Thesis (Ph. D.)--Drexel University, 2005. / Includes abstract and vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 73-86).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Hofstra University, 1985. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (p. 110-119).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1973. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Rhode Island, 2005. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 239-261).

Thesis (B.Sc)--University of Hong Kong, 1999. / "A dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Bachelor of Science (Speech and Hearing Sciences), The University of Hong Kong, May 14, 1999." Also available in print.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Texas State University-San Marcos, 2007. / Vita. Appendices: leaves 175-182. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 183-191).

One of the main expectations the university community has for First Year Composition (FYC) is that it will help students to become better writers and prepare them for the work they will do in subsequent courses, including writing in their own disciplines. In order for this to happen, students have to be able to transfer their knowledge. Because transfer does not happen automatically, it must be fostered in a way that encourages students to recognize and articulate what they have learned and are learning. Articulation of learning and of awareness of writing development moves students toward transfer, and reflection provides the means for students to address their learning. For students to learn how to transfer, we must teach for transfer, doing so in a way that promotes both transfer and their awareness of its possibility. Context-sensitive discourse analysis provides a glimpse at students’ perceptions of their writing development (a necessary component for transfer) as well as potential transfer and cues to trigger it. This research conducted at a small, private university in the Midwest collected reflective essays from first-year students; I coded the essays according to comments addressing what students’ papers show about them as students and writers, what revisions and changes they would want readers to notice, what they learned over the semester, what they said about their growth and its ongoing nature, etc. The students’ comments provide a glimpse at their awareness of the ongoing nature of their development and the places where the awareness of transfer emerges, which, by extension, can show us where we can intervene and work with students to promote transfer.

Two ways of representing the spatial arrangement of letters in letter-strings are distinguished. In part-whole representations, the relationship of a letter to the letter-string as a whole is encoded. In part-part representations, the relationships of a letter to other letters in the string are encoded. Computational models of word perception typically use the former, but part-part representations are a very general feature of some neurocomputational models. Experiments ·are reported that examine for nonword and word wholes the representations used to encode their constituent parts; the first five experiments use measures of facilitation to infer encoding type, the next three primarily use error measures. Experiment 1 shows that when a part of a recently learned letter-string is maintained in a briefly-presented test string, the test string is more accurately reported, showing perceptual transfer of training. No significant difference in the amount of transfer is found between maintaining the part in the same position (fixed-part) in the string and maintaining the part in a different position (moved-part) in the string. It is argued that this confirms part-part theories because transfer was obtained when only inter-letter relationships are maintained. Experiment 1 simulated on two implementations of part-whole theories shows that they fail to produce the obtained pattern of performance. This indicates that part-whole relational encoding is not a major part of the representations mediating these transfer effects. Experiment 2 replicates the fixed-part transfer and shows that it is restricted to parts made of adjacent letters. Experiments 3 and 4 use a prototype-extraction paradigm to show that novel parts made of adjacent letters are easier to learn than parts made of non-adjacent letters. Experiment 5 eplicates the moved-part transfer and shows that it is restricted to parts made of adjacent letters. These results show that the major inter-letter relationships encoded are between neighbouring letters. These first five results are taken as showing that pre-processing of the image to provide position-in-the-string information is not important for the representations that produce transfer. It is suggested that modelling the input to the graphemic input lexicon as the Primal Sketch of the image is more appropriate. In particular, realistic early vision algorithms such as MIRAGE appear to be potentially capable of modelling the results obtained. Experiment 6 shows that reports of letters in nonwords have gradients of positional accuracy, with most positional errors occurring close to the correct position. Experiment 7 finds that migrations into the report of the second of two briefly-presented nonwords from the first nonword do not always maintain position though many do. Experiment 8 involved the presentation of mis-spelled words preceded by non words that either encouraged the detection of the mis-spelling or its lexicalisation. Lexicalisation responses involve the migration of a letter from the preceding string. These occur when primed by the lexicalisation letter in the same, but not in moved, positions in the first string, but only when presented in the context of neighbouring letters. Detection of mis-spelling shows both facilitation and inhibition. Facilitation is obtained with the part in moved positions in the source string but not in the same position, in which case inhibition is found. Facilitation is also obtained by prior presentation of the misspelled word or prior presentation of the correctly spelled word. These results are interpreted as showing that facilitation is obtained when the facilitating part of the preceding string either fully or minimally activates a representation of the word mis-spelled on second presentation. Partial activation of the word produces inhibition. The results suggest that part-whole encoding is used for letters in familiar wholes, while part-part encoding is used for letters in unfamiliar wholes. This conclusion is used to motivate a model of the organisation and access of graphemic representations in which the ~ "» -. concept of scale plays an important role. The model is extended to other tasks involving visually presented words and nonwords and a brief account of the major findings attempted. Finally some extensions of the model to the domain of object perception are outlined.

Workplaces are required by law to provide HIV and AIDS workplace programmes to educate and prevent the spread of HIV, and stigmatisation and discrimination against workers infected or affected by HIV and AIDS. This study was a descriptive cross-sectional study conducted in the public and private sector at Mt Fletcher in the Eastern Cape Province. It aimed at assessing the availability and implementation of HIV and AIDS workplace programmes at Mt Fletcher. The study’s objectives were: to assess knowledge of HIV and AIDS among employees; to determine the availability of HIV and AIDS psychosocial programmes; to assess the employees’ knowledge on HIV and AIDS workplace guidelines that prevent stigma and discrimination. This was a quantitative study. A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data. A total of 81 respondents from both public and private sectors participated in the study. Stratified random sampling was used to select participating workplaces. Simple random sampling was used to select respondents. The findings indicated that both public and private sector workplaces have HIV and AIDS programmes. However, all private sector workplaces at Mt Fletcher had no onsite clinic as required, but use the local public HIV and AIDS clinics. However, 24% of public and 23% of private sector employees had no knowledge of the existence of the HIV and AIDS programmes at their workplaces. About 13% of public and 10% of private sector employees indicated that stigmatisation and discrimination against people living with HIV and AIDS was a problem in the workplace. They also indicated that they would not disclose their HIV status to their employers because they were afraid of losing their jobs. The lack of disclosure further disadvantages workers living with HIV as they do not get the support they deserve from their employers. Furthermore, lack of support, stigma and discrimination have an impact on the performance and productivity of the infected and affected employees and therefore affecting the expected output of their workplaces.

In today’s industry, many occupations require manpower resources to include both labor and cognitive resources. As the technology is rapidly changing and businesses are becoming more dependent on cognitive performance, it is essential to find any effect physical stress might have on task performance. Situational awareness is also becoming an integral part of human task performance. It is critical for many operations to design systems such that the effects of physical stress, however minute, on task performance and situational awareness are considered. The test methodology developed here measures the effect of stress on cognitive task performance as a result of situational awareness related to the task. The test measured and compared task capacity among different age groups and different working groups. A comparison was made on task performance based on the effects of low level physical stress and lack of it. Response time and accuracy were measured for statistical analysis. The subject’s stress levels were measured before starting the test to create a baseline for the candidates stress level. The developed tool was able to detect the effect of stress on task performance successfully and efficiently. Subjects with previous work experience performed better both in Phase I and Phase II of the experiment as compared to subjects with no previous work experience. The analysis indicates low level stress does have significant effects on task performance. In reality, stress is an unavoidable factor in daily activities. When designing any system that requires cognitive tasks, stress needs to be considered as a contributing factor to the variability of operation.