The claim that neuronal activity represents properties of the world outside of the brain plays a fundamental role in most of cognitive science. Enacted embodiment is the name of a theoretical framework which purports cognition to be rooted in bodily action. To investigate the relationship between representation and embodiment, the work presented here focuses on reasoning processes involving spatial relations among objects which are not part of the cognizing agent’s body. These environmental spatial relations are called allocentric. After defining the term “representation,” a model of human cognition is developed which allows us to experimentally distinguish representation from computation and action in the brain. It is further argued that the relation of neural activity in areas classically considered sensory and motor is a fundamental organizational principle of the brain. Importantly, the structure of the relation also depends on the embodiment of the agent. Finally, a study is presented in which participants explored a virtual reality (VR) city in different embodiment conditions and on multiple days. After each exploration participants completed tasks asking for different allocentric spatial relations. Performance in the spatial tasks interacts with both exploration time and embodiment condition. The findings indicate allocentric spatial representations to be structured by bodily action. Remaining variance can be explained through individual differences in spatial aptitude. Embodiment cannot account for the individual levels of ability. In conclusion, bodily action only partially structures the cognitive processes which represent spatial relations among objects in the agent’s environment.

<p></p><p>A significant body of work has demonstrated the importance of diversity and representation in racial and ethnic minority jobseekers’ organizational judgements. While representation is often conceptualized as the general percentage or count of underrepresented minorities (URM) within an organization, a broader definition has been proposed that distinguishes this general or numerical representation from hierarchical representation which considers the placement of those URM employees within an organization. Although the separate effects of these two forms of representation have been evaluated, the present study extends on earlier work by considering the interactive effect. Additionally, the current research considered a potential mechanism to explain the influence of these forms of representation on URM’s organizational judgements. As expected, results showed that an organization depicting more URM employees (high numerical representation) and including Black leadership personnel (hierarchical representation) increased URM’s identity-safety relative to those which had low numerical representation and only White leadership. Moreover, and importantly, both representation effects could be explained indirectly via feelings of anticipated tokenism. </p><br><p></p>

Syftet med denna studie var att analysera hur genus, etnicitet och funktionsvariationer representeras i läromedel i engelska för årskurs 3 samt om det har skett någon utveckling från början av 2000-talet tills idag. En läromedelsanalys har utförts av de utvalda läromedlen Lift off Juniors (2002) och Magic! (2019) utifrån perspektiv på genus, etnicitet och funktionsvariationer. Analysen visade att representationen av genus vid flertalet tillfällen följde normer gällande klädsel och utseende hos olika karaktärer samt könsmönster gällande vad flickor och pojkar gör. Etnisk mångfald förekom inte alls vilket problematiseras i studien då det kan bidra till andrafiering. Funktionsvariationer representerades knappt vilket även det problematiseras. Trots en skillnad på 20 år har inte det nyare läromedlet utvecklats mot att representera en större del av samhället. Konklusionen av studien var att textböckerna inte framställs som jämställda och inkluderande för undervisning. Utifrån studiens analys överensstämde inte de utvalda läromedlen med läroplanens värdegrundsarbete där man bland annat strävar mot en jämställd och inkluderande skola.

This degree project aims to examine how the representation of migrants in Italian media differs according to their nationality. The new migration from Ukraine raised the problem of their different representations; a difference that existed before but now the media classification of migrants in first- and second-class is more evident and frequent. I engaged in a comparative content analysis of Italy’s state online journal that examines both the representation of migrants from Sub-Saharan and Northern Africa and Southern Asia arriving through the Mediterranean routes and that of Ukrainian migrants. Through the notions of representation of otherness (the other as a foreigner to strengthen our identity) and of voice as a process (claiming the importance for the disadvantaged to express their needs), the representation of the two groups will be analysed. Critically, this analysis will find that according to the media perception, migrants arriving through the Mediterranean routes are viewed as outcasts and their voice is also underrepresented compared to migrants from Ukraine.

Tenant representation är som bransch befinner sig i sin expansionsfas och har funnits på den svenska marknaden sedan tidigt 90-talet. Tjänsten tenant representation kommer ifrån den engelska och amerikanska marknaden och således ligger dessa marknader i framkant. Arbetet behandlar utbudet, utvecklingen och framtidsutsikterna på Stockholms tenant represantationmarknad. Arbetet stödjer sig till stor del på intervjuer av representanter från aktörer på Stockholms tenant representationmarknad. Arbetet hämtar även inspiration från tidigare arbeten och till viss del litteratur. Olika trender på marknaden som märks av är att medvetenheten och efterfrågan på tenant representation ökar samt att rekryteringsmöjligheterna har ökat. Svaren i intervjuerna har inte visat orsaken till de ökade rekryteringsmöjligheterna, men ett antagande är att utbildningar har anpassat sig till marknadernas behov. Tjänsterna inom tenant representation utvecklas även i en sådan riktning att TR företaget binder sig under kunden under en längre tid. Detta samtidigt som företagen har olika överlämningspunkter så att kunden inte upplever samarbetet som onödigt. De intervjuade företagen har en tydlig bild av sina konkurrenter och upplever att marknaden räcker för alla. Konkurrens efterfrågas då det skulle underlätta spridningen av TR tjänsterna och förbättra kvaliteten på dessa. Aktörerna på marknaden verkar även ha blivit bättre på att följa upp sina kundkontakter. Detta kan ha en positiv påverkan på förtroendet för TR marknadens aktörer.

I did not purposely set down to write this work but was compelled by a painful sense of what I should not do. What I should not write. To protect the privacy and autonomy of individuals, to avoid creating harm, and to resist, however unsuccessfully, essentializing either “mothers” or “addiction,” this work enacts a radical besideness, where one subject performs the verb of a second subject, where one subject enlist the aid of other subjects. In the aim of both producing and defying narrative structures that seem to fasten a person to their identity, this collaborative, intertextual project attempts to tell a story, both in what is re-told and in what is not-told. It invokes infelicitous performances as a way of talking back while walking forward. / Graduate

No description available.

<p>Finding cause and effect relationships is one of the quintessential questions throughout many of the empirical sciences, AI, and Machine Learning. This dissertation develops graphical conditions and efficient algorithms for two problems, linear identification and imitation learning. For the first problem, it is well-known that correlation does not imply causation, so linear regression doesn’t necessarily find causal relations even in the limit of a large sample size. Over the past century, a plethora of methods has been developed for identifying interventional distributions given a combination of assumptions about the underlying mechanisms (e.g., linear functional dependence, causal diagram) and observational data. We characterize the computational complexity of several existing graphical criteria and develop new polynomial-time algorithms that subsume existing disparate efficient approaches. The proposed methods constitute the current state of the art in terms of polynomial-time identification coverage. In words, our methods have the capability of identifying the maximal set of structural coefficients when compared to any other efficient algorithms found in the literature.</p> <p>The second problem studied in the dissertation is Causal Sequential Imitation Learning, which is concerned with an agent that aims to learn a policy by observing an expert acting in the environment, and mimicking this expert's observed behavior. Sometimes, the agent (imitator) does not have access to the same set of observations or sensors as the expert, which gives rise to challenges in correctly interpreting expert actions. We develop necessary and sufficient conditions for the imitator to obtain identical performance to the expert in sequential settings given the domain’s causal diagram, and create a polynomial-time algorithm for finding the covariates to include when generating an imitating policy.</p> <p><br></p>

Scattered data collected at sample points may be used to determine simple functions to best fit the data. An ideal choice for these simple functions is bivariate splines. Triangulation of the sample points creates partitions over which the bivariate splines may be defined. But the optimality of the approximation is dependent on the choice of triangulation. An algorithm, referred to as an Edge Swapping Algorithm, has been developed to transform an arbitrary triangulation of the sample points into an optimal triangulation for representation of the scattered data. A Matlab package has been completed that implements this algorithm for any triangulation on a given set of sample points.

Thesis advisor: Mark Reeder / This thesis contributes to the construction of supercuspidal representations in small residual characteristics. Let G be a connected, quasi-split, semisimple reductive algebraic group defined and quasi-split over a non-archimedean local field k and splitting over a tamely, totally ramified extension of k. To each parahoric subgroup of G(k), Moy and Prasad have attached a natural filtration by compact open subgroups, the first of which is called the pro-unipotent radical of the parahoric subgroup. The first main result of this thesis is to characterize shallow characters of a pro-unipotent radical, those being complex characters that vanish on the smallest Moy-Prasad subgroup containing all commutators of linearly-dependent affine k-root groups. Through low-rank examples, we illustrate how this characterization can be used to explicitly construct all shallow characters. Next, we provide a natural sufficient condition under which a shallow character compactly induces as a direct sum of supercuspidal representations of G(k). Through examples, however, we show that this sufficient condition need not be necessary, all while constructing new supercuspidal representations of Sp_4(k) when p = 2 and the split form of G_2 over k when p = 3. This work extends the construction of the simple supercuspidal representations given by Gross and Reeder and the epipelagic supercuspidal representations given by Reeder and Yu. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2022. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Mathematics.