The communicative approach to language learning is widely taught in Western education, and yet its predecessor, the grammar-translation method, is still commonly employed in other parts of the world. In Sweden, the increasing popularity of the communicative approach is often justified by the high level of students’ communicative skills (Öhman, 2013). At the same time, students’ written texts and speech contain many grammatical errors (Öhman, 2013). Consequently, being aware of their tendency to produce grammatical errors, some students express beliefs regarding both the explicit and implicit learning of grammar (Sawir, 2005; Boroujeni, 2012). The objective of this thesis is to gain more knowledge regarding students’ beliefs concerning the learning of English grammar at the upper secondary level, in Sweden. With this purpose a survey was conducted in two schools in Sweden, where 49 upper-secondary English students participated. Qualitative and quantitative methods were applied to process the collected data. Despite some difference in the participants’ ages, there were many similarities in their attitudes towards the teaching and learning of grammar. The results show that the participants in both schools believe that only by applying both, explicit and implicit methods, can they obtain a high level of language proficiency. The results of this study can help teachers in planning different activities that enhance the students’ knowledge of grammar.

När man lär sig ett nytt språk så är det ytterst viktigt att kunna ha ett brett och varierat ordförråd. Elever somstuderar engelska som andraspråk eller främmandespråk, eller ett annat modern språk, ställs alltid inför kravet attexpandera sitt ordförråd. Uppsatsen ämnar ge en mer allmän klarhet och bringa förståelse för ordinlärningsprocessenoch dessutom undersöka vilken metod, implicit eller explicit, som leder till ett ökat ordförråd. En systematiskforskningsöversikt genomfördes, och totalt ingick 10 empiriska artiklar som analyserades och kategoriseradessystematiskt. Resultatet visade på en variation gällande studiernas slutsatser på viken metod som är effektivast.Däremot visar resultatet klart och tydligt vikten av att inkludera explicit metod i undervisningen för att effektiviseraordinlärningen speciellt vid läsning.

In this paper, an user study will be taken on in order to explore how different types of interaction affect the levels of immersion and experience within interactive film. The two different types of interaction that will be compared in this study are implicit interaction, and explicit interaction. The format of interactive film has not experienced too many changes the last years, and the user could experience a loss of immersion when using the format as it is shaped today. Usually, interactive films interrupt the flow of the narrative in order to give the user the time to make a choice. This makes the immersion get lost, and in some way, even part of the experience. In this paper, implicit interaction will be implemented within interactive film, and it will be tested by several participants from different disciplines. One hypothesis is that the users are more immersed in the narrative when trying out implicit interaction in an interactive film. The results of this paper could be useful for the community of computer entertainment, but also for the field of interaction design since this paper could reveal how users experience implicit interaction and how designers should approach to this type of interaction.

A novel idea for perception of object surfaces is presented by so called "shape descriptors". Such idea is as an abstract level to represent the object surface by some real numbers. It has the similar idea like as the Fourier coefficients of mapping a function f(x) to frequency domain by Fourier transform. The main goal of this thesis is to define some of the key issues in understanding of an object shape and also to find a modeling methodology to create the "shape descriptors". The modeling methodology is designed based on a variational interpolation technique. Such technique is used to generate a group of variational implicit functions with help of radial basis functions. In our modeling methodology, we randomly choose some reference points on a set of related concentric spheres around a 3D point cloud data as known values in variational implicit functions. The "shape descriptors" are found from these implicit functions implementing LU decomposition. We show that the "shape descriptors" are invariant to size and positioning (rotation and translation) changes of a shape and they are also effective tools for matching of two similar objects surfaces.

Context. Simulating realistic fluid behavior in incompressible fluids for computer graphics has been pioneered with the implicit incompressible smoothed particle hydrodynamics (IISPH) solver. The algorithm converges faster than other incompressible SPH-solvers, but real-time performance (in the perspective of video games, 30 frames per second) is still an issue when the particle count increases. Objectives. This thesis aims at improving the performance of the IISPH-solver by proposing a parallel solution that runs on the GPU using CUDA. The solution should not compromise the physical accuracy of the original solution. Investigated aspects are execution time, memory usage and physical accuracy. Methods. The proposed implementation uses a fine-grained approach where each particle is calculated on a separate thread. It is compared to a sequential and a parallel OpenMP implementation running on the CPU. Results and Conclusions. It is shown that the parallel CUDA solution allow for real-time performance for approximately 19 times the amount of particles than that of the sequential implementation. For approximately 175 000 particles the simulation runs at the constraint of real-time performance, more particles are still considered interactive. The visual result of the proposed implementation deviated slightly from the ones on the CPU.

Doctorat en sciences psychologiques / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) is the intentional destruction of bodily tissue in the absence of suicidal motives. NSSI is strongly associated with self-criticism (Gilbert et al., 2010) and individuals who self-injure often report doing so to punish themselves. Conversely, self-compassion, or the tendency to be caring with oneself, is associated with psychological well-being (Neff et al., 2007). The aim of the present study was to determine whether experimentally inducing self-criticism or self-compassion would lead to changes in implicit identification with NSSI. The Self-Injury Implicit Association Test (SI-IAT; Nock & Banaji, 2007) is an assessment of the strength of the automatic associations that a person holds between themselves and NSSI. Participants were randomly assigned to a self-criticism induction, a self-compassion induction, or a neutral condition and completed the SI-IAT before and after the induction. Results showed that participants in the self-criticism induction experienced an increase in their implicit associations with NSSI while implicit associations in the self-compassion and control conditions generally did not change. Results were not significantly different for those with or without a history of NSSI and highlight the importance of self-criticism in NSSI. Future research should examine increases in self-criticism as a potential precursor of NSSI in longitudinal samples.

This study attempts to define more clearly the concepts 'flat character' and 'round character' by examining instances of Sepedi literature. Definitions provided by theorists are in most cases vague and may lead to unsatisfactory interpretations. The best examples in this instance are the definitions provided by Forster - they create problems particularly with references to the concept 'round character'. Forster's definition creates the impression that the difference can be based on the manner of characterization. In this investigation, attention is thus paid to characterization, while it is pointed out that these concepts are not to be confused with the concepts 'antagonist', 'protagonist' and 'tritagonist'. The latter types of characters are classified as structural elements while the former are thematically important. The Sepedi literary works chosen for the purposes of this study represent the four most important prose genres in Sepedi. Tsebe's Noto-ya- Masogana ( 1954) is the representative of the category 'love story'; Kekana's Nnete Fela (1989) is a detective story; Rammala's Lukas Motsheletshele (1963) and Mphahlele's Letsogo Ia Molao (1984) are tragic narratives , while Phatudi concentrates on and describes elements of pathos in his Tladi wa Dikgati (1971 ). The characters in Tsebe and Kekana's narratives are flat. Whereas Tsebe's Lesibana is portrayed as a multidimensional character, Ariel in Kekana's detective story is presented as one - dimensional. According to the definitions of Forster, Lesibana could be classified as a round character and Ariel as a flat character. The problem that surfaces in this instance also becomes manifest in the investigation into Rammala, Mphahlele and Phatudi's works. Rammala's Lukas Motsheletshele and Mphahlele's Faro are multidimensional characters as opposed to Phatudi's Tladi who is onedimensional, yet all of them are round characters. The distinction that can be drawn between the concepts 'flat character' and 'round character' has to do with humaneness. The reader's identification with the flat charater is based on the reader's ability to distinguish between good and evil, while an understanding of and a feeling for fellow human beings determine identification with the round character. The author brings about this identification process by using a variety of literary devices. In this thesis, a great deal of emphasis is placed on the theme of each of the mentioned works and on how this theme determines the character types. The concept of 'identification' is a central issue in this study and has thus been explained in detail. The specific literary devices used by the author to bring about this identification have thus also been carefully investigated and discussed. It was discovered that characterization as such does not determine whether characters are flat or round; instead, this is determined thematically. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2002. / gm2014 / African Languages / unrestricted

Background: Childhood sexual abuse (CSA) has the potential to compromise the socioemotional development of the victim resulting in an increased vulnerability to difficulties regulating emotions and one’s sense of self. Emotion is thought to play a key part in a number of psychological disorders which CSA survivors are at increased risk of developing. A better understanding of the basic emotions experienced in this population and emotion regulation will inform current treatment. Aims: This research aimed to develop a better understanding of the emotions experienced by survivors of CSA and the relationship between “implicit” and explicit emotions and psychopathology. Method: Two empirical studies were conducted. Study 1 employed a cross-sectional consecutive case series design involving 109 survivors of CSA. Participants completed a set of measures relating to basic emotions, emotion regulation and symptoms. Exploratory factor analyses were conducted on the Basic Emotions scale (BES). Regression analyses were used to explore the relationship between emotions experienced, emotion regulation strategies and psychological symptoms. Study 2 examined basic emotions, “implicit disgust self-concept” and psychopathology in a population of CSA survivors (n=26) and a group of individuals currently receiving psychological therapy who reported that they had not experienced childhood trauma (n=25). Participants completed self-report measures pertaining to emotion, emotion regulation, symptoms and cognitive fusion. Participants also completed an implicit association test. Results: Exploratory factor analyses supported the structure of three versions of the BESWeekly, General, and Coping in a sample of survivors of childhood sexual abuse. In all three versions of the scale, disgust explained the largest proportion of variance. The basic emotions of sadness, fear and disgust as well as external dysfunctional coping strategies appear to predict PTSD symptomatology in this sample. The results of Study 2 also support the finding that self-reported disgust is prominent in the emotion profile of CSA survivors. Implicit disgust self-concept was not significantly correlated with other emotions or psychopathology. However, implicit disgust self-concept was found to be significantly associated with cognitive fusion. Discussion: Psychotherapeutic approaches for survivors of childhood sexual abuse should address the emotional experience of this population. In particular, these findings suggest that sadness and disgust should be targeted in therapy.

Patient-specific biomechanical analysis is an important tool used to understand the complex processes that occur in the body due to physical stimulation. Patient-specific models are generated by processing medical images; once an object from the image is identified via segmentation, a point cloud representation of the object is extracted. Generating an analysis suitable representation from the point cloud has traditionally required generating a finite element mesh, which often requires a well defined surface to accomplish. Point clouds lack a well defined geometry, meaning that the surface definition is incomplete at best. Point clouds that have been generated from images have a fuzzy boundary, meaning that no direct sampling of the boundary is guaranteed to exist and any method for completing the geometry definition requires assumptions on the part of the modeler. The process of generating a finite element mesh of the point cloud is difficult and tedious often requiring manual editing to alleviate poorly constructed elements. An alternative to generating a finite element mesh is to use meshfree analysis to solve the boundary value problem. The geometric representation of meshfree analysis is a point cloud, thus making it a natural choice for patient-specific analysis. When using meshfree analysis, it is common to skip the geometric reconstruction and use the point cloud directly as an analysis suitable geometry. The lack of a well defined surface can be problematic for a variety of reasons, namely the visualization of results and solving contact driven problems. The goal of this dissertation is to exploit some characteristics of the meshfree analysis to generate a well defined geometry for point clouds. Meshfree methods are commonly used for the solution of boundary value problems; their lack of a well defined geometry representation is a hindrance that is often remedied by accompanying the meshfree particle distribution with a secondary geometry representation, such as a mesh. The present work outlines a framework that can be used to define and study meshfree geometry representations. A particular meshfree geometry representation called the Meshfree Correction Implicit Geometry is introduced and studied under the guidelines of the framework.