Esta é uma pesquisa quali-quantitativa que tem por base teórico-epistemológica o Interacionismo Sociodiscursivo (ISD) e a Teoria da Complexidade, uma vez que ambas as teorias contribuem para a compreensão da ação de linguagem, enquanto Sistema Adaptativo Complexo (SAC), de sujeitos engajados em atividades de produção de textos. Dessa forma, na medida em que o desempenho de sujeitos de diferentes níveis de ensino tem sido apontado como problemático por órgãos de pesquisa em Educação, no que se refere às práticas de leitura e de produção textual, considerou-se relevante investigar a maneira como uma ferramenta digital de mineração de dados, neste caso, a ferramenta Sobek, pode evidenciar níveis de complexidade entre o conteúdo de um texto-referência e o texto-produzido. O objeto de estudo desta tese, portanto, é o recorte propiciado pela ferramenta Sobek, que ocorre por meio da geração de um grafo composto por palavras (signos) recorrentes nos textos, com vistas a sustentar a construção de uma perspectiva inter(trans)disciplinar, referente aos modos de extrair e interpretar o conteúdo desses a partir de níveis de complexidade. O corpus de pesquisa foi composto por 2 turmas de ensino superior, em nível de graduação, envolvendo a coleta de 34 textos. Esses textos foram submetidos à técnica de mineração de dados, com a utilização de uma nova versão da ferramenta, desenvolvida neste estudo, a qual permitiu importar e comparar, de forma automatizada, o conteúdo de dois textos, sendo possível gerar 3 tipos de grafos: de união, de intersecção e de diferença. O resultado da análise de dados indicou um padrão de estabilidade da ação de linguagem dos sujeitos, em relação ao conteúdo do texto-referência, sem apresentar significativa variabilidade de conceitos. Para além de uma nova versão da ferramenta, outra contribuição desta pesquisa foi a de sugerir que níveis de complexidade em caráter de estabilidade e variabilidade podem ser associados a zonas de desenvolvimento humano. / This is a quali-quantitative research whose theoretical and epistemological basis are the Interactionism Sociodiscursivo (ISD) and the Complexity Theory, once both theories contribute to the understanding of the language action, as Complex Adaptive System (CAS), of individuals engaged in text production activities. Thus, as the individuals‟ performance in different levels of education has been identified as problematic by Research Institutes of Education, related to reading and textual production practices, it was considered relevant to investigate the way a digital data mining tool, in this case, Sobek, may reveal levels of complexity between the content of a reference-text and a produced-text. The object of study of this thesis, so is the cut provided by Sobek tool, which occurs through the generation of a graph composed of words (signs) recurring in the texts, in order to support the construction of an inter(trans) disciplinary perspective, referring to ways to extract and interpret the content of the texts. The research corpus was composed of 2 classes of higher education at the undergraduate level, involving the collection of 34 texts. These texts were submitted to data mining technique, with the use of a new version of the tool, developed in this study, which allowed to import and compare, automatically, the contents of two texts automatically, been possible to generate 3 types of graphs: union, intersection and difference. The result of data analysis indicated a recurring pattern in the analyzed texts, which was to maintain the language action as stable as possible to the content of the reference-text, without presenting significant variability of concepts. In addition to the new version of the tool, another contribution of this research was to suggest that the levels of complexity in stability and variability may be associated with human development zones.

Este trabalho teórico busca uma nova forma de entender a saúde mais ampla e interdependente em relação ao meio no intuito de superar a forma atual cartesiana e antropocêntrica de ver a saúde e as dificuldades por ela enfrentadas. Faz isto se utilizando da Teoria da Complexidade, inspirada em Morin, e ao estudar suas características e compará-las com as da saúde, propõe a construção de uma Noção Complexa de Saúde, demonstra aspectos de sua importância e dá exemplos de sua abrangência, sugerindo que seja aplicada na educação, numa aprendizagem conjunta da Noção Complexa de Saúde com a Teoria da Complexidade, num processo de auxílio mútuo que estamos chamando de pedagogia recursiva. / This theoretical work seeks a new way of understanding the wider and interdependent health in relation to the environment in order to overcome the Cartesian and anthropocentric current way of seeing the health and the difficulties it faces. He does this by using the Complexity Theory, inspired by Morin, and by studying its characteristics and comparing them with those of health, proposes the construction of a Complex Notion of Health, demonstrates aspects of its importance and gives examples of its scope, suggesting That is applied in education, in a joint learning of the Complex Notion of Health with the Complexity Theory, in a process of mutual assistance that we are calling recursive pedagogy.

A questão a ser abordada na tese se encontra sob o tema do planejamento urbano, enfatizando a dissonância entre os avanços dos estudos acerca da Ciência das Cidades e a prática de planejamento usual, cujo caráter é extremamente normativo e prescritivo. Destarte, por um lado, se revisa o planejamento urbano - seu desenvolvimento, bases teóricas, processos e ferramentas; aproximando-se da realidade brasileira; e, por outro lado, se revisa o estado da arte da Ciência das Cidades, evidenciando-se como o entendimento acerca deste fenômeno se desenvolveu. Portanto, com o objetivo de discutir as possibilidades e delinear as prováveis e desejáveis características de uma estrutura de planejamento que possa responder de modo mais acurado à dinâmica intraurbana, foi sugerida uma macroestrutura baseada em uma Panarquia. A microestrutura envolve um processo que inicia a partir da demanda pontual de um agente, cujos impactos são percebidos nos outros níveis da estrutura urbana, determinando âmbitos de agentes envolvidos. Na sequência, se estabelecem processos classificatórios, informativos, avaliativos, decisórios e de retroalimentação. Por fim, sugere-se que seja estabelecida uma substituição gradual das regras normativas apriorísticas por critérios mais amplos e regras locais de interação. / The question to be addressed in the thesis is under the theme of urban planning, emphasizing the dissonance between the advances of studies on the science of cities and the usual planning practice, whose character is extremely normative and prescriptive. Thus, on the one hand, it reviews urban planning – its development, theoretical foundations, processes and tools; approaching the Brazilian reality; and, on the other hand, it reviews the state of the art of the science of cities, demonstrating how the understanding of this phenomenon has been developed. Therefore, in order to discuss the possibilities and outline the probable and desirable characteristics of an alternative planning framework that can respond more accurately to the intra-urban dynamics, it is suggested a panarchy based macrostructure. The microstructure involves a process that starts with a punctual demand of an agent, whose impacts are perceived in other levels of the urban structure, determining levels of stakeholders. Following are established classification, information, evaluation, decision-making and feedback processes. Finally, it is suggested a gradual replacement of normative rules by broader criteria and local interaction rules.

Cette thèse cherche à mieux comprendre la manière dont les organisations font face à des logiques et attentes institutionnelles potentiellement contradictoires. Pour ce faire, la thèse étudie le cas des Grandes Ecoles de Commerce Françaises (GECF), qui font face depuis le milieu des années 1990 à une mondialisation croissante de l’enseignement supérieur en gestion. En raison de cette mondialisation, les GECF doivent gérer deux types de contraintes : d’une part, répondre aux exigences des organismes d’accréditations et des classements internationaux – qui véhiculent les standards du modèle de la business school (recherche, internationalisation, académisation) – et, d’autre part, préserver leur identité originelle et fondatrice, construite sur un modèle national, et qui constitue encore leur source de légitimité locale. Les problématiques générées par la présence de ces deux logiques institutionnelles dans le champ des GECF, nécessite de la part de ces dernières des arbitrages complexes, et une redéfinition de leur identité. En particulier, la thèse cherche à identifier les mécanismes entrepreneuriaux et identitaires à l’oeuvre dans les réponses des GECF aux pressions institutionnelles différentes et parfois contradictoires. Ecrite sous forme d’articles, la thèse s’intéresse aux origines des GECF et à l’émergence d’une logique institutionnelle propre, à la transformation de leurs pratiques et de leurs identités en réponse aux nouveaux standards internationaux et à l’incidence de ce processus sur les logiques institutionnelles présentes dans leur environnement. / This dissertation explores how organizations cope with multiple and heterogeneous institutions, a situation recently referred to as ‘institutional complexity’. It is based on the study of French Business Schools, known as French Grandes Ecoles de Commerce (FGEC). Up until the mid 1990s, FGEC operated in a familiar and monolithic national institutional environment. Recent years have seen a rise in global standards for management education; a movement that has been particularly salient in Europe with the proliferation of MBAs, the development of accreditation and public ranking systems and the endorsement of the Bologna agreement in 1999, which aimed at developing a harmonized European higher education system. From that point onwards, FGEC have come under pressure to adapt to the growing internationalization of management education and adopt its dominant standards. While trying to redefine themselves as International Business Schools, FGEC continue to value their historical identity, which still forms the basis of their national legitimacy. This dissertation brings together a wide range of qualitative methods (participative observation, semi-structured interviews and documentary evidence), which are particularly suitable for understanding the social dynamics of institutional processes. The architecture of the dissertation goes from the micro to the macro level of analysis and combines three articles that should be considered together. The first article focuses on the case of one FGEC and explores how it attempted to promote an alternative definition of what an MBA program represents, by simultaneously combining the FGEC and the International Business School institutional logics. The second offers a comparative study of how four FGEC have interpreted and experienced the rising institutional complexity in their field, based on their identities. The third article offers a study of the FGEC population. It explores how and why FGEC emerged, established themselves as a particular form of management education, and developed by infusing practices from a competing logic, while remaining true to their traditional core.

Graph communication protocols are a generalization of classical communi- cation protocols to the case when the underlying graph is a directed acyclic graph. Motivated by potential applications in proof complexity, we study variants of graph communication protocols and relations between them. The main result is a comparison of the strength of two types of protocols, protocols with equality and protocols with a conjunction of a constant num- ber of inequalities. We prove that protocols of the first type are at least as strong as protocols of the second type in the following sense: For a Boolean function f, if there is a protocol with a conjunction of a constant number of inequalities of polynomial size solving f, then there is a protocol with equality of polynomial size solving f. We also introduce two new types of graph communication protocols, protocols with disjointness and protocols with non-disjointness, and prove that the first type is at least as strong as the previously considered protocols and that the second type is too strong to be useful for applications.

Pendant la construction d'un groupe de réflexion avec des dirigeants de PME, nousavons détecté une grande incertitude par rapport à la continuité future des transactions. La stratégie et la création de valeur des produits et des services prennent une importance considérable si on estime que ce type d'organisation possède une grande quantité de restrictions et dépend principalement des activités marchandes pour survivre, obtenir des profits et croître. Mais, comme nous l'établissons dans la première partie de cette thèse, bien que les approches classiques de la gestion soient convergentes, elles semblent être insuffisantes car basées sur l'ordre et le contrôle en ne considérant que partiellement le dynamisme de ces entreprises, pendant que dans la pratique tout semble être dynamique et pourtant désordonné et complexe. Aussi nous nous posons la question : Comment aider les dirigeants de PME à créer des stratégies dans des situations complexes? La proposition théorique développée dans la deuxième partie, qui est l'originalité de ce travail, étudie les phénomènes dynamiques de l'entreprise en les classifiant comme un système complexe qui est soumis aux émergences et interruptions et qui est lié aux attracteurs et limiteurs de sa dynamique. Finalement, basé sur une épistémologie constructiviste, on a mis en pratique les propositions théoriquesdéveloppées sur le terrain par le biais d'une recherche-intervention en PME qui a permis de concevoir la stratégie de la valeur des produits et des services dans une approche dynamique. / While working with a focus group of SMEs managers, we detected a large uncertainty about future continuity of business transactions. Strategy and value creation of products and services are significantly important if we considered that this kind of organization has a lot of restrictions and depends mainly on their commercial activities to survive, be profitable and grow. But, as we established on the first part of this thesis, although the traditional management approachesconverge they seem to be insufficient because they are based on the principles of order and control by considering only a part of the dynamism of these companies, while in practice everything seems to be dynamic, disordered and complex. So we ask the question: How can we help SMEs to create strategies in complex situations? The theoretical proposition developed in the second part studies the dynamical phenomena by classifying the company as a complex system submitted to interruptions and emergencies and linked to dynamics attractors and restrictors. Finally, based on a constructivist epistemology, we have implemented theoreticalpropositions developed at field-research through an intervention methodology for helping SMEs to design a value creation strategy, of products and services, in a dynamic approach.

The complexity of dynamical systems (spanning brain, body and environment) can yield complex adaptive behaviors from non-linear interactions of individuals in space and time. A lack of reliable instruments to assess these varying behaviors results in inferences of how changes in behavior occurred over an extended period of time rather than being based on direct scientific measures. The aim of this study was to develop a scale of complexity and perceptual-cognitive skills' assessment in the sport soccer and to evaluate structural and criterion reliability. Based on the embodied cognition literature, the construct of this scale was identified with three dimensions to assess perceptual-cognitive performance of players when acting within different levels of complex team synergies. A sample of 10 soccer coaches - group A (n = 5 coaches; M = 24 yrs professional coaching experience) and group B (n = 5 coaches; M = 1 year of amateur coaching experience) were recruited to participate in the study. A total of 100 clips of 10 previously recorded soccer matches were analyzed in two assessment periods with one month between the end of the first assessment and the beginning of the second. This resulted in a combined total of 1000 measures used for the study. The results demonstrated that high skilled coaches were more reliable in the complexity dimension (r = 0.87) and also in the decision making dimension (r = 0.79) than low qualified coaches (r = 0.79) and (r = 0.71) respectively; and the complexity dimension was more stable across trials between professional and amateur coaches in the first data collection i (r = 0.79) and second data collection (r = 0 .73) than the decision making dimension (r = 0.50) and (r = 0.43) respectively. These findings indicate that this scale is reliable across applications and at different times with high and low qualified coaches. The use of the scale may be useful for identifying elements of emerging complexity at the team-fractal-player level; determine a perceptual-cognitive profile in athletes; and to better understand complex tactical dynamics in soccer.

Minimally invasive surgery (MIS) is becoming increasing popular and widely adopted on account of relative post-operative advantages (shorter hospital stays, less scarification, trauma and post-operative pain) it offers patients when compared to open surgery. Nonetheless, the surge in demand for MIS procedures are not met with commensurate availability of experts in the field, thus leading to excessive stress attributable to increased case load, and an increase in the number of surgery interns requiring training with far less MIS experts to provide it. Also, musculoskeletal discomforts experienced by MIS surgeons have been attributed to ergonomic factors among other causes, and a required verification of the viability of fundamentals of laparoscopic surgery (FLS) as a valid ergonomic discriminator between traditional MIS and robot-assisted MIS was tested and validated. Real-time, subject-centered, and objective quantification of surgical skills has long been a challenge. A proposed solution is presented here involving the application of complexity theory (time delay and Hurst exponent principles) to the analysis of phase space reconstructions of time series data, generated by periodic changes in Euler coordinates of surgical graspers while being used by MIS novices and experts. A comparison of Hurst exponent and time delay values over multiple iterations of the same task provides quantitative insight on MIS skills improvement and experience.

Group commitments such as partisanship and religion can bias the way individuals seek information and weigh evidence. This psychological process can lead to distorted views of reality and polarization between opposing social groups. Substantial research confirms the existence and persistence of numerous identity-driven divides in society, but means of attenuating them remain elusive. However, because identity-protective cognition is driven by a need to maintain global and not domain specific integrity, researchers have found that affirming an unrelated core aspect of the self can eliminate the need for ego defense and result in more evenhanded evaluation. This study proposes a competing intervention. Individuals possess numerous social identities that contextually vary in relative prominence; therefore a different means to unbiased cognition may be to make many social identities salient simultaneously, reducing influence of any potentially threatened identity. This may also reduce selective exposure to congenial information, which has not been found with affirmation. This study also advances research on the phenomenon of selective exposure by considering individuals’ interpersonal networks in information search. Because networks are not static, and are instead contextually activated, inducing a more complex representational structure of the self may broaden the set of contacts from whom individuals seek information. The bias-mitigative potential of self-affirmation and social identity complexity is examined here in a series of dispute contexts — two partisan, one religious — over a mining spill, an advanced biofuels mandate, and gene editing technology. Results from the three experiments (total N = 1,257) show modest support for social identity complexity reducing group-alignment of beliefs, behavior, and information search, while affirmation failed to reduce, and in some cases increased, group alignment.

xvi, 116 p. A print copy of this thesis is available through the UO Libraries. Search the library catalog for the location and call number. / A significant challenge in developing alternate assessments is obtaining suitable sample sizes. This study investigated whether psychometric characteristics of mathematic alternate assessment items created for 2% students in grade 8 can be meaningfully estimated with data obtained from general education students in lower grades. Participants included 23 2% students in grade 8 and 235 general education students in grades 6-8. Twenty three 2% students were identified through the Student Performance Test (10 standard items and 10 2% items) and the Teacher Perception Survey. Performance on 10 2% items by the 2% students and the general education students were analyzed to address the questions: (a) are there grade levels at which the item parameters estimated from general education students in grade 6-8 are not different from those obtained using the 2% student sample? and (b) are there grade levels at which the estimated ability of general education students in grades 6-8 are not different the 2% student sample in grade 8? Results indicated that the item response patterns of 2% students in grade 8 were comparable to those of general education students in grades 6 and 7. Additionally, 2% students in grade 8 showed comparable mathematics performance on 2% items when compared to general education students in grades 6 and 7. Considering the content exposure of students in lower grades, this study concluded that data from general education students in grade 7 would be more appropriate to be used in designing alternate assessment for 2% students in grade 8 than data from students in grade 6. The general conclusion is that using data obtained from general education students in lower grade levels may be an appropriate and efficient method of designing alternate assessment items. / Advisers: Dr. Beth Ham, Co-Chair; Dr. Paul Yovanoff, Co-Chair