Increasingly since the 1990s those of us who are interested in gender issues in education have heard the question: What about the boys? A discourse has emerged in New Zealand, as in other countries including Australia, Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom, that attention spent on addressing issues related to the educational needs of girls has resulted in the neglect of boys and problems related to their schooling. Positioned within this discourse, boys are depicted as disadvantaged, victims of feminism, underachieving or failing within the alienating feminised schooling environment and their struggles at school are seen as a symptom of a wider ‘crisis of masculinity'. This anxiety about boys has generated much debate and a number of explanations for the school performance of boys. One concern, that has remained largely unexamined in the Aotearoa New Zealand context, is that the dominant discourse of masculinity is characterised by a restless physicality, anti-intellectualism, misbehaviour and opposition to authority all of which are construed as antithetical to success at school. This thesis explores how masculinities are played out in the schooling experiences of a small group of 5, 6 and 7 year old boys in two New Zealand primary schools as they construct, embody and enact their gendered subjectivities both as boys and as pupils. This study of how the lived realities of schooling for these boys are discursively constituted is informed by feminist poststructuralism, aspects of queer theory and, in particular, draws on the works of Michel Foucault. The research design involved employing an innovative mix of data generating strategies. The discursive analysis of the data generated in focus group discussions, classroom and playground observations, children’s drawings and video and audio recording of the normal classroom literacy programmes is initially organised around these sites of learning in order to explore how gender is produced discursively, embodied and enacted as children go about their work and their play. The research shows that although considerable diversity was apparent as the boys fashioned their masculinities in these different sites, ‘doing boy’ is not inimical to ‘doing schoolboy’ as all the boys, when required to, were able to constitute themselves as ‘intelligible’ pupils (Youdell, 2006). The research findings challenge the notion of school as a feminised and alienating environment for them. In particular, instances of some of the boys disrupting the established classroom norms, as recorded by feminist researchers more than two decades ago, are documented. Concerns then, that “classroom practices reinforced a notion of male importance and superiority while diminishing the interests and status of girls” (Allen, 2009, p. 124) appear to still be relevant, and the postfeminist discourse “that gender equity has now been achieved for girls and women in education” (Ringrose, 2013, p. 1) is called into question. Amid the greater emphasis on measuring easily quantifiable aspects of pupils’ educational achievement, what this analysis does is to recognize the processes of schooling as highly complex and to offer a more nuanced response to the question of boys and their schooling than that offered by, for example, men’s rights advocates. It suggests that if we are committed to improving education for all children, the question needs to be re/framed so as not to lose sight of educational issues related to girls and needs to ask just which particular groups of boys and which particular groups of girls are currently being disadvantaged in our schools.

Empowerment through proficiency in mathematics could better not only one’s life, but also one’s chances in study and work. The current study is an exploration of what reflection and mathematics confidence entail during mathematics problem solving. Reflections on experiences with mathematics create awareness of the individual’s level of confidence in the social, psychological and intellectual domains. Personal, strategic and task knowledge enhances meaning and promotes the understanding of mathematics tasks during problem solving. The level of mathematics confidence can be described as either fearful or fearless when solving mathematics problems. Reflecting on achievement, with or without fear, is regarded as vital for higher-order reasoning by means of metacognitive processes, moderates mathematic confidence and fosters achievement. Although research in metacognition is increasing, literature involving mathematics confidence and reflection is scarce. The current study explores this link between reflection and mathematics confidence by focusing on metacognitive reflective skills. A mixed-method design consisting of positivist and interpretivist paradigms is employed. Merging of the quantitative and qualitative findings indicates that metacognitive strategies include reflecting on task, personal and strategic awareness. Regulating understanding, planning, monitoring and evaluating during problem solving occurs in accordance with these active internal processes. Mathematics confidence during problem-solving emerges from experiences relating to a variety of contexts involving mathematics. The findings confirm the dimensionality of mathematics confidence and present sources of participants’ mathematics confidence and metacognitive skills as reflected upon. The schools in the sample represent single-gender (all-boys and all-girls) and co-ed schools and findings should not be generalised to all schools. Reflection on metacognitive knowledge and regulation deepens the awareness of the level of confidence and promotes, to some extent, a knowing of knowledge. The study therefore evaluates the role reflection and mathematics confidence play during problem solving in senior phase mathematics. / Thesis (MEd (Mathematics Education))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2013.

Empowerment through proficiency in mathematics could better not only one’s life, but also one’s chances in study and work. The current study is an exploration of what reflection and mathematics confidence entail during mathematics problem solving. Reflections on experiences with mathematics create awareness of the individual’s level of confidence in the social, psychological and intellectual domains. Personal, strategic and task knowledge enhances meaning and promotes the understanding of mathematics tasks during problem solving. The level of mathematics confidence can be described as either fearful or fearless when solving mathematics problems. Reflecting on achievement, with or without fear, is regarded as vital for higher-order reasoning by means of metacognitive processes, moderates mathematic confidence and fosters achievement. Although research in metacognition is increasing, literature involving mathematics confidence and reflection is scarce. The current study explores this link between reflection and mathematics confidence by focusing on metacognitive reflective skills. A mixed-method design consisting of positivist and interpretivist paradigms is employed. Merging of the quantitative and qualitative findings indicates that metacognitive strategies include reflecting on task, personal and strategic awareness. Regulating understanding, planning, monitoring and evaluating during problem solving occurs in accordance with these active internal processes. Mathematics confidence during problem-solving emerges from experiences relating to a variety of contexts involving mathematics. The findings confirm the dimensionality of mathematics confidence and present sources of participants’ mathematics confidence and metacognitive skills as reflected upon. The schools in the sample represent single-gender (all-boys and all-girls) and co-ed schools and findings should not be generalised to all schools. Reflection on metacognitive knowledge and regulation deepens the awareness of the level of confidence and promotes, to some extent, a knowing of knowledge. The study therefore evaluates the role reflection and mathematics confidence play during problem solving in senior phase mathematics. / Thesis (MEd (Mathematics Education))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2013.

Aim: The overall aim of the thesis was to describe the experiences of awake patients during surgery under regional anesthesia. In addition, the aim was to develop a model for intraoperative care that can support and enhance patients’ well-being during the intraoperative period.   Methods: Study I was a patient interview study guided by a reflective lifeworld approach. In study II a philosophical reflection of the findings from study I was carried out. In study III a hermeneutic approach inspired by Ricoeur and Gadamer was used in order to interpret video recorded material. In study IV a hermeneutic approach inspired by Gadamer was used to synthesize the findings in studies I-III transformed into an intraoperative caring model.  Overall main findings: The analysis shows that being awake during surgery can be compared with walking a tightrope because of ambiguous feelings. The proximity and presence of the nurse anesthetist (NA) anchors the patient in the present and strengthens the patient’s feeling of trust. The temporary disruption in the relationship between the body and the world due to regional anesthesia means that the patient’s being in the world is exposed to revolutionary experiences. Gaps between the patient’s experiences and the situation can be bridged over when the NA acts as the patient’s bodily extension and links the patient as a subject to the world in the intraoperative situation. From the patient’s perspective this calls for the NA’s proximity and genuine presence in the ‘intraoperative caring space’. When the NA’s performance of his/her professional duties clashes with the patient’s existential being in the intraoperative situation the need of present presence from the NA is crucial. Conclusions: The findings contribute to knowledge development about intraoperative care and raise awareness that care for the awake patient cannot be performed on formal routines that might disregard the uniqueness of each patient’s situation. The model can be used as a tool to encounter awake patients’ existential needs in the intraoperative situation and to further enlighten NAs about the possible impact of their proximity, interaction and communication behavior in the delivery of intraoperative nursing care.

Diss. (sammanfattning) Umeå : Umeå Universitet, 2009. / Härtill 5 uppsatser.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Southern California, 1996. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Southern California, 1999. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Southern California, 1999. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Southern California, 1996. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

There are several types of disorders that affect our colon’s ability to function properly such as colorectal cancer, ulcerative colitis, diverticulitis, irritable bowel syndrome and colonic polyps. Automatic detection of these diseases would inform the endoscopist of possible sub-optimal inspection during the colonoscopy procedure as well as save time during post-procedure evaluation. But existing systems only detects few of those disorders like colonic polyps. In this dissertation, we address the automatic detection of another important disorder called ulcerative colitis. We propose a novel texture feature extraction technique to detect the severity of ulcerative colitis in block, image, and video levels. We also enhance the current informative frame filtering methods by detecting water and bubble frames using our proposed technique. Our feature extraction algorithm based on accumulation of pixel value difference provides better accuracy at faster speed than the existing methods making it highly suitable for real-time systems. We also propose a hybrid approach in which our feature method is combined with existing feature method(s) to provide even better accuracy. We extend the block and image level detection method to video level severity score calculation and shot segmentation. Also, the proposed novel feature extraction method can detect water and bubble frames in colonoscopy videos with very high accuracy in significantly less processing time even when clustering is used to reduce the training size by 10 times.