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This research explored the perspective of foster parents on the educational experiences of foster children and experiences of communication patterns with other key stakeholders (social workers, and teachers). Factors focused on were educational experience of foster children, communication patterns, the impact of communication patterns on the educational experience, and barriers to effective communication. Five individuals who were, at the time of the study, foster parents to at least one child were interviewed. Participants openly shared a variety of positive and negative experiences. This study adopted the theoretical framework of Bronfenbrenner’s cultural-ecological theory. Participant interviews were transcribed verbatim and inductive coding was used for analysis of transcriptions. Central themes that emerged included past experiences of foster child impacts the educational experience, the teacher-student relationship impacts the educational experience, and communication patterns impact the consistency of expectations across systems. Results from the study showed that foster parents are generally satisfied with the communication patterns they experience with key stakeholders. Consistency of expectations and modeling of help seeking behavior were identified as the key impacts communication patterns have on the educational experience of foster children. A unique experience of the impact of communication with biological parents of the foster child was also revealed.

This thesis examines how a new media technology becomes entrenched into the fabric of society – in particular how the mobile phone was incorporated into the existing communications landscape of a local voluntary community group: an Irish sports club. In the past, face-to-face interaction formed the basis of all social relations and strong local collectives were seen to provide a positive and supportive social environment, generating strong social capital. Today’s mediated communication enables the ‘networked individual’ who can choose when, where and with whom they share their lives. This has implications for the persistence and strength of local associations. Writers like Putnam (2000) have expressed concerns about the attenuation of local communities. However, others propose that communications technologies can provide new additional ways for individuals to link with each other in a ‘glocalised’ society (Hampton and Wellman, 2003) and this has the potential to overcome some of the limitations of the communicators not being in the same physical space. This thesis critically examines the applicability of these partly competing theses in the period in which mobile telephony became widely embedded in Irish society. Through 21 detailed interviews and a survey of 57 players, administrators and supporters, the study examines the choices made by club members in adopting and using the mobile phone. It further explores the changes they have made in their communication patterns and considers the implications of these for the cohesion and persistence of the community group as an entity and also the social capital it engenders. The study draws upon existing theories of human-technology interaction, in particular the Social Shaping of Technology perspective (Williams and Edge, 1996), to examine how club members weave their phone use into their everyday practices. Silverstone and Haddon’s (1996) Domestication approach, with its steps of appropriation, objectification and incorporation provide the detailed framework in mapping out this process. The study findings reveal that community members have all adopted the mobile phone and are heavy users of both text and voice calls. Membership of the sports club has eased the adoption process by providing examples of the artefact in use and a supporting environment when problems arise. Although use is now universal and intensive, there was a differential appropriation of the phone, with male club members being the first purchasers and females often being brought into the circle of users through a gifted or handed-down model. Users have devised strategies to manage their multiple overlapping sets of social relationship. They report that their use of technology has enabled a widening of their social circle while also bringing it closer, literally at the touch of a button. Contrary to the expectations of those analysts and policymakers who have foreseen technology causing local engagement to diminish, the clubs in my study have endured and are thriving; the social capital of their members is still strong and growing. This informs a critical reappraisal of such theories of community attenuation and the policies they have engendered.

As próximas gerações de processadores many-core exigem que novas abordagens no projeto de arquitetura de processadores sejam propostas. Neste novo contexto, as redes de comunicação intra-chip são importantes para garantir o desempenho dos programas. Soluções tradicionais de interconexão possuem limites físicos que comprometem a escalabilidade e o desempenho no processamento de aplicações paralelas de diversos tipos. A alternativa apontada pelo estado da arte é a Network-on-Chip (NoC) composta por roteadores e outros elementos de rede capazes de prover comunicação escalável e de alto desempenho. No entanto, as cargas de trabalho geram padrões de comunicação diferentes que podem influenciar no desempenho da rede. Existem pesquisas que abordam metodologias de projeto dedicado de NoCs em função de domínios de aplicações específicos. Apesar de uma NoC dedicada possuir um alto desempenho, cargas de trabalho paralelas geram padrões de comunicação coletiva que mudam dinamicamente. Com o objetivo de aumentar a flexibilidade de redes-em-chip, trabalhos correlatos utilizam conceitos de computação reconfigurável para aumentar a capacidade da arquitetura da NoC se adaptar em função de padrões de comunicação. Alguns trabalhos focam na programação de FPGAs e outros em ASICs polimórficos. O objetivo desta tese é propor uma arquitetura de Network-on-Chip que suporte múltiplos clusters de núcleos de processamento através de roteadores programáveis e de topologias reconfiguráveis. Cada roteador é composto por uma chave crossbar reconfigurável capaz de implementar topologias dinamicamente através do uso de um segundo nível de reconfiguração. Os roteadores possuem processadores de rede que aumentam a flexibilidade e a capacidade da NoC se adaptar ao padrão de comunicação através de programas que monitoram e gerenciam a rede. Portanto, a contribuição da tese é a Arquitetura de NoC Programável Baseada em Múltiplos Clusters de Cores. Os resultados baseados em modelos analíticos e de simulação, e cargas de trabalho artificiais e naturais, mostram que a arquitetura da NoC possui um alto desempenho e vazão de pacotes, proporcionados pela adaptação de topologias e redução da influência da rede na comunicação. A ocupação em FPGA mostra que os roteadores programáveis possuem tamanho similares a NoCs com arquiteturas tradicionais para gerenciamento de mesma quantidade de núcleos. A menor utilização de buffers de entrada resulta em uma melhor eficiência no consumo de potência e energia. Portanto, através dos modelos de projeto e avaliação foi possível verificar através dos resultados que a arquitetura da MCNoC é uma alternativa para suportar padrões de comunicações coletivas. / For the next generation of many-core processors, new design methodologies must be proposed. In this context, on-chip interconnections are important to assure the program performance. Traditional approaches of interconnections have physical constraints that reduce the scalability and performance to process parallel applications. The state-of-theart points out to the Network-on-Chip (NoC), which consists of routers and other network devices capable of increasing the communication scalability and performance. However, workloads produce different types of communication patterns, which can influence the network performance. There are research works that explore applicationspecific NoC design to response the demand on specific workloads. Although a dedicated NoC has a high performance, parallel workloads have different collective communication patterns. In order to increase the flexibility of NoCs, related works use concepts of reconfigurable computing to add architecture adaptability to support dynamic communication patterns. Some works focus on FPGA-based reconfiguration and others on polymorphic ASICs. The goal of this thesis is to propose an alternative Programmable Multi-Cluster NoC architecture. Each router consists of a reconfigurable crossbar switch capable of implementing dynamic topologies through a second reconfiguration level. The routers have network processors that increase the flexibility and the NoC adaptability through management programs in order to support different workloads. Therefore, the contribution of this thesis is the following: A Programmable Multi-Cluster NoC (MCNoC) architecture. Based on analytical and simulation models, and artificial and natural workloads, results show the high performance and throughput for the proposed NoC architecture, due to the adaptable topologies and low network latency impact. Results based on FPGA shows a similar component utilization considering the proposed programmable NoC relative to conventional NoC architectures for the same number of processing cores. The low utilization of input buffers improves the efficiency of power and energy consumption. Therefore, through design and evaluation models, the NoC proposal was verified and the results point out the MCNoC as an alternative architecture to support collective communication patterns.

As próximas gerações de processadores many-core exigem que novas abordagens no projeto de arquitetura de processadores sejam propostas. Neste novo contexto, as redes de comunicação intra-chip são importantes para garantir o desempenho dos programas. Soluções tradicionais de interconexão possuem limites físicos que comprometem a escalabilidade e o desempenho no processamento de aplicações paralelas de diversos tipos. A alternativa apontada pelo estado da arte é a Network-on-Chip (NoC) composta por roteadores e outros elementos de rede capazes de prover comunicação escalável e de alto desempenho. No entanto, as cargas de trabalho geram padrões de comunicação diferentes que podem influenciar no desempenho da rede. Existem pesquisas que abordam metodologias de projeto dedicado de NoCs em função de domínios de aplicações específicos. Apesar de uma NoC dedicada possuir um alto desempenho, cargas de trabalho paralelas geram padrões de comunicação coletiva que mudam dinamicamente. Com o objetivo de aumentar a flexibilidade de redes-em-chip, trabalhos correlatos utilizam conceitos de computação reconfigurável para aumentar a capacidade da arquitetura da NoC se adaptar em função de padrões de comunicação. Alguns trabalhos focam na programação de FPGAs e outros em ASICs polimórficos. O objetivo desta tese é propor uma arquitetura de Network-on-Chip que suporte múltiplos clusters de núcleos de processamento através de roteadores programáveis e de topologias reconfiguráveis. Cada roteador é composto por uma chave crossbar reconfigurável capaz de implementar topologias dinamicamente através do uso de um segundo nível de reconfiguração. Os roteadores possuem processadores de rede que aumentam a flexibilidade e a capacidade da NoC se adaptar ao padrão de comunicação através de programas que monitoram e gerenciam a rede. Portanto, a contribuição da tese é a Arquitetura de NoC Programável Baseada em Múltiplos Clusters de Cores. Os resultados baseados em modelos analíticos e de simulação, e cargas de trabalho artificiais e naturais, mostram que a arquitetura da NoC possui um alto desempenho e vazão de pacotes, proporcionados pela adaptação de topologias e redução da influência da rede na comunicação. A ocupação em FPGA mostra que os roteadores programáveis possuem tamanho similares a NoCs com arquiteturas tradicionais para gerenciamento de mesma quantidade de núcleos. A menor utilização de buffers de entrada resulta em uma melhor eficiência no consumo de potência e energia. Portanto, através dos modelos de projeto e avaliação foi possível verificar através dos resultados que a arquitetura da MCNoC é uma alternativa para suportar padrões de comunicações coletivas. / For the next generation of many-core processors, new design methodologies must be proposed. In this context, on-chip interconnections are important to assure the program performance. Traditional approaches of interconnections have physical constraints that reduce the scalability and performance to process parallel applications. The state-of-theart points out to the Network-on-Chip (NoC), which consists of routers and other network devices capable of increasing the communication scalability and performance. However, workloads produce different types of communication patterns, which can influence the network performance. There are research works that explore applicationspecific NoC design to response the demand on specific workloads. Although a dedicated NoC has a high performance, parallel workloads have different collective communication patterns. In order to increase the flexibility of NoCs, related works use concepts of reconfigurable computing to add architecture adaptability to support dynamic communication patterns. Some works focus on FPGA-based reconfiguration and others on polymorphic ASICs. The goal of this thesis is to propose an alternative Programmable Multi-Cluster NoC architecture. Each router consists of a reconfigurable crossbar switch capable of implementing dynamic topologies through a second reconfiguration level. The routers have network processors that increase the flexibility and the NoC adaptability through management programs in order to support different workloads. Therefore, the contribution of this thesis is the following: A Programmable Multi-Cluster NoC (MCNoC) architecture. Based on analytical and simulation models, and artificial and natural workloads, results show the high performance and throughput for the proposed NoC architecture, due to the adaptable topologies and low network latency impact. Results based on FPGA shows a similar component utilization considering the proposed programmable NoC relative to conventional NoC architectures for the same number of processing cores. The low utilization of input buffers improves the efficiency of power and energy consumption. Therefore, through design and evaluation models, the NoC proposal was verified and the results point out the MCNoC as an alternative architecture to support collective communication patterns.

abstract: This study investigated how young adults communicate their decision to religiously disaffiliate to their parents. Both the context in which the religious disaffiliation conversation took place and the communicative behaviors used during the religious disaffiliation conversation were studied. Research questions and hypotheses were guided by Family Communication Patterns Theory and Face Negotiation Theory. A partially mixed sequential quantitative dominate status design was employed to answer the research questions and hypotheses. Interviews were conducted with 10 young adults who had either disaffiliated from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or the Watch Tower Society. During the interviews, the survey instrument was refined; ultimately, it was completed by 298 religiously disaffiliated young adults. For the religious disaffiliation conversation’s context, results indicate that disaffiliated Jehovah’s Witnesses had higher conformity orientations than disaffiliated Latter-day Saints. Additionally, disaffiliated Jehovah’s Witnesses experienced more stress than disaffiliated Latter-day Saints. Planning the conversation in advance did lead to the disaffiliation conversation being less stressful for young adults. Furthermore, the analysis found that having three to five conversations reduced stress significantly more than having one or two conversations. For the communicative behaviors during the religious disaffiliation conversation, few differences were found in regard to prevalence of the facework behaviors between the two groups. Of the 14 facework behaviors, four were used more often by disaffiliated JW than disaffiliated LDS—abuse, passive aggressive, pretend, and defend self. In terms of effectiveness, the top five facework behaviors were talk about the problem, consider the other, have a private discussion, remain calm, and defend self. Overall, this study begins the conversation on how religious disaffiliation occurs between young adults and their parents and extends Family Communication Patterns Theory and Face Negotiation Theory to a new context. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Communication 2015

As próximas gerações de processadores many-core exigem que novas abordagens no projeto de arquitetura de processadores sejam propostas. Neste novo contexto, as redes de comunicação intra-chip são importantes para garantir o desempenho dos programas. Soluções tradicionais de interconexão possuem limites físicos que comprometem a escalabilidade e o desempenho no processamento de aplicações paralelas de diversos tipos. A alternativa apontada pelo estado da arte é a Network-on-Chip (NoC) composta por roteadores e outros elementos de rede capazes de prover comunicação escalável e de alto desempenho. No entanto, as cargas de trabalho geram padrões de comunicação diferentes que podem influenciar no desempenho da rede. Existem pesquisas que abordam metodologias de projeto dedicado de NoCs em função de domínios de aplicações específicos. Apesar de uma NoC dedicada possuir um alto desempenho, cargas de trabalho paralelas geram padrões de comunicação coletiva que mudam dinamicamente. Com o objetivo de aumentar a flexibilidade de redes-em-chip, trabalhos correlatos utilizam conceitos de computação reconfigurável para aumentar a capacidade da arquitetura da NoC se adaptar em função de padrões de comunicação. Alguns trabalhos focam na programação de FPGAs e outros em ASICs polimórficos. O objetivo desta tese é propor uma arquitetura de Network-on-Chip que suporte múltiplos clusters de núcleos de processamento através de roteadores programáveis e de topologias reconfiguráveis. Cada roteador é composto por uma chave crossbar reconfigurável capaz de implementar topologias dinamicamente através do uso de um segundo nível de reconfiguração. Os roteadores possuem processadores de rede que aumentam a flexibilidade e a capacidade da NoC se adaptar ao padrão de comunicação através de programas que monitoram e gerenciam a rede. Portanto, a contribuição da tese é a Arquitetura de NoC Programável Baseada em Múltiplos Clusters de Cores. Os resultados baseados em modelos analíticos e de simulação, e cargas de trabalho artificiais e naturais, mostram que a arquitetura da NoC possui um alto desempenho e vazão de pacotes, proporcionados pela adaptação de topologias e redução da influência da rede na comunicação. A ocupação em FPGA mostra que os roteadores programáveis possuem tamanho similares a NoCs com arquiteturas tradicionais para gerenciamento de mesma quantidade de núcleos. A menor utilização de buffers de entrada resulta em uma melhor eficiência no consumo de potência e energia. Portanto, através dos modelos de projeto e avaliação foi possível verificar através dos resultados que a arquitetura da MCNoC é uma alternativa para suportar padrões de comunicações coletivas. / For the next generation of many-core processors, new design methodologies must be proposed. In this context, on-chip interconnections are important to assure the program performance. Traditional approaches of interconnections have physical constraints that reduce the scalability and performance to process parallel applications. The state-of-theart points out to the Network-on-Chip (NoC), which consists of routers and other network devices capable of increasing the communication scalability and performance. However, workloads produce different types of communication patterns, which can influence the network performance. There are research works that explore applicationspecific NoC design to response the demand on specific workloads. Although a dedicated NoC has a high performance, parallel workloads have different collective communication patterns. In order to increase the flexibility of NoCs, related works use concepts of reconfigurable computing to add architecture adaptability to support dynamic communication patterns. Some works focus on FPGA-based reconfiguration and others on polymorphic ASICs. The goal of this thesis is to propose an alternative Programmable Multi-Cluster NoC architecture. Each router consists of a reconfigurable crossbar switch capable of implementing dynamic topologies through a second reconfiguration level. The routers have network processors that increase the flexibility and the NoC adaptability through management programs in order to support different workloads. Therefore, the contribution of this thesis is the following: A Programmable Multi-Cluster NoC (MCNoC) architecture. Based on analytical and simulation models, and artificial and natural workloads, results show the high performance and throughput for the proposed NoC architecture, due to the adaptable topologies and low network latency impact. Results based on FPGA shows a similar component utilization considering the proposed programmable NoC relative to conventional NoC architectures for the same number of processing cores. The low utilization of input buffers improves the efficiency of power and energy consumption. Therefore, through design and evaluation models, the NoC proposal was verified and the results point out the MCNoC as an alternative architecture to support collective communication patterns.

Adults who have not developed effective communication skills are at an increased risk of having unsuccessful relationships. Children of divorce are less likely to have communication behaviors modeled to them, resulting in undeveloped communication and therefore a higher likelihood to get divorced themselves. The purpose of this quantitative quasi-experimental study was to determine if there was an association between the successful transition to emerging adulthood and the development of communication behaviors among adults. The research question focused on whether successful transition through emerging adulthood positively discriminates communication patterns among adults, specifically using Gottman's framework of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse when controlling for gender and level of education. The sample consisted of 30 participants ages 25 to 30 years old, recruited from university participant pools. Arnett's definition of successful transition into adulthood (accepting responsibility for one's actions, independent beliefs, financial independence) was operationalized to collect data for the predictor variable. The Four Horsemen Questionnaire was used to garner data for the continuous dependent variable (maladaptive communication patterns). An analysis of variance indicated a significant relationship between maladaptive communication patterns and the transition into adulthood. Findings contribute to social change by helping emerging adults understand the impact of a successful transition into adulthood on communication behaviors. Using the developmental period of emerging adulthood to improve communication patterns may assist in mitigating divorce risk variables and relationship breakdowns.

Studies have identified links between anxiety and couple communication, anxiety and pronoun use as well as pronoun use and communication. The current study investigated the association between pronoun use and communication in the context of anxiety. One hundred and fifteen couples rated their communication with their partner and participated in two seven-minute problem-solving discussions, which were analyzed using a linguistic word count program. Results indicate that the use of I was not associated with ratings of communication whereas use of You by either partner was related to lower ratings of communication by both men and women. Moreover, the results of several moderation analyses suggest the association between women's (but not men's) ratings of communication and men's and women's use of You and men's I was moderated by both men's and women's anxiety. Women's anxiety moderated the relationship between both partner's use of You and women's rating of couple communication and men's anxiety moderated the relationship between men's use of You and I and women's view of couple communication. The hypothesis that pronoun use mediates the relationship between anxiety and couple communication was not supported. Implications are discussed.

Teen dating violence is more prevalent among African Americans than any other racial group in the United States leading to serious health consequences for victims. However, limited data exists on how African American adolescents' attitudes and perceptions regarding dating violence are formed, and whether they are influenced by family members. The purpose of this nonexperimental correlational study was to determine whether nonverbal or verbal communication from family members predicted adolescents' attitudes and perceptions toward dating violence. Survey data from 84 African American men and women ages 18 to 24 were collected using the Normative Beliefs About Aggression Scale, the Acceptance of Couple Violence Scale, the Revised Family Communication Patterns Questionnaire, and a demographic questionnaire. Although past studies have shown that communication related to dating violence is important because it is essential to adolescents understanding and finding ways of coping with violence, this study could not confirm that conversation orientation, conformity orientation, discussion of dating violence, conversation types, facial expressions, hand gestures, and direct verbal communication were significant predictors of approval of aggression. In future research, conducting a mixed methods study or using a larger age range could provide more understanding about adolescents' attitudes and perceptions related to dating violence. Additionally, research on behaviors outside of the modes of communication measured in this study, is warranted. This study contributes to social change by helping to fill a gap in the research literature pertaining to African American teen dating violence and attitudes toward approval of aggression. Future researchers can use the results of this study to help formulate new research on this topic.