Intergroup contact is often awkward, due to individuals’ concerns regarding outgroup members' evaluation of them, and these concerns are higher when the evaluation is perceived as uncertain and important (Vorauer, 2006). Although high evaluative concern has been identified as one of the key obstacles to smooth intergroup relations, many questions remain about the nature of evaluative concern and how it might be reduced. Three studies examined evaluative uncertainty- which has been theorized to be one of the main predictors of evaluative concerns during intergroup contact with an ostensible interaction paradigm. The key goals of this research were to: 1) develop and assess different potential measures of evaluative uncertainty, 2) investigate whether evaluative uncertainty is higher during intergroup contact than during intragroup contact and whether it fosters evaluative concerns, and 3) identify a strategy for reducing evaluative uncertainty. Study 1 followed a 2 (Participant Group Status: Majority vs. Minority) x 2 (Contact Type: Intergroup vs. Intragroup) factorial design and two promising measures of evaluative uncertainty were identified. In line with predictions, higher evaluative uncertainty was observed for both majority and minority group members during intergroup as compared to intragroup contact. Study 2 followed a 2 (Uncertainty Manipulation: Uncertainty vs. Certainty) x 2 (Contact Type: Intergroup vs. Intragroup) factorial design, using a modified version of a manipulation developed in previous research to manipulate general uncertainty. Unfortunately, however, the manipulation was not successful. Study 3 examined whether evaluative uncertainty can be reduced by prompting individuals to reflect on how their traits are usually perceived by others, and whether this reduced uncertainty can then lead to improved contact experiences. The study followed a 2 (General Meta-Evaluation Activation: Yes vs. No) x 2 (Participant Ethnicity: White vs. Chinese) x 2 (Contact Type: Intergroup vs. Intragroup) factorial design. As hypothesized, prompting individuals to reflect on how their traits are usually perceived by others led to reduced evaluative uncertainty and more positive interaction behavior (i.e., increased self-disclosure, more communication effort, and increased interaction enjoyment – the latter only in White participants).

Intergroup contact is often awkward, due to individuals’ concerns regarding outgroup members' evaluation of them, and these concerns are higher when the evaluation is perceived as uncertain and important (Vorauer, 2006). Although high evaluative concern has been identified as one of the key obstacles to smooth intergroup relations, many questions remain about the nature of evaluative concern and how it might be reduced. Three studies examined evaluative uncertainty- which has been theorized to be one of the main predictors of evaluative concerns during intergroup contact with an ostensible interaction paradigm. The key goals of this research were to: 1) develop and assess different potential measures of evaluative uncertainty, 2) investigate whether evaluative uncertainty is higher during intergroup contact than during intragroup contact and whether it fosters evaluative concerns, and 3) identify a strategy for reducing evaluative uncertainty. Study 1 followed a 2 (Participant Group Status: Majority vs. Minority) x 2 (Contact Type: Intergroup vs. Intragroup) factorial design and two promising measures of evaluative uncertainty were identified. In line with predictions, higher evaluative uncertainty was observed for both majority and minority group members during intergroup as compared to intragroup contact. Study 2 followed a 2 (Uncertainty Manipulation: Uncertainty vs. Certainty) x 2 (Contact Type: Intergroup vs. Intragroup) factorial design, using a modified version of a manipulation developed in previous research to manipulate general uncertainty. Unfortunately, however, the manipulation was not successful. Study 3 examined whether evaluative uncertainty can be reduced by prompting individuals to reflect on how their traits are usually perceived by others, and whether this reduced uncertainty can then lead to improved contact experiences. The study followed a 2 (General Meta-Evaluation Activation: Yes vs. No) x 2 (Participant Ethnicity: White vs. Chinese) x 2 (Contact Type: Intergroup vs. Intragroup) factorial design. As hypothesized, prompting individuals to reflect on how their traits are usually perceived by others led to reduced evaluative uncertainty and more positive interaction behavior (i.e., increased self-disclosure, more communication effort, and increased interaction enjoyment – the latter only in White participants).

Information privacy concerns are one of the major causes behind a dramatic decline in the readiness of individuals to share their personal information on the Internet. The aim of this research is to explore the information privacy concerns from the users’ perspective. In the focal point of this qualitative study stands the kryast.se website. The healthcare promotion activities that this website carries out involve the sharing by its users of their personal information on the Internet. For this reason, this study takes recourse to the construct of Internet Users’ Information Privacy Concerns (IUIPC) developed by Malhotra, Kim and Agarwal (2004) as its interpretive framework. It was expected that by using both semi-structured interviews and non-participant observation among the users of the above mentioned website, the concerns of its users can be identified through the interpretative lens of the analytical framework that Malhotra et al. (2004) proposed for privacy concerns of Internet Users. The results of this study indicate that the selected conceptual lens has sufficiently accounted for the concerns that website users may have when sharing their personal information on the Internet, while indicating that internet users tend to be reluctant in sharing their sensitive information.

The conventional accounting notion of ‘going concern’ — that a firm will continue its business operations in the same manner indefinitely — has underpinned accounting practice for over one hundred years. This idea has provided a rationale for spreading costs over accounting periods and for deferring costs as assets in balance sheets. An alternative idea that is widely regarded as reliable in the literatures of economics and deliberate action is that firms continually adapt to changes in market and economic conditions. That is economic behaviour. The implications of that view of a firm for accounting have been systematically explored by Chambers (1966). While not examining those particular implications, many other accounting theorists have been critical of the conventional accounting idea of 'going concern' and of its impact on accounting practice. The two notions of ‘going concern’ - as static or adaptive enterprises - are examined by referring to the business operations of the four major Australian trading banks over the period 1983-1991. Banks were selected because they are commonly thought to be particularly ‘conservative’ organizations. The period 1983—1991 was chosen because it covers the era of deregulation of the Australian financial system. The evidence adduced by this study indicates that the Australian trading banks have continually adapted their organizational structures and business operations in the light of changes in technology, markets for financial services, government policies and domestic and global economic conditions. Illustrations of adaptive behaviour by banks ate drawn from their normal operating procedures such as the provision of products and services, loan services, acquisitions, sale of property, non-core banking operations and international banking. It is argued on analytical grounds that the cost basis of accounting does not yield financial statements that provide factual and up-to-date information about the financial capacity of firms to pay their debts and to continue trading generally; that is, to be going concerns. At any time, those financial capacities are determined by the amount of money commanded by a firm, including the money's worth of its assets, and by its level of debt. It is concluded on empirical grounds that the Australian trading banks, at least, are adaptive entities.

Students at risk for social, emotional and behavioral concerns (SEBC) are likely to experience a variety of negative outcomes if not identified and provided with appropriate interventions in a timely manner. Males tend to be identified more frequently than females for SEBC (Young, Sabbah, Young, Reiser, & Richardson, 2010), and there are many variables that may contribute to this disproportionate identification. This study specifically examined the influence of student gender on secondary education teachers’ referral decisions for students at risk for SEBC. This study additionally examined the influence of teachers’ prior referral experience, confidence in the mental health services available at their schools, perceived severity of problematic behaviors, and teacher gender as other variables potentially influencing teacher likelihood of referral. A sample of 229 secondary teachers was given vignettes about hypothetical male and female students with internalizing and externalizing concerns followed by a questionnaire. Findings from this study indicate that males with internalizing concerns were the most likely to be referred. Additionally, teachers’ prior referral experiences and their confidence in the mental health services available at their schools influenced their likelihood of making a referral. Results from this study can be used to inform and improve screening and identification processes in secondary settings.

Die körperdysmorphe Störung ist eine chronische psychische Störung, bei welcher die Patientin eingebildete oder minimale Schönheitsmakel oder Asymmetrien überbewerten. Die führt dazu, dass sie ständig über die vermeintliche Mitgestaltung von Teilen ihres Körpers nachdenken müssen. Dies nimmt häufig mehrere Stunden des Tages in Anspruch und kann im Extremfall dazu führen, dass Betroffene nicht mehr arbeitsfähig sind. Bei milderen Verlaufsformen, müssen sich Patienten häufig die Rückversicherung von Bekannten oder Familienmitgliedern holen, um sich zu beruhigen. Sozialer Rückzug aus Scham kommt häufig vor und kann sich bis zu einer sozialen Phobie entwickeln. Nicht selten kann sich diese Symptomatik derart ausweiten, dass die Betroffenen suizidal werden. Häufige Komorbiditäten sind Essstörungen, Angst- und affektive Störungen. Falls diese Menschen das Haus verlassen und sich auf einen gesellschaftlichen Rahmen einlassen, verwenden sie häufig kosmetische Produkte, um die vermeintlichen Makel zu verstecken. Bei der Körperdysmorphen Störung können nahezu alle Körperteile Objekt der Entstellungswahrnehmung werden. Häufig betroffen sind: Haut, Haare, Zähne, Nase, Ohren und sekundäre Geschlechtsmerkmale. Dabei ist zu betonen, dass objektiven Betrachtern der vermeintliche Makel meist nicht oder kaum auffällt. Die Patienten gehen in ihrer Verzweiflung bis zum Äußersten und greifen dabei auch auf Schönheitsoperationen zurück, welche sich bis zur Operationssucht steigern kann. In mehreren Studien weltweit wurden Untersuchungen bzgl. der Punktprävalenz der Körperdysmorphen Störung (KDS) gemacht. Es existieren ebenfalls Untersuchungen über die spezifischen Settings in welchen die KDS gehäuft vorkommt. In Studien wurde bisher noch nicht die Frage geklärt, ob oder in welchem Ausmaß die Krankheit in den letzten Jahren zugenommen hat. In dieser Arbeit soll daher überprüft werden, ob die Entstellungswahrnehmungen und die Tendenz zu einer KDS in Deutschland zugenommen hat. Das Ziel dieser Arbeit ist: Die Analyse der Prävalenzentwicklung der Körperdysmorphen Störung in Deutschland, anhand eines spezifischen Fragebogens, in ihrer subklinischen und klinischen Form, in den Jahren 2002-2013. Im Rahmen einer Umfrage durch ein professionelles Institut (USUMA GmbH Berlin) wurden Personen in allen Teilen Deutschlands befragt. Im Jahre 2002 waren es n=2066 und im Jahre 2013 n=2508 befragte Personen (verwertbare Daten). In dieser Erhebung wurde zum Screening der Körperdysmorphen Störung, der sogenannte DCQ angewandt. Dieser Dysmorphic condern Questionnaire stammt in der deutschen Validierung von Stangier et al (2003) und wurde aus dem General Health Questionnaire nach Goldberg (1972) von Oosthuizen et al (1998) entwickelt. Der Fragebogen besteht aus 7 Items, welche durch eine 4 Punkte- Skala von 0-3 zu bewerten ist. Als Beispiel sei hier ein Frage erwähnt: „Wurde Ihnen schon von Ärzten oder anderen gesagt, dass Sie normal seien, obwohl Sie der Überzeugung sind, dass etwas mit Ihrem Aussehen oder Ihren Körperfunktionen nicht stimmt.“ Für die statistische Datenanalyse wurde IBM SPSS Version 22 Windows 2013 verwandt. Zum Vergleich der Häufigkeitsverteilungen wurden Chi2-Tests bestimmt. Die Veränderungen der Prävalenzen von 2002 bis 2013 wurden mittels ODDs-Ratios, mit einem Konfidenzintervall von 95% dargestellt. Zusätzlich wurden ODDs-Ratios für den Vergleich der Abstufungen der Variablen: -Männer/Frauen -mit und ohne Abitur -mit und ohne Partner analysiert. In einer zuerst erfolgten deskriptiven Statistik wurde die Punktprävalenz der KDS in beiden Stichproben ausgewertet. Für die subklinische Form der KDS wurde ein Cut-Off Wert von >_ 11-<14 und für die klinische Form ein Wert von >_ 14 verwandt. Es zeigte sich eine Zunahme in Wahrnehmung von Entstellungen in der deutschen Bevölkerung. Im Jahre 2002 gaben 0,5% der Befragten subklinische Symptome an, im Jahre 2013 2,6% (OR=5.16; CI95% =(2.64; 10.06). Die klinisch relevanten Symptome stiegen von 0,5% auf 1% (OR=2.20; CI95%=( 1.03; 4.73). Die Häufigkeitsverteilung der Befragten bzgl. Entstellungswahrnehmungen mit einem Wert <11, d.h. es liegt weder ein subklinische noch eine klinische Form der KDS vor, unterscheidet sich signifikant zwischen den Jahren 2002 bis 2013 (Chi2(2) = 32.71; p<.001). Bei den genannten Untergruppen zeigt sich ein Anstieg allerdings nur in der subklinischen Form. Im Vergleich der Frauen und Männer zeigt sich, dass sich in der Gruppe der Frauen häufiger die subklinische Form zeigt (Frauen:OR = 4.21; CI 95% = (1.87; 9.47); Männer: OR = 7.38; CI95% = (2.24; 24.35)). Die Untergruppe ohne Abitur (OR = 9.49; CI95% = 3.79; 23.76), sowie die Untergruppe mit/ohne Partner zeigen höhere Prävalenzen im Jahre 2013 (OR = 5.38; CI95% = (2.09; 13.86)/ (OR = 4.89; CI95% = 1.90; 12.57). Mit dieser Fragebogenstudie konnte die Annahme, dass sich die Entstellungsbefürchtungen in den Jahren 2002-2013 erhöht haben, nachgewiesen werden. Dieses Ergebnis zeigt offenbar, einen Trend in der Entwicklung der Häufigkeit der Körperdysmorphen Störung in der deutschen Bevölkerung. Diesem Krankheitsbild sollte daher mehr Beachtung geschenkt werden und häufiger in differentialdiagnostische Überlegungen miteinbezogen werden. Da sich der DCQ (Dysmorphic concern Questionnaire) in dieser Studie bewährt hat, erscheint ein klinischer Einsatz sinnvoll. Durch dieses Screening-Instrument ist eine klinische gestellte Diagnose schnell zu überprüfen, so dass eine schnelle Diagnostik und Einleitung von Psychotherapie möglich ist. Dies kann zur schnellen Minderung von Beschwerden führen und eine unnötige Belastung durch z.B. häufige Operationen reduzieren.

Research on public perceptions of the police has identified various individual characteristics that have been found to influence police legitimacy. These individual characteristics often reflect demographic factors such as race/ethnicity, age and socioeconomic status. In addition to demographic factors, process-based factors such as procedural justice and fairness have also been found to influence individual perceptions of legitimacy. What has not been fully established within the literature on public perceptions of police is the extent to which neighborhood characteristics and context shape neighborhood assessments of police legitimacy. This thesis seeks to fill in the gap on public perceptions of police by examining whether expressive concerns and accumulated experiences with police at the neighborhood-level influence legitimacy judgments across high-crime areas. Using baseline survey data collected for the St. Louis County Hot Spots in Residential Areas (SCHIRA) project between March and May of 2012, residents in St. Louis County, Missouri are aggregated to 71 crime hot spots. Findings suggest that neighborhood-level expressive concerns and accumulated experiences do not influence legitimacy judgments across the high-crime areas. However, low neighborhood cohesion predicts the percentage of residents in the area having a recent negative experience with police. Implications for future research and police practice are discussed.

The pension fund industry affects an enormous proportion of the world population and consists of more than $20 trillion of assets globally. Hence the performance of pension funds has major effects. This thesis investigates the performance of personal pension funds in the UK, one of the leading pension industries in the world. It identifies two important factors that are largely overlooked in the related literature: fund’s age and management outsourcing. Based on the ‘career concerns’ argument by Holmström (1999), it tests whether fund performance is age dependent, and in particular, whether funds perform better when they are young than when they ‘mature’. Moreover, one of the major features of the pension fund industry has been the enormous growth in management outsourcing. This thesis addresses this issue and tests whether there are differences in the performance between outsourced and internally managed funds, and investigates potential determinants of the decision to outsource. It argues that a ‘fashion to outsource’ may be partially responsible for the trend. Given that a CAPM-APT based analysis is not appropriate for the data at hand, the thesis employs three alternative performance measures, two of which utilise fund-specific benchmarks. The results show that risk-adjusted returns are statistically insignificantly different from zero but funds significantly outperform their benchmarks. Performance is found to change with fund’s age but this relationship is more complex than a simple ‘career-concern’ argument would predict. Risk-adjusted returns of the internally managed and the outsourced funds are both indifferent from zero but the outsourced funds are better at outperforming their benchmarks. Lastly, there is some evidence of a ‘fashion to outsource’. This research is novel in several ways. It provides the first detailed investigation of the performance of the UK personal pension funds. It is the first to address the question of potential factors (other than managerial characteristics) that may explain fund performance. It discusses the rise of outsourcing in the industry and analyses differences/similarities between performance of the outsourced and the internal funds. Finally, it is the first to investigate whether the rapid increase in outsourcing is due to ‘fashion’.

In multi-agent systems [1], coordinated resource sharing is indispensable for a set of autonomous agents, which are running in the same execution space, to accomplish their computational objectives. This research presents a new approach to network resource control in multi-agent systems, based on the CyberOrgs [2] model. This approach aims to offer a mechanism to reify network resource control in multi-agent systems and to realize this mechanism in a prototype system. <p>In order to achieve these objectives, a uniform abstraction vLink (Virtual Link) is introduced to represent network resource, and based on this abstraction, a coherent mechanism of vLink creation, allocation and consumption is developed. This mechanism is enforced in the network by applying a fine-grained flow-based scheduling scheme. In addition, concerns of computations are separated from those of resources required to complete them, which simplifies engineering of network resource control. Thus, application programmers are enabled to focus on their application development and separately declaring resource request and defining resource control policies for their applications in a simplified way. Furthermore, network resource is bounded to computations and controlled in a hierarchy to coordinate network resource usage. A computation and its sub-computations are not allowed to consume resources beyond their resource boundary. However, resources can be traded between different boundaries. <p> In this thesis, the design and implementation of a prototype system is described as well. The prototype system is a middleware system architecture, which can be used to build systems supporting network resource control. This architecture has a layered structure and aims to achieve three goals: (1) providing an interface for programmers to express resource requests for applications and define their resource control policies; (2) specializing the CyberOrgs model to control network resource; and (3) providing carefully designed mechanisms for routing, link sharing and packet scheduling to enforce required resource allocation in the network.

In multi-agent systems [1], coordinated resource sharing is indispensable for a set of autonomous agents, which are running in the same execution space, to accomplish their computational objectives. This research presents a new approach to network resource control in multi-agent systems, based on the CyberOrgs [2] model. This approach aims to offer a mechanism to reify network resource control in multi-agent systems and to realize this mechanism in a prototype system. <p>In order to achieve these objectives, a uniform abstraction vLink (Virtual Link) is introduced to represent network resource, and based on this abstraction, a coherent mechanism of vLink creation, allocation and consumption is developed. This mechanism is enforced in the network by applying a fine-grained flow-based scheduling scheme. In addition, concerns of computations are separated from those of resources required to complete them, which simplifies engineering of network resource control. Thus, application programmers are enabled to focus on their application development and separately declaring resource request and defining resource control policies for their applications in a simplified way. Furthermore, network resource is bounded to computations and controlled in a hierarchy to coordinate network resource usage. A computation and its sub-computations are not allowed to consume resources beyond their resource boundary. However, resources can be traded between different boundaries. <p> In this thesis, the design and implementation of a prototype system is described as well. The prototype system is a middleware system architecture, which can be used to build systems supporting network resource control. This architecture has a layered structure and aims to achieve three goals: (1) providing an interface for programmers to express resource requests for applications and define their resource control policies; (2) specializing the CyberOrgs model to control network resource; and (3) providing carefully designed mechanisms for routing, link sharing and packet scheduling to enforce required resource allocation in the network.