| 1. |
- Gu, Limin
(author)
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Chinese Daycare in Cultural Change
- 1996
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In: Tidskrift för lärarutbildning och forskning. - Umeå : Dept. of Education, Umeå Univ.. - 1404-7659. ; 3:4, s. 17-44
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Licentiate thesis (other academic/artistic)
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| 2. |
- Nilsson, Anders, 1973-
(author)
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Dimensions and projections
- 2006
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Licentiate thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This thesis concerns dimensions and projections of sets that could be described as fractals. The background is applied problems regarding analysis of human tissue. One way to characterize such complicated structures is to estimate the dimension. The existence of different types of dimensions makes it important to know about their properties and relations to each other. Furthermore, since medical images often are constructed by x-ray, it is natural to study projections.This thesis consists of an introduction and a summary, followed by three papers.Paper I, Anders Nilsson, Dimensions and Projections: An Overview and Relevant Examples, 2006. Manuscript.Paper II, Anders Nilsson and Peter Wingren, Homogeneity and Non-coincidence of Hausdorff- and Box Dimensions for Subsets of ℝn, 2006. Submitted.Paper III, Anders Nilsson and Fredrik Georgsson, Projective Properties of Fractal Sets, 2006. To be published in Chaos, Solitons and Fractals.The first paper is an overview of dimensions and projections, together with illustrative examples constructed by the author. Some of the most frequently used types of dimensions are defined, i.e. Hausdorff dimension, lower and upper box dimension, and packing dimension. Some of their properties are shown, and how they are related to each other. Furthermore, theoretical results concerning projections are presented, as well as a computer experiment involving projections and estimations of box dimension.The second paper concerns sets for which different types of dimensions give different values. Given three arbitrary and different numbers in (0,n), a compact set in ℝn is constructed with these numbers as its Hausdorff dimension, lower box dimension and upper box dimension. Most important in this construction, is that the resulted set is homogeneous in the sense that these dimension properties also hold for every non-empty and relatively open subset.The third paper is about sets in space and their projections onto planes. Connections between the dimensions of the orthogonal projections and the dimension of the original set are discussed, as well as the connection between orthogonal projection and the type of projection corresponding to realistic x-ray. It is shown that the estimated box dimension of the orthogonal projected set and the realistic projected set can, for all practical purposes, be considered equal.
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| 3. |
- Sidenvall, Johan, 1974-
(author)
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Att lära sig resonera : om elevers möjligheter att lära sig matematiska resonemang
- 2015
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Licentiate thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Students only learn what they get the opportunity to learn. This means, for example, that students do not develop their reasoning- and problem solving competence unless teaching especially focuses on developing these competencies. Despite the fact that it has for the last 20 years been pointed out the need for a reform-oriented mathematics education, research still shows that in Sweden, as well as internationally, an over-emphasis are placed on rote learning and procedures, at the cost of promoting conceptual understanding. Mathematical understanding can be separated into procedural and conceptual understanding, where conceptual understanding can be connected to a reform oriented mathematics education. By developing a reasoning competence conceptual understanding can also be developed. This thesis, which deals with students’ opportunities to learn to reason mathematically, includes three studies (with data from Swedish upper secondary school, year ten and mathematics textbooks from twelve countries). These opportunities have been studied based on a textbook analysis and by studying students' work with textbook tasks during normal classroom work. Students’ opportunities to learn to reason mathematically have also been studied by examining the relationship between students' reasoning and their beliefs. An analytical framework (Lithner, 2008) has been used to categorise and analyse reasoning used in solving tasks and required to solve tasks.Results support previous research in that teaching and mathematics textbooks are not necessarily in harmony with reform-oriented mathematics teaching. And that students indicated beliefs of insecurity, personal- and subject expectations as well as intrinsic- and extrinsic motivation connects to not using mathematical reasoning when solving non-routine tasks. Most commonly students used other strategies than mathematical reasoning when solving textbook tasks. One common way to solve tasks was to be guided, in particular by another student. The results also showed that the students primarily worked with the simpler tasks in the textbook. These simpler tasks required mathematical reasoning more rarely than the more difficult tasks. The results also showed a negative relationship between a belief of insecurity and the use of mathematical reasoning. Furthermore, the results show that the distributions of tasks that require mathematical reasoning are relatively similar in the examined textbooks across five continents.Based on the results it is argued for a teaching based on sociomathematical norms that leads to an inquiry based teaching and textbooks that are more in harmony with a reform-oriented mathematics education.
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| 4. |
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| 5. |
- Bergman, Bengt
(author)
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Att omskapa sin professionella identitet : Från polis till polislärare via intersubjektiva möten
- 2009
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Licentiate thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This licentiate thesis builds on the assumption that there is a shift in professional perspective when a police officer takes on the task of a police teacher in the Police Basic Education Training Programme. This shift of perspective is described as a professional process as well as a learning process, and the investigation focuses the reshaping of one’s professional identity.The investigation is based on focus group interviews with four different groups of police teachers in Växjö, Stockholm, and Umeå, where they were asked to talk about their task as police teachers. The analysis is built on theories from George Herbert Mead, Moira von Wright, and Ludwik Fleck about the importance of in-tersubjective interaction in the interpersonal or social perspective of construction knowledge about oneself as a subject and the surrounding world. Professional identity is defined as the way, consciously or unconsciously, an individual under-stands oneself as a professional; it is seen as an ongoing process shaped by con-tinuous intersubjective meetings with others in a changeable world. Professional, personal and possibly tacit knowledge is in that aspect developed and may be pos-sible to articulate in the right environment, for example within focus groups.The findings indicate that the change of professional task of the police teachers affects their understanding of themselves as professionals, i.e., their professional identity. The development of new professional and personal knowledge is due to the ability to reflect on the outcome of the intersubjective meetings with students and other teachers. This change of professional identity of the police teachers complicates their mission in two aspects. First, the denial of the relationship with the students as colleagues could be in conflict with the expectation from the stu-dent police officers. Secondly, the gap in knowledge about police work between the reflected personal knowledge of the police teachers and the student police offi-cers’ knowledge built on movies and books makes it difficult to meet the students at their level. This situation demands opportunities for police teachers to discuss their tasks with other teachers on campus, in the context of intersubjective meet-ings.
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| 6. |
- Billing, Erik, 1981-
(author)
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Cognition reversed : Robot learning from demonstration
- 2009
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Licentiate thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The work presented in this thesis investigates techniques for learning from demonstration (LFD). LFD is a well established approach to robot learning, where a teacher demonstrates a behavior to a robot pupil. This thesis focuses on LFD where a human teacher demonstrates a behavior by controlling the robot via teleoperation. The robot should after demonstration be able to execute the demonstrated behavior under varying conditions. Several views on representation, recognition and learning of robot behavior are presented and discussed from a cognitive and computational perspective. LFD-related concepts such as behavior, goal, demonstration, and repetition are defined and analyzed, with focus on how bias is introduced by the use of behavior primitives. This analysis results in a formalism where LFD is described as transitions between information spaces. Assuming that the behavior recognition problem is partly solved, ways to deal with remaining ambiguities in the interpretation of a demonstration are proposed. A total of five algorithms for behavior recognition are proposed and evaluated, including the dynamic temporal difference algorithm Predictive Sequence Learning (PSL). PSL is model-free in the sense that it makes few assumptions of what is to be learned. One strength of PSL is that it can be used for both robot control and recognition of behavior. While many methods for behavior recognition are concerned with identifying invariants within a set of demonstrations, PSL takes a different approach by using purely predictive measures. This may be one way to reduce the need for bias in learning. PSL is, in its current form, subjected to combinatorial explosion as the input space grows, which makes it necessary to introduce some higher level coordination for learning of complex behaviors in real-world robots. The thesis also gives a broad introduction to computational models of the human brain, where a tight coupling between perception and action plays a central role. With the focus on generation of bias, typical features of existing attempts to explain humans' and other animals' ability to learn are presented and analyzed, from both a neurological and an information theoretic perspective. Based on this analysis, four requirements for implementing general learning ability in robots are proposed. These requirements provide guidance to how a coordinating structure around PSL and similar algorithms should be implemented in a model-free way.
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| 7. |
- Bohman, Anna, 1975-
(author)
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Framing the Water Challenge : Multilateral donor policies for water supply and sanitation 1960-2005
- 2006
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Licentiate thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Opinions on what is best way to provide more people in low income countries with adequate water and sanitation services have changed over time. A recent policy paradigm suggests that private companies should be involved in WSS service provision to improve the situation for those in need. This study looks at how issues of water supply and sanitation (WSS) have been confronted by the international donor community and how strategies to improve performance in this sector have changed from the early 1970’s up until today. The evolution of ideas and strategies are linked to overall development policies in order to better understand the forces that have shaped policy redirections in the sector. In addition, the case study of Ghana gives a preliminary picture of how donor policies have been played out in a national context. The concept of problem frames is used as an analytical tool in order to highlight how ideas change and replace each other but also to illustrate how problem frames are becoming more inclusive as new knowledge and experiences are gained. The study finds that while hardware knowledge such as engineering skills were put at the forefront to begin with, software matters such as capacity building and appropriate management of the sector gained increased attention with time. As the water challenge becomes increasingly framed as a matter of managing scarcity, the economic value of water is emphasized and private sector participation is promoted on a larger scale. With time the cross sectoral nature of the WSS issue gains increased attention as its overall impact on poverty reduction and environmental sustainability is emphasized. This holistic approach also contributes to an increased emphasis on sanitation as important to sustainable WSS systems and services. The case study of Ghana shows that all in all, institutional change within the Ghanaian WSS sector during the post independence era, mirror international policy trends. Power is moving out from the state in different directions and responsibilities are gradually hived off from the central organization to local authorities or other agencies working on specific issues. Subsidies on water tariffs are abolished and at the end of the period the private sector is also invited to act in the sector. However, recent trends indicate that as democracy deepens and civil society is growing stronger this also effects policy development in the Ghanaian WSS sector.
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| 8. |
- Boström, Ulrika, 1970-
(author)
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”När man kollar på bilden tänker man så här” : en receptionsstudie av gymnasieelevers uppfattning om bilder som kunskapskällor i historieundervisningen
- 2014
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Licentiate thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Images are used in history education for a variety of reasons, not least to generate interest through a better understanding of historical events and people. The aim of this study was to investigate how historical pictures, either illustrated or documentary/photographic, can be used as a resource for activating and improving pupils' historical empathy, in the way described by Stéphane Lévasque.I conducted a reception study on five different focus groups consisting of pupils from different upper secondary schools in Sweden. The pupils varied with regard to number of credits for admission to upper secondary school. A sixth group of pupils was interviewed as a contrasting control group in order to add perspective to the results. The discussions were based on the pupils' interpretations of 34 selected pictures, all of which were taken from the most common history textbooks. Each pupil was asked to choose the picture he/she felt was the most representative historical image. On the basis of the strategies used by the pupils when interpreting the pictures and discussing them, the material was analysed in accordance with Lévesque's categories: imagination, historical contextualisation and morals. The last category, morals, was further divided into three sub-categories: sense of justice, sympathy and progression.The reflections of the pupils and the degree of contextualisation varied. It appeared that the pupils were less inclined to discuss assumptions about the persons in the pictures; instead they chose to discuss the historical context in question. The pictures in this study did not seem to trigger the pupils to fabricate anachronistic reasoning about history; when they did produce lengthy reasoning, it was contextual, structural and metahistorical. In this context, the pupils who belonged to the group with the highest average of credits showed some signs of reflection on the basis of historical context and some criticism about the historical sources. On no occasion did any of the pupils choose a picture as a concrete expression of injustice.One of the questions this study aimed to explore was whether a lack of historical context affects how pictures trigger emotions and reasoning on the basis of moral aspects. Some of the pupils displayed moral standpoints, primarily the degree of morals concerning injustice. One possible interpretation could be that the feeling of being unfairly treated and subjected to insulting behaviour and social injustice was something the pupils could relate to. The group of pupils who had not yet studied history at upper secondary school, the control group, generally made reflections using this sort of reasoning when they discussed the historical aspects of the pictures.
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| 9. |
- Deldén, Maria, 1963-
(author)
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Historien som fiktion : gymnasieelevers erfarande av spelfilm i historieundervisningen
- 2014
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Licentiate thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The present study explores the reception of historical feature films in history education. It is concerned with how pupils experience the films as well as the significance of the feature film for their understanding and interpretation of history. The study incorporates empirical data from classroom projects in two different Swedish upper secondary schools where film was used as an educational tool. Observations of classroom activities were made and interviews with twelve pupils and their history teachers were conducted.The study applies a phenomenological approach. The lifeworld of the pupils is in focus, specifically the aspect of the lifeworld they live and experience in history class when film is used as a means of understanding the past. The phenomenon studied is thus how the pupils experience the film, and through the film, history itself. Theoretical notions from film reception studies and history didactics are used as analytic tools.The study shows how emotional and cognitive processes converge in the pupils’ meaning making of the films. The embodiment of the films’ narrative is an important factor that contributes to both the understanding of the film as well as of history. The pupils experience the films emotionally, feeling both empathy and antipathy for the various characters, physically through sight and sound as well as embodied reactions, and cognitively through an understanding of the film’s narrative. Embodied experience is fundamental for history to become materialized. The audiovisual portrayal and materialization of the past becomes embodied in the pupils so that the experience of the film and of the historical lifeworld presented therein becomes part of their lifeworld. Generally, pupils consider the films to be trustworthy, though this perceived accuracy depends on how authentically the narrative is performed and the pupils’ previous store of historical knowledge. A didactic dilemma to consider when using historical feature film in the classroom is the contradiction between the aesthetic experience of a feature film and its use as a tool for understanding the past. The captivating character of feature film evokes empathy and engagement with the films’ characters regardless of the degree of historical accuracy. This is a critical issue for teachers; there needs to be balance between respect for the pupils’ aesthetic experience of the film and the need to guide them to develop for example the skills of historical empathy, where distance is necessary for the pupils to be able to consider different perspectives.
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| 10. |
- Dmytryshyn, Andrii
(author)
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Skew-symmetric matrix pencils : stratification theory and tools
- 2014
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Licentiate thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Investigating the properties, explaining, and predicting the behaviour of a physical system described by a system (matrix) pencil often require the understanding of how canonical structure information of the system pencil may change, e.g., how eigenvalues coalesce or split apart, due to perturbations in the matrix pencil elements. Often these system pencils have different block-partitioning and / or symmetries. We study changes of the congruence canonical form of a complex skew-symmetric matrix pencil under small perturbations. The problem of computing the congruence canonical form is known to be ill-posed: both the canonical form and the reduction transformation depend discontinuously on the entries of a pencil. Thus it is important to know the canonical forms of all such pencils that are close to the investigated pencil. One way to investigate this problem is to construct the stratification of orbits and bundles of the pencils. To be precise, for any problem dimension we construct the closure hierarchy graph for congruence orbits or bundles. Each node (vertex) of the graph represents an orbit (or a bundle) and each edge represents the cover/closure relation. Such a relation means that there is a path from one node to another node if and only if a skew-symmetric matrix pencil corresponding to the first node can be transformed by an arbitrarily small perturbation to a skew-symmetric matrix pencil corresponding to the second node. From the graph it is straightforward to identify more degenerate and more generic nearby canonical structures. A necessary (but not sufficient) condition for one orbit being in the closure of another is that the first orbit has larger codimension than the second one. Therefore we compute the codimensions of the congruence orbits (or bundles). It is done via the solutions of an associated homogeneous system of matrix equations. The complete stratification is done by proving the relation between equivalence and congruence for the skew-symmetric matrix pencils. This relation allows us to use the known result about the stratifications of general matrix pencils (under strict equivalence) in order to stratify skew-symmetric matrix pencils under congruence. Matlab functions to work with skew-symmetric matrix pencils and a number of other types of symmetries for matrices and matrix pencils are developed and included in the Matrix Canonical Structure (MCS) Toolbox.
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