The problem of this study is to demonstrate a method of evaluating situations in textual materials that may assist pre-adolescent children in achieving certain developmental tasks. The problem involves the analysis of fifty stories taken from five state-adopted readers on the sixth-grade level, as well as the development of criteria for making such an analysis.

Thesis advisor: James Russell / Adults' gender stereotypes of emotion have been investigated with a variety of methods, but those methods do not provide a strong test of the stereotype: The participants were presented only with cues to the gender or to the emotion; or when both cues were available, gender was confounded with poser. This study examined the effects of attributed gender on adults' perception of emotion in facial expressions and stories when presented with clear versus ambiguous cues to both emotion and gender. College students (n = 90) were first asked to label the emotion of either a man (Timothy) or a woman (Sophia) with identical prototypical and “mixed” facial expressions and, separately, to Free Label stories about emotions. The same students were then to choose from a list of ten emotion labels the one that best described the protagonist's emotion for the same stimuli. Results showed that, for ambiguous cues to emotion, participants labeled facial expressions according to gender stereotypes. However, for the stimuli with clear cues to both emotion and gender of the poser, a reverse effect of gender stereotypes was observed for anger, fear, shame, and compassion due to an expectancy violation. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2004. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Psychology. / Discipline: College Honors Program.

Faculty of Humanities School of Education 0215438v lkotta@chemistry.uct.ac.za / The focus of this study was a case-based approach used in the first year course Introduction to Process and Materials Engineering, PRME1002, at the University of the Witwatersrand in 2005. This approach attempted to promote epistemic access to Process and Materials Engineering by moving away from the more traditional decontextualised and contrived engineering problems and introducing context-rich cases entailing more authentic engineering problems. The study investigated the extent to which the context rich problem-solving environment afforded the students epistemic access to Process and Materials Engineering. This was done through an analysis of the form and content of students’ knowledge and problem-solving skills as evidenced in their written responses to case-based problems. A modified form of the Structure of Learning Outcomes (SOLO) taxonomy was used as the instrument of analysis. The research showed that students tended to work in fragmented ways despite the context. They tended not to fully explore the context and as such could not successfully identify the salient aspects. They frequently ignored evidence in the context and invented their own in order to be able to use strategies that they were most familiar with. These findings suggest that that while the case-based approach introduced in the course, theoretically has the hallmarks of an ideal approach with which to create a favourable environment for learning, if students treat knowledge as fragmented and aren’t persuaded by the context to change their ways of working, the case-based approach does not afford students optimal epistemological access.

"Similarity is a central cognitive mechanism for humans which enables a broad range of perceptual and abstraction processes, including recognizing and categorizing objects, drawing parallelism, and predicting outcomes. It has been studied computationally through models designed to replicate human judgment. The work presented in this dissertation leverages general purpose semantic networks to derive similarity measures in a problem-independent manner. We model both general and relational similarity using connectivity between concepts within semantic networks. Our first contribution is to model general similarity using concept connectivity, which we use to partition vocabularies into topics without the need of document corpora. We apply this model to derive topics from unstructured dialog, specifically enabling an early literacy primer application to support parents in having better conversations with their young children, as they are using the primer together. Second, we model relational similarity in proportional analogies. To do so, we derive relational parallelism by searching in semantic networks for similar path pairs that connect either side of this analogy statement. We then derive human readable explanations from the resulting similar path pair. We show that our model can answer broad-vocabulary analogy questions designed for human test takers with high confidence. The third contribution is to enable symbolic plan repair in robot planning through object substitution. When a failure occurs due to unforeseen changes in the environment, such as missing objects, we enable the planning domain to be extended with a number of alternative objects such that the plan can be repaired and execution to continue. To evaluate this type of similarity, we use both general and relational similarity. We demonstrate that the task context is essential in establishing which objects are interchangeable."

The nature of geometric tasks that students engage with in classrooms influences the development of their geometric thinking. Although mathematics standards emphasize formal proofs and mathematical reasoning skills, geometric tasks in classrooms remain focused on students’ abilities to recall mathematical facts and use simple procedures rather than conceptual understanding. In order to facilitate students’ high-level mathematical thinking, teachers need to provide sufficient opportunities for students to engage in cognitively demanding mathematical tasks. The use of dynamic geometry software (DGS) in classrooms facilitates conceptual understanding of geometric proofs. The black box approach is a new type of task in which students interact with pre-constructed figures to explore mathematical relationships by dragging and measuring geometric objects. This approach is challenging to students because it “requires a link between the spatial or visual approach and the theoretical one” (Hollebrands, Laborde, & Sträßer, 2008, p. 172). This study examined how preservice secondary mathematics teachers make choices or create geometric tasks using DGS in terms of cognitive demand levels and how the black box approach influences the way preservice teachers conceptualize their roles in their lesson designs. Three preservice secondary mathematics teachers who took a semester-long mathematics teaching course participated in this qualitative case study. Data include two lesson plans, before and after instructions for geometric DGS tasks, pre- and post-interview transcripts, electronic files of geometric tasks, and reflection papers from each participant. The Mathematical Task Framework (Stein, Smith, Henningsen, & Silver, 2009) was used to characterize mathematical tasks with respect to level of cognitive demand. A Variety of geometric task types using DGS was introduced to the participants (Galindo, 1998). The dragging modalities framework (Arzarello, Olivero, Paola, & Robutti, 2002; Baccaglini-Frank & Mariotti, 2010) was employed to emphasize the cognitive demand of geometric tasks using DGS. The PURIA model situated the participants’ conceptualized roles in technology use (Beaudin & Bowers, 1997; Zbiek & Hollebrands, 2008). Findings showed that the preservice teachers only employed geometric construction types on low level geometric DGS tasks, which relied on technological step-by-step procedures students would follow in order to arrive at the same results. The preservice teachers transformed those low level tasks into high level tasks by preparing DGS tasks in advance in accordance with the black box approach and by encouraging students to explore the tasks by posing appropriate questions. However, as soon as they prepared high level DGS tasks with deductive proofs, low level procedure-based tasks followed in their lesson planning. The participants showed positive attitudes towards using DGS to prepare high level geometric tasks that differ from textbook-like procedural tasks. Major factors influencing preservice teachers’ preparation of high level tasks included teachers’ knowledge of mathematics, pedagogy, and technology, as well as ways of using curriculum resources and teachers’ abilities to set appropriate lesson goals. Findings of this investigation can provide guidelines for integrating DGS in designing high level geometric tasks for teacher educators, researchers, and textbook publishers.

Information retrieval (IR) is an important part of many tasks performed by people when they use computers. However, most IR research and theory isolates the IR component from the tasks performed by users. This is done by expressing user needs as a query performed on a database. In contrast this dissertation investigates the design and evaluation of information retrieval systems where the information retrieval mechanisms remain embedded in the user tasks. While there are a many different types of user tasks performed with computers we can specify common requirements for the IR needed in most tasks. There are both user interface and machine processing requirements. For user interfaces it is desirable if users interact directly with information databases, keep control of the interaction and are able to perform IR in a timely manner. Machine processing has to be within the capabilities of machines yet must fit with human perceptions and has to be efficient in both storage and computation. Given the overall requirements, the dissertation gives a particular implementation for how to embed IR in tasks. The implementation uses a vector representation for objects and organises the objects in a near neighbour data structure. Near neighbours are defined within the context of the tasks the users wish to achieve. While the implementation could use many different finding mechanisms, it emphasises a constructive solution building approach with localised browsing in the database. It is shown how the IR implementation fits with the overall task activities of the user. Much of the dissertation examines how to evaluate embedded IR. Embedded IR requires testing users' task performance in both real experiments and thought experiments. Implementation is tested by finding known objects, by validating the machine representations and their correspondence with human perceptions and by testing the machine performance of the implementation. Finally implications and extensions of the work arc explored by looking at the practicality of the approach, other methods of investigation and the possibility of building dynamic learning systems that improve with use.

This study investigates the use of authentic subtitled similar task videos (ASSTVs) and their relationship to second language negotiation of meaning and language production among non-native speakers of English in an online task-based language learning (TBLL) environment. Over the course of two weeks, twenty intermediate nonnative speakers (NNSs) of English from the English Language Institute at Texas A&M University engaged in four communicative tasks in pairs using an online TBLL environment designed specifically for this study, and a chat tool in WebCT Vista, a course management system provided by the university. ASSTVs were videotaped and integrated into the online TBLL environment. Participants were divided into two groups, each of which consisted of five dyads, to test the effects of ASSTVs. Five dyads were provided with the ASSTVs and the remaining five dyads were not provided with them before the task completion process. The first section of this study examines the effects of ASSTVs on negotiation of meaning, and the second section examines the effects on language production. The amount of negotiation of meaning was calculated through the negotiation of meaning sequences model developed by Gass and Varonis and revised for online communication by Smith. Language production was investigated in terms of fluency and complexity with regard to lexical and syntactic complexity. A detailed analysis of the data from the chat-scripts showed that NNSs engage in more negotiation of meaning and produce more fluent and lexically diverse language when provided with the ASSTVs than NNSs who were not provided with them. Based on these findings, this study concludes that using ASSTVs in an online TBLL environment is a viable and effective tool for promoting negotiation of meaning and language production in terms of fluency and lexical complexity.

<p>This essay is about the engineer platoon. The engineer platoon has many different tasks and from my own experience sometimes too many. The platoon is able to build bridges, clear mines and to perform all kinds of construction work in rural or in urban terrain.</p><p>In this case study I compare goals/demands for the battalion to goal’s set up for the company and finally what effects this has on the engineer platoons abilities. The main question is, if the engineer platoon really can solve all tasks given to them in the document TOEM? Abilities such as effect, protection and movement are the bearing parts of the case study.</p><p>The materials I have analyzed are mostly from documents published by The Swedish Armed Forces. The most important document is TOEM, where all demands are presented for the Combat-Support engineer battalion 2009. The essay also discusses why different priorities are made and what effects will be the result in the long term. After reading this essay you will come to find out that engineers sometimes have too many tasks to solve.</p>

This essay is about the engineer platoon. The engineer platoon has many different tasks and from my own experience sometimes too many. The platoon is able to build bridges, clear mines and to perform all kinds of construction work in rural or in urban terrain. In this case study I compare goals/demands for the battalion to goal’s set up for the company and finally what effects this has on the engineer platoons abilities. The main question is, if the engineer platoon really can solve all tasks given to them in the document TOEM? Abilities such as effect, protection and movement are the bearing parts of the case study. The materials I have analyzed are mostly from documents published by The Swedish Armed Forces. The most important document is TOEM, where all demands are presented for the Combat-Support engineer battalion 2009. The essay also discusses why different priorities are made and what effects will be the result in the long term. After reading this essay you will come to find out that engineers sometimes have too many tasks to solve.

Current task-centric many-core schedulers share a “naive” view of processor architecture; a view that does not care about its thermal, architectural or power consuming properties. Future processor will be more heterogeneous than what we see today, and following Moore’s law of transistor doubling, we foresee an increase in power consumption and thus temperature. Thermal stress can induce errors in processors, and so a common way to counter this is by slowing the processor down; something task-centric schedulers should strive to avoid. The Thermal-Task-Interleaving scheduling algorithm proposed in this paper takes both the application temperature behavior and architecture into account when making decisions. We show that for a mixed workload, our scheduler outperforms some of the standard, architecture-unaware scheduling solutions existing today. / QC 20120215