Infants' ability to associate different motion trajectories with animals and vehicles

Researchers have postulated that infants use motion cues (e.g., line of trajectory) to distinguish between animate and inanimate objects. However, little empirical research has addressed whether infants associate particular motion cues with object kinds. The present study examined infants' ability to associate jumping over an obstacle with animals, and hitting an obstacle and rebounding with vehicles. An infant-controlled habituation procedure was used. Sixteen- and 20-month-old infants were habituated to two category-congruent motion events: an animal jumping over a wall and a vehicle hitting a wall and rebounding backwards. During the habituation events, a stationary animal or vehicle was placed on one side of the screen to control for novelty effect of the exemplar in the test events (e.g., if an animal was jumping over the wall, then a vehicle was stationary). Subsequently, infants were presented with two test events. In the congruent test event, the stationary animal or vehicle from the habituation events engaged in the expected motion (i.e., animal jumping or vehicle rebounding). In the incongruent event, the stationary animal or vehicle from the habituation events violated the expected motion path (i.e., an animal rebounding or a vehicle jumping). The results revealed that by 16 months of age, infants can associate different lines of trajectory with different object kinds, and are surprised when this association is violated. The results are discussed in the context of the recent developmental literature, and infants' conceptualization of animates and inanimates

Infants' understanding of the epistemic nature of eye gaze during the second year of life

The current thesis explored infants' implicit understanding of mental states during the second year of life. The first paper focused on infants' appreciation of the relationship between visual perception and knowledge. Based on an interactive search task, 24-month-olds demonstrated an understanding that people's eyes need to be unobstructed in order for them to be connected to the external world. Using a preferential looking paradigm, 18-month-olds predicted different behavior as a function of a person's visual experience. The second paper employed the preferential looking paradigm to investigate 18-month-olds' attributions of knowledge or ignorance when looking behavior was displayed by a person or a humanoid robot. Infants predicted different behavior as a function of the person's visual experience, while they did not demonstrate this expectation in the robot condition. The third paper explored infants' understanding of the epistemic nature of eye gaze within the context of a word learning task (Baldwin, 1993). In three experiments 18-month-olds were exposed to either a human or robot speaker who uttered novel labels for unfamiliar objects under two different eye gaze conditions. While infants followed the eye gaze of the non-human speaker, they did not use the robot speaker's eye gaze cues to determine the correct referent of novel words, even when contingent interaction was added. When the speaker was human, infants used the speaker's eye gaze to determine the correct referent. Together, the findings from the studies presented in this dissertation suggest that by 18 months, infants possess an implicit appreciation of the relationship between visual perception and knowledge. The results also provide evidence for the notion that by 18 months, the scope of infants' concept of mentalistic agent has narrowed relative to that demonstrated by younger infant

Um olhar de viajante para a arte e cultura popular: A tradição dos Caretos na Região de Trás-os-Montes - Portugal

No ano de 2014, enquanto cursava Artes Visuais – Licenciatura na Universidade Federal de Pelotas (UFPel), tive a oportunidade através de um acordo entre a UFPel e o Instituto Politécnico de Bragança (IPB) em Portugal, de realizar um intercâmbio acadêmico. Logo, pude estudar no Curso de Licenciatura em Arte e Design, no IPB em Bragança, Portugal no período de setembro de 2014 a fevereiro de 2015. Por meio do deslocamento para outro lugar, pude migrar para a região de Trás-os-Montes, a qual se encontra no nordeste de Portugal. Como o próprio nome sugere, é uma região montanhosa e por ter esta característica, em tempos passados o trânsito e o acesso a ela era muito difícil. Assim, desenvolveu-se lá aspectos culturais muito específicos e singulares, bem como uma característica própria e subjetiva do povo transmontano (de Trás-os-Montes) de ser. Com o passar dos dias ia gradativamente conhecendo a música, a dança, a arte, o artesanato, as festividades, as tradições, a culinária e a literatura locais. Bem como, conhecia sua gente, povo simples e acolhedor que na sua generosidade, sem saber contribuía para o meu processo de reterritorialização (Deleuze, 2009). As experiências vivenciadas durante esse percurso, modificaram meu modo de ver e pensar a cultura, o cotidiano, as relações sociais e a própria educação. Deste modo, gostaria de compartilhar neste artigo, um pouco da minha experiência de descoberta do território e da cultura transmontana, principalmente, no que confere aos ritos festivos envolvendo os Caretos, personagens tradicionais de Trás-os Montes.Palavras-Chave: Festa dos Caretos. História, Cultura. Educação

A (Re)existência do Ensino de Arte sob a ótica dos docentes de Pelotas

Esta investigação tem origem na minha pesquisa de mestrado que está em desenvolvimento no Programa de Pós-Graduação em Educação da UFPel. A pesquisa integra-se aos estudos sobre a docência e a formação de professores. A temática se configura como: O Ensino de Artes Visuais na contemporaneidade: Desafios, mudanças e perspectivas sob a ótica dos docentes. Busca perspectivas para a problemática de como os professores de Artes Visuais percebem sua profissão quanto aos desafios, dificuldades e mudanças. De abordagem qualitativa, a pesquisa se utiliza de entrevistas semiestruturadas com cinco professoras de Arte que atuam no Ensino Fundamental em Pelotas. Pode-se constatar uma preocupação das professoras em reafirmar a importância da Arte na escola e isto se reverbera em diferentes práticas e modos de pensar o ensino. A pesquisa possibilita a construção de ideias para uma educação que valorize os professores e que possa formar pessoas mais humanas, criativas e sensíveis para o mundo

Modality-Independent Effects of Phonological Neighborhood Structure on Initial L2 Sign Language Learning

The goal of the present study was to characterize how neighborhood structure in sign language influences lexical sign acquisition in order to extend our understanding of how the lexicon influences lexical acquisition in both sign and spoken languages. A referent-matching lexical sign learning paradigm was administered to a group of 29 hearing sign language learners in order to create a sign lexicon. The lexicon was constructed based on exposures to signs that resided in either sparse or dense handshape and location neighborhoods. The results of the current study indicated that during the creation of the lexicon signs that resided in sparse neighborhoods were learned better than signs that resided in dense neighborhoods. This pattern of results is similar to what is seen in child first language acquisition of spoken language. Therefore, despite differences in child first language and adult second language acquisition, these results contribute to a growing body of literature that implicates the phonological features that structure of the lexicon is influential in initial stages of lexical acquisition for both spoken and sign languages. This is the first study that uses an innovated lexicon-construction methodology to explore interactions between phonology and the lexicon in L2 acquisition of sign language

Approach for the monetary evaluation of process innovations in early innovation phases focusing on manufacturing and material costs

In early innovation phases, the monetary evaluation of process innovations is a challenge for companies due to a lack of data. However, an innovation evaluation is essential in an early innovation phase to ensure that process innovations deliver economic value added (EVA) in early innovation phases and to channel technology transfer expenditures in a goal-oriented manner. This paper presents an approach for a semi-quantitative procedure for the monetary evaluation of process innovations in the early innovation phase focusing on manufacturing and material costs. Exemplarily, the approach is applied to process innovations of the Collaborative Research Center 1368 on oxygen-free production. In order to ensure the net present value orientation within the innovation evaluation, the procedure developed is based on a driver tree of the EVA. To link value drivers of the EVA and innovation-driven factors influencing EVA, the EVA driver tree is further systematized with a focus on manufacturing and material costs using a literature-based impact model. Based on the last level of the impact model, a guideline for a semi-structured expert interview is developed. Using this interview guideline, data is collected in the form of innovation-driven influencing factors, which represent the input for the final monetary innovation evaluation. An adapted weighted scoring model is used to draw a semi-quantitative conclusion regarding the EVA achieved by the process innovation. The practical application of the approach developed to process innovations in oxygen-free production has shown that, in the context of three process innovations under consideration, their implementation with the aim of achieving an EVA through reduced manufacturing and material costs at the current innovation status is not effective. However, based on the impact model developed, corresponding levers can be identified to positively influence the EVA and thus also the industrialization of the process innovation. Finally, further necessary steps are identified to evolve the presented approach into a complete method for monetary innovation evaluation in early innovation phases

Antiplaque Effect of Essential Oils and 0.2% Chlorhexidine on an In Situ Model of Oral Biofilm Growth: A Randomised Clinical Trial

This work was supported by project PI11/ 01383 from Carlos III Institute of Health (General Division of Evaluation and Research Promotion, Madrid, Spain), which is integrated in National Plan of Research, Development and Innovation (PN I+D+I 2008-2011). This project was cofinanced by European Regional Development Fund (ERDF 2007- 2013

Automatic I/O Prefetching for Out-of-Core Applications

Automatic I/O Prefetching for Out-of-Core Applications Angela K. Demke Master of Science Graduate Department of Computer Science University of Toronto 1997 In this thesis, we propose and evaluate a fully-automatic technique to manage the I/O requirements of out-of-core scientific applications. In our scheme, the compiler determines information on future access patterns and inserts prefetch and release operations to initiate I/O before the data is needed and to free pages that are no longer accessed. No modifications to the original application source code are needed to support our compiler analysis. The operating system provides support for the basic prefetch and release operations and interacts with a run-time layer to accelerate performance by minimizing prefetch overhead. We have implemented our scheme using the SUIF compiler and the Hurricane operating system. Our experimental results demonstrate that our fully-automatic scheme effectively hides the I/O latency in out-of-cor..