This essay aims to investigate theoretically how two currently used coursebooks, What’s Up 9 and Solid Gold 1, in a local area of Southern Sweden, present (introduces and covers) grammar. The overall aim is to investigate how grammar is presented, using the present simple and the present continuous as examples. The findings are also mapped to teaching approaches, as well as SLA (Second Language Acquisition) research, to see what approaches are favoured for teaching grammar in the first decades of the 21st century. In order to investigate the course- books, a qualitative content analysis and conceptual analysis was chosen with the presentation of grammar mapped into different categories, by using concepts for teaching and approaches used in SLA. The results show that the two proposed coursebooks favoured a FoFs (Focus on Forms) approach for presenting grammar. Furthermore, the results show that grammar is pre- sented explicitly and, if the teachers use the structures proposed in the coursebook rigidly, they automatically follow a deductive teaching procedure. When using a FoFs, explicit instructions and taking a deductive teaching approach, it may be regarded as the coursebooks suggest a grammar-translation approach as well. However, when observing other exercises connected to the reading texts in the coursebooks, it was detected that both coursebooks favoured a text- based approach for teaching, where the learners are supposed to learn the structure of different texts. In doing so, the grammatical structures are learned subconsciously and implicitly, which indicates that grammar is, in general, taught implicitly in the coursebooks, but presented (intro- duced and covered) explicitly.

Satellites provide humanity with data to infer properties of the earth that were impossible a century ago. Humanity can now easily monitor the amount of ice found on the polar caps, the size of forests and deserts, the earth’s atmosphere, the seasonal variation on land and in the oceans and the surface temperature of the earth. In this thesis, new hypertemporal techniques are proposed for the settlement detection problem in South Africa. The hypertemporal techniques are applied to study areas in the Gauteng and Limpopo provinces of South Africa. To be more specific, new sequential (windowless) and non-sequential hypertemporal techniques are implemented. The time-series employed by the new hypertemporal techniques are obtained from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) sensor, which is on board the earth observations satellites Aqua and Terra. One MODIS dataset is constructed for each province. A Support Vector Machine (SVM) [1] that uses a novel noise-harmonic feature set is implemented to detect existing human settlements. The noise-harmonic feature set is a non-sequential hypertemporal feature set and is constructed by using the Coloured Simple Harmonic Oscillator (CSHO) [2]. The CSHO consists of a Simple Harmonic Oscillator (SHO) [3], which is superimposed on the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process [4]. The noise-harmonic feature set is an extension of the classic harmonic feature set [5]. The classic harmonic feature set consists of a mean and a seasonal component. For the case studies in this thesis, it is observed that the noise-harmonic feature set not only extends the harmonic feature set, but also improves on its classification capability. The Cumulative Sum (CUSUM) algorithm was developed by Page in 1954 [6]. In its original form it is a sequential (windowless) hypertemporal change detection technique. Windowed versions of the algorithm have been applied in a remote sensing context. In this thesis CUSUM is used in its original form to detect settlement expansion in South Africa and is benchmarked against the classic band differencing change detection approach of Lunetta et al., which was developed in 2006 [7]. In the case of the Gauteng study area, the CUSUM algorithm outperformed the band differencing technique. The exact opposite behaviour was seen in the case of the Limpopo dataset. Sequential hypertemporal techniques are data-intensive and an inductive MODIS simulator was therefore also developed (to augment datasets). The proposed simulator is also based on the CSHO. Two case studies showed that the proposed inductive simulator accurately replicates the temporal dynamics and spectral dependencies found in MODIS data. / Thesis (PhD(Eng))--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering / unrestricted

Magnetisch-induktive Techniken finden seit langer Zeit viele Anwendungsfelder in der Medizin, Sicherheitstechnik und der Industrie. Obwohl die technischen Grundlagen seit vielen Jahrzehnten bekannt sind, werden auf Basis detaillierter Analysen spezielle Lösungsansätze verfolgt, die neuartiges Anwendungspotential erschließen sollen. Dazu dienen verbesserte Werkzeuge wie Computersimulationen und analytische Berechnungen sowie neu kombinierte Methoden und Aufbauten aus Leistungselektronik und Signaldetektion. Die Vorteile magnetisch-induktiver Techniken sind dabei u.a., dass sie das Prüfobjekt nicht schädigen, berührungslos arbeiten, robust gegenüber Verschmutzungen und einfach im Aufbau sind. Ein Nachteil dieser Technik ist die unzureichende Auflösung von feinen Strukturen. In der aktuellen Forschung und Entwicklung werden unterschiedliche Spulenanordnungen zur Anwendung in industriellen und medizinischen Fragestellungen untersucht und optimiert. Thema dieser Arbeit ist es, durch Verbesserung der Spuleneigenschaften, neue Anwendungsbereiche für die zerstörungsfreie Materialprüfung zu erschließen. Es wird eine Methode vorgestellt, die Eigenschaften magnetisch-induktiver Tastspulen zu verbessern und so den Aufwand bei der Signalverarbeitung zur Rekonstruktion im Rechner zu reduzieren sowie die Auflösung zu erhöhen. Dazu werden zwei Spulenanordnungen, Transmissions - Tastspulen und Gradiometer - Tastspulen, vergleichend gegenübergestellt und ihre technischen Grenzen aufgezeigt. / Magneto-inductive techniques are found in many fields of application areas so in medicine, security technology and industry. Although the technical basis has been known for many decades, special solutions are pursued on the basis of detailed analysis that should open new application potential. These are enhanced tools such as computer simulations, analytical calculations, new combined methods and structures of power electronics and signal detection. The advantages of magneto-inductive techniques are that they do not damage the test object, are contactless, robust against dirt and simple in construction. A disadvantage of this technique is the insufficient resolution of fine structures. In current research and development different coil assemblies are investigated in industrial and medical applications. The aim of this work is to improve the coil properties by changing geometric constructions and current patterns of the coils, in order to allow a sharper localization of objects in space and to tap new application areas for non-destructive testing. A method to improve the properties of magneto-inductive coils and thus to reduce the effort in signal processing and image reconstruction as well as to increase the resolution is presented. Two different coil assemblies, gradiometer – coils and transmission – coils, are compared and their technical limits shown.

With the advent of the Semantic Web and Semantic Technologies, ontologies have become one of the most prominent paradigms for knowledge representation and reasoning. The popular ontology language OWL, based on description logics, became a W3C recommendation in 2004 and a standard for modelling ontologies on the Web. In the meantime, many studies and applications using OWL have been reported in research and industrial environments, many of which go beyond Internet usage and employ the power of ontological modelling in other fields such as biology, medicine, software engineering, knowledge management, and cognitive systems. However, recent progress in the field faces a lack of well-structured ontologies with large amounts of instance data due to the fact that engineering such ontologies requires a considerable investment of resources. Nowadays, knowledge bases often provide large volumes of data without sophisticated schemata. Hence, methods for automated schema acquisition and maintenance are sought. Schema acquisition is closely related to solving typical classification problems in machine learning, e.g. the detection of chemical compounds causing cancer. In this work, we investigate both, the underlying machine learning techniques and their application to knowledge acquisition in the Semantic Web. In order to leverage machine-learning approaches for solving these tasks, it is required to develop methods and tools for learning concepts in description logics or, equivalently, class expressions in OWL. In this thesis, it is shown that methods from Inductive Logic Programming (ILP) are applicable to learning in description logic knowledge bases. The results provide foundations for the semi-automatic creation and maintenance of OWL ontologies, in particular in cases when extensional information (i.e. facts, instance data) is abundantly available, while corresponding intensional information (schema) is missing or not expressive enough to allow powerful reasoning over the ontology in a useful way. Such situations often occur when extracting knowledge from different sources, e.g. databases, or in collaborative knowledge engineering scenarios, e.g. using semantic wikis. It can be argued that being able to learn OWL class expressions is a step towards enriching OWL knowledge bases in order to enable powerful reasoning, consistency checking, and improved querying possibilities. In particular, plugins for OWL ontology editors based on learning methods are developed and evaluated in this work. The developed algorithms are not restricted to ontology engineering and can handle other learning problems. Indeed, they lend themselves to generic use in machine learning in the same way as ILP systems do. The main difference, however, is the employed knowledge representation paradigm: ILP traditionally uses logic programs for knowledge representation, whereas this work rests on description logics and OWL. This difference is crucial when considering Semantic Web applications as target use cases, as such applications hinge centrally on the chosen knowledge representation format for knowledge interchange and integration. The work in this thesis can be understood as a broadening of the scope of research and applications of ILP methods. This goal is particularly important since the number of OWL-based systems is already increasing rapidly and can be expected to grow further in the future. The thesis starts by establishing the necessary theoretical basis and continues with the specification of algorithms. It also contains their evaluation and, finally, presents a number of application scenarios. The research contributions of this work are threefold: The first contribution is a complete analysis of desirable properties of refinement operators in description logics. Refinement operators are used to traverse the target search space and are, therefore, a crucial element in many learning algorithms. Their properties (completeness, weak completeness, properness, redundancy, infinity, minimality) indicate whether a refinement operator is suitable for being employed in a learning algorithm. The key research question is which of those properties can be combined. It is shown that there is no ideal, i.e. complete, proper, and finite, refinement operator for expressive description logics, which indicates that learning in description logics is a challenging machine learning task. A number of other new results for different property combinations are also proven. The need for these investigations has already been expressed in several articles prior to this PhD work. The theoretical limitations, which were shown as a result of these investigations, provide clear criteria for the design of refinement operators. In the analysis, as few assumptions as possible were made regarding the used description language. The second contribution is the development of two refinement operators. The first operator supports a wide range of concept constructors and it is shown that it is complete and can be extended to a proper operator. It is the most expressive operator designed for a description language so far. The second operator uses the light-weight language EL and is weakly complete, proper, and finite. It is straightforward to extend it to an ideal operator, if required. It is the first published ideal refinement operator in description logics. While the two operators differ a lot in their technical details, they both use background knowledge efficiently. The third contribution is the actual learning algorithms using the introduced operators. New redundancy elimination and infinity-handling techniques are introduced in these algorithms. According to the evaluation, the algorithms produce very readable solutions, while their accuracy is competitive with the state-of-the-art in machine learning. Several optimisations for achieving scalability of the introduced algorithms are described, including a knowledge base fragment selection approach, a dedicated reasoning procedure, and a stochastic coverage computation approach. The research contributions are evaluated on benchmark problems and in use cases. Standard statistical measurements such as cross validation and significance tests show that the approaches are very competitive. Furthermore, the ontology engineering case study provides evidence that the described algorithms can solve the target problems in practice. A major outcome of the doctoral work is the DL-Learner framework. It provides the source code for all algorithms and examples as open-source and has been incorporated in other projects.

The purpose of this work is to examine the teaching methods secondary and upper secondary teachers apply to teach grammar in the EFL classroom, as well as their perceptions about the benefits of having grammar knowledge and its benefits to students’ writing. Previous research reveals that grammar teaching is an integral part of language teaching; explicit and implicit methods along with deductive and inductive instruction are the main practices teachers use to transfer knowledge to their students. Apart from that, it is beneficial when teachers have good grammarknowledge; hence students can develop good metalinguistic awareness and writing ability. The theoretical framework is based on teacher cognition theory, as teachers’ personal experiences and knowledge affect their decisions about grammar practices in the classroom environment. A qualitative analysis of semi-structured interviews with six secondary and upper secondary teachers who teach English as a foreign language in different schools and municipalities in the whole of Sweden are used to conduct the current study. The results demonstrate that indeed grammar teaching is needed to teach a new language. However, factors such as age and type of groupinfluence teachers’ decisions. Above all else, teachers’ highest goal is to help students become good language users. / Syftet med detta arbete är att undersöka de undervisningsmetoder högstadie- och gymnasielärare tillämpar för att undervisa i grammatik i EFL-klassrummet, samt deras uppfattningar om fördelarna med att ha grammatikkunskap och dess fördelar för elevernas skriftliga förmåga. Tidigare forskning visar att grammatikundervisning är en integrerad del av språkundervisningen; de explicita och implicita metoderna tillsammans med deduktiv och induktiv undervisning är de huvudsakliga metoder som lärare använder för att överföra kunskap till sina elever. Bortsett från det är det fördelaktigt när lärare har goda grammatiska kunskaper; därför kan eleverna utveckla en god metaspråklig medvetenhet och skriftlig förmåga i målspråket. Det teoretiska ramverket bygger på lärarkognitionsteori, eftersom lärares personliga erfarenheter och kunskaper påverkar deras beslut om grammatikpraxis i klassrumsmiljön. En kvalitativ analys av semistrukturerade intervjuer med sex högstadie- och gymnasielärare som undervisar i engelska som främmande språk i olika skolor och kommuner i hela Sverige har använts för att genomföra den aktuella studien. Resultaten visar att det verkligen behövs grammatikundervisning för att undervisa ett nytt språk. Faktorer som ålder och typ av grupp påverkar dock lärares beslut. Framför allt annat är lärares högsta mål att hjälpa eleverna att bli bra språkanvändare.

Programmering tog 2018 ett stort kliv in matematikundervisningen och det är upp till varjeenskild lärare att besluta hur programmering ska integreras i matematikundervisningen. Detvar med denna bakgrund som Tekniskt basår på KTH Campus önskade utvecklaprogrammeringslaborationer till studenter på Tekniskt basår 2018/2019. Uppdragetformulerades sedan om till att vi, istället, skulle leda ett fristående introduktionsmoment iprogrammering för nuvarande Tekniskt basårsstudenter (VT2019).Syftet med detta examensarbete var att kartlägga svårigheter som tidigare Teknisktbasårsstudenter haft då de läste sin första programmeringskurs på ett ingenjörsprogram. Defunna svårigheterna skulle sedan ligga till grund för ett introduktionsmoment för nuvarandestudenter på Tekniskt basår. En enkätundersökning på tidigare studenter utfördes för attsamla in data för att identifiera svårigheterna som sedan kategoriserades genom en tematiskanalys. Introduktionsmomentet skapades med mindre uppgifter utifrån idéer frånproblembaserat och induktivt lärande.Resultatet pekar på sju teman av svårigheter, nämligen abstrakt, komplext, teori,arbetssättet, kursen, nytt och övriga svårigheter. Resultaten av svårigheterna liknar det somtidigare kartläggningar av programmeringssvårigheter har funnit. Ett förslag på ett induktivtintroduktionsmoment influerat av problembaserat lärande presenteras och analyseras utifrånde funna svårigheterna.Vidare forskning skulle kunna följa upp om studenterna upplevde att svårigheterna blevavdramatiserade genom introduktionsmomentet samt utvärdera hur introduktionsmomentetkan tas vidare på Tekniskt basår. / In 2018, programming became an integral part of mathematics education in Sweden. However, the choice of how to integrate it with the curriculum remains a decision of the teacher. Consequently, teachers at KTH’s Technical Preparatory Year announced a master’s degree project aiming to design programming labs in mathematics for students attending the program during 2018/2019. The degree project was reformulated to focus on introducing programming without the mathematical context. The aim of this master thesis was to pinpoint earlier students’ difficulties during theintroductory course in programming of their engineering program at KTH. These difficulties would later be the basis of the programming introduction for the current Technical Preparatory Year students. A review of the research literature on the learning of programming identified a number of common areas of concern. In order to collect data to identify our prior students’ difficulties a survey was designed. The data collected in the survey was then categorized through a thematic analysis.The results indicated seven themes of difficulties: abstract, complex, theory, work procedure, programming courses, new and miscellaneous. The results are similar to those found in prior categorizations of programming difficulties. Taking these themes into consideration, a suggestion of the content for the introduction was presented based on ideas from inductive learning and problem based learning. Future research should focus on determining whether the introduction dealt with the difficulties and what the effects were. Furthermore, future research could develop the material for the introduction, in particular how students are assessed.

Syftet med denna studie var att undersöka hur rekryterare upplever positiv och negativ stereotypisering gentemot kandidater inom kompetensbaserad rekrytering. Studienbaserades på kvalitativa intervjuer med rekryterare som arbetar, eller har arbetat, inom kompetensbaserad rekrytering. Data analyserades genom induktiv tematisk analys. Resultatet visade att rekryterare upplevde att chefer och kollegor haft betydelse när det kom till stereotypisering, men att även rekryterarens egna tankar spelat in. Det framkom även ett antal olika faktorer kring stereotypisering gentemot kandidater, som rekryterare upplevde. Dessa faktorer var främst konfirmeringsbias, extraversion, ålder, kön och etnicitet. För att undvika stereotypisering ansåg respondenterna i denna studie att ett tydliggjort rekryteringsramverk samt kunskap om kompetensbaserad rekrytering var viktigt. Respondenterna ansåg också att digitala hjälpmedel samt personlighets- och problemlösningstester var bra metoder för att minska risken för stereotypisering.Praktiska aspekter och förslag till fortsatt forskning diskuteras även i denna studie. / The aim of this study was to investigate how recruiters experience positive and negative stereotyping towards candidates within competency-based recruitment. The study was based on qualitative interviews with recruiters who work, or have worked, withincompetency-based recruitment. Data was analysed by an inductive thematic analysis. The result indicated that recruiters experienced that leaders and colleagues wereimportant when it came to stereotyping, but that the recruiter's own thoughts also wereimportant. A number of different factors regarding stereotyping towards candidates, that recruiters experienced, also emerged. These factors were mainly confirmation bias, extraversion, age, gender and ethnicity. In order to avoid stereotyping, the participants in this study believed that a clarified recruitment framework as well as knowledge, education and experience in competency-based recruitment was important. The participants also considered that digital aids and personality and problem-solving tests were good methods to reduce the risk of stereotyping. Practical aspects and suggestions for further research are also discussed in this study.

Background: The care for the older adults is facing major challenges with the growing proportion of older people. This entails a need to find new ways to cope with the tasks of elderly care, and digitalization is seen as part of the solution. In order to succeed with digitalizing, the first-line managers in elderly care needs knowledge of change management and digitalization. That knowledge needs to be obtained via educational efforts. Aim: The aim of the study was to examine the experiences of first-line managers within elderly care after they recieved training in change management and digitalization. The aim was further to examine their perspectives on the influencing factors when it comes to leading change management in digitalization. Method: The method was a qualitative interview study with an inductive research approach and the sample consisted of first-line managers within elderly care in a medium-sized Swedish municipality. Semi-structured interviews were conducted which were analyzed by qualitative inductive content analysis.  Results: Four main categories emerged; perspectives on implemented educational efforts; identified potential, barriers and needs in change management and digitalization; responsibilities and roles in change management and digitalization; and perspectives on care users when using health and welfare technology. Potential and barriers included assent from management, cooperation between colleagues, influence of the first-line managers' level of interest, resources, goals and strategies. It also included prioritization of daily operations, employee needs, resistance and information about purpose, implementation process and technology. In order for the first-line managers in elderly care to achieve the expected benefit with training on change management and digitalization, the expectations needs to be well defined. Conclusion: Educational efforts in change management and digitalization alone are not enough to achieve a successful implementation of health and welfare technology in municipal care for the elderly. Digitalization is an ongoing process of changes and the first-line managers can-not do it by themselves. The preferred practice is to be able to create the conditions for interested employees to drive the work of digitalization within their respective operation.

[pt] Esta dissertação tem por objetivo apresentar os resultados da pesquisa de mestrado em que se procurou evidenciar algumas características da relação de David Hume com a indução. Segundo a interpretação corrente, Hume é o responsável por mostrar que nossa razão não é capaz de justificar qualquer um de nossos raciocínios indutivos. O problema de Hume também se caracteriza por ser um problema acerca da racionalidade da ciência, pois se seu método principal, a indução, não pode receber suporte racional, parece lícito afirmar que o resultado de uma inferência indutiva é irracional. A fim de delinear o campo exato em que se insere a crítica humeana, este texto irá mostrar como Hume apresenta suas teorias acerca do raciocínio causal em seu Tratado da natureza humana, traçar as características exatas do raciocínio causal de Hume e confrontá-las com as formas de interpretação presentes em alguns de seus principais comentadores. Procuramos tornar claras as falhas apresentadas nestas interpretações. Em seguida trataremos de discutir algumas das mais celebradas interpretações da filosofia de Hume, centrando nossa análise nos textos de Mackie, Beauchamp e Mappes. O capítulo final tem por objetivo mostrar as características racionais que podem ser atribuídas aos raciocínios causais humeanos, salientando o caráter particular de suas inferências. Finalizando, mostraremos como a origem do princípio da cópia pode ser um exemplo do uso de inferências indutivas por parte de Hume, o que nos leva a considerações heterodoxas a respeito de sua visão a respeito da racionalidade. / [en] The aim of this work is to present the results of my master´s degree research, which tried to show some of the characteristics of David Hume´s approach to induction. According to the standard interpretation, Hume is responsible for showing that our reason is not able to justify any of our inductive reasonings. Hume´s problem also characterizes itself by being a problem about the rationality of science, for, since his main method, induction, cannot receive a rational foundation, it seems licit to assert that the result of any inductive inference is irrational. In order to precisely describe the Humean criticism I am going to show how Hume presents his theories concerning causal reasoning in this A Treatise of Human Nature, define the exact characteristics of causal reasoning according to him, and compare this analysis to those by some of his main critics. We shall try to bring to light the proposed inadequacy of the latter. Next we will discuss some of the most celebrated interpretations of Hume´s philosophy, specially those by of Mackie, Beauchamp and Mappes. The final chapter aims at showing the rational characteristics that can be assigned to Humean causal reasoning emphasizing the particular character of his inferences. Finally, we show how the origin of the copy principle can be an instance of the use of inductive inferences by Hume, which allows us to risk some heterodox hypotheses concerning his view of rationality.

Purpose: The purpose of this research was to study the interplay between middle managers (MMs) and front-line managers (FLMs) in strategy implementation (SI). To successfully manage and run a complex technology corporation a well-performed strategy is essential. By comparing MMs’ and FLMs’ different views and responsibilities in the SI process, both theoretical and empirical. Methodology: Theoretical material regarding leadership, middle and front-line manager roles and responsibilities, as well the strategy implementation process, obstacles and success factors are compared in the study. Supplemented by a general pilot study and primary interviews covering their view of the SI-process, obstacles and leverages, leadership, and their roles description. In total, ten pilot interviews and 12 primary interviews have been conducted, with MMs and FLMs, equally represented. Findings: In large, the main findings regarding the creation of a dynamic interplay between MMs and FLMs were three identified key attributes. Firstly, success in the SI process and constructive dynamic require a clear distribution of tasks and responsibilities between MMs and FLMs or the key responsibilities in the process. Secondly, select key people for the SI process, picked from different levels in the organization with different viewpoint and expertise. Making sure that there are total transparency and knowledge sharing between all key members and organizational levels. This will enable a greater involvement and commitment in the SI-process. Finally, to create a successful SI-process and a dynamic interplay between MMs and FLMs, strategic work must be rewarded equally compared to operational excellence and product-development efforts. / Syfte: Syftet med denna studie var att få en förståelse för samspelet mellan Mellanchefer (MM) och Linjechefer (FLM) vid genomförandet av en strategiimplementering (SI). För att lyckas kontrollera och driva en komplex teknikorganisation är en väl genomförd strategi essentiell. Detta gjordes genom att jämföra MMs och FLMs olika syn och ansvarsområden i SI-processen, både teoretisk och empirisk. Metodik: Det teoretiska materialet som har jämförts i studien inkluderar ledarskap, Mellanchefers och Linjechefens roller och ansvar, samt strategiimplementeringsprocessens hinder och framgångsfaktorer. Detta kompletterades med en övergripande pilotstudie och med primära intervjuer som visade på MMs and FLMs respektive syn på hinder, hävstänger och ledarskap under SI-processen samt deras syn på sin roll. Sammantaget hölls 10 pilotintervjuer och 12 primära intervjuer, där mellanchefer och linjechefer var lika representerade. Resultat: Rapporten konkluderar tre viktiga attribut för skapandet av ett dynamiskt samspel mellan mellanchefer och linjecheferna. För det första, krävs en tydlig fördelning av uppgifter och ansvar mellan MMs och FLMs alternativt mellan de nyckelpersonerna som är inblandade och ansvarig i processen. För det andra, är det viktigt att välja rätt nyckelpersoner i SI-processen och att plocka dessa från olika nivåer i organisationen då de besitter olika erfarenheter. Viktigt är att skapa en total transparens och kunskapsöverföring mellan alla nyckelpersoner i processen samt mellan de olika organisatoriska nivåerna. Detta kommer att resultera i ett större engagemang och en känsla av mer inflytande på SIprocessen. Slutligen, för att skapa en framgångsrik SI-process och ett dynamiskt samspel mellan MMs och FLMs, måste det strategiska arbetet belönas lika mycket som operativa och produktspecifika insatser.