Studien syftar till att undersöka hur förskollärare beskriver sitt förhållningssätt till matematikundervisning samt hur förskollärare kan utmana barns matematiserande i förskolan. Genom en kvalitativ metod genomfördes semistrukturerade intervjuer med sex förskollärare. Samtliga förskollärare är legitimerade och verkar aktivt i förskolans verksamhet. I studiens resultat framkommer att några förskollärare inte bär med sig en positiv inställning till matematik från sin tid i skolan, däremot anses detta inte behöva påverka den professionella yrkesrollen utan de vill inspirera barn till en positiv syn på matematik. En förskollärare beskriver att barn behöver bemötas individuellt och att förskollärare behöver ha kunskap om barnens tidigare erfarenheter för att på bästa sätt kunna utmana dem vidare. Att benämna matematiska begrepp anses vara viktigt då matematik bär med sig ett språk som barn kan få nytta av både i vardagen och senare i skolan. Matematiserande sker inte bara i den planerade undervisningen utan finns även i spontana situationer i vardagen. De spontana situationerna är en möjlighet för vidare utmaning av barns matematiska lärprocesser. Genom att låta barn praktisera matematik i vardagen kan ny kunskap relateras till verkligheten. I resultatet framkommer även beskrivningar av hinder och möjligheter för barns matematiserande i förskolan. Där lyfts organisatoriska faktorers påverkan som tid, ekonomi, utbildning och kompetensutveckling. Studiens resultat visar även att förskollärares förhållningssätt kan utgöra både hinder och möjligheter för barns lärande.

Syftet med studien var att undersöka i vilken omfattning språkfrämjande metoder och verktyg användes av förskollärare i förskolan för att stödja barns språkutveckling vilket undersöktes utifrån ett sociokulturellt perspektiv. För att söka svar på studiens syfte tillämpades en kvantitativ forskningsansats där en webbenkät riktad till förskollärare användes som metod. Resultatet visade att förskollärare använder olika språkfrämjande metoder och verktyg i stor omfattning i förskolans olika miljöer. Resultatet visade att förskollärare skattar sin kompetens inom barns språkutveckling som god och ser positivt på kompetensutveckling. Studiens slutsats är att samtliga metoder och verktyg tillämpas av förskollärare i förskolan och används regelbundet för att främja barns språkutveckling. En slutsats är även att förskollärare ser kompetensutveckling som viktigt och betydelsefull för att kunna främja barns språk.

This research is located in the interdisciplinary field of curriculum studies, drawing on both psychological and sociological theories of pedagogy. I explore classroom practice, through a qualitative study into a preparatory school curriculum innovation called DIY: Dream, Innovate Yourself, which encourages children to develop skills (both topic-specific and dispositional) that prepare them for the modern world of business, where flexible thinking, creative problem solving and collaboration are high on the list of ‘hiring qualities’. Using concepts of learning, cognitive and moral development, semiotic mediation, and pedagogy, I develop an analysis of the ‘what’ and ‘how’ of mediation and learning in DIY: Dream, Innovate Yourself. The findings gathered through classroom observation and interviews with learners, suggest that DIY is meeting its intended aims through the programme. However, due to limitations in the data that could be collected, these findings must be treated as preliminary.

Research is needed that examines the effects of kiosk technology on restaurant operational performance measures, such as total sales. The study employs a 2X2 between-subjects field experimental design to empirically test the hypothesized relationships proposed in the research model. The data collection site was Burger King located in the student union of a large Tier 1 research university in southwest USA. The independent variables included ordering method (kiosk vs. cashier) and operational volume (peak vs. off-peak). The dependent variables were cognitive and affective attitudes, behavioral intention, satisfaction, sales per person, and order time. Consumers at Burger King were approached before they started ordering their meal to ask for voluntary participation. If they agreed to participate, they were randomly assigned into two test groups. Participants in one test group used kiosk technology to order their meals, while those in the other test groups spoke with a cashier to order their meals. The same number of participants were recruited from peak and non-peak volumes. The seconds used to order was observed and recorded after consumer engagement with the ordering method. After participants ordered, they completed a paper survey that measured their behaviors while ordering with each method and asked participants to indicate total purchase amount. Results of 192 surveys indicated to different extents that consumer behaviors were more positive with kiosk technology. Affective attitude results, however, were insignificant. On average, kiosk technology was found to be a faster method of ordering in quick-service restaurants, but it yielded less sales than when the consumer ordered from a cashier.

Deep reinforcement learning is an area of research that has blossomed tremendously in recent years and has shown remarkable potential in computer games. Real-time strategy game has become an important field of artificial intelligence in game for several years. This paper is about to introduce a kind of algorithm that used to train agents to fight against computer bots. Not only because games are excellent tools to test deep reinforcement learning algorithms for their valuable insight into how well an algorithm can perform in isolated environments without the real-life consequences, but also real-time strategy games are a very complex genre that challenges artificial intelligence agents in both short-term or long-term planning. In this paper, we introduce some history of deep learning and reinforcement learning. Then we combine them with StarCraft. PPO is the algorithm which have some of the benefits of trust region policy optimization (TRPO), but it is much simpler to implement, more general for environment, and have better sample complexity. The StarCraft environment: Blood War Application Programming Interface (BWAPI) is open source to test. The results show that PPO can work well in BWAPI and train units to defeat the opponents. The algorithm presented in the thesis is corroborated by experiments.

Elevers begreppsförmåga är en viktig faktor för deras förmåga att lösa textuppgifter korrekt. Syftet var att studera och analysera hur några elever med eller utan matematik-, språk-, läs- och skrivsvårigheter upplever textuppgifter i matematik. Utifrån frågeställningarna: Vilka begrepp beskriver några elever som viktiga för att kunna lösa textuppgifter? Vad kännetecknar elevernas beskrivning av det som de uppfattar som viktiga begrepp? Vilket stöd beskriver eleverna att de behöver när de löser textuppgifter? Hur kan elevernas beskrivningar förstås mot bakgrund av Vygotskijs sociokulturella teori? genomförde vi en kvalitativ studie där 21 elever i årskurs 5 deltog i fokusgruppsintervjuer med inslag av interventioner. Svårigheter med begreppsförståelse kan ha flera bakomliggande orsaker och tidigare forskning pekar på vikten av kommunikation i undervisningen. Studiens resultat visade på en stor spridning i begreppsförmågan och på elevernas positiva upplevelse av att lösa textuppgifter med scaffolding/stöttor och i samarbete med andra, zonen för proximal utveckling (ZPD). Vårt resultat analyserade vi utifrån Vygotskijs sociokulturella teori och sedan diskuterade vi resultatet utifrån tidigare forskning.

This study aims to expand the understanding of how teachers in upper secondary school talk about their understanding and teaching of reading comprehension and reading strategies. Using semistructured interviews with five active teachers within a Swedish upper secondary school, we can get a better perspective of the tools that students receive during their education and how students are receiving them. This study shows how teachers adapt and change the way they teach based on several factors and also gives us an insight to why they structure their education the way that they do. The teachers describe an understanding of how reading comprehension should be taught through a dialogue-heavy way with a wide variety of teaching methods as tools to best fulfill the needs of the students. The teachers also describe their understanding of reading strategies as either a simplifying tool or as a tool for more in depth analysis. This difference of understanding is interesting and seems to stem from the teachers perspective of what tools their current students are more in need of developing, but may also be an indicator of the teachers personal understanding of what reading strategies are. This understanding of reading comprehension and reading strategies are also reflected in the way the teachers describe how they structure their classes. The teachers point out the importance of dialogue both between teachers and students but also amongst the students themselves and describe their teaching of reading strategies as an increasing process of knowledge that is developed and followed up on over a long period of time. Finally the interviewed teachers turned out to differ quite a bit from those of several other studies in their description of how comfortable they are with teaching reading comprehension and reading strategies to students in upper secondary school.

The study included transcripts from seven students with Swedish as a second language in grade 3, with the purpose being focusing on how they experience language during mathematic lessons and how second language learners´ learning could be understood from a sociocultural perspective. Each student was individually interviewed. My method for interviewing the students was using a semi-structured way of interviewing, meaning that I had predefined questions with room for asking follow up-questions during the interviews. The students were asked questions about their background, and they also got to answer mathematical questions including mathematical terms and words. They were asked questions about what they found difficult and easy within the mathematical questions. The second language learners had in general low difficulty with the understanding of the mathematical language in the mathematical questions. The results show that the students have appropriated knowledge by scaffolding and the zone of proximal development, which is part of the sociocultural perspective of learning. A conclusion is that the students didn’t show any signs of having trouble understanding words within mathematics that usually causes confusion among second language learners. When it comes to further developing their language skills a support of pictures can be used to describe difficult words, further can physical material also be used while learning second language learners´ new mathematical terms and words. The physical material can also act in combination with pictures to easier explain new mathematical terms and words.

Eftersom läroboken har en dominerande roll i den svenska matematikundervisning är det av vikt att läroböckernas innehåll är av god kvalitet och arbetar mot de mål som skolans styrdokument strävar mot. Begreppsförståelsen kan förstås som grunden i det matematiska tänkandet. Denna förmåga utvecklas i takt med att eleven får nya erfarenheter och kunskaper kring matematiska problem i olika sammanhang. Ett möte med uttrycksformer av stor variation skapar erfarenheter och hjälper eleven utveckla sin begreppsförmåga. Syftet med denna studie är att få en förståelse för vilka uttrycksformer eleven får möta i det marknadsdominerande läromedlet för grundskolans lägre åldrar samt hur eleven får möjlighet att använda uttrycksformerna som ett verktyg i utvecklandet av begreppsförmågan. Resultatet av studien visar att eleverna får få tillfällen att möta olika uttrycksformer och lära sig använda dem som ett stöd för att utveckla sin begreppsförståelse i matematik. Studien belyser även vikten av elevers kunskap att översätta uttrycksformer till en annan uttrycksform för att erhålla en bredare förståelse för begreppens betydelse. / Since the textbook has a dominant role in Swedish mathematics education, it is important that content is in good quality and works towards the goal of Swedish education. Conceptual understanding can be understood as the basis of mathematical thinking and develops as the student gains new experiences and knowledge of mathematical problems in different contexts. A meeting with a variety of representations can create new experiences and help the student develop a god conceptual understanding. The purpose of this study is to understand what forms of representations the pupils may encounter in the market-dominant textbook for the elementary school. As well the possibility the students have using representation as a tool to create conceptual understanding. The results of the study show that the students are given few opportunities to meet a variation of representations and learn how to use them as a support to gain the conceptual understanding. The study also highlights the importance of students’ ability to translate representations to gain a broader conceptual understanding.

Chloroperoxidase (CPO) is one of the most versatile heme enzyme isolated from the marine fungus, Caldariomyces fumago. Functionally, CPO can catalyze four types of reactions: peroxidation (peroxidase-like), dismutation (catalase-like), halogenation (halogenase-like), and peroxygenation (P450-like). Structurally, CPO has a distal and proximal pockets that can be best described as a hybrid of classical peroxidase and P450s. As a heme-thiolate protein, CPO contains the conserved proximal Pro28-Cys29-Pro30 stretch found in other members of the family. However, the structural and functional roles of these proline residues remain poorly understood. Site-directed mutagenesis was undertaken to generates three CPO mutants, P28A-, P30A-, P28A/P30A-CPO. The replacement of the rigid proline with a more flexible alanine residue, freed up the back bone amide for the formation of additional amide-sulfur hydrogen bond, allowing the investigation of the importance of these residues in CPO catalysis. The three CPO mutants displayed dramatic difference in ligand binding affinity and catalytic activities relative to WT-CPO. Any mutations on the proline resides within the proximal loop eliminated the halogenation and dismutation activities but enhanced the vii epoxidation and peroxidation activities by 4-14 fold. As the binding affinity for cyanide, the CPO mutants displayed significantly higher dissociation constant relative to WT-CPO. Our results revealed that Pro28 and Pro30 play important roles in maintaining the versatility of CPO. As a versatile enzyme, CPO has great application potential in pharmaceutical and chemical industry due to its ability to catalyze the formation of chiral epoxides. Phe103 and Phe186 located on the distal pocket have been proposed to guard the access of substrates to the ferryl oxygen of the heme center. The interactions of these two phenylalanine residues restricted the size of substrates and regulates CPO’s enantioselectivity. F186A- and F103A/F186A-CPO were generated and characterized where the rate of peroxidation and epoxidation were significantly enhanced at the expense of halogenation and dismutation activities. Our results demonstrated that Phe186 played a subtler role relative to Phe103 in terms of substrate specificity and product enantioselectivity of CPO.