The use of computer technology to compare and analyze community college dissertations

A purpose of this research study was to demonstrate the practical linguistic study and evaluation of dissertations by using two examples of the latest technology, the microcomputer and optical scanner. That involved developing efficient methods for data entry plus creating computer algorithms appropriate for personal, linguistic studies. The goal was to develop a prototype investigation which demonstrated practical solutions for maximizing the linguistic potential of the dissertation data base. The mode of text entry was from a Dest PC Scan 1000 Optical Scanner. The function of the optical scanner was to copy the complete stack of educational dissertations from the Florida Atlantic University Library into an I.B.M. XT microcomputer. The optical scanner demonstrated its practical value by copying 15,900 pages of dissertation text directly into the microcomputer. A total of 199 dissertations or 72% of the entire stack of education dissertations (277) were successfully copied into the microcomputer's word processor where each dissertation was analyzed for a variety of syntax frequencies. The results of the study demonstrated the practical use of the optical scanner for data entry, the microcomputer for data and statistical analysis, and the availability of the college library as a natural setting for text studies. A supplemental benefit was the establishment of a computerized dissertation corpus which could be used for future research and study. The final step was to build a linguistic model of the differences in dissertation writing styles by creating 7 factors from 55 dependent variables through principal components factor analysis. The 7 factors (textual components) were then named and described on a hypothetical construct defined as a continuum from a conversational, interactional style to a formal, academic writing style. The 7 factors were then grouped through discriminant analysis to create discriminant functions for each of the 7 independent variables. The results indicated that a conversational, interactional writing style was associated with more recent dissertations (1972-1987), an increase in author's age, females, and the department of Curriculum and Instruction. A formal, academic writing style was associated with older dissertations (1972-1987), younger authors, males, and the department of Administration and Supervision. It was concluded that there were no significant differences in writing style due to subject matter (community college studies) compared to other subject matter. It was also concluded that there were no significant differences in writing style due to the location of dissertation origin (Florida Atlantic University, University of Central Florida, Florida International University).

Avaliação de desempenho docente, supervisão e desenvolvimento profissional

Este texto incide sobre o papel da supervisão pedagógica no contexto da avaliação de desempenho docente (ADD), procurando aprofundar a forma como a dimensão formativa da avaliação foi equacionada e desenvolvida nas escolas. Para tal, foram realizados dois estudos num agrupamento de escolas da periferia de Lisboa, abrangendo professores avaliadores e avaliados do 1º e do 2º/3º ciclos. Os estudos tinham como objetivos gerais: i) conhecer asconceções de avaliadores e avaliados sobre os fundamentos e as práticas de avaliação de desempenho desenvolvidas nos seus contextos profissionais; ii) e definir o papel que avaliadores e avaliados atribuem à supervisão neste processo. Para a recolha de dados usou-se a entrevista semi-diretiva, recorrendo-se à análise de conteúdo para tratamento dos dados. O confronto dos resultados das entrevistas permite concluir que as conceções sobre a avaliação de desempenho dos docentes dos diferentes ciclos são semelhantes, mas o processo de avaliação e de supervisão foi vivido de forma distinta. O papel da supervisão na ADD depende, em larga escala, da competência dos avaliadores como supervisores e como professores e é facilitado pela existência prévia de uma cultura de colaboração entre docentes.

Socially Constructed Environmental Issues and Sport: A Content Analysis of Ski Resort Environmental Communications

Due to the impact of sport on the natural environment (UN, 2010), it is important to examine the interplay between environmental issues and sport (Hums, 2010, Mallen & Chard, 2011; Nauright & Pope, 2009; Ziegler, 2007). This research content analyzed 82 ski resort environmental communications (SRECs). These communications were rated for their prominence, breadth, and depth using the delineation of environmental issues provided by the Sustainable Slopes Program (SSP) Charter. This data was compared to the resorts’ degree of environmentally responsible action as rated by the Ski Area Citizens’ Coalition (SACC). An adaptation of Hudson and Miller's (2005) model was then used to classify the ski resorts as inactive, reactive, exploitive, or proactive in their environmental activities. Recommendations have been made for standardization and transparency in environmental disclosures and an environmental management system to aid ski resorts in moving from ad hoc processes to a systematic and comprehensive framework for improving environmental performance.

The Representation of the Feminine in the Portuguese Press : A Content Analysis of the Diário de Notícias Newspaper

This is a brief report of a research project, coordinated by me and funded by the Portuguese Government. It studies ‘The Representation of the Feminine in the Portuguese Press’ (POCI/COM 55780/2004), and works on the content analysis of discourse on the feminine in various Portuguese newspapers, covering the time span of February 1st till April 30th 2006. The paper is divided into two parts: in the first part, I will briefly discuss the typology used to code the text units of selected articles; in the second part, I will explore the most expressive percentages of the first two weeks of February for the content analysis of the Diário de Notícias newspaper. These percentages were obtained with the NVivo 6 qualitative data treatment software programme.

Quantitative proteome analysis in cardiovascular physiology and pathology. I. Data processing

Methodological evaluation of the proteomic analysis of cardiovascular-tissue material has been performed with a special emphasis on establishing examinations that allow reliable quantitative analysis of silver-stained readouts. Reliability, reproducibility, robustness and linearity were addressed and clarified. In addition, several types of normalization procedures were evaluated and new approaches are proposed. It has been found that the silver-stained readout offers a convenient approach for quantitation if a linear range for gel loading is defined. In addition, a broad range of a 10-fold input (loading 20-200 microg per gel) fulfills the linearity criteria, although at the lowest input (20 microg) a portion of protein species will remain undetected. The method is reliable and reproducible within a range of 65-200 microg input. The normalization procedure using the sum of all spot intensities from a silver-stained 2D pattern has been shown to be less reliable than other approaches, namely, normalization through median or through involvement of interquartile range. A special refinement of the normalization through virtual segmentation of pattern, and calculation of normalization factor for each stratum provides highly satisfactory results. The presented results not only provide evidence for the usefulness of silver-stained gels for quantitative evaluation, but they are directly applicable to the research endeavor of monitoring alterations in cardiovascular pathophysiology.

Analysis of missile trajectory measurement accuracy for data processing

"Contract no. AF 30(602)-2138, Project 5554, Task 55102."

Analysis and Data Mining of Lead-Zinc Ore Data

This paper presents the results of our data mining study of Pb-Zn (lead-zinc) ore assay records from a mine enterprise in Bulgaria. We examined the dataset, cleaned outliers, visualized the data, and created dataset statistics. A Pb-Zn cluster data mining model was created for segmentation and prediction of Pb-Zn ore assay data. The Pb-Zn cluster data model consists of five clusters and DMX queries. We analyzed the Pb-Zn cluster content, size, structure, and characteristics. The set of the DMX queries allows for browsing and managing the clusters, as well as predicting ore assay records. A testing and validation of the Pb-Zn cluster data mining model was developed in order to show its reasonable accuracy before beingused in a production environment. The Pb-Zn cluster data mining model can be used for changes of the mine grinding and floatation processing parameters in almost real-time, which is important for the efficiency of the Pb-Zn ore beneficiation process. ACM Computing Classification System (1998): H.2.8, H.3.3.

Social support in cyberspace: A content analysis of communication within a Huntington’s Disease online support group

Objective: Huntington’s Disease (HD) is an inherited disorder, characterised by a progressive degeneration of the brain. Due to the nature of the symptoms, the genetic element of the disease and the fact that there is no cure, HD patients and those in their support network often experience considerable stress and anxiety. With an expansion in Internet access, individuals affected by HD have new opportunities for information retrieval and social support. The aim of this study is to examine the provision of social support in messages posted to a HD online support group bulletin board. Methods: In total, 1313 messages were content analysed using a modified version of the Social Support Behaviour Code developed by Cutrona & Suhr (1992). Results: The analysis indicates that group members most frequently offered informational (56.2%) and emotional support (51.9%) followed by network support (48.4%) with esteem support (21.7%) and tangible assistance (9.8%) least frequently offered. Conclusion: This study suggests that exchanging informational and emotional support represents a key function of this online group. Practice implications: Online support groups provide a unique opportunity for health professionals to learn about the experiences and views of individuals affected by HD and explore where and why gaps may exist between evidence-based medicine and consumer behaviour and expectations.

DESIGN OF EFFICIENT IN-NETWORK DATA PROCESSING AND DISSEMINATION FOR VANETS

By providing vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure wireless communications, vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs), also known as the “networks on wheels”, can greatly enhance traffic safety, traffic efficiency and driving experience for intelligent transportation system (ITS). However, the unique features of VANETs, such as high mobility and uneven distribution of vehicular nodes, impose critical challenges of high efficiency and reliability for the implementation of VANETs. This dissertation is motivated by the great application potentials of VANETs in the design of efficient in-network data processing and dissemination. Considering the significance of message aggregation, data dissemination and data collection, this dissertation research targets at enhancing the traffic safety and traffic efficiency, as well as developing novel commercial applications, based on VANETs, following four aspects: 1) accurate and efficient message aggregation to detect on-road safety relevant events, 2) reliable data dissemination to reliably notify remote vehicles, 3) efficient and reliable spatial data collection from vehicular sensors, and 4) novel promising applications to exploit the commercial potentials of VANETs. Specifically, to enable cooperative detection of safety relevant events on the roads, the structure-less message aggregation (SLMA) scheme is proposed to improve communication efficiency and message accuracy. The scheme of relative position based message dissemination (RPB-MD) is proposed to reliably and efficiently disseminate messages to all intended vehicles in the zone-of-relevance in varying traffic density. Due to numerous vehicular sensor data available based on VANETs, the scheme of compressive sampling based data collection (CS-DC) is proposed to efficiently collect the spatial relevance data in a large scale, especially in the dense traffic. In addition, with novel and efficient solutions proposed for the application specific issues of data dissemination and data collection, several appealing value-added applications for VANETs are developed to exploit the commercial potentials of VANETs, namely general purpose automatic survey (GPAS), VANET-based ambient ad dissemination (VAAD) and VANET based vehicle performance monitoring and analysis (VehicleView). Thus, by improving the efficiency and reliability in in-network data processing and dissemination, including message aggregation, data dissemination and data collection, together with the development of novel promising applications, this dissertation will help push VANETs further to the stage of massive deployment.

Scalable and efficient data processing in networked control systems

Network control systems (NCSs) are spatially distributed systems in which the communication between sensors, actuators and controllers occurs through a shared band-limited digital communication network. However, the use of a shared communication network, in contrast to using several dedicated independent connections, introduces new challenges which are even more acute in large scale and dense networked control systems. In this paper we investigate a recently introduced technique of gathering information from a dense sensor network to be used in networked control applications. Obtaining efficiently an approximate interpolation of the sensed data is exploited as offering a good tradeoff between accuracy in the measurement of the input signals and the delay to the actuation. These are important aspects to take into account for the quality of control. We introduce a variation to the state-of-the-art algorithms which we prove to perform relatively better because it takes into account the changes over time of the input signal within the process of obtaining an approximate interpolation.

An Approach To Publish a Data Warehouse Content as Linked Data

Mestrado em Engenharia Informática - Área de Especialização em Tecnologias do Conhecimento e Decisão

Sterol content analysis suggests altered eburicol 14 alpha-demethylase (CYP51) activity in isolates of Mycosphaerella graminicola adapted to azole fungicides

The recent decline in the effectiveness of some azole fungicides in controlling the wheat pathogen Mycosphaerella graminicola has been associated with mutations in the CYP51 gene encoding the azole target, the eburicol 14 alpha-demethylase (CYP51), an essential enzyme of the ergosterol biosynthesis pathway. In this study, analysis of the sterol content of M. graminicola isolates carrying different variants of the CYP51 gene has revealed quantitative differences in sterol intermediates, particularly the CYP51 substrate eburicol. Together with CYP51 gene expression studies, these data suggest that mutations in the CYP51 gene impact on the activity of the CYP51 protein.

From dichotic listening to the irrelevant sound effect: a behavioural and neuroimaging analysis of the processing of unattended speech

The assumption that ignoring irrelevant sound in a serial recall situation is identical to ignoring a non-target channel in dichotic listening is challenged. Dichotic listening is open to moderating effects of working memory capacity (Conway et al., 2001) whereas irrelevant sound effects (ISE) are not (Beaman, 2004). A right ear processing bias is apparent in dichotic listening, whereas the bias is to the left ear in the ISE (Hadlington et al., 2004). Positron emission tomography (PET) imaging data (Scott et al., 2004, submitted) show bilateral activation of the superior temporal gyrus (STG) in the presence of intelligible, but ignored, background speech and right hemisphere activation of the STG in the presence of unintelligible background speech. It is suggested that the right STG may be involved in the ISE and a particularly strong left ear effect might occur because of the contralateral connections in audition. It is further suggested that left STG activity is associated with dichotic listening effects and may be influenced by working memory span capacity. The relationship of this functional and neuroanatomical model to known neural correlates of working memory is considered.