Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:33:18Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2010-10-06Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T20:24:38Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 alves_fd_dr_rcla.pdf: 3866026 bytes, checksum: 48c193bcd7ff9d6473084c2dd41a1e2b (MD5) / Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) / Este estudo analisou as bases teórico-metodológicas da geografia agrária brasileira partindo do ano de 1939 até 2009, com base em dez periódicos científicos selecionados em geografia. Evidenciou-se o pluralismo de concepções metodológicas e temáticas a partir da década de 1990. Assim, a pesquisa mostrou uma determinada coerência metodológica entre os períodos de 1939 a 1965, com base no método indutivo-descritivo-empírico alicerçado na geografia regional francesa. Após este momento, a geografia agrária passou a adotar uma linguagem matemática-estatística para a explicação dos fenômenos espaciais, com base no positivismo lógico, durante este paradigma vigente entre 1965 a 1980. A renovação crítica inseriu nos estudos agrários a preocupação com o dado social e as análises da contradição do capitalismo, abordagens políticas e econômicas, o auge dessa geografia agrária crítica foi nas décadas de 1980 a 2000. A partir desse momento, há uma diversidade de abordagens metodológicas não permitindo dizer que exista uma principal tendência paradigmática na geografia agrária brasileira neste início de século XXI. Destaca-se neste tese a importância do resgate de teorias e conceitos já utilizados na geografia agrária eu explicam os fenômenos atuais, além de salientar as principais tendências teórico-metodológicas no início do século XXI / This study aims at analyzing the process of transformation occurred in the theoreticalmethodological assumptions of Brazilian Agrarian Geography, based on ten scientific journals selected between 1939 and 2009, which attests the pluralism in methodological and themetic conceptions from the 1990s. Thus, this perspective demonstrated a determined methodologic coherence between the years of 1939 and 1965, based on inductive-descriptive-empirical method, rooted in the Frence Regional Geography. Until that moment, Agrarian Geography had chosen a mathematical-statistical language in order to explain space phenomena, based on logic positivism, during this paradigm current between 1965 and 1980. The critical renewal inserted in the agrarian studies a concern with the social datum and the analysis of the contradiction of capitalism, political and economic approaches, and the summit of that agrarian geography was between the 1980s and 2000s. From that moment on, there is a diversity of methodological approaches, which does not permit to affirm the existence of a main and paradigmatical trend in the Brazilian Agrarian Geography in the early 21st century

O presente trabalho tem como objetivo investigar as aplicações do método fenomenológico à pesquisa empírica em psicologia. O foco da investigação é o passo reflexivo designado redução fenomenológica, considerado elemento fundamental da identidade analítica na tradição da fenomenologia. O trabalho foi dividido em três estudos. O Estudo I tratou da transposição da fenomenologia pura descrita pelo filósofo Edmund Husserl (1859-1938) para a fenomenologia empírica, com especial atenção para o desenvolvimento conceitual da redução fenomenológica e sua aplicação à psicologia. No Estudo II, foi realizado um levantamento de artigos empíricos que utilizaram o método fenomenológico nos últimos dez anos de publicação. Revelou pluralidade lógica e técnica na aplicação do método entre os artigos publicados no Brasil, e homogeneidade aplicativa entre os relatos de pesquisa publicados em um periódico norte-americano especializado na temática. No Estudo III, a aplicação da redução fenomenológica foi exercitada e discutida no cruzamento entre relatos de percepção corpóreo-motoras, em um contexto de tarefa motora induzida, e respostas a uma Escala de autoconsciência. O cruzamento evidenciou associação entre perfis extraídos do sub-fator autoconsciência privada e autoconsciência geral a padrões de resposta e engajamento na tarefa experimental. A evolução dos três estudos almeja descrever uma tendência histórica ascendente de aproximação entre teoria fenomenológica e prática científica. / The aim of the current work is to investigate the applications of phenomenological method in the psychological empirical research. The investigation locus applies to the reflexive step known as phenomenological reduction, considered fundamental piece of the analytical identity in phenomenology. The work is divided in three studies. The first one debates the transition between pure phenomenology, described by German philosopher Edmund Husserl (1859-1938), to the empirical phenomenology, with special attention to the conceptual development of phenomenological reduction and its application in the framework of psychology. The second study was conducted within a survey on empirical articles that have used phenomenological method, published in psychology journals in the last ten years. It reveals logical and technical plurality on the application of method between the Brazilian articles, and the opposite, coherent application in an specialized North American journal on the theme. On the third study, the application of phenomenological reduction was exercised and discussed in the intersection between the exam of perceptual proprioceptive reports, obtained in an experimental setting of induced motor tasks, and results of self-consciousness scale. The intersection evidenced association between the profiles extracted from factor private self-consciousness and general selfconsciousness to reaction verbal patterns and engagement on experimental task. The evolution of three studies indicate an ascendant tendency of approximation between phenomenological theory and scientific practice.

O presente trabalho tem como objetivo investigar as aplicações do método fenomenológico à pesquisa empírica em psicologia. O foco da investigação é o passo reflexivo designado redução fenomenológica, considerado elemento fundamental da identidade analítica na tradição da fenomenologia. O trabalho foi dividido em três estudos. O Estudo I tratou da transposição da fenomenologia pura descrita pelo filósofo Edmund Husserl (1859-1938) para a fenomenologia empírica, com especial atenção para o desenvolvimento conceitual da redução fenomenológica e sua aplicação à psicologia. No Estudo II, foi realizado um levantamento de artigos empíricos que utilizaram o método fenomenológico nos últimos dez anos de publicação. Revelou pluralidade lógica e técnica na aplicação do método entre os artigos publicados no Brasil, e homogeneidade aplicativa entre os relatos de pesquisa publicados em um periódico norte-americano especializado na temática. No Estudo III, a aplicação da redução fenomenológica foi exercitada e discutida no cruzamento entre relatos de percepção corpóreo-motoras, em um contexto de tarefa motora induzida, e respostas a uma Escala de autoconsciência. O cruzamento evidenciou associação entre perfis extraídos do sub-fator autoconsciência privada e autoconsciência geral a padrões de resposta e engajamento na tarefa experimental. A evolução dos três estudos almeja descrever uma tendência histórica ascendente de aproximação entre teoria fenomenológica e prática científica. / The aim of the current work is to investigate the applications of phenomenological method in the psychological empirical research. The investigation locus applies to the reflexive step known as phenomenological reduction, considered fundamental piece of the analytical identity in phenomenology. The work is divided in three studies. The first one debates the transition between pure phenomenology, described by German philosopher Edmund Husserl (1859-1938), to the empirical phenomenology, with special attention to the conceptual development of phenomenological reduction and its application in the framework of psychology. The second study was conducted within a survey on empirical articles that have used phenomenological method, published in psychology journals in the last ten years. It reveals logical and technical plurality on the application of method between the Brazilian articles, and the opposite, coherent application in an specialized North American journal on the theme. On the third study, the application of phenomenological reduction was exercised and discussed in the intersection between the exam of perceptual proprioceptive reports, obtained in an experimental setting of induced motor tasks, and results of self-consciousness scale. The intersection evidenced association between the profiles extracted from factor private self-consciousness and general selfconsciousness to reaction verbal patterns and engagement on experimental task. The evolution of three studies indicate an ascendant tendency of approximation between phenomenological theory and scientific practice.

Please read the abstract in the section 00front of this document / Thesis (DMus)--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Music / unrestricted

This thesis aims to contribute to the ongoing critical discussion within the sociology of religion by focusing on the seldom considered perspective of methodology. As such, it consists of a theoretical part that problematizes the ways in which religion has been analyzed, and an empirical part that develops how religiosity can be approached in sociological studies. The thesis seeks, in other words, to contribute to how sociologists analyze religion, and addresses a research problem that has gained new relevance in the aftermath of criticism of the secularization paradigm. In the theoretical part, the assumptions underlying the ways in which religion is studied are revisited, as is the impact that these have had as faras the empirical study of religion is concerned in one of the countries often assumed to be secularized – i.e. Sweden. The empirical part of the thesis is comprised of three studies based on the latest European Value Survey, qualitative interviews and the Blogosphere on religion-related content (n=220000 blog posts). The results from these studies are used to reconsider the religiousmainstream, the “package”-like assumptions often made about affiliation, belief and practice, as well as the fact that the study of religiosity tends to be relegated to the periphery of the imagination of sociologists of religion. The thesis proposes that if we want to study religion in a lay people sensitive way we cannot continue to overlook their understandings of the sacred, the ways in which they regard their own religiosity, and the fact that their affiliation,belief and practice do not necessarily fit the expectations of established ways of analyzing religion.

This thesis examines the relationship between food prices, oil prices, carbon emission prices, exchange rates and global risk perception. To obtain the effects of these variables on the food prices, Toda and Yamamoto procedure is employed for 5-day week daily time series covering the period February 27, 2008 and March 21, 2011. The empirical results indicate that only volatility index Granger causes food prices. Furthermore, according to results of generalized impulse response plots food prices respond to all variables in the short run.

This thesis estimates the quarterly electricity demand of Turkey. First of all proper seasonal time series model are found for the variables: electricity demand, temperature, gross domestic product and electricity price. After the right seasonal time series model are found Hylleberg, Engle, Granger and Yoo (1990) test is applied to each variable. The results of the test show that seasonal unit roots exist for the electricity price even it cannot be seen at the graph. The other variables have no seasonal unit roots when the proper seasonal time series model is chosen. Later, the cointegration is tested by looking at the vector autoregressive model. As the cointegration is seen vector error correction model is found. There is long-run equilibrium when the price is the dependent variable and independent variable is gross domestic product. Temperature is taken as exogenous variable and demand is not statistically significant.

Financial failure is an important subject for both the economical development of the country and for the self - evaluation of individual companies. Increase in the number of financially failed companies points out the misuse of the country resources. Recently, financial failure threatens both small and large companies in Turkey. It is important to determine factors that affect the financial failure by analyzing models and to use these models for auditing the financial situation. In today&rsquo / s Turkey, the statistical methods that are used for this purpose involve single level models applied to cross-sectional data. However, multilevel models applied to panel data are more preferable as they gather more information, and also, enable the calculated financial success probabilities to be more trustworthy. In this thesis, publicly available panel data that are collected from The Istanbul Stock Exchange are investigated. Mainly, financial success of companies from two sectors, namely industry and services, are investigated. For the analysis of this panel data, data exploration methods, missing data imputation, possible solutions to multicollinearity problem, single level logistic regression models and multilevel models are used. By these models, financial success probabilities for each company are calculated / the factors related to the financial failure are determined, and changes in time are observed. Models and early warning systems resulted in correct classification rates of up to 100%. In the services sector, a small number of companies having publicly available data result in a decline in the success of models. It is concluded that sharing data with more subjects observed in a longer time period collected in the same format with academicians, will result in better justified outputs, which are useful for both academicians and managers.

The importance of learning mathematics and using it in daily life is obvious. On the other hand, the results from many national and international assessment studies show that the achievement of Turkish students are very far away from the bare minimum performance. However, in the measurement and evaluation procedures of both primary and secondary educational system, there is a lack of identification of this &ldquo / bare minimum&rdquo / or qualitative and clear descriptors for performance levels. A great importance is dedicated to the national exam results expressed in percentage terms of the correct responses, or in total score points in weighted scale scores, but there is still no system of presenting to students their scores with descriptions of these scores in terms of levels of skills that they did or did not reach. Therefore, this study has aimed to identify the knowledge and skills required for different performance levels defined by setting cut points for the results of a 4th grade mathematics achievement test. The test was conducted in 2007-2008 academic year with 269 fourth grade students in eight different private primary schools in Istanbul. Then, in 2008-2009 academic year, a group of ten teachers of mathematics and assessment experts took part in the study for identifying the performance level descriptors for 4th grade mathematics performance. Two different methods of standard setting were used. One of the methods was based on the oneparameter model of Item Response Theory (IRT) and mostly named as Bookmark Method. The method depended on the statistical identification of the cut points on the scale for performance levels such as Below Basic, Basic, Proficient, and Advanced. The other method was a judgmental method which required the participant teachers to classify the item as carrying the characteristics of performance levels, again, as Below Basic, Basic, Proficient, and Advanced. The study revealed that the item mappings from two methods were congruent to each other. There was a hierarchical ordering in terms of skills among the performance levels. Also, the results demonstrated that understanding and computation skills were heavily characteristics of Below Basic and Basic levels, whereas, problem solving skill was reached by the students of Proficient and Advanced levels.

Environmental policymaking is a difficult issue for governments. It is desirable to have the decisions based on the results of quantitative and analytical studies. On the other hand, by their very nature, many such decisions have political aspects, whose subtleties are difficult to be captured by quantitative approaches alone. It is left to the political establishments to decide how best to allocate the efforts to improve environmental conditions. In this respect, evaluating the countries by generating environmental indices and the subsequent ranking of the countries with respect to those indices is a common practice. Perhaps the best known environmental sustainability index, the Environmental Performance Index-2008 (EPI-2008), is a composite index that comprises 6 core policy categories and 25 indicators. While recognizing the qualitative aspects of such decision making, in order to support and guide the policymaking process, we develop analytical tools to assist the process. We carefully delineate our models to be limited only to the provable quantitative properties of the available objective data. However, such data are processed into more meaningful statements concerning the available options. Specifically, using EPI-2008, meaningful mathematical models that shed further light onto the country sustainability measures are developed.