This dissertation presents the findings of a study that was undertaken in order to investigate the differences in conclusions drawn based on the method of analysis. Specifically, the conclusions drawn using inferential statistics was compared to the conclusions drawn using spatial analysis. The peatlands of Rietvlei Nature Reserve was selected as the landscape unit for this study and two soil attributes, namely soil pH and soil carbon, was investigated. Prior to data analysis outliers were identified and removed using the interquartile method. The findings suggest that there are indeed large differences between the conclusions drawn using the various approaches with the spatial analysis revealing larger differences between the two study sites. It is argued that the limitations imposed by the nature of geographic data need to be taken into consideration when any statistical or spatial analysis is carried out. / Dissertation (MSc)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / gm2014 / Geography, Geoinformatics and Meteorology / unrestricted

This dissertation motivates and defends what I call non-inferential epistemic circularity. Traditionally epistemic circularity is understood to be a property of arguments, where justification to believe these arguments’ premises depends upon the truth of their conclusions. I argue that epistemically circular arguments face a dilemma. If the conditions for non-inferential justification to believe their premises are too weak, these arguments are either indiscriminate or permit one to bootstrap trivially to higher-order justification. If to avoid these problems the conditions for non-inferential justification are strengthened on the basis of evidence, then epistemically circular arguments beg the question because they collapse into logical circularity. To address these problems I argue that an account of non-inferential justification should be developed that limits the role of evidential grounds and finds room instead for non-evidential sources of justification. I conclude that epistemic circularity is constitutive of non-inferential justification because it is a property of the intentional acts in virtue of which this justification is earned.

This study focuses on inferential comprehension instruction in the classroom. The overall aim is to study the way in which four teachers are designing their lessons to develop their students’ ability to make inferences in literary text in the Swedish subject. The main focus is to explore what teaching modules may look like to promote students’ ability to make inferences (e.g. text choice, group size and method) and how the teachers motivate their didactic work. The study is also focused on the opportunities and challenges associated with inferential comprehension instruction. The methods used are qualitative studies using observations and interviews. The material consists of observation notes and interview recordings. The concept of inference and reading comprehension is consistent in the study and focuses on the importance of explicit instruction to improve the students’ inference comprehension. The models of inferential instruction are used to analyze the empirical material. The results show that teachers prefer to teach their students in groups of approximately 12 students, and they choose texts that are close to the students’ everyday life and in which a lot of inferences can be made. The majority of the teachers in the study demonstrate how they use the inference strategy by the method think aloud, to show their students examples of how to think and for them to use the strategy on their own eventually. All teachers remind the students of their own background knowledge, which is proven to increase the students’ ability to make inferences. This study shows that the possibilities with the teachers’ inference instruction lead to a deeper understanding among the students when reading. The challenges are lack of time when preparing, impatient students, and if the students do not activate the right background knowledge from the beginning, which will lead to misunderstandings while reading the text.

SQL Injections are still a prominent threat on the web. Using a custom built tool, BlindCanSeeQL (BCSQL), we will explore how to automate Blind SQL attacks to discover database schema using fewer requests than the standard methods, thus helping avoid detection from overloading a server with hits. This tool uses a web crawler to discover keywords that assist with autocompleting schema object names, along with improvements in ASCII bisection to lower the number of requests sent to the server. Along with this tool, we will discuss ways to prevent and protect against such attacks.

What, if any, kind of inferential reasoning can be a legitimate source of justified aesthetic belief? Looking at deductive and inductive reasoning respectively, this paper concludes that only the latter can be formulated so that there is reason to accept the premises as true and thus justify the conclusion. This follows from considerations about the type of generalisations that the arguments rely on. Universal generalisations, on which the type of deductive reasoning under consideration relies, are always victim to counterexamples. Also, they are incompatible with a reasonable conception of the relationship between an aesthetic property and its correlating set of non-aesthetic properties. The generalisations that inductive aesthetic reasoning relies on, however, evade the problems faced by deduction as well as are compatible and a natural complement to the common aesthetic practice of acquaintance having epistemic authority over reasoning. These considerations lead to the conclusion that inductive, while not deductive, aesthetic reasoning is a legitimate source for justified aesthetic belief.

This study examines nursing students' adoption of inferential sets in a clinical situation. The investigation determines (1) the particular inferential set(s) nursing students adopt toward a patient in a clinical situation; (2) the particular inferential set(s) adopted by sophomore and senior nursing students in a clinical situation; and (3) whether or not inferential sets adopted by the sophomore and senior nursing students differ. Sophomore and senior nursing students at a woman's university in Texas were asked to complete a research tool designed to determine inferential set adoption.

Most western Iranian languages, despite their broad differences, show a common quality when it comes to the verbal agreement of past transitive verbs. Dabir-moghaddam (2013) and Haig (2008) discuss it as a grammaticalized split-agreement to encode S, A, and P, which is sensitive to tense and transitivity, and uses split-ergative constructions for its past transitive verbs. Laki shows vestiges of the same kind of verb-agreement ergativity (Comrie 1978) by using a mixture of affixes and clitics for subject and object marking. In this thesis, I investigate how the different classes of verbs show agreement using four distinct property classes. Considering the special case of the {3 sg} and using Hopper and Traugott's pattern for the cline of grammaticality (2003), I argue that although Laki has already lost the main part of its ergative constructions, the case of the {3 sg} marking is yet another sign that this language is in the process of absolute de-ergativization and its hybrid alignment system is moving toward morphosyntactic unity. As a formal representation of the Laki data, the final part of the thesis provides a morphosyntactic HPSG analysis of the agreement patterns in Laki, using the grammar of cliticized verb-forms (Miller and Sag 1997).

A tese estabelece relações entre processos inferenciais e alteridade que emergem nas narrativas de crianças indígenas, com idades entre quatro e seis anos, quando dialogam com mães comunitárias a respeito do mito Madre Ñame da cultura Wounaam-nonam. Os capítulos teóricos referem-se ao CSC como uma abordagem que articula os seguintes aspectos centrais deste estudo: primeiro, os processos inferenciais no reconhecimento das diferentes perspectivas que se manifestam na relação eu-outro-mundo (Valsiner, 2007); segundo, a experiência inquietante do encontro com o outro como alteridade, na relação eu-outromundo, a partir de uma perspectiva dialógica (Marková, 2003; Simão, 2010); e, por último, os mitos no ciclo cultura-indivíduo-cultura (Boesch, 1991, Valsiner, 2007, 2013). Esta pesquisa qualitativa e descritiva apresenta; 1) A análise hermenêutica das representações sociais que surgem das entrevistas de três líderes comunitários acerca das implicações de ser ou não ser Wounaam-nonam. Na dialogia cultura pessoal e cultura coletiva as representações sociais são o enquadre simbólico que atribui sentido à presença do outro, estranho, diferente e estrangeiro, como alteridade. 2) A análise hermenêutica fenomenológica do mito Madre Ñame da cultura indígena Wounaan-nonam, que destaca, na versão do líder comunitário Juan Perdiz, um conjunto de mitemas acerca da origem do inhame; da vida que não tem uma interrupção com a morte; do triunfo dos Wounaam-nonam sobre os perigos trazidos por outrem; da função social de proteção que garante a sobrevivência das crianças; e das tensões na relação eu-outro-mundo, trazidas pelo outro, o estrangeiro. 3) A análise dialógica das modalidades de interação verbal de uma mãe comunitária com uma criança de seis anos sobre assuntos referentes ao mito e que dizem respeito a barreiras e fronteiras de comunicação na relação eu-outro-mundo. 4) A análise micro-genética dos processos inferenciais abdutivos, dedutivos e indutivos nos planos denotativo ou conotativo, dos quais uma criança Wounaam-nonam se vale durante a conversa com a mãe comunitária a respeito do mito Madre Ñame. E 5) a análise do mito na busca da perspectiva do outro a qual apresenta a articulação entre inferência, alteridade e mito, a partir das respostas de uma criança de seis anos. São as categorias conceituais atribuição de estados psicológicos a outrem e caráter de alteridade que torna mais complexo o encontro com o outro, diferente, estranho ou estrangeiro que permitem esta articulação. Desta maneira, no contexto das conversas, a criança apresenta diferentes sentidos atribuídos à Madre Ñame: ora um personagem que é humano e animal; ora um estrangeiro que traz desconforto para as famílias e bem-estar para a comunidade; ou, ainda, um cuidador que protege, mas ao mesmo tempo destrói / The thesis establishes relationships between inferential processes and otherness that emerge in the indigenous childrens narratives, with ages between four and six, when they sustain dialogues with community mothers regarding the myth of Madre Ñame of the Wounaan-nonam culture. The theoretical chapters refer to CSC like an approach that articulates the following central aspects for this thesis: first, inferential processes in recognizing the different perspectives that emerge in the relationship me-other-world (Valsiner, 2007); second, the worrisome experience of the encounter with the other like otherness in the relation me-other from a dialogic perspective (Marková, 2003; Simão, 2010) and finally the myths in the cycle of culture individual culture (Boesch, 1991, Valsiner, 2007, 2013). This qualitative and descriptive research presents: the hermeneutic analysis of the social representations that emerge from the interviews to three community leaders about the implications of being or not being Wounaan-nonam. In the dialogical relation between personal and collective culture, the social representations are the symbolic framing that makes sense of the presence of the other, stranger, different and foreign, like otherness. The hermeneutic and phenomenological analysis of the myth Ñame Mother of the Wounaan-nonam indigenous culture, that stands out in the version of community leader Juan Perdiz, a set of mythemes about: the origin of ñame; the life that extends after death; the Wounaan-nonam triumph over the dangers brought by the others; the social function of protection that guarantees children survival; the tensions in the relationship me-other-world brought in by the other, the foreign. The dialogical analysis of the verbal interaction modalities of a community mother with a six-year-old girl about matters regarding the myth that say in relation to the barriers and frontiers of the me-other-world communication. The microgenetic analysis of the inferential, abductive, deductive and inductive processes in the connotative or denotative realms of which a six-year-old Wounaan-nonam girl has a conversation with a community mother about the Ñame Mother myth. The myth analysis in the search of the others perspective that presents the articulation between inference, otherness and myth from the answers of the six-year-old girl. The conceptual categories, attribution of psychological states to the other, and the otherness character that makes the encounter with the other, the different, the stranger or the foreign more complex, give place to this articulation. Thereby, in the context of conversations, the girl presents different senses attributed to the Ñame Mother: a character that is both human and animal; a foreign that brings discomfort to the families but wellness to the community; or a carer that protects, but at the same time destroys. This chapter presents our challenge: articulate, parting from the CSC perspective, the central nuclei of the thesis in the context of the dialogical relationships me- other world as an approach to the identity problematic

Este trabalho trata de modelos de regressão quantílica. Foi feita uma introdução a essa classe de modelos para motivar a discussão. Em seguida, conceitos inferenciais, como estimação, intervalos de confiança, testes de hipóteses para os parâmetros são discutidos, acompanhados de alguns estudos de simulação. Para analisar a qualidade do ajuste, são apresentados o coeficiente de determinação e um teste de falta de ajuste para modelos de regressão quantílica. Também é proposta a utilização de gráficos para análise da qualidade do ajuste considerando a distribuição Laplace Assimétrica. Uma aplicação utilizando um banco de dados com informação sobre renda no Brasil foi utilizado para exemplificar os tópicos discutidos durante o texto. / This work is about quantile regression models. An introduction was made to this class of models to motivate the discussion. Then, inferential concepts, like estimation, confidence intervals, tests of hypothesis for the parameters are discussed, followed by some simulation studies. To analyse goodness of fit, a coefficient of determination and a lack-of-fit test for quantile regression models are presented. Its also proposed the use of graphs for the goodness of fit analysis considering the Asymmetric Laplace Distribution. An application using a data base with information about income in Brazil was used to exemplify the topics discussed during the text.

This study assessed the knowledge structure of undergraduate participants related to previously determined critical concepts of Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) by using Pathfinder networks. Three domain experts’ knowledge structures regarding the same concepts were also elicited and averaged to create a referent knowledge structure. The referent knowledge structure served as a basis for formative feedback. Then, each participant’s knowledge structure was compared with the referent structure to identify common, missing, and extraneous links between the two networks. Each participant was provided with individualized written and visual, and multi-media feedback through an online Concept Mapping tool based on the principals of formative assessment and feedback in an attempt to increase their conceptual knowledge of ANOVA. The study was conducted with 67 undergraduate participants from a mid-size university in the United States. Participants completed two data collection tools related to the critical concepts of ANOVA. Later, three different types of feedback around the critical concepts were given to participants in three stages. First, each participant was given visual feedback as a result of the comparison between their own knowledge structures and the referent knowledge structure to highlight similarities and differences between the two. Then, participants were provided with individualized written and multi-media feedback to emphasize conceptual understanding behind ANOVA procedures. This procedure was followed by the re-assessment of participants’ reasoning ability related to ANOVA and knowledge structures related to critical concepts to measure the effect of the intervention. Results suggest that participants both in control and intervention groups had the same level of statistics experience and anxiety before this study indicating that randomization of participants into two different groups was successful. Moreover, women participants reported a statistically significant higher level of statistics anxiety than men, however, it seems that this small difference did not limit their ability to perform required statistical tasks. Further, findings revealed that participants’ conceptual knowledge related to critical concepts of ANOVA increased significantly after the individualized feedback. However, the increase in the conceptual understanding did not help participants to transform this knowledge into more formal understanding related to procedures underlying ANOVA. Moreover, even though, previous similar studies suggest that participants are consistent in using a single strategy for making inferential reasoning across datasets, in the present study, qualitative data analysis revealed that statistics learners demonstrate diverse patterns of inferential reasoning strategies when they were provided with different size of datasets each with varying amount of variability. As a result, findings support the use of an extended framework for describing and measuring the development of participants’ reasoning ability regarding consideration of variation in statistics education.