Abstract The purpose of this study was to compare the individual learning modalities of Latino, Black, and Caucasian males and females with at least some college education utilizing the Multi-modal Paired Associates Learning Test IV (MMPALT IV). Using the MMPALT IV, 20 participants from each of the three race/ethnicities above the age of 40 were measured in each of the seven perceptual modalities: Visual, Print, Aural, Interactive, Haptic, Kinesthetic, and Olfactory. The MMPALT IV is a performance-based test, which measures a person’s capacity to acquire information through each of the seven learning channels. ANOVA tests (2 x 3) with a follow-up Tukey test were used with race/ethnicity and gender identified as independent variables. The dependent variable was the individual perceptual modality sub-test scores. This study presented four research questions that addressed the following: the strongest modality profile for the participants, identifiable patterns of perceptual modalities within and between the groups, gender differences between learning styles, and consistencies for race/ethnicity with respect to gender. Statistically significant differences were found only in the Kinesthetic sub-test involving Latino participants, where they scored higher than both Black and Caucasians. The three highest scoring modalities for the Latino participants were Visual, Print, and Haptic; whereas the Black participants were Visual, Interactive, and Print. Caucasian participants scored highest on Visual, Print, and Interactive. Males and females responded similarly. All race/ethnicities responded similarly to previous MMPALT research with the exception of Kinesthetic where Latino’s performed better then Caucasians and Blacks. Implications for practice would include the incorporation of more interactive activities in a learning environment. Based on the results of this research, instructors may benefit from paying closer attention to kinesthetic activities for Latino students in a learning environment and not over relying on just traditional methods of teaching. This study was exploratory and was necessary to validate the current revisions to the MMAPLT IV. Future research could include modifying some of the subtests for more variation between test items, including more warm-up exercises to reduce any possible disorientation, adding other languages other than English, and testing other race/ethnicities.

This thesis deals with the analysis of 3D morphological changes and variability in the shape and form of facial expression during five specifically defined facial expressions (raising eyebrows, close both eyes, lips pursing, inflating both cheeks, smile). Changes in facial expression were evaluated in relation to sexual dimorphism and age category of probands using the methods of geometric morphometrics (Dense Correspondence Analysis, Paired Analysis, Principal Component Analysis, Shell-to-Shell Deviation) in program Morphome3cs and RapidForm. The analysis consisted of evaluating the surface of soft tissue changes that occur due to the contraction of facial muscles. Materials used for the analysis are 3D surface facial models of adult healthy people of the Czech nationality (63 women, 58 men) in the age interval 20-60 years. We considered methodology based on Paired Analysis to be more accurate, when we worked only with differences between the neutral expression and facial expression. By choosing a Paired Analysis, we prevented the morphological features of the face from being reflected into the results. Morphological features are a manifestation of sexual dimorphism or age factor as such, but they are not themselves the essence of facial expression. In this way, we analyzed the shape of the face after...

The doctoral thesis deals with the evaluation of influences of causal factors that significantly affect runoff processes in landscape. The research is mainly focused on the examination of land and soil cover impacts and partially pays attention to the effects of surface drainage and snow cover. The main effort was to find out the extent of influences of each individual factor on runoff from a different type of landscape. In order to find the correct answer, a methodical approach was applied to small experimental paired catchments where the research has been continuously undergoing since the year of 2006 (the presented results have been collected for 11 years of observations). The small experimental paired catchments are located at the foothills of the Šumava Mountains and they represent small area neighbouring catchments of similar physical-geographic and hydrographic conditions. The catchments were selected as the comparative ones where the main differences are the landscape and soil cover. Moreover, the character of surface drainage is regarded to be an important variable. In the catchment area of the Zbytinský Brook, there predominates the grassland which is largely drained by the subsurface drainage system. In the catchment area of the Tetřívčí Brook the dominant cover is formed by the forest...

Author of these thesis researches the ability Paired comparison method to predict the results in the presidential elections during January 2018 ( the first and the second round). The pair comparison method is based on the assessment of individual candidates in combinations (pairs) where two candidates stand against each other and there is a judge who compares them in all combinations. The author carried out an investigation using three standardized questionnaires. She has applied the method in the first questionnaire and surveyed the actual choice of the respondents in the other two questionnaires. There were 392 respondents who participated in the complete questionnaire surfy and their answers were analyzed and compared with their results of Paired comparison method. The thesis also shows the accuracy of the method and the suitability of the application, as well as the ability to predict the results of undecided voters. The Paired comparison method in prediction of the results of the first round, but was able to estimate the results of the second round. The author concludes that Paired comparison method should be used in several round types of elections or those where two candidates stand against each other. There are also examined the disadvantages and risks of the method.

Introduktion: Att påverka de sensoriska egenskaperna hos kyckling genom att anpassa fodret kycklingarna får vid uppfödningen, är ett intressant koncept som kan leda till många möjligheter. På Bosarps gård utanför Blentarp i Skåne har man arbetat med ett sådant koncept genom att tillföra morötter och grönkål som ett komplement till basfodret.Syfte: Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka om morot och grönkål, som ett komplement till basfodret, påverkar kycklingköttets sensoriska egenskaper.Material och metod: För att ta reda på detta har två olika sensoriska skillnadstester använts, först ett duo-triotest och sedan ett partest.Resultat: Det fanns inga skillnader beträffande egenskaperna utseende och smak mellan kött från kycklingar som fötts upp med eller utan tillsats av morötter och grönkål i fodret, dock fanns det en signifikant skillnad avseende texturen. Morotskyckligen hade en fastare fibertextur.Slutsats: Det fanns en skillnad i texturen, som antingen kan förklaras av/bero på fodret, tillagningen, åldern på kycklingarna eller hanteringen av kycklingköttet efter slakt. / Introduction: Being able to influence the sensory properties of chicken by affecting the feed during breeding, is an interesting concept that can lead to many possibilities. At Bosarp's farm just outside of Blentarp in Skåne they have tried to execute this concept by adding carrots and kale as a complement to the chicken’s basic diet.Aim: The aim of this study is to investigate whether carrot and kale, as a complement to the basal diet, affect the sensory characteristics of the chicken meat.Material and method: To achieve the aim of this study two different sensory differences tests have been applied, first a duo trio test and then a two paired sample test.Results: There were no differences regarding the appearance and taste characteristics between the samples of meat from chickens bred with or without the addition of carrots and kale in the feed, but there was a significant difference regarding the texture.Conclusion: There was a difference in texture, which was either due to the feeding, the cooking, the age of the chicken or handling of the chicken meat after slaughter.

The educational change brought about by the South African Constitution and the Language in Education policy has resulted in many parents choosing to send their children from pre-school to an English medium school, so that their children can become proficient in the English language. As a result, many learners are learning in a language that is not their mother tongue and are therefore struggling to acquire reading and writing skills. Although there are many misconceptions regarding the learning of a language, the underlying theory on how learners learn a second language through Cummins BICS and CALP theory is explored in this research. The main purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of the Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol (SIOP) on teaching English Second Language (ESL) learners in primary schools. The study further intended to determine the effectiveness of SIOP in the South African context. To facilitate the understanding of the problem statement of this study, an evaluation framework based on the Context- Input-Process-Product (CIPP) model of Stufflebeam’s model was applied. The research was carried out at one primary school who had predominantly ESL learners in the school and who had teachers trained in implementing SIOP. The main research question posed by this research is to determine the effectiveness of SIOP on teaching an ESL learner in a primary school in the South African context. The sub-questions of the research are to what extent does SIOP differ from traditional methods, how does SIOP affect teachers’ planning and instruction in the classroom; to what extent to the learners understand the content when the teachers implement SIOP and to what extent does SIOP contribute to the improvement of academic performance of ESL learners in content areas. To answer the research question, mixed methods was used to fit together the insights provided by qualitative and quantitative research into a workable solution and therefore make use of the pragmatic method as a system of philosophy. As qualitative data was collected first, followed by the analysis of the secondary data, the typology used for the research is the QUAL quan. Interviews and observations were carried out on teachers who are currently implementing SIOP using interview protocol and observation protocol and data obtained from the University of Pretoria was analysed to determine academic performance of ESL learners. Legitimation occurred at various stages of the research which included peer review and member checking, From the data collected through interviews and observations, the following themes emerged, namely (i) language focus; (ii) difference between SIOP and the traditional methods of teaching; (iii) planning and assessment; (iv) learner attitude towards SIOP and (v) Grade R influence. Although data collected from the University of Pretoria showed gains achieved, the methodology conducted in this research was not an experimental design. A paired ttest was used to determine gains made between the target school, comparison school and the whole sample. Therefore, tentative statements regarding the influence of SIOP on academic performance is thus made in this research. Although no experiment was undertaken for this research, the findings from the data show that the null hypothesis indicates that there is no significant difference between the scores of the baseline assessments and the follow-up scores. As the significant values (p-value) were less than .05, the null hypothesis can be rejected. As part of the analysis, the effect sizes were also calculated which indicates a large effect size for the total scores and reading scores while the phonics scale showed a medium effect and the mathematics scale showed a small effect size. Based on the results of the study, it was found that the programme needed some revisions to make better use of the existing opportunities. The following recommendations and suggestions are that an experiment design should be explored to ascertain actual contribution SIOP can make to an ESL class. SIOP should be implemented as a teacher development programme and possibly a module for teacher training at university level. Resources needs to be readily available for teachers to use which could contribute to the improvements of academic performance of ESL learners. Teachers should form planning teams with other teachers to share good practices and lastly adequate support is needed for the implementation of SIOP. The importance of this study is that it provides insight into and understanding of the role of implementing an intervention programme to improve academic performance of ESL learners. It also sheds light on the need for an intervention programme and the extent to which the programme can improve academic performance of ESL learners. The main contribution of this study to the body of knowledge was its insight into and understanding of a number of factors, categorised as inputs, process and outcomes, that had an effect of the implementation of the SIOP programme. The development of the conceptual framework was applied by the CIPP evaluation model, as a framework that illustrated the relationships and outcomes of the SIOP programme that had previously not been done. This study thus emphasises the importance of intensive research and proper planning of intervention programmes. The aim of this inquiry was to determine the effectiveness of a model of teaching that was developed in the USA. Throughout the research, the findings presented indicated that the Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol would be a functional model to employ in South Africa’s education system and, if implemented correctly, would yield positive results. Therefore, this study was an initial step towards implementing a programme that would improve academic performance in schools, where the LoLT is different from the mother tongue. Although some valuable information was obtained, there is much scope for further research on how to evaluate the effects of SIOP on academic performance of ESL learners. / Dissertation (MEd)--University of Pretoria, 2011. / Science, Mathematics and Technology Education / unrestricted

Many children in low-income areas are failing in schools, frequently due to substandard reading skills. Research has shown that early intervention can help alleviate this problem. However, most early intervention strategies are very expensive and labor intensive for school personnel. Furthermore, it is often not clear what programs will work with a certain student population due to their widely diverse backgrounds. In low-income schools, parents are often an ignored resource. Many teachers complain about lack of parent involvement, and yet most do nothing to solicit it. Using parents to help provide beginning reading practice for their children could be a way to involve families in the school and help children gain vital reading skills. This study investigated the effects of parent training in a fluency reading method called “Paired Reading” among low-income first grade students. A one-hour training sessions was offered at two different times to the parents of four first grade classes in an urban elementary school. Thirty-one participated. The children of these parents constituted the experimental group. This group was pretested and posttested to assess reading fluency, sight word recognition and reading attitudes. Forty-one students at a neighboring elementary school acted as the control group for this study. Qualitative interviews were also conducted on experimental group parents and teachers. The results indicated significant gains in reading fluency, sight word recognition and attitudes about reading. Also, there was a significant relationship between the minutes a child spent practicing Paired Reading with the parent and the amount of improvement the child made. Interview data suggested that parents welcomed this type of training session and enjoyed doing the activities with their children. Unfortunately, the interview data also indicated that teachers were negative about the efficacy of parent training sessions and had no immediate plans to implement such classes.

This study was undertaken in an attempt to determine the differential effects of single and double response channel sets learned to fluency (rates of 50–60 correct associations per minute) versus overlearning (90% correct or greater with 3-second latency between associative responses) on subjects' retention of paired associate information. An intrasubject multiple treatment design was used, exposing each subject to all training conditions: baseline and mastery-learning sequentially, followed by the repeated “multiple treatment” exposure to four conditions; 1 and 2 channel fluency, and 1 and 2 channel overlearning conditions. Retention was measured immediately after training, and at one, two, three, seven, and twelve week follow-up intervals. Additionally, the duration of time and number of learning trials required for subjects to meet mastery, fluency and overlearning criteria at both 1 and 2 channels was calculated to gather further information regarding whether or not the magnitude of differences is educationally significant. Moreover, subject satisfaction was measured in response to the mastery, fluency and overlearning conditions. The results indicated no significant differences in retention produced by any of the 4 instructional conditions, at any follow-up interval. Additionally, the results indicated that fluency goals require an “educationally significantly” greater number of learning trials and more time to attain than mastery-based accuracy goals. What's more, it appears that adding a second response channel during fluency building does not seem to accelerate fluency development, as compared to a 1-channel fluency condition. Furthermore, subjects appeared to prefer faster fluency based training over slower overlearning training. It is suggested that future research utilize longer term follow-up intervals and higher fluency rates.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Protein malfunction can cause human diseases, which makes the protein a target in the process of drug discovery. In-depth knowledge of how protein functions can widely contribute to the understanding of the mechanism of these diseases. Protein functions are determined by protein structures and their dynamic properties. Protein dynamics refers to the constant physical movement of atoms in a protein, which may result in the transition between different conformational states of the protein. These conformational transitions are critically important for the proteins to function. Understanding protein dynamics can help to understand and interfere with the conformational states and transitions, and thus with the function of the protein. If we can understand the mechanism of conformational transition of protein, we can design molecules to regulate this process and regulate the protein functions for new drug discovery. Protein Dynamics can be simulated by Molecular Dynamics (MD) Simulations. The MD simulation data generated are spatial-temporal and therefore very high dimensional. To analyze the data, distinguishing various atomic interactions within a protein by interpreting their 3D coordinate values plays a significant role. Since the data is humongous, the essential step is to find ways to interpret the data by generating more efficient algorithms to reduce the dimensionality and developing user-friendly visualization tools to find patterns and trends, which are not usually attainable by traditional methods of data process. The typical allosteric long-range nature of the interactions that lead to large conformational transition, pin-pointing the underlying forces and pathways responsible for the global conformational transition at atomic level is very challenging. To address the problems, Various analytical techniques are performed on the simulation data to better understand the mechanism of protein dynamics at atomic level by developing a new program called Probing Long-distance interactions by Tapping into Paired-Distances (PLITIP), which contains a set of new tools based on analysis of paired distances to remove the interference of the translation and rotation of the protein itself and therefore can capture the absolute changes within the protein. Firstly, we developed a tool called Decomposition of Paired Distances (DPD). This tool generates a distance matrix of all paired residues from our simulation data. This paired distance matrix therefore is not subjected to the interference of the translation or rotation of the protein and can capture the absolute changes within the protein. This matrix is then decomposed by DPD using Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to reduce dimensionality and to capture the largest structural variation. To showcase how DPD works, two protein systems, HIV-1 protease and 14-3-3 σ, that both have tremendous structural changes and conformational transitions as displayed by their MD simulation trajectories. The largest structural variation and conformational transition were captured by the first principal component in both cases. In addition, structural clustering and ranking of representative frames by their PC1 values revealed the long-distance nature of the conformational transition and locked the key candidate regions that might be responsible for the large conformational transitions. Secondly, to facilitate further analysis of identification of the long-distance path, a tool called Pearson Coefficient Spiral (PCP) that generates and visualizes Pearson Coefficient to measure the linear correlation between any two sets of residue pairs is developed. PCP allows users to fix one residue pair and examine the correlation of its change with other residue pairs. Thirdly, a set of visualization tools that generate paired atomic distances for the shortlisted candidate residue and captured significant interactions among them were developed. The first tool is the Residue Interaction Network Graph for Paired Atomic Distances (NG-PAD), which not only generates paired atomic distances for the shortlisted candidate residues, but also display significant interactions by a Network Graph for convenient visualization. Second, the Chord Diagram for Interaction Mapping (CD-IP) was developed to map the interactions to protein secondary structural elements and to further narrow down important interactions. Third, a Distance Plotting for Direct Comparison (DP-DC), which plots any two paired distances at user’s choice, either at residue or atomic level, to facilitate identification of similar or opposite pattern change of distances along the simulation time. All the above tools of PLITIP enabled us to identify critical residues contributing to the large conformational transitions in both HIV-1 protease and 14-3-3σ proteins. Beside the above major project, a side project of developing tools to study protein pseudo-symmetry is also reported. It has been proposed that symmetry provides protein stability, opportunities for allosteric regulation, and even functionality. This tool helps us to answer the questions of why there is a deviation from perfect symmetry in protein and how to quantify it.

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