867 research outputs found

    What Words Can Do: Analyzing Adult/Child Relations in Narratives of Literature and Psychosocial Theory

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    This thesis enters into an analysis of adult/child relations by looking closely at affective social and historical representations of childhood. It asks, how to characterize the self-other relation when the subject is a child. This work is composed of thematic close readings of three primary texts: Piera Aulagnier (2001) introduces the child as being, Jacqueline Rose (1992) presents the enigmatic child, and Carolyn Steedman (1994) traces the spectacle of the child. This thesis grapples with the being of the child, beginning by exploring infancy as a state of dependency that marks growth. I examine the child’s vulnerability that precedes speech and discuss how imperceptible traces of that state intersect with the child’s introduction to symbolization and the words adults use to represent childhood. I turn to examine forms of childhood shaped through fantastical, cultural and historical narratives, questioning the place of the child and adult within those representations

    Word Superiority Effects in Dyslexics

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    Distorting the word superiority effect with intraword spacing was used to investigate the processing difference in single-word reading for dyslexics and controls. Perfetti’s Reading model suggests that dyslexics would have reduced processing capacity with intraword spacing. Results from a Covid-modified experimental protocol generally did not support the hypothesis. There was poor differentiation between groups in the word capacity coefficient. Response time by itself was also not informative. However, dyslexics had reduced accuracy in distractor identification across intraword spacings due to the lack of retention in phonological working memory or attention in central executive deficit (Alt, Fox, Levy, et al., 2022; Gray, Green, Alt, et al., 2017) as matching targets was not an issue, only confirmation of an update was problematic. In target identification, early responses and later responses were predictive of WIAT III Pseudoword (phonetic processing) and WAIS-IV Symbol Search (visuospatial matching task). These preliminary results motivate further research regarding word processing differences in dyslexic and controls

    Aerospace medicine and biology: A continuing bibliography with indexes, supplement 204

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    This bibliography lists 140 reports, articles, and other documents introduced into the NASA scientific and technical information system in February 1980

    Developing Shopping Abilities to Empower: An Ethnography of Moroccan Women in Supermarkets

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    This article examines the specific abilities that Moroccan women develop as they start to participate in household provisioning, a traditional male task in Arab contexts. The findings of an ethnographic study in Casablanca, Morocco, suggest that women’s abilities to shop in supermarkets increase their power in their families and communities. This article furthers understanding of consumers’ vulnerability and adds to knowledge on global/local dynamics

    PASS: Picture Augmentative Synsemic System : A new system for AAC habilitative practices, theoretical background

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    In this paper we discuss the theoretical linguistic and graphic preconditions of the design of PASS, a glyph system which we designed for use in Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) habilitative practices that has been released under open source licence. We highlight the relevance of graphic design supporting sustainable practices for people with Autism Spectrum Di- sorders (ASD), in a context in which the o er of public healthcare services for rehabilitation is insufficient. We present the context in which the AAC is adopted and how a glyph system can be used by people with ASD to learn a language. is particular group of users can access a language by using the glyph system as an interlanguage or as an alternative language. We analyse the most common glyph systems (ARASAAC, PCS, WLS, Blissymbolics), highlighting their strengths and weaknesses from a graphic and linguistic point of view. We present the theoretical background of the design process for the PASS glyph system

    Very young children's understanding and use of numbers and number symbols

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    Abstract\ud Children grow up surrounded by numerals reflecting various\ud uses of number. In their primary school years they are\ud expected to grasp arithmetical symbols and use measuring\ud devices. While much research on number development has\ud examined children's understanding of numerical concepts\ud and principles, little has investigated their\ud understanding of these symbols.\ud This thesis examines studies of understanding and use of\ud number symbols in a range of contexts and for a variety of\ud purposes. It reports several studies on the use of\ud numerals by children aged between 3 and 5 years in Nursery\ud settings in England, Japan and Sweden and their\ud understanding of the meanings of these symbols.\ud 167 children were observed and interviewed individually in\ud the course of participating in a range of practical\ud activities; the activities were designed for the study and\ud considered to be appropriate and interesting for young\ud children.\ud The results are discussed in terms of how they complement\ud existing theories of number development and their\ud relevance to early years mathematics education

    Dataremix: Aesthetic Experiences of Big Data and Data Abstraction

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    This PhD by published work expands on the contribution to knowledge in two recent large-scale transdisciplinary artistic research projects: ATLAS in silico and INSTRUMENT | One Antarctic Night and their exhibited and published outputs. The thesis reflects upon this practice-based artistic research that interrogates data abstraction: the digitization, datafication and abstraction of culture and nature, as vast and abstract digital data. The research is situated in digital arts practices that engage a combination of big (scientific) data as artistic material, embodied interaction in virtual environments, and poetic recombination. A transdisciplinary and collaborative artistic practice, x-resonance, provides a framework for the hybrid processes, outcomes, and contributions to knowledge from the research. These are purposefully and productively situated at the objective | subjective interface, have potential to convey multiple meanings simultaneously to a variety of audiences and resist disciplinary definition. In the course of the research, a novel methodology emerges, dataremix, which is employed and iteratively evolved through artistic practice to address the research questions: 1) How can a visceral and poetic experience of data abstraction be created? and 2) How would one go about generating an artistically-informed (scientific) discovery? Several interconnected contributions to knowledge arise through the first research question: creation of representational elements for artistic visualization of big (scientific) data that includes four new forms (genomic calligraphy, algorithmic objects as natural specimens, scalable auditory data signatures, and signal objects); an aesthetic of slowness that contributes an extension to the operative forces in Jevbratt’s inverted sublime of looking down and in to also include looking fast and slow; an extension of Corby’s objective and subjective image consisting of “informational and aesthetic components” to novel virtual environments created from big 3 (scientific) data that extend Davies’ poetic virtual spatiality to poetic objective | subjective generative virtual spaces; and an extension of Seaman’s embodied interactive recombinant poetics through embodied interaction in virtual environments as a recapitulation of scientific (objective) and algorithmic processes through aesthetic (subjective) physical gestures. These contributions holistically combine in the artworks ATLAS in silico and INSTRUMENT | One Antarctic Night to create visceral poetic experiences of big data abstraction. Contributions to knowledge from the first research question develop artworks that are visceral and poetic experiences of data abstraction, and which manifest the objective | subjective through art. Contributions to knowledge from the second research question occur through the process of the artworks functioning as experimental systems in which experiments using analytical tools from the scientific domain are enacted within the process of creation of the artwork. The results are “returned” into the artwork. These contributions are: elucidating differences in DNA helix bending and curvature along regions of gene sequences specified as either introns or exons, revealing nuanced differences in BLAST results in relation to genomics sequence metadata, and cross-correlation of astronomical data to identify putative variable signals from astronomical objects for further scientific evaluation

    Making Hanzi learnable for nonbackground beginning learners : an action research study in a primary school in Australia

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    Hanzi plays an important role in Chinese language. However, many learners find it hard to learn and to recognise, especially young nonbackground beginning learners. This study aimed at making Hanzi learnable to nonbackground beginning learners in Western Sydney, Australia. To achieve this goal, a suitable Hanzi pedagogy should be established and refined; and proper scaffolding strategies should be used in assisting students’ Hanzi learning. The following three research questions were posed in this study: 1. Which Hanzi teaching pedagogy is suitable for nonbackground beginning learners in Western Sydney public schools? 2. What scaffolding strategies should be used to assist students’ Hanzi learning? 3. What activities are suitable for Hanzi learning in terms of its pronunciation, form, and meaning? To answer these questions, an activity-based Hanzi teaching pedagogy was established and tested in a two-cycle action research project and refined after Cycle 1. The data shows that activity-based Hanzi teaching effectively engaged students and helped their Hanzi learning. Students learned Hanzi well through activities, and they remembered and recognised the meaning of Hanzi weeks after learning. In Cycle 1, oral language was integrated with activity-based Hanzi teaching, but the data shows that oral language was of limited help in Hanzi learning. The data shows that Hanzi can be more efficiently taught without integrating oral language as the pictographic and ideographic nature of Hanzi determines that Hanzi should be taught in a direct and systematic way. Cycle 2 further demonstrated the effectiveness of the activity-based Hanzi teaching when the teaching focus shifted from oral language to Hanzi itself. Thus, it is suitable to use activity-based Hanzi teaching to teach Hanzi directly and collectively through a series of activities. Useful scaffolding strategies such as questioning, giving feedback, and engaging learners’ prior knowledge were identified in the two-cycle action research. Some activities such as chanting, and calligraphy writing used in activity-based Hanzi teaching were found useful in Hanzi writing, form, and meaning recognition. However, students tended to forget the pronunciation of Hanzi after a while, even when the related activities were completed successfully at the time. Further studies are invited to improve this activity-based Hanzi teaching pedagogy

    Before language: the rage at the mother

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    The thesis argues that psychoanalysis is a necessary component of cultural analysis. It is argued that existing syntheses of psychoanalysis and political theories tend to limit the recognition of the relative autonomy of psychic reality by offering accounts of the social determination of subjectivity. The contemporary reappropriation of psychoanalysis by feminist theorists has formulated new explanations of the social position of women as the 'second sex'. The challenge of feminism to traditional theories of culture and society includes questions of how sexual difference informs the transformation of thought into language, how language determines theory, and how theory conceptualises the difference between subjectivity and objectivity. The contradictions within existing syntheses of structuralism, Marxism and feminism are described, and the differences between psychoanalysis and sociology are traced through the the critical reception of Freud's Totem and Taboo by anthropologists. The validity of Freud's concept of the Oedipus complex is explored, and it is suggested that despite the limited acceptance by anthropologists, Totem and Taboo contains a valid theory of the relation of the subject to society. Freud's work is relocated within the paradigm of evolutionary biology to provide a materialist analysis of psychic structure that is not based on linguistics. A study of the origins of language reveals the complexity of the historical factors determining the co-evolution of representation, the maternal function, and the structuration of psychic reality. New discoveries about the pre-Oedipal dyad that underlies the Oedipus complex have shown the effects of infantile dependence and maternal care on adult subjectivity, and it is argued that factors such as the unconscious fear of dependency and of women are of particular significance for feminist thought. It is argued that the theory of pre-Oedipal and prelinguistic subjectivity can make intelligible aspects of ideologies of racism and sexism that are not fully explained by sociological or political theory. The mechanism of projection or projective identification, it is argued, provides a specifically psychoanalytic contribution to existing theories of culture
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