This thesis represents a journey: after many years of teaching both in Canada and overseas, I found myself working with students who were learning English and had profound intellectual disabilities, but had no idea how to teach them. This thesis, therefore, follows my path of exploration and discovery as I looked for ways to support these students’ learning. In chapter one, I provide an introduction to my study where I present an overview of the problem, discuss the confusion surrounding the meaning of various kinds of disabilities, consider several normative definitions of EAL (English as an Additional Language) and SNE (Special Needs Education), and provide my own stipulative definitions of EAL/SNE. I also state my research questions and purpose for conducting the study, illustrate the significance of the study, and acknowledge its limitations. In chapter two, I examine the strengths and weaknesses of the research literature and end with five principles that flow from my reading of the research. In chapter three, I explain my means of analysis, where I critically examine three Manitoba curriculum EAL documents and three Student Services/Special education resource documents. In chapter four, I summarize the six curricular documents (three in the area of SNE and three in the area of EAL) and criticize each one, determining its uses and relevance to students with EAL/SNE needs and how appropriate and helpful these documents are for classroom teachers who work with these students. Finally, in Chapter five, I discuss the implications of my study of these documents and suggest future needs in the areas of research, policy, and teaching in the area of SNE/EAL.

Os recentes avanços em cosmologia observacional indicam que o universo esteja passando por uma fase de expansão acelerada. A determinação do mecanismo responsável pela aceleração cósmica constitui um dos problemas mais intrigantes na ciência hoje. Entre os diversos candidatos a mecanismo de aceleração, a explicação mais simples e econômica é assumir a existência de uma constante cosmológica associada à energia do vácuo. Contudo, essa interpretação leva a importantes problemas conceituais associados à natureza dessa componente. Nesta tese, investigamos a dinâmica de diferentes mecanismos de aceleração cósmica, comparando suas previsões com diversos testes observacionais. Em particular, demos ênfase aos cenários baseados na criação de matéria escura fria (CCDM), nos quais a presente aceleração do universo é produzida sem a presença de um fluido exótico, como consequência do processo de produção de partículas de matéria escura gravitacionalmente induzido. Inicialmente, propusemos um modelo no qual o mecanismo de criação de partículas é capaz de gerar uma cosmologia dinamicamente degenerada com o modelo padrão, CDM. Discutimos no chamado modelo de Lima, Jesus & Oliveira (LJO) a dinâmica cosmológica com criação de matéria escura fria e com pressão. Através de um teste estatístico de $\\chi^2$, mostramos que o modelo fornece ótimo ajuste aos dados de supernovas tipo Ia (SNe Ia). Posteriormente, estudamos a evolução de pequenas perturbações de densidade em um fundo homogêneo para modelos tipo CCDM, através do formalismo Neo-Newtoniano. Restringindo-nos ao modelo LJO, comparamos as previsões obtidas nesse contexto com as proveniente do modelo CDM. Mostramos que o modelo é capaz de fornecer excelente ajuste aos dados observacionais de medidas da taxa de crescimento linear, para o caso plano e com velocidade efetiva do som $c^2_=-1$. Ainda dentro do cenário CCDM, investigamos uma segunda proposta original, com capacidade de ajuste às observações similar aos modelos CDM e LJO com mesmo número de parâmetros livres, porém com dinâmica não degenerada com estes. Derivamos a dinâmica cosmológica do modelo e discutimos a sua viabilidade através da análise estatística de medidas de SNe Ia e do parâmetro de Hubble em diferentes redshifts $H(z)$. Finalmente, discutimos a dinâmica de um modelo com decaimento do vácuo ((t)CDM) e sua descrição em campos escalares. Assumindo como forma d o termo de vácuo uma série de potências truncada do parâmetro de Hubble, derivamos as equações dinâmicas básicas e as previsões cosmológicas do modelo. Mostramos que, quando a transferência de energia entre as componentes dos setor escuro se dá através da criação de partículas, modelos CCDM e (t)CDM podem compartilhar a mesma dinâmica e termodinâmica, dentro de certas condições. Adicionalmente, mostramos que o modelo é capaz de prover um bom ajuste às medidas de SNe Ia e da chamada razão CMB/BAO. Obtivemos ainda uma descrição do modelo (t)CDM por um campo escalar, estendendo a validade do modelo para outros espaços-tempos e outras teorias gravitacionais. Nossos resultados mostram que existem diversas alternativas viáveis ao atual modelo padrão em cosmologia, capazes de contornar os problemas as sociados à constante cosmológica. A discussão dessas alternativas é essencial para uma compreensão mais profunda acerca da dinâmica, da composição e do destino do universo. / Recent advances in observational cosmology indicate that the universe is undergoing an accelerating stage of expansion. The determination of the mechanism responsible for the cosmic acceleration is one of the most intriguing problems in science today. Among many candidates for the acceleration mechanism, the simplest and most economical explanation is to assume the existence of a cosmological constant associated with the vacuum energy. However, this interpretation leads to important conceptual problems associated with the nature of this component. In this thesis, we investigate the dynamics of different mechanisms of cosmic acceleration, comparing their predictions through several observational tests. In particular, we emphasize the scenarios based on creation of cold dark matter (CCDM), in which the present acceleration of the universe is produced without the presence of an exotic fluid as a result of the gravitationally induced dark matter production process. Initially, we have proposed a model in which the particle creation mechanism is able to produce a cosmology dynamically degenerated with respect to the standard model, CDM. We discussed the cosmological dynamics for the creation of cold dark matter and dark matter with pressure within the so-called model of Lima, Jesus & Oliveira (LJO). Through a statistical $\\chi^2$ test, we showed that the model provides a good fit to the type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) data. Subsequently, we studied the evolution of small density perturbations in a homogeneous background for CCDM type models through the Neo-Newtonian formalism. Restricting ourselves to the LJO model, the predictions obtained in this context were compared with those from the CDM model. We showed that the model is able to provide a very good fit to the linear growth rate observational data, for a flat universe and effective speed of sound $c^2_=-1$. Also within the CCDM scenario, we discussed a second original proposal with similar goodnes-of-fit and same degree of freedom to the models CDM and LJO, but with a non-degenerated dynamics. We derived the dynamics of the model and discussed its viability through the statistical analysis of measurements of SNe Ia and Hubble parameter in different redshifts $H(z)$, obtaining results in complete agreement. Finally, we discussed the dynamics of a model with vacuum decay ((t)CDM) and its description by scalar fields. Assuming the form of the vacuum term as a power series in the Hubble parameter, we derived the basic dynamic equations and the cosmological predictions of the model. We showed that when the energy exchange between the components of the dark sector is through the creation of particles, CCDM models and (t)CDM can share the same dynamics and thermodynamics under certain conditions. Additionally, we showed that the model is able to provide a good fit to the SNe Ia data and measurements of the CMB/BAO ratio. We also derived a description of CDM model by a scalar field, extending the validity of the model for other space-times and other gravitational theories. Our results show that there are several viable alternatives to the current standard model of cosmology, able to overcome the problems associated with the cosmological constant. The discussion of these alternatives is essential to a deeper understanding of the dynamics,composition and fate of the universe.

Os recentes avanços em cosmologia observacional indicam que o universo esteja passando por uma fase de expansão acelerada. A determinação do mecanismo responsável pela aceleração cósmica constitui um dos problemas mais intrigantes na ciência hoje. Entre os diversos candidatos a mecanismo de aceleração, a explicação mais simples e econômica é assumir a existência de uma constante cosmológica associada à energia do vácuo. Contudo, essa interpretação leva a importantes problemas conceituais associados à natureza dessa componente. Nesta tese, investigamos a dinâmica de diferentes mecanismos de aceleração cósmica, comparando suas previsões com diversos testes observacionais. Em particular, demos ênfase aos cenários baseados na criação de matéria escura fria (CCDM), nos quais a presente aceleração do universo é produzida sem a presença de um fluido exótico, como consequência do processo de produção de partículas de matéria escura gravitacionalmente induzido. Inicialmente, propusemos um modelo no qual o mecanismo de criação de partículas é capaz de gerar uma cosmologia dinamicamente degenerada com o modelo padrão, CDM. Discutimos no chamado modelo de Lima, Jesus & Oliveira (LJO) a dinâmica cosmológica com criação de matéria escura fria e com pressão. Através de um teste estatístico de $\\chi^2$, mostramos que o modelo fornece ótimo ajuste aos dados de supernovas tipo Ia (SNe Ia). Posteriormente, estudamos a evolução de pequenas perturbações de densidade em um fundo homogêneo para modelos tipo CCDM, através do formalismo Neo-Newtoniano. Restringindo-nos ao modelo LJO, comparamos as previsões obtidas nesse contexto com as proveniente do modelo CDM. Mostramos que o modelo é capaz de fornecer excelente ajuste aos dados observacionais de medidas da taxa de crescimento linear, para o caso plano e com velocidade efetiva do som $c^2_=-1$. Ainda dentro do cenário CCDM, investigamos uma segunda proposta original, com capacidade de ajuste às observações similar aos modelos CDM e LJO com mesmo número de parâmetros livres, porém com dinâmica não degenerada com estes. Derivamos a dinâmica cosmológica do modelo e discutimos a sua viabilidade através da análise estatística de medidas de SNe Ia e do parâmetro de Hubble em diferentes redshifts $H(z)$. Finalmente, discutimos a dinâmica de um modelo com decaimento do vácuo ((t)CDM) e sua descrição em campos escalares. Assumindo como forma d o termo de vácuo uma série de potências truncada do parâmetro de Hubble, derivamos as equações dinâmicas básicas e as previsões cosmológicas do modelo. Mostramos que, quando a transferência de energia entre as componentes dos setor escuro se dá através da criação de partículas, modelos CCDM e (t)CDM podem compartilhar a mesma dinâmica e termodinâmica, dentro de certas condições. Adicionalmente, mostramos que o modelo é capaz de prover um bom ajuste às medidas de SNe Ia e da chamada razão CMB/BAO. Obtivemos ainda uma descrição do modelo (t)CDM por um campo escalar, estendendo a validade do modelo para outros espaços-tempos e outras teorias gravitacionais. Nossos resultados mostram que existem diversas alternativas viáveis ao atual modelo padrão em cosmologia, capazes de contornar os problemas as sociados à constante cosmológica. A discussão dessas alternativas é essencial para uma compreensão mais profunda acerca da dinâmica, da composição e do destino do universo. / Recent advances in observational cosmology indicate that the universe is undergoing an accelerating stage of expansion. The determination of the mechanism responsible for the cosmic acceleration is one of the most intriguing problems in science today. Among many candidates for the acceleration mechanism, the simplest and most economical explanation is to assume the existence of a cosmological constant associated with the vacuum energy. However, this interpretation leads to important conceptual problems associated with the nature of this component. In this thesis, we investigate the dynamics of different mechanisms of cosmic acceleration, comparing their predictions through several observational tests. In particular, we emphasize the scenarios based on creation of cold dark matter (CCDM), in which the present acceleration of the universe is produced without the presence of an exotic fluid as a result of the gravitationally induced dark matter production process. Initially, we have proposed a model in which the particle creation mechanism is able to produce a cosmology dynamically degenerated with respect to the standard model, CDM. We discussed the cosmological dynamics for the creation of cold dark matter and dark matter with pressure within the so-called model of Lima, Jesus & Oliveira (LJO). Through a statistical $\\chi^2$ test, we showed that the model provides a good fit to the type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) data. Subsequently, we studied the evolution of small density perturbations in a homogeneous background for CCDM type models through the Neo-Newtonian formalism. Restricting ourselves to the LJO model, the predictions obtained in this context were compared with those from the CDM model. We showed that the model is able to provide a very good fit to the linear growth rate observational data, for a flat universe and effective speed of sound $c^2_=-1$. Also within the CCDM scenario, we discussed a second original proposal with similar goodnes-of-fit and same degree of freedom to the models CDM and LJO, but with a non-degenerated dynamics. We derived the dynamics of the model and discussed its viability through the statistical analysis of measurements of SNe Ia and Hubble parameter in different redshifts $H(z)$, obtaining results in complete agreement. Finally, we discussed the dynamics of a model with vacuum decay ((t)CDM) and its description by scalar fields. Assuming the form of the vacuum term as a power series in the Hubble parameter, we derived the basic dynamic equations and the cosmological predictions of the model. We showed that when the energy exchange between the components of the dark sector is through the creation of particles, CCDM models and (t)CDM can share the same dynamics and thermodynamics under certain conditions. Additionally, we showed that the model is able to provide a good fit to the SNe Ia data and measurements of the CMB/BAO ratio. We also derived a description of CDM model by a scalar field, extending the validity of the model for other space-times and other gravitational theories. Our results show that there are several viable alternatives to the current standard model of cosmology, able to overcome the problems associated with the cosmological constant. The discussion of these alternatives is essential to a deeper understanding of the dynamics,composition and fate of the universe.

The main topic of this thesis concerns t-SNE, a dimensionality reduction technique that has gained much popularity for showing great capability of preserving well-separated clusters from a high-dimensional space. Our goal with this thesis is twofold. Firstly we give an introduction to the use of dimensionality reduction techniques in visualization and, following recent research, show that t-SNE in particular is successful at preserving well-separated clusters. Secondly, we perform a thorough series of experiments that give us the ability to draw conclusions about the quality of embeddings from running t-SNE on samples of data using different sampling techniques. We are comparing pure random sampling, random walk sampling and so-called hubness sampling on a dataset, attempting to find a sampling method that is consistently better at preserving local information than simple random sampling. Throughout our testing, a specific variant of random walk sampling distinguished itself as a better alternative to pure random sampling.

This research focuses on Special Needs Education (SNE) in Kenyan Public Primary Schools: Exploring Government Policy and Teachers’ understandings. At a time when Kenya is introducing reforms with a view to addressing broad national objectives and providing universal primary education (UPE) after the massive enrolment increases arising from the free primary education declaration (FPE), it was important to establish teachers’ understandings on SEN. The study was undertaken in 27 primary schools in urban, municipal and rural parts of Kenya. A phenomenological qualitative approach was mainly used and data were collected from teachers through a survey comprising: (i) 159 self-administered questionnaires ii) Nine in-depth interviews. From the results of a pilot study, necessary adaptations were made for the main study. The data provided insights to teachers’ teaching strategies, impacts of mainstreaming, factors that prevent the participation of children said to have SEN, challenges in meeting the diverse needs in the classroom and the support they may require in providing more engaging and effective learning instructions. The findings show that many teachers lack a repertoire of learning and teaching strategies appropriate for addressing barriers to learning and providing individualized approaches in the classrooms. Some teachers were positive about teaching children said to have SEN but lacked the infrastructure of support and guidance, were confused by different terminologies and found the concept of SEN not to be enabling. What teachers are calling for is more training to help them develop strategies which are responsive to the identified learning difficulties. Through Documentary Analysis of the Kenya National Special Needs Education (SNE) Policy Framework, Ministry of Education (MoE, 2009), it was identified that the policy is difficult and ambiguous for teachers to implement. The policy fails to include salient definitions to facilitate a common way of addressing children said to have SEN which results in them being labelled. The recommendations of the research indicate that children’s unique needs be made transparent and addressed using effective individualized education plans to influence and maintain high expectations, positive and enriched ways of teaching in order to improve the children’s learning opportunities as well as other extracurricular activities. The national policy should be revised to include feasible targets in order to facilitate on-going evaluation and embed definitions of key words which are pivotal to planning, assessment, identification, provision and placement of children said to have SEN. Suggestions for further research have also been included.

Image classification in Machine Learning encompasses the task of identification of objects in an image. The technique has applications in various areas such as e-commerce, social media and security surveillance. In this report the author explores the impact of using t-Distributed Stochastic Neighbor Embedding (t-SNE) on data as a preprocessing step when classifying multiple classes of clothing with a state-of-the-art Deep Convolutional Neural Network (DCNN). The t-SNE algorithm uses dimensionality reduction and groups similar objects close to each other in three-dimensional space. Extracting this information in the form of a positional coordinate gives us a new parameter which could help with the classification process since the features it uses can be different from that of the DCNN. Therefore, three slightly different DCNN models receives different input and are compared. The first benchmark model only receives pixel values, the second and third receive pixel values together with the positional coordinates from the t-SNE preprocessing for each data point, but with different hyperparameter values in the preprocessing step. The Fashion-MNIST dataset used contains 10 different clothing classes which are normalized and gray-scaled for easeof-use. The dataset contains 70.000 images in total. Results show minimum change in classification accuracy in the case of using a low-density map with higher learning rate as the data size increases, while a more dense map and lower learning rate performs a significant increase in accuracy of 4.4% when using a small data set. This is evidence for the fact that the method can be used to boost results when data is limited. / Bildklassificering i maskinlärning innefattar uppgiften att identifiera objekt i en bild. Tekniken har applikationer inom olika områden så som e-handel, sociala medier och säkerhetsövervakning. I denna rapport undersöker författaren effekten av att användat-Distributed Stochastic Neighbour Embedding (t-SNE) på data som ett förbehandlingssteg vid klassificering av flera klasser av kläder med ett state-of-the-art Deep Convolutio-nal Neural Network (DCNN). t-SNE-algoritmen använder dimensioneringsreduktion och grupperar liknande objekt nära varandra i tredimensionellt utrymme. Att extrahera denna information i form av en positionskoordinat ger oss en ny parameter som kan hjälpa till med klassificeringsprocessen eftersom funktionerna som den använder kan skilja sig från DCNN-modelen. Tre olika DCNN-modeller får olika in-data och jämförs därefter. Den första referensmodellen mottar endast pixelvärden, det andra och det tredje motar pixelvärden tillsammans med positionskoordinaterna från t-SNE-förbehandlingen för varje datapunkt men med olika hyperparametervärden i förbehandlingssteget. I studien används Fashion-MNIST datasetet som innehåller 10 olika klädklasser som är normaliserade och gråskalade för enkel användning. Datasetet innehåller totalt 70.000 bilder. Resultaten visar minst förändring i klassificeringsnoggrannheten vid användning av en låg densitets karta med högre inlärningsgrad allt eftersom datastorleken ökar, medan en mer tät karta och lägre inlärningsgrad uppnår en signifikant ökad noggrannhet på 4.4% när man använder en liten datamängd. Detta är bevis på att metoden kan användas för att öka klassificeringsresultaten när datamängden är begränsad.

In the 21st century, the proliferation of steer-by-wire systems has become a central issue in the automobile industry. With such systems there is often an objective to minimise vibrations on the steering wheel to increase driver comfort. Nevertheless, steering wheel vibration is also recognised as an important medium that assists drivers in judging the vehicle's subsystems dynamics as well as to indicate important information such as the presence of danger. This has led to studies of the possible role of vibrational stimuli towards informing drivers of environment conditions such as road surface types. Numerous prior studies were done to identify how characteristics of steering wheel vibrational stimuli might influence driver road surface detection which suggested that there is no single, optimal, acceleration gain that could improve the detection of all road surface types. There is currently a lack of studies on the characteristics of transient vibrations of steering wheel as appear to be an important source of information to the driver road surface detection. Therefore, this study is design to identify the similarity characteristics of transient vibrations for answering the main research question: "What are the time-domain features of transient vibrations that can optimise driver road surface detection?" This study starts by critically reviewing the existing principles of transient vibrations detection to ensure that the identified transient vibrations from original steering wheel vibrations satisfy with the definition of transient vibrations. The study continues by performing the experimental activities to identify the optimal measurement signal for both identification process of transient vibrations and driver road surface detection without taking for granted the basic measurement of signal processing. The studies then identify the similarity of transient vibrations according to their time-domain features. The studies done by performing the high-dimensional reduction techniques associated with clustering methods. Result suggests that the time-domain features of transient vibrations that can optimise driver road surface detection were found to consist of duration (Δt), amplitude (m/s2), energy (r.m.s) and Kurtosis.

The aim of this master’s thesis is analysis of the multidimensional data. Three dimensionality reduction algorithms are introduced. It is shown how to manipulate with text documents using basic methods of natural language processing. The goal of the practical part of the thesis is to process real-world data from the internet forum. Posted messages are transformed to the numerical representation, then to two-dimensional space and visualized. Later on, topics of the messages are discovered. In the last part, a few selected algorithms are compared.

As a result of the standardizability of SNe Ia light curves over a wide range of photometric bands, they are used as standard candles to accurately measure distances in the cosmos up to z ≈ 1 [22]. As dust extinction is smaller in the NIR than in the optical [21] there is less dispersion seen in the peak brightnesses of SNe Ia, making them truly standard candles. We use SNPY to fit light curves for 192 SNe Ia. The mean of all Hubble residuals of our sample is ≈ 0.101 mag with a standard deviation of ≈ 0.234 mag. After applying an original set of cuts, the mean of 173 Hubble residuals reduces to ≈ 0.080 mag with a standard deviation of 0.203 mag. We next estimate host galaxy stellar masses of 175 SNe. From our sample we detect a 0.039 ± 0.026 mag (1−2σ) mass-step. For reasons outlined in section 4.1.1 and 4.1.2 respectively, we increase our sBV cut to sBV &gt; 0.8 and decrease our extinction cut to E(B −V ) ≤ 0.2 mag to see the mass step disappear entirely (0.004 ± 0.034 mag). Fast-declining SNe occur with preference in high-mass galaxies, possibly pointing to an intrinsic contribution to this mass step [22]. As NIR data is seen to significantly reduce the 3−4σ [14] mass-step detected with optical data, it is concluded that extinction likely plays a large role in the mass-step, as proposed in Brout &amp; Scolnic 2020 [2]. / <p>Presentation given over zoom due to the COVID-19 crisis.</p>

Stripped-envelope supernovae were thought to be the explosions of very massive stars (&amp; 20 M) that lost their outer layers of hydrogen and/or helium in strong stellar winds. However, recent studies have highlighted that most stripped-envelope supernovae seem to be arising from rela- tively lower-mass progenitor stars in the 12 20 M(sun) range, creating a mystery about the fate of the higher-mass stars. In this licentiate thesis, we review our knowledge of stripped-envelope supernovae, and present the astrophysical problem of their missing high-mass progenitors. The thesis focuses on observations of unique and rare stripped-envelope supernovae classified with modern optical surveys such as the intermediate Palomar Transient Factory (iPTF) and the Public European Southern Observatory Spectroscopic Survey of Transient Objects (PESSTO). In these surveys we have discovered stripped-envelope supernovae with long-lasting broad lightcurves, which are thought to be a marker for highly massive (&amp; 20 M[sun]) progenitor stars. Despite this exciting association, there are only a handful of existing examples of stripped- envelope supernovae with broad lightcurves published in the literature, not numerous enough to account for the missing high-mass stars. During our efforts, the first object we focused on was OGLE-2014-SN-131, a long-lasting supernova in the southern sky initially classified by PESSTO. We re-classified it as a supernova Type Ibn interacting with a helium-rich circumstellar environment. Unlike all other Type Ibn’s in the literature, OGLE-2014-SN-131 was found to have a long rise-time and large lightcurve broadness. By modeling its bolometric lightcurve, we concluded that OGLE-2014-SN-131 must have had an unusually massive progenitor star. Furthermore, since an ordinary radioactive- decay model could not reproduce the lightcurve, we investigated both a magnetar and circum- stellar interaction as potential powering scenarios and favored the latter due to the signatures of interaction present in the spectra. Next, we looked for similar objects in the supernova dataset of the iPTF, which contains over 200 stripped-envelope supernovae. Searching in a sub-sample of 100 well-observed supernovae, we identified 11 to have unusually broad lightcurves. We also constrained the distribution of lightcurve broadness for iPTF stripped-envelope supernovae. The 11 with broad lightcurves will be studied carefully in a forthcoming paper. The first part of this forthcoming paper, which describes the careful statistical identification of these super-novae, is included in this thesis. In it we identify that 10% of the iPTF stripped-envelope supernova sample have broad lightcurves, which a surprisingly high fraction given their rarity in the published literature. Finally, we evaluate whether our estimate of the fraction of broad stripped-envelope supernovae could help explain the missing high-mass progenitors, and con- clude that they can only be a small fraction of the missing high-mass progenitors.