Le redressement des entreprises en difficulté, n’est en réalité possible que si les difficultés n’ont pas atteint des proportions importantes au point d’arriver à une cessation d’activité. Le législateur marocain, conscient de la nécessité de la sauvegarde des entreprises, s’est inspiré de la loi française du 1er mars 1984, afin de mettre en place un dispositif légal organisant des procédures de prévention et de règlement amiable, l’accent est mis sur une transparence à l’insu du dirigeant, invité à une collaboration et un dialogue permanent avec les organes internes, le ou les commissaires aux comptes, les représentants des salariés et les associés, ces derniers sont concernés en premier lieu par l’alerte en interne. Le président du tribunal n’interviendra qu’en externe, si l’action concertée entre le dirigeant et les organes internes n’aboutit pas tant qu’il est encore temps. De nouvelles procédures instituées en France, non judiciaires ou judiciaires à caractère confidentiel, préventif ou curatif, ne débuteront que lorsque l’entreprise connaîtra des difficultés juridiques, économiques et financières, sans pour autant négliger la question essentielle relative aux difficultés des entreprises : « être ou ne pas être » en cessation des paiements / The recovery of companies in difficulty, is actually possible if the difficulties have not reached significant proportions point to a cessation of activity. The Moroccan legislator, aware of the need for safeguarding companies, was inspired by the French law of 1 March 1984, in order to put in place a legal mechanism organizing procedures for prevention and amicable settlement, the focus is on transparency without the knowledge of the leader, invited to a collaboration and a permanent dialogue with the internal organs, the commissioner (s) accounts, the employee representatives and the partners, the latter are concerned in the first place by the internal alert. The president of the tribunal will intervene only externally, if the concerted action between the leader and the internal organs does not succeed as long as there is still time. New procedures established in France, non-judicial or confidential, preventive or curative, will not commence when the company will experience legal, economic difficulties and financial, without neglecting the essential question of business difficulties: "to be or not to be" in cessation of payments

Games are irritating when they are too hard, and boring when they are too easy. Level Eight is a game development company which is, during this project, developing an endless runner. This thesis describes research and implementation of a dynamic difficulty adjustment system in Level Eights’ endless runner by considering several conditions of the player. This was accomplished with the help of the game environment by implementing procedural content generation and combine it with the dynamic difficulty adjustment system. / Spel är irriterande när de är för svåra, och tråkiga när de är för lätta. Level Eight är ett spelutvecklingsföretag som under detta projekt utvecklar ett ändlöst löparspel. Denna avhandling beskriver forskning och genomförande av ett dynamiskt svårighets justeringssystem i Level Eights ändlöst löparspel genom att överväga flera villkor för spelaren. Detta uppnåddes med hjälp av spelmiljön genom att implementera procedurell innehållsgenerering och kombinera den med det dynamiska svårighets justering systemet.

Multiple Choice Questions (MCQs) have long been the backbone of standardized testing in academia and industry. Correspondingly, there is a constant need for the authors of MCQs to write and refine new questions for new versions of standardized tests as well as to support measuring performance in the emerging massive open online courses, (MOOCs). Research that explores what makes a question difficult, or what questions distinguish higher-performing students from lower-performing students can aid in the creation of the next generation of teaching and evaluation tools. In the automated MCQ answering component of this thesis, algorithms query for definitions of scientific terms, process the returned web results, and compare the returned definitions to the original definition in the MCQ. This automated method for answering questions is then augmented with a model, based on human performance data from crowdsourced question sets, for analysis of question difficulty as well as the discrimination power of the non-answer alternatives. The crowdsourced question sets come from PeerWise, an open source online college-level question authoring and answering environment. The goal of this research is to create an automated method to both answer and assesses the difficulty of multiple choice inverse definition questions in the domain of introductory biology. The results of this work suggest that human-authored question banks provide useful data for building gold standard human performance models. The methodology for building these performance models has value in other domains that test the difficulty of questions and the quality of the exam takers.

This study aimed to investigate the acquisition of the four non-generic uses of the English definite article the by Arabic learners of English in Saudi Arabia. These non-generic uses included textual, situational, cultural and structural. This study had three goals: (1) to determine whether these uses are acquired in a certain sequence; (2) to explore which one of these uses is the most difficult and the easiest in learning; (3) to investigate whether one or two of the uses are overused. The instrument consisted of 59 sentences adopted from Liu and Gleason (2002). There were 40 instances for required uses and 20 sentences for obligatory nonuse (5 instances for each use). The subjects were instructed to insert the where they deemed it necessary. The participants were 45 male undergraduate English major students, whose ages ranged from 18 to 22 with a Mean age of 21.6, from a university in Saudi Arabia. They were divided into three groups (15 students each) based on their proficiency levels as follows; low intermediate, intermediate, and advanced. The results revealed developmental trends in the acquisition of the non-generic uses of the English definite article related to proficiency. Specifically, the advanced group showed significantly higher accuracy of use in all four functions. Regarding the four functions, the order of acquisition, based on level of accuracy was as follows: situational, cultural, structural and textual. The study results are discussed in view of their pedagogical implications for the teaching of the definite article to Saudi learners of English.

The purpose of this study was two-fold: examine junior high school pre-service science teachers' chemical reasoning; and establish the extent to which the pre-service science teachers' chemical abilities explain their chemical reasoning. A sample comprised 165 junior high school pre-service science teachers at Mufulira College of Education in Zambia. There were 82 males and 83 females. Data were collected using a Chemical Concept Reasoning Test (CCRT). Pre-service science teachers' chemical reasoning was established through qualitative analysis of their responses to test items. The Rasch Model was used to determine the pre-service teachers' chemical abilities and item difficulty. Results show that most pre-service science teachers had incorrect chemical reasoning on chemical concepts assessed in this study. There was no significant difference in chemical understanding between the Full-Time and Distance Education pre-service science teachers, and between second and third year pre-service science teachers. However, there was a significant difference in chemical understanding between male and female pre-service science teachers. Male pre-service science teachers showed better chemical understanding than female pre-service science teachers. The Rasch model revealed that the pre-service science teachers had low chemical abilities, and the CCRT was very difficult for this group of pre-service science teachers. As such, their incorrect chemical reasoning was attributed to their low chemical abilities. These results have implications on science teacher education, chemistry teaching and learning, and chemical education research.

xv, 173 p. : ill. (some col.) A print copy of this thesis is available through the UO Libraries. Search the library catalog for the location and call number. / Economists typically assume that individuals behave in accordance with rational choice theory. In practice, however, individual behavior can deviate from the predictions of models founded upon basic economic theory. The extent to which these deviations are important to individual decision-making in environmental economics, and thus to the development of sound environmental policies, is not fully understood. The objective in this dissertation research is to investigate potential deviations from rational choice behavior in some environmental economics contexts and to identify their relevance to environmental policy. Chapter I uses a stated-preference survey for the valuation of environmental health-risk reductions in which respondents rate the subjective difficulty of each key choice they are asked to consider. Existing literature identifies many potential categories of biases in the empirically estimated valuation of non-market goods in stated-preference research. One potential source of bias stems from the "objective complexity" of the choice scenario. I find that existing objective measures of choice set complexity do not fully explain subjective choice difficulty ratings in this valuation survey. Instead, subjective difficulty appears to result from the interplay among objective complexity, preferences, and cognitive resource constraints. In Chapter II, I consider the possible consequences of choice difficulty from the standpoint of neuroeconomics. Within the scope of neuroeconomics, one can identify some neurobiological correlates of economic decision-making activity. I study the apparent effects of choice difficulty on the neurobiological encoding of individuals' value assessments. Information from this study provides a neurological basis for deviations from simple economic theory based on conventional models of rational choice. Chapter III examines risk perceptions that may influence individuals' decisions to migrate within the U.S. to reduce potential health and economic risks related to climate change. My analysis treats historical patterns of migration among counties as a function of varying spatial and temporal patterns in tornado activity, along with other spatially and temporally delineated variables intended to capture the evolution of subjective perceptions of these tornado risks. Results suggest that the perception of risk from extreme weather events can have a small but statistically discernible effect on migration behavior across sociodemographic groups for both out-migrants and in-migrants. / Committee in charge: Trudy Cameron, Chairperson, Economics; William Harbaugh, Member, Economics; Jason Lindo, Member, Economics; Ulrich Mayr, Outside Member, Psychology

In this thesis, I examine Gwendolyn Brooks’s diptych poems “Two Dedications” from her 1968 collection In the Mecca. Critical accounts of “Two Dedications” cast the poems as fixed oppositions between “frivolous” Western art and inspiring, communal black art. I propose that such binaries are reductive and overlook the intellectual benefits Brooks locates in abstract modernist art. Using Ezra Pound’s theories of modernist difficulty, Walter Benjamin’s concept of artistic “aura,” and the Black Arts Movement (BAM) manifestoes of Ron Karenga and Larry Neal, I argue that Brooks’s poems demonstrate the benefits of both abstract Western art and representational BAM art. Specifically, Brooks suggests that both types of art provide avenues for self-determination and liberation from institutional conventions.

Orientadores: Sergio Goldenberg, Orly Zucatto Mantovani de Assis / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Educação / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-14T18:18:00Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Cesar_JaneteSchmidtdeCamargo_M.pdf: 5669758 bytes, checksum: 84546b9153bea96f830647609e3f9201 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009 / Resumo: Esta pesquisa teve por objetivo investigar, de forma qualitativa, as idéias das crianças a respeito de suas dificuldades de aprendizagem do sistema escrito através da utilização do Método Clínico Crítico, elaborado por Jean Piaget, que permite diagnosticar o estágio de evolução de determinados conceitos em que as crianças se encontram. Nosso referencial teórico se encontra alicerçado na Epistemologia Genética e no Construtivismo. O estudo foi realizado com 19 crianças entre 7 e 13 anos, selecionadas dentre 173 sujeitos participantes do reforço escolar, pertencentes a uma rede municipal de ensino do interior do estado de São Paulo. A escolha ocorreu através da avaliação da construção do sistema escrito, e/ou do sistema ortográfico. Para diagnosticar a natureza das estruturas de pensamento do sujeito utilizamos as Provas Piagetianas para determinação do comportamento operatório concreto. A fim de perceber se a criança compreende o significado do que é aprender e de como se dá esse processo empregamos como referência os estudos realizados por Piaget e colaboradores sobre o Realismo Infantil: A Noção de Pensamento. Por fim, empregamos a Entrevista semi-estruturada sobre o não-aprender que foi testada em projeto piloto. Este instrumento foi elaborado por nós a partir da junção de elementos empregados na Entrevista Operativa Centrada na Aprendizagem (EOCA) com os do Método Clínico Crítico, valorizando o saber-fazer com o intuito de desencadear o processo de compreensão da criança desse saber para então questioná-la a respeito do não-aprender. Os dados obtidos foram analisados por meio da Correlação Linear e do Estudo de Caso. Os resultados encontrados apontaram para uma correlação linear positiva média (índice de dispersão = 0,5595403) entre a noção de pensamento e o desenvolvimento cognitivo, o que sugere que o desenvolvimento cognitivo influência a noção de pensamento e vice-versa. No entanto, a análise da correlação entre idade e noção de pensamento não se mostraram significativas (índice de dispersão = 0,10007395), fato que creditamos à heterogeneidade dos sujeitos estudados. Os números fornecidos analisados à luz do Estudo de Caso nos permitiu perceber que é possível colaborar para a tomada de consciência das crianças sobre seus problemas de aprendizagem do sistema escrito, e que as crenças a respeito de suas dificuldades ou de seus pares sofrem a influência de recalcamentos os quais atribuímos as idades e ao desenvolvimento cognitivo apresentado pelos sujeitos estudados. Quanto às soluções apresentadas para seus problemas, foi possível perceber que as crianças repetem o que vivenciam, fato que implica a importância da reflexão a propósito da metodologia de ensino adotada pelas escolas e, sobretudo, a concepção de desenvolvimento e aprendizagem apresentada pelo professor, que não foi investigado neste trabalho. / Abstract: This research has as a goal to investigate, in a qualitative way, the ideas of children about their learning disorders of the written system, by the use of the Clinic Critic method, made by Jean Piaget, that allows to diagnose the stage of evolution of determined concepts in which children are. The research?s theoretical referential system is based in Genetic Psichology and Constructivism. 19 children with ages between 7 and 13 were selected among 173 that participates of School Reinforcement belonging to a network of municipal education within the state of São Paulo. They were chosen by the evaluation sounding of construction of the written system, by the use of the researches developed by Ferreiro and Teberosky, and/or the ortographic system, by the Itinerary of Orthographic Observation developed by Zorzi. To diagnose the nature of the thought structures of children, we used the Piagetian Operational Behavior Diagnoses Proofs. To realize if the child understands the real meaning of learning and how this process happens, we used as reference the studies made by Piaget and collaborators about Childish Realism: The notion of thought. Finally, we used the half-structured interview about the not-learning, wich was tested in the pilot project. We elaborate this instrument using a junction between elements applied in the Operative Interview Centered in Learning and elements of the Clinical Critical Method, giving value to the know-how in order to trigger the process of understanding the child know that to question it then on the non-learning. The data were analyzed by linear correlation and the Case Study. The results pointed to a positive linear correlation average (index of dispersion = 0.5595403) between the notion of thought and the cognitive development, which suggests that the cognitive development influence the concept of thought and vice versa. However, analysis of the correlation between age and the concept of thought were not significant (index of dispersion = 0.10007395), which credited the heterogeneity of subjects studied. The figures analyzed in light of the case study allowed us to realize that it?s possible to collaborate for the capture of conscience of children on their problems of apprenticeship of the written system, and that the believes about their own disorders and the disorders of his friends are affected by repression that we attribute to the ages and the cognitive development presented by the studied children. It was possible to realize that children seek for solutions for their own problems based on facts that their live, so it?s important for us to think about the methodology of teaching adopted by schools especially in the conception of development and apprenticeship presented by the teacher, who was not investigated in this work. / Mestrado / Psicologia, Desenvolvimento Humano e Educação / Mestre em Educação

Made available in DSpace on 2016-01-26T18:49:41Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao.pdf: 575360 bytes, checksum: 502a069a2210bef84f4d139703beb34c (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008-11-06 / This paper has aimed to investigate the reason that the students show gap knowledge in the mathematics area and see if this fact is due to the fear or the myth about the subject or if these difficulties are not related to learning of basic concepts. In this paper the qualitative approach was a method adopted to carry out the research to investigate a contemporary phenomenon within a real context, where each object is treated as unique. The data were processed according to the content analysis and documentary analysis. The search for field was developed during the second semester of 2007 in a public school, belonging to the Birigui´s Board Education. The choice of school was based on the low-income school submitted by the managers. The study was designed with students in basic education, seventh series. First the students had been observed in their natural environment, in their classrooms. After that, was proposed to make an autobiography about his relationship with Mathematics. Then the students were interviewed. The action of teach was observe according to the methodology, planning class, evaluation and the relationship between the teachers and students. There were also reviewed the planning education, students notebooks and activities and the teacher´s daily. The gotten data had been treated through the "content analysis" and "documentary analysis". Both subject had been placed in evidences about the importance of the effective relations at the school indicating that this may contribute such for the success as the failure of the pupil causing fear and blockades into a relation with the Mathematics subject. / O trabalho teve como objetivo investigar por que os alunos apresentam defasagem de conhecimento na área de Matemática e verificar se esse fato é decorrente do medo, ou do mito a respeito da disciplina, ou ainda se essas dificuldades estão relacionadas à não aprendizagem de conceitos básicos. A abordagem adotada para realizar a pesquisa foi a qualitativa, do tipo estudo de caso, por investigar um fenômeno contemporâneo dentro de um contexto real, onde cada objeto é considerado como único. A pesquisa de campo foi desenvolvida durante o segundo semestre de 2007 numa escola pública, pertencente à Diretoria de Ensino de Birigui. A escolha da escola foi feita em função do baixo índice de rendimento escolar apresentado pelos alunos apontados pelos professores aos gestores escolares. O estudo foi desenvolvido com alunos das sétimas séries do ensino fundamental. Primeiramente os alunos foram observados em seu ambiente natural de trabalho. A partir daí, foi proposto que fizessem uma autobiografia sobre sua relação com a Matemática. A seguir, os alunos foram entrevistados. A ação docente foi observada em relação ao planejamento, à metodologia, ao relacionamento com os alunos e a avaliação. Foram também analisados o plano de ensino, os cadernos dos alunos e os diários da professora. Os dados obtidos foram tratados mediante análise de conteúdo e análise documental e colocaram em evidência a importância das relações afetivas dentro da escola, porque elas podem contribuir tanto para o sucesso como o fracasso do aluno, ocasionando, muitas vezes, medo e bloqueios em relação à Matemática.

There is a lot of different kind of games which creates many different ways to balance the difficulty of games. This study will look at if damage output from a player is a good variable to scale in order to create a better balance and make the game feel more rewarding overall, based on that a game would be enjoyable if a player feels that it is rewarding to play the game. By letting both inexperienced and avid players test a part of a game with different settings for the damage output to see if the players finds the game to be more rewarding if the difficulty is set to a higher setting (lower damage output). The conclusion is that it is that damage output cannot directly affect how overall rewarding a player finds the game, but can affect other variables that in turn make the game feel more rewarding.