AMOR E REVELAÇÃO NA PEDAGOGIA DIALÓGICA: DIÁLOGO ENTRE PAULO FREIRE E JUAN LUIS SEGUNDO

Esta pesquisa implica em uma abordagem interdisciplinar, pois analisa a pedagogia de um educador e um teólogo envolvendo assim diferentes áreas do conhecimento, tais como educação e teologia. Este estudo possibilita um aprofundamento dos conhecimentos pedagógicos e teológicos acerca da temática do amor, diálogo e revelação. O objetivo com esta pesquisa é de aprofundar a relação entre teologia e educação e educação e teologia identificando a contribuição de Paulo Freire e Juan Luis Segundo no aprofundamento do tema do amor e do diálogo. Paulo Freire acreditava que o mundo poderia ser transformado através da educação problematizadora dialógica. O diálogo se fundamenta em elementos constitutivos como fé, amor, humildade, confiança e esperança que também fazem parte da teologia cristã. Trabalha-se com a hipótese que Freire fundamentou sua pedagogia na teologia cristã para aprofundar a pedagogia dialógica. No pensamento de Juan Luis Segundo a revelação é um processo pedagógico de aprender a aprender a ser humano. Trabalha-se com a hipótese que Juan Luis Segundo fundamentou sua teologia também na educação. Desta forma há a possibilidade de comparação entre os autores.(AU)

Going beyond the rhetoric: system-wide changes in universities for sustainable societies

In October 2008, the 5th Environmental Management for Sustainable Universities (EMSU) international conference was held in Barcelona, Spain. It dealt with the need to rethink how our higher educational institutions are facing sustainability. This special issue has been primarily derived from contributions to that conference. This issue builds upon related academic international publications, which have analysed how to use the critical position of universities to accelerate their pace of working to help to make the transition to truly SUSTAINABLE SOCIETIES! This issue focus is on the ‘softer’ issues, such as changes in values, attitudes, motivations, as well as in curricula, societal interactions and assessments of the impacts of research. Insights derived from the interplay of the ‘softer’ issues with the ‘harder’ issues are empowering academic leaders to effectively use leverage points to make changes in operations, courses, curricula, and research. Those changes are being designed to help their students and faculty build resilient and sustainable societies within the context of climate change, the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (DESD), and the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The overall systems approach presented by Stephens and Graham provides a structured framework to systematize change for sustainability in higher education, by stressing on the one hand the need for “learning to learn” and on the other hand by integrating leadership and cultural aspects. The “niche” level they propose for innovative interactions between practitioners such as EMSU is exemplary developed by all of the other documents in this special issue. To highlight some of the key elements of the articles in this issue, there are proposals for new educational methods based in sustainability science, a set of inspirational criteria for SD research activities, new course ranking and assessment methods and results of psychological studies that provide evidence that participatory approaches are the most effective way to change values within university members in order to facilitate the development and sharing of new sustainability norms.

A preceptoria na estratégia saúde da família: o olhar dos profissionais de saúde

The proposal of teaching-service integration from work experience brings a challenge to the professionals involved in health services: to combine their healthcare practice to the preparation of new professionals in accordance with the national health model. In Recife, the assistance network is known as school network, since it provides all its health equipment for Higher Education Institutions, in special for professionals who work as preceptors, making this activity an important component of the services network. The objective of the present study was to analyze preceptorship experience herein Multidisciplinary Residences in Health in the look of health professionals. This is a qualitative descriptive study, involving physicians, dentists, and nurses that have worked as preceptors for at least two years in multidisciplinary residency linked to two Higher Education Institutions. A semistructured interview was used as research instrument and data were processed by using the software Alceste 4.9. Results indicated four semantic classes which were divided into two axis. Axis 1, composed of class 4, and Axis 2, composed of classes 3, 2 and 1. Categorization considered the relation between classes. It was observed that in class 4 work overload is a dilemma for professional participation in preceptorship. This is noted by the words manage, time, patient, give, and complicated. However, it is also observed that the preceptorship involves positive learning and teaching actions, reinforced by the words say, explain, and discuss. Class 2 shows the preceptorship as an experience exchange, a positive moment that provides theoretical upgrade to the preceptor, associated to the professional practices performed by the binominal preceptor-student in health services and communities. In this perspective, everyone is benefited since preceptorship is structured according to dynamic aspects of knowledge, experienced in settings permeated by people´s health necessities. In class 3, potentialities of this practice are shown, and personal compromise is the main reason of acting as a preceptor in this network of education/attention, demonstrated in the words reason, formation, to like and professionals. Last, but not the least, class 1 suggests the importance of preceptorship and one of the strategies to create the National Politics of Humanization, from the teachingservice-community integration, observed in the words: arrives, university, fundamental, manner, partnership, service, and student. Besides, it rates perspectives and challenges for the improvement of the preceptorship in health services. Integrating teaching and service can enhance the proposals of changes concerning the healthcare model practiced in services, but this relation is still superficial. The preceptor is an actor in action, playing real life roles, and that is when he becomes essential to seek training with the profile defended in the proposed training of a professional who is capable of learning to learn

A concepção de humanização no contexto da formação médica: o caso da UFRN

This thesis aims at understanding the aspects related to the concept of humanization that contribute to a humanized education in the pedagogical project of the medicine graduation course of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN). It has been used a qualitative research through non - structured interviews to six professors and through the focus group technique with participant observation of 30 students of the 2 nd , 4 th and 6 th terms of the med program. The data has been analyzed through the cate gorical thematic subject analysis technique from which two categories have emerged: tendency changes and initial changes. In the former we ’ ve identified aspects related to the social reality based in the experiences of professors and students in their work field; the competencies such as stimulation to the students ’ critical and reflexive knowledge through professors ’ encouragements and learning to learn as a way of developing professors ’ education towards the process of learning and evaluation of students. In the latter, we ’ ve noticed positive and negative aspects. While in the positive aspects we ’ ve testified actions and attitudes that were crucial for the development of the curricular proposals, in the negative ones we ’ ve verified controversial arguments between the students and teachers ’ speeches regarding the process of medical education in a humanized approach. For last, we ’ ve got large different results within the period investigated. However, we understand that the data found in the study has contribu ted to reach the proposed objectives regarding what has been perceived between the professors and students ’ point of views in relation to a humanized based education. Even if it ́s an initial perception, it is moving towards a medical education more humaniz ed and centered in the human being.

Using workflow technology to manage flexible e-learning services

Workflow technology provides a suitable platform to define and manage the coordination of business process activities. We introduce a flexible e-learning environment – called Flex-eL – that has been built upon workflow technology. The workflow functionality of Flex-eL manages the coordination of learning and assessment activities of the course process between students and teaching staff. It provides a unique environment for teachers to design and develop process-centric courses and to monitor student progress. It allows students to learn at their own pace while observing the learning guidelines and checkpoints modeled into the course process by teaching staff. We also report on the successful deployment of the concept and system for university courses and our experiences from the implementation.

The Word Brain - A Short Guide to Fast Language Learning

How long does it take to learn another language? How many words do you need to learn? Are languages within the reach of everybody? Which teachers would you choose and which teachers should you avoid? These are some of the questions you ask yourself when you start learning a new language.The Word Brain provides the answers. If you have learned foreign languages in the past, consider reading it. If you or your children need to learn languages in the future, you must read it. What you will discover in two hours will change for ever the way you see languages and language learning. The principles of The Word Brain are timeless. Our children’s grandchildren will follow them when they discover the people of our planet.

A behavioral study of alpha-1b adrenergic receptor knockout mice: increased reaction to novelty and selectively reduced learning capacities.

Knockout mice lacking the alpha-1b adrenergic receptor were tested in behavioral experiments. Reaction to novelty was first assessed in a simple test in which the time taken by the knockout mice and their littermate controls to enter a second compartment was compared. Then the mice were tested in an open field to which unknown objects were subsequently added. Special novelty was introduced by moving one of the familiar objects to another location in the open field. Spatial behavior and memory were further studied in a homing board test, and in the water maze. The alpha-1b knockout mice showed an enhanced reactivity to new situations. They were faster to enter the new environment, covered longer paths in the open field, and spent more time exploring the new objects. They reacted like controls to modification inducing spatial novelty. In the homing board test, both the knockout mice and the control mice seemed to use a combination of distant visual and proximal olfactory cues, showing place preference only if the two types of cues were redundant. In the water maze the alpha-1b knockout mice were unable to learn the task, which was confirmed in a probe trial without platform. They were perfectly able, however, to escape in a visible platform procedure. These results confirm previous findings showing that the noradrenergic pathway is important for the modulation of behaviors such as reaction to novelty and exploration, and suggest that this is mediated, at least partly, through the alpha-1b adrenergic receptors. The lack of alpha-1b adrenergic receptors in spatial orientation does not seem important in cue-rich tasks but may interfere with orientation in situations providing distant cues only.

Adaptive intelligent agent approach to guide the web navigation on the PLAN-G distance learning platform

Hypermedia systems based on the Web for open distance education are becoming increasinglypopular as tools for user-driven access learning information. Adaptive hypermedia is a new direction in research within the area of user-adaptive systems, to increase its functionality by making it personalized [Eklu 961. This paper sketches a general agents architecture to include navigationaladaptability and user-friendly processes which would guide and accompany the student during hislher learning on the PLAN-G hypermedia system (New Generation Telematics Platform to Support Open and Distance Learning), with the aid of computer networks and specifically WWW technology [Marz 98-1] [Marz 98-2]. The PLAN-G actual prototype is successfully used with some informatics courses (the current version has no agents yet). The propased multi-agent system, contains two different types of adaptive autonomous software agents: Personal Digital Agents {Interface), to interacl directly with the student when necessary; and Information Agents (Intermediaries), to filtrate and discover information to learn and to adapt navigation space to a specific student

Fruit flies learn to avoid odours associated with virulent infection.

While learning to avoid toxic food is common in mammals and occurs in some insects, learning to avoid cues associated with infectious pathogens has received little attention. We demonstrate that Drosophila melanogaster show olfactory learning in response to infection with their virulent intestinal pathogen Pseudomonas entomophila. This pathogen was not aversive to taste when added to food. Nonetheless, flies exposed for 3 h to food laced with P. entomophila, and scented with an odorant, became subsequently less likely to choose this odorant than flies exposed to pathogen-laced food scented with another odorant. No such effect occurred after an otherwise identical treatment with an avirulent mutant of P. entomophila, indicating that the response is mediated by pathogen virulence. These results demonstrate that a virulent pathogen infection can act as an aversive unconditioned stimulus which flies can associate with food odours, and thus become less attracted to pathogen-contaminated food.

Learning in Product Development Projects - Responding to challenges in global industrial company

Verkostoitunut kansainvälinen tuotekehitys on tärkeä osa menestystä nykypäivän muuttuvassa yritysmaailmassa. Toimintojen tehostamiseksi myös projektitoiminnot on sopeutettava kansainväliseen toimintaympäristöön. Kilpailukyvyn säilyttämiseksi projektitoimintoja on lisäksi jatkuvasti tehostettava. Yhtenäkeinona nähdään projektioppiminen, jota voidaan edistää monin eri tavoin. Tässätyössä keskitytään projektitiedonhallinnan kehittämisen tuomiin oppimismahdollisuuksiin. Kirjallisuudessa kerrotaan, että projektitiedon jakaminen ja sen hyödyntäminen seuraavissa projekteissa on eräs projektioppimisen edellytyksistä. Tämäon otettu keskeiseksi näkökulmaksi tässä tutkimuksessa. Lisäksi tutkimusalueen rajaamiseksi työ tarkastelee erityisesti projektioppimista kansainvälisten tuotekehitysprojektien välillä. Työn tavoitteena on esitellä keskeisiä projektioppimisen haasteita ja etsiä konkreettinen ratkaisu vastaamaan näihin haasteisiin. Tuotekehitystoiminnot ja kansainvälinen hajautettu projektiorganisaatio kohtaavat lisäksi erityisiä haasteita, kuten tiedon hajautuneisuus, projektihenkilöstön vaihtuvuus, tiedon luottamuksellisuus ja maantieteelliset haasteet (esim. aikavyöhykkeet ja toimipisteen sijainti). Nämä erityishaasteet on otettu huomioon ratkaisua etsittäessä. Haasteisiin päädyttiin vastaamaan tietotekniikkapohjaisella ratkaisulla, joka suunniteltiin erityisesti huomioiden esimerkkiorganisaation tarpeet ja haasteet. Työssä tarkastellaan suunnitellun ratkaisun vaikutusta projektioppimiseen ja kuinka se vastaa havaittuihin haasteisiin. Tuloksissa huomattiin, että projektioppimista tapahtui, vaikka oppimista oli vaikea suoranaisesti huomata tutkimusorganisaation jäsenten keskuudessa. Projektioppimista voidaan kuitenkin sanoa tapahtuvan, jos projektitieto on helposti koko projektiryhmän saatavilla ja se on hyvin järjesteltyä. Muun muassa nämä ehdot täyttyivät. Projektioppiminen nähdään yleisesti haastavana kehitysalueena esimerkkiorganisaatiossa. Suuri osa tietämyksestä on niin sanottua hiljaistatietoa, jota on hankala tai mahdoton saattaa kirjalliseen muotoon. Näin olleen tiedon siirtäminen jää suurelta osin henkilökohtaisen vuorovaikutuksen varaan. Siitä huolimatta projektioppimista on mahdollista kehittää erilaisin toimintamallein ja menetelmin. Kehitys vaatii kuitenkin resursseja, pitkäjänteisyyttä ja aikaa. Monet muutokset voivat vaatia myös organisaatiokulttuurin muutoksen ja vaikuttamista organisaation jäseniin. Motivaatio, positiiviset mielikuvat ja selkeät strategiset tavoitteet luovat vakaan pohjan projektioppimisen kehittämiselle.

ePortfolio as a tool for reflexivity and skills' communication : learn how to communicate skills

This paper aims to present an ePortfolio project led for two years in a multilingual and interdisciplinary Master's program in public discourse and communication analysis offered by the Faculty of Arts of the University of Lausanne (Switzerland). Globally, the project - named Learn to communicate skills - offers a reflection about academic skills and their transferability to the professional world. More precisely, the aim of the project is to make students aware of the importance of reflexive learning to make their skills transferable to other contexts.

Future revenue models: Transformation from textbooks to digital solutions in the educational publishing industry, Case Sanoma Learning

This study was conducted in order to learn how companies’ revenue models will be transformed due to the digitalisation of its products and processes. Because there is still only a limited number of researches focusing solely on revenue models, and particularly on the revenue model change caused by the changes at the business environment, the topic was initially approached through the business model concept, which organises the different value creating operations and resources at a company in order to create profitable revenue streams. This was used as the base for constructing the theoretical framework for this study, used to collect and analyse the information. The empirical section is based on a qualitative study approach and multiple-case analysis of companies operating in learning materials publishing industry. Their operations are compared with companies operating in other industries, which have undergone comparable transformation, in order to recognise either similarities or contrasts between the cases. The sources of evidence are a literature review to find the essential dimensions researched earlier, and interviews 29 of managers and executives at 17 organisations representing six industries. Based onto the earlier literature and the empirical findings of this study, the change of the revenue model is linked with the change of the other dimen-sions of the business model. When one dimension will be altered, as well the other should be adjusted accordingly. At the case companies the transformation is observed as the utilisation of several revenue models simultaneously and the revenue creation processes becoming more complex.

A multimethod examination of contributors to successful on-the-job learning for vocational students

Rapid changes in working life and competence requirements of different professions have increased interest in workplace learning. It is considered an effective way to learn and update professional skills by performing daily tasks in an authentic environment. Especially, ensuring a supply of skilled future workers is a crucial issue for firms facing tight competition and a shortage of competent employees due to the retirement of current professionals. In order to develop and make the most of workplace learning, it is important to focus on workplace learning environments and the individual characteristics of those participating in workplace learning. The literature has suggested various factors that influence adults' and professionals’ workplace learning of profession-related skills, but lacks empirical studies on contextual and individual-related factors that positively affect students' workplace learning. Workers with vocational education form a large group in modern firms. Therefore, elements of vocational students’ successful workplace learning during their studies, before starting their career paths, need to be examined. To fill this gap in the literature, this dissertation examines contributors to vocational students’ workplace learning in Finland, where students’ workplace learning is included in the vocational education and training system. The study is divided into two parts: the introduction, comprised of the overview of the relevant literature and the conclusion of the entire study, and five separate articles. Three of the articles utilize quantitative methods and two use qualitative methods to examine factors that contribute to vocational students’ workplace learning. The results show that, from the students’ perspective, attitudinal, motivational, and organizationrelated factors enhance the student’s development of professionalism during the on-the-job learning period. Specifically, the organization-related factors such as innovative climate, guidance, and interactions with seniors have a strong positive impact on the students’ perceived development of professional skills because, for example, the seniors’ guidance and provision of new viewpoints for the tasks helps the vocational students to gain autonomy at work performance. A multilevel analysis shows that of those factors enhancing workplace learning from the student perspective, innovative climate, knowledge transfer accuracy, and the students’ performance orientation were significantly related to the workplace instructors’ assessment regarding the students’ professional performance. Furthermore, support from senior colleagues and the students’ self-efficacy were both significantly associated with the formal grades measuring how well the students managed to learn necessary professional skills. In addition, the results suggest that the students’ on-the-job learning can be divided into three main phases, of which two require efforts from both the student and the on-the-job learning organization. The first phase includes the student’s application of basic professional skills, demonstration of potential in performing daily tasks, and orientation provided by the organization at the beginning of the on-the-job learning period. In the second phase, the student actively develops profession-related skills by performing daily tasks, thus learning a fluent working style while observing the seniors’ performance. The organization offers relevant tasks and follows the student’s development. The third level indicates a student who has reached the professional level described as a full occupation. The results suggest that constructing the vocational students’ successful on-the-job learning period requires feedback from seniors, opportunities to learn to manage entire work processes, self-efficacy on the part of the students, proactive behavior, and initiative in learning. The study contributes to research on workplace learning in three ways: firstly, it identifies the key individual- and organization-based factors that influence the vocational students’ successful on-the-job learning from their perspective and examines mutual relationships between these factors. Second, the study provides knowledge of how the factors related to the students’ view of successful workplace learning are associated with the workplace instructors’ perspective and the formal grades. Third, the present study finds elements needed to construct a successful on-the-job learning for the students.

Deep learning of representations and its application to computer vision

L’objectif de cette thèse par articles est de présenter modestement quelques étapes du parcours qui mènera (on espère) à une solution générale du problème de l’intelligence artificielle. Cette thèse contient quatre articles qui présentent chacun une différente nouvelle méthode d’inférence perceptive en utilisant l’apprentissage machine et, plus particulièrement, les réseaux neuronaux profonds. Chacun de ces documents met en évidence l’utilité de sa méthode proposée dans le cadre d’une tâche de vision par ordinateur. Ces méthodes sont applicables dans un contexte plus général, et dans certains cas elles on tété appliquées ailleurs, mais ceci ne sera pas abordé dans le contexte de cette de thèse. Dans le premier article, nous présentons deux nouveaux algorithmes d’inférence variationelle pour le modèle génératif d’images appelé codage parcimonieux “spike- and-slab” (CPSS). Ces méthodes d’inférence plus rapides nous permettent d’utiliser des modèles CPSS de tailles beaucoup plus grandes qu’auparavant. Nous démontrons qu’elles sont meilleures pour extraire des détecteur de caractéristiques quand très peu d’exemples étiquetés sont disponibles pour l’entraînement. Partant d’un modèle CPSS, nous construisons ensuite une architecture profonde, la machine de Boltzmann profonde partiellement dirigée (MBP-PD). Ce modèle a été conçu de manière à simplifier d’entraînement des machines de Boltzmann profondes qui nécessitent normalement une phase de pré-entraînement glouton pour chaque couche. Ce problème est réglé dans une certaine mesure, mais le coût d’inférence dans le nouveau modèle est relativement trop élevé pour permettre de l’utiliser de manière pratique. Dans le deuxième article, nous revenons au problème d’entraînement joint de machines de Boltzmann profondes. Cette fois, au lieu de changer de famille de modèles, nous introduisons un nouveau critère d’entraînement qui donne naissance aux machines de Boltzmann profondes à multiples prédictions (MBP-MP). Les MBP-MP sont entraînables en une seule étape et ont un meilleur taux de succès en classification que les MBP classiques. Elles s’entraînent aussi avec des méthodes variationelles standard au lieu de nécessiter un classificateur discriminant pour obtenir un bon taux de succès en classification. Par contre, un des inconvénients de tels modèles est leur incapacité de générer deséchantillons, mais ceci n’est pas trop grave puisque la performance de classification des machines de Boltzmann profondes n’est plus une priorité étant donné les dernières avancées en apprentissage supervisé. Malgré cela, les MBP-MP demeurent intéressantes parce qu’elles sont capable d’accomplir certaines tâches que des modèles purement supervisés ne peuvent pas faire, telles que celle de classifier des données incomplètes ou encore celle de combler intelligemment l’information manquante dans ces données incomplètes. Le travail présenté dans cette thèse s’est déroulé au milieu d’une période de transformations importantes du domaine de l’apprentissage à réseaux neuronaux profonds qui a été déclenchée par la découverte de l’algorithme de “dropout” par Geoffrey Hinton. Dropout rend possible un entraînement purement supervisé d’architectures de propagation unidirectionnel sans être exposé au danger de sur- entraînement. Le troisième article présenté dans cette thèse introduit une nouvelle fonction d’activation spécialement con ̧cue pour aller avec l’algorithme de Dropout. Cette fonction d’activation, appelée maxout, permet l’utilisation de aggrégation multi-canal dans un contexte d’apprentissage purement supervisé. Nous démontrons comment plusieurs tâches de reconnaissance d’objets sont mieux accomplies par l’utilisation de maxout. Pour terminer, sont présentons un vrai cas d’utilisation dans l’industrie pour la transcription d’adresses de maisons à plusieurs chiffres. En combinant maxout avec une nouvelle sorte de couche de sortie pour des réseaux neuronaux de convolution, nous démontrons qu’il est possible d’atteindre un taux de succès comparable à celui des humains sur un ensemble de données coriace constitué de photos prises par les voitures de Google. Ce système a été déployé avec succès chez Google pour lire environ cent million d’adresses de maisons.

A Reinforcement Learning Approach to Economic Dispatch using Neural Networks

This paper presents a Reinforcement Learning (RL) approach to economic dispatch (ED) using Radial Basis Function neural network. We formulate the ED as an N stage decision making problem. We propose a novel architecture to store Qvalues and present a learning algorithm to learn the weights of the neural network. Even though many stochastic search techniques like simulated annealing, genetic algorithm and evolutionary programming have been applied to ED, they require searching for the optimal solution for each load demand. Also they find limitation in handling stochastic cost functions. In our approach once we learn the Q-values, we can find the dispatch for any load demand. We have recently proposed a RL approach to ED. In that approach, we could find only the optimum dispatch for a set of specified discrete values of power demand. The performance of the proposed algorithm is validated by taking IEEE 6 bus system, considering transmission losses