Um longo e lento caminho de transformações determina a história da educação. Da criação da instituição escolar, até a atualidade, a luta para transformar o privilégio da educação, em um direito e expandi-lo a todos atravessou os séculos. A consolidação da educação como direito trouxe o acesso de todos às escolas e modificou a sala de aula, aumentando a heterogeneidade e desafiando os modelos pedagógicos que se tornaram insuficientes para atendê-la. O debate sobre a qualidade na educação contemporânea se alterna entre a perspectiva econômica da visão da educação do povo, como capital humano e a de direito de inserção social do indivíduo. Os professores enfrentam o desafio de promover a aprendizagem de todos dentro de duas perspectivas divergentes e necessitam recorrer a habilidades profissionais para lidar com as diferenças em salas de aula e adequar sua prática docente. Para oferecer apoio a esses profissionais é necessário conhecer seu modo de compreender e atuar dentro desse cenário para se estabelecer ações mais eficazes para formação desses profissionais. Assim, este trabalho visou identificar as formas de representação dos professores da educação básica sobre a heterogeneidade das classes, que foi acentuada pelas transformações sociais e pelas mudanças da educação contemporânea no Brasil. Para atingir nosso objetivo, fizemos uma pesquisa com 31 professoras de anos iniciais de três escolas públicas de São Paulo, coletando informações sobre as representações que fazem da heterogeneidade da sala de aula e buscando as relações com as dimensões de ação e de emoção dos professores. Nossos resultados apontaram que as professoras, em sua maioria identificam o fenômeno da heterogeneidade em suas salas e fazem diferentes representações a respeito dele. Existe, no grupo, de forma expressiva, a visão problematizada sobre as diferenças dos alunos, seja em relação aos níveis de alfabetização, ou a limites de aprendizagem que identificam neles. Registramos a presença de forte ideal de homogeneização do grupo-classe, expresso pela definição de objetivos pedagógicos unificados, levando a um ensino padronizado, com pouca consideração para as expectativas ou interesses dos alunos.. Esses objetivos estão também atrelados às avaliações oficiais padronizadas para todas as escolas, que acabam reforçando a tendência niveladora. Identificamos uma minoria de professoras que buscam atuar na lógica contrária, qual seja, a de partir das necessidades e expectativas diferenciadas dos alunos para oferecer-lhes caminhos pedagógicos adequados, que consideram suas singularidades. Estas professoras consideram as diferenças nos alunos na ótica inclusiva e até como elemento enriquecedor da sala de aula e consideram as diferenças ao realizarem planejamento e estabelecerem objetivos para grupo e alunos, utilizando estratégias inclusivas. / A long and slow path of transformations underlines the history of Education . Since creation of the school institution, thousands of years ago, until today, the struggle to transform this privilege in right and expand it to all people it took centuries . The consolidation of education as a right brought access to all schools and changed the classroom, increasing heterogeneity and challenging pedagogical models. The debate about quality in contemporary education alternated between economic perspective view of the education of the people , such as human rights and social integration of the individual . Teachers face the challenge of promoting the learning of all within two divergent perspectives and need to resort to professional skills to deal with differences in classrooms and adapt their teaching practice. To provide support for them is necessary to know their way of understanding and acting within this scenario to establish more effective actions on training of these professionals. This study aimed at identifying the representation form of Basic Education teachers on the heterogeneity seen in classrooms, as well as identifying implications between teaching representations and practices. To address this issue, we carried out a study with 31 teachers of the first years of public schools of São Paulo, trying to get information on the representation they make of the classrooms heterogeneity, and trying to find relationships with the teachers action and emotion dimensions. Our findings indicate that the vast majority identifies their student groups as heterogeneous in different ways. The two leading approaches show a strong link of homogenization with the classroom-group. The most recurring one associates the heterogeneity to the discrepancies in learning processes or results presented by the students, and the second one, of heterogeneity in a perspective of heterogeneity as a synonym of problems. In a smaller part of our sample we also identified the idea of heterogeneity as a natural phenomenon among students that manifest itself through different expectations, personalities and learning ways. Also, we were able to identify the existence of correlations among the forms of representations made and the practices suggested by teachers, reinforcing the research work in the field. This points out to the need of resuming the debate with the teachers on the current educational background and the discussion on the educational models that could be implemented to indeed promote education for all.

Motivated by the paucity of high quality stillbirth surveillance data and the spatial analyses of such data, the current research sets out to quantitatively describe the pattern of stillbirth events that may lead to mechanistic hypotheses. We broaden the appeal of Bayesian Poisson point process modeling to quantify excess risk while accounting for unobserved heterogeneity. We consider a practical data analysis strategy when fitting the point process model and study the utility of parameterizing the intensity function governing the point process to include a maternal contextual effect to account for variation due to multiple stillbirth events experienced by the same mother in independent pregnancies. Simulation studies suggest that our practical data analysis strategy is reasonable and that there is a variance-bias trade-off associated with the use of a maternal contextual effect. The methodology is applied to the spatial distribution of stillbirth events in Iowa during the years 2005 through 2011 obtained using an active, statewide public health surveillance approach. Several localized areas of excess risk were identified and mapped based on model components that captured the nuanced and salient features of the data. A conditional formulation of the point process model is then considered, which has two main advantages: the ability to easily incorporate covariate information attached to both stillbirth and live birth, as well as obviate the need to estimate the background intensity. We assess the utility of the conditional approach in the presence of unobserved heterogeneity, compare two Bayesian estimation techniques, and extend the conditional formulation to adequately capture spatio-temporal effects. The motivating study comes from the Iowa Registry for Congenital and Inherited Disorders who has a committed interest in the surveillance and epidemiology of stillbirth in Iowa and whether the occurrence might be geographically linked.

The ability to measure glucose transcutaneously and noninvasively is an exciting prospect. Such a procedure will offer a painless way of glucose self-monitoring improving the lives of people with diabetes by lowering the barriers to optimal glycemic control. The noninvasive measurements involve collecting near-infrared spectra (4000–5000 cm-1; 2.0–2.5 µm) of skin with two optical fibers in a transmission geometry. Previous results indicate that repositioning of the fiber optic interface adversely affects both precision and accuracy of such measurements. Slight movements of the interface increase prediction errors more than 2.5–fold when performed with a stationary rat model. In this dissertation, the chemical heterogeneity of skin tissue is explored as a possible cause for the sensitivity of the measurement to the position of the optical interface. Rat and human skin tissues are mapped by using combination near infrared spectra the to provide distributions of the major components of skin: water, collagen type I protein, fat, keratin protein, and two scattering terms of constant and slope. On the basis of the measured heterogeneity, sets of rat and human skin spectra are simulated to investigate the impact of repositioning the fiber-optic interface. Glucose predictions are analyzed for each location of the interface for a series of partial least squares (PLS) calibration vectors established for different locations on the skin. Significant increases in the measurement errors are observed for the situation where the PLS calibration models are generated from spectra associated with one location of the interface while subsequent measurements are performed at slightly locations of the skin matrix. These increases in prediction errors match the 2.5–fold increase observed in vivo. The impact of replacing the spectrum of bovine fat with spectra of native fat for both rat and human skin samples is established. Principal component analysis (PCA) of the spectral residuals reveals that the magnitude of the spectral residuals and the effects of tissue fat content on the quality of the linear regression were decreased. The key implication of the research detailed in this dissertation is that chemical heterogeneity of skin tissue must be considered in multivariate models intended for noninvasive glucose measurements.

BACKGROUND: Breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer and second leading cancer death cause among females in the U.S.A. About 1 in 8 women in U.S will develop invasive breast cancer over the course of her lifetime. In 2013, 234,580 new invasive breast cancer cases are expected to occur in women within the US and approximately 64,640 non-invasive carcinomas in situ were diagnosed in 2013, most of which were ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS). Along with technological advances, a wide variety of candidate biomarkers have been proposed for cancer diagnosis and prognosis, including DNA content and non-coding RNA. Current techniques for detecting DNA content abnormalities in formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded (FFPE) tissue samples by flow cytometric analysis have used cells recovered from ≥50µm whole tissue sections. Here, in our first study, a novel core punch sampling method was investigated for assessing DNA content abnormalities and intratumoral heterogeneity in FFPE specimens. Secondly, long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) has been examined. LncRNA participates in a broad spectrum of biological activities by diverse mechanisms and its dysregulation is associated with tumorgenesis. Some lncRNAs may function as oncogenes (O) and others as tumor suppressor genes (TSG). To date, lncRNA has been investigated primarily by qRT-PCR and RNA sequencing. This study has examined the relationship of lncRNA expression patterns to breast tumor pathology by chromogenic in situ hybridization (CISH). METHODS: Firstly, FFPE breast carcinoma specimens were selectively targeted using 1.0 mm diameter punch needles. Extracted cores were assayed by flow cytometry using a modified-Headley method. Secondly, the lncRNA expression levels of 6 lncRNAs: HOTAIR, H19, KCNQ1OT1, MEG3, MALAT11 and Zfas1, was examined by RNAscope® CISH using FFPE breast tissue microarrays (TMAs) comprising normal adjacent epithelia (NA), DCIS, and invasive carcinoma (IC) from 46 patients. LncRNA associate polycomb complex protein EZH2 was evaluated by immunohistochemistry (IHC). LncRNA data was also compared to standard breast tumor data including ER, PR, Her2 and Ki67 IHC. SYSTAT version 11 statistical package was used to perform for all the tests. RESULTS: Following optimization experiments of the core punch flow cytometric approach, DNA index and percent S-phase fraction intratumoral heterogeneities were detected in 10/23 (44%) and 11/23 (47%) specimens respectively. The lncRNA CISH study utilized a TMA that contained 36 spots of NA breast tissues, 34 DCIS spots and 43 IC spots. HOTAIR CISH staining was significantly stronger in IC than DCIS (p CONCLUSION: Core-punching is an effective alternative to whole specimen sectioning and shows that macro-level genomic heterogeneity is common even within a single FFPE block. The interrelationship of DNA content heterogeneity to other forms of heterogeneity requires further study. RNAscope CISH supports bright-field microscopy investigations of lncRNA expression in FFPE tissue specimens. HOTAIR, H19 and KCNQ1OT1 may be potential breast cancer biomarkers, both HOTAIR and H19 may be a marker for DCIS at increased risk of progression to invasive cancer. HOTAIR, in particular, may be a predictor for invasive cancer grade.

Obesity has been identified as a significant risk factor for chronic diseases, contributing to health disparities in minority and vulnerable populations. Though research has identified an increased risk for obesity in the Hispanic immigrant population, there is little or no research on the heterogeneity of obesity predictors in specific immigrant populations in the United States. This study examined the predictors of obesity in the Nigerian immigrant population in the United States. Guided by the social ecological model and the segmented assimilation theory, this cross-sectional study collected primary data from 205 Nigerian immigrants in the United States using the CDC's Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System self-administered web-based survey. Spearman's correlation and logistic regressions were used to analyze data through SPSS. The results showed no significant relationship between obesity and the factors education, socioeconomic status, length of stay, and level of physical activity. This study, however, identified a significant association between weekly consumption of alcohol and all obesity (OR 1.78, p = .021), and moderate/morbid obesity (OR 2.46, p = .013). There was also a significant association between gender and moderate/morbid obesity (OR 3.30, p = .031). These findings provide strong evidence to inform the development of targeted culturally-relevant community-based interventions for Nigerian immigrant population in the United States, including health education and targeted screenings for alcohol consumption, and other unrecognized behaviors that increase their risk for obesity. The lack of association between other well-known predictors of obesity and obesity outcomes calls for further investigation into other causes of obesity in this immigrant population.

Ce travail examine le mode de fonctionnement du système des discours directs dans cinq romans de Maupassant. Il est alimenté par les fondements théoriques de Bakhtine et les développements épistémologiques de Bres qui débouchent sur un cadre opératoire élaboré par Authier-Revuz : l’hétérogénéité montrée. Parmi les modalités de cette hétérogénéité, nous avons ciblé le discours direct qui forme un système avec le discours narratorial. Nous avons scruté ce système sous le prisme de la démarche stylistique quantitative, assortie des analyses qualitatives présentées. Nous avons scruté les mécanismes syntaxiques des segments introducteurs du discours direct, en insistant sur leur construction, les catégories sémantiques et énonciatives des verbes. Ces indicateurs ont été réinvestis par la suite pour analyser les fonctions des discours narratoriaux et des discours directs. Au bout du compte, nous avons tiré plusieurs conclusions. Nous avons vu que le segment introducteur est doté des valeurs narrativo-descriptives, illocutoires et perlocutoires, tributaires des ressources langagières en présence. Quant aux discours directs, ils ont des fonctions langagières et énonciatives. La première repose sur des usages de la langue qui révèlent non seulement les affects des personnages, mais aussi certaines situations de communication. La fonction énonciative repose essentiellement sur les valeurs impressive, expressive et interlocutive des personnages. La prégnance des phénomènes observés permet de dire que toutes ces fonctions concourent à la recherche de l’illusion référentielle par Maupassant au travers du système de discours direct intégré dans la trame du récit. / This work discusses how the system of direct speeches in five novels of Maupassant functions. It is rooted in the theoretical works of Bakhtin and on the epistemological developments of Bres which are developed on an operating framework elaborated by Authier-Revuz: the heterogeneity shown. Of the modalities of this heterogeneity, we have targeted direct and narrative discourses. We have analysed this system using the quantitative stylistic approach alongside the qualitative analyses presented. We have scrutinised the syntactic mechanisms of the introductory segments of direct speech, emphasizing their construction, semantic categories, and verb initiatives. These indicators were subsequently reinvested to analyse the functions of narrative discourses and direct speeches. At the end of the day, we made a number of conclusions. We have already seen the segment presenting narrative descriptive, illocutionary and perlocutory values dependent on the linguistic resources involved. As for direct speeches, they have linguistic and enunciative functions. The linguistic function involves language use with at the same time the feelings of the characters and also certain situations of communication. The enunciative function is essentially based on the impressive, expressive and interlocative values of the characters. The representation of the phenomena observed allows all the concurrent functions to search for the referential illusion by Maupassant through the system of speech integrated into the plot of the story.

The present day Bahamian archipelago was deposited during sea level highstands when carbonate production was high enough to overfill accommodation space. This study unravels the complex stratigraphy and heterogeneity created by island accretion during and across the most recent Pleistocene highstands (MIS 5e, 9, and 11) using New Providence Island as a case study. Building upon the work of previous researchers, field based mapping was completed to understand the spatial relationships between ages, environments of deposition, and grainstone compositions across the island. Using the vertical and lateral relationships gained from detailed mapping, the depositional history of New Providence Island has been reconstructed for the Pleistocene MIS 5e, 9, and 11 sea level highstands. To map all of the environments of deposition, detailed criteria were created to recognize each environment observed on New Providence Island. Ages were estimated with field techniques and confirmed with dating done in previous studies and in this study, including both U-series techniques and amino acid racemization (AAR). Hand samples and short (< 1 m) cores were collected in the field and were used for petrographic analyses in the laboratory as well as whole rock AAR sampling for age determination. Detailed outcrop drawings were created, showing the lateral and vertical relationships of environments within outcrops. Meanwhile, maps and cross-sections were drafted to better understand island-wide relationships of environments, ages, and compositions. Based on age maps, New Providence formed by vertical and lateral accretion during the last three Pleistocene highstands (MIS 5e, 9, and 11), with a majority of deposition occurring during the most recent interglacial (MIS 5e, ~125 ka). Environment of deposition mapping revealed that island deposition occurred within shallow marine to eolian environments. Because of the abundance of MIS 5e deposits, the sedimentological complexity of an individual highstand (MIS 5e) reveals sub-orbital scale sea level changes. With mid-highstand sea level fluctuations apparent within the MIS 5e deposits on New Providence Island, a high level of lithofacies complexity could be expected within any individual sea level highstand. This study documents the complex vertical and lateral facies patterns associated with island building between and within sea level highstands.

This study examined the moderating role of motivational tendencies for social approach and avoidance behavior, as measured by anterior EEG asymmetry, on symptom expression. In particular, this study aimed to replicate and extend previous findings that measures of anterior EEG asymmetry provide an important marker of subgroups of HFA children that significantly differ from each other, and controls, on measures of social communication impairment. EEG data were collected across two occasions on 51 HFA and 44 non-HFA children. EEG asymmetry was computed for homologous electrode pairs (e.g., lnF4-lnF3). More positive scores were indicative of relative left frontal asymmetry. Data on social and behavioral functioning were collected via parent- and self-report. Results of this short-term longitudinal study revealed moderate test-retest reliability for midfrontal asymmetry, r (65) = .39, p < .01. Results supported previous research demonstrating the differential relation of EEG asymmetry to symptom impairment among HFA children, such that parents of LFA-HFA children reported lower levels of impairment than RFA-HFA children on the SCQ Total Score, F (3, 47) = 3.58, p = .065, and Social Interaction Domain, F (3, 47) = 4.59, p < .05. Results also indicated that parents of LFA-HFA children reported higher levels of general communicative competence on the CCC-2, GCC, F (3, 47) = 6.83, p = .01, but greater impairment in pragmatic communication when compared to RFA-HFA children, SIDC, F (3, 47) = 4.41, p < .05. Additional analyses indicated that RFA was associated with early and more confident recognition of atypical (and stereotypically autistic) development based on retrospective parent-report (ADI-R #86), while LFA was associated with early, but less unambiguously autistic impairment, X2 (51) = 3.75, p = .05. This study demonstrates that anterior EEG asymmetry subgroups are reliable and useful markers of phenotypic variability that are meaningfully related to the experience and expression of symptoms of core autism impairment.

The overarching objective of this dissertation was to improve our knowledge of the relationship between seascape heterogeneity and diversity of stony coral assemblages across spatial scales. Coral communities on patch reefs in three regions of the Caribbean were used as a model system to investigating this relationship because patch reef heterogeneity could be readily quantified within the seascape using remote sensing and image analysis techniques. I began with a theoretical approach, exploring the origins of observed species diversity among coral communities at increasing spatial scales. Hierarchical sampling and null models revealed that coral diversity was governed by non-random processes at local- (10s of meters) and meso- (100s of m) scales. Spatial autocorrelation and reef heterogeneity were then investigated as potential mechanistic drivers of these non-random diversity patterns. I found limited support for spatial drivers. However, beta diversity was significantly correlated to metrics of reef heterogeneity (measured as reef size, spatial configuration, and complexity), indicating that differences in reef heterogeneity were making a disproportionate contribution to the overall coral community diversity. The relationship between corals and reef heterogeneity was found to be both scale-dependent and region dependent. This theoretical approach was followed by a manipulative approach using an existing artificial patch reef array to experimentally test the influence of reef spatial configuration and topographical complexity on local diversity. Corals were most sensitive to reef size and secondarily reef configuration within the seascape. Unlike reef fishes, reef complexity did not emerge as a strong predictor of the coral community composition in either the observational data or the experimental manipulation. These observational and experimental explorations of the relationship between corals and habitat reveal that intra-habitat variability (i.e. differences between patch reefs) can influence the diversity and abundance of corals. I then focused on applying this improved theoretical understanding towards improving coral management efforts. I present a new methodology to assess the efficacy of marine reserve effects by controlling for natural seascape variation within and beyond the reserve boundary, and I quantified the bias of underestimating coral diversity by using conventional reef monitoring protocols that ignore differences in reef size. In conclusion, I demonstrate empirically that seascape attributes of reef heterogeneity can contribute to coral diversity at relatively small spatial scales (<1km) and can affect corals with different life history traits in different ways. Hence, management and conservation efforts must consider the role of these meso-scale spatial metrics to influence the structure of the coral assemblage at the local scale.

This doctoral dissertation studies the effect of economic integration on the performance of firms. The ongoing process of global economic integration has been characterized by dismantling of trade barriers and openness to foreign direct investments (FDI). These changes have not only brought opportunities to firms in terms of market access and the possibility to learn about foreign technologies brought in by foreign counterparts. The new economic environment has also posed new challenges through a greater competitive pressure urging firms to continuously align their production patterns to more efficient business practices. The agility of firms to adjust to external shocks, and hence the potential of countries to benefit from economic integration, does presumably not only depend on the internal assets of firms but may also be influenced by government policies and national institutional settings. This conceptual background constitutes the storyline of the doctoral dissertation. Chapter 1 of the dissertation is a step forward in understanding the externalities of foreign direct investments on the economic performance of domestic firms. During the late eighties and early nineties, Spain saw an upswing in foreign direct investments that placed the economic at the top of FDI recipients in Europe. To provide fresh insights into the firm-levels responses to FDI, Chapter 1 investigates the effects of foreign direct investment on the productivity of domestic firms within the same sector of activity as foreign firms, and whether FDI externalities differed depending on their level of technology. The empirical results show that foreign presence had an overall positive effect on the productivity growth of domestic firms. The gains were not, however, evenly distributed across firms. Firms closer to the frontier benefited more from FDI than firms far from the technology frontier. A further integration of the world economy with new economic actors, like China and India, has highlighted the need for European firms to climb the quality ladder and shift towards high value added products and greater flexibility in delivering new products in order to survive new competitive threats. Chapter 2 is a theoretical and empirical examination of the role of innovation for the export activities of firms. The intuition is that firms through innovation enhance their access to foreign markets by improving cost competitiveness and the quality of products. The Chapter builds on previous literature to develop a trade model in which firms differ in their propensity to innovate and export based on their underlying productivity. The empirical results, in line with the theoretical model, suggest a positive effect of innovation on the probability of participation in export markets. The innovative activities of firms may not only depend on their internal assets, but presumably also on their relations with other actors in the national innovation systems. To understand better the role of firms’ relations with the science sector, Chapter 3 turns to one of the major producers of knowledge –universities- and investigates the factors that contribute to the successful transfer of knowledge from universities to the market. The results from Chapter 3 show that universities with established technology transfer policies, procedures, and large and experienced technology transfer offices perform better. Previous chapters demonstrate that innovation gives a competitive edge to firms exploring foreign markets. Chapter 4, which is joint work with economists from France’s central bank, investigates how credit market imperfections affect the expansion and survival of firms in foreign markets, which is essential for the design of policies stimulating aggregate trade and competitiveness. Chapter 4 develops a theoretical model to study the impact of credit constraints on the number of newly served export destinations by firms and their exits from the export market and tests it using French firm-level data. The results show that credit constraints negatively affect the number of newly created export relations and have a negative effect on the probability of exit from the export market.