The primary objective of this experiment is to investigate the transition from single unit to mediation control in retardates and to compare their responses with those made by nursery, kindergarten and grammar school children. By utilizing three MA levels of retarded subjects, this transition point may be more specifically demonstrated.

The project of this thesis is to begin the task of re-assessing the notion of personhood, particularly in respect of its role in the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, in the light of post-structuralist critical theory. Taking Jacques Derrida's critique of western thought as its starting point, the author attempts to undertake a deconstructive reading of the notion of pesonhood and its conceptual background through the texts of philosophy and theology. In Chapter 1 the author portrays, in the style of cultural criticism, the central themes of Hebrew and Greek thought, and tradition has dominated our western thought, yet our Hebraic heritage remains important. In juxtaposing these two traditions the author sets up two terrains upon which the critique will be developed. The critique begins in Chapter 2. The author explores the way in which philosophy has marginalised the polysemous features of language. The author argues that it is in these features, and not in the logical structures of analysis, that the essence of language lies. The author goes on to portray language as risk taking. The author then examines the ways in which philosophy has attempted to master the `flux' of change and temporality by privileging the present. The author establishes, through a re-reading of Husserl, that an escape from the flux is impossible. Using Kierkegaard's notion of repetition, he distinguishes two movements in which Being is possible amidst the flux, viz. recollection and repetition. The author goes on to discuss the approaches of three philosophers, Aquinas, Heidegger, and Derrida, who recognize in Being a differential structure. Three key terms are picked out for special examination: Aquinas' use of the term <i>subsistentia</i> in his understanding of Being <i>per se</i>, Heidegger's notion of the <i>Ereignis</i>, and Derrida's exposition of <i>difference</i>. Finally, the author presents his own account of Being in terms of the movements of recollection and repetition. Here the political and ethical prejudice which underpins the conceptual framework of the tradition becomes exposed. The author then develops an account of personhood drawing on the work of Emmanuel Levinas. Being is to be understood in terms of the relation of identity and alterity, a relation of responsibility. This results in a re-interpretation of the themes of <i>Ereignis, difféance</i>, and <i>subsistentia</i>. The author goes on to examine Levinas' notion of `being in responsibility', explaining it in terms of the movement of <i>repetition</i>. This leads to an interpretation of the meaning of pesonhood in terms of the meaning of the word <i>persona</i>. Finally, the author demonstrates that persons only `come to be' in the context of society, in which `being as responsibility' issues forth as a concern for justice, and it is out of the concern for justice that consciousness is born. On this basis, the author argues that all language is fundamentally theological. If, as Levinas argues, all speech bears witness to the Infinite as a concern for justice between persons in society, then in this witness the Trinity is revealed. The author goes on to discuss the attempts of Moltmann and Zizioulas to explain the Trinity in social rather than ontological terms. Developing their insights, the author goes on to sketch out an account of the Trinity as the foundation and source of the divine life and being, which in turn is to be understood in ethical terms - as infinite justice. The whole argument is presented within the framework of extracts from T.S. Eliot's `Four Quartets', to which the argument adverts, and to which the body of the thesis acts as an indirect commentary.

"Number is one of man's schemes for adapting himself to his environment. Development of the concept of number in man is intricately bound up with growth in him of language. Man is a social being and almost from birth, language activity becomes a part of his reactions to stimuli. He is therefore apt to use a partial language response even when the stimulus does not come from a strictly social setting"--Introduction. / Typescript. / "June, 1920." / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 89-91).

Cheung, Chi Ngai. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 243-250). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Chapter CHAPTER ONE: --- INTRODUCTION --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1 --- Overarching questions of the thesis --- p.4 / Chapter 1.2 --- Study One: The block-balancing experiment --- p.5 / Chapter 1.3 --- Study Two: The probability-estimation experiment --- p.9 / Chapter CHAPTER TWO: --- LITERATURE REVIEW --- p.13 / Chapter 2.1 --- Approaches for studying conceptual development --- p.13 / Chapter 2.1.1 --- Direction of development and its implications for the study of conceptual development --- p.17 / Chapter 2.1.1.1 --- Top-down: The Adaptive Control of Thought model (The ACT model) --- p.18 / Chapter 2.1.1.2 --- Bottom-up: The Representational Redescription model (The RR model) --- p.20 / Chapter 2.2 --- The Representational Redescription model --- p.23 / Chapter 2.2.1 --- Theoretical development of the RR model --- p.23 / Chapter 2.2.2 --- The RR model in Beyond Modularity --- p.24 / Chapter 2.2.2.1 --- The role of representational redescription in development: The physics domain --- p.26 / Chapter 2.2.2.2 --- The role of representational redescription in development: The domain of mathematics --- p.29 / Chapter 2.2.2.3 --- Important concept of the RR model: development beyond behaviour mastery --- p.31 / Chapter 2.2.3 --- Remarks on the RR model and the representational redescription process --- p.35 / Chapter 2.2.4 --- Remarks on the meaning of the top-down and bottom-up directions of development --- p.36 / Chapter 2.3 --- Empirical evidence related to the RR model in the linguistic domain --- p.38 / Chapter 2.3.1 --- Support for the explicit-implicit distinction --- p.38 / Chapter 2.3.2 --- Spelling development --- p.40 / Chapter 2.4 --- Empirical evidence related to the RR model in the field of strategy development --- p.43 / Chapter 2.4.1 --- Siegler´ةs research on strategy: behavioural changes precede insights --- p.43 / Chapter 2.4.2 --- Dixon´ةs research of the representational redescription process --- p.46 / Chapter 2.5 --- Empirical evidence related to the RR model in the physics domain: The block balancing problem --- p.52 / Chapter 2.5.1 --- The original experiment --- p.52 / Chapter 2.5.2 --- Later research --- p.55 / Chapter 2.6 --- The RR model and the conceptual development of probability --- p.71 / Chapter 2.6.1 --- Piaget´ةs theory of conceptual development of probability --- p.71 / Chapter 2.6.2 --- Coexistence of the higher level and lower level representations --- p.73 / Chapter 2.6.3 --- Direction of development: Bottom-up --- p.74 / Chapter 2.7 --- The RR model and the distinction of explicit-implicit memory --- p.77 / Chapter CHAPTER THREE: --- METHOD --- p.83 / Chapter 3.1 --- Study One: The block-balancing experiment --- p.83 / Chapter 3.1.1 --- Research questions --- p.85 / Chapter 3.1.2 --- Participants --- p.86 / Chapter 3.1.3 --- Materials --- p.87 / Chapter 3.1.4 --- Design and procedure --- p.90 / Chapter 3.1.5 --- Analysis --- p.94 / Chapter 3.1.5.1 --- Behavioural performance --- p.95 / Chapter 3.1.5.2 --- Performance that demonstrates explicit understanding --- p.99 / Chapter 3.1.5.3 --- Comparison of behavioural performance and performance that demonstrates explicit understanding --- p.104 / Chapter 3.2 --- Study Two: The probability-estimation experiment --- p.108 / Chapter 3.2.1 --- Research questions --- p.109 / Chapter 3.2.2 --- Participants --- p.111 / Chapter 3.2.3 --- Materials --- p.112 / Chapter 3.2.4 --- Design and procedure --- p.116 / Chapter 3.2.4.1 --- The pretest --- p.117 / Chapter 3.2.4.2 --- The training phase --- p.120 / Chapter 3.2.4.3 --- The posttest --- p.121 / Chapter 3.2.5 --- Analysis --- p.124 / Chapter 3.2.5.1 --- Behavioural performance --- p.124 / Chapter 3.2.5.2 --- Performance that demonstrates explicit understanding --- p.126 / Chapter 3.2.5.3 --- Comparison of behavioural performance and performance that demonstrates explicit understanding --- p.132 / Chapter 3.3 --- Notes about feedback in the two experiments --- p.133 / Chapter 3.4 --- The pilot study and amendments made after the pilot study --- p.134 / Chapter CHAPTER FOUR: --- RESULTS AND DISCUSSION OF STUDY ONE --- p.138 / Chapter 4.1 --- Outline --- p.138 / Chapter 4.1.1 --- Notes on the participant code --- p.139 / Chapter 4.2 --- Behavioural performance --- p.139 / Chapter 4.2.1 --- Success Score --- p.139 / Chapter 4.2.2 --- Initial Middle Placement Score --- p.141 / Chapter 4.2.3 --- Geometric Centre Area Placement Score (GCP Score) --- p.143 / Chapter 4.2.4 --- Comparison between the three behavioural measures --- p.145 / Chapter 4.2.5 --- Behavioural pattern --- p.147 / Chapter 4.2.5.1 --- Behavioural pattern of the geometric-centre theory (BGeo) --- p.147 / Chapter 4.2.5.2 --- Behavioural pattern reflecting the naive version of the law of torque (BTorque) --- p.149 / Chapter 4.3 --- Performance that demonstrates explicit understanding --- p.150 / Chapter 4.3.1 --- Prediction Task --- p.150 / Chapter 4.3.1.1 --- Comparing the Prediction Score with the Success Score --- p.154 / Chapter 4.3.2 --- Explanation types --- p.155 / Chapter 4.4 --- Comparison of behavioural performance and performance that demonstrates explicit understanding --- p.162 / Chapter 4.4.1 --- Geometric-centre theory --- p.162 / Chapter 4.4.1.1 --- Implicit geometric-centre theory and explicit geometric-centre theory --- p.163 / Chapter 4.4.1.2 --- Implicit geometric-centre theory: level-I or El? --- p.164 / Chapter 4.4.2 --- Development from top-down and bottom-up --- p.167 / Chapter 4.4.2.1 --- Relationship between success in balancing individual blocks and the correct explanation --- p.167 / Chapter 4.4.2.2 --- Relationship between the behavioural pattern that agrees with the naive version of the law of torque and the explicit verbalization of the naive version of the law of torque --- p.170 / Chapter 4.5 --- Summary --- p.172 / Chapter 4.5.1 --- List of important findings related to the RR model --- p.172 / Chapter 4.5.2 --- List of important findings related to the age-related development of the block-balancing task --- p.175 / Chapter 4.5.3 --- Responding to key research questions in a nutshell --- p.177 / Chapter CHAPTER FIVE: --- RESULTS AND DISCUSSION OF STUDY TWO --- p.178 / Chapter 5.1 --- Outline --- p.178 / Chapter 5.1.1 --- Notes on participants' background knowledge --- p.178 / Chapter 5.2 --- Behavioural performance --- p.179 / Chapter 5.2.1 --- Overall accuracy score --- p.179 / Chapter 5.2.2 --- Pretest and posttest score --- p.182 / Chapter 5.2.3 --- Behavioural adherence of the half rule --- p.186 / Chapter 5.3 --- Performance that demonstrates explicit understanding --- p.188 / Chapter 5.3.1 --- Verbal explanations --- p.188 / Chapter 5.3.1.1 --- Explanation type F (Division/Fraction) --- p.190 / Chapter 5.3.1.2 --- Explanation type H (Half rule) --- p.192 / Chapter 5.3.1.3 --- Explanation type P (Plus minus) --- p.195 / Chapter 5.3.1.4 --- Explanation type C (Comparison) --- p.200 / Chapter 5.3.1.5 --- Explanation type L (Last question) and I (Implicit) --- p.203 / Chapter 5.3.1.6 --- Explanation type O (Others ´ؤ Idiosyncratic) --- p.205 / Chapter 5.3.2 --- Responses to the general questions after the posttest --- p.205 / Chapter 5.3.3 --- Counter suggestions in the posttest --- p.209 / Chapter 5.4 --- Comparison of behavioural performance and the performance that demonstrated explicit understanding --- p.216 / Chapter 5.4.1 --- Accuracy score of explanation type I --- p.216 / Chapter 5.4.2 --- Changes in the pretest and posttest performance of the group of 4 to 5 year olds --- p.217 / Chapter 5.4.3 --- Comparing the behavioural adherence of half rule with the performance of explanation type H --- p.219 / Chapter 5.5 --- Summary --- p.221 / Chapter 5.5.1 --- List of important findings related to the RR model --- p.221 / Chapter 5.5.2 --- List of important findings related to the age-related development of the probability-estimation task --- p.223 / Chapter 5.5.3 --- Responding to key research questions in a nutshell --- p.225 / Chapter CHAPTER SIX: --- CONCLUSION --- p.226 / Chapter 6.1 --- Summary of findings in Experiments One and Two --- p.226 / Chapter 6.1.1 --- Performance difference that reflects the distinction between implicit and explicit representations --- p.226 / Chapter 6.1.2 --- Top-down or bottom-up learning --- p.230 / Chapter 6.1.3 --- Is there a U-shaped performance curve? --- p.231 / Chapter 6.1.4 --- Other findings --- p.232 / Chapter 6.1.5 --- Summary --- p.233 / Chapter 6.2 --- Implications --- p.234 / Chapter 6.3 --- Limitations --- p.238 / Chapter 6.4 --- Suggestions for further studies --- p.240 / REFERENCES --- p.243

Pas de résumé / This thesis is dedicated to the problem of training and integration strategies of several modalities (visual, textual), in order to perform an efficient Visual Concept Detection and Annotation (VCDA) task, which has become a very popular and important research topic in recent years because of its wide range of application such as image/video indexing and retrieval, security access control, video monitoring, etc. Despite a lot of efforts and progress that have been made during the past years, it remains an open problem and is still considered as one of the most challenging problems in computer vision community, mainly due to inter-class similarities and intra-class variations like occlusion, background clutter, changes in viewpoint, pose, scale and illumination. This means that the image content can hardly be described by low-level visual features. In order to address these problems, the text associated with images is used to capture valuable semantic meanings about image content. Moreover, In order to benefit from both visual models and textual models, we propose multimodal approach. As the typical visual models, designing good visual descriptors and modeling these descriptors play an important role. Meanwhile how to organize the text associated with images is also very important. In this context, the objective of this thesis is to propose some innovative contributions for the task of VCDA. For visual models, a novel visual features/descriptors was proposed, which effectively and efficiently represent the visual content of images/videos. In addition, a novel method for encoding local binary descriptors was present. For textual models, we proposed two kinds of novel textual descriptor. The first descriptor is semantic Bag-of-Words(sBoW) using a dictionary. The second descriptor is Image Distance Feature(IDF) based on tags associated with images. Finally, in order to benefit from both visual models and textual models, fusion is carried out by MKL efficiently embed. [...]

<p>The market is flooded with new concepts, some of them are working better than others. The</p><p>concept conciergeries is a relatively new concept on the European market, which is well</p><p>known on the US one. However, entering a new market with a new concept is not always easy</p><p>as there are some factors to be considered by the company.</p><p>The objective of this thesis is to provide the reader with a theoretical part, which is led by our</p><p>defined model in the introduction. In the empirical part the gathered information is presented</p><p>in order to compare the theory and the data gathered in the analysis. Furthermore the aim of</p><p>this thesis is to prove if a particular market – namely Sweden – is ready for introducing such a</p><p>concept. During the survey, the Swedish market and the Swedes has been regarded in more</p><p>detail to compare it with the pioneer (US) and the given market (France). To confirm/not</p><p>confirm the first statement, the authors made an interview with one potential customer in</p><p>Sweden. In the end a conclusion and some recommendations are given to the reader.</p>

Using a quasi-experimental design, the researcher investigated the comparative effects of individually-generated and collaboratively-generated computer-based concept mapping on middle school science concept learning. Qualitative data were analyzed to explain quantitative findings. One hundred sixty-one students (74 boys and 87 girls) in eight, seventh grade science classes at a middle school in Southeast Texas completed the entire study. Using prior science performance scores to assure equivalence of student achievement across groups, the researcher assigned the teacher’s classes to one of the three experimental groups. The independent variable, group, consisted of three levels: 40 students in a control group, 59 students trained to individually generate concept maps on computers, and 62 students trained to collaboratively generate concept maps on computers. The dependent variables were science concept learning as demonstrated by comprehension test scores, and quality of concept maps created by students in experimental groups as demonstrated by rubric scores. Students in the experimental groups received concept mapping training and used their newly acquired concept mapping skills to individually or collaboratively construct computer-based concept maps during study time. The control group, the individually-generated concept mapping group, and the collaboratively-generated concept mapping group had equivalent learning experiences for 50 minutes during five days, excepting that students in a control group worked independently without concept mapping activities, students in the individual group worked individually to construct concept maps, and students in the collaborative group worked collaboratively to construct concept maps during their study time. Both collaboratively and individually generated computer-based concept mapping had a positive effect on seventh grade middle school science concept learning but neither strategy was more effective than the other. However, the students who collaboratively generated concept maps created significantly higher quality concept maps than those who individually generated concept maps. The researcher concluded that the concept mapping software, Inspiration™, fostered construction of students’ concept maps individually or collaboratively for science learning and helped students capture their evolving creative ideas and organize them for meaningful learning. Students in both the individual and the collaborative concept mapping groups had positive attitudes toward concept mapping using Inspiration™ software.

The market is flooded with new concepts, some of them are working better than others. The concept conciergeries is a relatively new concept on the European market, which is well known on the US one. However, entering a new market with a new concept is not always easy as there are some factors to be considered by the company. The objective of this thesis is to provide the reader with a theoretical part, which is led by our defined model in the introduction. In the empirical part the gathered information is presented in order to compare the theory and the data gathered in the analysis. Furthermore the aim of this thesis is to prove if a particular market – namely Sweden – is ready for introducing such a concept. During the survey, the Swedish market and the Swedes has been regarded in more detail to compare it with the pioneer (US) and the given market (France). To confirm/not confirm the first statement, the authors made an interview with one potential customer in Sweden. In the end a conclusion and some recommendations are given to the reader.

Object individuation, the capacity to determine whether two perceptual encounters belong to the same object or two different objects, is one of the most basic cognitive abilities and provides a foundation for infants’ understanding of the physical world. Yet very little work has been done to explore infants’ use of auditory information to individuate objects. The first research to investigate infants’ use of sound information to individuate objects was reported by Wilcox et al. (2006), who used a violation-ofexpectation task to examine the extent to which 4.5-month-olds use differences in sound to individuate objects. The results suggested that 4.5-month-olds use property-rich sounds (sounds intimately related to an objects’ physical, amodal properties) but not property-poor sounds (sounds that are more contrived) to distinguish the identity of objects involved in occlusion events. The current study investigated infants’ sensitivity to these two types of sounds within the context of a search task. Three experiments were conducted with infants aged 5 to 7 months. The outcome of these experiments builds and extends on the findings of Wilcox et al. in three ways. First, converging evidence was obtained, using a search task, that young infants are more sensitive to property-rich than property-poor sounds. Second, more detailed information was obtained on infants’ interpretation of samesounds events (two identical, rather than two different, sounds). Finally, possible explanations for infants’ greater sensitivity to property-rich sounds were assessed. The outcome of these studies, collectively, provides insight into the types of sounds that infants use to identify objects and the reasons why some sounds are more salient to infants than others.

Abstract The purpose of this study was to investigate the qualitative and quantitative differences in children and adolescents¡¦ death concept development, and to analyze the relationships of children and adolescents¡¦ death concept development with background variables (such as gender, age, religious belief, heath status, etc.) The subjects were drawn from the primary school children and junior high school adolescents of the Affiliated Senior High School of National Kaohsiung Normal University. Data were drawing, questionnaire, and interview. 239 students (age 8-16) were asked to draw a picture when they heard the word death, 204 students (age 10-16) were administered by Fill-in-Sentence Questionnaire of Death, and 24 students (age 8-16) were interviewed individually. The total subject number was 239. The drawings were analyzed following Marton¡¦s (1988) phenomenographic method and assigned to the modified classification scheme of death concept system developed by Tamm & Granqvist (1995), consisting 3 superordinate and 12 subordinate qualitative categories. With respect to Fill-in sentence questionnaire and interview data, they were analyzed according to content analysis method, with Fill-in sentence questionnaire using the categorization proposed by Neimeyer(1983) and Holcomb & Neimeyer (1993) as a template. Data analysis included qualitative and quantitative analysis. Qualitative analysis selectively portrayed drawing representative of each superordinate/subordinate death concept and presented result from the interview with children. Quantitative analysis included descriptive statistics ,£q2 test and post comparison of£q2 test. Analytically, the following were the results obtained from this study: 1.The internal causes and external causes of death were found with about equal frequency in both children and adolescents, with children above 2nd grade and adolescents all understanding the universality of death. 2.Children and adolescents expressing that dead bodies were not existential had approximately equal frequency (above 55%), but the majority of young children believed the existence of soul. 3.The majority of children and adolescents who actually faced real death usually expresses sadness and loss; it was natural response that death related things companied with negative emotion. 4.The majority of the 2nd to 6th children believed existence of world after death. However, many adolescents demonstrated more imagination about the world after death, although they didn¡¦t believe in the existence after death. 5. Many adolescents reported thoughts about nature of death and evaluation of death. Alternatively, children didn¡¦t report thoughts about nature of death, but they reported much negative evaluation of death. 6.There were significant differences in the death concept development with different grades and families communicating death. However, there were less significant differences in the death concept development with gender, religion, and death experience. 7.Only half children and adolescents reported that their parents ever talked about death with them, but parents were the targets that children wanted to talk to about death, while young adolescents has tendency to resort to their peers. 8.Children and adolescents reported the deepest impression of death concept was when family members died, while impressions of death from the mass communication media regarding violent death came in second. According to the results of this study, recommendations regarding death education for parents, teachers, and institutions are laid out, and some suggestions for future research are also provided.