Text comparison is a key step in many natural language processing (NLP) applications in which texts can be classified on the basis of their semantic distance (how similar or different the texts are). For example, comparing the local context of an ambiguous word with that of a known word can help identify the sense of the ambiguous word. Typically, a distributional measure is used to capture the implicit semantic distance between two pieces of text. In this thesis, we introduce an alternative method of measuring the semantic distance between texts as a combination of distributional information and relational/ontological knowledge. In this work, we propose a novel distance measure within a network-flow formalism that combines these two distinct components in a way that they are not treated as separate and orthogonal pieces of information. First, we represent each text as a collection of frequency-weighted concepts within a relational thesaurus. Then, we make use of a network-flow method which provides an efficient way of measuring the semantic distance between two texts by taking advantage of the inherently graphical structure in an ontology. We evaluate our method in a variety of NLP tasks. In our task-based evaluation, we find that our method performs well on two of three tasks. We introduce a novel measure which is intended to capture how well our network-flow method perform on a dataset (represented as a collection of frequency-weighted concepts). In our analysis, we find that an integrated approach, rather than a purely distributional or graphical analysis, is more effective in explaining the performance inconsistency. Finally, we address a complexity issue that arises from the overhead required to incorporate more sophisticated concept-to-concept distances into the network-flow framework. We propose a graph transformation method which generates a pared-down network that requires less time to process. The new method achieves a significant speed improvement, and does not seriously hamper performance as a result of the transformation, as indicated in our analysis.

The goal in mathematics has shifted towards an emphasis on both procedural knowledge and conceptual understanding. The importance of gaining procedural knowledge and conceptual understanding is aligned with Principles and Standards for School Mathematics (National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, 2000), which encourages fluency, reasoning skills, and ability to justify decisions. Possession of only procedural skills will not prove useful to students in many situations other than on tests (Boaler, 2000). Teachers and researchers can benefit from this study, which examined the effects of representations, constructivist approaches, and engagement on middle school students' algebraic understanding. Data from an algebra pretest and posttest, as well as 16 algebra video lessons from an NSF-IERI funded project, were examined to determine occurrences of indicators of representations, constructivist approaches, and engagement, as well as student understanding. A mixed methods design was utilized by implementing multilevel structural equation modeling and constant comparison within the analysis. Calculation of descriptive statistics and creation of bar graphs provided more detail to add to the findings from the components of the statistical test and qualitative comparison method. The results of the final structural equation model revealed a model that fit the data, with a non-significant model, p > .01. The new collectively named latent factor of constructivist approaches with the six indicators of enactive representations, encouragement of student independent thinking, creation of problem-centered lessons, facilitation of shared meanings, justification of ideas, and receiving feedback from the teacher was shown to be a significant predictor of procedural knowledge (p < .05) and conceptual understanding (p < .10). The indicators of the original latent factor of constructivist approaches were combined with one indicator for representations and two indicators for engagement. Constant comparison revealed similar findings concerning correlations among the indicators, as well as effects on student engagement and understanding. Constructivist approaches were found to have a positive effect on both types of student learning in middle school mathematics.

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To control the lumber production in a sawmill, a three-stage system is proposed. First, a quick program creates many cutting patterns and chooses the most valuable pattern for each log within a log class given a price list. A combination of a log class and a price list resulting in a set of lumber output proportions creates a “campaign”. Second, a Powers-of-Two optimization model calculates “campaign lot sizes” to minimize inventory and meet deterministic demand. The goal is to develop a minimum cycle stock inventory level for all the products over a time horizon. Third, five control approaches are created based on the results of the PoT model and evaluated using simulation environment to monitor inventory levels in the case of stochastic demand. This research indicates that in a divergent-stochastic environment such as a sawmill, situations with noisy batch order arrivals do pose difficulties when Powers- of-Two control approaches are used.

<p>The broader aim of this work was to investigate the implementation of metagenomic library construction and sequencing-based approaches, as a basis for gene identification and functional characterization, from a novel thermophilic environment.</p>

I dagens samhälle är den rådande normen baserad på marknadsekonomi. Systemet bygger på att konsumenten vill ha så mycket för sina pengar som möjligt vilket leder till att produktion med hög effektivitet gynnas. I Sverige har vi antagit vissa riktlinjer och regler för att företagens effektivitet och vinstintresse inte skall gå ut över miljön eller de anställda. Regleringarnas syfte är att – till så stor utsträckning som möjlig – bidra till att produkter inte framställs under oetiska förhållanden för vare sig människor eller miljö. Dock är detta inte fallet i många andra länder var människor och miljö får lida. I denna studie har Systembolaget, i sin roll som statligt ägt bolag, undersökts utifrån deras möjligheter, friheter, skyldigheter och ansvar när det kommer till etiska och miljömässiga aspekter. Studien är en aktörsanalys där olika aktörer som berörs av Systembolagets arbete har intervjuats. Fokus under studien har varit vid Systembolagets arbete med produktmärkningar så som Fairtrade och KRAV. Aktörerna som deltagit är representanter från Naturskyddsföreningen, Fairtrade Sverige, Konkurrensverket, Systembolaget, en politiker och Latinamerikagrupperna. Analysen, som utförts med hjälp av aktörsanalys, marknadsmodeller och Mapping Different Approaches, har placerat aktörerna inom olika områden inom hållbarhetsdebatten och förändringsprocessen; aktörerna ser på förändring på olika sätt, inom systemet och utanför systemet. Konkurrensverkets fokus och uppdrag ligger endast vid de ekonomiska aspekterna och därav platsar de inte inom hållbarhetsdebatten. Vidare anser Systembolagets aktörer samt Fairtrades aktör att det är viktigt att finna lösningar på problemen men att dessa går att finna inom det nu rådande samhällssystemet, vilket är baserat på marknadsekonomin. Resten av aktörerna rör sig mot att balansen i systemet är rubbade och att orättvisorna är stora i samhället och att rättvisa måste skapas för att systemet skall fungera. Några av aktörerna anser även att systemetidag måste göras om och prioriteringarna måste omfördelas för att ett hållbart system skall kunna ta dess plats.

The aim of the present doctoral thesis was to examine to what extent personality traits and approaches to learning contribute to academic performance in upper secondary school (high school), after controlling for the well-known fact that general intelligence accounts for a large part of the variance. The general proposition of the thesis is that personality traits are stable dispositions and therefore predispose an individual to behave or act in a specific manner (Costa &amp; McCrae, 1976). Additionally, another important determinant of academic performance is students’ approaches to learning, the way someone studies and makes sense of a particular school subject (Biggs, 1999). Study I examined how personality traits, divided into facets, predict academic performance in different school subjects. The results from several SEM analyses showed that personality, specifically Conscientiousness, has a positive influence on academic performance. In addition, there was a negative relation between Extraversion and academic performance and a positive relation between Neuroticism and academic performance. There were also interesting findings on the facet levels for all traits. The major conclusion of this study is that personality traits, both on the factor level and on the facet level, are important to academic performance in general, but sometimes more specifically to different school subjects. In Study II, the aim was to investigate the unique contribution of learning approaches to academic performance. A second aim was to explore possible gender differences in learning approaches. It was found that learning approaches contributed uniquely to academic performance, over and above personality and general intelligence. Differences between girls and boys were found, both with respect to the use of learning approaches and the consequences of these learning approaches for performance results. Based on a longitudinal design, the aim of Study III was to explore to what extent personality traits predict academic performance. Conscientiousness, Extraversion and Neuroticism were found to predict overall academic performance. Results suggest that personality traits, as measured at the age of 16, can predict academic performance at the age of 19, and more specifically: the grades of conscientious students improved from age 16 to age 19. This study extends previous work by assessing the relationship between the Big Five and academic performance over a three-year period.

Errorless academic compliance training is a proactive, noncoercive approach to treating oppositional behavior in children. Three teaching staff in a special education classroom were trained to conduct this intervention with three male students diagnosed with autism. During baseline, staff delivered a range of classroom requests and recorded student compliance with these requests. A hierarchy (of 4 levels) of compliance probabilities for requests was then calculated. Requests ranged from Level 1, those yielding high compliance, to Level 4, those leading to oppositional responding. At the beginning of intervention, teaching staff delivered Level 1 requests, providing praise and other reinforcement for compliance. Subsequent levels were faded in gradually over time. By the end of intervention, students demonstrated substantially improved compliance to requests that had yielded high levels of noncompliance before intervention. Follow-up at 4 weeks indicated that treatment gains were maintained. Covariant improvement in academic on-task skills was also evident.

Errorless academic compliance training is a proactive, noncoercive approach to treating oppositional behavior in children. Three teaching staff in a special education classroom were trained to conduct this intervention with three male students diagnosed with autism. During baseline, staff delivered a range of classroom requests and recorded student compliance with these requests. A hierarchy (of 4 levels) of compliance probabilities for requests was then calculated. Requests ranged from Level 1, those yielding high compliance, to Level 4, those leading to oppositional responding. At the beginning of intervention, teaching staff delivered Level 1 requests, providing praise and other reinforcement for compliance. Subsequent levels were faded in gradually over time. By the end of intervention, students demonstrated substantially improved compliance to requests that had yielded high levels of noncompliance before intervention. Follow-up at 4 weeks indicated that treatment gains were maintained. Covariant improvement in academic on-task skills was also evident.

Les organisations hospitalières sont confrontées à des évolutions constantes : évolution technologique, évolution sociétale des attentes, place de l’usager de plus en plus affirmée, mutations organisationnelles préconisées par les tutelles et un éventail de réformes qui se télescopent parfois. Les établissements de santé sont au coeur des réformes du système de santé et doivent continuellement s’adapter aux changements. La mise en oeuvre des nouvelles politiques de santé soulève la question de l’adaptation des organisations hospitalières : adaptation liée à la mutation de l’environnement, à la multiplication des interactions entre les acteurs, à la prise en compte des réseaux de soins, des pôles d’activités et des processus transverses. Le domaine de la qualité à l’hôpital est également devenu une exigence légale et réglementaire. Depuis la loi hospitalière du 31 juillet 1991 et des ordonnances d’avril 1996 introduisant l’obligation de la mise en oeuvre d’une procédure d’évaluation externe, de nombreuses évolutions réglementaires concernant les démarches de certification des établissements de santé se greffent à contexte organisationnel déjà contraint. L’intégration de la démarche qualité à l’hôpital est renforcée. Dès 2020, les établissements constituant les Groupements Hospitaliers de Territoires seront soumis à une procédure de certification commune. L’articulation de l’offre de soins autour de projets médicaux partagés amplifie les synergies stratégiques et opérationnelles des établissements de santé autour d’une dimension transversale et conjointe de la démarche qualité et gestion des risques. Les évolutions réglementaires qui ont marquées les organisations hospitalières ont ainsi participé à l’implémentation d'outils de gestion à visée rationalisante et la prise en compte de la qualité comme outil de gestion s’est peu à peu développée. Car si la qualité a d’abord été envisagée comme une réduction technique de non-conformités, l’intégration du facteur humain a largement contribué à penser la qualité comme un outil de gestion. De fait, les stratégies d’intégration de la démarche qualité par les outils de gestion dans les organisations hospitalières peuvent être porteuses. En effet, les outils de gestion sont des éléments structurants de l’organisation. Ils participent à sa construction en influant sur les rôles sociaux des acteurs. Nous pensons que l’utilisation des outils de gestion de la qualité participe au déploiement de la démarche qualité. Ainsi, nous avons choisi de déterminer les leviers d’appropriation de la démarche qualité en nous appuyant sur l’étude d’un outil de gestion de la qualité : la fiche de déclaration des événements indésirables. Etudier un outil de gestion de la qualité dans un contexte organisationnel implique l’étude de l’outil lui-même, mais également les déterminants contextuels propres à l’organisation dans laquelle il vit. L’ancrage de l’outil n’occulte en aucune façon son histoire, l’environnement dans lequel il évolue, les intentions des concepteurs ou encore le contexte social et culturel. Ainsi, une prise en compte contextualisée de l’outil peut être un moyen de mesurer le niveau d’intégration de la démarche qualité d’une organisation hospitalière. En effet, les principes d’intégration de la démarche qualité ne sont pas portés par une méthode type qui serait reproduite à l’identique dans n’importe quelle organisation hospitalière, ils sont intégratifs des facteurs de contingence spécifiques à l’organisation et du niveau de maturité organisationnel dans le domaine de la qualité et de la gestion des risques. La première partie de ce travail délimite les concepts de qualité à l’hôpital et d’outils de gestion. La seconde partie fondée sur une approche empirique des outils de gestion de la qualité repose sur l’idée qu’il est possible de proposer un modèle de mesure des facteurs d’intégration de la qualité à l’hôpital à destination des managers hospitaliers / Hospital organizations are confronted with constant changes: technological change, societal change in expectations, the increasingly assertive role of the user, organizational changes advocated by guardians and a range of reforms that sometimes telescope. Health care institutions are at the heart of health system reforms and must continually adapt to changes. The implementation of new health policies raises the question of the adaptation of hospitals' organizations: adaptation linked to changes in the environment, increasing interactions between actors, taking into account healthcare networks, Clusters and crosscutting processes. The field of quality in hospital has also become a legal and regulatory requirement. Since the Hospital Act of 31 July 1991 and the Ordinances of April 1996 introducing the obligation to implement an external evaluation procedure, numerous regulatory changes concerning the certification procedures of healthcare establishments are grafted on the context Organizational structure already constrained. The integration of the quality approach into the hospital is strengthened. As early as 2020, the establishments constituting the Territorial Groupings will be subject to a common certification procedure. The articulation of the offer of care around shared medical projects amplifies the strategic and operational synergies of the healthcare institutions around a transversal and joint dimension of the quality and risk management approach. The regulatory changes that marked the hospital organizations have thus participated in the implementation of management tools with rationalizing aim and the taking into account of the quality as management tool has gradually developed. For if quality was first considered as a technical reduction of nonconformities, the integration of the human factor has largely contributed to thinking quality as a management tool. In fact, strategies for integrating the quality approach with management tools in hospital organizations can be beneficial. Indeed, the management tools are structural elements of the organization. They participate in its construction by influencing the social roles of actors. We believe that the use of quality management tools contributes to the deployment of the quality approach. Thus, we chose to determine the levers of appropriation of the quality approach based on the study of a quality management tool: the report card of the adverse events. Studying a quality management tool in an organizational context involves studying the tool itself, but also the contextual determinants specific to the organization in which it lives. The anchoring of the tool does not in any way hide its history, the environment in which it evolves, the intentions of the designers or the social and cultural context. Thus, a contextualized taking into account of the tool can be a means of measuring the level of integration of the quality process of a hospital organization. Indeed, the principles of integration of the quality approach are not borne by a typical method that would be reproduced identically in any hospital organization, they are integrative of the contingency factors specific to the organization and the level Of organizational maturity in the field of quality and risk management. The first part of this work delineates the concepts of quality in the hospital and management tools. The second part, based on an empirical approach to quality management tools, is based on the idea that it is possible to propose a model for measuring the integration factors of quality in hospitals for hospital managers