Self-administering arithmetic enrichment activities for the more rapid learner

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston Universit

Effects of participant and target system lability upon PK performance using an I Ching task

Relatively few parapsychological experiments investigating micro-PK effects have been designed to consider psychological or individual differences factors, and those variables that have been considered have been subject to too few replications to give a clear indication of which persons may perform best under which conditions. Previous research by the first author discovered and replicated an interaction effect between an individual differences factor, participant lability, and a situational factor, target system lability. The present study was designed to conceptually replicate that finding using a novel task so as to control for possible artifacts. An alternative task was built around the I Ching divination procedure, which it was felt retained important characteristics of being personally relevant for the participant and intuitively straightforward to understand. An opportunity sample of 34 participants completed a measure of lability and decided upon a personal question that the I Ching could help with. Participants were run individually and completed a Q-sort of all 64 hexagram descriptions based on their applicability to their question. Once completed they cast three hexagrams using a computer based program that used a live random number generator (Live), the pseudorandom function of the computer (Pseudo) and a predetermined list of random numbers derived from published tables (Table). The Q-sort positions were used to rate the applicability of the selected hexagrams. Although the general pattern of performance was in line with prediction, with the highest average ratings awarded to hexagrams selected by the most labile Live method, next highest for the moderately labile Pseudo method and worst ratings for the most stabile Table method, the mean shifts were small and nonsignificant. Similarly, although the highest overall performance was achieved by the most labile participant group, an intermediate level of performance was recorded by the intermediate group and worst performance was by the stabile group, the modest differences were not significant. Therefore, despite the pattern of performance being superficially similar to that reported in previous studies, this experiment was not able to replicate the interaction between participant and target system lability. Possible causes for this failure to replicate are considered

Symbols of protection : the significance of animal-ornamented shields in early Anglo-Saxon England

The significance of shields with animal ornament on the boss and/or board in early Anglo-Saxon society is sought in the coincidence of artefactual, stylistic and iconographic symbolism. Twenty shields buried in the 6th to earliest 7th century, together with seventeen further mounts which were probably originally designed for shields, form the basis of a systematic typological review; decoration in Salin's Style I is emphasised. Analysis of dating, distribution and use in burial establishes cultural and social contexts. The meaning of the ornamental repertoire is sought through iconographic analogies, notably with Scandinavian bracteates and their putative association with a cult of Óðinn/Woden. It is proposed that the animal ornament invested the shields with a specific apotropaic quality, which emphasised, and amplified, the protective role of select adult males, and hence their authority over kin, community and even kingdo

Walker Percy and the Magic of Naming: The Semeiotic Fabric of Life

Walker Percy thought a paradigm for the modern age, human beings, and life does not exist, and no paradigm vying for supremacy (religion, scientism, new age physics and philosophies) succeeds. He sought to create a “radical anthropology” to describe human beings and life. His anthropology has existential roots and culminates in the philosophy and semeiotic of American pragmatist Charles Sanders Peirce. Unlike any other creature, humans have symbolic capacity, first manifested in a child’s naming and demonstrated in human being’s unique language ability, the ability to communicate through symbol and not just sign. Percy conveyed his anthropology in his last three novels through a number symbolism corresponding to the theme of each novel based on Peirce’s Cenopythagoreanism, viewing the world through the paradigm of number. In Lancelot, Percy uses the symbol of the inverted three to illustrate Lancelot’s inverted search for evil. In The Second Coming, he uses diamonds and squares and fours to illustrate community and authentic communication in the novel. In The Thanatos Syndrome, he uses twos and sixes to represent the search for dyadic solutions to triadic problems. Percy sees a synechistic and synchronistic interconnected “fabric of life” to the universe, enabled by human symbolic capacity, or Peirce’s concept of relations

Existence, knowledge & truth in mathematics

This thesis offers an overview of some current work in the philosophy of mathematics, in particular of work on the metaphysical, epistemological, and semantic problems associated with mathematics, and it also offers a theory about what type of entities numbers are. Starting with a brief look at the historical and philosophical background to the problems of knowledge of mathematical facts and entities, the thesis then tackles in depth, and ultimately rejects as flawed, the work in this area of Hartry Field, Penelope Maddy, Jonathan Lowe, John Bigelow, and also some aspects of the work of Philip Kitcher and David Armstrong. Rejecting both nominalism and physicalism, but accepting accounts from Bigelow and Armstrong that numbers can be construed as relations, the view taken in this work is that mathematical objects, numbers in particular, are universals, and as such are mind dependent entities. It is important to the arguments leading to this conception of mathematical objects, that there is a notion of aspectual seeing involved in mathematical conception. Another important feature incorporated is the notion, derived from Anscombe, of an intentional object. This study finishes by sketching what appears to be a fruitful line of enquiry with some significant advantages over the other accounts discussed. The line taken is that the natural numbers are mind dependent intentional relations holding between intentional individuals, and that other classes of number - the rationals, the reals, and so on - are mind dependent intentional relations holding between other intentional relations. The distinction in type between the natural numbers and the rest, is the intuitive one that is drawn naturally in language between the objects referred to by the so-called count nouns, and the objects referred to by the so-called mass nouns

Essays on Migration

This dissertation covers two evaluations on migration policies and their impact on distinct groups of immigrants. The first chapter deals with a recent policy in the German state of Baden-Württemberg, which started to charge tuition fees from international students in 2017. Tertiary education remains free of charge in all other 15 states, which warrants a difference indifferences approach. My analysis with publicly available data focuses on enrollment rates and provides additional insights into the geographical distribution of changes in enrollment behavior. I find that the international enrollment share decreased by about 2 percentage points at treated institutions, largely thanks to changes in the enrollment behavior of Asian and African students. The policy has however not yet materialized in an improvement of foreign failure shares of final exams, i.e. there is no empirical evidence for a quality effect. Chapter 2 assesses the labor market effects on different immigrant groups under a restrictive immigration regime. I focus on the Johnson-Reed Act in the US, which curbed immigration after 1924, in particular from Asia as well as Southern and Eastern Europe. Filipinos were exempt from these restrictions because they immigrated from a US territory until gaining independence. This differential treatment creates a well-defined group for a difference-in-difference analysis on relative changes in labor market outcomes. My findings, derived from full US census data between 1910 and 1940, support the hypothesis that ongoing Filipino immigration lowered the relative occupational standing of their compatriots who migrated earlier. Moreover, Filipinos became more likely to seek and find employment in the same period. The effects are particularly strong for 1930 before Filipinos were subject to restrictions themselves, and in California, the main destination of Filipinos. Panel estimates partially support these results