Thesis advisor: Lillie R. Albert / Researchers have found that as students progress through school, the importance of language grows due to the content specificity that emerges, especially in the secondary grades, and due to the preparation of these students to enter adulthood once their schooling is completed. Even as students' instruction in various content areas becomes more in-depth and specialized, so does the terminology employed in the content. It is because of this specificity and union of language and learning that English-language learners' (ELLs') ability to comprehend and produce content-area academic language is crucial to their success. When questioning the quality of instruction ELLs are receiving in mathematics, the attention logically shifts to the pedagogical abilities of their teachers. However, historically, mathematics teachers have lacked language-acquisition knowledge and strategies necessary to adequately address the needs of linguistically diverse learners. In order to authentically promote and pursue quality mathematics education for all students, teachers of mathematics must be trained in recognizing the language demands of mathematics and in applying or developing strategies to address the nuances of the language in this subject area. The research in this study contributes to this work. This dissertation documents the effects of an intervention, woven into a secondary mathematics methods course and designed to prepare mathematics teachers to support ELLs' content and language learning. The study was based on the assumption that mathematics is much more than computations, and thus, requires a shift in the how the role of the mathematics teacher is viewed. Both qualitative and quantitative empirical evidence regarding the intervention's influence on the participants' attitudes and preparedness to teach the academic language of mathematics were generated. Twenty-nine students over the course of two years took part in this research. Five students from the second year were selected for an in-depth case study based on their range of experiences with learning other languages, interactions with linguistically diverse youth, and practicum placements for the subsequent spring semester. The larger group of preservice teachers was surveyed at the beginning and end of their enrollment in the course, and their course assignments were collected. In addition, case-study participants were interviewed at the start and completion of the semester, and their practicum-office submissions were examined. A framework to encourage pupils' acquisition of mathematical academic language is proposed. Essential outcomes indicate that the intervention not only affected the participants' beliefs and attitudes towards their own preparedness for teaching ELLs in mainstream mathematics classes, but also it imparted concrete strategies for the modification of teaching and learning experiences in the preservice teachers' future practices. The results of this study correlate to existing literature regarding linguistically responsive pedagogy and extend this theory by integrating language-acquisition strategies throughout a content-methods course for the middle- and high-school levels. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2012. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Teacher Education, Special Education, Curriculum and Instruction.

Submitted by Filipe dos Santos (fsantos@pucsp.br) on 2018-12-04T11:48:32Z No. of bitstreams: 1 José Renato de Souza Guedes.pdf: 30726036 bytes, checksum: d3abeb573665a5abedf54c90173445d0 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-12-04T11:48:32Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 José Renato de Souza Guedes.pdf: 30726036 bytes, checksum: d3abeb573665a5abedf54c90173445d0 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-09-14 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / Mobile Internet access has surpassed access by the traditional desktops and notebooks, which opens up opportunities for e-commerce websites, since delivering a satisfying experience for mobile users can be an advantage over competitors. Several techniques have been used to address the need to present a website for both traditional and mobile platforms, having to face the challenge of exposing a similar content on very different dimension screens. One of these techniques is the responsive web design that maintains the same HTML code to place a website on a variety of devices, especially mobile ones. This study is based on researches conducted by Jacob Nielsen, Steve Krug, among others, with usability, in order to generate a model of recommendations to be applied in the development of responsive e-commerce websites. The model not only considered the common usability factors for websites of any segment, but also adapted them to meet the specific needs of a online store, as well as meeting the purchasing decision determinants established for web e-commerce. The model was applied in the analysis of three websites, describing how responsive web design was applied in each one, showing that it is possible to improve the usability of a website in a mobile device with the technique, but there are questions about how to match the level of usability in larger devices only by using interactivity features with the graphical interface, especially on websites with a lot of content / O acesso à Internet por dispositivos móveis superou o acesso pelos tradicionais desktops e notebooks; tal fato abre oportunidades para websites de comércio eletrônico, pois gerar uma experiência satisfatória aos usuários de dispositivos móveis pode ser uma vantagem diante da concorrência. Diversas técnicas foram empregadas para suprir a necessidade de apresentar um website, tanto para as plataformas tradicionais, quanto para as plataformas móveis, tendo que enfrentar o desafio de expor um conteúdo similar em telas de dimensões muito diferentes. Uma destas técnicas é o web design responsivo que mantém o mesmo código HTML para dispor um website em diversos dispositivos, principalmente os móveis. Este estudo se baseia em pesquisas realizadas por Jacob Nielsen, Steve Krug, entre outros autores, com usabilidade, com o objetivo de gerar um modelo de recomendações para ser aplicado no desenvolvimento de websites responsivos de comércio eletrônico. O modelo não só considerou os fatores comuns de usabilidade para sites de qualquer segmento, como adaptou-os a suprir as necessidades específicas de uma loja virtual, além de atender aos determinantes de decisão de compra estabelecidos para o comércio eletrônico na web. O modelo foi aplicado na análise de três websites, descrevendo como o web design responsivo foi aplicado em cada um, mostrando que é possível melhorar a usabilidade de um website em um dispositivo móvel com a técnica, mas há questionamentos quanto igualar o nível de usabilidade em relação a dispositivos maiores, somente utilizando recursos de interatividade com a interface gráfica, especialmente em websites com muito conteúdo

This practice-led research examines ideas surrounding the interpretation of place; the representation and experience of place are explored in my practice and throughout the thesis. The practice and thesis develop an interdependent relationship where one informs the other and each provides a critical platform whereby existing beliefs are brought into question and new ideas emerge. During the research period the practice is tested against different circumstances in a variety of situations and novel responses are generated. The thesis critically analyses approaches to interpreting place through a number of formats and a variety of sources. Both practice and theory are examined through peer-reviewed conference papers, artist-in-residence programmes and publications allowing new ideas to be explored and scrutinized by the academy. A working method that recognizes the importance and usefulness of serendipity and sagacity is established, bringing together my practice and the theoretical scope of the research. My primary focus is to understand and develop critical responses to the experience and representation of place within the realm of contemporary art practice. The work of W.G. Sebald and the secondary literature surrounding his work plays a significant role in providing ways of dealing with the entanglement of knowledge. Period Drama is both the name of an artwork and the name I have given to a conference paper. Both explore the convoluted and complex methods involved in realizing a site-specific work that challenges fiercely-held beliefs about place. My intention throughout the research has been to examine a variety of approaches that explore the representation and experience of place within contemporary art practice. Prominent within this examination has been the highlighting of the need to belong to a particular place and the sense of displacement generated when this need to belong is challenged or the nature of this connection is questioned.

abstract: Minimally invasive endovascular embolization procedures decrease surgery time, speed up recovery, and provide the possibility for more comprehensive treatment of aneurysms, arteriovenous malformations (AVMs), and hypervascular tumors. Liquid embolic agents (LEAs) are preferred over mechanical embolic agents, such as coils, because they achieve homogeneous filling of aneurysms and more complex angioarchitectures. The gold standard of commercially available LEAs is dissolved in dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO), which has been associated with vasospasm and angiotoxicity. The aim of this study was to investigate amino acid substitution in an enzyme-degradable side group of an N-isopropylacrylamide (NIPAAm) copolymer for the development of a LEA that would be delivered in water and degrade at the rate that tissue is regenerated. NIPAAm copolymers have a lower critical solution temperature (LCST) due to their amphiphilic nature. This property enables them to be delivered as liquids through a microcatheter below their LCST and to solidify in situ above the LCST, which would result in the successful selective occlusion of blood vessels. Therefore, in this work, a series of poly(NIPAAm-co-peptide) copolymers with hydrophobic side groups containing the Ala-Pro-Gly-Leu collagenase substrate peptide sequence were synthesized as in situ forming, injectable copolymers.. The Gly-Leu peptide bond in these polypeptides is cleaved by collagenase, converting the side group into the more hydrophilic Gly-Ala-Pro-Gly-COOH (GAPG-COOH), thus increasing the LCST of the hydrogel after enzyme degradation. Enzyme degradation property and moderate mechanical stability convinces the use of these copolymers as liquid embolic agents. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Biomedical Engineering 2019

Demand responsive transport services are nowadays an established and recognized way to provide better social inclusion to non-urban, low population density areas. The concept has its origins in the 70´s in the USA, but just recently the advances in technology made this type of service more economically attractive. Therefore is of no surprise that this kind of transportation is starting to be a serious option in several regions across Europe. The European Commission has been promoting projects to study and implement DRT services. One of these projects, MASCARA (deMand responsive trAnsport service for increasing Social Cohesion in urbAn/Rural Areas), involved a team from the Engineering School of the University of Porto, with the participation of the author. The MASCARA project was designed to promote the cooperation between several regions in Europe to share knowledge about DRT services, evaluating DRT pilots and DRT feasibility studies. This dissertation focus on the design of a framework to help this evaluation. The work resulted in combining two known multi-criteria methodologies, namely AHP and TOPSIS. Albeit these methods were designed to help choosing (ranking) between two or more possible scenarios, the proposed framework is able to evaluate and score one scenario situations. This work can be viewed as having two parts: the first one (from chapter 1 to chapter 4) deals with the design of the framework and methodology. From chapter 5 onwards the practical application is adressed. The author work was focused on the design and software implementation of the evaluation framework.

No description available.

This study examined perceptions of effective, urban, elementary general music teachers concerning effective teaching and pre-service preparation for urban, elementary general music classrooms. The study was conducted in two phases: survey and interview. Survey phase participants were experienced, urban, elementary general music teachers from different geographical areas of the United States, who had been identified as effective teachers by music teacher educators or music supervisors. Interview phase participants comprised a subset of survey participants who achieved high levels of potential cross-cultural adaptability on the Cross-Cultural Adaptability Inventory (Kelley & Meyers, 1995). A comprehensive interview instrument was administered to each participant in a collective case study research design. From the gathered data, 162 themes emerged from coded passages, with 100 themes comprising commonalities among the six interview participants. In addition to specific traits, beliefs, and strategies, the following four meta-themes emerged from an examination of commonalities: flexibility, cultural knowledge and skills, caring and responsive attitude, and musical knowledge and music teaching skills. From these meta-themes, a model of effective, urban, elementary general music teaching was generated. Findings and implications of the study were also discussed, and recommendations were made for future research.

Oxidative stress, the imbalance of free radical generation with antioxidant defenses, leads to cellular inflammation, apoptosis and cell death. This compromised environment results in debilitating diseases, such as oral mucositis (OM), atherosclerosis, and ischemia/reperfusion injury. Antioxidant therapeutics has been a proposed strategy to ameliorate these imbalances and maintain homeostatic environments. However, the success of these approaches, specifically curcumin, has been limited due to characteristics such as hydrophobicity and high reactivity when released as bolus doses to contest to oxidative stress induced diseases. The development of a controlled release system to aid in protection of the antioxidant capacity of curcumin, as well as a tunable system to aid in proper rate of release for disease can overcome these limitations. Previously, the use of a poly(beta-amino ester) (PBAE) chemistry has been developed in Dziubla and Hilt laboratories to provide desirable properties. The dynamic mechanical analysis and efficacy in cellular protection has been studied, yet the sensitivity and responsiveness of these polymers to abnormal environments found within oxidative stress compromised environments are unknown. In this work, a series of networks were comprised of different molar ratios of modified acrylated curcumin, poly(ethylene glycol) diacrylate, and a primary diamine crosslinker to create tunable hydrolytically degradable crosslinked hydrogels. I hypothesized a consumption rate difference of free curcumin and curcumin as a released product from the crosslinked network in the presence of a free radical generating system. After the consumption profiles of each were reported differently, the experimental data was translated into a kinetic rate model to identify quantitative consumption rate parameters of curcumin and active film degradation products. The effect on the released products arose the question of curcumin consumption in other oxidizing environments. These networks were then investigated in low concentrations of a hydrogen peroxide insult, and interestingly showed sensitivity to hydrolysis by recovering significantly more curcumin at an accelerated rate of release. Identifying the sensitivity of these tunable networks to environmental stimuli, they were then presented to a series of low pH environments, which significantly reduced the degradation time, finding a dependence of rate of release on the weight loading of curcumin present within the film. To translate these responsive materials to an application-based system, the curcumin conjugated PBAE polymers were investigated as an oral rinse drug delivery system for the treatment of radiation-induced OM in a hamster model. Radiation-induced OM onset and severity was reduced with a 20 wt% microparticle loaded mucoadhesive system that releases curcumin over 24 hours, providing promising results of a therapeutic effect from curcumin when incorporated in to a controlled release delivery system. Overall, curcumin conjugated PBAE polymers show selectivity of hydrolysis in abnormal environments related to oxidative stress. This information is beneficial to the proper design and loading of antioxidant therapeutics within crosslinked polymers, giving the ability to tune release to treat and deliver based on the environment’s insult. This can advance the potential use for antioxidant therapeutics in pharmaceutical applications in the future.

Water remediation utilizing sorption has found strong interest due to its inexpensiveness, universal nature and ease of operation. In particular, thermo-responsive sorbents consisting of N-isopropylacrylamide (NIPAAm) offer significant potential as “smart” and advanced materials to remove multiple aqueous pollutants. NIPAAm exhibits excellent thermo-responsiveness, which senses the external temperature variation and changes its swelling and sorption behaviors in a sharp and rapid manner. At the beginning of this work, an extensive review of literature has been compiled to provide a summary of NIPAAm-based thermo-responsive sorbents in water/wastewater remediation applications. Initially, we developed a novel approach to synthesize and characterize NIPAAm copolymeric hydrogels. Four different polyphenolic crosslinkers including curcumin multiacrylate (CMA), quercetin multiacrylate (QMA), 4,4’-dihydroxybiphenyl diacrylate (44BDA) and chrysin multiacrylate (ChryMA) were successfully incorporated into crosslinked hydrogels. Their temperature responsiveness and lower critical solution temperature (LCST) were characterized using swelling studies and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). Increasing the crosslinker content resulted in a significant decrease in the swelling ratio and LCST, which was due to the increased crosslinking and hydrophobicity introduced by the polyphenolic crosslinkers. We also demonstrated the application of two sets of aforementioned crosslinked hydrogels (NIPAAm-co-CMA and NIPAAm-co-44BDA) as effective gel sorbents to capture phenol as a model contaminant. Temperature-dependent sorption was evaluated through a binding study of phenol at 10°C and 50°C. Significant enhancement in the sorption was observed at 50°C, and this can be attributed to the phase transition induced hydrophobic interactions between the copolymer gel and phenol. Moreover, the obtained hydrogels possessed facile and efficient regeneration ability in water at 10°C, without requiring harsh solvent treatment or high energy input. Building on the sorption behavior observed with crosslinked NIPAAm hydrogels, we extended the investigation to linear copolymer systems, and these were demonstrated as a temperature responsive flocculants. Here, NIPAAm copolymers consisting of 2-phenylphenol monoacrylate (2PPMA) were successfully developed as smart flocculants to remove metal oxide nanoparticles (e.g., Fe3O4, CeO2, TiO2). The incorporation of 2PPMA enhanced the flocculation at temperatures above the LCST (e.g., 50°C), which was due to the combined hydrophobicity of 2PPMA and NIPAAm. Overall, NIPAAm-based sorbents have a variety of applications in aqueous pollutant removal and are a promising class of materials for cost-effective water remediation technology.

Les films minces d'hydrogels thermosensibles à propriétés LCST/UCST (Lower/Upper Critical Solution Temperature) avec des températures de transition variables ont été mis au point pour des applications spécifiques. Les réseaux chimiques de polymères fixés de manière covalente sur des substrats solides plans ont été synthétisés par une approche polyvalente et facile à mettre en œuvre en utilisant la chimie click thiol-ène. Elle consiste à déposer des polymères préformés et réactifs en présence des réticulants dithiol sur des substrats modifiés thiol, la réaction de thiol-ène permettant la réticulation simultanée entre chaînes et le greffage en surface. La stratégie CLAG (Cross-Linking And Grafting) donne des films d'hydrogel chimiquement stables et reproductibles avec une large gamme d'épaisseur et avec les propriétés thermostimulables désirées. Les polymères hydrophiles fonctionnalisés par des groupes fonctionnels alcène peuvent être synthétisés en utilisant une copolymérisation radicalaire du monomère souhaité avec du méthacrylate d'allyle dans un solvant organique ou un co-solvant avec de l'eau. Une autre voie est la synthèse dans l'eau en deux étapes: le monomère désiré est copolymérisé avec l'acide acrylique puis le copolymère est modifié par l’allylamine. Trois familles de polymères ont été étudiées: poly(PEGMA), poly(acrylamide) et poly(zwitterion). La température de transition des films d'hydrogel est déterminée en mesurant l'épaisseur dans des solutions aqueuses par ellipsométrie. Les films d'hydrogel de poly(PEGMA) montrent des propriétés de LCST avec la température de transition augmentant avec le nombre d'unités de PEG. La LCST varie de 15°C à 60°C avec deux à cinq unités de PEG dans les chaînes pendantes. La LCST peut également être ajustée en utilisant des copolymères avec différents ratios. Les films d'hydrogel acrylamide ont à la fois des propriétés LCST et UCST. Les films d'hydrogel de poly(sulfobetaïne) montrent un comportement UCST très intéressant en plus d’être « anti-fouling », ce qui est très prometteur pour les applications en biologie. / Temperature-responsive surface-attached hydrogel thin films with various LCST/UCST (Lower/Upper Critical Solution Temperature) were designed for specific applications. The chemical polymer networks covalently attached on plane solid substrates were synthesized by a versatile and straightforward approach using thiol-ene click chemistry. It consists in coating ene-reactive polymers and dithiol crosslinkers on thiol-modified substrates, the thiol-ene click reaction allowing simultaneous cross-linking between chains and grafting on the surface. The CLAG (Cross-Linking And Grafting) strategy provides chemically stable and reproducible hydrogel films with a wide range of thickness and with the desired temperature-responsive properties. Ene-functionalized hydrophilic polymers can be synthesized using free radical copolymerization of the desired monomer with allyl methacrylate in organic solvent or co-solvent with water. Another way is the synthesis in water in two steps: the desired monomer is copolymerized with acrylic acid and then the copolymer is post-modified by amidification. Three polymer families were investigated: poly(PEGMA), poly(acrylamide) derivatives and poly(zwitterions). The transition temperature of the hydrogel films is determined by measuring the thickness in aqueous solutions at different temperatures with ellipsometry. Poly(PEGMA) hydrogel films show LCST properties with the transition temperature increasing with the number of PEG units. The LCST ranges from 15 °C to 60 °C with two to five PEG units in the pendant chains. The LCST can also be adjusted using mixed copolymers hydrogel. Poly(acrylamide) derivatives hydrogel films have both LCST and UCST properties. Poly(sulfobetaine) hydrogel films show very interesting UCST behavior in addition to be anti-fouling, which is very promising for biology applications.