Meaning in the landscape is a concept that is receiving attention from many landscape architects asking the questions: how is meaning found in the landscape, or what makes a landscape meaningful? While there are many design processes that incorporate meaning into the design, it is the art of storytelling that the thesis investigates. The research for the thesis and a comparison analysis is performed on three texts, which explore meaning in the landscape. The three texts are Marc Treib's "Must Landscapes Mean?"; Matthew Potteiger and Jamie Purinton's Landscape Narratives, and Mark Francis and Randolph T. Hester, Jr.'s The Meaning of Gardens: Idea, Place, and Action. Applying these approaches to case studies has resulted in the finding of common ideas between the three texts. The commonalities led to my position that storytelling can be used as an approach to design, and that landscapes designed as a story narrative can be meaningful. The design project investigated the strength of the position on a site in the West Potomac Park in Washington DC. The story for the project is a Japanese folktale that communicates the culture of Japan. The project is a case study that explores if the set of design principles within the storytelling approach can invest meaning into a landscape. / Master of Landscape Architecture

Paronychia virginica Spreng. (Caryophyllaceae) is a perennial evergreen herb of exposed, relatively xeric habitats. Approximately 10 mid-Appalachian populations remain in Virginia, West Virginia, and Maryland and are disjunct from populations located primarily in Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. A study was conducted to test the hypothesis that eastern and western populations differ significantly and, therefore, represent at least two distinct taxa. Statistical analyses of 8 qualitative and 24 quantitative morphological characters indicated very highly significant (P < 0.001) variation between eastern and western populations of P. virginica. Characters differing most significantly included sepal pubescence, awn length, awn pubescence, awn curvature, length-width ratio of leaves, and shape of leaf apices. Starch gel electrophoresis was performed and six enzyme systems/nine loci (EST-2, EST-3, LAP, MDH-1, MDH-2, PGI, PGM-1, PGM-2, and SKDH) were identified as being consistently scorable and informative. Although gene flow between populations of P. virginica was shown to be restricted (mean FST = 0.353), populations are maintaining relatively high levels of genetic diversity. Genetic variability was quantified for each population and mean values for number of alleles per locus (A), percent loci polymorphic (P), and expected heterozygosity (HEXP) were found to be 1.95, 47.22%, and 0.204, respectively, exceeding those values reported for seed plants, widespread species, and endemic species. Hierarchical F statistics suggest higher levels of genetic variability within individual populations than among populations, regardless of geographic location. All statistically significant (P < 0.05) deviations from Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium indicated a deficiency in heterozygotes at the respective loci. Considering results from both the morphometric and allozyme analyses, the current author suggests recognizing two distinct subspecies, P. virginica subsp. virginica in the eastern U.S. and P. virginica subsp. scoparia in the south-central U.S. Conservation efforts should be focused on the maintenance of existing populations in both eastern and western regions of the U.S. in order to preserve the genetic and evolutionary potential of these taxa. / Master of Science

Notre étude vise à mettre en lumière les utilisations qu’il est possible de faire des jeux vidéo en classe et, plus précisément, la manière dont ceux-ci peuvent permettre de faire le pont entre les concepts quotidiens et les concepts scientifiques, un cadre conceptuel issu de la théorie historico-culturelle de Vygotsky. Cet objectif découle de notre problématique, qui a consisté à souligner l’écart existant entre la culture scolaire et la culture ludique qui imprègne la vie des adolescents et des adolescentes à l’heure actuelle. Notre choix du cadre théorique vygotskien nous a permis de nous appuyer sur des concepts bien établis et clairement définis pour analyser dans quelle mesure le jeu Minecraft pouvait être utilisé à des fins de formation. Notre méthode a consisté à effectuer une analyse de contenu d’un corpus que nous avons constitué à partir d’un forum d’échange entre enseignants utilisant le jeu Minecraft dans leur pratique. Nous avons répertorié les concepts susceptibles d’être développés à travers le jeu ainsi que les méthodes à préconiser dans l’utilisation de ce jeu vidéo en particulier. Il résulte de cette analyse que le jeu en question peut être un outil très efficace, qui permet à l’élève d’expérimenter et d’user de créativité dans des contextes de résolution de problème, de demeurer particulièrement engagé dans la tâche et facilite la verbalisation de la pensée de ces derniers, mais ce, à condition d’être utilisé judicieusement par les enseignants. Nous concluons ce mémoire en présentant les répercussions de nos résultats et précisons les considérations que devraient prendre en compte les enseignants désirant intégrer un tel outil dans leur pratique.

The central aim of this thesis is to argue that the autonomous nature of mentalistic explanation presents a stronger constraint on what counts as a satisfactory statement of the relation between the mental and the physical than can be acknowledged within the metaphysical framework of non-reductive physicalism. Although the chief merit of non-reductive physicalism appears to be its ability to respect the irreducibility of mental concepts to physical concepts, whilst respecting the primacy of the physical ontology, I claim that its commitment to the principles of physicalism prevents that framework from being able to accommodate what I will refer to as the deeper extent of the autonomous nature of mentalistic explanation. The deeper extent of the autonomous nature of mentalistic explanation manifests itself in the fact that the work carried out by mentalistic explanations is completely separate from the work carried out by physicalistic explanations. I claim that the deeper extent of the autonomous nature of mentalistic explanation cannot be recognised within a metaphysical framework which claims to recognise the primacy of the physical ontology because recopsing deep autonomy requires giving up the assumption that the mental must be related to the physical in the manner appropriate to discharging such metaphysical principles. I defend the claim that we can recognise the deeper extent of the autonomous nature of mentalistic explanation if we take our successful explanatory practices as the starting point of our investigation, and only then revert to the question of how best to articulate the relation between the mental and the physical. My claim is that there is an intrinsic connection between the nature of the mental and the nature of human relationships, and I therefore suggest that the autonomous nature of mentalistic explanation ought to be understood in connection with the autonomous nature of human relationships. The basic ideas in this thesis are derived by combining features of Wittgenstein’s rule following considerations with features of John MacMurray’s approach to human relationships. On the basis of this combination, I argue for the more specific claim that there is an intrinsic connection between what it means to say that an individual has the capacity to think and what it means to say that he has the capacity to be involved in various types of human relationships. This connection is then used to develop a non-causal account of human action to challenge the physicalist ’s causal account, which will be used to support the claim that mentalistic explanations are autonomous with respect to physicalistic explanations in the deeper sense. I conclude by arguing that the considerations which put us in position to recognise the deeper extent of the autonomous nature of mentalistic explanation ought to constrain our statement of the relation between the mental and the physical, and I suggest that this statement should be consistent with the way in which mentalistic and physicalistic explanations carry out their work in our explanatory practices. I claim that individuals are subject to mentalistic explanations in so far as they have a life to live in the world with other people, and that individuals are subject to physicalistic explanations in so far as human beings are creatures whose life has a natural biological dimension. But rather than identifying the mental with the physical, and thereby compromise the deeper extent of the autonomous nature of mentalistic explanation, I suggest that this relation might be understood in terms of the fact that the mental is embedded in the dimension of human life which is constituted by the involvement of individuals in various types of relationshps with each other, and that the dimension of human life in which physicalistic explanations are operative is presupposed as the causal background which must be in place if individuals are to have such a life to live in the world.

Cette thèse porte sur l'exploitation des connaissances de domaine dans un processus de découvertes de sources de données biologiques sur le Web. Tout d'abord, des ensembles de métadonnées sont utilisés pour décrire le contenu et la qualité des sources de données. Ensuite, en s'appuyant sur ces métadonnées, les sources sont organisées dans un treillis de concepts en fonction de leurs caractéristiques communes. Le treillis de concepts constitue le support de la découverte de sources de données qui s'effectue de deux manières différentes et complémentaires : par navigation et par interrogation. Dans les deux cas la découverte de sources de données peut être guidée par des connaissances du domaine. Lors d'une découverte de sources de données par navigation, les connaissances sont utilisées soit pour réduire l'espace de recherche soit pour orienter la navigation vers des concepts sectionnés. Lors d'une découverte de sources de données par interrogation, les connaissances du domaine sont soit exprimées sous la forme de préférences entre métadonnées dans la requête soit utilisées pour l'enrichissement (ou reformulation) de la requête. Pour assurer une prise en compte des connaissances du domaine plus fidèle, nous avons introduit les treillis de concepts multivalués. L'organisation des sources de données sous la forme d'un treillis de concepts multivalués permet de contrôler la taille de l'espace de recherche et d'augmenter la flexibilité et les performances du processus de découverte dans ses deux modes. La navigation peut être effectuée dans des treillis de différents niveaux de spécialisation avec la possibilité d'effectuer des zooms dynamiques permettant le passage d'un treillis à l'autre. L'interrogation bénéficie d'une augmentation de l'expressivité dans les requêtes. / This thesis deals with knowledge-based biological data sources discovery. First, domain ontologies are used for encoding metadata describing the content of biological data sources. Then the data sources are organized into a concept lattice according to their common metadata. The data source discovery process can be performed either by navigation into the obtained concept lattice or by defining queries to be inserted into the concept lattice. In both cases, domain knowledge can be used to guide the discovery. In the case of navigation, domain knowledge is used to reduce the search space and/or to guide the navigation to some concepts rather than others. In the case of querying, domain knowledge is used to express preferences between the query keywords or to refine the query. In order to take more advantage of domain knowledge, we introduce many-valued concept lattices. Several many-valued concept lattices with different levels of precision can be built from the data sources metadata set based on domain knowledge. The use of such many-valued concept lattices allows to improve the discovery process in its both forms. In the case of navigation, it is possible to consider more than one lattice and to dynamically switch from one lattice to another in a zooming operation. In the case of querying, more complex expressive queries can be defined and inserted into the many-valued concept lattice.

L’application des concepts de la biologie évolutionnaire (BE) à la problématique de la réalité socioéconomique n’est pas un sujet nouveau dans certaines disciplines socioéconomiques, même si cette inspiration pour la problématique de la géographie socioéconomique, ou plutôt du développement régional, est plus récente et en général se fonde sur les applications réalisées notamment en économie. L’objectif principal de cette thèse est d’identifier de nouveaux concepts de la BE et de tenter de les appliquer aux sujets sélectionnés du développement régional directement, sans le rôle d’intermédiaire d’autres disciplines. L’attention est dans un premier temps prêtée à la recherche du cadre théorique convenable et d’un aperçu des concepts de la BE déjà appliqués aux sciences sociales. La seconde partie présente certains concepts de la BE pour lesquels les applications potentielles (par l’intermédiaire des analogies et des métaphores) aux thèmes choisis du développement régional ont été identifiées. Les concepts appliqués ont été divisés en quatre ensembles thématiques biologiques plus larges – l’adaptation, la coévolution, la sélection et la spéciation. L’application de la spéciation peut être probablement perçue comme la contribution la plus précieuse de la thèse. Elle s’appuie sur l’hypothèse qu’il est possible d’identifier certains traits analogues entre les concepts socioéconomiques path dependence et lock-in et les concepts de la BE concernant la spéciation et d’identifier et de classifier les mécanismes / structures qui fonctionnent comme des barrières socioéconomiques. / Application of the evolutionary biology concepts to socio-economic reality issues is not any new theme, even if this inspiration in socio-economic geography and especially in regional development is more recent and is based, in general, on already realized applications, mainly in economics. The main objective of the PhD thesis is thus an identification of hitherto non-applied evolutionary concepts, or to this time neglected biological aspects of already applied concepts and an attempt of their application to the selected themes of regional development without the intermediary role of other disciplines. In the first place, the attention is paid to the search of an appropriate theoretical approach and of the summary of already applied evolutionary concepts to the social sciences. Second part presents some evolutionary biology concepts where a potential for applications (based on the mediator role of analogies and metaphors) to the selected regional development issues was identified. Individual applied concepts were divided into four more complex thematic units – adaptation, co-evolution, selection and speciation. The application of the last concept could probably be considered as the most valuable contribution of the PhD thesis. It is based on the hypothesis that some analogical traits can be identified among socio-economic concepts of path dependence and lock-in and biological concepts linked with speciation and that the biological concepts can provide the general inspiration for identification of certain types of socio-economic barriers of development of regions and for an attempt to classify them.

This research report attempts to establish the cognitive consequences of the disruption of schooling. Specifically the report investigates Vygotsky and Luna’s claim that formal schooling necessarily produces scientific concepts in learners, by examining the performance of learners who had been subjected to disrupted schooling. On the basis of empirical research conducted, the report challenges Vygotsky and Luria's claim about the cognitive consequences of schooling.

Nous nous intéressons à un cadre théorique de l'analyse de données : l'analyse formelle de concepts. Le formalisme de l'analyse formelle de concepts permet d'exprimer les notions centrales de la fouille de données telles que les implications ou les ensembles fermés, avec au centre la notion de treillis qui décrit la structure et les relations que ces objets ont entre eux. Pour les données multidimensionnelles, une proposition de formalisme existe en tant que généralisation de l'analyse formelle de concepts : l'analyse polyadique de concepts. Dans cette thèse, nous étudions certains problèmes de combinatoire et d'algorithmique dans le cas de l'analyse polyadique de concepts. Nous approchons aussi un cadre plus appliqué à l'analyse de données en proposant des approches de navigation conceptuelle et de classification. / We are interested in formal concept analysis, a theoretical framework for data analysis.This formalism allows to express some central notions of data mining such as implications or closed itemsets, and is centered around lattices, as the description of the relational structure that those objects can have.For multidimensional data, a formalism exists as a generalisation of formal concept analysis : polyadic concept analysis.In this document, we study some combinatorial and algorithmic problems that arose in polyadic concept analysis.We also introduce more applied data analysis techniques of conceptual navigation and classification.

Το θέμα που προσπαθήσαμε να προσεγγίσουμε στην παρούσα εργασία ήταν η κατανόηση των βασικών εννοιών από τα παιδιά με και χωρίς αυτισμό, μέσα από την εφαρμογή του «Boehm Test of Basic Concepts- Preschool Version». Το ψυχομετρικό αυτό εργαλείο, όντας σταθμισμένο, μας βοήθησε να δούμε συγκριτικά τα αποτελέσματα που σημείωσαν τα τυπικώς αναπτυσσόμενα παιδιά σε σχέση με εκείνα που ανήκαν στο φάσμα του αυτισμού. Πιο συγκεκριμένα, σε αρχικό στάδιο, το τεστ μεταφράστηκε και εφαρμόστηκε σε παιδιά χωρίς αυτισμό. Τα αποτελέσματα φανέρωσαν πως τα τυπικώς αναπτυσσόμενα παιδιά που ερωτήθηκαν δεν παρουσίασαν ιδιαίτερη δυσκολία στην κατανόηση των εννοιών που εξετάστηκαν. Ωστόσο, ένας μικρός αριθμός παιδιών φάνηκε να μην κατανοεί πλήρως κάποιες συγκεκριμένες έννοιες, τις οποίες και θεωρήσαμε προβληματικές. Στη συνέχεια, ακολούθησε η εφαρμογή του τεστ και σε παιδιά με διαταραχές αυτιστικού φάσματος. Ωστόσο, όπως είχε αρχικά προβλεφθεί τα παιδιά αυτά αντιμετώπισαν σαφώς μεγαλύτερες δυσκολίες και οι προβληματικές γι’ αυτά έννοιες ήταν πολύ περισσότερες σε σύγκριση με τα τυπικώς αναπτυσσόμενα παιδιά. Συνεπώς, με βάση τα παραπάνω δεδομένα, οδηγούμαστε στο συμπέρασμα πως το εργαλείο αυτό θα μπορούσε να χρησιμοποιηθεί στη γενική εκπαίδευση ως διαγνωστικό εργαλείο δυσκολιών ως προς την κατανόηση εννοιών. Τέλος, οι δυσκολίες αυτές ανέδειξαν την ανάγκη σχεδιασμού ειδικών προγραμμάτων διδασκαλίας ή ένταξης με σκοπό την όσο το δυνατόν βαθύτερη αποσαφήνιση τέτοιων εννοιών από την προσχολική κιόλας ηλικία. / The subject that we tried to approach in this graduation thesis was the understanding of basic concepts by children with and without autism, through the application of «Boehm Test of Basic Concepts- Preschool Version». This psychometric tool, being standardized, helped us in order to see the comparative results of the typically developing children and those who belong to the autism spectrum. In particular, at an early stage, the test was translated and applied to children without autism. The results revealed that typically developing children showed no particular difficulty in understanding the concepts examined. However, a small number of children seemed not to fully understand some specific concepts, which we considered problematic. At the second stage, what followed was the implementation of the test in children with autism spectrum disorders. However, as we initially supposed, these children clearly faced greater difficulties and the problematic concepts for them were much more compared to typically developing children .Therefore, according to these data, we conclude that this test could be used in general education as a diagnostic tool for difficulties in understanding concepts. Finally, these difficulties have highlighted the need for designing specific teaching programs or integration ones with a view to possible deeper clarification of such concepts from preschool age.

The purpose of the study was to design and evaluate materials for integrating musical concepts and stylistic concepts into the high school choral rehearsal. Need for the study was established by examining related literature and by means of a survey of Texas high school choral directors. A systems approach model of curriculum development, consisting of a ten-step procedural outline, was adopted for formulation of the study. The following criteria for the curriculum, called Integrated Musical Information for Choirs (IMIC), were set: (1) Materials should be in the hands of each student; (2) Materials would relate directly to music being performed by the choir; (3) Use of the materials should assist the teacher in organizing his/her work; (4) Teachers should be able to put materials into use without adaptation; (5) Teachers' out-of-class preparation should be minimal.