<p>The purpose of the study was to examine teachers perceptions of the impact of societal changes on teacher collaboration in schools within the period of independence of Ukraine (1991 2005). This study provided a description of teacher experiences in a context of large-scale philosophical, ideological, social, political, and economic changes of the post-Soviet era, and the teachers interpretation of the impact of related changes upon teacher collaboration in Ukrainian schools. Research questions were divided into two subgroups: first, questions inquiring into teachers perceptions of the nature of post-Soviet societal changes; and second, questions regarding the nature, external and internal impacts on teacher collaboration. Utilizing constructive postmodernism framework, this research examined teacher collaboration through micropolitical and cultural perspectives.</p> <p>This study adopted a naturalistic orientation, within which an interpretive constructivist approach to methodology prompted the use of qualitative methods of inquiry. The data collection techniques of document analysis, focus group interviews and individual interviews were utilized. Document analysis involved review of national and local acts, decrees, policies, and procedures that pertained to teacher collaboration issued during the period of 1991-2005. The participants in this study were elementary or secondary school teachers in the city of Chernivtsi, Ukraine who had been in the teaching profession within the education system of Ukraine during the period of time from 1991 to 2005. In total, fifty-five teachers from eight schools participated in eight focus group interviews and fifteen individual interviews. Documentary data and participants responses were analyzed according to the research questions and recurring themes with the help of ATLAS.ti qualitative data analysis software.</P> <p>The findings revealed the ongoing struggle between the forces of modernity and postmodernity in post-Soviet Ukrainian society. Gains of deideologization and freedoms of conscience, speech, and religion were counteracted by economic decline, political instability, and social insecurity. Societal transformations were seen as having direct impact on the system of education, resulting in a difficult transition period from the old Soviet to the new Ukrainian system of education.</p> <p>It was found that collaboration among teachers in schools was susceptible to transformations at the macro (societal), as well as micro (school) levels. Macro transformations affected the nature of teacher collaboration in a direct way through changing societal realities, while content and format were usually influenced indirectly through the impact on school structures, reforms and policies, school culture, and micropolitical interactions among professionals.</p> <p>Findings affirmed that in the times of uncertainty and radical changes, personal aspects of collaboration tend to gain more significance than the professional ones. Material welfare, spirituality and morale, social security, societal attitudes, social relationships, and shift in the systems of values and beliefs were found exerting significant impact on teacher collaboration. It was pointed out that discourse on collaboration required a balanced representation of individualistic and collectivistic perspectives. It was concluded that the development of collaborative cultures in Ukrainian schools needed to be a two-fold process, involving both instrumental shaping on the part of teachers and administrators and the presence of societal conditions conducive to collaborative relationships. A number of implications from the findings were derived for theory, practice, policy, further research, and methodology. </P>

<p>The purpose of the study was to examine teachers perceptions of the impact of societal changes on teacher collaboration in schools within the period of independence of Ukraine (1991 2005). This study provided a description of teacher experiences in a context of large-scale philosophical, ideological, social, political, and economic changes of the post-Soviet era, and the teachers interpretation of the impact of related changes upon teacher collaboration in Ukrainian schools. Research questions were divided into two subgroups: first, questions inquiring into teachers perceptions of the nature of post-Soviet societal changes; and second, questions regarding the nature, external and internal impacts on teacher collaboration. Utilizing constructive postmodernism framework, this research examined teacher collaboration through micropolitical and cultural perspectives.</p> <p>This study adopted a naturalistic orientation, within which an interpretive constructivist approach to methodology prompted the use of qualitative methods of inquiry. The data collection techniques of document analysis, focus group interviews and individual interviews were utilized. Document analysis involved review of national and local acts, decrees, policies, and procedures that pertained to teacher collaboration issued during the period of 1991-2005. The participants in this study were elementary or secondary school teachers in the city of Chernivtsi, Ukraine who had been in the teaching profession within the education system of Ukraine during the period of time from 1991 to 2005. In total, fifty-five teachers from eight schools participated in eight focus group interviews and fifteen individual interviews. Documentary data and participants responses were analyzed according to the research questions and recurring themes with the help of ATLAS.ti qualitative data analysis software.</P> <p>The findings revealed the ongoing struggle between the forces of modernity and postmodernity in post-Soviet Ukrainian society. Gains of deideologization and freedoms of conscience, speech, and religion were counteracted by economic decline, political instability, and social insecurity. Societal transformations were seen as having direct impact on the system of education, resulting in a difficult transition period from the old Soviet to the new Ukrainian system of education.</p> <p>It was found that collaboration among teachers in schools was susceptible to transformations at the macro (societal), as well as micro (school) levels. Macro transformations affected the nature of teacher collaboration in a direct way through changing societal realities, while content and format were usually influenced indirectly through the impact on school structures, reforms and policies, school culture, and micropolitical interactions among professionals.</p> <p>Findings affirmed that in the times of uncertainty and radical changes, personal aspects of collaboration tend to gain more significance than the professional ones. Material welfare, spirituality and morale, social security, societal attitudes, social relationships, and shift in the systems of values and beliefs were found exerting significant impact on teacher collaboration. It was pointed out that discourse on collaboration required a balanced representation of individualistic and collectivistic perspectives. It was concluded that the development of collaborative cultures in Ukrainian schools needed to be a two-fold process, involving both instrumental shaping on the part of teachers and administrators and the presence of societal conditions conducive to collaborative relationships. A number of implications from the findings were derived for theory, practice, policy, further research, and methodology. </P>

Abstract Internet and information technology have changed our daily life extremely. Information technology affects not only the way people running the business but also their expectation to learning and education. All this external shift and new requirement have become the driving force of e-learning. Mission Based Learning (MBL), which proposed by pedagogical experts, are a new learning model to address the new learning pattern of e-learning. MBL would like students to be trained as entrepreneur, with entrepreneurship, willing to take risk and can learning from failure experience. Thus, MBL activity increases the difficulty of the learning tasks in order to motivate students¡¦ potential and hope that students can use innovative strategy to overcome the mission. However, this may causes students to fail in the learning activity easily. Therefore, understanding students¡¦ failure response is the key point to teach students learning from failure experience. The main purpose of this study is to investigate the factors affecting students¡¦ failure response in participating MBL. The study depends on prior-research and uses questionnaires to collect data. A total of 252 students attending the MBL activity are the research subjects. The collected data is processed and analyzed with SPSS for Windows 10.0. The main findings show that students¡¦ failure tolerance, failure attribution and perceived goal structure will significantly affect students¡¦ constructive failure response. Furthermore, students¡¦ age will not affect students¡¦ failure tolerance, self-concept and failure response. Students¡¦ perceived goal structure will affect their failure tolerance and failure response in MBL activity. This research also finds that failure attribution will significantly affect students¡¦ failure tolerance, self-concept and failure response. Finally, according to the research result, this thesis proposed conclusions and suggestions for the educators and the follow-up.

The Relationships between Grade, Residence Area, Birth Order, Constructive Thinking, Emotional Competence and Pupils¡¦ Technological Creativity Ya-I Li Abstract The main purpose of this study was to explore the relationships between grade, residence area, birth order, constructive thinking, emotional competence and fifth to sixth graders¡¦ performance on technological creativity. The participants included 903 fifth and sixth graders from elementary schools in Taipei City, Kaohsiung City, and Penghu County. The employed instruments were The Constructive Thinking Inventory, The Questionnaire of Emotional Competence, and The Test of Technological Creativity. The applied analysis methods were Descriptive, One-way Multivariate Analysis of Variance, One-way Analysis of Variance, and Multiple Enter Regression. The main findings in this study were as follows: 1. The sixth graders outperformed the fifth graders on the test of technological creativity. 2. Pupils living in urban areas had higher technological creativity than their counterparts in rural areas. 3. The first-born children outperformed the later-born children on the test of technological creativity. 4. Constructive thinking had no significant effects on the pupils¡¦ technological creativity. 5. Emotional competence had positive influences on the pupils¡¦ technological creativity. 6. Grade, residence area, birth order, and emotional competence could effectively predict the pupils¡¦ technological creativity. Finally, some suggestions were proposed for educational authorities, teachers, parents and the future research. Keywords: grade, residence area, birth order, constructive thinking, emotional competence, technological creativity

Szemerédi's Regularity Lemma is powerful tool in Graph Theory, yielding many applications in areas such as Extremal Graph Theory, Combinatorial Number Theory and Theoretical Computer Science. Strong hypergraph extensions of graph regularity techniques were recently given by Nagle, Rödl, Schacht and Skokan, by W.T. Gowers, and subsequently, by T. Tao. These extensions have yielded quite a few non-trivial applications to Extremal Hypergraph Theory, Combinatorial Number Theory and Theoretical Computer Science. A main drawback to the hypergraph regularity techniques above is that they are highly technical. In this thesis, we consider a less technical version of hypergraph regularity which more directly generalizes Szemeredi's regularity lemma for graphs. The tools we discuss won't yield all applications of their stronger relatives, but yield still several applications in extremal hypergraph theory (for so-called linear or simple hypergraphs), including algorithmic ones. This thesis surveys these lighter regularity techiques, and develops three applications of them.

Norintis savo kalba patraukti dėmesį, sukelti teigiamas ar neigiamas emocijas, pabrėžti sakomą dalyką žmogus gali pasirinkti ir vartoti tam skirtas kalbos figūras. Vienas iš pastaruoju metu populiarėjančių ir kalbiniuose aktuose vis dažniau aptinkamų būdų yra korekcija. Toks kalbėjimas atkreipia adresato dėmesį, korekcijos figūros atliekama tikslinimo funkcija aktuali tiek kalbėtojui ar rašančiajam, tiek klausytojui ar skaitytojui. Esama atvejų, kai kalbėtojas savo kalbinę raišką tikslina dalykiniais sumetimais – taip kuriama dalykinė korekcija. Jeigu adresantas siekia ekspresyviai, vaizdžiai pakoreguoti jau pasakytą ar ketinamą pasakyti mintį, pasitelkiama figūrinė korekcija. Bakalauro darbo tikslas – išnagrinėti metakalbinių komentarų su prieveiksmiais tiksliau, teisingiau, tikriau, geriau vartojimą kalbiniuose aktuose kaip savos kalbos korekcijos priemonę. Nagrinėjami 281 dalykinės ir figūrinės korekcijos atvejai – jų vartosenos polinkiai, taip pat metakalbinių komentarų su tam tikrais prieveiksmiais dažnumas. Medžiaga tyrimui rinkta iš Dabartinės lietuvių kalbos tekstyno, o tyrimas atliktas aprašomuoju analitiniu ir skaičiavimo metodais. Išanalizavus pavyzdžius nustatyta, kad turinčios tiesioginę reikšmę frazės su prieveiksmiais tiksliau, teisingiau, tikriau, geriau vartojamos patikslinti pasakymą, t. y. sukuriama dalykinė korekcija. Toks tikslinimas skamba paprastai, nereikalauja iš adresanto rimtesnių pastangų ir nepatraukia adresato dėmesio. Figūrinė korekcija... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / When trying to catch reader’s attention, evoke positive or negative emotions, emphasize a certain thing, a person may choose some special language forms. Nowadays, correction is one of the most popular and quite often used language forms in the linguistic acts. This kind of speaking catches receiver’s attention, correction forms perform the function of specification which is relevant to the speaker, writer, listener or reader. There are cases, when the speaker specifies his/her linguistic expression due to the constructive considerations and in this way a constructive correction is created. If the addressee seeks expressively, visually correct his/her already said idea or the idea he/she is going to say, he/she invokes form correction. The objective of the bachelor’s work is to investigate the usage of metalanguage comments along with adverbs accurately, fairer, rather, better in the linguistic acts as language correction mean. There are 281 constructive and form correction cases being analyzed i.e. their usage tendency, also, the frequency of metalanguage comments along with certain adverbs. The material for the survey was collected from the Corpus of the Current Lithuanian Language and the survey itself was carried out using descriptive analytical and computation methods. After analyzing the examples there was defined that phrases which are literal and are used along with adverbs accurately, fairer, rather, better are practiced in order to specify the expression i.e. in... [to full text]

The debate between scientific realism and constructive empiricism is often cast in terms of a debate over what it is "rational" to accept about successful scientific theories. I cast this debate differently: I place these conflicting philosophies of science within our current political context, asking the question "which of these philosophies gives us the conceptual tools we need to allow science to adequately inform our public policy decisions?" I argue that most cases of long-term planning based on current science. such as curbing carbon emissions based on global warming theory. are decisions that can only be made if we approach scientific theories realistically. This vindicates the project of developing a realist epistemology, for only by inquiring into the truth with respect to unobservables can we make adequately informed public policy decisions.

The work in this thesis contains some contributions to constructive point-free topology and the theory of apartness spaces. The first two papers deal with constructive domain theory using formal topology. In Paper I we focus on the notion of a domain representation of a formal space as a way to introduce generalized points of the represented space, whereas we in Paper II give a constructive and point-free treatment of the domain theoretic approach to differential calculus. The last two papers are of a slightly different nature but still concern constructive topology. In paper III we consider a measure theoretic covering theorem from various constructive angles in both point-set and point-free topology. We prove a point-free version of the theorem. In Paper IV we deal with issues of impredicativity in the theory of apartness spaces. We introduce a notion of set-presented apartness relation which enables a predicative treatment of basic constructions of point-set apartness spaces.

The Social Security Act 1991 incorporates the general legal meaning of property in its definition of an asset, for the purpose of the pension means test. This creates the opportunity for pension applicants to argue that assessable assets held by them should be reduced by the amount of any equitable proprietry rights held by others in the assets. The Federal Court has held in Kintominas v Secretary, DSS and in Kidner v Secretary, DSS that equitable proprietry claims under remedial doctrines, such as under the constructive trust doctrine discussed in Baumgartner v Baumgartner are to be regarded as property even though there has been no judicial declaration of their existence, no dispute between the legal owner and the person claiming an equitabe interest, an no unconscionable abuse of title rights by the legal owner. This thesis argues that the Federal Court’s approach is not the preferable one, for three main reasons. The first relates to the changing nature of the constructive trust to a necessary element. The second is that, at a time when the constructive trust in Australia is in transition from the traditional institutional conception to a remedial paradigm along North American lines, the beneficial interest should no longer be viewed as existing independently of a judicial decree. The third argument is that, even if an equitable interest under a remedial constructive trust is accepted as existing independently of a curial declaration, it cannot be valued for the purposes of the assets test.

Researchers have examined psychosocial risk variables (e.g., hostility) related to high resting blood pressure (BP), with the majority of findings suggesting that hostility is associated with increased resting BP. Additionally, it has been proposed that constructive verbal anger expression is a protective factor for hypertension (Davidson, MacGregor, Stuhr, Dixon, & MacLean, 2000; Davidson, MacGregor, Stuhr, & Gidron, 1999), while others have hypothesized that humor promotes physical health (i.e., the humor-health hypothesis) (Martin, Puhlik-Doris, Larsen, Gray, & Weir, 2003; McClelland & Cheriff, 1997). The primary purpose of the present study is to examine the relations between hostility, humor styles, constructive verbal anger, and resting BP, with an emphasis on the humor-health hypothesis. One hundred and ninety nine undergraduate university participants had six resting blood pressure measurements taken at three-minute intervals. Participants then completed the following questionnaires online in a randomized order: Cook-Medley Hostility Scale (CMH), Constructive Anger Behaviour-Verbal Scale (CAV), Humor Styles Questionnaire (HSQ), and a health and demographic questionnaire. A series of hierarchical regressions were conducted to test the hypotheses with resting systolic BP (SBP) and resting diastolic BP (DBP). Two health and demographic variables, age and body mass index (BMI), were entered into step 1 of all the regressions analyzed as covariates. In step 2 of each regression model, the respective psychosocial variables were independently entered. Comparisons were conducted between the various psychosocial variables entered into step 2 to determine which variable accounts for the most unique variance in resting SBP and DBP. Small to moderate positive correlations were observed between age and resting BP, as well as BMI and resting BP. Regarding psychosocial variables, small positive correlations were observed between affiliative humor and resting SBP, and between self-enhancing humor and resting BP. Multiple regression analyses revealed that after controlling for age and BMI, adaptive humor styles uniquely predicted higher resting SBP, while no psychosocial variables predicted resting DBP. The present investigation provides evidence suggesting that psychosocial risk factors are not associated with resting BP while also contradicting the humor-health hypothesis, suggesting that adaptive humor is associated with increased resting BP.