abstract: The United States is facing an emerging principal shortage. This study examines an intervention to deliver professional development for assistant principals on their way to becoming principals. The intervention intended to boost their sense of efficacy as if they were principals while creating a supportive community of professionals for ongoing professional learning. The community was designed much like a professional learning community (PLC) with the intent of developing into a community of practice (CoP). The participants were all elementary school assistant principals in a Title I district in a large metropolitan area. The researcher interviewed an expert set of school administrators consisting of superintendents and consultants (and others who have knowledge of what a good principal ought to be) about what characteristics and skills were left wanting in principal applicants. The data from these interviews provided the discussion topics for the intervention. The assistant principals met regularly over the course of a semester and discussed the topics provided by the expert set of school administrators. Participant interaction within the sessions followed conversation protocols. The researcher was also a participant in the group and served as the coordinator. Each session was recorded and transcribed. The researcher used a mixed methods approach to analyze the intervention. Participants were surveyed to measure their efficacy before and after the intervention. The session transcripts were analyzed using open and axial coding. Data showed no statistically significant change in the participants' sense of efficacy. Data also showed the participants became a coalescing community of practice. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ed.D. Educational Leadership and Policy Studies 2011

Purpose: Participation in niches within family settings provide children with social and non-social experiences that may lead to enhanced learning and development which may later promote in-creased participation in many other activities. Therefore, there is a need to identify about ways how to facilitate participation of a child with disabilities in families’ everyday life.Method: The qualitative, explorative, inductive design was performed using focus groups. The data was used from the focus group interviews done in 2013-2014.Results: The semi-structured interviews revealed four ways of how participation for children with disabilities could be enhanced in family settings. They were: to adapt as a parent; to find an ex-ternal personal assistant that suits family’s needs; to develop a connection among family and external personal assistant; to find suitable activities for children with disabilities.Conclusions: environmental aspects were identified as the ones that could be modified to enhance participation in family settings for children with disabilities.

The usage of artificial intelligence in banking is an important theme within entrepreneurial research. The purpose of the study was to analyse the motivations, challenges and opportunities for Swedish banking institutes to implement artificial intelligence based solutions into their customer service process. The research is based on a case study of the Swedish banking institute Swedbank AB, who introduced an AI based virtual assistant (Nina) to deal with customer requests. For the qualitative study, interviews with Swedish banking customer and experts were conducted. Further, to understand the managerial motivations of Swedbank, a theory of Moore (2008) regarding innovation management was applied. The findings display that Nina improved the service spectrum of Swedbank with the potential of decreasing costs, while maintaining customer satisfaction. Further, the results displayed a high acceptance of new technologies from the customer perspective. This provides the foundation for Swedbank to introduce further artificial intelligence based services. Banking institutes and other service oriented organisations with high customer interaction can use the implications of the thesis when considering to more effectively handle customer requests.

This thesis sets out to explore possible applications of speech recognition in construction equipment and autonomous machines. Advancements in autonomous vehicle technology mean that soon, vehicles like wheel loaders will be able perform tasks without human operators. Those vehicles still require a method of interaction with humans and recent improvements in speech recognition mean that it is possible for a natural voice-based interface to be used. The research question of this thesis is the extent to which voice control can replace hand-operated controls in an intelligent autonomous machine. Interviews and observation sessions took place in order to identify the requirements such a speech interface would have to fulfill. Next, a design process took place in order to build a prototype of such system, followed by test sessions to evaluate it. The prototype demonstrated positive attributes, with great learnability and ease of operation, but speech recognition errors meant low performance, and overall user satisfaction. / Detta examensarbete ämnar utforska möjliga tillämpningar av taligenkänning i byggutrustning samt självstyrande fordon. Framsteg i självstyrande fordonsteknologi visar att fordon som hjullastare kommer kunna utföra uppgifter själv, utan operatörer, inom kort framtid. I nuläget krävs ännu människor för att interagera med maskinen. Men nya framsteg i röststyrning visar att röstbaserade gränssnitt kan tillämpas. Forskningsfrågan i detta arbete är: Till vilken utsträckning kan röststyrning ersätta handmanövrerade instrument i ett intelligent självstyrt fordon? En etnografisk forskning ägde rum för att identifiera de krav som ett sådant gränssnitt skulle behöva uppfylla. En designprocess ägde rum för att utveckla en prototyp för ett sådant system. Prototypen utvärderades genom tester och påvisade positiva egenskaper. Den visade sig vara både lätt att lära samt enkel vid användning. Teknologin i taligenkänning påvisade dock brister genom dålig prestanda samt låg användarnöjdhet.

abstract: The advancement of technology has substantively changed the practices of numerous professions, including teaching. When an instructor first adopts a new technology, established classroom practices are perturbed. These perturbations can have positive and negative, large or small, and long- or short-term effects on instructors’ abilities to teach mathematical concepts with the new technology. Therefore, in order to better understand teaching with technology, we need to take a closer look at the adoption of new technology in a mathematics classroom. Using interviews and classroom observations, I explored perturbations in mathematical classroom practices as an instructor implemented virtual manipulatives as novel didactic objects in rational function instruction. In particular, the instructor used didactic objects that were designed to lay the foundation for developing a conceptual understanding of rational functions through the coordination of relative size of the value of the numerator in terms of the value of the denominator. The results are organized according to a taxonomy that captures leader actions, communication, expectations of technology, roles, timing, student engagement, and mathematical conceptions. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Mathematics Education 2017

As enfermarias de Psiquiatria em hospitais gerais articulam-se com a proposta da reforma psiquiátrica, na tentativa de evitar internações longas e, conseqüentemente, o hospitalismo e a cronificação gerada pelos hospitais psiquiátricos tradicionais. A internação deve ser indicada após todos os recursos extra-hospitalares mostrarem-se insuficientes e o tratamento deve oferecer assistência integral e trabalhar em prol da reinserção social. Para tanto, é necessário que o paciente seja atendido por uma equipe multidisciplinar, em que todos são igualmente responsáveis pela assistência e pelo bemestar do paciente. Nessa perspectiva, os técnicos e auxiliares de enfermagem desempenham papéis importantes, pois permanecem mais tempo em contato com os pacientes e têm a oportunidade de observar, obter a confiança, interagir com eles e, conseqüentemente, colaborar para a melhoria da assistência em Psiquiatria e em Saúde Mental. A presente pesquisa é um estudo de caso de natureza qualitativo-descritivo e exploratório. Tem como objetivo investigar a atuação dos trabalhadores de enfermagem de nível médio que trabalham na enfermaria do Setor de Psiquiatria de um hospital público em Uberlândia, Minas Gerais. Os sujeitos foram os técnicos e auxiliares de enfermagem que trabalham no local de estudo. Para coleta de dados, foi utilizada a observação participante e a entrevista semi-estruturada gravada em fitas cassetes. A análise foi feita a partir das transcrições das fitas, organização, classificação dos dados e a análise final, que se deu a partir da discussão à luz dos conhecimentos produzidos na área. Os resultados envolvem a caracterização dos sujeitos; descrição do setor e das atividades desenvolvidas pelos sujeitos e as facilidades e dificuldades encontrados por eles para o desenvolvimento de suas atividades. A pesquisa apontou que a maioria dos trabalhadores não escolheram trabalhar no local, foram designados para o setor após aprovação em concurso e não têm preparo específico na área. Os sujeitos definem o doente mental como uma pessoa que sofre por causa das particularidades da doença e pelo preconceito social. Suas atividades são caracterizadas pela divisão de tarefas e por um trabalho repetitivo e mecanizado e têm como objetivo atender as necessidades do setor e de outros profissionais. A facilidade encontrada foi o bom relacionamento entre os membros da equipe de enfermagem e as dificuldades estão relacionadas à \"característica da instituição\" e às dificuldades estão relacionadas às \"particularidades do trabalho da enfermagem psiquiátrica\". Considera-se a necessidade da valorização do técnico e auxiliar de enfermagem em todos os momentos do processo de trabalho, para que haja, de fato, as transformações necessárias à assistência em Saúde Mental. / Psychiatric nurses in general hospitals are engaged to the proposal of a psychiatric reformulation, in order to prevent extensive internments and the consequent hospitalism and the chronic situation generated by traditional psychiatric clinics. Internment must only be indicated after all the extra-hospital resources had been shown insufficient and, in these cases, treatment has to give a whole assistance as well to lead to a patient social reinsertion. For that, the patient must to be treated by a multidisciplinary staff, in which everyone is equally responsible for the assistance and for the patient well-being. Under this point of view, nurse technicians and assistants play an important hole, for they have a longer contact with the patients, and they have the chance to observe, to gain confidence, interact with them and, as a consequence, collaborate to the attendance improvement in Psychiatry and Mental Health. This investigation is a qualitative, descriptive and exploratory case study whose aim is to search the behavior of middle level nurse workers at a public hospital Psychiatric infirmary in Uberlândia, Minas Gerais, Brazil. Technicians and assistants who work in the study place were the search subjects. To collect. For collecting data, participant observation and tape recorded semi-structured interviews were used. After tape transcription, the analysis was done from discussion based on previous literature. The results involve the subject characterization, description of the work sector and of the activities done by them, as well facilities and difficulties found during the realization of the activities and reported by them in the interviews. Most of the workers did not choose to work in that place, because they were designated to that department after being approved in a public selection and they have no specific training in the area. They define mental sick persons as an individual who suffers due to the illness particularities and to social prejudice. Nurse activities are characterized by task division and by a repetitive and mechanic work whose aim is to attend the department and other professional demands. Good relationship among the members of the team was a positive aspect in the search; among the problems, one may point institution character and particular aspects in psychiatric nurse work. The demands of a technician valorization have to be concerned in every stage in the work process, in order to get real decisive transformations in Mental Health assistance.

Orientador : Neide Aparecida de Souza Lehfeld / Resumo: O trabalho que ora apresentamos procura identificar o processo de trabalho do Assistente Social no âmbito do Poder Judiciário, especificamente nos processos judiciais de destituição do pátrio poder. A investigação foi realizada no Fórum Judicial da Comarca de Campo Grande e no Tribunal de Justiça do Estado de Mato Grosso do Sul, com base na pesquisa documental e análise de conteúdo. Foi possível constatar que o Serviço Social, como um saber e atuação especializados dentro da divisão sócio-técnica do trabalho, tem o seu espaço legitimado no Poder Judiciário, dando suporte às decisões judiciais. No entanto, sua intervenção, ao atender prioritariamente a demanda institucional, contribui para a reprodução das relações de dominação exercidas na sociedade capitalista burguesa, em detrimento da efetivação do projeto ético-político profissional, construído pelo coletivo da categoria, com uma direção social que objetiva a ampliação dos direitos sociais. A análise dos processos judiciais propiciou, ainda, o conhecimento dos trâmites judiciais e a constatação de procedimentos que violaram direitos garantidos na legislação. Os quais poderiam anular as sentenças judiciais. / Abstract: This work intends to identify the job process of the social worker concerning the Justice Power, focused on the judicial proceedings of deprivation of paternal power. The research was based on judicial documents and content analysis from Judiciary District of Campo Grande and the Justice Tribunal of the state of Mato Grosso do Sul,. It is possible to verify that the Social Service, as a knowledge and role focused on social-technical work, has its granted space in the Justice Power giving support to judicial decisions. However, this interference, to attend primarily the institutional demand, contributes to continuity of domination relationships existing in the Capitalistic Society for detriment of the ethic-political professional project built by the category, that has a social direction toward the extension of the social rights. The judicial proceeding analysis also allowed the knowledge acquisition of the judicial means and the perception of procedures that have violated rights granted from legislation, that in some cases, could even invalidate some judicial sentences. / Mestre

The care of incurable ill seems to be a current topic because of modernization of health care curing today the states and diseases from which people used to die much earlier than today. From this reason, there is more and more incurably ill people and the role of nurse counsellor for the incurably ill is more and more significant. The nurse counsellor´ s task should be especially to be near the incurable ill and their families, to help them to orient themselves in this demanding situation, to provide important information and as the case may be to help them in the provision of more suitable care. Goals C1 have been set for this work ``To find out the idea the laic public has about the care in the situations after having found out that they would have been incurably ill``; C2: ``To find out the care assistant staff opinion on the possibility of utilizing the nurse counsellor in the care of incurably ill``; C3: ``To find out the possibilities of utilizing the nurse counsellor in the care of incurably ill`` and C4: `` To find out who should be the provider of counselling care after the client finds out that he is incurable ill``. Furthermore, hypotheses have been set H1: The counsellor nurse is able to intervene based on the problematic of the care being expressed by laic public in case of finding out an incurable illness``. H2: ``The care assistant staff does not consider the counsellor nurse´s role real because of not specified competences in the relevant legislation``. H3: ``The care assistant staff confuses the educator nurse´s role and the counsellor nurse´s role``. Qualitative-quantitative investigation has been conducted. In the qualitative part, the research set for the interview consisted of 4 nurses from oncological, surgical, out-patient and neurological department and 4 lays. The research set of the research investigation quantitative part consisted of 116 respondents: nurses from the subsequent care, out-patient, surgical, neurological and oncological department at the hospital Nemocnice České Budějovice, a. s. and at the St. J.N.Neumanna hospice in Prachatice; and further 112 respondents-lays. From the evaluated results, it can be concluded that both the nurses and lays are interested in a counsellor nurse whose utilization would be, however, problematic because of not specified competences in the legislation. Further on it is necessary to emphasise the dominant value ensued from the research investigation {--} the family``.

Undersköterskors arbetsdag varierar från dag till dag beroende på hur dementa äldreboenden mår, känner och agerar. Det finns dagar då äldreboende är glada och positiva men andra dagar kan de vara oroliga, nervösa och aggressiva. Syftet med studien är “vad är det som motiverar undersköterskor till att arbeta med dementa äldreboende inom åldringsvården”. Det studien visar är om undersköterskor ska kunna klara av svåra dagar krävs det bra samarbete mellan kollegorna. Undersköterskor motiveras genom samarbete och uppskattning av äldreboende och anhöriga. När undersköterskor inte upplever ett bra samarbete eller uppskattning blir de mindre motiverade till arbetet och ineffektiva. Denna studie visar att undersköterskor föredrar att själva påverka sina arbetsuppgifter och inte vara styrda. Styrning vill undersköterskor undvika och föredrar att kunna arbeta fritt med äldreboende. Resultatet visar att undersköterskor anser att fritt arbete är det bästa för att hjälpa dementa äldreboenden på bästa sätt. / Purpose: The study focuses on assistant nurses who work with dementia accommodation and the purpose of the essay is what motivates assistant nurses to work in elderly care.Method: In order to answer the purpose, a qualitative study has been used. It gives a deeper understanding of motivation and what can lead to inefficiency. Open interview questions have been used to gather information.Grounded theory: It involves gathering information from the different respondents and analyzing it to get a result.Result: Through the empire and analysis, a result is given in this chapter. The result shows that cooperation and appreciation is the reason for motivation. While inefficiency is due to injustice due to colleagues for different reasons. Stress and use of worksheets are also ineffective for assistant nurses.

Submitted by Renata Lopes (renatasil82@gmail.com) on 2017-03-13T18:24:25Z No. of bitstreams: 1 analucymartinscavalcante.pdf: 1795538 bytes, checksum: 17368af14df965fdd214a8edcd4103ea (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Adriana Oliveira (adriana.oliveira@ufjf.edu.br) on 2017-03-13T19:34:55Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 analucymartinscavalcante.pdf: 1795538 bytes, checksum: 17368af14df965fdd214a8edcd4103ea (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-03-13T19:34:55Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 analucymartinscavalcante.pdf: 1795538 bytes, checksum: 17368af14df965fdd214a8edcd4103ea (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-12-19 / A presente dissertação foi desenvolvida no âmbito do Mestrado Profissional em Gestão e Avaliação da Educação Pública (PPGP) do Centro de Políticas Públicas e Avaliação da Educação da Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora (CAEd/UFJF). O foco deste trabalho é a gestão educacional, sendo que buscamos discutir a relação do coordenador adjunto pedagógico com a prática educativa no contexto do macrossistema da Secretaria de Estado da Educação e Qualidade do Ensino do Amazonas - Seduc/AM. O objetivo deste trabalho foi analisar as dificuldades vivenciadas pelo coordenador adjunto pedagógico em sua função, em decorrência da ausência de uma formação continuada específica. Justifica-se a importância deste estudo para entender o papel, as atribuições, as contribuições, e em que perspectiva foi criada a função do coordenador adjunto pedagógico no contexto do macrossistema da Seduc/AM. Mostra-se importante, também, entender as propostas de formação continuada específicas para o CAP, no âmbito das políticas públicas, para compreender as necessidades profissionais de sua atuação no processo educativo. A pesquisa é de natureza qualitativa, caracterizada como estudo de caso descritivo. O processo de investigação foi pautado nos estudos feitos por Libâneo (2010), Oliveira (2013), Gatti (2008), Placco et al. (2011), entre outros autores, que discorrem sobre aspectos relacionados à formação continuada, às atribuições, à constituição da identidade profissional e aos desafios cotidianos que permeiam a práxis do coordenador pedagógico no âmbito das instituições de ensino. Utilizamos, ainda, o trabalho de Machado e Arribas (2011), que aborda a importância das representações sociais na construção identitária do coordenador pedagógico. A metodologia consiste em pesquisa documental em um primeiro momento e, em um segundo momento, em entrevistas realizadas com a anterior e a atual diretora do Cepan e com coordenadores distritais de ensino, e o grupo focal com os CAPs, com doze (12) participantes. A pesquisa mostrou que a falta de direcionamento via macrossistema para as atividades desenvolvidas pelos CAPs e, principalmente, a ausência de propostas de formação continuada específica que instrumentalize o CAP, técnica e pedagogicamente, para a realização das ações demandadas pela Secretaria de Educação, constituem-se como pontos cruciais para o fortalecimento do CAP enquanto sujeito que coordena os processos educativos no microssistema educacional. Portanto, é essencial proporcionar a esses sujeitos momentos em que se vejam como coparticipantes das ações educacionais promovidas pela Seduc/AM. Por fim, propomos um Plano de Ação Educacional (PAE), tendo como eixo norteador as proposições feitas pelos CAPs durante o processo de construção dos dados, visando contemplar as necessidades de formação continuada específica, como ferramenta que venha a contribuir nos aspectos técnicos, didáticos e pedagógicos de suas atribuições. / This dissertation was developed on the Professional Master in Management and Evaluation of Public Education (PPGP) from the Center for Public Policies and Evaluation of Education from the Federal University of Juiz de Fora (CAEd / UFJF). The focus of this work is the educational management, and we seek to discuss the relationship between the assistant pedagogical coordinator and the educational practice in the context of the macrosystem from the State Department of Education and Quality of Teaching from Amazonas - Seduc / AM. The aim of this work was to analyze the difficulties experienced by the assistant pedagogical coordinator in his / her function, due to the absence of a specific continuous education. The importance of this study is on understanding the role, the attributions, the contributions, and the perspective under it was created the function of assistant pedagogical coordinator in the context of the Seduc / AM macrosystem. It is also important to understand the proposals for continuing education specifically to CAP, within the scope of public policies, in order to understand the professional needs of his/her performance in the educational process. The research is qualitative in its essence, characterized as a descriptive case study. The research process was based on the studies by Libâneo (2010), Oliveira (2013), Gatti (2008), Placco et al. (2011), among other authors who discuss aspects related to continuing education, to attributions, to the constitution of professional identity and the daily challenges that permeate the praxis of the pedagogical coordinator within the educational institutions. We also use the work by Machado and Arribas (2011), which addresses the importance of social representations in the the pedagogical coordinator’s identity construction. The methodology consists on documentary research in a first moment, and in a second moment, on interviews with the previous and the current directors of Cepan, and with district coordinators of education, and also on the focal group with the CAPs, with twelve (12) participants. The research showed that the lack of macrosystem orientation for the activities developed by the CAPs, and especially the absence of specific continuing education proposals that instrumentalise the CAPs, both technically and pedagogically, to carry out the actions demanded by the education department, are crucial points for strengthening the CAP as an individual who coordinates the educational processes in the educational microsystem. Therefore, it is essential to provide these individuals moments in which they are seen as coparticipants on the educational actions promoted by Seduc / AM. Finally, we propose an Educational Action Plan (PAE), based on the propositions made by the CAPs during the data construction process, aiming to contemplate the needs of specific continuing education, as a tool that will contribute to technical, didactic and pedagogical aspects of their attributions.