The objective of this thesis is to examine the validity of functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIR) to examine brain regions involved in rule based (RB) and information integration (II) category learning. We predicted similar patterns of activation found by past studies that used fMRI scans. Our goal was to test if fNIR would be able to detect changes in blood oxygenation levels of participants who learned to categorize (learners) vs. those that did not (non learners). The stimulus set comprised of lines that differed in length and orientation. Participants had to learn to categorize by trial and error based on the feedback provided. Behavioral and neuroimaging data was recorded for both RB and II conditions. Results showed an upward trend in response accuracy over trials for participants identified as learners. Furthermore, blood oxygenation levels reported by fNIR indicated a systematic increase in oxygen consumption for learners as compared to non learners. These areas of increased prefrontal cortex activity recorded by fNIR correspond to the same areas found to be involved in categorization by fMRI. This paper reviews the background of category learning, explores various neuroimaging techniques in categorization research, and investigates the efficacy of fNIR as a relatively new neuroimaging modality by comparing it to fMRI.

Eighty-eight (N = 88) non-brain-injured adults were tested with one of two versions of the Booklet Category Test (BCT). Forty-four (N = 44) individuals were tested with the standard version of the BCT, and forty-four (N = 44) were tested with a revised BCT in which between-subtest cueing was removed, called the Noncued Category Test (NCT). The results of this study indicate that removal of cueing instructions changes the Category test significantly. Subjects administered the NCT scored significantly more errors than those who were administered the standard Category test. While BCT scores correlated significantly with nonverbal intelligence scores, NCT scores did not. However, the difference in these correlations was not significant, indicating that the intelligence aspect measured in the two versions is not different. Neither the BCT nor the NCT correlated significantly with the Wisconsin Card Sort, Word Fluency, Stroop, or Trail Making Test. It is recommended that the NCT be administered to circumscribed clinical populations in order to best utilize present findings.

We define a faithful linear monoidal functor from the partition category, and hence from Deligne's category Rep(S_t), to the additive Karoubi envelope of the Heisenberg category. We show that the induced map on Grothendieck rings is injective and corresponds to the Kronecker coproduct on symmetric functions. We then generalize the above results to any group G, the case where G is the trivial group corresponding to the case mentioned above. Thus, to every group G we associate a linear monoidal category Par(G) that we call a group partition category. We give explicit bases for the morphism spaces and also an efficient presentation of the category in terms of generators and relations. We then define an embedding of Par(G) into the group Heisenberg category associated to G. This embedding intertwines the natural actions of both categories on modules for wreath products of G. Finally, we prove that the additive Karoubi envelope of Par(G) is equivalent to a wreath product interpolating category introduced by Knop, thereby giving a simple concrete description of that category.

No description available.

Research has shown that children categorize words in terms of taxonomic and slot-filler strategies. Monolingual children were thought to shift from a slot-filler to taxonomic strategy between the age of five and eight. The aim of this study is to analyze the way Mandarin-English bilingual children organize their lexical-semantic system through the use of a category-generation task that investigate taxonomic and slot-filler organizational strategies in each language. There were 53 Mandarin-English bilingual participants (between 4 and 7 years of age) included in this study. Participants were asked to name as many items as they could think of in slot-filler and taxonomic conditions in English and Mandarin. The results indicate greater performance in English than Mandarin in children who were five years or older. Four-year-old bilingual children produced comparable number of items in both slot-fill and taxonomic condition, but the five-, six-, and seven-year-old bilingual children showed greater performance in the taxonomic condition. Children performed better for the animal than the clothes category, and better for the clothes than the food category. These findings, while largely consistent with existing literature, suggest that the slot-filler to taxonomic shift may take place at an earlier age compared to monolingual children. / text

Marked differences have been found in men’s and women’s sexual response patterns, contingent upon their sexual orientation; opposite- and same-gender attracted men demonstrate greatest genital and self-reported arousal to their preferred stimulus type, whereas other-gender attracted women do not, and findings of same-gender attracted women have been mixed (e.g., Chivers, Seto & Blanchard, 2007; Chivers, Bouchard, Timmers, & Haberl, 2012). Given the complex nature of sexual stimuli that are used in research paradigms involving category-specificity of sexual arousal, however, it is often unclear to what extent contextual cues (cues other than the sexual actor’s sex characteristics; body movement, level of sexual activity, etc.) influence participants’ sexual response patterns. As such, the current study attempted to parse contextual cues from sexual stimuli and examined genital, self-reported, and continuous self-reported responses of same- and other-gender attracted men and women to prepotent sexual features (stimuli believed to elicit automatic sexual arousal: erect penises and vasoengorged vulvas), nonprepotent sexual features (flaccid penises and pubic triangles) and neutral stimuli (clothed men and women). All samples were found to exhibit a category-specific pattern of genital, self-reported, and continuous self-reported sexual arousal. Similarly, genital, self-reported, and continuous self-reported arousal was generally found to be greatest to “prepotent” sexual conditions. Limitations and implications are discussed. / Thesis (Master, Psychology) -- Queen's University, 2013-08-30 11:37:10.216

Thesis advisor: Mary Ann Glynn / My dissertation examines changes in audience sensemaking by the public and media about Apple’s novel product, iPad. My study begins on December 28, 2009, one-month before the introduction of the iPad by Apple and ends with the anniversary of its retail availability on April 2, 2011, shortly after the launch of the second-generation iPad. Using primarily qualitative methods, I analyze archival data including online forums and news articles to understand audience sensemaking as it unfolds. I investigate how sensemaking by the two audiences a) changes over time, b) changes with different types of material interaction with the product, c) incorporates the use of functional and symbolic frames in their public discourse about the iPad, and d) changes based on the public role of the audience. In doing so, I advance explanations as to how meanings about novel products stabilize. More broadly, I elaborate how nascent product categories can emerge by focusing on the cultural-cognitive processes that undergird product classification systems. As a result, I offer novel pathways for product category emergence. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2016. / Submitted to: Boston College. Carroll School of Management. / Discipline: Management and Organization.

Práce popisuje category management, jeho definice a vývoj. Stěžejní část práce se věnuje osmi krokům category management procesu a subjektům, které do tohoto procesu vstupují. Mezi osm kroku patří definování kategorie, analýza kategorie, hodnocení subjektů, stanovení cíle kategorie, taktická rozhodnutí, strategická rozhodnutí, implementace a zpětná vazba. Praktická část je zaměřena na deskripci konkrétního category management projektu a tento projekt je porovnán s teoretickými předpoklady.

The thesis deals with the Efficient Consumer Response system, which is based on partnership between retailer and his supplier to prepare value added for customer. In the teoretical part of the thesis are mentioned 2 main strategies: Efficient Replenishment and Category management. Practical part of the thesis dedicates usage of the system in practice.

The brief introductory chapter attempts to motivate the project by pointing to (a) the intuitive appeal and importance of the notion of an object (that is, a “paradigmatic” individual), and (b) the need – for the sake of progress in at least two important debates in ontology – to replace this notion with a series of related notions of individuals of different sorts. Section One of Chapter Two aims to accomplish two primary tasks. The first is to clarify the intensions of three often employed but ambiguous categorical terms: ‘individual’, ‘particular’ and ‘object’, with emphasis on the third, which is often taken to be of particular philosophical significance. I carry out this clarificatory task by weighing various positions in the literature and arguing for explications of each notion that are maximally economical and neutral, that is, explications which (a) overlap as little as possible with other important ontological notions and (b) do not require us to take a stand on any apparently intractable (but not directly relevant) debates (e.g. on the problem of realism vs. nominalism about universals). The second task of 2.1 is to delineate the various ontological distinctions that will be turned, in Chapter Four, into the “dimensions” of which the ontological framework I will be advocating there is composed. The delineation of these distinctions takes place naturally in the course of attempting to characterize the notion of an object (an intrinsically unified, independent concrete particular) and to distinguish it from the notions of an individual and a particular, in spite of the fact that objects are both individuals and particulars. In the second section of Chapter Two I illustrate the centrality of the notion of an object in Ontology by showing how that notion figures in the debate over the existence of artifacts. I argue that progress in this debate has been hindered by the way it has been framed, and that seeing the issue as concerning not whether artifacts exist but whether artifacts are objects (in the sense outlined in 2.1) enables us to better appreciate and accommodate the different perspectives of the debate’s participants. At the same time, this way of dissolving the dispute makes clear that existence is not limited to entities that fall under the relevant concept of an object, foreshadowing the pluralistic ontological framework to be developed in Chapter Four. Chapter Three pronounces on a second debate in ontology, in which three positions concerning the correct ontological assay of the class of intrinsically unified independent concrete particulars (objects) are in competition with each other. My conclusion is that none of the three positions succeeds, since each faces fairly serious difficulties. I suggest that the (or at least one major) root of our inability to locate the correct ontological assay is the inclination to treat all ontologically significant entities as objects in the indicated sense, and the corresponding inclination to attempt to give an ontological assay that covers all objects, neglecting important differences between distinct types of individuals. Chapter Four begins by displaying in greater detail the considerations (canvassed very briefly in the introductory chapter) that make the notion of an object appear to be indispensible. However, the results of the second section of Chapter Two and of the entirety of Chapter Three have already shown two areas in which the notion of an object tends to lead to confusion. So a tension emerges between the prima facie necessity of the notion and the reasons we have found for thinking that this notion either is itself problematic or at least tends to cause problems for other issues in Ontology. The remainder of Chapter Four consists in explaining my strategy for moving forward. Briefly, this strategy involves replacing the notion of an object with a series of concepts applicable to individuals of various types. Each of the components belonging to a given “individual-concept” is drawn from one or another side of one of the ontological distinctions that together form an overall ontological framework, and which components are involved is a matter to be determined by examining the conceptual demands imposed by the various practices (explanatory or otherwise) which we engage in, that require us to appeal to individuals of the type in question. The resulting “pluralistic” ontological framework provides a way of situating and relating types of individuals that both avoids the confusions that the single general concept of an object leads to, and is capable of indicating the varying degrees of “ontological robustness” or “object-like-ness” of any given type of individual. I conclude by suggesting how the framework I am advocating can be elaborated on and put to use in further research.