Self-rated religiosity has been studied alongside intelligence for nearly 100 years. The predominant finding is a negative relationship between measures of self-rated religiosity and individual measures of intelligence. That is, as intelligence increases, the degree of self-rated religiosity decreases; as intelligence scores decrease, self-rated religiosity tends to increase. Spirituality has been studied intermittently as a separate theoretical construct since the 1970’s and there has been a recent empirical drive to consider and refer to these concepts separately. Valid and reliable measures of intelligence have not yet been examined alongside empirically validated, individual, self-rated measures of spirituality. In this study, 44 undergraduate students from the University of Saskatchewan completed the Shipley-2 abbreviated test of intelligence and the Spiritual Well Being Questionnaire (SWBQ). Due to the nature of religiosity relative to spirituality, as well as individual differences in characteristic propensities to engage in logical reasoning, it was hypothesized that when compared to past research examining measured intelligence relative to self-endorsed measures of religiosity, a relatively weak relationship would be observed. The nature and strength of the relationship between self-rated measures of spirituality and measured intelligence was nearly identical to a recent meta-analysis study examining the relationship between self-rated religiosity and measured intelligence. However, a relatively strong negative relationship was observed between the transcendent factor of the SWBQ – the factor most closely associated with notions of a God, religion, or religiosity – and intelligence. This finding supports the hypothesis and suggests that perhaps it is the notion of a God or other sentient being that is driving or inflating the widely observed negative relationship between self-rated religiosity and intelligence.

This essay aims to explore Evelina’s abilities to self-author her life as a tool of agency, self-authoring means to be able to write your own life. Evelina was written by Frances Burney in 1778 and tells the story of a young orphan lady who visits London. She is inexperienced and makes mistakes that can be seen as fatal in the social sphere. Despite that she reflects on her mistakes and reactions and gains agency in the end. One of her bigger problems is her beauty. It puts her in situations she almost cannot control.  She becomes a sexual prey quite easily. Jane Eyre written by Charlotte Bronte in 1847 is relevant for this essay because a lot of criticism has been made about the threats and abilities that Jane’s agency has. The theoretical framework for this essay is based on the works by eight different critics: Diana Meyers, Judith Butler, Jane Spencer, Ellen Moers, Virginia Woolf, Gayatri Spivak, Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar. The framework explains what agency and gendered act is, it also explains the historical context behind Burney and Bronte. Lastly it discusses how the other half of the two heroines has to disappear in order for them to achieve agency. The conclusion for this essay is that Evelina attains agency though her reactions and behavior, even if she looks at herself trough the eyes of another, or in other words attains a God-like perspective, she manages to self-author her life and herself in to being.

Ungdomsinnebandyn i Jämtlands län har de senaste 10 åren tappat spelare. Precis som övriga idrottsverksamheter i Sverige upplever innebandyn ett tapp av ungdomar vid 15 till 16 års ålder. Forskningen pekar mot att en ungdomstränare är av betydelse för att ungdomar ska fortsätta med sin idrott. Syfte Belysa betydelsefulla faktorer till att ungdomar fortsatt att spela innebandy till seniornivå, samt betydelsen av ungdomstränaren. Metod Kvalitativ manifest innehållsanalys utifrån semi-strukturerade intervjuer (n=5) med unga manliga seniorspelare (=21,8 år; sd=1,6 år) från Jämtlands län. Respondenterna hade oavbrutet spelat tävlingsinnebandy från ungdomsnivå till seniornivå. Resultat Kompisar och upplevd framgång var de viktigaste faktorerna till att respondenterna spelar innebandy idag. I början uppskattades en lättsam miljö med mycket lek. Med ökad ålder ökade betydelsen av upplev utveckling och tävlingsmomentet blev viktigare. En ungdomstränare är av betydelse och bör vara positiv och skapa ett lättsamt klimat i unga år. Under senare delen av ungdomen bör ungdomstränaren vara mer auktoritär och ha mer fokus på utveckling. Konklusion Kompisar och upplevd framgång är de viktigaste faktorerna samtidigt som ungdomstränaren är av betydelse. Tidigare studier har påvisat liknande resultat. / Youth floorball in the county of Jämtland has shown a decreased number of players in the last 10 years. Floorball, like other sports in Sweden, also drops a lot of players at the age of 15 to 16 years. Earlier studies in the field have shown that youth team coaches are important for young athletes to stay in sports. Aim To highlight factors that have been important for youth floorball players to stay in the sport up to senior level, and the importance of the youth team coach. Method Qualitative content analysis from semi-structured interviews (n=5) with young male senior floorball players (=21,8 years; sd=1,6 years) from the county of Jämland. The respondents have played floorball from youth level to senior level without any break. Results Friends and perceived success has been the most important factors for the respondents. A friendly climate has been important in the early stage while progress and competition have been important in the latter stage of the youth level. A youth team coach is important and should be positive and create a positive and friendly climate. In later years the youth team coach should be focusing on progress and can therefore be more demanding. Conclusion Friends and perceived success has been the most important factors while a youth team coach is important. Earlier studies has shown similar results.

This dissertation engages a very general question: what matters politically? This question is characterized as a point of heresy, as a site through which different political stances differentiate themselves from one another and account for their differences. Building on the concept of aesthetics of politics developed by Jacques Rancière, I seek to free up this concept’s critical and analytical potential by arguing that different aesthetics of politics act as prerequisites to divergent determinations of political importance. More precisely, I argue that significant formulations of how variations in distributions of political importance occur tend to presuppose particular accounts of the relationships between perception and interpretation, sensibility and understanding, or how we sense and how we make sense. While the concept of aesthetics is tied to particular histories of what has been called Western Modernity, I argue that Western political thought has been characterized by a deep concern for questions of perception since its allegedly inaugural texts in Classical Greece, and that the so-called postmodern condition continues to put into play aesthetic terms of political engagement. To test this hypothesis positing that we always already think of politics aesthetically, I map five influential aesthetics of politics: aesthetics of prevalence, aesthetics of emancipation, aesthetics of temperament, aesthetics of friction, and aesthetics of endurance. Each one is already manifold. To make sense of these multiplicities, each aesthetics of politics is studied through a fourfold engagement with the politics of one of the senses of the age-old fivefold of sight, taste, hearing, touch, and smell. The politics of each sense are engaged along a politological, an artistico-political, a polemological and a hauntological folds. I am thereby able to show the intricacies of how the problem of political importance has been and is being dealt with. / Graduate / 0615 / simonlab@uvic.ca

Syftet med denna undersökning är att undersöka och belysa pedagogers syn på rörelseaktiviteters betydelse för barnens språkutveckling. Jag vill också få kunskap om man arbetar på olika sätt med rörelseaktiviteter och språkutveckling när det gäller barnens ålder.Jag har använt mig av intervjuer som verktyg för att uppnå syftet med min undersökning. När jag formulerade mina intervjufrågor utgick jag från min frågeställning. Jag valde att genomföra intervjuerna via mail. Jag har intervjuat 5 pedagoger. Pedagogerna bor i olika kommuner i Mellansverige och är kvinnor i blandade åldrar. De har arbetat olika länge och med barn inom förskolan.Flera pedagoger nämner att språket är en ständigt pågående och utvecklande process. Denna process startar redan när man som spädbarn börjar jollra. Processen fortsätter och leds framåt med hjälp av både vardagliga diskussioner och att aktivt arbete med estetiskt lärande. Språkutveckling handlar inte enbart om det talande språket utan också om kroppsspråket då detta är viktigt för att förstärka och förtydliga ord och meningar, kroppen förstärker den inre förståelsen. Pedagogerna anser att den motoriska utvecklingen främjar barns språkutveckling genom exempelvis leken. För att främja denna utveckling kan man som pedagog arbeta med de estetiska ämnena. Som pedagog är man en förebild och en inspirationskälla till barnen i förskolan. / The purpose of this study is to explore and illuminate teacher´s views on movement influence their children's language development. I also want to gain knowledge of working in different ways with physical activities and language development when it comes to children's ageI have used the interviews as tools to achieve the object of my inquiry. When I formulated my interview questions, I assumed my issue. I chose to conduct the interviews by email. I have interviewed five teachers. The teachers live in different municipalities in central Sweden and women of mixed ages. They have worked for different periods and with children in the preschool.Several teachers mentioned that language is an ongoing and evolving process. This process starts already when the infant begins to babble. The process continues, and led forward by using both everyday discussions and actively works with aesthetic learning. Language development is not only about the spoken language, but also about body language as this is important for strengthening and clarifying words and sentences, the body strengthens the internal understanding. Educators believe that motor development promotes children's language development by example game. To promote this development can be as an educator working with the aesthetic subjects. As an educator, you are a role model and an inspiration to the children in preschool

This dissertation engages a very general question: what matters politically? This question is characterized as a point of heresy, as a site through which different political stances differentiate themselves from one another and account for their differences. Building on the concept of aesthetics of politics developed by Jacques Rancière, I seek to free up this concept’s critical and analytical potential by arguing that different aesthetics of politics act as prerequisites to divergent determinations of political importance. More precisely, I argue that significant formulations of how variations in distributions of political importance occur tend to presuppose particular accounts of the relationships between perception and interpretation, sensibility and understanding, or how we sense and how we make sense. While the concept of aesthetics is tied to particular histories of what has been called Western Modernity, I argue that Western political thought has been characterized by a deep concern for questions of perception since its allegedly inaugural texts in Classical Greece, and that the so-called postmodern condition continues to put into play aesthetic terms of political engagement. To test this hypothesis positing that we always already think of politics aesthetically, I map five influential aesthetics of politics: aesthetics of prevalence, aesthetics of emancipation, aesthetics of temperament, aesthetics of friction, and aesthetics of endurance. Each one is already manifold. To make sense of these multiplicities, each aesthetics of politics is studied through a fourfold engagement with the politics of one of the senses of the age-old fivefold of sight, taste, hearing, touch, and smell. The politics of each sense are engaged along a politological, an artistico-political, a polemological and a hauntological folds. I am thereby able to show the intricacies of how the problem of political importance has been and is being dealt with. / Graduate / 0615 / simonlab@uvic.ca

Particle filters are a class of sequential Monte-Carlo methods which are used commonly when estimating various unknowns of the time-varying signals presented in real time, especially when dealing with nonlinearity and non-Gaussianity in BOT applications. This thesis work is designed to perform one such estimate involving tracking a person using the road information available from an IR surveillance video. In this thesis, a parallel custom hardware is implemented in Altera cyclone IV E FPGA device utilizing SIRF type of particle filter. This implementation has accounted how the algorithmic aspects of this sampling based filter relate to possibilities and constraints in a hardware implementation. Using 100MHz clock frequency, the synthesised hardware design can process almost 50 Mparticles/s. Thus, this implementation has resulted in tracking the target, which is defined by a 5-dimensional state variable, using the noisy measurements available from the sensor.

SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT FOR R/C BUILDING VULNERABILITY INDEX AND MEMBER IMPORTANCE CALCULATION Turkey has many active faults which have the potential to generate large earthquakes. Recent earthquakes showed that the buildings in Turkey are not well designed and vulnerable to earthquakes. Previous studies on the subject showed that many structures in Turkey need to be strengthened before the next major earthquake to minimize property loss and casualties. A number of fast and approximate (mostly empirical) methods have been developed in the past to process large building stock. However, there are some important and special structures that do not fit with the general building stock and needs special consideration (e.g., disaster management center, governmental buildings, hospitals, tall structures, etc.). This study targets to evaluate those important and special structures in a detailed, fast, and correct manner. The developed software, which constitutes an important part of this study, does process the building information several times to determine member-based importance factors. The vulnerability index of the building will be determined using the importance of each load-carrying member and how much each member is forced with respect to its capacity. In order to augment user perception, a functional graphical user-interface is designed. Software is equipped with modules that generate input files for SAP2000 analysis program, conduct dynamic and static analysis automatically, and postprocess the generated analysis results which enable the engineer to make a decision on the vulnerability of the structure. Program is written in C++, using object-oriented programming technique. The main difference between this and similar studies is the generator program which automatically generates 3D-FE models and post-processes nonlinear analysis results for an effective decision mechanism. In this way, more realistic results can be obtained much faster. As future studies, new routines are planned to be implemented to the graphical user interface of the program which will suggest smart and engineered retrofit/strengthening alternatives to the user.

The purpose of the study was to predict mathematics achievement with self-confidence in mathematics, actual work effort in mathematics, and perceived importance of work effort in mathematics, and to investigate the gender differences with respect to those variables. The study was conducted in Ankara, Turkey with 157 eight-grade students (87 boys, 70 girls) from a private school. The following measuring instruments were used: (1) Confidence in Learning Mathematics Scale, (2) Effort as a Mediator of Mathematical Ability Scale, (3) Homeworks and Mathematics Achievement Tests. The validity and reliability of the measuring instruments were tested by the researcher. The data of this study were analyzed by using Stepwise Multiple Regression Analysis and Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA). The results of the study indicated that (1) the combined effect of three predictor variables (Self-confidence, actual work effort, and perceived Importance of work effort) on students&rsquo / mathematics achievement was significant (R2adj=0.543). Girls&rsquo / mathematics achievement was significantly (R2adj=0.531) affected by three predictor variables (Self-confidence, actual work effort, and perceived importance of work effort). Whereas for boys, two variables (Self-confidence and actual work effort) were the predictors which had a significant combined effect on mathematics achievement (R2adj=0.539). (2) There was no statistically significant mean difference between girls and boys with respect to self-confidence, actual work effort, perceived importance of work effort and mathematics achievement.

This study examined the domain-specific nature of perfectionism in the contexts of sport and academe among a sample of 113 female and 142 male intercollegiate varsity student-athletes. Participants completed self-report measures of domain-specific perfectionism, perceived competence (PC), and perceived importance (PI) of success. A repeated-measures MANOVA revealed that, on average, student-athletes had significantly higher levels of perfectionism in sport than in school/academe (all ps < .0001). Separate single sample t-tests for PC and PI showed the participants had, on average, significantly higher levels of PC and PI in sport than in school (ps < .001). Bivariate correlation analyses revealed that, in general, as domain-specific PC and PI increased so too did domain-specific perfectionism. Results reinforce the value of measuring perfectionism as a domain-specific (rather than global) personality disposition, and that perceived competence and perceived importance (i.e., perceived task value) may be associated with the development of domain-specific perfectionism.