Mobile computing is becoming one of the most widely adopted technologies. There are 1.3 billion mobile phone subscribers worldwide, and the current generation of phones offers substantial computing ability. Furthermore, mobile devices are increasingly becoming integrated into everyday life. With the huge popularity in mobile computing, it is critical that we examine the human-computer interaction issues for these devices and explicitly explore supporting everyday activities. In particular, one very common and important activity of daily life I am interested in supporting is conversation. Depending on job type, office works can spend up to 85\% of their time in interpersonal communication. In this work, I present two methods that improve a user's ability to enter information into a mobile computer in conversational situations. First I examine the Twiddler, a keyboard that has been adopted by the wearable computing community. The Twiddler is a mobile one-handed chording keyboard with a keypad similar to a mobile phone. The second input method is dual-purpose speech, a technique designed to leverage a user's conversational speech. A dual-purpose speech interaction is one where speech serves two roles; it is socially appropriate and meaningful in the context of a human-to-human conversation and provides useful input to a computer. A dual-purpose speech application listens to one side of a conversation and provides beneficial services to the user. Together these input methods provide a user the ability to enter information while engaged in conversation in a mobile setting.

Participating students¡¦ association at school can enhance the students¡¦ learning, all kinds of life skills and social abilities. It¡¦s not simply a part of curriculum courses, but with more significance on cultivating the concept of being gregarious and law-abiding. Arising out of this, it comprehends positively the purpose of being well-developed education. The subject of this thesis is ¡§the Operation and Administration on the Student Arts Association at Elementary Schools¡¨, enphasizing mainly on the influences on students who have already participated the arts asssociation. From my observation on the anterior research, they emphasized more on the study of music asssociation as well as pedagogy, instead of expanding thoroughly on the operation and administration on arts asssociation. This thesis takes seven arts organizations as case studies, they separately are: Orchestra, Choir, Taiwanese Golden Loin Dance, Jazz Dance Group, Arts Association, Recorder Association, and Pottery-flute Association. The purposes of this research are, firstly, make a thorough investigation on the operation mode of the Elementary Schools¡¦ Arts Association, by the theory and method of management; secondly, in order to comprehend the operation mode of Yen-Chen Elementary School¡¦s Arts association, the interviews of each individual case are applied. Also, the interview groups can be divided into five: administrants, professors, students, graduated students, and parents of students, to the amount of twenty-two cases. This thesis draws two main conclusions.One is the suggestions for operation and administration:(1)arts association demand clearer objectives;(2)they require stronger organization;(3)they call for a flexible staff;(4)they need concise plans which should be excuted with good use of resourses;(5)with the ideas of ¡¥positive aspiration¡¦ and ¡¥encouragement leadership¡¦, arts associations aim to converge comradship;(6)arts association are supposed to recruit new members and hold the old ones;(7)The mainipulation of funds should be made public;(8)Relations among arts associations should be intensified. The other part suggests that students not only learn professions, but also cultivate appreciation. Students make friends, develop abilities and have a good time in clubs. Therefore, most of students join the same association when they go to high schools. This thesis is devided into five chapters. Chapter One is the introduction about research background and theme; Chapter Two is the literature review and theory framework; Chapter Three is the method; Chapter Four is the research process; Chapter Five is the conclusion and suggestions.

The radical democratic conception of civil society strives for theoretically constructing and politically defending civil society as a social sphere autonomous from both the economy and state. As a position taken against Marxist and liberal theories, radical civil societarianism views the cultural and normative structures of modern societies as independent from and prior to systemically conceived economic and political relations. These structures is purported to give way to spontaneous social solidarity characterising civil society. With the mechanisms of domination and exploitation defined outside civil society, this approach ends up with excessive voluntarism characterising social relations thereof. Similarly, in the Turkish context, the dominant centre-periphery approach is predicated upon the external contradiction between the vertical state-society relations and horizontal relations between social actors. It is argued that the dominance of the former has caused the underdevelopment of civil society which is a particular expression of the latter. In any case, social conflicts are detached from structural political and economic mechanisms and conceived in voluntaristic terms. Consequently, the normative position radical civil societarianism takes vis-&agrave / -vis social movements fails to go beyond an imposition of the arbitrary notion of &ldquo / civility&rdquo / through the discourse of self-limitation.

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Il existe de nombreux modèles de calcul sur les réels. Ces différents modèles<br />calculent diverses fonctions, certains sont plus puissants que d'autres,<br />certains sont deux à deux incomparables. Le calcul sur les réels est donc de<br />ce point de vue bien différent du calcul sur les entiers qui est unifié par la<br />thèse de Church-Turing qui affirme que tous les modèles raisonnables calculent<br />les mêmes fonctions.<br /><br />Les résultats de cette thèse sont de deux sortes. Premièrement, nous<br />montrons des équivalences entre les fonctions récursivement calculables et une<br />certaine classe de fonctions R-récursives et entre les fonctions<br />GPAC-calculables et les fonctions récursivement calculables. Ces deux<br />résultats ne sont cependant valables que si les fonctions présentent quelques<br />caractéristiques : elles doivent être définies sur un compact et dans le<br />premier cas être de classe C^2. Deuxièmement, nous montrons également une<br />hiérarchie de classes de fonctions R-récursives qui caractérisent les<br />fonctions élémentairement calculables, les fonctions<br />En-calculables pour n?3 (où les En sont les<br />fonctions de la hiérarchie de Grzegorczyk), et des fonctions récursivement<br />calculables. Ce résultat utilise un opérateur de limite dont nous avons prouvé<br />la généralité en montrant qu'il transfère une inclusion sur la partie discrète<br />des fonctions en une inclusion sur les fonctions sur les réels elles-mêmes.<br /><br />Ces résultats constituent donc une avancée vers une éventuelle<br />unification des modèles de calcul sur les réels.

This essay examines upper secondary school pupils as well as the Swedish National Agency for Educations views on the education in subject of religion. How they describe its purpose, what content the topic should address, how the education should be implemented and what influence the pupils should have over their own studies. This to examine how the views of pupils and the Swedish National Agency of Education correlate and to analyze how it possibly can affect the pupil’s motivation. The survey is conducted by semi-forging tured interviews and text analysis in order to ascertain the pupils and the Swedish National Agency of Educations opinions on the issues. The results are then analyzed by various motivational theories that have played a vital role in the Swedish school and that have been found relevant to the study. The survey shows that the pupils and the Swedish National Agency of Education are relatively unanimous about how they regard studies on the subject of religion but that there are differences. It appears that the education the pupils have receive, despite the unity of these pupils and the Swedish National Agency of Education, not always seem to comply with the requirements of the Agency's governing documents. It also appears that the pupil’s motivation is affected by how the National Agency and the pupils' objectives, goals and beliefs correlate. When those are alignment or when the school takes account of pupils' expectations and their own goals the education seems more adequate to the pupils.

Denna studie syftar till att undersöka hur förskollärare tänker kring och arbetar med bilderböcker i barngruppen i den dagliga verksamheten. Studien undersöker förskollärares attityd till lässtunden och bilderbokens vidare användningsområden. Datainsamlingen gjordes genom kvalitativa intervjuer med fem förskollärare från fem olika förskolor. Materialet har bearbetats genom analys och resultatet är en förståelse för professionens möjligheter och begränsningar inom det berörda området. Denna studie utgår från en hypotes om att den planerade lässtunden i förskolan ofta är kort och utan bakomliggande tanke vad gäller språkutveckling. Resultatet visar på en tydlig språklig medvetenhet bland förskollärare i deras arbete med bilderböcker. Studien visar utifrån min hypotes andra resultat vad gäller bilderbokens vidare användningsområden samt barnens delaktighet i både lässtunder och annan användning av bilderboken. I resultatet av studien framkommer också förskollärarnas önskan om utökat arbete kring flerspråkighet, vilket vissa tror att en vidare användning av bilderboken kan ligga till grund för. / The purpose of this study was to explore preschool teachers’ attitudes and work with picture books as an active component of daily activities. The purpose was also to investigate in what other ways picture books are used apart from reading them out loud to the children. In order to examine this, qualitative interviews with five preschool teachers were used as a method of investigation. An analysis of the interviews indicates the possibilities and limitations of the profession in this area. This study is based on the hypothesis that the planned reading sessions with children in preschools are often short and without purpose in terms of language development. The result shows that the preschool teachers are well aware of the possibilities and applications offered by picture books. The result of the study shows a different view compared to the hypothesis, of how the preschool teachers use picture books in several different ways in their projects with the children. It also shows that the participation of the children while reading, and in other preschool activities, is a constant factor. The result also shows how preschool teachers wish to work more with multilingual development and that preschool teachers believe that picture books can provide the foundation for that kind of work.

Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease. Despite the debilitating nature of this disease, some evidence suggests patients maintain their quality of life (QOL). Caregivers, on the other hand, experience decreased QOL. Evidence suggests existential aspects of well-being such as purpose in life (PIL) may be unique and stable sources of well-being for patients and caregivers. Furthermore, patients’ and caregivers’ well-being may impact one another. The present study examined the variance structure, trajectory, and dyadic relationship of PIL and QOL in patients with ALS and their caregivers (N = 110 dyads). Data from the Seattle ALS Patient Profile Project were utilized; PIL and QOL were assessed seven times, over eighteen months. PIL was more stable than QOL and therefore a psychological resource for patients and caregivers. PIL and QOL declined with time and disease severity. Individual differences in proximity to diagnosis and death moderated within-individual change. Decline was more rapid following diagnosis and approaching death, suggesting these are critical periods in which individuals need increased support. Well-being within the dyad was interrelated. Average QOL was similar across dyads. PIL within the dyad changed together over time. Dyadic relationships may reflect similar life conditions and a shared disease experience.

Research indicates that a more hands-on education in mathematics could improve how students relate to mathematics. Laboratory mathematics is a way of making mathematics more concrete.  How is the purpose of laboratory mathematics perceived? This thesis has its focus on the pupils’ perceptions of the purpose of laboratory mathematics, but the intention of the teacher involved is also investigated. The main research questions asked were: What is the teacher's definition of laboratory mathematics? Which is the teacher's purpose in using laboratory education? How do the students perceive the purpose of the laboratory teaching of mathematics? To answer the questions, I conducted a series of qualitative interviews. Data has been collected in a 3rd grade in Stockholm.  I interviewed a teacher and 17 students.  Results show that the teacher uses laboratory materials to ease the learning of mathematics and to concretize the content of mathematics. By using the phenomenographic method, I got five different preconceptions that students have about the purpose of laboratory education: Laboratory mathematics is for students who have difficulty with mathematics, laboratory mathematics allows more concentration in the classroom, using laboratory materials makes it easier to calculate, laboratory mathematics will help me when I calculate mathematics in every day situations and, finally when I use laboratory mathematics, I work with my hands. The study reaches the conclusion that teachers need to a highlight better the pedagogic purpose for the pupils to use laboratory mathematics.  Laboratory mathematics is in need of a higher status so that more students want to work with laboratory materials.

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