Nesta dissertação estudamos os relatos pedagógicos produzidos por sete professoras participantes de um Programa de Formação continuada no município de São Caetano do Sul durante os anos de 2011 e 2012. Para análise e posterior obtenção de categorias dos registros escritos que compunham o relatório final das professoras utilizamos a Análise Textual Discursiva que permitiu vislumbrar elementos convergentes entre os sete relatos e, outros elementos que permitiram um diálogo profícuo com o referencial teórico escolhido para fundamentar este trabalho. Como objetivos da investigação buscamos identificar o percurso reflexivo vivido pelas docentes autoras e alguns elementos daquele Programa de Formação relevantes para o processo reflexivo dos sujeitos da pesquisa. A partir da elaboração das categorias de análise identificamos três grandes domínios, a saber: Domínio I - Reflexão antes da ação; Domínio II - Reflexão na ação e Domínio III - Reflexão sobre a ação. Em cada um dos domínios foi possível perceber da parte das professoras a reflexão ocorrida sobre diferentes aspectos das suas vivências como educadoras. Os relatos mostram que as docentes repensaram e reelaboraram algumas questões sobre os seus educandos, a sua realidade comunitária e as suas escolas. A reflexão revelou o compromisso didático/pedagógico das autoras com a tarefa educativa e a autonomia das mesmas ao fazer parte do seu percurso formativo um dispositivo que foi elaborado conjuntamente por especialistas e por elas mesmas atuando como coautoras da proposta. Desta forma, a formação centrada no professor e na escola dá ao saber da experiência um estatuto importante e possibilita ao professor que mude de maneira articulada e colaborativamente os contextos em que trabalha e que esta mudança seja uma decisão assumida a partir da sua própria reflexão. Na medida em que Programas ou cursos de formação continuada promovam a reflexão inserida na realidade dos professores, as escolas como comunidades poderão se transformar em centros de desenvolvimento profissional e humano para estes. / In this text we studied the pedagogical reports produced by seven teachers who participated in a Continuing Education Program in the municipality of São Caetano do Sul during the years 2011 and 2012. For analysis and for to obtain categories of the written records that made up the final report of the teachers we used the Discursive Textual Analysis that allowed to glimpse converging elements between the seven reports and other elements that allowed a fruitful dialogue with the theoretical framework chosen to base this work. As research objectives we seek to identify the reflective course lived by the authors and some elements of that Training Program relevant to the reflective process of the research subjects. From the elaboration of the categories of analysis we identified three major domains, namely: Domain I - Reflection before action; Domain II - Reflection in action and Domain III - Reflection on action. In each of the domains it was possible to perceive the reflection that took place on different aspects of the teacher experiences as educators. The reports show that the teachers rethought and reworked some questions about their students, their community reality and their schools. The reflection revealed the didactic / pedagogical commitment of the authors with the educational task and the autonomy of the same ones as part of their formative course a device that was elaborated jointly by specialists and by themselves acting as coauthors of the proposal. In this way, teacher and school-centered training gives the knowledge of experience an important status and enables the teacher to change in an articulated and collaborative way the contexts in which he works and that this change is a decision taken from his own reflection. To the extent that programs or continuing education courses promote reflection within the reality of teachers, schools as communities can become centers of professional and human development for them.

Nesta dissertação estudamos os relatos pedagógicos produzidos por sete professoras participantes de um Programa de Formação continuada no município de São Caetano do Sul durante os anos de 2011 e 2012. Para análise e posterior obtenção de categorias dos registros escritos que compunham o relatório final das professoras utilizamos a Análise Textual Discursiva que permitiu vislumbrar elementos convergentes entre os sete relatos e, outros elementos que permitiram um diálogo profícuo com o referencial teórico escolhido para fundamentar este trabalho. Como objetivos da investigação buscamos identificar o percurso reflexivo vivido pelas docentes autoras e alguns elementos daquele Programa de Formação relevantes para o processo reflexivo dos sujeitos da pesquisa. A partir da elaboração das categorias de análise identificamos três grandes domínios, a saber: Domínio I - Reflexão antes da ação; Domínio II - Reflexão na ação e Domínio III - Reflexão sobre a ação. Em cada um dos domínios foi possível perceber da parte das professoras a reflexão ocorrida sobre diferentes aspectos das suas vivências como educadoras. Os relatos mostram que as docentes repensaram e reelaboraram algumas questões sobre os seus educandos, a sua realidade comunitária e as suas escolas. A reflexão revelou o compromisso didático/pedagógico das autoras com a tarefa educativa e a autonomia das mesmas ao fazer parte do seu percurso formativo um dispositivo que foi elaborado conjuntamente por especialistas e por elas mesmas atuando como coautoras da proposta. Desta forma, a formação centrada no professor e na escola dá ao saber da experiência um estatuto importante e possibilita ao professor que mude de maneira articulada e colaborativamente os contextos em que trabalha e que esta mudança seja uma decisão assumida a partir da sua própria reflexão. Na medida em que Programas ou cursos de formação continuada promovam a reflexão inserida na realidade dos professores, as escolas como comunidades poderão se transformar em centros de desenvolvimento profissional e humano para estes. / In this text we studied the pedagogical reports produced by seven teachers who participated in a Continuing Education Program in the municipality of São Caetano do Sul during the years 2011 and 2012. For analysis and for to obtain categories of the written records that made up the final report of the teachers we used the Discursive Textual Analysis that allowed to glimpse converging elements between the seven reports and other elements that allowed a fruitful dialogue with the theoretical framework chosen to base this work. As research objectives we seek to identify the reflective course lived by the authors and some elements of that Training Program relevant to the reflective process of the research subjects. From the elaboration of the categories of analysis we identified three major domains, namely: Domain I - Reflection before action; Domain II - Reflection in action and Domain III - Reflection on action. In each of the domains it was possible to perceive the reflection that took place on different aspects of the teacher experiences as educators. The reports show that the teachers rethought and reworked some questions about their students, their community reality and their schools. The reflection revealed the didactic / pedagogical commitment of the authors with the educational task and the autonomy of the same ones as part of their formative course a device that was elaborated jointly by specialists and by themselves acting as coauthors of the proposal. In this way, teacher and school-centered training gives the knowledge of experience an important status and enables the teacher to change in an articulated and collaborative way the contexts in which he works and that this change is a decision taken from his own reflection. To the extent that programs or continuing education courses promote reflection within the reality of teachers, schools as communities can become centers of professional and human development for them.

This thesis describes a new optimisation and new heuristics for automatically marking up XML documents, and CEM, a Java implementation, using PPM models. CEM is significantly more general than previous systems, marking up large numbers of hierarchical tags, using n-gram models for large n and a variety of escape methods. Four corpora are discussed, including the bibliography corpus of 14682 bibliographies laid out in seven standard styles using the BibTeX system and marked up in XML with every field from the original BibTeX. Other corpora include the ROCLING Chinese text segmentation corpus, the Computists' Communique corpus and the Reuters' corpus. A detailed examination is presented of the methods of evaluating mark up algorithms, including computation complexity measures and correctness measures from the fields of information retrieval, string processing, machine learning and information theory. A new taxonomy of markup complexities is established and the properties of each taxon are examined in relation to the complexity of marked up documents. The performance of the new heuristics and optimisation are examined using the four corpora.

Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / Long-term independent travel is regarded by many commentators as an active quest for discovery, and has long been proclaimed by individuals and organisations, both within and outside the tourism industry, as having a social, cultural and educative role. As independent travel becomes an increasingly popular and important sector of the travel market, the guidebook as cultural text becomes a significant and powerful mediator of experience. Guidebooks have a prevailing capacity to define and represent places, peoples and cultures and, at the same time, present descriptive and prescriptive information that simultaneously constructs the traveller and shapes their perspectives and experiences. Independent travellers such as backpackers, in their quest for the ‘authentic’, often seek out experiences with other cultures and demonstrate a desire to learn about, and interact with, indigenous people and their cultures. This thesis is concerned with the complex process of the dialectic construction of the backpacker (the traveller) as a particular gazing and experiencing subject, and of places, peoples and cultures (the travelled) as objects of the gaze. Central to the thesis is a consideration of the role of the guidebook as an interpretative lens through which the constructed and mediated nature of both the traveller and the travelled can be examined and understood. Drawing on theoretical and methodological insights from the interdisciplinary fields of tourism studies and cultural studies, the thesis seeks to understand relationships between text, audience and culture in tourism. The interpretative method of textual analysis is married with qualitative interviews with a sample of backpackers to Australia to examine the interplay between travellers, guidebooks and experiences. An analysis of guidebooks published by Lonely Planet, Rough Guide and Let's Go reveals that representations of Aboriginal people and their cultures are central to constructing an ‘authentic’ experience for independent travellers to Australia. These representations are, however, not without contradiction, as traveller discourses of authenticity, cultural awareness, cultural sensitivity and responsible travel are mobilised concurrently with popular tourism imagery and stereotypes of Aboriginal Australia. For the backpackers interviewed, the discrepancies between discourses provided in guidebooks means that their engagement with texts is dynamic, and their experiences with, and understandings of, Aboriginal Australia are continuously negotiated and renegotiated throughout their travel experiences. I argue in this thesis that backpackers actively engage with narratives and representations of culture contained within guidebooks, and negotiate these textual contradictions to construct a particular type of experience and traveller-self to make sense of their travels in Aboriginal Australia. The findings of this thesis raise important questions about the role that the text plays as mediator between the traveller and the travelled culture, and the tensions, contradictions and negotiations between text and lived experience.

<p>Background</p><p>Strategy forms an inevitable part of a company’s existence, whether explicitly formulated or implicitly acted on. Today, there are many ways to find information about companies and their strategic directions, for example in the non-financial sections of annual reports. However, the future actions and strategic choices tend not to be spoken of explicitly or in terms of strategy concepts or typologies. Thus, the presentation of strategies in annual reports may differ in terminology from the conceptions and notions as presented in strategy concepts. This implies a challenging base for analysis and will inevitably create an interesting situation if one wants to map out a company’s strategic direction with these reports as basis. Annual reports could also possibly constitute a cross-over between the theoretical realm and the business world, which might allow the drawing of parallels between theoretical concepts and espoused strategic actions.</p><p>Purpose</p><p>The purpose of this thesis is to provide an overall image of strategy in the heavy electrical engineering industry in the time period of 1987 to 2002, using the non-financial information in annual reports as the single source for identifying and classifying companies in terms of strategy.</p><p>Mode of procedure</p><p>Annual reports from four large companies in the heavy electrical engineering industry have been studied with a grounded approach of textual analysis. The case study was conducted with an inductive starting point, and covered a vast amount of empirical material. Key features of strategic directions, on the corporate and business level, were derived from the empirical material as well as from strategy literature, and these features then served as base for further analysis and conclusions.</p><p>Results</p><p>All four studied companies displayed different strategic phases on the two levels. However, inconsistency and a multitude of comments sometimes obstructed the identification of distinct phases. On an inter-company level, the European companies tended to have more features in common than the American ones. Furthermore, specific characteristics have been identified for each company. Finally, each of the four case companies was classified in terms of generic strategies. The classification of the companies showed that a multitude of strategic typologies was applicable during the studied time period, some recurrently and others in unique periods.</p>

Background Strategy forms an inevitable part of a company’s existence, whether explicitly formulated or implicitly acted on. Today, there are many ways to find information about companies and their strategic directions, for example in the non-financial sections of annual reports. However, the future actions and strategic choices tend not to be spoken of explicitly or in terms of strategy concepts or typologies. Thus, the presentation of strategies in annual reports may differ in terminology from the conceptions and notions as presented in strategy concepts. This implies a challenging base for analysis and will inevitably create an interesting situation if one wants to map out a company’s strategic direction with these reports as basis. Annual reports could also possibly constitute a cross-over between the theoretical realm and the business world, which might allow the drawing of parallels between theoretical concepts and espoused strategic actions. Purpose The purpose of this thesis is to provide an overall image of strategy in the heavy electrical engineering industry in the time period of 1987 to 2002, using the non-financial information in annual reports as the single source for identifying and classifying companies in terms of strategy. Mode of procedure Annual reports from four large companies in the heavy electrical engineering industry have been studied with a grounded approach of textual analysis. The case study was conducted with an inductive starting point, and covered a vast amount of empirical material. Key features of strategic directions, on the corporate and business level, were derived from the empirical material as well as from strategy literature, and these features then served as base for further analysis and conclusions. Results All four studied companies displayed different strategic phases on the two levels. However, inconsistency and a multitude of comments sometimes obstructed the identification of distinct phases. On an inter-company level, the European companies tended to have more features in common than the American ones. Furthermore, specific characteristics have been identified for each company. Finally, each of the four case companies was classified in terms of generic strategies. The classification of the companies showed that a multitude of strategic typologies was applicable during the studied time period, some recurrently and others in unique periods.

Like most wars, the Spanish-American War had its heroes: the heroes who rescued Cuban prisoner Evangelina Cisneros, the heroes who gave aid to starving, suffering Cubans, and the heroes who investigated the possibility of a sinister element in the mysterious explosion of the battleship Maine. Even the yellow press could be construed as a hero since its leaders spared no expense in sending reporters to Cuba to capture the events leading up to the Spanish-American War for the American public. Designed to explore the hero and the heroic in journalistic coverage of war, this thesis involved qualitative textual analysis of front-page newspaper stories published in New York City during the Spanish-American War. Using Joseph Campbell's power of the myth and the hero as a framework, this thesis explores three major themes: 1) the story of Evangelina Cisneros, 2) the desperate situation of the Cuban people, and 3) the sinking of the battleship Maine. The following research questions are explored: What events in the nine-month period leading up to the war call for heroic action? Who were the heroes according to the yellow newspapers of Hearst and Pulitzer? How did these yellow newspaper stories mirror Campbell's concept of the mythic hero and his/her heroic journey? The analysis shows that these articles answered the human need for excitement, for drama, for a hero, and the need to be a hero. / Thesis (M.A.)--Wichita State University, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Elliott School of Communication. / "July 2006." / Includes bibliographic references (leaves 60-64)

The Swedish preschool-model interlaces care, nurturing and learning and is organised to solve twin functions; providing children a playbased learning-environment and enabling parents to combine parenthood with work. The model was developed within the social sector then incorporated into the educational system 1998. This shift and the model´s “unique characteristics” praised by OECD formed the point of departure for this study. The aim of the thesis is to describe and analyse the discussions and negotiations shaping the Swedish preschool-model during 1968-1998. The research questions address: discursive themes; actors involved; governmental intentions; claims about the preschool´s task, pedagogical content and the preschool´s institutional identity and relationship to the institutions: social service, school and family. The study utilized abductive textual analysis inspired by discourse analysis and narrative approaches. Main text sources are: official reports, bills, steering documents, the preschool teachers´ periodical 1968 -1998 and a media debate. The results illuminate preschool-teachers´ struggle for a pedagogical identity and the construction of the educareconcept as a flexible and pragmatic solution to several societal interests and values. Governmental intentions concerning equality, emancipation and democratization have had great influence on the process in combination with a recurring theme about a revised preschool pedagogy with a strengthened focus on children´s learning. Political efforts to foster a preschool for all in a future are identified and described as one of the main discursive themes. Different standpoints about earlier school start are analyzed.  The overall result is that the framework and core features of the model laid down by the National Commission on Child care still has a great impact on the launched syllabus (Lpfö) in the end of the period as on the curriculum in a broader sense.

Discourse creates the world of policy. Discourse plays a key role within policy formation; political discourse is made visible within particular discursive (spoken and written) practices. Hence, mental health policy is the endpoint of a discursive process and that it is, in itself, an institutional process. The shared understanding necessary to formulate policy is crucial to persons who are responsible for policy decisions and recommendations. Since the public perception is that public policy problems are too complicated for ordinary people to deal with, the policy problem is reframed into manageable "bits." It is how these "bits" are framed, named, and made sense of that concern me most in the policymaking process. The purpose of this dissertation is to make visible the often invisible processes that occur in the creation of that final report. To do so, I use a discursive approach and a selection of discourse tokens, both talk and text, to examine the workings of the Florida Commission on Mental Health and Substance Abuse.

[pt] Apesar dos inúmeros benefícios proporcionados pela prática científica ao mundo nos últimos anos, os profissionais e estudantes da Psicologia ainda se mostram resistentes ao uso do método científico na área. As origens de tais objeções e as variáveis que as influenciam ainda são incertas, fazendo-se necessário estudos que busquem investiga-las. A ideia principal apresentada neste estudo é a de que as concepções de ciência e método científico entre os profissionais e estudantes brasileiros de Psicologia são insuficientes. Para se testar as hipóteses derivadas dessa ideia, buscou-se avaliar essas concepções por meio de duas perguntas abertas sobre o tema e um questionário sociodemográfico. A amostra de respondentes ficou composta por 791 pessoas, estudantes (n = 407) e profissionais (n = 384) de todo Brasil, com idades entre 17 a 67 anos (M = 29,07; DP = 9,02), sendo 68,5 por cento do sexo feminino. As respostas foram analisadas por meio da Classificação Hierárquica Descendente e Análise Fatorial de Correspondências, com o auxílio da interface IRaMuTeQ. Os resultados revelaram que os participantes possuem concepções muito diversas em relação à ciência e ao método científico, predominando a noção de que a ciência é um método de aquisição de conhecimento, porém sem entrar em muitos detalhes sobre como se dá o funcionamento desse método. Ressalta-se a importância de um aprendizado aprofundado sobre metodologia científica nos cursos de Psicologia. / [en] Despite the numerous benefits of scientific practice to the world in recent years, the professionals and students of the Psychology are still resistant to the use of the scientific method in this area. The origins of such objections and the variables that influence them are uncertain, requiring studies to investigate them. The main idea presented in this study is that the conceptions of science and scientific method among Brazilian professionals and students of Psychology are insufficient. In order to test the hypotheses derived from this idea, the aim of this study was to evaluate the psychology professionals and student s conceptions about science and scientific method through two open questions and a sociodemographic questionnaire. The sample of respondents was composed of 791 people, students (n = 407) and professionals (n = 384) from Brazil, aged between 17 and 67 years (M = 29.07, SD = 9.02), 68,5 percent women. The analysis of the texts occurred through the Descending Hierarchical Classification and Correspondence Factor Analysis with the aid of the IRaMuTeQ, an interface of textual analysis. The analysis revealed that the participants have very different conceptions about science and scientific method, dominating the notion that science is a method of acquiring knowledge, but without more details about how this method works. It is important to emphasize the importance of learning about scientific methodology in Psychology courses.