Nationally, as well as at state and local level, 75% of students in Grades 4, 8 and 12 have been determined to be writing at the basic or below basic level. In 2012, the standards were made more stringent for the incorporation of details and adherence to customary English conventions. After that, students’ writing scores plummeted. Hispanic students scored more poorly than their White counterparts. Earlier studies indicated that students’ attitude towards writing becomes less positive as they progress through the grades. The purpose of the study was to examine the effect of extra writing on 60 fourth-grade, Hispanic students’ writing, and their attitude towards writing through participation in a Writers’ Club versus an At Home Writing Group or a group with no extra writing. The study followed a quasi-experimental, pretest-posttest, non-equivalent group design. The groups were the Writers’ Club (n = 22), the At Home Writing Group (n = 18 and no extra writing (n = 20). All students received regular writing instruction and homework. The Writers’ Club met 24 times for 30 minutes each meeting, over an 8-week period. Pretest and posttest writing samples were evaluated using Spandel’s Teacher Six-Point Writing Guide and attitude towards writing was evaluated using Kear, Coffman, McKenna, and Ambrosio’s Writing Attitude Survey. A univariate analysis of covariate was conducted on the pretest and posttest writing samples and responses to the Writing Attitude Survey protocol. The independent variable was group membership, the dependent variable was the posttest scores and the covariate was the pretest scores. The writing samples were examined for three conditions: incorporation of details (ideas), adherence to the conventions of customary English and overall writing skill. The results of the current study showed no significant difference in fourth-grade, Hispanic students’ writing or their attitude towards writing based on group membership. The conclusions of the study are that the results were potentially compromised by a variety of limitations and that it may have been conducted over too short a period for positive effects to be seen. The conclusion is that further research is warranted with adjustments to the setting and the timeframe.

No description available.

Digitalization is taking place at a high rate and is being implemented to a large extent in society, however, the construction industry is showing a digital degree of development that cannot be compared with other technically dependent industries. The construction industry generates large amounts of money and produces a long construction process that also produces high costs and has an impact on the environment. Therefore, there is a need to analyze and investigate how the digital aids that come with an increased degree of digitalization can make the construction industry more efficient. The efficiency improvements are specified in, among other things, the advent of AI and its potential in the construction industry, as well as the opportunities and challenges that the construction industry faces when implementing a digital development. The study is based on a comparison between a literature study and an interview study that covers issues that deal with the digital implementation carried out by the various organizations and companies as well as the future potential that comes with their initiatives. It has emerged that there is a general benefit in conducting digitalization at an organizational level. Whether the newly developed digital funds can be implemented is questioned, considering that there is a complex relationship between the subcontractors and the clients. The services and the way of execution offered by the subcontractors require investments to implement digital means and thus increase the degree of digitalization. The larger parties have the power and economic potential to increase the degree of digitization within the organization or company where the smaller parties must relate to this development. The uneven digitalization degree is made visible today as the power for pricing the procurement lies with the subcontractors in the regionally priced services that have not undergone further digital development. To turn more money into the construction industry, the industry needs to achieve a global competitive procurement as well as the manufacturing industry. For the smaller parties to be able to distinguish their way of working, a unique implementation of digital means is needed and thus be able to relate to the larger parties. What is needed to be able to offer digital services that will be desired in the future. / Digitaliseringen pågår i hög takt och implementeras i samhället i stor grad, dock påvisar byggbranschen en digital utvecklingsgrad som inte kan jämställas med andra tekniskt beroende branscher. Byggbranschen omsätter stora mängder pengar och producerar en lång byggprocess som likaså producerar stora kostnader och har en inverkan på miljön. Det finns därför ett behov av att analysera och utreda hur de digitala hjälpmedlen som tillkommer vid en ökad digitaliseringsgrad kan effektivisera byggbranschen. Effektiviseringen preciseras i bland annat AI:s tillkomst och dess potential inom byggbranschen samt vilka möjligheter och utmaningar som byggbranschen ställs inför vid utförandet av en digital utveckling. Studien grundas i en jämförelse mellan en litteraturstudie och en intervjustudie som omfattar frågor som behandlar den digitala implementering som de olika organisationerna och företagen har bedrivit samt den framtida potential som tillkommer med deras initiativ. Det har framkommit att det finns en allmän nytta i att bedriva en digitalisering på en organisationsnivå. Huruvida de nyligen framtagna digitala medlen kan implementeras ifrågasätts, menat att det finns en komplex relation mellan de upphandlande underentreprenörerna och beställarna. De erbjudna tjänsterna och utförandesättet som underentreprenörerna erbjuder kräver investeringar för att implementera digitala medel och därmed öka digitaliseringsgraden. De större aktörerna har makten och den ekonomiska potentialen för att öka digitaliseringsgraden inom organisationen eller företaget där de mindre aktörerna måste förhålla sig till denna utveckling. Den ojämna digitaliseringsgraden synliggörs idag då makten för prissättningen av upphandlingen ligger hos underentreprenörerna i de regionalt prissatta tjänsterna som inte undergått en vidare digital utveckling. För att omsätta mer pengar i byggbranschen behöver branschen uppnå en globalt konkurrensmässig upphandling liksom tillverkningsindustrin, vilket anses tillkomma med en mer produktbaserad upphandling. För att de mindre aktörerna ska kunna särskilja sitt arbetssätt krävs en unik implementering av digitala medel och på sätt kunna förhålla sig till de större aktörerna, vilket behövs för att kunna erbjuda digitala tjänster som kommer vara eftertraktade i framtiden.

No description available.

The famous Black-Scholes partial differential equation is one of the most widely used and researched equations in modern financial engineering to address the complex evaluations in the financial markets. This thesis investigates a numerical technique, using a fourth-order discretization in time and space, to solve a generalized version of the classical Black-Scholes partial differential equation. The numerical discretization in space consists of a fourth order centered difference approximation in the interior points of the spatial domain along with a fourth order left and right sided approximation for the points near the boundary. On the other hand, the temporal discretization is made by implementing a Runge-Kutta order four (RK4) method. The designed approximations are analyzed numerically with respect to stability and convergence properties.

Cette thèse concerne l'étude de certains problèmes elliptiques d'ordre 4 et, notamment, des propriétés qualitatives des solutions. Ces problèmes apparaissent dans de nombreux domaines, par exemple dans la théorie des plaques et dans la géométrie conforme, et, comparés à leurs homologues du deuxième ordre, ils présentent des difficultés intrinsèques, surtout liées à l'absence de principe de maximum. Premièrement on étudie la positivité des solutions dans le cas des conditions au bord de Steklov, qui sont intermédiaires entre les conditions de Dirichlet et de Navier. Elles apparaissent naturellement dans l'étude des minimiseurs de la fonctionnelle de Kirchhoff-Love, qui représente l'énergie d'une plaque encastrée soumise à l'action d'une force extérieure, en fonction d'un paramètre $\sigma$. On trouve des conditions suffisantes sur le domaine pour que les minimiseurs de la fonctionnelle soient positifs. De plus, pour ces domaines on étudie une version généralisée de la fonctionnelle. En utilisant des techniques variationnelles, on examine l'existence et la positivité des états fondamentaux, ainsi que leur comportement asymptotique pour les valeurs pertinentes de $\sigma$. Dans la deuxième partie de la thèse on établit des estimations uniformes a priori pour des problèmes semi linéaires du quatrième ordre dans $\mathbb R^4$, et donc avec des non linéarités exponentielles. On considère des conditions au bord soit de Dirichlet soit de Navier et on suppose que les non linéarités sont positives et sous-critiques. Nos arguments combinent des estimations uniformes près du bord et une analyse de blow-up. Enfin, en utilisant la théorie du degré, on obtient l'existence d'une solution. / This thesis concerns the study of fourth-order elliptic boundary value problems and, in particular, qualitative properties of solutions. Such problems arise in various fields, from plate theory to conformal geometry and, compared to their second-order counterparts, they present intrinsic difficulties, mainly due to the lack of the maximum principle. In the first part of the thesis, we study the positivity of solutions in case of Steklov boundary conditions, which are intermediate between Dirichlet and Navier boundary conditions. They naturally appear in the study of the minimizers of the Kirchhoff-Love functional, which represents the energy of a hinged thin and loaded plate in dependence of a parameter $\sigma$. We establish sufficient conditions on the domain to obtain the positivity of the minimizers of the functional. Then, for such domains, we study a generalized version of the functional. Using variational techniques, we investigate existence and positivity of the ground states, as well as their asymptotic behaviour for the relevant values of $\sigma$. In the second part of the thesis we establish uniform a-priori bounds for a class of fourth-order semi linear problems in $\mathbb R^4$, and thus with exponential non linearities. We considered both Dirichlet and Navier boundary conditions and we suppose our non linearities positive and subcritical. Our arguments combine uniform estimates near the boundary and a blow-up analysis. Finally, by means of the degree theory, we obtain the existence of a positive solution.

Background: Old-old age (80+ years) is associated with substantial cognitive decline. In this population, training-induced cognitive plasticity has rarely been studied. While earlier findings on strategy trainings suggested reduced training gains in old-old age, recent results of an extensive process-based working memory (WM) training have been more positive. Objective: Following up on previous research, the present study aimed at examining the effects of a short WM training in old-old adults and the influence of baseline WM capacity on training gains. Methods: A training group (mean age: 86.8 years) and a matched control group (mean age: 87.1 years) participated in the study. The WM training consisted of five tasks that were trained in each of 10 sessions. To evaluate possible transfer effects, executive functions were assessed with two tests before and after training. The training group was divided via median split in high- and low-capacity individuals to determine the influence of baseline WM capacity on training gains. Results: The training group improved in four of the trained tasks (medium-to-large effects). Training gains were significantly larger in the training group than in the control group in only two of those tasks. The training effects were mainly driven by the low-capacity individuals who improved in all trained tasks. No transfer effects were observed. Conclusions: These positive effects of a short WM training, particularly for low-capacity individuals, emphasize the potential for cognitive plasticity in old-old age. The absence of transfer effects may also point to its limits. / Dieser Beitrag ist mit Zustimmung des Rechteinhabers aufgrund einer (DFG-geförderten) Allianz- bzw. Nationallizenz frei zugänglich.

The purpose of this study is to analyze and compare the connection between pictures and text in three textbooks, in english, in the expectation to reach a didactic perspective that can facilitate in working with texts with students, in fourth grade.  How well do pictures and text correspond with each other in three textbooks that have been chosen for the fourth grade, in english?  What are the differences and similarities between the three textbooks seen from a multimodal perspecive? The result showed that there was an interaction between the different types of text types and the images, in all three textbooks. The heading of each chapter is a clue to what the content of the text will be about. The images are well connected to the text and they also reenforce the content of the text. This connection between the pictures used in the chapter and the text can help readers better understand the content of the text.

No description available.

Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) was used to measure Indonesian fourth grade elementary school students’ reading comprehension in 2006 and 2011. Indonesian students scored among the lowest of the participating countries with a score of 405 in 2006 and 428 in 2011, with the PIRLS average scale score being 500. These results raised questions about the alignment of the Indonesian curriculum with PIRLS. Alignment research between the PIRLS 2021 frameworks and the Curr13 language standards and textbooks (the current Indonesian curriculum) was conducted to provide Kemendikbud (Indonesian Ministry of Education and Culture) with a prediction of students’ performance in future PIRLS. The alignment research was mixed methods research with an exploratory sequential design (a three-phase design). The first phase was qualitative data collection and analysis. Alignment instruments were developed using the components of Webb, NAEP ESSI, and HumRRO alignment models. The second phase identified features to be tested, where I revised the alignment instruments, guidelines, and codebook based on the first phase and created a new table. The revised instruments were then used to align Curr13 and PIRLS. The third phase was quantitative calculation using Webb's quantitative criteria (categorical concurrence, depth-of-knowledge consistency [DOK], range-of-knowledge correspondence, and balance of representation) and descriptive statistics. After the three phases, the interpretation used both the qualitative and quantitative data. The results found inconsistencies between Curr13 and PIRLS frameworks. There was no categorical concurrence between PIRLS frameworks and Curr13 unit assessments. Curr13 language standards and unit assessments did not include one PIRLS framework, evaluating and critiquing content and textual elements. This resulted in the absence of DOK for this framework. One PIRLS framework mostly covered by Curr13 language standards and unit assessments was interpreting and integrating ideas and information. DOK and balance of representation were achieved in this framework. Two PIRLS frameworks on comprehension processes (focusing on and retrieving explicitly stated information and making straightforward inferences) aligned to Curr13 and had a balance of representation but weak DOK. Meanwhile, Curr13 unit resources mostly aligned to one of two reading purposes in the PIRLS framework, acquiring and using information, but was weakly aligned with the other one, literary experience. The implication of research findings was to support Kemendikbud in predicting students’ performance in future PIRLS participation by examining the inconsistencies between Curr13 and PIRLS. Recommendations were provided for the elementary school teachers, students, parents, publishers, policymakers, local governments, and other elementary school stakeholders to be familiar with and understand PIRLS. The role of AKSI should also be maximized. In addition, the concept and practice of curriculum alignment should be introduced and enacted into the educational system in Indonesia.