The use of imitation exercises—writing activities employing model texts and the modeling of writing-process behaviors—in the First Year composition classroom can have many benefits for both student writers and teachers, and offers practical solutions to some of the problems facing student writers in today's colleges. First Year writing students are often unaware that they are part of a larger academic community. They often lack exposure to and understanding of academic standards. They don't understand that "good" writing is not a blanket-concept but is determined on a situational basis, and they are frustrated by the vaguely expressed expectations of their writing teachers. These problems are interconnected and so are all addressed in this study, but because they offer so many potential avenues for discussion, the focus of this project will be limited to the benefits of clear expectations that the use of modeling activities in the classroom can bring about for both students and teachers. An in-depth look at the materials, methods, and results of student participation in the activities of a single semester of English 1105, the first course in Virginia Tech's First Year Writing Program will be the dominant component of the project; it will be supplemented by a review of literature and a contextual discussion of what Stephen M. North calls the "Practitioner" mode of inquiry—the gathering of pedagogical information through the active classroom application of educational theories and practices. / Master of Arts

This thesis examines Finnish soldiers’ experiences on the battlefield during the Winter War (1939-1940) and the Continuation War (1941-1944) through analyzing 245 war letters written by seven individuals who fought in the conflicts. A thematic data analysis approach is employed as a method to explore the narratives within these letters. The main themes expressed in the letters are identified and analyzed using the analytical framework of ”imitation of life” as presented by Povrzanović Frykman (2008) and Maček (2009), which serves as a guiding lens through which the soldiers’ representations of war are interpreted, focusing on their efforts to maintain a sense of normalcy and continuity amidst the disruptions of war. Additionally, the construction of enemy images and gender dynamics in the correspondence are analyzed. The Finnish soldiers’ letters depict a stark contrast between the brutality of war and their attempts to preserve elements of civilian life through acts of imitation, such as focusing on certain aspects of life like food and nature. Delving into the subjective experiences and emotional narratives as presented in the war letters, this thesis provides a nuanced understanding of human dimensions in wartime existence. The study contributes to the growing body of literature on soldiers’ wartime experiences and war letters, and offers insights into the complexities of war and the enduring legacies of conflict on individual and collective memory.

La notion de cause est l’alpha et l’oméga de l’Éthique. Mais elle apparaît principalement de manière oblique : à travers « l’idée d’une cause extérieure » qui accompagne les passions dérivées. La cause, imaginée de façon assignable, n’est en fait plus assignable. L’individu étant complexe, il est difficile de démêler ce qui lui arrive de l’extérieur, de ce qui est produit par l’intérieur. Dans la passion, on se modifie à son insu pour devenir un sujet de ce qui lui arrive, et comprend la cause de ce changement sous la forme d’un récit. Cette dynamique imaginaire, nous l’appelons « causalité imaginaire » et nous l’expliquons en termes mécaniques. Nous dégageons d’abord l’essentiel de la mécanique spinoziste : la positivité ontologique de chaque idée (nature agissante) ; la multiplicité des référentiels qui se croisent en une seule et même nature (enveloppement) ; et le concept d’individu originairement composé (emboîtement des individus). La coexistence de ces référentiels autour d’un seul, voilà ce qui constitue la structure de la causalité imaginaire, et la variation de leur proportion, son contenu effectif. Conformément à cette structure, nous appliquons le « conatus », principe d’autoconservation, en premier aux idées ou affects, pour montrer que le désir, essence actuelle de l’homme, est un complexe d’affects qui, individus eux-mêmes, médiatisent l’influence des autres. Il en résulte que la causalité imaginaire est la causalité mécanique elle-même, relative aux individus complexes. Enfin, tout en nous référant à la causalité psychique freudienne, nous tentons d’esquisser un nouveau concept d’Inconscient, comme rapport sans sujet ou structure sans centre. / The notion of cause is the alpha and omega of Ethics. But it appears mostly in an oblique way: through "the idea of ​​an external cause" that accompanies the derived passions. The cause, imagined assignable, is actually no more assignable. As the individual is complex, it is difficult to disentangle what is happening in it from the exterior, from what is produced by the interior. In passion, one is modified unwittingly to become a subject of what happens to him, and understand the cause of this change under the form of a story. This imaginary dynamics, I call it "imaginary causality" and explain it in mechanical terms. I establish first the key features of Spinoza’s mechanics: the ontological positivity of each idea (acting nature); the multiplicity of referential frames that intersect at a single nature (envelopment); and the concept of the individual as originally composed (nesting individuals). The coexistence of these referential frames around only one of them, this is precisely what constitutes the structure of imaginary causality, and the variation of their proportion, its actual content. In accordance with this structure, I apply "conatus", self-preservation principle, to ideas or affects at first, to show that desire, actual essence of a man, is a complex of affects which, as individuals themselves, mediate the influence of others. It turns out that imaginary causality is the very mechanical causality, concerning the complex individuals. Finally, while I refer to Freudian psychic causality, I attempt to outline a new concept of the unconscious: as relation without a subject or structure without a center.

Ce travail a pour objectif l’analyse de l’influence du cinéma dans la littérature hispano-américaine. L’hypothèse centrale est que dès que le cinéma, par essence un art de masse, a commencé à gagner sa place dans le système des arts, il a influencé la façon dont les écrivains représentent la réalité. L’enthousiasme que le cinéma a réveillé chez de nombreux écrivains latino-américains depuis le début, et la pénurie d’études critiques à ce sujet, font de l’Amérique Latine un terrain très fécond pour mener à bien nos recherches. Notre travail est structuré en trois parties. Dans la première nous introduisons la problématique qui nous intéresse avec une attention spéciale aux travaux de sémiologie et de narratologie élaborés à partir des années soixante. Nous reprenons la séparation structuraliste entre « histoire » et « narration » pour distinguer deux niveaux d’emprunt différents, que nous analysons séparément dans la deuxième et la troisième partie.Dans la deuxième, nous considérons le concept d’influence depuis une perspective intertextuelle, en regardant comment certains récits littéraires ont assimilé des histoires racontées précédemment par le cinéma, les intégrant sous la forme de l’ « insertion » ou à travers un processus de « réécriture ».Dans la troisième partie nous étudions l’influence cinématographique depuis une perspective intermédiale, c'est-à-dire en analysant des cas où le cinéma est évoqué dans sa spécificité médiatique. Dans ces cas, l’emprunt n’a pas lieu au niveau de l’histoire, mais à celui de la narration et les auteurs tentent de reproduire à l’écrit une série de procédés narratifs utilisés à l’écran. / This work aims to analyze the influence of cinema on Latin American literature. The central hypothesis is that as soon as cinema, by essence a mass art form, started to win its place in the system of the arts, it influenced the way writers represent reality. The enthusiasm that cinema awoke in many Latin American writers since the beginning, and the lack of critical studies on the subject, make Latin America a very fertile ground for our research. Our work is separated in three sections. First, we introduce the issue at hand, paying special attention to semiology and narratology works starting from the 1960’s. We use the structuralist separation between “story” and “narration” to establish two different levels of borrowing, which we analyze separately in the second and third sections.In the second section, we consider the concept of influence from an intertextual perspective, observing how certain literary texts have assimilated stories previously told by cinema, integrating them under the form of insertion or through a process of rewriting.In the third section we study cinematographic influence from an intermedial perspective, by analyzing cases in which cinema is considered in its specificity as a medium. In these cases, borrowing doesn’t take place at the level of the story, but at that of the narration and the authors attempt to reproduce in writing a series of narrative methods used for the screen.

Reading development is supported by strong language skills, not least in deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) children. The work in the present thesis investigates reading development in DHH children who use sign language, attend Regional Special Needs Schools (RSNS) in Sweden and are learning to read. The primary aim of the present work was to investigate whether the reading skills of these children can be improved via computerized sign language based literacy training. Another aim was to investigate concurrent and longitudinal associations between skills in reading, sign language, and cognition in this population. The results suggest that sign language based literacy training may support development of word reading. In addition, awareness and manipulation of the sub-lexical structure of sign language seem to assist word reading, and imitation of familiar signs (i.e., vocabulary) may be associated with developing reading comprehension. The associations revealed between sign language skills and reading development support the notion that sign language skills provide a foundation for emerging reading skills in DHH signing children. In addition, the results also suggest that working memory and Theory of Mind (ToM) are related to reading comprehension in this population. Furthermore, the results indicate that sign language experience enhances the establishment of representations of manual gestures, and that progression in ToM seems to be typical, although delayed, in RSNS pupils. Working memory has a central role in integrating environmental stimuli and language-mediated representations, and thereby provides a platform for cross-modal language processing and multimodal language development. / En god språklig förmåga bidrar till god läsutveckling, inte minst hos döva och hörselskadade (D/H) barn. Studierna som ingår i avhandlingen undersöker läsutveckling hos D/H elever som går på teckenspråkiga specialskolor och som håller på att lära sig att läsa. Arbetets huvudsakliga syfte var att undersöka om deras läsförmåga kan förbättras via datoriserad teckenspråksbaserad lästräning. Ett annat syfte var att undersöka samtida och longitudinella samband mellan läsförmåga, teckenspråk, och kognition i samma population. Resultaten indikerar att teckenspråksbaserad lästräning kan bidra till ordläsningsutveckling. Vidare pekar resultaten på att medvetenhet om och manipulation av teckenspråkets sublexikala struktur stöttar läsförmågan och dessutom att imitation av kända tecken (i.e., vokabulär) var associerat med utvecklingen av barnens läsförståelse. Dessa fynd visar att teckenspråkskunskaper kan utgöra en grund för läsutveckling hos teckenspråkiga D/H elever. Resultaten indikerade även att arbetsminne och Theory of Mind (ToM) är relaterade till läsförståelse i denna grupp. Vid sidan av resultaten rörande läsutveckling, framkom också att teckenspråkserfarenhet leder till starkare etablering av representationer av manuella gester och vidare att barnens mentaliseringsförmåga (Theory of Mind) uppvisade en förväntad progression, om än försenad. En implikation av detta är att insatser som stöttar utveckling av teckenbaserade representationer och deras användning vid bearbetning av skrivet språk kan främja läsutveckling hos teckenspråkiga D/H elever. Arbetsminne föreslås genom sin roll i integration mellan inkommande stimuli och språkmedierade representationer fungera som en plattform för modalitetsöverskridande språkbearbetning och multimodal språkutveckling.

Un problème récurrent dans le domaine de la robotique est la difficulté à reproduire les résultats et valider les affirmations faites par les scientifiques. Les expériences conduites en laboratoire donnent fréquemment des résultats propres à l'environnement dans lequel elles ont été effectuées, rendant la tâche de les reproduire et de les valider ardues et coûteuses. Pour cette raison, il est difficile de comparer la performance et la robustesse de différents contrôleurs robotiques. Les environnements substituts à faibles coûts sont populaires, mais introduisent une réduction de performance lorsque l'environnement cible est enfin utilisé. Ce mémoire présente nos travaux sur l'amélioration des références et de la comparaison d'algorithmes (``Benchmarking'') en robotique, notamment dans le domaine de la conduite autonome. Nous présentons une nouvelle platforme, les Autolabs Duckietown, qui permet aux chercheurs d'évaluer des algorithmes de conduite autonome sur des tâches, du matériel et un environnement standardisé à faible coût. La plateforme offre également un environnement virtuel afin d'avoir facilement accès à une quantité illimitée de données annotées. Nous utilisons la plateforme pour analyser les différences entre la simulation et la réalité en ce qui concerne la prédictivité de la simulation ainsi que la qualité des images générées. Nous fournissons deux métriques pour quantifier l'utilité d'une simulation et nous démontrons de quelles façons elles peuvent être utilisées afin d'optimiser un environnement proxy. / A common problem in robotics is reproducing results and claims made by researchers. The experiments done in robotics laboratories typically yield results that are specific to a complex setup and difficult or costly to reproduce and validate in other contexts. For this reason, it is arduous to compare the performance and robustness of various robotic controllers. Low-cost reproductions of physical environments are popular but induce a performance reduction when transferred to the target domain. This thesis present the results of our work toward improving benchmarking in robotics, specifically for autonomous driving. We build a new platform, the Duckietown Autolabs, which allow researchers to evaluate autonomous driving algorithms in a standardized framework on low-cost hardware. The platform offers a simulated environment for easy access to annotated data and parallel evaluation of driving solutions in customizable environments. We use the platform to analyze the discrepancy between simulation and reality in the case of predictivity and quality of data generated. We supply two metrics to quantify the usefulness of a simulation and demonstrate how they can be used to optimize the value of a proxy environment.

This thesis studies offline reinforcement learning as an optimization technique for downlink link adaptation, which is one of many control loops in Radio access networks. The work studies the impact of the quality of pre-collected datasets, in terms of how much the data covers the state-action space and whether it is collected by an expert policy or not. The data quality is evaluated by training three different algorithms: Deep Q-networks, Critic regularized regression, and Monotonic advantage re-weighted imitation learning. The performance is measured for each combination of algorithm and dataset, and their need for hyperparameter tuning and sample efficiency is studied. The results showed Critic regularized regression to be the most robust because it could learn well from any of the datasets that were used in the study and did not require extensive hyperparameter tuning. Deep Q-networks required careful hyperparameter tuning, but paired with the expert data it managed to reach rewards equally as high as the agents trained with Critic Regularized Regression. Monotonic advantage re-weighted imitation learning needed data from an expert policy to reach a high reward. In summary, offline reinforcement learning can perform with success in a telecommunication use case such as downlink link adaptation. Critic regularized regression was the preferred algorithm because it could perform great with all the three different datasets presented in the thesis. / Denna avhandling studerar offline reinforcement learning som en optimeringsteknik för nedlänks länkanpassning, vilket är en av många kontrollcyklar i radio access networks. Arbetet undersöker inverkan av kvaliteten på förinsamlade dataset, i form av hur mycket datan täcker state-action rymden och om den samlats in av en expertpolicy eller inte. Datakvaliteten utvärderas genom att träna tre olika algoritmer: Deep Q-nätverk, Critic regularized regression och Monotonic advantage re-weighted imitation learning. Prestanda mäts för varje kombination av algoritm och dataset, och deras behov av hyperparameterinställning och effektiv användning av data studeras. Resultaten visade att Critic regularized regression var mest robust, eftersom att den lyckades lära sig mycket från alla dataseten som användes i studien och inte krävde omfattande hyperparameterinställning. Deep Q-nätverk krävde noggrann hyperparameterinställning och tillsammans med expertdata lyckades den nå högst prestanda av alla agenter i studien. Monotonic advantage re-weighted imitation learning behövde data från en expertpolicy för att lyckas lära sig problemet. Det datasetet som var mest framgångsrikt var expertdatan. Sammanfattningsvis kan offline reinforcement learning vara framgångsrik inom telekommunikation, specifikt nedlänks länkanpassning. Critic regularized regression var den föredragna algoritmen för att den var stabil och kunde prestera bra med alla tre olika dataseten som presenterades i avhandlingen.

This thesis in two volumes is a study of the paintings of David ill Ryckaert (1612- 1661 ). Ryckaert grew up in a family of artists, and painted within a close community of fellow artists. According to several twentieth-century critics, Ryckaert was no more than a minor imitator of other Flemish painters. Underlying such relegation of Ryckaert is an uncritical and distinctly Modernist glorification of originality, or merely novelty. The chief argument of this thesis is that a careful reconstruction of the socio-cultural circumstances ofRyckaert's work calls into question the destructive employment of originality as a criterion of artistic greatness. Much of the vocabulary of Flemish art of the time was established. Artists thus proved their excellence both to fellow painters and a public fully conversant with the artistic traditions of subject and style, if such pictorial conventions were notably refmed or treated with a remarkable grace. Embracing the criteria of personal style and the beauty of the work, this environment is clearly averse to the blank veneration of new or original art. I argue that the term originality is itself dangerous therefore and that to neglect Ryckaert's work as that of a minor imitator is invalid and unhelpful. A careful examination of Ryckaert's known oeuvre reveals that his work is distinguished by a fine modelling, harmonious composition and a warm palette with colourful highlights. Although he relied on an established iconographic repertory, he maintained creative variation, thereby ensuring a steady demand. Ryckaert's imitation of other artists' work requires us to adjust twentieth-century criteria which tend to be pejorative of those who borrow from fellow artists. In fact Ryckaert could be said to have refmed his individuality as a painter through the testing creative encounter with and imitation of other artists. / Art / D.Litt. et Phil. (History of Art)

Thèse numérisée par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal.

Le choix de partenaire est souvent considéré comme étant le résultat d’une simple interaction, mais, en nature, l’environnement social dans lequel les animaux communiquent correspond généralement à un réseau d’émetteurs et de récepteurs. La présence de congénères, de rivaux, et même de prédateurs durant le choix de partenaire peut avoir plusieurs répercussions sur ce choix. Être observé par une audience composée de congénères de même sexe peut pousser certaines espèces à modifier le niveau d’expression de leurs préférences, et même à modifier ces préférences pour réduire la compétition ou éviter d’être imitées. La préférence de plusieurs femelles diamant mandarin pour deux mâles a été mesurée en absence et en présence d’une audience femelle pour déterminer si la présence de rivales a des effets sur le choix de partenaire des femelles. De plus, afin de déterminer si ces effets varient en fonction de la qualité des femelles focales et audience, la condition de plusieurs femelles a été altérée en diminuant leur capacité à voler. Selon les résultats, les femelles diminuent leur niveau de sélectivité suite à l’ajout d’une audience femelle, et l’intensité des interactions mâle-femelle dépend de la condition des femelles focales. Les femelles ajustent leur comportement surtout pour éviter d’être imitées et non en fonction de leur condition. Cependant, ces deux mécanismes peuvent affecter les femelles simultanément. / Mate choice is often considered as the result of a simple interaction, but, in the wild, the social environment in which animals communicate generally corresponds to a network of several signallers and receivers. The presence of conspecifics, rivals, and even predators during mate choice can have many repercussions on that choice. Being observed by an audience of same-sex conspecifics can drive some species to alter the level of expression of their preferences, and even to modify those preferences to reduce competition or avoid being copied. The preference of several zebra finch females for two males was measured without and with a female audience to determine if the presence of an audience alters female mate choice. Moreover, to determine if these effects vary according to focal and audience females’ condition, the condition of several females was altered by diminishing their flying ability. According to the results, females lower their level of selectivity following the addition of an audience, and the intensity of male-female interactions depends on the focal females’ condition. Our findings suggest that females mainly adjust their behavior to avoid being copied and not according to their condition. However, these two mechanisms might have affected the females’ mating preferences simultaneously.