This dissertation examined the extent to which pre-high school students' motivation-related perceptions of their science class affected their science identification, which sequentially affected their future science-related career goals. The MUSIC® Model of Motivation (Jones, 2009, 2018) includes five components (i.e., eMpowerment, Usefulness, Success, Interest, and Caring) and is designed to help teachers design instruction to promote students' motivation. Domain identification (Osborne and Jones, 2011) is a concept closely related to students' motivation and academic outcomes. In this study, data was collected from 311 pre-high school students and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) analysis was conducted to test the structure pattern among the MUSIC model components, science identification, and science-related career goals. Results indicate that with three of the MUSIC model components (i.e., usefulness, success, and interest) significantly related to students' science identification, students' science identification was highly correlated to their science career goals. Moreover, this study demonstrated the structure patterns among the MUSIC model components and science identification varied by gender by conducting multi-group SEM analyses for a separate female sample (N = 161) and male sample (N = 150). Consistently, students' science identification was a strong predictor of their science career goals in both female and male groups. These findings are important for STEM educators because they indicate that it may be possible for teachers to impact students' science identification and career goals by focusing on students' perceptions of the MUSIC model components in science class. Moreover, these results contribute to the study of the large gender gap in STEM careers. Teachers can focus on specific teaching strategies and help female students develop their science identification in ways that lead to their long-term science-related career goals. / Ph. D.

The research was prompted by constant criticism of the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) because of its poor voter registration and voters’ roll. Free and fair elections are the strong arm of democracy. The identified research problem was investigated by means of qualitative research. A thorough literature study from various sources of information, a case file analysis and structured interviews were used to gather the required data. The interviews were conducted with fingerprint experts, a data processor and constituency electoral assistants from the Lesotho Mounted Police Service, the National Identity and Civil Registry at the Ministry of Home Affairs and the IEC respectively. It was found that using fingerprints and the Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS) can assist in investigations and in combating voter’s fraud, as fingerprints are unique. AFIS can be utilised for various purposes by institutions in the private and public sectors. Like any apparatus, AFIS has its own strengths and weaknesses. / Criminology and Security Science / M. Tech. (Forensic investigation)

Vol. [2] comprises 6 reprints of published monographs in box folder; but numbered within the publications submitted listing (90 items), and within the 3 categories identified; at the beginning of vol. 1. Includes bibliographical references. [1]. Publications: The biology of frogs ; Systematics and nomenclature ; The fossil record of frogs -- [2]. Monographs Comprises 90 contributions to the biology and systematics of frogs, with particular emphasis upon those concerning the fauna of Australia and New Guinea. Provides an understanding of the state of knowledge when the author commenced his studies; permitting the extent of his work, an the nature of its significance, to be evaluated.

Vol. [2] comprises 6 reprints of published monographs in box folder; but numbered within the publications submitted listing (90 items), and within the 3 categories identified; at the beginning of vol. 1. / Includes bibliographical references. / 2 v. (various pagings) : / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / Comprises 90 contributions to the biology and systematics of frogs, with particular emphasis upon those concerning the fauna of Australia and New Guinea. Provides an understanding of the state of knowledge when the author commenced his studies; permitting the extent of his work, an the nature of its significance, to be evaluated. / Thesis (D.Sc.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of Environmental Biology, 2002

Background: Respiratory illnesses can have a substantial impact on population health and burden hospitals in terms of patient load. Advance warnings of the spread of such illness could inform public health interventions and help hospitals manage patient services. Previous research showed that calls for respiratory complaints to Telehealth Ontario are correlated up to two weeks in advance with emergency department visits for respiratory illness at the provincial level. Objectives: This thesis examined whether Telehealth Ontario calls for respiratory complaints could be used to accurately forecast the daily and weekly number of emergency department visits for respiratory illness at the health unit level for each of the 36 health units in Ontario up to 14 days in advance in the context of a real-time syndromic surveillance system. The forecasting abilities of three different time series modeling techniques were compared. Methods: The thesis used hospital emergency department visit data from the National Ambulatory Care Reporting System database and Telehealth Ontario call data and from June 1, 2004 to March 31, 2006. Parallel Cascade Identification (PCI), Fast Orthogonal Search (FOS), and Numerical Methods for Subspace State Space System Identification (N4SID) algorithms were used to create prediction models for the daily number of emergency department visits using Telehealth call counts and holiday/weekends as predictors. Prediction models were constructed using the first year of the study data and their accuracy was measured over the second year of data. Factors associated with prediction accuracy were examined. Results: Forecast error varied widely across health units. Prediction error increased with lead time and lower call-to-visits ratio. Compared with N4SID, PCI and FOS had significantly lower forecast error. Forecasts of the weekly aggregate number of visits showed little evidence of ability to accurately flag corresponding actual increases. However, when visits were aggregated over a four day period, increases could be flagged more accurately than chance in six of the 36 health units accounting for approximately half of the Ontario population. Conclusions: This thesis suggests that Telehealth Ontario data collected by a real-time syndromic surveillance system could play a role in forecasting health services demand for respiratory illness. / Thesis (Master, Community Health & Epidemiology) -- Queen's University, 2009-08-11 16:20:44.553

Syfte: Debatten kring revisorers oberoende har pågått länge. Idag är frågan om revisorers oberoende en av de viktigaste frågorna inom redovisning vilket delvis beror på de företagsskandaler som inträffat under senare år. Tidigare studier visar att sociala identifikationer kan utvecklas vid nära relationer vilket både kan ha en positiv och en negativ påverkan på revisorers oberoende. För att utvidga tidigare studier har vi lagt till personlig identifikation för att studera detta på individnivå. Vi har även valt att lägga till en faktor, det karismatiska ledarskapet, för att undersöka om detta påverkar samtliga identifikationer. Studien syftar till att undersöka om klientidentifikation, personlig och professionell identifikation påverkas av ett karismatiskt ledarskap och om dessa identifikationer i sin tur har en påverkan på revisorers oberoende. Metod: Vi har i studien använt oss av enkäter som metod för att samla in primärdata. Data samlades in från auktoriserade och godkända revisorer runtom i Sverige. Insamlad data har sedan bearbetats och analyserats med hjälp av statistikprogrammet SPSS statistics. Resultaten från de statistiska analyserna har sedan redovisats i olika tabeller. Resultat och slutsats: Studiens resultat visade att ett karismatiskt ledarskap har en påverkan på samtliga identifikationer, dock var denna påverkan relativt svag, vilket innebär att det är många andra faktorer som ökar identifikationerna. Vidare visade resultatet att personlig identifikation kan innebära ett större hot mot revisorers oberoende än klientidentifikation. Förslag till fortsatt forskning: För att få mer djup i studien och för att få fram respondenternas egna tankar och åsikter skulle en kvalitativt inriktad studie, med intervjuer som datainsamlingsmetod kunna genomföras. Ytterligare förslag till forskning skulle kunna vara att undersöka andra faktorer som kan tänkas påverka olika identifikationer. Uppsatsens bidrag: Uppsatsen bidrar till fortsatt forskning inom revisorers icke-finansiella beroende, genom att vi undersöker problemet ur ett socialt identitetsperspektiv. Vidare bidrar studien med kunskap om faktorer som påverkar sociala identiteter. / Aim: The debate about the auditor independence has been going on for a long time. Today is the issue of auditor independence one of the most important in accounting which depends on several corporate scandals that have occurred in recent years. Previous studies shows that close relationships explicate social identifications which can have a positive and a negative impact on auditor independence. We have added personal identification in our study at the individual level to expand previous studies. We have also added the charismatic leadership as a factor to investigate whether this affect identifications. The study aims to investigate whether the client identification, personal and professional identification is affected by a charismatic leadership and whether these identifications has an impact on auditor independence. Method: In our study we have used surveys as a method to collect primary data. Data were collected from Swedish authorized and approved auditors. The collected data where then processed and analyzed by the statistical program SPSS statistics. The results of the statistical analyzes are then presented in different tables. Result and conclusions: The results of the study showed that charismatic leadership has an impact on all identifications, however, this effect is relatively weak, which means that there are many other factors that increase these identifications. Furthermore, the result also showed that personal identification can be a greater threat to auditor independence than client identification. Suggestions for future research: To obtain the respondents' own thoughts and opinions, a qualitative focused study with interviews as a data collection method could be implemented. Further implications could be to examine other factors that may affect different identifications. Contribution of the thesis: The study contributes for further research about the auditors' non-financial dependence, in which we examine the problem from a social identity perspective. Furthermore, the study can provide knowledge of the factors that affecting social identities.

Submitted by Anderson Alex De Assis Vieira (anderson.assisvieira@gmail.com) on 2018-03-24T00:54:17Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação_Anderson_Vieira.pdf: 1196919 bytes, checksum: 9899b496a4232f0d1fee002d8747cdd6 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Debora Nunes Ferreira (debora.nunes@fgv.br) on 2018-03-27T19:30:09Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação_Anderson_Vieira.pdf: 1196919 bytes, checksum: 9899b496a4232f0d1fee002d8747cdd6 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Suzane Guimarães (suzane.guimaraes@fgv.br) on 2018-03-28T14:21:03Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação_Anderson_Vieira.pdf: 1196919 bytes, checksum: 9899b496a4232f0d1fee002d8747cdd6 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-03-28T14:21:03Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação_Anderson_Vieira.pdf: 1196919 bytes, checksum: 9899b496a4232f0d1fee002d8747cdd6 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-02-28 / Este trabalho tem como objetivo entender o processo de identificação organizacional dos trainees com as suas empresas por meio da entrevista etnográfica. Utilizando este método de Spradley (1979) através do qual é possível conhecer mais profundamente a identificação destes jovens profissionais com a empresa na qual trabalham, a partir da visão deles. Este método abrange desde o processo de coleta de dados à sua análise. Foram entrevistados 17 trainees de diferentes empresas para alcançar o objetivo proposto. A definição de identificação organizacional utilizada como base é a de Pratt (1988) que a define como o processo pelo qual o indivíduo se autodefine tendo em vista as crenças, objetivos e valores da empresa. Neste trabalho é mostrado todo o processo da identificação trainee-organização, e dele foi possível destacar alguns pontos importantes. Primeiro ponto, as atividades de recrutamento e seleção e a integração do trainee na empresa propiciam uma maior aproximação entre ambos antes dele entrar e no início da sua carreira na companhia, respectivamente. Outro destaque é algo que não é do processo, mas sim uma consequência de o indivíduo estar identificado que é o sentimento de dono, que diz respeito à situação na qual o profissional tende a agir como se ele fosse dono da organização, assumindo mais responsabilidades e fazendo o máximo possível para gerar resultados e para proteger a organização na qual trabalha. Todos estes pontos têm em comum a questão do status do trainee, quando a empresa o torna um profissional diferenciado dos demais, nesse caso ele se sente no dever de justificar este tratamento especial, bem como se sente importante e pode retribuir a organização com atitudes que a beneficiem. Conclui-se que o status do trainee é um fator relevante tanto para o processo de identificação organizacional como para os impactos da identificação organizacional. / This work aims to understand the process of organizational identification of trainees with their companies through ethnographic interview. Using this method by Spradley (1979) through which it is possible to know more deeply the identification of these young professionals with the company in which they work, from the vision of them. This method ranges from the process of data collection to its analysis. We interviewed 17 trainees from different companies to achieve the proposed goal. The definition of organizational identification used as a basis is by Pratt (1988) who defines it as the process by which the individual defines himself in view of the company's beliefs, goals and values. In this work is shown the whole process of trainee-organization identification, and it was possible to highlight some important points. Firstly, the recruitment and selection activities and the integration of them into the company allows a closer approximation between both before it enters and at the beginning of its career in the company, respectively. Another highlight is something that is not of the process, but rather a consequence of the individual being identified is the ownership, which refers to the situation in which the professional tends to act as if he owns the organization, taking on more responsibilities and doing as much as possible to generate results and to protect the organization in which you work. All these points have in common the question of trainee status, when the company makes it a professional differentiated from the others, in this case he feels the duty to justify this special treatment, as well as feels important and can reciprocate the organization with attitudes that the benefit. We conclude that trainee status is a relevant factor both for the organizational identification process and for the impacts of organizational identification.

La méthode d'identification développée dans cette thèse est inspirée des travaux de D. Rémond. On considérera les données d'entrée suivante : la réponse de la structure, qui sera mesurée de manière discrète, et qui dépendra des dimensions de la structure (temps, espace) le modèle de comportement, qui sera exprimé sous forme d'une équation différentielle ou d'une équation aux dérivées partielles, les conditions aux limites ainsi que la source d'excitation seront considérées comme non mesurées, ou inconnues. La procédure d'identification est composée de trois étapes : la projection sur une base polynomiale orthogonale (polynômes de Chebyshev) du signal mesuré, la différentiation du signal mesuré, l'estimation de paramètres, en transformant l'équation de comportement en une équation algébrique. La poutre de Bernoulli a permis d'établir un lien entre l'ordre de troncature de la base polynomiale et le nombre d'ondes contenu dans le signal projeté. Sur un signal bruité, nous avons pu établir une valeur de nombre d'onde et d'ordre de troncature minimum pour assurer une estimation précise du paramètre à identifier. Grâce à l'exemple de la poutre de Timoshenko, nous avons pu réadapter la procédure d'identification à l'estimation de plusieurs paramètres. Trois paramètres dont les valeurs ont des ordres radicalement différents ont été estimés. Cet exemple illustre également la stratégie de régularisation à adopter avec ce type de problèmes. L'estimation de l'amortissement sur une poutre a été réalisée avec succès, que ce soit à l'aide de sa réponse transitoire ou à l'aide du régime établi. Le cas bidimensionnel de la plaque a également été traité. Il a permis d'établir un lien similaire au cas de la poutre de Bernoulli entre le nombre d'onde et l'ordre de troncature. Deux cas d'applications expérimentales ont été traités au cours de cette thèse. Le premier se base sur le modèle de la poutre de Bernoulli, appliqué à la détection de défaut. En effet on applique un procédé d'identification ayant pour hypothèse initiale la continuité de la structure. Dans le cas où celle-ci ne le serait pas on s'attend à observer une valeur aberrante du paramètre reconstruit. Le procédé permet de localiser avec succès le lieu de la discontinuité. Le second cas applicatif vise à reconstruire l'amortissement d'une structure 2D : une plaque libre-libre. On compare les résultats obtenus à l'aide de notre procédé d'identification à ceux obtenus par Ablitzer à l'aide de la méthode RIFF. Les deux méthodes permettent d'obtenir des résultats sensiblement proches. / The purpose of this work is to adapt and improve the continuous time identification method proposed by D. Rémond for continuous structures. D. Rémond clearly separated this identification method into three steps: signal expansion, signal differentiation and parameter estimation. In this study, both expansion and differentiation steps are drastically improved. An original differentiation method is developed and adapted to partial differentiation. The existing identification process is firstly adapted to continuous structure. Then the expansion and differentiation principle are presented. For this identification purpose a novel differentiation model was proposed. The aim of this novel operator was to limit the sensitivity of the method to the tuning parameter (truncation number). The precision enhancement using this novel operator was highlighted through different examples. An interesting property of Chebyshev polynomials was also brought to the fore : the use of an exact discrete expansion with the polynomials Gauss points. The Gauss points permit an accurate identification using a restricted number of sensors, limiting de facto the signal acquisition duration. In order to reduce the noise sensitivity of the method, a regularization step was added. This regularization step, named the instrumental variable, was inspired from the automation domain. The instrumental variable works as a filter. The identified parameter is recursively filtered through the structure model. The final result is the optimal parameter estimation for a given model. Different numerical applications are depicted. A focus is made on different practical particularities, such as the use of the steady-state response, the identification of multiple parameters, etc. The first experimental application is a crack detection on a beam. The second experimental application is the identification of damping on a plate.

For scientific or socio-economic reasons it is often necessary or desirable that biological material be identified. Given that there are an estimated 10 million living organisms on Earth, the identification of biological material can be problematic. Consequently the services of taxonomist specialists are often required. However, if such expertise is not readily available it is necessary to attempt an identification using an alternative method. Some of these alternative methods are unsatisfactory or can lead to a wrong identification. One of the most common problems encountered when identifying specimens is that important diagnostic features are often not easily observed, or may even be completely absent. A number of techniques can be used to try to overcome this problem, one of which, the Self Organizing Map (or SOM), is a particularly appealing technique because of its ability to handle missing data. This thesis explores the use of SOMs as a technique for the identification of indigenous trees of the Acacia species in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. The ability of the SOM technique to perform exploratory data analysis through data clustering is utilized and assessed, as is its usefulness for visualizing the results of the analysis of numerical, multivariate botanical data sets. The SOM’s ability to investigate, discover and interpret relationships within these data sets is examined, and the technique’s ability to identify tree species successfully is tested. These data sets are also tested using the C5 and CN2 classification techniques. Results from both these techniques are compared with the results obtained by using a SOM commercial package. These results indicate that the application of the SOM to the problem of biological identification could provide the start of the long-awaited breakthrough in computerized identification that biologists have eagerly been seeking. / Dissertation (MSc)--University of Pretoria, 2011. / Computer Science / unrestricted

[EN] The possibility of knowing people traits on the basis of what they write is a field of growing interest named author profiling. To infer a user's gender, age, native language or personality traits, simply by analysing her texts, opens a wide range of possibilities from the point of view of forensics, security and marketing. Furthermore, social media proliferation, which allows for new communication models and human relations, strengthens this wide range of possibilities to bounds never seen before. Idiosyncrasy inherent to social media makes them a special environment of communication, where freedom of expression, informality and spontaneous generation of topics and trends, enhances the knowledge of the daily reality of people in their use of language. However, the same idiosyncrasy makes difficult, or extremely costly, the application of linguistic techniques. In this work we have proposed EmoGraph, a graph-based approach with the aim at modelling the way that users express their emotions, and the way they include them in their discourse, bearing in mind not only their frequency of occurrence, but also their position and relationship with other elements in the discourse. Our starting hypothesis is that users express themselves and their emotions differently depending on their age and gender, and besides, we think that this is independent on their language and social media where they write. We have collaborated in the creation of a common framework of evaluation at the PAN Lab of CLEF, generating resources that allowed us to verify our hypothesis achieving comparable and competitive results with the best ones obtained by other researchers on the field. In addition, we have investigated whether the expression of emotions would help to differentiate among users of different varieties of the same language, for example, Spanish from Spain, Mexican and Argentinian, or Portuguese from Portugal and Brazil. Our hypothesis is that the variation among languages is based more on lexical aspects, and we have corroborated it after comparing EmoGraph with representations based on word patterns, distributed representations and a representation that uses the whole vocabulary, but reducing its dimensionality to only 6 features per class, what is suitable for its application to big data environments such as social media. / [ES] La posibilidad de conocer rasgos de una persona a partir únicamente de los textos que escribe se ha convertido en un área de gran interés denominada author profiling. Ser capaz de inferir de un usuario su sexo, edad, idioma nativo o los rasgos de su personalidad, simplemente analizando sus textos, abre todo un abanico de posibilidades desde el punto de vista forense, de la seguridad o del marketing. Además, la proliferación de los medios sociales, que favorece nuevos modelos de comunicación y relación humana, potencia este abanico de posibilidades hasta cotas nunca antes vistas. La idiosincrasia inherente a estos medios sociales hace de ellos un entorno de comunicación especial, donde la libertad de expresión, la informalidad y la generación espontánea de temáticas y tendencias propician el acercamiento a la realidad diaria de las personas en su uso de la lengua. Sin embargo, esa misma idiosincrasia hace que en muchas ocasiones la aplicación de técnicas lingüísticas de análisis no sea posible, o sea extremadamente costoso. En este trabajo hemos propuesto EmoGraph, una representación basada en grafos con el objetivo de modelar el modo en que los usuarios expresan sus emociones, y el modo en que las articulan en el marco de su discurso, teniendo en consideración no sólo su frecuencia, sino también su posición y relación con y respecto a los elementos del mismo. Nuestra hipótesis de partida es que los usuarios se expresan y expresan sus emociones de manera diferente dependiendo de su edad y sexo, y además, pensamos que esto es así independientemente de su idioma y del medio donde escriban. Hemos colaborado en la creación de un marco común de evaluación en el laboratorio PAN del CLEF, generando recursos que nos han permitido verificar nuestra hipótesis y conseguir resultados comparables y competitivos con los mejores resultados obtenidos por los investigadores del área. Además, hemos querido investigar si la expresión de emociones permitiría diferenciar entre hablantes de diferentes variedades de una misma lengua, por ejemplo españoles, mexicanos o argentinos, o portugueses y brasileños. Nuestra hipótesis es que la variación entre lenguas se basa más en aspectos léxicos, y así lo hemos corroborado tras comparar EmoGraph con representaciones basadas en patrones, representaciones distribuidas y una representación que toma en consideración el vocabulario completo, pero reduciendo su dimensionalidad a únicamente 6 características por clase y que se erige idónea para su aplicación en entornos big data como los medios sociales. / [CAT] La possibilitat de conèixer trets d'una persona únicament a partir dels textos que escriu s'ha convertit en una àrea de gran interès anomenada author profiling. Ser capaç d'inferir d'un usuari el sexe, l'edat, l'idioma nadiu o els trets de la seua personalitat tan sols analitzant els seus textos, obre tot un ventall de possibilitats des del punt de vista forense, de la seguretat o del màrketing. A més, la proliferació dels mitjans socials, que afavoreix nous models de comunicació i de relació humana, potencia aquest ventall de possibilitats fins a cotes que no s'han vist fins ara. La idiosincràsia inherent a aquests mitjans socials en fa d'ells un entorn de comunicació especial, on la llibertat d'expressió, la informalitat i la generació espontània de temàtiques i tendències propicien l'aproximació a la realitat diària de les persones en l'ús que fan de la llengua. Tanmateix, aquesta idiosincràsia fa que en moltes ocasions no es puguin aplicar tècniques lingüístiques d'anàlisi, o que fer-ho resulti extremadament costós. En aquest treball hem proposat EmoGraph, una representació basada en grafs que té l'objectiu de modelar la manera en què els usaris expressen les seves emocions, i la manera com les articulen en el marc de llur discurs, considerant-ne no només la freqüència sinó també la posició i la relació amb i respecte als elements del discurs. La nostra hipòtesi de partida és que els usuaris s'expressen i expressen llurs emocions de manera diferent depenent de l'edat i el sexe, i a més, pensem que això és així independentment de l'idioma i del mitjà en què escriguin. Hem col·laborat en la creació d'un marc comú d'avaluació al laboratori PAN del CLEF, generant recursos que ens han permès verificar la nostra hipòtesi i aconseguir resultats comparables i competitius amb els millors resultats obtinguts pels investigadors de l'àrea. A més, hem volgut investigar si l'expressió d'emocions permetria establir diferències enre parlants de diferents varietats d'una mateixa llengua, per exemple espanyols, mexicans o argentins, o portuguesos i brasilers. La nostra hipòtesi és que la variació entre llengües es basa més en aspectes lèxics, i així ho hem corroborat després de comparar EmoGraph amb representacions basades en patrons, representacions distribuïdes i una representació que considera el vocabulari complet, però reduint-ne la dimensionalitat només a 6 característiques per classe i que s'erigeix de manera idònia per a aplicar-la en entorns big data com els mitjans socials. / Rangel Pardo, FM. (2016). Author Profiling en Social Media: Identificación de Edad, Sexo y Variedad del Lenguaje [Tesis doctoral no publicada]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/67270 / TESIS