The study is intended to identify the methods teachers use to develop students' reading skills, how they select methods and why. The thesis begins with learning theories and previous research on the topic and an explanation of the different literacy learning methods.  The study is a qualitative study and includes ten interviews with teachers working in four different counties. The interviews have been analysed and discussed with the basis in the study's aim and research questions. The result shows that all teachers choose to mix synthetic and analytical literacy learning methods. They do this to meet each individual student at his level in the processes of literacy learning. There is not one method that suits all students, but, there are methods that are suitable for everyone. According to the interviewed teachers, it is a big difference in the achievement levels in reading in grade one. Some students only recognise the letters in their own name, some students already know all the letters of the alphabet, some read short words, and some have begun to read “easy to read” chapter-books.  Their choices are made to get varied and interesting teaching and combining different methods and approaches to be able to capture all the students. The challenge is to get everyone to feel like they are a part of the community of reading and writing in the classroom and that everyone feels like a reader and a writer. All the teachers in the survey mean that the reading and writing education should be based on the students and have a content that interests them to be fruitful for the students. / Studien syftar till att kartlägga metoder verksamma lärare använder för att utveckla elevers läsförmåga, hur de väljer metoder och varför. Uppsatsen inleds med beskrivningar av lärandeteorier och tidigare forskning om ämnet samt en redogörelse av olika läsinlärningsmetoder. Undersökningen är en kvalitativ studie och omfattar tio intervjuer med verksamma lärare från fyra olika kommuner. Intervjuerna har analyserats och diskuterats utifrån studiens syfte och frågeställningar. Resultatet visar att samtliga lärare väljer att blanda syntetiska och analytiska läsinlärningsmetoder, detta gör de för att kunna möta varje enskild elev på dennes nivå i läsinlärningprocessen. Det finns inte en metod som passar alla elever däremot finns metoder som passar för varje individ. Enligt de intervjuade lärarna är det stor skillnad på kunskapsnivåerna i läsning i årskurs ett. En del elever känner bara igen bokstäverna i sitt eget namn, några elever kan alla bokstäver i alfabetet, andra läser korta ord och vissa har börjat att läsa lättlästa kapitelböcker när de börjar årskurs ett. Deras val är gjorda för att få en varierad och intressant undervisning och de kombinerar olika metoder och tillvägagångsätt för att kunna fånga upp alla elever. Utmaningen är att få alla att känna sig som en del av läs- och skrivgemenskapen i klassen och känna sig som läsare och skrivare. Alla lärare i undersökningen menar att läs- och skrivundervisningen ska utgå från eleverna och ha ett innehåll som intresserar dem för att den ska vara givande för eleverna.

This diploma thesis focuses on Creative Drama and its applying to secondary school education, especially in Czech language, Literature and History lessons. It describes my own literary-dramatic project and introduces results of a research that surveys present situation and possibilities of Creative Drama at secondary schools.

A presente pesquisa tem como base a formação continuada de professores do Ensino Médio, que ministram as disciplinas pertencentes à área de Ciências da Natureza, tendo como objetivo aplicar uma metodologia didática que busca o desenvolvimento de habilidades dos alunos, denominada nessa pesquisa de \"Aula Operatória\", e analisar seu efeito na prática pedagógica de professores de Ciências da Natureza. Dessa forma, a partir do ajuste das metodologias utilizadas pelos professores, as aulas possam ser mais motivadoras, interessantes e envolventes, promovendo a melhoria do ensino. As bases teóricas utilizadas para essa pesquisa foram de Cleide do Amaral Terzi e Paulo Afonso Caruso Ronca - que fundamentam as bases do entendimento a respeito de Aula Operatória -, e Philippe Perrenoud, esclarecendo a respeito das competências dos professores, necessárias nos dias de hoje, e fundamentando a parametrização utilizada pelo pesquisador, no processo avaliativo que teve enfoque qualitativo. Buscando as raízes conceituais e práticas da Aula Operatória no decorrer da história, a pesquisa traz os fundamentos do trabalho didático com foco no desenvolvimento de habilidades dos discentes, apresentando John Dewey e as bases da operacionalização do conhecimento, dentro da sua visão instrumentalista; Jean William Fritz Piaget e a teoria desenvolvimentista; Lev Semenovitch Vygotsky e a concepção da aprendizagem mediada; Louis Raths e a importância do \"pensar\". Considerando o problema do baixo índice de aprendizagem e de interesse dos alunos, nas disciplinas pertencentes à área de Ciências da Natureza no cenário da educação no Brasil e no mundo, esta pesquisa propõe a Aula Operatória como prática na formação continuada de professores para a mudança no ensino, visando ao desenvolvimento das habilidades dos alunos. Os professores das disciplinas foram escolhidos de forma voluntária, e a formação para a Aula Operatória se deu nas seguintes etapas: análise diagnóstica realizada a partir de observações qualificadas individuais para planejamento das ações; encontros formativos para oportunizar aos professores a reflexão sobre a própria prática, e para repertoriálos teoricamente com as bases para o desenvolvimento de Aulas Operatórias; execução de Aula Compartilhada como estratégia formativa prática; avaliação final com entrevista e relatório da coordenadora pedagógica em cada caso. Os resultados, de modo geral, mostraram resistência inicial à aplicação da nova metodologia, eliminada com o apoio fornecido pelo pesquisador na elaboração e planejamento das atividades. Posteriormente, foi possível verificar mudança na abordagem dos temas em sala de aula, por parte dos professores, ao empregar os princípios da Aula Operatória, mas mantiveram o registro de planejamento sem mudanças significativas. Desta forma, conclui-se pela necessidade de acompanhamento contínuo para que não haja a retomada de hábitos antigos. / The present research is based on the continuing education of high school teachers, who teach the subjects belonging to the area of Natural Sciences, aiming to apply a teaching methodology which seeks the development of abilities of students, named in this research of \"Operative Classroom\" and analyze your effect on pedagogical practice of teachers of natural sciences. In this way, from the set of methodologies used by teachers, classes may become more motivating, engaging and interesting, promoting the improvement of education. The theoretical bases used for this research were Cleide do Amaral Terzi and Paulo Afonso Caruso Ronca - that underlie the basis of understanding regarding Operative Classroom -, and Philippe Perrenoud, clarifying the competences of teachers, needed these days, and basing the parameterization used by the researcher, in the evaluation process that had a qualitative approach. Seeking practical and conceptual roots of the Operative Classroom in the course of the story, the research brings the basics of didactic work with focus on developing skills of students, featuring John Dewey and the bases of the operationalization of the knowledge within its instrumentalist vision; Jean William Fritz Piaget and theory development; Lev Semenovitch Vygotsky and mediated learning design; Louis Raths and the importance of \"thinking. Considering the problem of the low content of learning and interest of students, in the subjects belonging to the area of natural sciences in education in Brazil and in the world, this research proposes the Operative Classroom practice on continuing education of teachers for change in education, aiming at the development of the skills of the students. Teachers of disciplines were chosen voluntarily, and training for the Operative Classroom took the following steps: diagnostic analysis undertaken from qualified individual observations for planning of actions; formative meetings to provide opportunities for teachers to reflect on their own practice, and for the repertoriár in theory with the bases for the development of Operative Classroom; executing Shared Lessons as formative strategy practice; final review with interview and report the pedagogical coordinator in each case. The results generally showed initial resistance to the application of the new methodology, eliminated with the support provided by the researcher in the development and planning activities. Later, it was possible to verify change in approach the topics in the classroom, on the part of teachers, to employ the principles of Operative Classroom, but they held the record of planning without significant changes. Thus, it is concluded by the need for ongoing monitoring to prevent the resumption of old habits.

Le plaisir de découvrir les œuvres de l’antiquité et d’ouvrir à l’infini la possibilité de lire dans sa langue les auteurs du monde entier passe par le labeur de la traduction. Cette thèse présente un cas d'espèce, celui de l’expérimentation d’une méthode adaptée à une culture africaine pour traduire la correspondance épistolaire de l’Apôtre Paul. Le peuple nawda dans le Nord du Togo, de tradition orale, privilégie une vision communautaire des relations et conçoit le travail dans sa dimension collective. Pour eux, traduire c’est aussi interpréter collectivement / For speakers of minority languages, the pleasure of being able to read the great works of antiquity and of being able to access world literature in one's own language requires the hard work of translation. This dissertation presents a case in point, reporting on an experimental translation method especially adapted for African culture with a view to translating the Pauline epistles. Nadwm society in northern Togo is an oral culture, which favors a communal vision of relationships and views work as a collective experience. For them, to translate is to interpret collectively.

Syftet med den här studien är att redogöra för olika läsinlärningsmetoder samt att undersöka hur verksamma pedagoger resonerar kring de metoder de anser sig använda. För att ta reda på detta används kvalitativa intervjuer med pedagoger verksamma i årskurs 1–3. Studien redogör för en litteraturgenomgång vad gäller läsning och läsinlärningsmetoder. Min teoretiska utgångspunkt har varit ett sociokulturellt perspektiv då intentionen är att dels belysa pedagogernas arbete men också sätta det i ett sammanhang och öka kunskapen kring just metoderna som pedagogerna menar att de använder. Resultatet redovisas utifrån fyra kategorier som framkommit genom meningskoncentrering av intervjuerna. Här sammanfattas pedagogernas svar utifrån, Inledande läsinlärningsarbete, Läsinlärningsmetoder, Bedömning och Stöd och utmaningar. I mina slutsatser framkommer att de metoder jag redogör för i avsnittet Forsknings- och litteraturgenomgång i stort sett överensstämmer med de som pedagogerna uppger sig använda. Pedagogerna berättar om sin beredskap för hur de bemöter sina elever och utifrån det drar jag slutsatsen att pedagoger behöver stor kunskap och erfarenhet för att lyckas i sitt uppdrag att utveckla läsande elever. / The purpose of this study is to describe different reading learning methods as well as study how active educators reason about the methods they consider using. To find out, qualitative interviews are used with educators working in grades 1-3. The study describes a literature review regarding reading and reading methods. My theoretical point of departure has been a socio-cultural perspective, as the intention is to illuminate the work of the educators, but also to put it in context and to increase the knowledge about the methods the educators believe they use. The results are reported on the basis of four categories that have been identified by the focus of the interviews. Here, the teachers' answers are summarized, Initial Reading Learning, Reading Learning Methods, Assessment and Support and Challenges. In my conclusions it appears that the methods I describe in the section Research and Literature review are broadly consistent with those used by the educators. The educators tell us about their readiness for responding to their students, and on this basis, I conclude that educators need great knowledge and experience to succeed in their task of developing reading students.

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is part of the developmental disabilities. There are numerous symptoms for ASD patients, including lack of abilities in social interaction, communication obstacle and repeatable behaviors. Meanwhile, the rate of ASD prevalence has kept rising by the past 20 years from 1 out of 150 in 2000 to 1 out of 54 in 2016. In addition, the ASD population is quite large. Specifically, 3.5 million Americans live with ASD in the year of 2014, which will cost U.S. citizens $236-$262 billion dollars annually for autism services. So, it is critical to make an accurate diagnosis for preschool age children with ASD, in order to give them a better life. Instead of using traditional ASD behavioral tests, such as ADI-R, ADOS, and DSM-IV, we applied brain MRI images as input to make diagnosis. We revised 3D-ResNet structure to fit 110 preschool children's brain MRI data, along with Convolution 3D and VGG model. The prediction accuracy with raw data is 65.22%. The accuracy is significantly improved to 82.61% by removing the noise around the brain. We also showed the speed of ML prediction is 308 times faster than behavior tests.

El texto completo de este trabajo no está disponible en el Repositorio Académico UPC por restricciones de la casa editorial donde ha sido publicado. / Protein fold recognition is an important task in the biological area. Different machine learning methods such as multiclass classifiers, one-vs-all and ensemble nested dichotomies were applied to this task and, in most of the cases, multiclass approaches were used. In this paper, we compare classifiers organized in tree structures to classify folds. We used a benchmark dataset containing 125 features to predict folds, comparing different supervised methods and achieving 54% of accuracy. An approach related to tree-structure of classifiers obtained better results in comparison with a hierarchical approach. / Revisión por pares

<p>Anaerobic digestion uses a mixed, microbial community to convert organic wastes to biogas, thereby generating a clean renewable energy and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. However, few studies have quantified the relationship between waste composition and the subsequent physical and chemical changes in the digester. This Ph.D. dissertation aimed to gain new knowledge about how these differences in waste composition ultimately affect digester function. This dissertation examined three areas of digester function: (1) hydrogen sulfide production, (2) digester foaming, and (3) methane yield. </p> <p>To accomplish these aims, a variety of materials from four different large-scale field digesters were collected at different time points and from different locations within the digester systems, including influent, liquid in the middle of the digesters, effluent, and effluent after solids separation. The materials were used for biochemical methane potential (BMP) tests in 43 lab-scale lab-digester groups, each containing triplicate or duplicate digesters. The materials from field digesters and the effluents from the lab-digesters were analyzed for an extensive set of chemical and physical characteristics. The three areas of digester function were examined with the physical and chemical characteristics of the digester materials and effluents, and the BMP performances. </p> <p>Hydrogen sulfide productions in the lab-digesters ranged from non-detectable to 1.29 mL g VS^-1. Higher H₂S concentrations in the biogas were observed within the first ten days of testing. The initial Fe(II) : S ratio and OP concentrations had important influences on H₂S productions. Important parameters of digester influents related to digester foaming were the ratios of Fe(II) : S, Fe(II) : TP, and TVFA : TALK; and the concentrations of Cu. Digesters receiving mixed waste streams could be more vulnerable to foaming. The characteristics of each waste type varied significantly based on substrate and inoculum type, and digester functioning. The influent chemical characteristics of the waste significantly impacted all aspects of digester function. Using multivariate statistics and machine learning, models were developed and the prediction of digester outcomes were simulated based on the initial characteristics of the waste types. </p>

<p>Post-disaster temporary housing has been a significant challenge for the emergency management group and industries for many years. According to reports by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), housing in states and territories is ranked as the second to last proficient in 32 core capabilities for preparedness.The number of temporary housing required in a geographic area is influenced by a variety of factors, including social issues, financial concerns, labor workforce availability, and climate conditions. Acknowledging and creating a balance between these interconnected needs is considered as one of the main challenges that need to be addressed. Post-disaster temporary housing is a multi-objective process, thus reaching the optimized model relies on how different elements and objectives interact, sometimes even conflicting, with each other. This makes decision making in post-disaster construction more restricted and challenging, which has caused ineffective management in post-disaster housing reconstruction.</p> <p>Few researches have studied the use of Artificial Intelligence modeling to reduce the time and cost of post-disaster sheltering. However, there is a lack of research and knowledge gap regarding the selection and the magnitude of effect of different factors of the most optimized type of Temporary Housing Units (THU) in a post-disaster event.</p> The proposed framework in this research uses supervised machine learing to maximize certain design aspects of and minimize some of the difficulties to better support creating temporary houses in post-disaster situations. The outcome in this study is the classification type of the THU, more particularly, classifying THUs based on whether they are built on-site or off-site. In order to collect primary data for creating the model and evaluating the magnitude of effect for each factor in the process, a set of surveys were distributed between the key players and policymakers who play a role in providing temporary housing to people affected by natural disasters in the United States. The outcome of this framework benefits from tacit knowledge of the experts in the field to show the challenges and issues in the subject. The result of this study is a data-based multi-objective decision-making tool for selecting the THU type. Using this tool, policymakers who are in charge of selecting and allocating post-disaster accommodations can select the THU type most responsive to the local needs and characteristics of the affected people in each natural disaster.

The first-principles methods such as density functional theory (DFT) often produce quantitative predictions for physics and chemistry of materials with explicit descriptions of electron’s behavior. We were able to provide information of electronic structures with chemical doping and metal-insulator transition of rare-earth nickelates that cannot be easily accessible with experimental characterizations. Moreover, combining with mean-field microkinetic modeling, we utilized the DFT energetics to model water gas shift reactions catalyzed by Fe3O4at steady-state and determined favorable reaction mechanism. However, the high computational costs of DFT calculations make it impossible to investigate complex chemical processes with hundreds of elementary steps with more than thousands of atoms for realistic systems. The study of molecular high energy (HE) materials using the reactive force field (ReaxFF) has contributed to understand chemically induced detonation process with nanoscale defects as well as defect-free systems. However, the reduced accuracy of the force fields canalso lead to a different conclusion compared to DFT calculations and experimental results. Machine learning force field is a promising alternative to work with comparable simulation size and speed of ReaxFF while maintaining accuracy of DFT. In this respect, we developed a neural network reactive force field (NNRF) that was iteratively parameterized with DFT calculations to solve problems of ReaxFF. We built an efficient and accurate NNRF for complex decomposition reaction of HE materials such as high energy nitramine 1,3,5-Trinitroperhydro-1,3,5-triazine (RDX)and predicted consistent results for experimental findings. This work aims to demonstrate the approaches to clarify the reaction details of materials using the first-principles methods and machine learning force fields to guide quantitative predictions of complex chemical process.