Students with emotional and behavioral disorders (E/BD) have academic deficits that affect their success in school; however, few researchers have investigated what strategies work best for this population, especially in the area of writing. One promising intervention to support the writing skills of students with and at-risk for E/BD is self-regulated strategy development (SRSD). SRSD is a six-stage, explicit strategy instruction model that includes procedures for goal setting, self-monitoring, self-instruction, and self-reinforcement and can be generalized to a variety of writing tasks. The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of an SRSD persuasive writing intervention on the writing achievement of 44 students in a residential school. Results of a piecewise hierarchical linear modeling growth curve analysis suggest statistically significant gains were made over the course of the intervention in writing (quality, correct word sequences, and essay elements) and academic engagement. Effects also generalized to writing achievement measures. In addition, teachers implemented the intervention with high fidelity, and both students and teachers rated the intervention as socially acceptable, with higher ratings postintervention.

Formål:Hensikten med studien er å undersøke hvilken effekt det lovbaserte legefordelingssystemet, som var aktivt i Norge fra 1.1.1999 til 30.6.2013, har hatt, og hvordan ordningen har påvirket utviklingen i legestillinger i primærhelsetjenesten og spesialisthelsetjenesten i Norge. Studien kan gi myndighetene et bedre kunnskapsgrunnlag om statlig regulering av legestillinger. Metode: Forskningsspørsmålene er i hovedsak belyst gjennom kvantitative deskriptive analyser av registerdata og tilgjengelig statistikk. Saksdokumenter og vedtak om tildeling av legestillinger er gjennomgått, og det er gjennomført en kvalitativ analyse av bakgrunnsdokumentene ved innføringen av ordningen. Den teoretiske rammen for studien er folkehelsearbeid, organisasjonsteori og resultatkjeden som et styringsverktøy ved gjennomføring av evalueringer. Resultat: Studienviser at nye legestillinger i primærhelsetjenesten har vært prioritert i hele perioden. Dette kan ha bidratt til å redusere sosiale ulikheter i helse. Antall ubesatte legestillinger er i perioden 1.1.1999 til 30.6.2013 redusert til under 1% av alle legestillinger, både i primærhelsetjenesten og spesialisthelsetjenesten. I samme periode økte antall utdanningsstillinger for leger i spesialisering med 36%. I alt 54% av alle nye legestillinger i spesialisthelsetjenesten er gitt innen nasjonale satsningsområder og prioriterte spesialiteter. Av de nordiske landene har Norge hatt høyest økningen i legedekning pr 1000 innbyggere i allmennlegetjenesten. Konklusjon: Studien viser at den statligereguleringenav nye legestillinger har hatt en effekt, og at et målrettet reguleringssystem kan være et godt administrativt virkemiddel for nasjonal legefordeling og geografisk fordeling av leger. God forankring og bred deltaking er suksesskriterier. / Purpose: This study aimedto investigate the effect of the legally based system for allocating new positions for physiciansunder a policy that wasin effectin Norway between 1 January 1999 and 30 June 2013.The study also aimed to increase understanding of a government-regulated physician distribution system. Method: The primary methodology involved using quantitative descriptive analysis to review registry data and available statistics. Case documents and decisions related to theallocation of physician positions, and case and policy documents related to the original justification for the government-regulated physician distribution systemw ere also reviewed. The theoretical thesis and framework for this study is public health, organization theory, and the "result chain" as a management tool for executing evaluations and deliberations. Result: Theresults of the study show that vacant positions for physicians, both primary and specialists, decreased to less than 1% during the study period. During this same time period, 54% of all new hospital positions were assigned a priority specialty. Positions for specialist education increased 36%. Among the Nordic countries, Norway had the highest increase in coverage by primary care physiciansper 1,000 capita during the past 15 years. Conclusion:The government-regulated physician distribution systemin Norway has been effective. Robustness, consensus building, and broad participation are key conditions and ingredients in the recipe for success. / <p>ISBN 978-91-982282-2-9</p>

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between active procrastination, self-regulated learning and academic achievement. Participants included 108 undergraduate students enrolled in a first-year elective course at a Canadian university. Students reported their level of active procrastination, cognitive and metacognitive strategy use, self-efficacy for learning and performance, goal quality and self-reported goal attainment over the semester. Measures included the self-report Active Procrastination Scale (APS; Choi & Moran, 2009), the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ; Pintrich Smith, Garcia, & McKeachie, 1991) and weekly reflections. Findings revealed: (a) active procrastination was significantly positively related to academic achievement, (b) the ability to meet deadlines was the component of active procrastination most related to SRL variables, and (c) self-reported goal attainment accounted for the most variance in ability to meet deadlines score. Further research is needed to explore the central role of ability to meet deadlines in active procrastination and the order in which SRL variables, active procrastination and negative influence of procrastination predict academic achievement. / Graduate

Self-paced study involves choosing items for (re)study and determining how much time will be allocated to those items so as to maximize later recall, making it a viable venue for examining whether there are age-related differences in metacognitive control. Two prominent models have been proposed to account for item selection and study time allocation behaviors during self-paced study. The Discrepancy Reduction Model (DRM; Dunlosky & Hertzog, 1998; Nelson & Leonesio, 1988) suggests individuals will always select and allocate the most time to items that have not yet been learned, whereas the Region of Proximal Learning model (RPL; Metcalfe, 2002) predicts individuals will select the easiest unknown items and will only later select and allocate time to the more difficult items if time constraints permit, thus making distinctions among unlearned items graded by difficulty. Two experiments were conducted to examine whether younger and older adults item selection and study time allocation behaviors would be more consistent with DRM or RPL model predictions. Across both experiments younger and older adults initially selected easier items for study, providing the first evidence to date that the RPL model would extend to older adults self-paced study of heterogeneously difficult Spanish-English vocabulary pairs. However, both younger and older adults allocated more time to difficult than easier items. The assignment of point values to items in Experiment 2 affected how likely participants were to pursue each of four experimenter-determined task goals that either stressed the number of words recalled, points earned, or both. Whether point values initially favored recall of easy or difficult items interacted with time constraints to influence the basis (objective versus subjective difficulty) and order of participants item selections (Experiment 2). However, younger adults were better able to effectively allocate their study time to achieve self-determined (Experiment 1) and experimenter-determined goals (Experiment 2), indicating age-related differences in metacognitive control despite younger and older adults having similar memory self-efficacy ratings and encoding strategy use behaviors.

[Truncated abstract] Reactive oxygen species (ROS) have been implicated to play a major role in many pathological conditions including heart attack and stroke. Their ability to modulate the extracellular signal-regulated protein kinase (ERK) and c-Jun Nterminal kinase (JNK) signalling pathways, thereby influencing cellular response has been well-documented. Recent studies implicate a central role for mitochondria in ERK and JNK activation by ROS although the mechanisms remained unresolved. Using Jurkat T-lymphocyte as a cell model, this study demonstrated increased mitochondrial ROS production as a result of decreased mitochondrial complex activities mediated by hydrogen peroxide treatment. This is the first study to show that mitochondria are not essential for activating ERKs, however damaged mitochondria producing ROS can be expected to cause sustained ERK activation . . . This study revealed that JNK and its upstream kinases MKK4, MKK7 and ASK1 are associated with the mitochondria. Furthermore, findings from this study imply that JNK resides in the mitochondrial matrix. This study is the first to demonstrate that mitochondrial JNK can be activated in a cell-free environment by signals originating from the mitochondria. Experimental work using isolated mitochondria demonstrated that mitochondrial JNK can be activated by ROS generated from the mitochondria themselves. Flavin-containing proteins appear to be the main sources of mitochondrial-ROS which signal through redoxsensitive proteins to activate mitochondrial JNK.

Lic.-avh. (sammanfattning) Stockholm : Karolinska institutet, 2007. / Härtill 2 uppsatser.

Dissertation (Ph.D.)--University of South Florida, 2006. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 166-187). Also available online.

Thesis (MSc (Mathematical Sciences))--University of Stellenbosch, 2008. / Context-free grammars are well-studied and well-behaved in terms of decidability, but many real-world problems cannot be described with context-free grammars. Grammars with regulated rewriting are grammars with mechanisms to regulate the applications of rules, so that certain derivations are avoided. Thus, with context-free rules and regulated rewriting mechanisms, one can often generate languages that are not context-free. In this thesis we study grammars with regulated rewriting mechanisms. We consider problems in which context-free grammars are insufficient and in which more descriptive grammars are required. We compare bag context grammars with other well-known classes of grammars with regulated rewriting mechanisms. We also discuss the relation between bag context grammars and recognizing devices such as counter automata and Petri net automata. We show that regular bag context grammars can generate any recursively enumerable language. We reformulate the pumping lemma for random permitting context languages with context-free rules, as introduced by Ewert and Van der Walt, by using the concept of a string homomorphism. We conclude the thesis with decidability and complexity properties of grammars with regulated rewriting.

Submitted by Denize Lourenço (biblicfp@cfp.ufcg.edu.br) on 2018-08-21T17:37:13Z No. of bitstreams: 1 OTONIEL INÁCIO DA SILVA - DISSERTAÇÃO PROFLETRAS 2018.pdf: 1196041 bytes, checksum: 40c6bd8bf098a8c67c472f980806a600 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-21T17:37:13Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 OTONIEL INÁCIO DA SILVA - DISSERTAÇÃO PROFLETRAS 2018.pdf: 1196041 bytes, checksum: 40c6bd8bf098a8c67c472f980806a600 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-02-28 / Os seres humanos têm uma capacidade inata de se comunicar e organizar suas ações comunicativas entre os seus pares, o que permite dizer que as práticas da oralidade são recorrentes em sala de aula e fundamentadas sempre em gêneros textuais. Neste trabalho, desenvolvemos estudos teóricos e interventivos sobre o uso dos gêneros textuais como motivadores argumentativos para práticas de oralidade no ensino fundamental II, tendo como principais objetivos desenvolver uma proposta pedagógica que contemple o trabalho com a argumentação oral nas séries finais do Ensino Fundamental II, a partir da compreensão dos gêneros textuais orais, especialmente o seminário e o debate regrado e, mais especificamente, compreender aspectos relacionados à argumentação oral em contexto de sala de aula; discutir sobre a relação entre oralidade e escrita; apresentar conceitos de gênero textual, relacionando os com o contexto de sala de aula; caracterizar os gêneros textuais seminário e debate regrado; estruturar uma proposta pedagógica que contemple o desenvolvimento da argumentação oral com base nos gêneros seminário e debate regrado. Para dar conta desses objetivos, buscamos compreender argumentação e oralidade, com base nas teorias de Bakhtin (2003), Alves Filho (2011), Marcuschi (2002) e Wachowicz (20112) que abordam as teorias dos gêneros textuais sob perspectivas da oralidade e da escrita; Aristóteles (2005), Perelman (1958), Ribeiro (2009) que tratam das questões da retórica argumentativa, argumentação oral e princípios para o trabalho com a argumentação oral em sala de aula; e por fim, Schneuwly e Dolz (2004), Marcuschi (2010) e Marques (2010), que dão ideias do trabalho com os gêneros orais, diferenciação da fala e da escrita, e do trabalho com a argumentação formal no contexto da sala de aula. Além disso, a revisão dos Parâmetros Curriculares Nacionais de Língua Portuguesa para o Ensino Fundamental, observando as orientações para o trabalho com os gêneros textuais na modalidade oral foi relevante. A oralidade e a escrita, são duas modalidades de linguagem que fazem parte de um contínuo que se completam para se efetivarem em práticas de comunicação essenciais para a vida humana, enquanto que a argumentação como prática linguística fundada numa controvérsia envolvendo sempre falante e ouvinte de forma dialógica. Nesse caso, para a efetivação da dialogicidade nas práticas comunicativas é essencial o entendimento dos conceitos de gênero textuais, no caso desse trabalho, o seminário e o debate. Levando isso em conta, consideramos que os gêneros textuais são dinâmicos e variáveis, podendo sofrer alterações de acordo com as necessidades comunicativas dos falantes. Essa dinamicidade é característica dos gêneros textuais seminário e debate regrado, com os quais apresentamos as propostas de intervenção pedagógicas. Dessa forma, caracterizamos o seminário como gênero multimodal, hibrido e conversacional, enquanto que o debate é dialogal, argumentativo e capaz de gerar aprendizagens significativas quanto ao desenvolvimento da argumentação oral. Os procedimentos metodológicos para a montagem dessa dissertação foram principalmente bibliográficos, entendendo que a pesquisa bibliográfica é indispensável para os estudos históricos, para a construção de uma base teórica sobre o problema investigado, para a compilação de dados que podem ajudar de forma significativa na elaboração de conceitos. Seguimos então a seguinte trajetória: compilação de acervo bibliográfico que abordam os gêneros textuais, a argumentação e práticas de oralidade. Em seguida procedemos com um enfoque exploratório desse acervo, desenvolvendo leitura e interpretação das obras selecionadas para compreender conceitos relativos a gêneros textuais, argumentação e oralidade, com o fim de verificar teorias e abordagens didáticas a respeito de como os gêneros argumentativos orais estão sendo tratados em sala de aula. Desenvolvemos duas propostas de intervenção pedagógicas: uma com base no seminário e outra com base no debate regrado. Estruturamos essas propostas, considerando os seguintes passos aplicados a cada gênero: conhecer, desenvolver e refletir, em que conhecer está relacionado a apresentação, caracterização e estudo do gênero, desenvolver está relacionado ao como estruturar a proposta e a montagem de módulos de aprendizagens, e refletir que é um momento reservado para a avaliação de todo o processo de desenvolvimento do projeto de comunicação embutido nestas ações de intervenção. Concluímos o trabalho fazendo uma síntese das principais ideias discutidas ao longo da pesquisa, a saber, conceitos de argumentação, oralidade, gênero textual, debate e seminário, e falando do papel importante que o professor assume para a promoção da aprendizagem. O professor é apresentado não como um transmissor de conhecimento, mas como um treinador que instiga o aluno a querer saber, cuja perícia não consiste em expor conhecimentos de maneira discursiva, mas sim de sugerir e de fazer trabalhar as ligações entre conhecimentos e situações concretas da vida real do aluno. / The human beings have a innate capacity of communicate themselves and organize their communicative actions among their pairs, which allow us to say that the practices of orality are frequently used in classroom and they are always based on textual genres. In this work, we developed theorical studies about the use of textual geners as argumentative motivators for oral practices on elementary school. The main objective of this work is develop a pedagogical proposal that contemplates the work with the oral argumentation in the final series of elementary school from the comprehension of the oral text genres, specially, the seminar and the policy debates. Specifically, we want to comprehend some points related to oral argumentation in the context of the classroom. In addition, this work aims to discuss about the relation between orality and written, to present concepts of textual genres, relating to the context from the classroom and point the main traces of the textual genres seminar and debate and this work aims at structuring a pedagogical proposal that contemplates the development of the oral argumentation based on the textual genres seminar and debate. To pursue these goals, we seek to understand argumentation and orality, based on the theories from Bakhtin( 2003), Alves Filho (2011), Marchuschi (2002) and Wachowicz (2002) that talk about theories from the perspective of orality and writing. Aristotle (2005), Perelman (1958) Ribeiro (2009( that talk about questions from the argumentative rhetorical, oral argumentation and principals of the work in classroom. Finally, Schneuwly and Dolz (2004), Marcuschi (2010) and Marques (2010), that give explanation about oral generes, differentiation from the speak to the writing and of the work with formal argumentation in the context of the classroom. So, we do a revision of the PCN, observing the guidelines in taward to the work with the textual genre in the oral mode. We structure basic concepts of the orality and writing, showing that these two modalities of language take part of a continuum that complement each other and effective each other in communicative practices that are essential to the human life. First we define basic concepts of orality and written, showing that these two modalities of language are part of a continuum that complete itself and efective itself in communication practices. We define the arguments as linguistic practice based on a controversy that always involves a speaker and a listener on a dialogic way.; the textual geners as essential for the communication. They are dynamic and variable. Our focus in this work was presentate proposals of pedagogical intervention based on two textual oral genres which are seminar and policy debate. we characterize the seminar as a multimodal, hybrid and conversational gener, while the debate we characterize as a dialogic, argumentative and able to generate significative learning in respect to development of the oral argumentation. The methological procedures that we used was essentially bibliographic. We developed two proposal of pedagogical intervention: The first one was based on seminar and the second one based on policy debate. We structured these proposals considering the following steps in respect to each genre: knowing, developing and reflecting. Knowing is relationed to presentation, characterization and studied of the genere, developing is relationed to how to structure the proposal and the confection of the learning modules. Reflecting is a moment reserved to evaluation of the the whole process embedded in the communication Project. We concluded this work summarizing the main concepts of argumentation, orality and textual genre, debate and seminar and we talked about important role that the teacher assumes to promote significative learning. The teaches was presented not as a knowledge transmitter, but he was presented as a coaching that motivates the student to want to knowing, whose skill is to suggest and promoting the linking between knowledge and the concrete situations of the real life of the students.

Uma questão que se apresenta relevante, nesta tese, é que na maioria das vezes, o estudante, principalmente, o novato, demonstra grande dificuldade na aprendizagem baseada na resolução de problemas. Portanto, este precisa de monitoração, isto exige um apoio de entidades ou pessoas mais experientes. Percebe-se que, muitas vezes, por falta de domínio na área do conhecimento tratada, o estudante não analisa minuciosamente os dados do problema para poder conduzir objetivamente cada etapa de solução. Várias habilidades cognitivas são exigidas durante o processo de resolução de problemas, como por exemplo, codificação, comparação e combinação, componentes cognitivos significativos detectados em estudantes talentosos. A aprendizagem por meio do processo de resolução de problemas num ambiente online pode ampliar o pensamento crítico e aprimorar a tomada de decisão. Nesta pesquisa, foi criado um agente conversacional chamado Blaze, com o intuito de apoiar o estudante durante a aprendizagem autorregulada baseada na resolução de problemas. O agente foi desenvolvido com a linguagem de marcação AIML (Artificial Intelligence Markup Language), tendo sua base de conhecimento construída por meio da elicitação e representação dos processos cognitivos dos estudantes talentosos, alunos medalhistas da Olimpíada Brasileira de Matemática das Escolas Públicas. Utilizou-se a técnica de Raciocínio Baseado em Casos para permitir a recuperação e reutilização de experiências passadas dos estudantes talentosos. Foram realizados tantos experimentos com outros estudantes de graus de escolaridades distintos (2ª série do ensino médio, Licenciatura em Ciências e Licenciatura em Matemática) com o objetivo de investigar o engajamento e o aprimoramento das habilidades cognitivas destes durante a resolução dos problemas com a assistência do agente conversacional Blaze. Nestes experimentos, alguns estudantes interagiram com o agente Blaze durante o processo de resolução de problemas matemáticos, enquanto outros trabalharam sozinhos na resolução dos mesmos problemas. Os resultados obtidos nos experimentos permitiram verificar que o apoio do agente conversacional Blaze, no contexto de uma aprendizagem autorregulada durante a resolução de problemas, contribuiu qualitativamente para o aprimoramento de diversas habilidades cognitivas, como por exemplo, pensamento crítico, pensamento criativo, raciocínio lógico, bem como, permitiu o uso da metacognição. / A relevant issue raised in this paper is that most times students, especially inexperienced ones, show great difficulty for learning based on problem solving. Therefore, such students need to be monitored, which requires support from entities or more experienced people. Many times we see that due to students’ lack of mastery of the field of knowledge addressed, they fail to thoroughly analyze the problem data so as to objectively handle each stage of the solution. Several cognitive skills are required during the problem-solving process, such as coding, and comparison and combination, significant cognitive components detected in talented students. Learning by means of a problem-solving process in an online environment is capable of expanding critical thinking and improving students’ decision-making skills. In this research, a conversational agent we call Blaze was created in an effort to help students during their self-regulated, problem solving-based learning. The agent was developed via the AIML (Artificial Intelligence Markup Language), and its knowledge base was put together by means of eliciting and representing the cognitive processes of talented students, students who had won medals at the Brazilian Public School Mathematics Olympic Games. We used the Case-Based Reasoning technique to enable us to recover and reuse the talented students’ past experiences. Some other experiments were carried out with other students from various schooling levels (high school sophomores, and Science and Math undergrads) in order to look into those students’ engagement and improvement of their cognitive skills as they solved problems assisted by the Blaze conversational agent. In those experiments, some students interacted with the Blaze agent during the math problem-solving process, while other students worked alone on solving the same problems. The results obtained from the experiments allowed us to find that the support from the Blaze conversational agent, in the context of self-regulated learning during problem-solving, qualitatively helped the students improve their several cognitive skills, such as critical thinking, creative thinking, and logic reasoning, besides enabling the use of meta-cognition.