Dissertations / Theses: 'Understanding of'

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Bonnevier, Anna. "Understanding learning and learning for understanding : Exploring medical students' personal understandings of learning tasks and experiences of learning and understanding in medicine." Doctoral thesis, Stockholms universitet, Institutionen för pedagogik och didaktik, 2015. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:su:diva-114394.

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The central concern of the thesis is to problematise the complexity of the relationship between student learning and the teaching-learning environment in medicine as experienced by students. The thesis argues that learning material presented to students offers only potential for learning. What students make of that potential is influenced by a number of different variables and as such this needs to be investigated empirically. High-quality learning is an important goal for all higher education and previous research together with the empirical findings presented in this thesis convey the importance for students to seek a holistic approach to learning. Such a learning approach encompasses not only learning of facts and theories but also includes exercising an ability to reflect and reason, to organise facts and theories into wholes, and to explore how they relate to each other. Most importantly, it involves the ability to understand the grounds on which facts and theories are chosen for specific purposes depending on context. The thesis explores these issues by drawing on findings from three studies of medical students’ experiences of learning and understanding and how students’ personal understandings of subject content in medicine come to the fore in their work on learning tasks. By applying a context-oriented methodological perspective on learning, focusing on what students actually do in a learning situation, the thesis enables an in-depth investigation of relationships between aspects of content, context and the individual. The results show that the learning environment in the medical programme to a large extent does not make sufficient room for students to express understanding of this dynamic character. In the thesis it is argued that to facilitate such an understanding it is necessary for both students and teachers to increase awareness of the context-dependency of subject content, facts and theories, and the different meanings content takes depending on context of use.

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Whalen, Alexander Crutchfield. "Ampliative understanding." Thesis, University of Edinburgh, 2018. http://hdl.handle.net/1842/31044.

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Virtue-theoretic accounts of knowledge start by capturing the value of knowledge as an achievement and work from there to develop a full theory of knowledge. But environmental luck, which is compatible with achievements but typically defeats knowledge, introduces some unique challenges for these accounts to overcome. While far from devastating for the virtue-theoretic project, several authors have viewed these worries as an opportunity to shift their focus towards understanding. In the past, understanding has been mostly ignored by epistemologists who considered it to be a psychological state rather than something worth further inquiry. Over the past decade, this view has changed and understanding is quickly becoming a topic of great interest and lively debate. Among the key questions in this debate is the relationship between knowledge and understanding, the role of epistemic luck, and whether understanding has final value as a cognitive achievement. However, the debate is taking place in the absence of a useful theory of understanding that can provide a principled means of addressing these topics. This project aims to help remedy the situation by identifying a kind of understanding, which I call ampliative understanding, that can provide a framework in which the current debate can take place. In staying true to the virtue-theoretic approach, this account of understanding starts by focusing on its value as a cognitive achievement and working from there. On this view, an agent with ampliative understanding will be able to acquire true beliefs in a way that manifests her cognitive abilities. While there are certainly other kinds of understanding that may be of epistemological import, ampliative understanding is able to accommodate our intuitions about the value of understanding and can capture most of the necessary features for understanding that we find in the literature. My hope is that, with the framework of ampliative understanding in place, we can have a debate that is both rigorous and productive.

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Söyler, Tamer. "Self-understanding and understanding others." Doctoral thesis, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Kultur-, Sozial- und Bildungswissenschaftliche Fakultät, 2015. http://dx.doi.org/10.18452/17322.

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Die universalistische Fixierung auf Wahrheit hat lange Zeit das Verständnis des In-Der-Welt-Seins dominiert und vorstrukturiert. Der Aufstieg des globalen Südens jedoch hat die Vorherrschaft allgemeingültiger Deutungsweisen herausgefordert. Diese Veränderung hat die Bedeutung verschiedener Interpretationsweisen des In-der-Welt-Seins deutlich gemacht. Ein einschneidender Wandel zeichnet sich ab. Die Chance für gegenhegemoniale Ansätze steigt. Diese Untersuchung betrachtet die Grenzen des Verstehens und deren Verschiebungen. Sie diskutiert die Schwierigkeiten, die mit einem Wandel des Denkens verbunden sind, das Ausmaß, in dem Denken vorstrukturiert ist, und die Unabweisbarkeit von Momenten des Wandels. In Übereinstimmung damit sieht die Studie einen Zusammenhang zwischen Verstehen und Emanzipation. Zum Schluss wird die Rolle der Universitäten als Hüter und Verbreiter des Denkens hinterfragt, insbesondere für die gegenwärtige Bewegung, sich für ein Verständnis des In-der-Welt-Seins von den Beschränkungen des hegemonialen Denkens zu befreien.
Universalist fixation on truth has long dominated and pre-structured the analyst’s understanding of being in the world. The emergence of the Global South has given rise to a challenge to the hegemony of one-size-fits-all approaches. The ontological shift has revealed the relevance of different ways of understanding being in the world. A threshold of change has become visible. The potentiality for counter-hegemonic approaches is increasing. This study looks at the limits of understanding, and how those limits can be, and are being, overcome. It discusses the difficulties associated with transformation in thinking, the degree to which thought is pre-structured, and the irrefutability of moments of change. It establishes a link between understanding and emancipation. Finally, it questions the role of the universities as guardians and purveyors of thinking in the present emancipatory movement of understanding being in the world beyond the boundaries set by hegemonic thinking.

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Schwartz, Jonathan Louis. "The Enactment of Tasks in a Fifth Grade Classroom." Diss., The University of Arizona, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/194685.

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This study looked at one classroom's manifestation of inquiry. Looking at tasks as part of the Full Option Science System (FOSS) shed light on the way in which inquiry took shape in the classroom. To do this, detailed descriptions and analysis of the enactment of inquiry-based tasks were conducted in one fifth-grade elementary school classroom during an 8-week period of instruction. A central finding was that the intended tasks differed from the actual tasks. This incongruence occurred primarily due to the actions of individuals in the classroom. These actions shaped tasks and transformed inquiry-based tasks from highly ambiguous, high-risk tasks to a routine set of steps and procedures. Teacher's actions included establishing a classroom culture, creating a flow to classroom events, and making instructional decisions. These actions resulted in implicit structures in the classroom that determined the pace and sequence of events, as well as how the requirements and value of work were understood by students. Implicit structures reflected shared understandings between the teacher and students about work and the overall system of accountability in the classroom.

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Rudzicz, Frank. "Clavius : understanding language understanding in multimodal interaction." Thesis, McGill University, 2006. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=99536.

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Natural communication between humans is not limited to speech, but often requires simultaneous coordination of multiple streams of information---especially hand gestures---to complement or supplement understanding. This thesis describes a software architecture, called CLAVIUS Whose purpose is to generically interpret multiple modes of input as singular semantic utterances through a modular programming interface that supports various sensing technologies. This interpretation is accomplished through a new multi-threaded parsing algorithm that co-ordinates top-down and bottom-up methods asynchronously on graph-based unification grammars. The interpretation process follows a best-first approach where partial parses are evaluated by a combination of scoring metrics, related to such criteria as information content, grammatical structure and language models. Furthermore, CLAVIUS relaxes two traditional constraints in conventional parsing---namely, it abandons forced relative ordering of right-hand constituents in grammar rules, and it allows parses to be expanded with null constituents.
The effects of this parsing methodology, and of the scoring criteria it employs, are analyzed within the context of experiments and data collection on a small group of users. Both CLAVIUS and its component modules are trained on this data, and results show improvements in performance accuracy, and the overcoming of several difficulties in other multimodal frameworks. General discussion as to the linguistic behaviour of speakers in a multimodal context are also described.

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Macintyre, Donald McMaster. "Exploring understandings of the competence vocabulary : implications for understanding teacher competence." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 2005. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/2621/.

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The aim of this thesis is to explore the vocabulary of competence, to analyse conceptualisations of competence and to unravel understandings that then have implications for preparation and professional development of teachers in Scotland. Through discussion of the context for assessing teacher competence and a presentation of the accountability movement’s proposals for criteria that purport to measure teacher competence, differing conceptualisations of teaching are examined. At one end of the spectrum there are conceptions of teaching as a dialectical activity while at the opposite end there are conceptions of teaching as a mechanistic activity. It is the contention of this thesis that the conceptualisation of teacher competence reflects directly on the conceptualisation of teaching that dominates current political thinking on the purposes of education. An analysis of the discourse of competence and the vocabulary of competence is then revelatory of the underlying dimensions and conceptualisations of teaching held by the ‘leadership class’ or ‘policy community’. Following a lengthy critique of alternative conceptions of competence where it is realised that there is little real consensus – even among advocates of competence approaches to training and education – about what constitutes a definitive conceptualisation of competence, there is an attempt to regain ground through an understanding of competence that accords with a more traditional understanding of what the ‘notion of competence’ implies. Competence in this regard is considered as a deep understanding that is actually constitutive of action. Understood, this is not just that understanding lies behind action, but that understanding determines the approach to action. Such a notion of competence reflects how a person conceives their world and what then drives them to action.

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Folk, Sandra. "Understanding teaching for understanding in the mathematics classroom." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1999. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk1/tape7/PQDD_0016/NQ45670.pdf.

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Brzezinska, Magdalena. "Understanding ‘Illness’." Thesis, Uppsala University, Cultural Anthropology, 2004. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-4466.

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This study describes and analyses understanding ‘illness’ among clients and

leaders of the spiritual tradition Candomblé in Rio de Janeiro. The study

focuses on the individuals’ narratives of illness and of healing rituals within

the cult. Particular attention is given to the consultation ritual called jogo de

búzios, which is one of the main practices of finding the reason for the illness

as well as its cure. The emphasis in this study is on the necessity to look at

medical pluralism, the socio-individual context of illness and narrativity as an

intersubjective practice. The conclusion is reached that illness within

Candomblé ideology can be understood as disequilibrium in a person’s

lifeworld.

The individual is approached from within the plurimedical context of

both biomedical and Candomblé healing tradition in Rio. Here it is argued that

the person creates meaning of the illness in relation to different aspects of his

lifeworld. The individual’s lifeworld includes the urban context of Rio de

Janeiro; therefore a brief discussion is developed about how this context

influences the individual meaning production of the illness. The Candomblé

house is described with its social structure and other elements that are

important for understanding how the cult might work for the clients as an

alternative and/or complementary medical treatment.

The study progressively introduces and analyses the lifestories of the

individuals that approach the Candomblé cult in order to seek treatment. It

also is concerned with stories of the Candomblé leaders and their view on the

phenomenology of the Body, the Self and the social milieu of the person.

Finally, the study emphasises the importance of studies that focus on the

individual’s interpretation of the relations between the Self and the Body, and

the individual’s understanding of medical knowledge and practice.

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Akpniar, Seda, Desiree Maas, and Anneke Rooth. "Deepening Understanding." Universität Potsdam, 2012. http://opus.kobv.de/ubp/volltexte/2013/6585/.

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Majer, Zdenko, and Juliane Röll. "Deepening understanding." Universität Potsdam, 2012. http://opus.kobv.de/ubp/volltexte/2013/6578/.

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1. What do we mean, when we say ‘deepening understanding’? 2. Which methods can be used to foster deepening understanding? 3. Examples for deepening understanding based on the assignments 4. Summary of methods and results 5. How did we train deepening under standing in school? 6. What did the pupils learn from it? 7. Our own experiences working on this chapter

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Akçay, Pinar, Ece Düşer, Hannes Nozon, and Christian Strehmel. "Deepening understanding." Universität Potsdam, 2013. http://opus.kobv.de/ubp/volltexte/2013/6595/.

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1. Introduction 2. What is deepening understanding and why do we need it? 3. Which concepts were offered to explainthe differences between countries? 4. Maps 5. Summary of the appreciation andperception of the student teachers 6. Summary of the appreciation and perception of the pupils

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Bechtold, Sander, Thirza Hogendoorn, Vivien Kohútová, and Katarína Potočanová. "Deepening understanding." Universität Potsdam, 2013. http://opus.kobv.de/ubp/volltexte/2013/6601/.

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1. Key concepts 2. What students should have done 3. What students did 4. Deepening understanding 5. General description of deepening understanding 6. Why is deepening understanding an important stage? 7. How does deepening understanding occur in the lessons and some examples 8. Possible difficulties 9. Conclusion

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Chang, Michelle T. "Collection understanding." Thesis, Texas A&M University, 2003. http://hdl.handle.net/1969.1/69.

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Collection understanding shifts the traditional focus of retrieval in large collections from locating specific artifacts to gaining a comprehensive view of the collection. Visualization tools are critical to the process of efficient collection understanding. By presenting simple visual interfaces and intuitive methods of interacting with a collection, users come to understand the essence of the collection by focusing on the artifacts. This thesis discusses a practical approach for enhancing collection understanding in image collections.

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Hwang, Benjamin E. "Understanding Warlordism." Thesis, Monterey, Calif. : Naval Postgraduate School, 2007. http://bosun.nps.edu/uhtbin/hyperion.exe/07Mar%5FHwang.pdf.

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Thesis (M.S. in Defense Analysis)--Naval Postgraduate School, March 2007.
Thesis Advisor(s): Robert O'Connell. "March 2007." Includes bibliographical references (p. 71-75). Also available in print.

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Sprinkle, Jim. "Understanding EPDs." College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, University of Arizona (Tucson, AZ), 1996. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/144712.

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3 pp.
Currently, most registered bulls have information available from their own performance records, progeny, or relatives, which enable us to predict the performance of future offspring for various traits. An expected progeny difference or EPD is the difference in some trait which one can expect when compared to other animals of the same breed. This publication explains in detail the process of using EPDs to predict the performance of future offspring of a bull.

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Side, Jeremy. "Understanding bullying." Thesis, University of Bristol, 2010. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.529818.

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Bourke, William Michael. "Canonical understanding." Thesis, University of Sussex, 2000. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.310964.

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Controversies invoking the concept of canonicity tend not merely to jump the gun - they assume that there is actually something to debate or discuss, that there are canons or canonical objects which can be deconstructed or preserved, analysed or appreciated. This thesis offers an approach to canonicity which rejects this assumption, but without abandoning the concept. It reconceives the basis of canonicity, through an analysis of the idea of incommensurability and of the hermeneutic or interpretive ideal of openness, by locating the concept and its applications within a semantics of interpretation and recovery which dismisses the very idea of shared structures of canonical meaning. In this way the approach follows Donald Davidson's well-known efforts to avoid a reification of linguistic meaning. The reconception of canonicity offered, however, owes perhaps more to the hermeneutic theories of Hans-Georg Gadamer and to Friedrich Nietzsche's conception of self-transformation. Drawing on all three philosophers it makes canonicity a function of the application of openness within certain kinds of incommensurable discourses, ones which are shaped by and reshape a subject's historical ground; in addition it suggests a resolution to a problem of openness and incommensurability which fundamentally reconceives both concepts.

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Schwartz, Lisa. "Understanding silence." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 1996. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.360922.

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Ward, Karen. "Understanding acknowledments /." Full text open access at:, 2001. http://content.ohsu.edu/u?/etd,229.

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Knippenberg, D. L. van. "Understanding diversity." Rotterdam : Rotterdam : Erasmus Research Institute of Management, ERIM ; Erasmus University [Host], 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/1765/10595.

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Turß, Michaela. "Emotional understanding." Doctoral thesis, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Fakultät II, 2013. http://dx.doi.org/10.18452/16836.

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Im Rahmen des Leistungsansatzes von emotionaler Intelligenz sehen Mayer und Salovey (1997) Emotionsverstaendnis als Voraussetzung für Emotionsregulation. Es sollte nützlich sein zu wissen, wie man sich in bestimmten Situationen fühlen wird. Zur Messung werden unter anderem Vignetten eingesetzt, in denen Emotionen für hypothetische Situationen vorhergesagt werden. Im Gegensatz dazu postulieren Gilbert und Wilson (2003) charakteristische Fehler bei affektiven Vorhersagen, die motivational günstig sind. In der vorliegenden Arbeit wird die Akkuratheit emotionaler Vorhersagen im natürlichen Umfeld untersucht, um dessen adaptiven Wert zu beurteilen. Zunächst sollten Beamtenanwärter ihre Emotionen in einer bedeutenden Testsituation vorhersagen (N=143). Dann wurden studentische Arbeitsgruppen (180 Mitglieder in 43 Gruppen) gebeten, Gefühle zwischen den Mitgliedern zu prognostizieren (Zuneigung, Zufriedenheit mit der Zusammenarbeit, Freude und Ärger). Akkuratheit wurde als geringer Bias (euklidische Distanz) und hohe Korrespondenz (Profilkorrelation) definiert. Das Round Robin Design der zweiten Studie ermöglichte die Varianzzerlegung der Akkuratheit nach Cronbach (1955). In beiden Studien ist ein niedriger Bias adaptiv in Hinblick auf harte Kriterien, auch inkrementell über Intelligenz und Persönlichkeit hinaus. Bias hing teilweise mit Allgemeinwissen zusammen, aber nicht mit Intelligenz. Zusammenhänge zu emotionaler Intelligenz waren inkonsistent. Die Akkuratheit als Korrespondenz ist theoretisch interessant aber deutlich weniger reliabel. Auf Gruppenebene konnte die Korrespondenz Kriterien vorhersagen, aber es zeigte sich keine inkrementelle Validität. Zukünftige Forschung sollte sich auf spezifische Situationen und spezifische Emotionen konzentrieren sowie die Prozesse untersuchen, die emotionalen Vorhersagen zugrunde liegen.
In the ability model of emotional intelligence by Mayer and Salovey (1997), emotional understanding is a prerequisite for emotion regulation. Knowing which emotions occur in which situations should be beneficial and adaptive. One of the subtests for emotional understanding asks for likely emotional reactions in hypothetical situations. In contrast, Gilbert and Wilson (2003) argue that characteristic biases in affective forecasting are adaptive. The current thesis aims to measure accuracy of emotional predictions in a natural setting and examines its adaptive value. In the anxiety study, public officials were asked to predict future emotions in an important test (N=143). The second study focused on freshman student work-groups (N=180 in 43 groups). Group members predicted interpersonal feelings for each other (affection, satisfaction with the collaboration, fun, and anger). In both studies, accuracy of emotional predictions is defined as low bias (i.e. Euclidean distance) and high correspondence (i.e. profile correlation). The round robin design in the work-group study also allows to decompose accuracy following Cronbach (1955). In both studies, a low bias was adaptive in terms of strong criteria, also incrementally over and above intelligence and personality alone. Accuracy was partly related to general knowledge but not to intelligence. Associations to emotional intelligence were inconsistent. Accuracy as correspondence is theoretically interesting but much less reliable. There is some evidence for its adaptive value on a group level but no indication of incremental validity. Future research should focus on specific situations and specific emotions. Also, processes underlying affective forecasts should be evaluated in detail.

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Lee, Laura. "Understanding nanoemulsions." Thesis, University of Birmingham, 2015. http://etheses.bham.ac.uk//id/eprint/6118/.

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Nanoemulsions have been receiving a lot of interest due to their advantages: creaminess, better stability and more efficient delivery of neutraceuticals to the body. This work has developed the understanding of how to produce nanoemulsions efficiently using two high pressure devices: the industrially used high pressure valve homogeniser (HPH) and the efficient but hard to scale Microfluidizer. A range of different oil to aqueous phase viscosity ratios, emulsifier types, pressure drops and number of passes through the devices were tested. It was shown for O/W nanoemulsions the Microfluidizer produces the final droplet size after one pass whereas in the HPH coalescence was shown to be prevalent thus requiring several passes to reach the final droplet size. The geometry of these devices was shown to be the largest influence on homogenisation efficiency. Upon lowering the viscosity ratio, coalescence in the HPH was reduced and for the W/O emulsions produced, the efficiency was matched to the Microfluidizer, with both producing 50 nm minimum droplet diameters. This thesis concludes by researching two applications of nanoemulsions: (1) understanding flavour release within nanoemulsions and (2) inclusion of oil within fluid gels to reduce the bland flavour associated with fluid gels only. It was shown that up to 30% oil can be incorporated within the polysaccharide particles although the viscosity reduces with increasing oil inclusion. Additionally, the emulsifier type used to stabilise the oil influences the fluid gel properties with sodium caseinate producing the highest elastic modulus, compared to Tween 20 and to the least SDS.

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Ong, Ming Yang. "Understanding generalization." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/113119.

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Thesis: M. Eng., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2017.
This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.
Cataloged from student-submitted PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 61-62).
An important goal in machine learning is to understand how to design models that can generalize. This thesis follows a venerable line of research aimed at understanding generalization through the lens of stability- the study of how variations on the inputs of a system can cause its outputs to change. We explore stability and generalization in two different directions. In the first direction we look at proving stability using a proof technique provided by Hardt et al [HRS16]. We apply this technique to stochastic gradient descent with momentum and investigate the resulting stability bounds under some assumptions. In the second direction, we explore the effectiveness of stability in obtaining generalization bounds under the violation of some model assumptions. In particular, we show that stability is insufficient for generalization under domain adaptation. We introduce a sufficient condition and show that some properties can imply this condition.
by Ming Yang Ong.
M. Eng.

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Pettit, Dean R. (Dean Reid) 1967. "Understanding language." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2001. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/17560.

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Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Linguistics and Philosophy, February 2003.
Includes bibliographical references (leaves 139-140).
My dissertation concerns the nature of linguistic understanding. A standard view about linguistic understanding is that it is a propositional knowledge state. The following is an instance of this view: given a speaker S and an expression a that means M, S understand a just in case S knows that a means M. I refer to this as the epistemic view of linguistic understanding. The epistemic view would appear to be a mere conceptual truth about linguistic understanding, since it is entailed by the following two claims that themselves seem to be mere conceptual truths: (i) S understands a iff S knows what a means, and-given that a means M-(ii) S knows what a means iff S knows that a means M. I argue, however, that this is not a mere conceptual truth. Contrary to the epistemic view, propositional knowledge of the meaning of a is not necessary for understanding a. I argue that linguistic understanding does not even require belief. My positive proposal is that our understanding of language is typically realized, at least in native speakers, as a perceptual capacity. Evidence from cognitive neuropsychology suggests that our perceptual experience of language comes to us already semantically interpreted. We perceive a speaker's utterance as having content, and it is by perceiving the speaker's utterances as having the right content that we understand what the speaker says. We count as understanding language (roughly) in virtue of having this capacity to understand what speakers say when they use language. This notion of perceiving an utterance as having content gets analyzed in terms of Dretske's account of representation in terms of a teleological notion of function: you perceive a speaker's utterance as having content when the utterance produces in you a perceptual state that has a certain function in your psychology.
(cont.) I show how this view about the nature of linguistic understanding provides an attractive account of how identity claims can be semantically informative, as opposed to merely pragmatically informative, an account that avoids the standard difficulties for Fregean views that attempt to account for the informativeness of identity claims in terms of their semantics.
by Dean R. Pettit.
Ph.D.

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Zussman, Yale Martin. "Understanding leadership." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1986. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/15200.

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Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Political Science, 1986.
MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND DEWEY.
Bibliography: leaves 306-311.
by Yale Martin Zussman.
Ph.D.

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Liu, Caimei. "Understanding optimism." Thesis, University of Edinburgh, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/1842/22005.

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I present seven empirical studies that investigate two main themes regarding two main approaches of optimism: explanatory style and dispositional optimism. The first theme incorporates measurement issues and conceptual ideas of optimism and the second involves optimism interventions on depressive symptoms. In Study 1 I explored the potential psychometric structure of causal attributions and dispositional optimism. Attributions may be best viewed as reflecting large differences in cognitive style, and smaller independent positive- and negative-event biases. For dispositional optimism, a two-factor model was supported. Study 2 examined correlations between optimism and the Five-Factor Model of personality. Dispositional optimism and explanatory style had similar association patterns with personality, although there were some differences. Study 3 tested and supported a model in which dispositional optimism mediates the link between explanatory style and psychological well-being. Study 4 compared the levels of optimism expression in two ethnic groups, finding that Mainland Chinese participants were more optimistic and less pessimistic than White British. Study 5 examined attributional biases and found that individuals show more optimistic biased style for themselves than for other people. Studies 6 and 7 tested effectiveness of optimism interventions on depressive symptoms. It demonstrated that self-monitored optimism interventions on a daily basis could effectively reduce depressive symptoms and increase optimistic explanatory style. Taken together, the studies replicated some previous investigations regarding measurement issues and conceptual ideas of optimism, and explored novel approaches to examining the essence of attributional bias and effectiveness of optimism interventions in depression treatment. My investigation of attributional bias is the first to test this idea using new and comparable measures of attributions. Practicing self-administered optimism interventions is, to my knowledge, also the first time these interventions have been applied in a sample with mild-to-moderate depressive symptoms. This may provide an easily monitored and low-cost alternative to traditional treatments of depression.

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Reese, Joshua. "Understanding Design." VCU Scholars Compass, 2010. http://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/etd/2162.

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Somewhere along the way, I found that graphic design in professional practice was becoming synonymous with form and style, and losing its connection with concept and audience. I’m trying to find a way back.

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Soh, Donny. "Understanding pathways." Thesis, Imperial College London, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/6399.

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The challenge with todays microarray experiments is to infer biological conclusions from them. There are two crucial difficulties to be surmounted in this challenge:(1) A lack of suitable biological repository that can be easily integrated into computational algorithms. (2) Contemporary algorithms used to analyze microarray data are unable to draw consistent biological results from diverse datasets of the same disease. To deal with the first difficulty, we believe a core database that unifies available biological repositories is important. Towards this end, we create a unified biological database from three popular biological repositories (KEGG, Ingenuity and Wikipathways). This database provides computer scientists the flexibility of easily integrating biological information using simple API calls or SQL queries. To deal with the second difficulty of deriving consistent biological results from the experiments, we first conceptualize the notion of “subnetworks”, which refers to a connected portion in a biological pathway. Then we propose a method that identifies subnetworks that are consistently expressed by patients of he same disease phenotype. We test our technique on independent datasets of several diseases, including ALL, DMD and lung cancer. For each of these diseases, we obtain two independent microarray datasets produced by distinct labs on distinct platforms. In each case, our technique consistently produces overlapping lists of significant nontrivial subnetworks from two independent sets of microarray data. The gene-level agreement of these significant subnetworks is between 66.67% to 91.87%. In contrast, when the same pairs of microarray datasets were analysed using GSEA and t-test, this percentage fell between 37% to 55.75% (GSEA) and between 2.55% to 19.23% (t-test). Furthermore, the genes selected using GSEA and t-test do not form subnetworks of substantial size. Thus it is more probable that the subnetworks selected by our technique can provide the researcher with more descriptive information on the portions of the pathway which actually associates with the disease. Keywords: pathway analysis, microarray

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Strotman, Brianna E. "Understanding Cringe." University of Cincinnati / OhioLINK, 2021. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1623165065579381.

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Turner, Jill. "Understanding the public understanding of biotechnology in late modernity." Thesis, Lancaster University, 1997. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.266813.

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Mueller, Mark A. "Understanding gay cultures." Diss., Columbia, Mo. : University of Missouri-Columbia, 2004. http://hdl.handle.net/10355/4100.

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Thesis (M.F.A) University of Missouri-Columbia, 2004.
The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research.pdf file viewed on (June 30, 2006) Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

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Hagström, Åsa. "Understanding Certificate Revocation." Licentiate thesis, Linköping University, Linköping University, Department of Electrical Engineering, 2006. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:liu:diva-5477.

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Correct certificate revocation practices are essential to each public-key infrastructure. While there exist a number of protocols to achieve revocation in PKI systems, there has been very little work on the theory behind it: Which different types of revocation can be identified? What is the intended effect of a specific revocation type to the knowledge base of each entity?

As a first step towards a methodology for the development of reliable models, we present a graph-based formalism for specification and reasoning about the distribution and revocation of public keys and certificates. The model is an abstract generalization of existing PKIs and distributed in nature; each entity can issue certificates for public keys that they have confidence in, and distribute or revoke these to and from other entities.

Each entity has its own public-key base and can derive new knowledge by combining this knowledge with certificates signed with known keys. Each statement that is deduced or quoted within the system derives its support from original knowledge formed outside the system. When such original knowledge is removed, all statements that depended upon it are removed as well. Cyclic support is avoided through the use of support sets.

We define different revocation reasons and show how they can be modelled as specific actions. Revocation by removal, by inactivation, and by negation are all included. By policy, negative statements are the strongest, and positive are the weakest. Collisions are avoided by removing the weaker statement and, when necessary, its support.

Graph transformation rules are the chosen formalism. Rules are either interactive changes that can be applied by entities, or automatically applied deductions that keep the system sound and complete after the application of an interactive rule.

We show that the proposed model is sound and complete with respect to our definition of a valid state.

Report code: LIU-TEK-LIC-2006:1

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Hagström, Åsa. "Understanding certificate revocation /." Linköping : Department of Electrical Engineering, Linköpings universitet, 2006. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:liu:diva-5477.

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Humes, Barbara, and of Education Research Office. "Understanding Information Literacy." US Federal Government, 1999. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/105502.

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Tolley, Tamara Rose. "Understanding children's rights." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2000. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.365523.

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Khourshed, Nevien Farouk. "Understanding performance planning." Thesis, University of Strathclyde, 2010. http://oleg.lib.strath.ac.uk:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=14516.

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Loane, Brian. "Understanding children's music." Thesis, University of York, 1987. http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/4276/.

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Salgado, Fonseca Cerveira Pinto Helena Sofia Silva Borges. "Understanding service specifications." Thesis, University of Warwick, 2005. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.425519.

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Yi, Byeong-Uk. "Understanding the many /." New York : Routledge, 2002. http://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb39018411h.

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Lynch, Mark. "Understanding adolescent offending /." Understanding adolescent offendingRead the abstract of the thesis, 2001. http://www.library.uq.edu.au/pdfserve.php?image=thesisabs/absthe16456.pdf.

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Liu, Haixia. "Understanding tear breakup." [Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2008. http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&res_dat=xri:pqdiss&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:3331277.

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Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, School of Optometry, 2008.
Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on Jul 27, 2009). Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 69-11, Section: B, page: 6715. Adviser: Carolyn G. Begley.

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Pranami, Gaurav. "Understanding nanoparticle aggregation." [Ames, Iowa : Iowa State University], 2009. http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&res_dat=xri:pqdiss&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:3369880.

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Zheng, Qingshu. "Understanding metallophilic interactions." Thesis, University of Edinburgh, 2018. http://hdl.handle.net/1842/33237.

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Metallophilic (metal-metal) interactions are weak interactions between closed-shell (d10, s2) or pseudo-closed-shell (d8) metal cations. This type of interaction is generally believed to be responsible for various intriguing structures, luminescence, catalysis and magnetism. To gain a better understanding of metallophilic interactions, both experimental and computational investigations have been carried out in this thesis. Chapter 1 gave an up-to-date literature review on the definition, significance, and methods of estimating metallophilic interactions. The disputed nature and strength of metallophilic interactions encouraged us to further understand them. Chapter 2 focused on aurophilic interactions between AuI cations. Aurophilic interactions were observed in the solid state, but not well expressed in solution. Further experimental and computational results suggested that the strength of aurophilic interactions were weaker than electrostatic interactions. The nature of aurophilic interactions arose from orbital interactions rather than dispersion. Chapter 3 presented the study of metallophilic interactions between group 10 metal centres, including PtII-PtII, PdII-PdII and NiII-NiII. A series of cyclometalated square-planar metal complexes with different metals or substituents were prepared. PtII-PtII interactions were found to be stronger than PdII-PdII and NiII-NiII interactions. The dimerization constants of the Pt-containing complexes increased in line with increasing electron-withdrawing ability. Chapter 4 investigated the solvent-induced and thermally dependent colour changes of the Pt-containing complexes synthesised in chapter 3. Metallophilic interactions were proposed to be important in influencing the luminescence properties.

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Wren, Christopher R. (Christopher Richard). "Understanding expressive action." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2000. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/16774.

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Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2000.
Also available online at the MIT Theses Online homepage
Includes bibliographical references (p. 117-120).
This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.
We strain our eyes, cramp our necks, and destroy our hands trying to interact with computer on their terms. At the extreme, we strap on devices and weigh ourselves down with cables trying to re-create a sense of place inside the machine, while cutting ourselves off from the world and people around us. The alternative is to make the real environment responsive to our actions. It is not enough for environments to respond simply to the presence of people or objects: they must also be aware of the subtleties of changing situations. If all the spaces we inhabit are to be responsive, they must not require encumbering devices to be worn and they must be adaptive to changes in the environment and changes of context. This dissertation examines a body of sophisticated perceptual mechanisms developed in response to these needs as well as a selection of human-computer interface sketches designed to push the technology forward and explore the possibilities of this novel interface idiom. Specifically, the formulation of a fully recursive framework for computer vision called DYNA that improves performance of human motion tracking will be examined in depth. The improvement in tracking performance is accomplished with the combination of a three-dimensional, physics-based model of the human body with modifications to the pixel classification algorithms that enable them to take advantage of this high-level knowledge. The result is a novel vision framework that has no completely bottom-up processes, and is therefore significantly faster and more stable than other approaches.
by Christopher R. Wren.
Ph.D.

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Lieber, Thomas (Thomas Alan). "Understanding asynchronous code." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/82411.

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Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2013.
Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 61-64).
JavaScript on the web is difficult to debug due to its asynchronous and dynamic nature. Traditional debuggers are often little help because the language's idioms rely heavily on non-linear control flow via function pointers. The aim of this work is to create a debugging interface that helps users understand complicated control flow in languages like JavaScript. This thesis presents a programming editor extension called Theseus that uses program tracing to provide real-time in-editor feedback so that programmers can answer questions quickly as they write new code and interact with their application. Theseus augments the call graph with semantic edges that allow users to make intuitive leaps through program traces, such as from the start of an asynchronous network request to its response. Participants in lab and classroom studies found Theseus to be a usable replacement for traditional breakpoint and logging tools, though no significant difference was found in their ability to complete programming tasks.
by Thomas Lieber.
S.M.

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46

Zhao, Zhan. "Understanding car pride." Thesis, University of British Columbia, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/2429/45176.

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More than a tool that provides mobility, the car is also a commodity with symbolic values related to the sense of self-regard. To various degrees, people pride themselves on being car owners or users. Based on a literature review primarily of a plethora of psychological theories, this thesis proposes a framework that defines the concept of car pride, examines the process of its formation, and classifies different types of car pride. Car pride is measured using data collected from a survey in Shanghai. Although household income and location are found to be significant predictors, car pride cannot be effectively explained by individual socio-economic characteristics. Car pride and ownership are found to be interdependent. The 2SLS model finds a significant impact of ownership on pride. Conversely, car pride can influence whether someone plans to buy a car, more so for first-time car buyers. In terms of the relationship between car pride and car use, the influence of car use on pride is weak, but car pride significantly stimulates car use. The relationship between car pride and other attitudinal factors is also investigated. A positive correlation between pride and dependence indicates people with high car pride are usually more dependent on cars. Public acceptance of car ownership restriction policies can also be subject to the influence of car pride. People with high car pride, though having strong desire for cars, tend to support policies that restrict car ownership, possibly because such policies make car ownership more exclusive and special. Car pride in Shanghai is compared with Beijing to reveal regional similarities and differences of car pride. It is found although overall car pride is similar in the two cities, car pride in Beijing has much more variation. Overall, this thesis provides a systematic understanding on its psychological structure, and its role in shaping people’s behavior (in terms of car ownership and use) and attitudes (in terms of car dependence and acceptance of car ownership restriction policies). It is suggested car pride can have important implications in addressing transportation issues such as traffic congestion and rapid motorization.

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Cheng, Hon-Man Roger. "Understanding in education." Thesis, University College London (University of London), 1995. http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/10020251/.

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Scotson, James L. "Understanding oligonucleotide synthesis." Thesis, University of Huddersfield, 2016. http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/id/eprint/32090/.

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Oligonucleotides are synthesised almost exclusively via the solid-supported phosphoramidite method. However popular this method may be, the expensive reagents used in large excess during the synthesis as well as the large amounts of organic and aqueous solvents and purification steps makes the scale-up of oligonucleotide synthesis costly and possibly harmful to the environment. The therapeutic use of anti-sense oligonucleotides (ASOs) is hindered by their susceptibility to nuclease catalysed hydrolysis and to overcome this problem ASOs have been modified commonly by the introduction of a phosphorothioate backbone. This research aims to provide a better understanding of some of the more problematic stages of the synthesis cycle, the formation of the sulfurizing agent and sulfurisation of inter-nucleotide phosphite linkages, in order to make this method more sustainable and efficient. The investigation of the activation, alcoholysis and hydrolysis of the phosphoramidites 2´-methoxy-5´-O-DMT-uridine 3´-CE phosphoramidite (UAm) and di-tert-butyl N,N-di-isopropyl phosphoramidite (DBAm) using several tetrazole activators found that complete conversion of the phosphoramidite UAm to products required an excess of activator and that this was due to the generation of di-isopropyl amine during coupling. Conductivity measurements show that the amine deprotonates the acidic activator and that the ammonium and tetrazolide ions that are subsequently formed strongly ion pair (Kip = 6540 M-1) removing free activator from solution. The tetrazole-catalysed reaction of phosphoramidites with oxygen nucleophiles was found to be first order with respect to phosphoramidite and activator and the nucleophilic displacement of the di-isopropyl amine group by the tetrazoyl group at phosphorus is rate-limiting. Investigation into the 3-picoline-catalysed ageing of the sulfur transfer reagent phenylacetyl disulfide (PADS) has shown that the process is overall second order and is proportional to the concentration of PADS and 3-picoline. Deuterium exchange experiments show that ageing proceeds via abstraction of the methylene CH2 protons of PADS via an E1cB-type decomposition of the PADS molecule generating a disulfide anion and a ketene by-product which was trapped using an intra-molecular [2+2]-cycloaddition reaction. Mass spectrometry data shows that disulfide anions act as nucleophiles with PADS molecules to generate polysulfides which are the active sulfur transfer reagents in aged PADS solutions. Using pyridines that are less basic than 3-picoline causes the rate of degradation of PADS to become slower, indicating the possibility that the rate-limiting step of this process is the generation of the disulfide anion. The rate of sulfurisation of phosphites by both ‘fresh’ and ‘aged’ PADS in the presence of 3-picoline was found to be first order with respect to phosphite, PADS and 3-picoline at low concentrations of each. However, the rate of the reaction becomes independent of base when using aged PADS in the presence of high 3-picoline concentration. Brönsted correlations for the sulfurisation of alkyl phosphites using fresh PADS give a βnuc value of 0.51, consistent with a mechanism involving nucleophilic attack by the phosphite on the disulfide bond of PADS to generate a phosphonium ion intermediate. This degrades to the phosphorothioate product via a base-catalysed mechanism which has been confirmed by removal of the methylene protons from the PADS molecule. Comparison of the βnuc values seen when altering the pKa of the pyridine catalyst used shows that the rate of the reaction of fresh PADS is much more sensitive to the pKa of the pyridine than is aged PADS (βnuc = 0.43 and 0.26 for fresh and aged PADS respectively). This suggests that in the case of aged PADS, the phosphite attacks the sulfur atom adjacent to the carboxylate group in the polysulfide chain. This generates a phosphonium intermediate which can be broken down via a much more facile S-S bond fission, as opposed to the C-S bond fission as seen in when using fresh PADS.

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Sands, William A., and Michael H. Stone. "Understanding the Maltese." Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University, 2006. https://dc.etsu.edu/etsu-works/4672.

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Calhoun, McKenzie L. "Understanding Non-Adherence." Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University, 2018. https://dc.etsu.edu/etsu-works/6882.

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Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Understanding of'

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