Decentralized Machine Learning could address some problematic facets with Federated Learning. There is no central server acting as an arbiter of whom or what may benefit from Machine Learning models created by the vast amount of data becoming available in recent years. It could also increase the reliability and scalability of Machine Learning systems thereby drawing the benefit of having more data accessible. Gossip Learning is such a protocol, but has primarily been designed with linear models in mind. How does Gossip Learning perform when training Deep Neural Networks? Could it be a viable alternative to Federated Learning? In this thesis, we implement Gossip Learning using two different model merging strategies. We also design and implement two extensions to this protocol with the goal of achieving higher performance when training under churn. The training methods are compared on two tasks: image classification on the Federated Extended MNIST dataset and time- series forecasting on the NN5 dataset. Additionally, we also run an experiment where learners churn, alternating between being available and unavailable. We find that Gossip Learning performs slightly better in settings where learners do not churn but is vastly outperformed in the setting where they do. / Decentraliserad Maskinginlärning kan lösa några problematiska aspekter med Federated Learning. Det finns ingen central server som agerar som domare för vilka som får gagna av Maskininlärningsmodellerna skapad av den stora mäng data som blivit tillgänglig på senare år. Det skulle också kunna öka pålitligheten och skalbarheten av Maskininlärningssystem och därav dra nytta av att mer data är tillgänglig. Gossip Learning är ett sånt protokoll, men det är primärt designat med linjära modeller i åtanke. Hur presterar Gossip Learning när man tränar Djupa Neurala Nätverk? Kan det vara ett möjligt alternativ till Federated Learning? I det här exjobbet implementerar vi Gossip Learning med två olika modelsammanslagningstekniker. Vi designar och implementerar även två tillägg till protokollet med målet att uppnå bättre prestanda när man tränar i system där noder går ner och kommer up. Träningsmetoderna jämförs på två uppgifter: bildklassificering på Federated Extended MNIST datauppsättningen och tidsserieprognostisering på NN5 datauppsättningen. Dessutom har vi även experiment då noder alternerar mellan att vara tillgängliga och otillgängliga. Vi finner att Gossip Learning presterar marginellt bättre i miljöer då noder alltid är tillgängliga men är kraftigt överträffade i miljöer då noder alternerar mellan att vara tillgängliga och otillgängliga.

Reading the Fourth Gospel, one is struck by the amount of talk about Jesus. Many of the reports in John describing such talk reflect the social process of gossip in concert with other processes and dynamics involved in constituting social personages in the ancient Mediterranean world. Although there have been a few general treatments of gossip in the New Testament, none have focused on the subject of the gossip in John’s gospel, Jesus, the generative cause of the emergence of gossip traditions. The aim of this research project is to explore how gossip is involved in constituting Jesus as a shamanic figure in the Fourth Gospel. Building on the research of Pieter F. Craffert, and thus beginning with understanding Jesus as a shamanic figure, a viable framework for identifying and explaining features and functions of gossip is constructed after considering sociolinguistic studies and a number of ethnographies of extant traditional cultures of the Mediterranean. The framework is then brought to bear on texts in the Fourth Gospel reporting or describing gossip, in order to see how gossip contributes to constituting Jesus as a shamanic figure. As a result, this research offers a significant contribution to New Testament studies as it 1) represents an exploration and appropriation of gossip that has scarcely been exploited in the field, 2) provides a viable theoretical framework for positioning gossip vis-à-vis other pivotal first-century Mediterranean social values and processes, 3) models a new way to see and understand John’s gospel, and 4) is suggestive of an alternative to the reigning paradigm of conventional historical Jesus research in that it involves linking literary features about oral phenomena in John to a historically plausible figure thoroughly embedded in his social, cultural, and historical world. / New Testament / D.Th. (New Testament)

在媒介暴漲的現代社會中，資訊的掌握成為新興權力的象徵。台灣社會的八卦文化，由口語之消息傳播，轉變為媒體大幅腥羶色之報導。其深入公領域生活，挑起個人隱私與公眾求知慾之間的拉鋸戰，學界對於八卦文化之盛行，莫不表現高度之重視，然其觀察取向多由媒體、新聞之角度作一道德價值的反省，鮮少針對八卦之實際行為與互動加以研究。本研究以社會網絡分析方法，針對小團體之成員予以測量觀察，瞭解個人於日常之人際網絡中，加何獲得八卦消息，以期對於八卦之現象做一探索。 本研究以友誼網絡為參照之對象，分析團體內成員由八卦關係組成的網絡，其結構特性、權力角色、成員八卦關係的聚合狀態、八卦互動之模式、八卦者所持有的態度。研究發現，八卦深植於日常生活，由友誼關係發展而來；於日常生活之中掌握八卦資訊的個人，在八卦訊息的溝通中，亦扮演重要的角色，該結果證實學者對於八卦與權力高度相關之看法。其次，團體內個人的八卦關係，遠比友誼關係來得親近，其互動模式呈現放射狀，成員基於交換訊息所組成的八卦次團體，具有單一的核心，這些特性顯示出八卦傳遞的時效價值，以及團體內八卦活絡之現象。最後，本論文檢證學者所提出之八卦理論，並提出八卦之社會功能，予以修正與重新詮釋。 關鍵字：八卦、社會網絡分析、社會功能 / In the modern society, the acquisition of information has become the new way to gain dominant position. In Taiwan, the gossip culture has been transformed from interpersonal communication topic to popular news on mass media. Gossip not only challenges the boundary between public and private realm but also provokes the debate between personal privacy and the right of information access. In the discipline of mass communication, the issue of gossip is examined from the ethical perspective. However, this study takes a sociological approach that adopts the social network analysis. A pre-selected concrete small group is used as a research sample to explore how gossip circulates in our daily interactions. This thesis presents the results from the comparisons between the gossip network to the friendship network. They are demonstrated in the order of network structure, roles, proximity, interaction patterns, and the attitudes of the gossipy people. This study suggests that gossip is deeply rooted in the friendship relations. It further shows that the prominent actors in our daily life occupy an important position in the transmission of gossip, which corresponds to the hypothesis of social control theory. Additionally, the social distance within the gossip network is much more closer than that within the friendship network. Moreover, the gossip network is composed of a single-core structure with a star-shaped interaction pattern. This unique structure is formed by the frequent exchange of information and instant diffusion of gossip. Finally, various theories of the social functions of gossip are reexamined, and new understandings of these theories are provided in the end of this thesis. Keywords: gossip, social network analysis, social functions.

Syftet med studien är att belysa de kollektiva representationer dvs. kollektivt accepterade utsagor som återspeglas genom lokalmedias publiceringar om förorten i en mellanstor svensk stad. Studien ämnar också belysa vilken typ av nyheter som publiceras om förorten. Studien antar ett kritiskt diskursivt angreppssätt och urvalet består i 7 debattartiklar, 7 ledarartiklar och 5 debattinlägg från Nerikes Allehanda som sedan analyseras. Det baseras också på en översikt av 309 nyhetsartiklar publicerade mellan 2006-2015. Studien visar att lokalmedia producerar en bild av förorten som otrygg. Invånarna i förorten beskrivs inte sällan som icke-reflekterande, passiva och moraliskt avvikande. Studien argumenterar för att media skapar och upprätthåller en moralisk differentiering i gestaltningen av den andre och en dikotomi kring förorten. / The aim of this study is to analyse local media’s narratives about the suburb in a Swedish middle-sized city. This in order to show the collective representations (collectively accepted narrations) about the suburbs. The study also shows which kind of news about the suburb the local media is publishing. The methodology is influenced by the critical discourse analysis, CDA and the sample is based on 5 debate articles, 7 letters to the newspaper and 7 leaders. It’s also based on an appraisal of 309 news articles distributed between 2006 and 2015. The study displays that the local media creates an image of the suburb as an unsafe place. The inhabitants are often styled as passive, non-reflecting and morally deviated. The study argues that the local media is creating and sustaining a moral diversity when labeling “the others”. It also argues that the local media is enforcing a dichotomization of the suburb.

This thesis explores the ways in which the television adaptations of Gossip Girl, Pretty Little Liars, and The Vampire Diaries become more homogenized during the adaptation process, thus contributing to an implied exclusivity from which Alloy, Inc.—the media and marketing company that owns these products—might benefit. This paper points out the ways in which the three products become structurally similar to one another during the adaptation process through the implementation of soap opera conventions. An exploration of consumption and class in each of the three works reveals an emphasis on class-based exclusivity in the adaptation process. Finally, a focus on portrayals of race within the source texts and their respective adaptations reveals the ways in which African American characters are presented as invisible, outsiders, or antagonists, thus creating products that become more exclusive on a race basis.

Orientador: Flávia Arlanch Martins de Oliveira / Banca: Tânia Regina de Luca / Banca: Márcia Terezinha Tembil / Resumo: O objetivo dessa dissertação será interpretar os discursos e representações presentes na coluna social "Rumores Sociais", editada entre 1959 e 1964 no periódico guarapuavano Folha do Oeste. Neste percurso, buscamos compreender quem eram os seus produtores e quais as estratégias utilizadas para difundir estes discursos entre as elites guarapuavanas, bem como a que prática estes estavam ligados. A partir desse objetivo, poderemos perceber as especificidades nas interpretações sobre as transformações vividas pela cidade tendo em vista os sujeitos que as inscreveram. Analisando estas representações, poderemos perceber os limites e papéis impostos pelas elites a si e aos demais integrantes do espaço urbano, delimitando quais as atitudes aceitáveis, quais as depreciáveis e de que forma estabeleciam os espaços a serem ocupados por cada grupo dentro da vida social citadina / Abstract: The objective of this dissertation is to interpret the discourses and representations in the gossip column "Rumores Sociais", published between 1959 and 1964 in the Guarapuava's newspaper Folha do Oeste. In this course, we understand who the producers and the strategies used to disseminate these discourses among Guarapuava's elites and the practice that transformations experienced by the city in order that the subjects enrolled. Analyzing these representations we realize the limits and roles imposed by the elites themselves and other members of the urban space, limiting what actions acceptable, depreciable and which established how the spaces to be occupied by each group within the city social life / Mestre

This dissertation examines narratives about female bullying and aggression through mediated images of "mean girls." Through textual analysis of popular media featuring mean girls (television shows such as Gossip Girl and films like Mean Girls), as well as national news coverage of the case of Phoebe Prince, who reportedly committed suicide after being bullied by girls from her school, this feminist examination questions how the image of the mean girl is raced and classed. This dissertation values an interdisciplinary approach to research that works to make sense of the forces that produce bodies as gendered, raced, and classed. One of the central concerns of this project is explore images of mean girls in order to highlight the ideas that construct female aggression as deviant. In popular culture, the mean girl is constructed as a popular girl who protects and cultivates the power associated with her elite status in duplicitous and cruel ways. Specifically, mean girls are framed as using indirect aggression, which is defined as a form of social manipulation. This covert form of aggression, also referred to as "relational" or "social" aggression, includes a series of actions aimed at destroying other girls' relationships, causing their victims to feel marginalized. The bullying tactics associated with indirect aggression include gossiping, social exclusion, stealing friends, not talking to someone, and threatening to withdraw friendship. The leader of the clique is the Queen Bee who is able to use boundary maintenance to exclude other girls from her friendship groups. In media texts, while the Queen Bee is always White, the Mean Girl discourse does not ignore girls of color. Instead, girls of color are acknowledged as having the potential to be mean, but, more often, they are shown to exemplify the characteristics of normative White femininity (they are nice and prioritize heterosexual relationships) and to escape the lure of popularity. Indeed, whereas media texts continually center Whiteness as a necessary component of the mean girl image, nice girls are constructed as White, Latina, and Black. The constructions of the girls of color often rely on stereotyped behaviors (i.e., Black girls' direct talk and Latina girls' commitment to nuclear family structures); at the same time, these essentialized characteristics are revered and incorporated into the nice girl tropes. The Queen Bee is always upper-class, while the Wannabe (the girl who desires to be in the clique) is middle-class. When attempting to usurp the Queen Bee's power, the Wannabe breaks with normative cultural versions of White, middle-class passive femininity in ways that are framed as problematic. Although the Wannabe rises above her class, in so doing, she also transcends her "authentic" goodness. As a result, middle-classness is recentered and ascribed as part of the nice girl's authentic image. The Mean Girl discourse defines girls' success on a continuum. A popular girl stays at the top of the social hierarchy by being mean. The nice girl finds individual success by removing herself from elite social circles. As a result, privilege is not defined inherently as the problem, but girls' excessive abuse and access to privilege is.

Tikslas – nustatyti iš vadovo gaunamo grįžtamojo ryšio ir paskalų organizacijoje svarbą pardavėjų socializacijai. Socializacijai organizacijoje įvertinti naudotas R. J. Taormina (1994) organizacinės socializacijos inventorius (angl. Organizational Socialization Inventory, OSI). Iš vadovo gaunamam grįžtamajam ryšiui įvertinti, naudota L. A. Steelman, P. E. Levy, A. F. Snell (2004) grįžtamojo ryšio aplinkos skalės (angl., the Feedback Environment Scale) dalis, skirta išmatuoti iš vadovo gaunamo grįžtamojo ryšio vertinimui. Paskaloms organizacijoje vertinti, naudota metodikos, kuri matuoja su organizacija susijusias paskalas, dalis, vertinanti paskalas organizacijoje. Šią metodiką sukūrė G. Jablonskytė ir doc. dr. L. Bukšnytė-Marmienė (2012). Tyrime dalyvavo 330 vienos organizacijos įvairaus lygio pardavėjos. Jų amžius nuo 19 iki 54 metų (vidurkis – 31,33±8,375). Pagrindiniai tyrimo rezultatai parodė, kad pardavėjos, kurios iš vadovo gaunamą grįžtamąjį ryšį suvokia kaip tinkamesnį, paskalas organizacijoje vertina kaip mažiau intensyvias lyginant su tomis pardavėjomis, kurios iš vadovo gaunamą grįžtamąjį ryšį suvokia kaip mažiau tinkamą. Pardavėjų, suvokiančių iš vadovo gaunamą grįžtamąjį ryšį kaip tinkamesnį, socializacija organizacijoje yra sėkmingesnė, lyginant su tomis pardavėjomis, kurios iš vadovo gaunamą grįžtamąjį ryšį suvokia kaip mažiau tinkamą. Pardavėjų, vertinančių paskalas organizacijoje kaip mažiau intensyvias ir intensyvesnes, socializacijos sėkmingumas... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / The aim of this study is to assess the importance of feedback from supervisor and gossip in organization for saleswomen’s socialization. Socialization was assessed by Organizational Socialization Inventory (OSI) (Taormina, 1994). The feedback from supervisor was assessed by the part, of Feedback Environment Scale (Steelman, Levy & Snell, 2004). That part measures the feedback from supervisor. Gossip in organization was assessed by the subscale of inventory which has been created to measure gossip related with organization (Jablonskytė, & Bukšnytė-Marmienė, 2012). This subscale measures gossip in organization. The subjects of the study are 330 saleswomen from one organization. Their age range from 19 to 54 years (mean 31,33±8,375). The results show that saleswomen, who evaluate the feedback from supervisor as more appropriate, evaluate gossip in organization as less intensive comparing to saleswomen, who evaluate the feedback from supervisor as less appropriate. Socialization is more successful for those saleswomen, who evaluate the feedback from supervisor as more appropriate comparing to those saleswomen, who evaluate the feedback from a supervisor as less appropriate. There is no significant difference in success of socialization between saleswomen, who evaluate gossip in organization as less intensive and more intensive. Feedback from supervisor has positive influence on three elements of saleswomen’s socialization: training, coworker support and future prospects. Gossip... [to full text]

Reading the Fourth Gospel, one is struck by the amount of talk about Jesus. Many of the reports in John describing such talk reflect the social process of gossip in concert with other processes and dynamics involved in constituting social personages in the ancient Mediterranean world. Although there have been a few general treatments of gossip in the New Testament, none have focused on the subject of the gossip in John’s gospel, Jesus, the generative cause of the emergence of gossip traditions. The aim of this research project is to explore how gossip is involved in constituting Jesus as a shamanic figure in the Fourth Gospel. Building on the research of Pieter F. Craffert, and thus beginning with understanding Jesus as a shamanic figure, a viable framework for identifying and explaining features and functions of gossip is constructed after considering sociolinguistic studies and a number of ethnographies of extant traditional cultures of the Mediterranean. The framework is then brought to bear on texts in the Fourth Gospel reporting or describing gossip, in order to see how gossip contributes to constituting Jesus as a shamanic figure. As a result, this research offers a significant contribution to New Testament studies as it 1) represents an exploration and appropriation of gossip that has scarcely been exploited in the field, 2) provides a viable theoretical framework for positioning gossip vis-à-vis other pivotal first-century Mediterranean social values and processes, 3) models a new way to see and understand John’s gospel, and 4) is suggestive of an alternative to the reigning paradigm of conventional historical Jesus research in that it involves linking literary features about oral phenomena in John to a historically plausible figure thoroughly embedded in his social, cultural, and historical world. / New Testament / D.Th. (New Testament)

Wireless communication has grown very popular, and communication is the key to success in many situations. However, most of the common technologies today rely on infrastructure and in disaster situations infrastructure might be lost or get severely overloaded. This master thesis concerns intermittently connected mobile ad hoc networks. A network in which the devices may move freely in any direction and still be able to communicate. To be able to demonstrate a network protocol called random-walk gossip-based manycast (RWG) my assignment has been to implement this protocol using off-the-shelf hardware and software. RWG is a multi-hop and partition-tolerant mobile ad hoc manycast network protocol. Multi-hop refers to information being able to hop between more than two nodes in a network and partition-tolerant means that the protocol works even though a network is partitioned. Manycast means that the information should be successfully delivered to K of all the potential nodes in the area. The RWG protocol makes use of four different packet types, request to forward (REQF), ac- knowledgement (ACK), ok to forward (OKTF) and be silent (BS). The actual data being sent is carried by REQFs, and is referred to as messages. When a message is sent it takes what could be described as a random walk among the nodes in the network, hence the name. The implementation of the RWG protocol resides in user-space and depends on the IEEE 802.11b standard and the raw socket that is specified in the BSD socket API. It is written in C and was developed on a machine running Ubuntu. It runs on systems that use Linux 2.6 kernels and it supports cross-compiling for ARM based devices such as the Nokia N810 internet tablet and the Android dev phone 1. To be able to demonstrate the protocol I developed my own client application. Moreover, an already existing application for Android, Portable Open Search and Identification Tool (POSIT), was successfully extended to run on top of the RWG implementation. The extension was developed by people in the POSIT project and tested in a physical experiment covering five devices. The report covers the RWG protocol, the system choice, the implementation and the testing of the implementation.