeks, receiving tutoring. This was followed by further non-dynamic and dynamic assessments, to allow analysis of learner development. The study’s findings indicate that DA methodology, when applied to the speech act of requesting, can be an effective way to both promote learner development and assess learners’ abilities. Compared with the pre-EP assessments, participants produced more complex interactions that frequently showed evidence of taking the social context of the role-plays into account, as well as assuming greater responsibility for successfully completing the tasks. Participants were also more frequently able to verbally explain their language choices with reference to the target concepts of the assessments and EP. Further, overall, the opening and closing of mediation sequences were accomplished with more implicit negotiation practices, indicating increased interactive competence. The DA was also successful in locating specific locations of learner difficulty.

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No / The problem of image annotation has gained increasing attention from many researchers in computer vision. Few works have addressed the use of bag of visual words for scene annotation at region level. The aim of this paper is to study the relationship between the distribution of local semantic concepts and local keypoints located in image regions labelled with these semantic concepts. Based on this study, we investigate whether bag of visual words model can be used to efficiently represent the content of natural scene image regions, so images can be annotated with local semantic concepts. Also, this paper presents local from global approach which study the influence of using visual vocabularies generated from general scene categories to build bag of visual words at region level. Extensive experiments are conducted over a natural scene dataset with six categories. The reported results have shown the plausibility of using the BOW model to represent the semantic information of image regions.

In 2013, the National Council Licensure Examination for Registered Nurses' (NCLEX-RN) passing standard was increased, leading to a decrease in NCLEX-RN pass rates. The passing standard increase was prompted by an advisory panel's determination that a gap in safe, competent practice existed among new graduate nurses. New graduates' success on NCLEX-RN is critical to meet workplace demand for new nurses. The purpose of this study was to examine whether cumulative grade point average at completion of 200-level nursing courses and scores on the standardized final exam in the 200-level fundamentals course were related to on-time nursing program completion and a Health Education Systems, Inc. Exit Exam score of 900 or higher. Research questions specific to relationships between early academic indicators and accelerated-baccalaureate student nurse success guided this explanatory correlational study. Classical test theory provided the framework for understanding the relationship between an observed score on an examination and an underlying proficiency that is unobserved. Archival data from a nonprobability convenience sample of 842 accelerated-baccalaureate nursing students at a university who graduated between 2011 and 2014 were analyzed using point-biserial correlation. Statistically significant, moderate positive relationships were found between early academic indicators and accelerated-baccalaureate student nurse success. A remediation curriculum has been developed as a recommended intervention. Curriculum promoting student retention can contribute to social change by improving student success and producing a more competent nursing workforce. These successes are important to retaining diverse students and addressing health disparities in the larger patient community.

<p>This investigation examined the effectiveness of different types of explicit classroom instruction on second language (L2) development of the Spanish discourse marker (DM) <em>pues</em>. While several studies have addressed the positive effect of explicit instruction on L2 DM development, the current investigation moves beyond the explicit-implicit method debate by examining the comparative effectiveness of different types of explicit instruction, specifically by comparing the effects of concept-based instruction (CBI), rule-based instruction (RBI), and a control group (CTRL). This investigation contributes to the field of instructed pragmatics by demonstrating how different types of explicit instruction can affect the robustness of pragmatics learning outcomes. Furthermore, with the inclusion of CBI, this investigation expands theoretical paradigms for L2 pragmatics teaching to include a less explored framework for instruction — sociocultural theory (Vygotsky, 1987).</p> <p><br></p> <p>Given the learnability problem posed by the low perceptual salience and extensive multifunctionality of DMs, along with their conceptual connections to important interactional practices and to a semantic core that guides their use in discourse, DMs and <em>pues</em> specifically were identified as a potentially ideal candidate for development through CBI. <em>Pues</em> is translated in English to ‘so’, ‘then’, ‘cos’, and ‘well’ and is a highly frequent feature of Spanish conversation (Domínguez García, 2016; Stenström, 2006a; Stenström, 2006b). DMs like <em>pues </em>contribute to speakers’ ability to communicate effectively and participate in social interaction (Crible & Pascual, 2020; Hayano, 2011; Hoshi, 2017; Thörle, 2016) and, thus, they are important linguistic features for L2 speakers.</p> <p><br></p> <p>Using a pre, post, and delayed post design, data were collected using an oral decision-making task and a dialogue reflection task. The analyses addressed whether CBI, RBI, and CTRL produce the same effect on L2 Spanish learners’ <em>pues</em> frequency of use, <em>pues</em> functional range, and use of <em>pues</em> in interaction. As a secondary objective, the analyses also considered whether CBI and RBI produce the same effect on L2 Spanish learners’ ability to transfer learning to unlearned DMs.</p> <p><br></p> <p>Quantitative analyses, which addressed the learners’ ability to use <em>pues</em> frequently and for a range of functions, indicated an advantage for the CBI group, with CBI learners using <em>pues</em> with greater frequency of use and functional range than RBI and CTRL learners. The qualitative analysis, which addressed the learners’ ability to use <em>pues</em> in interaction, also indicated an advantage for the CBI group, with CBI learners using <em>pues</em> to express a stance of givenness towards utterances as well as to manage turn-taking in interaction. CBI learners’ use of <em>pues</em> for accomplishing these two interactional practices indicated a deeper understanding of <em>pues</em> and how the DM can be used to accomplish social actions in interaction.</p> <p><br></p> <p>Overall, the findings provide support for the claim that CBI is superior to traditional explicit models of instruction (Erikson, Lanning, & French, 2017) and suggest that the learnability problem of DMs may be lessened by providing a conceptual structure that presents learners with a framework for organizing DM multifunctionality and that also highlights the interactional importance of DMs as tools that can be used to accomplish social actions. The findings are discussed considering the role of conceptual knowledge in L2 DM development and implications for pragmatics instruction.</p>