Thesis. 1975. Ph.D.--Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Physics. / Vita. / Includes bibliographical references. / by Jeffrey F. Nicoll. / Ph.D.

Traditionally, education in Saudi Arabia has tended to lay considerable emphasis on the correct recall of memorised information. In the early years of the 21st century, education policy in Saudi Arabia began to consider the introduction of the concept of critical thinking into the curriculum. At the same time, the role and place of the sciences in the curriculum have increasingly been emphasized, the aim being to equip future generations with the skills thought important in taking the country forward. This study is, therefore, set in Saudi Arabia and focuses on the nature and development of critical thinking in the context of the current curriculum in the sciences. After describing the educational scene in Saudi Arabia, the thesis focuses on what is known about thinking in general and critical thinking in particular. The aim here is to move towards the development of a model of critical thinking and some kind of operational description against which test material can be developed. At that stage, it was recognised that, while critical thinking might be conceptualized as a set of cognitive skills, there is a strong attitudinal element. In simple terms, the learner needs to know how to think critically but also be willing to use these skills. There is a very brief review of some key research in the area of attitudes, including the principles of measurement which underpin the way the perceptions and attitudes of the learners are considered in this study. The cognitive nature of critical thinking is then related to two key research contributions of the 20th century: the work of Jean Piaget and David Ausubel. Critical thinking takes place in the working memory and the insights from information processing are discussed, looking at the ways information moves around the brain and the implications for the development of critical thinking are discussed. This study aims to explore how to measure critical thinking and to determine whether critical thinking skills can be developed in science subjects in school pupils. To achieve this aim, a model of critical thinking was first developed representing that thinking critically basically involves asking the questions how, what and why of new sources of information, the information itself and the linking processes involved in understanding. A test of critical thinking was developed based on this model. The data from this test were related to several other educational measures: student perceptions, working memory capacity, understanding science, school marks in science. Interviews with teachers and school inspectors were also conducted to explore their perceptions. The researcher is confident that the model and test make a contribution to the literature, as well as being of benefit to Saudi Arabia and to other countries. Critical thinking was measured with a total of 240 pupils, 120 girls and 120 boys, aged between 13 and 15, in classes 1, 2 and 3, in six Intermediate Schools in Saudi Arabia in the academic year 2009-2010. The questions in the test were designed so that success in the test relied on one or more of the aspects of critical thinking. The outcomes were related to working memory capacity and school science performance while student perceptions were measured. Principal Components analysis using Varimax rotation showed that the test designed to measure critical thinking was not measuring either science knowledge or understanding nor was it a measure of working memory capacity, but the school marks were highly correlated with working memory capacity. It was found that the measured critical thinking grew from year 1 to year 3; possible reasons are suggested. While the validity of the critical thinking test is not certain, it is not simply a measure of knowledge and understanding or of working memory capacity although any critical thinking would take place in the working memory. The survey offered many insights but, in particular, it revealed that most pupils had a negative attitude to science and showed broadly negative perceptions of science. The following experiment aimed to determine whether critical thinking skills could be developed in science subjects in school pupils. A fresh sample for the second experiment consisted of 1,600 pupils, from 12 schools, 800 girls and 800 boys, 400 of each in grade 1 (aged 13) and 400 in grade 3 (aged 15). Of these 400, 200 were in control groups and 200 in experimental groups. The pupils in the experimental groups were taught critical thinking skills using teaching material specifically developed for this research (which took 9 weeks to complete) and with a method proposed for it, while those in the control groups were taught in the normal way. The following were measured: student perceptions, working memory capacity, critical thinking, and understanding. The first two tests were identical to those used in experiment 1 and the critical thinking test was only slightly modified. In addition, their school marks were taken to make a fifth data set. Analysis of the data showed that critical thinking skills grew significantly after use of the new materials, with year 3 showing greater growth. Despite attempts to make the material gender neutral, boys were found to be better at critical thinking skills, although this may simply reflect gender-separated education. Principal components analysis again showed that critical thinking test data is unrelated to measured working memory capacity, measures of recall, and measures of understanding. The student survey was carried out with the purpose of examining pupils’ attitudes towards various aspects of thinking and critical thinking in the context of science teaching and some unexpected gender differences were observed. In the test of critical thinking skills, girls and boys in the experimental groups both performed better than did the control groups but the girls did not appear to be convinced that this is the case.A total of 98 science teachers and science inspectors were interviewed in order to explore their perceptions of critical thinking in science education. A range of themes was explored and there were some differences in their views which, in turn, did not seem to match the views of the students. Implications are discussed. The overall conclusions are that critical thinking can be measured and that it can be enhanced with school learners aged in the range 13 to 15. However, it is vital that educational policies, resources, national assessment and teacher training be adjusted if the development of critical thinking is to make much progress in Saudi Arabia. The limitations and implications of the study are outlined.

China has speeded up modernization since the reform and open-door policy was introduced in 1978. After accession to the World Trade Organization in 1999, China has been further incorporated into the global track. The national policy of economic development requires a continuing exploitation of natural resources and intensive labor from the rural sector, and over the last few decades, there has been a ceaseless wave of rural women going to the cities and working mainly as assembly-line workers, domestic helpers and sex workers. Developing a subaltern and feminist perspective, this thesis examines representations of rural women in academic research and literary works, as well as in films, documentaries, TV dramas, photography and popular magazines. The thesis attempts to outline and invoke a spectral figure of the subaltern as the rural woman demonstrably haunting dominant regimes of representations of modernization. In the prevailing mentality of development, a mega-city is portrayed as the ultimate destination; meanwhile, the rural is depicted as residual and as a repository of the past. There is a system of negative equivalences attached to the rural, which is always positioned as the unspoken, invisible or stereotyped other of overwhelming cosmopolitan values. The thesis reviews how urban intellectuals represent rural women in the contemporary cosmopolitan settings. Drawing on Gayatri Spivak’s discussion of the two kinds of representation—proxy and portrait—the thesis aims to read how urban intellectuals speak for as well as draw a portrait of rural women. The thesis also tries to read against the grain of the texts to trace the irreducible figure of the rural woman. As the readings will demonstrate, there are contradictions, paradoxes and ambivalences in narrating and portraying rural women as actors of modernization, victims of industrialization, agents of proletarian struggle, consumers purchasing commodities, and as the residual from agrarian society. From such incongruities within the texts, one can posit the figure of the rural woman as a symbol of resistance to the predominant discourse of modernization. This is not necessarily to suggest a nostalgic return to the past, that is, to the statist industrialization of Mao Zedong’s period and the patriarchal tradition; or an orthodox ruralism that everyone should go back to ancient society; or a romanticization of the primitive. Rather, this figure operates like Stuart Hall’s concept of “black”, referring to a way of referencing the widespread experience of marginalization in contemporary China, and an organizing category of a new politics of resistance among different groups. This research not only negotiates but also re-adjusts the notion of urban superiority by exploring the spectral figure of the rural woman. Gendering the rural vision means not only making a difference from the present capitalist and patriarchal values and practices, but also taking the excluded majority into serious consideration. It is hoped that this exercise, in the end, will help us to imagine a communal society in which we can recognize the practice of care of others as care of the self.

本文借助並修訂了布爾迪厄（Pierre Bourdieu）的理論框架，透過對中國大陸二十世紀九十年代以來文化明星的製造進行研究來理解變動中的文化生產場 (field of cultural production)，並探討在其間知識分子作為的新可能。文化明星問題之所以值得特別研究，首先是由於它處於當代中國文化生產的中心，涉及到電視、圖書、平面媒體、互聯網等不同的文化生產次場域（sub-field），以及製作人、 出版人、文化明星本人、“粉絲” (fans) 和批評者所代表的不同力量。考察圍繞著製造文化明星的複雜的關係網絡，正可以勾勒出當代中國變動的文化生產場域的概貌。其次，文化明星的產生和生產是對九十年代以來知識分子危機的一種回應，是知識分子問題的變奏。理解了文化明星的製造機制，有助於尋找在當下的文化生產場中知識分子作為的新可能。 本文選取余秋雨、易中天、于丹和韓寒四個個案進行深入分析。余秋雨是公認的第一個最成功的文化明星，對其案例進行研究揭示了文化明星產生的歷史轉變。易中天和于丹的案例則代表著著一種可以複製的成熟的文化明星製造模式的出現。韓寒的形象及製造是一種有別于以上主流文化明星的另類模式。 本文綜合運用多種研究方法，包括對十幾名相關的文化生產者進行訪問，組織了一個針對粉絲的焦點小組（focus group），並且到電視節目錄製現場、出版 社和大型書店進行參與式觀察。此外亦有歷史檔案梳理和文本、話語分析。 最終，本文繪製出了不同的文化明星在當代中國文化生產場中的位置，反思了現有文化明星生產模式的後果，並對知識分子/文化生產者參與文化生產提出有針對性的建議。

2003 年中國內地與香港簽訂《內地與香港關於建立更緊密經貿關係的安排》(Mainland and Hong Kong Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement, 簡稱CEPA)。其中關於電影的條款放寬了香港電影進入內地的條件，加之龐大的市場需求，香港電影工業的跨境活動變得日益頻繁, 並開啟了新一輪的中港「合拍片」潮流。電影產業及其市場環境的轉變背後是更為深層的中港經濟、政治與文化的融合。香港從「九七」前後至今在新的政治空間及身份脈絡中不斷尋求「本土」位置顯得日益困難。電影作為流行文化文本和社會實踐曲折地表述「本土」、「自我」、「身份」，其中「懷舊」（nostalgia）便是近十年香港電影文化想像中一個顯著的憶述工具和路徑，亦即通過處理「過去」、歷史、集體記憶等來書寫「現在」的某種情感、經驗、欲望。 本論文以後CEPA 時期的香港電影為研究對象，檢閱以合拍片為主導的電影工業體制下，和香港近十年來文化政治脈絡中，不同類型、風格、主題，以及不同生產方式、製作規模、市場面向的香港電影懷舊想像與「本土」身份的互構關係。以及後CEPA 時代香港電影的懷舊想像與此前懷舊電影相比下的延續與新變。

Modern Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems are now integral to healthcare. Having evolved from hospital billing and laboratory systems in the 80's, EHR systems have grown considerably as we learn to represent more and more aspects of patient encounter, diagnosis and treatment digitally. EHR user interfaces, however, lag considerably behind their consumer-electronics counterparts in usability, most notably with respect to customizability. This limitation is especially evident in the implementation of audible alerts that are coupled to sensors or timing devices in intensive-care settings. The most current standard, (ISO/IEC 60601-1-8) has been designed for alerts that are intended to signal situations of varying priorities: however, it is not universally implemented, and has been criticized for the difficulty that healthcare providers have in discriminating between individual alarms, and for the failure to incorporate prior research with respect to "sense of urgency" as it applies to alarm efficacy. In the present work, however, we consider that there are more effective means to allow a user to identify an alarm correctly than "sense of urgency" response. This thesis focuses on the problem of correct identification of alerts: what happens when a human subject is allowed to create or designate (i.e., personalize) one's own alerts? Given the ubiquity, low costs and commoditization of consumer-electronics devices, we believe that it is just a matter of time before such devices become the norm in critical care and replace existing, special-purpose devices for information delivery at the point of patient care. We built a tool, PASA (Personalized Alert Study Application), that would allow us to capture and edit sounds and orchestrate studies that would contrast any two types of sounds. PASA facilitated a study where study participant's responses to "personalized" sounds were contrasted with sounds that meet the ISO/IEC 60601-1-8:2012 standard. We performed two sub-studies that contrasted responses to two banks of 6-alerts and 10-alerts. The 6-alert study was repeated with the same subjects after two weeks without training to measure recall. We observed that accuracy, reaction time, and retention were significantly improved with the personalized sounds. For example, the median errors for the 6-alert baseline study were 4 for personalized vs. 27 for standard alerts. For the 6-alert repeat study it was 7 vs. 43. The median for the 10-alert study was 1 for personalized vs. 55 for standard alerts. Accuracy for recognition, while remaining constant for personalized alerts, degraded considerably for standardized alerts as the number of alerts increased from 6 to 10. We conclude that personalization of alerts may improve information delivery and reduce cognitive overload on the health care provider. This potential positive effect at the point of patient care merits further studies in a clinical or simulated clinical setting.

This research challenges understandings of racism through a drama based education praxis. The thesis structure is informed by the inquiry into the two part research question: How can critically reflecting on my praxis deepen my understanding of anti-racism processes in Australia? How can I document, evaluate and communicate my praxis? I situate the research in a qualitative methodology. I discuss the choice of narrative inquiry, arts-based inquiry and creative action research. I augment this with intuitive inquiry and explore lived experience research of hermeneutic phenomenology as applied to education and the social world and include first-person research. The creative action research is in three stages. The thesis is written in six chapters with a provocation, a prologue, an epilogue and appendices. The structure of the writing follows the stages of development of a drama-based experiential learning process. In the praxis chapters, I present theory and practice together, where the practice is presented as narratives that illuminate the theory. These stories of practice are usually followed by praxis discussions that are reflections on the practice in the light of the theory. Cultural conflicts such as racism can be transformed through drama education into intercultural communication and education. My argument is that taking steps towards ecology of culture in Australia today could significantly influence both the multicultural and the ecological projects / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

The language used in critical readings of Hamlet is rife with implicitly teleological terms: according to many critics, and the ghost of King Hamlet, the story of his father's murder and Claudius' succession requires Hamlet to do something. I ask, why should Hamlet kill his uncle, revenge his father, correct his mother, become king, marry Ophelia, and produce heirs to rule when he is gone? While Hamlet's inaction is often described as delay or paralysis, I suggest that the Danish prince resists teleology through his studied ambivalence towards dynasty: land-owning, child-bearing, wars and marriage. Building on recent theoretical and historical work by scholars like Lee Edelman, Will Fisher, Margreta de Grazia and Madhavi Menon, I suggest that Hamlet, through the interventions of its main character, thwarts the assumption that the relationship between a nobleman and his land is natural, that the desire for possession and rule is inherent. Combining de Grazia's invaluable historicism with Fisher's discussion of prostheses, Ir ead the Renaissance nobleman as a prosthetic creature, physically and politically embodied by his marriage, his children, his land. In delaying the revenge he has been called upon to carry out, in hesitating to take up the crown, Hamlet defers the prostheses of nobility, and opens up a space from which to question the dynastic project.

Människan har i alla tider avbildat naturen, något som även gäller inommönsterformgivning. I detta arbete kommer jag att jobba inom denna traditionoch samtidigt undersöka hur man kan skildra naturen med ett mer kritisktperspektiv. Ser naturen verkligen ut så som den skildras i mönster idag?Jag har formgivit kritiska mönster för tapeter som kommenterarmänniskans inverkan på naturen. Syftet är att via mönster uppmärksammaoch skapa eftertanke kring hur vi påverkar naturen och även ifrågasätta denidealiserade skildringen av naturen som är rådande inom mönsterformgivning.Critical design, dvs. en design som ifrågasätter snarare än löser praktiska/tekniska problem används som en teoretisk utgångspunkt. Samtida kritiskamönster analyseras med en semiotisk bildanalys med fokus på denotation ochkonnotation.De mönster som jag formgivit gestaltar nedskräpning av haven som ärett påtagligt problem. Slutresultatet är en mönsterkollektion med tre mönsterdär både samtida kritiska mönster och mer traditionella mönster samtperseptionspsykologi legat till grund.

In the 1990s, multiracial advocacy organizations emerged as a national movement. The primary purpose of this movement was to obtain recognition of multiracial identity by the U.S. government. Though possessing a common goal, the organizations within the movement advocated for multiracialism through different racial frames. Using extended case methodology, this study seeks to identify the racial frames utilized by the multiracial movement. Through in-depth interviews with founders and presidents, current and past, of multiracial advocacy organizations, I extend the current literature on racial framing. After critical analysis of my interviews, I identify the presence of the traditional white racist frame as well as a racial counter-frame. Reviewing the elements of both frameworks, I discuss how the use of these frames affects the struggle for racial justice in the United States. Finally, using Bell's principle of interest convergence, I conclude with an examination of how the utilization of the traditional white racist frame by the multiracial movement and the interest of whites in maintaining social domination resulted in the "mark all that apply" decision by the Office and Management and Budget.