VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Fourier-based invariant image descriptors
Keywords: Artificial intelligence
Computer science

A new framework for matching images with invariance to rotation is formed. This is done through two novel Global Rotation Invariant Descriptors (GRIDs), based on the Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT). The two descriptors are generated through the transfbormation of rotation into circular shifts by mapping the images from Cartesian to Polar coordinates. The first GRID is based on the Fourier magnitudes, thus allowing images with similar frequency components to be regarded as similar or identical. Experiments are done to show the performance of the descriptor under a variety of practical conditions including scale change and image compression. The need for a more precise ability to match images leads to the derivation of the second GRID, which incorporates the phase information into a Shift Invariant Signal Transform (SIST). The SIST is once again used on the polar representation of the image to generate an inherently rotation-invariant descriptor. This descriptor is shown experimentally to be extremely sensitive to small variations in the image. To increase the performance of the phase-retaining descriptor, a method for phase quantization and sensitivity relaxation is introduced. Once again experiments are done to show how the descriptor performs under varying practical condition. Finally, the concept of entanglement is introduced as a method of increasing the robustness and performance of the rotation-invariant descriptors.
Critical practice in youth engagement: Voices of practitioners
Keywords: Youth with social disabilities, Services for
Youth with social disabilities, Ontario
Race discrimination, Ontario
Engagement (Philosophy)
Youth workers, Attitudes
Youth workers, Ontario

In Metro Toronto, since the devastating violence of 2005, increasing awareness of poverty, lack of resources and on-going racism has led to calls for a more holistic approach to youth programming. Youth empowerment has become the focus of new program and policy developments, but these continue to function within a context of widespread safety concerns fostering a contradictory deficiency approach that blames individuals for their shortcomings. My research has confirmed that despite this challenging context, empowering youth work is nevertheless happening in a multiplicity of contexts. Essential and interdependent elements of this practice include engaging with language and media, the importance of reflection, enabling youth voices, and creating respectful spaces. The practice discussed in this thesis demonstrates how critical youth practitioners incorporate all of these elements in varying ways, through creating integral processes involving both reflection and action and simultaneously affirming the individual while raising awareness of the social.
African centered education (ACE): an approach to resisting mainstream education
Keywords: Afrocentrism, Study and teaching
Afrocentrism, Canada
Black Canadians, Education (Elementary)
Black Canadians, Race identity
Discrimination in education, Canada

The mainstream educational system often dismisses factors, such as race, class, and gender, and how these categories shape students realities. This research focuses on the saliency of race/skin colour, and how it conditions Black students experiences within educational settings. Through an anti-racist qualitative approach, this project critically examines how Black students, within the mainstream elementary school system, are dismissed from the curriculum. An anti-racist and African centered discursive framework is used as an explanatory tool to locate the narratives of 5 parents, who removed their children from the public school system into an African Centered Education (ACE) program. The parents' narratives show how ACE defies traditional curriculum by providing children with cultural valour, identification, and a sense of history. Also, ACE challenges oppression, and encourages critical thinking. More fundamental, as a means of problematizing traditional education, an ACE program proposes that Black children do not have to occupy the margins.
The transition to problem-based learning: Nurse educators' experiences in a collaborative BScN program in Ontario
Keywords: Nurses, Training of
Nurses, Ontario
Educational change, Ontario
Nursing, Study and teaching
Nursing, Ontario

Beginning January 1, 2005, the Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BScN) degree becomes the minimal requirement for nursing practice in Ontario, Canada. In response to this legislation, a Collaborative BScN Program was established between McMaster University and Mohawk and Conestoga Colleges. Nurse educators teaching in behaviourist college programs were required to make the transition to a problem-based learning (PBL) curriculum. A life history approach was employed to understand the experiences of seven nurse educators making the transition to PBL. Individual and contextual influences on the transition experiences were explored over the course of the educators' careers. Transition experiences were significantly influenced by the educators' evolving conceptions of teaching and the context within which they were teaching. As nursing education reorients towards more student-centered teaching and the BScN as entry to practice, the transition needs of nurse educators cannot be ignored. Faculty development and mentoring opportunities facilitate the transition process, however, only through the creation of a culture in which individuals, teaching and learning are highly valued will an ongoing process of personal growth and learning occur. The college context facilitated the educators' initial teaching experiences, but became a "culture of isolation" over the course of their careers. Educators made a conscious effort to recreate a supportive environment within the college BScN teams. While some educators described supportive and empowering transition experiences, others experienced hierarchical relationships, devaluing communication, and a "fragile" working environment. In looking to the future, educators identified a need for a collaborative identity and increased program ownership. Although educators described a shift from teacher to student-centered conceptions of teaching, this transformation occurred through a self-directed process prior to the formation of the Collaborative BScN Program. Teaching in PBL was described as a "coming home" in which educators' conceptions of teaching were finally consistent with their practice. Faculty development and mentoring opportunities were essential in developing an understanding of PBL, gaining the skills of effective tutors and reinforcing educators' confidence in assuming the tutor role. Although supportive of PBL, educators expressed the need for a jointly developed curriculum integrating the clinical strengths of the college partners.
Student assessment and evaluation in studio art
Keywords: Art, Study and teaching
Art teachers
Educational tests and measurements
Students, Rating of

The purpose of this study was to explore and describe the evaluation process of student studio art products, and to determine the influence of three different curriculum approaches in the evaluation of subsequent student work. Curricula were defined by their philosophical and theoretical approaches to art education; the three approaches included holistic, analytic and International Baccalaureate (IB) models for studio art studies. A multi-site case study format was used to explore the way teachers develop their conception of art education and evaluation practise, and the way students interpret and implement evaluation. Research was conducted at three sites using the grounded theory method for data collection and analysis. Participants at each site included an art teacher, and three senior level art students. Sites were visited ten times over a six-week period. Data pertaining to the teacher's process of evaluation, and the student's response to evaluation, was collected through personal interviews with participants, informal observation and discussion, and collection of documents and artifacts. The findings suggest that teachers rely on personal experience and early training to develop evaluation, and consciously integrate strategies, methods and criteria based on the expectations of their school and community. When teachers implemented provincial art curriculum, they adapted educational objectives and evaluation methods based on personal preference, and moderated these preferences in response to external pressures. When a teacher used externally developed and monitored curriculum, evaluation was implemented to adhere to the summative evaluation conducted by the external examiner Students integrated teacher evaluation into subsequent work when the following conditions were met: (1) when the values in the evaluation matched the student's goals, expectations and needs; (2) when the student could maintain their original beliefs about the nature of the art making process; and, (3) when the student was able to maintain a high level of personal satisfaction with their work in the process of creating the final product. Teachers and students developed individual systems for evaluating artwork. Students developed personalized criteria to evaluate work during the process of creation; teachers developed criteria based on educational objectives, and applied evaluation to the finished product.
Palladium catalyzed carbon-carbon bond forming reactions
Keywords: Chemistry, Organic

We have developed novel palladium catalyzed coupling reactions for the synthesis of functionalized aromatic and heteroaromatic compounds. Chapter 1 explores the development of a palladium catalyzed domino ortho-functionalization/cyanation reaction for the synthesis of polysubstituted benzonitriles. The scope of the reaction proved to be broad with a wide range of alkyl halides and aryl bromides taking part as ortho-functionalizing reagents. Chapter 2 describes the discovery and development of a palladium catalyzed domino ortho-arylation/carbonyl addition reaction for the synthesis of substituted fluorene derivatives. The reaction was found to proceed using esters, ketones, aldehydes and imines. During the course of the study it was found that α-arylation is also an efficient termination step. Chapter 3 involves the extension of the palladium catalyzed domino ortho-alkylation/Heck reaction to heteroaromatic halides. It was found that both 3-iodoindoles and 3-halopyridines could be functionalized efficiently under the developed reaction conditions. Chapter 4 explores the palladium catalyzed reaction of aromatic iodides with allylic functionalities to generate allylated aromatics. Extension of the reaction to the intermolecular coupling of these two entities using palladium on carbon was examined.
Exploring teacher's perceptions of concept mapping as a teaching strategy in science: an action research approach
Keywords: Concepts, Study and teaching (Elementary)
Action research in education
Science, Study and teaching (Elementary)
Elementary school teachers, Attitudes
Science teachers, Attitudes

In order to promote science literacy in the classroom, students need opportunities in which they can personalize their understanding of the concepts they are learning. Current literature supports the use of concept maps in enabling students to make personal connections in their learning of science. Because they involve creating explicit connections between concepts, concept maps can assist students in developing metacognitive strategies and assist educators in identifying misconceptions in students' thinking. The literature also notes that concept maps can improve student achievement and recall. In an effort to explore concept mapping from the perspective of elementary educators, an action research group of 5 educators and myself was established and met regularly from September 1999 until June 2000. All of the educators taught in the Toronto area. These teachers were interested in exploring how concept mapping could be used as a learning tool in their science classrooms. In summary, this study explores the journey of five educators and myself as we engaged in collaborative action research. This study sets out to: (1) Explore how educators believe concept mapping can facilitate teaching and student learning in the science classroom. (2) Explore how educators implement concept mapping in their classrooms. (3) Identify challenges educators experience when they implement concept mapping. (4) Explore factors that impact on facilitating collaborative action research. (5) Provide insight into my growth as an action research facilitator. Much of the current literature focuses primarily on concept mapping at the secondary and university levels, with limited focus on the elementary panel. The research rarely considers teachers' thoughts and ideas about the concept mapping process. In order to effectively explore concept mapping from the perspective of elementary teachers, I felt that an action research approach would be appropriate. Action research enabled educators to debate issues about concept mapping and test out ideas in their classrooms. It also afforded the participants opportunities to explore their own thinking, reflect on their personal journeys as educators and play an active role in their professional development.
Learning about teaching: aesthetic practices and arts integration in teacher education
Keywords: Art in education
Teaching
Learning
Teachers, Training of
Arts, Study and teaching

The case central to this study describes the work of a professor teaching in a faculty of education, who inquired into the integration of visual arts into a pre-service course on teaching as reflective practice. Three research methodologies are represented: the researcher's inquiry as participant observer, the professor's action research project, and the arts-based inquiries completed by teacher candidates. In supporting reflexive inquiry and artistically crafted research, each research perspective investigates emergent processes for producing knowledge about teaching and learning that arise from experiences of making and responding to artworks. This interpretive study inquires into the insights to be gained about teaching and learning through the ways of knowing and representing experience that inhere in the production and interpretation of artworks. Working from a conception of the arts as ways of knowing, the study examines how the formations of different arts disciplines provide structures for thinking about, producing and expressing knowledge about teaching and learning. It seeks to establish how aesthetic practices of working within these formations and structures are forms of research and reflective practice that generate pedagogical understandings, producing new knowledge significant to the development of a professional knowledge base for teachers. Examined are three examples of visual artmaking: individual panels produced by two teacher candidates and an installation produced by four teacher candidates. What emerged from each of the artworks was an excess of meaning that held the promise of rich, contextual understandings about the work of teaching and learning. Within these conditions for learning, knowledge emerged from aesthetic processes made possible by the qualities of disruption and displacement that characterise the aesthetic supplement. The dialectical nature of meaning-making mobilised through the signifying function of the supplement creates aesthetic conditions for learning that enable learners to move beyond the limits of their knowing to encounter the new. Examined are possibilities presented by the structures of the aesthetic supplement for articulating more fully relations between the intuitive apprehension of insight and everyday practice. Significant are ways in which teacher educators might elaborate relations among theory and practice through the aesthetic supplement in an emergent curriculum of teacher education.
Exploring the effects of using distributed computational devices in secondary science
Keywords: Science, Study and teaching (Secondary)
Computer-assisted instruction
Educational change

As a follow up to previous research by Collela (1998), this study explores the effects of using a new wearable computer technology, called Thinking Tags, in secondary science. Two questions were investigated: (1) ‘How does prior exposure to a formal scientific model affect the way that students make use of information displayed on the devices?’ and (2) ‘Does the way that students make use of the information affect their understanding of key scientific concepts?’ Two Grade 11 classes (one typical, one academically advanced) with no prior genetics instruction, and a typical OAC class that had studied genetics during the previous year, took part in a genetics simulation to explore the underlying processes of inheritance. Results suggest that students with some prior understanding of inheritance show an increased coordination of world 3 ideas with world 1 evidence, and that this coordination may be associated with an improved understanding of genetics concepts.
The World Bank and Chinese higher education: The impact of the World Bank's programs, concepts, and strategies on Chinese higher education transformation
Keywords: Education, Higher, China
Educational change, China

This thesis observes and speculates on the interaction between the Chinese government and the World Bank, and their concepts, strategies, policies as well as their behaviors. The study of the relationship between China and the Bank in the field of higher education reforms examines the theoretical and practical orientations of China and the Bank in such a field, to better understand the evolution of their higher education strategies and policies, and to realize how they function in each other's culturally, politically, and socially disparate environments. Moreover, the study explores what kind of roles China and the World Bank would play, both being powerful and independent actors, in the global higher education transformation. It is hoped that the study will be of some help to future cooperation between the World Bank and the Chinese government and China's higher education institutions.
'Walking through your old way of thinking': the learning dimension of farmers' transitions to sustainable agriculture
Keywords: Sustainable agriculture, Alberta
Farmers, Attitudes
Farmers, Alberta
Life change events

Many farmers express significant concern about the chemical use on their farms---a common trait of North American agriculture. Nonetheless, most farmers continue to practise chemical agriculture. This dissertation focuses on farmers who have made a transition from chemical to sustainable agriculture in the province of Alberta. Sustainable agriculture, in the context of this dissertation, is an approach to farming that considers the farm as an ecosystem with interventions geared towards treating root causes rather than symptoms. This is contrasted with chemical agriculture. Within the context of this adult education thesis, farmers' transitions are conceived as an informal learning project. The central argument is that farmers' learning is transformative to the extent that it transcends acquiring new farming skills and knowledge to encompass an understanding of the chemical agrifood system as fundamentally socially unjust and environmentally destructive. The limited previous research into farmers' transitions focuses on the important ecological aspects of farm transition, often to the exclusion of social aspects. This thesis makes a contribution to understanding farmers' motivations for transition, the process of their informal transformative learning and the various forms of civic engagement that result. The data show that farmers followed one of four paths to sustainable farming practices: incomplete transformative learning; conscientization through sustainable agriculture; concurrent transformations; and closing a values-action gap. In all but the first of these, farmers had a counterhegemonic understanding of both their farming practices and their civic engagement. A major form of farmers' engagement is through the articulation of a sustainable agriculture standpoint---a vision for sustainable farming practices as part of a sustainable agrifood system. Farmers are also involved formally and informally in myriad other activities in their rural communities and beyond through business, non-profit, and state organizations. Situating the research in the province of Alberta gives an interesting insight into farmers' different forms of dissent because of the political realities of this context. The theoretical framework combines insight from the political economy of sustainable agriculture, hegemony and counterhegemony, feminist standpoint theory and transformative learning and conscientization. Data were collected through a series of semi-structured interviews with sustainable farmer families in Alberta.
How elementary principals assist teachers in implementing computer technology in mathematics
Keywords: Mathematics, Computer-assisted instruction
Teacher-principal relationships
Elementary school principals

The purpose of the research was to explore how elementary principals assist teachers in implementing computer technology in mathematics. The research was an in-depth qualitative study utilizing the case study method. The study was conducted in three elementary schools in a large urban school board over four-months. The main participants were principals, vice principals, teachers, support staff, and a superintendent. Interviews, observations, and field notes were the main data collection tools. For principals there are several implications. The integration of computer technology into mathematics requires more than an infrastructure including hardware and software. Principals, together with their staff, have to envision the potential of computer technology for the teaching and learning of mathematics. They need to have a common understanding of what is meant by computer technology integration and understand how computer technology can be used to support constructivist teaching in mathematics. It is beneficial for principals to have a full understanding of the levels of technology integration and how they can assist teachers as they progress through the various stages. In addition to creating supportive conditions, principals need to cooperatively plan with teachers for mathematics and determine how computer technology can effectively support instruction. The five major findings suggest important considerations for an elementary school principal in the implementation of computer technology in mathematics. (1) The role of the elementary school principal was found to be central in assisting and supporting teachers in the integration of computer technology in mathematics. (2) Principals create supportive conditions, which foster the use of computer technology for mathematics. (3) The study suggests principals are advocates for new computer technology initiatives to support the mathematics curriculum. (4) This research identified that principals need to know, understand, and be able to apply appropriate assessment and evaluation strategies for assessing the use of computer technology for the teaching and learning of mathematics. (5) The superintendent of schools was found to model and directly influence curriculum management processes for principals for the implementation of computer technology in mathematics.