Just as an individual is rightly concerned about the privacy of their personally identifying information, so also is a group of people, a community, concerned about the privacy of sensitive information entrusted to their care. Our research seeks to develop a better understanding of the factors contributing to the sensitivity of community information, of the privacy threats that are recognized by the community, and of the means by which the community attempts to fulfill their privacy responsibilities. We are also interested in seeing how the elements of a community privacy model that we developed are related to the findings from the studies of communities. This thesis presents the results of a series of focus group sessions conducted in corporate settings. Three focus group interviews were conducted using participants from two information technology companies and one research group from the university. Three themes emerged from the analysis of these focus group interviews which are described as privacy awareness, situated disclosures, and confinement of sensitive information. These three themes capture the character and complexity of community oriented privacy and expose breakdowns in current approaches. / Master of Science

Existem 82 Faculdades de Nutrição no Estado de São Paulo. Dessas, a sua totalidade possui a disciplina Bioquímica na grade curricular, apontando sua importância para os cursos de Nutrição. Entretanto, levantamentos preliminares com alunos do curso de Nutrição da USP apontaram desinteresse destes para com as disciplinas de Bioquímica. Os motivos mais citados foram a desvinculação da Bioquímica com a área de atuação/interesse do nutricionista, o método aplicado e a distância entre professor e aluno. A presente pesquisa concentrou-se em resolver os problemas levantados, alterando o currículo e propondo um método, diferente dos até então aplicados em cursos de Bioquímica para a Nutrição, baseado no ensino colaborativo derivado da teoria de Vygotsky. Constatou-se ausência de critérios dos alunos que permitissem diferenciar informações científicas das advindas do senso comum, veiculadas pela Internet ou revistas de grande circulação. Como o desenvolvimento desta capacidade crítica é exatamente um dos objetivos mais reiteradamente propostos para a formação de profissionais, decidiu-se iniciar os alunos na literatura científica e posteriormente na atividade científica. Para tanto, foi estabelecida a atividade propedêutica ao trabalho científico. Esse trabalho procurou: 1- Vincular precocemente as disciplinas com a área de atuação profissional, enfatizando a importância da Bioquímica para a Nutrição. 2-Promover o desenvolvimento da capacidade crítica, por meio de discussões e trabalho em equipe. 3- Buscar o aprendizado significativo. 4- Familiarizar os alunos com o modelo de método científico presente em artigos científicos e com a forma estabelecida de fazer ciência na universidade. 5- Mostrar a importância da formação científica. 6-Desenvolver a atitude científica. 7- Desenvolver habilidades de redação científica, espírito crítico e busca e seleção de informações, bem como a apresentação e avaliação de trabalhos. As disciplinas foram elaboradas para que fossem aplicadas no formato de grupos de discussão, com participação ativa dos alunos nas aulas. O desempenho dos alunos nas disciplinas do curso de Bioquímica e nas atividades paralelas foi muito expressivo com médias muito superiores à nota de aprovação. Todos os dados permitem afirmar que as disciplinas envolvidas no projeto foram bem avaliadas pelos alunos que a cursaram. Essas avaliações, associadas ao desempenho dos alunos nas avaliações somativas, permite concluir que o método aplicado no curso de Bioquímica da turma da Nutrição revela algumas qualidades educacionais / There are 82 Nutrition Colleges in São Paulo state. All of them have the subject Biochemistry included in their curriculum, which demonstrates its importance for the Nutrition course. However, preliminary research with the students of University of São Paulo\'s Nutrition course showed lack of interest from them regarding Biochemistry. The reasons most commonly stated were the lack of a link between Biochemistry and the areas of interest/work of the nutritionist, the teaching method and the distant relationship between professors and students. The present research focused on solving the issues raised, modifying the curriculum and proposing a method which differs from the ones used in Biochemistry courses applied to Nutrition, based on the collaborative teaching derived from Vigotsky\'s theory. It was reported that students lack criteria to differ scientific information from those based on common sense, those found on the internet or on magazines of wide circulation. Since the development of this analytical ability is precisely one of the most reiterated goals in the formation of the professional, it was decided to initiate students into the scientific literature and afterwards into the scientific practice. In order to do so it was established the introductory activity to scientific work. This project has attempted to: 1- Precociously link the subject to the area of work, emphasizing the importance of Biochemistry to Nutrition. 2- Promote the development of analytical skills, through discussions and group work. 3- Seek meaningful learning. 4-Make the students familiar to the model of scientific method presented in scientific articles and the established way to make Science at university level. 5- Show the importance of scientific formation. 6-Develop the scientific attitude. 7- Develop skills on scientific writing, critical spirit and searching and selecting information, as well as presenting and assessing projects. The subjects were elaborated to be applied in the format of discussion groups, with the active participation of the students in class. The performance of the students in the subject of Biochemistry and in the parallel activities was significantly better, presenting marks way above the average. Based on the available data it can be affirmed that the subjects involved in the project were well-evaluated by the students who took the course. These evaluations, associated to the students\' performance on the summary evaluations, lead to the conclusion that the method applied on the Biochemistry course of the Nutrition class reveals some educational qualities.

Diffusion MRI provides a unique opportunity to study the brain tissue architecture at a microscopic level. More specifically, it allows to infer biophysical properties of the axons in the white matter in-vivo. Microstructural parameters are widely used in multi-subject studies to track pathological processes, follow normal development and aging, or investigate behaviour. This thesis aims to identify and potentially address the limitations and pitfalls in voxelwise comparison of diffusion MRI parameters across subjects. To allow for accurate matching of brain structures across subjects, non-linear transformation that spatially aligns the data is required. We demonstrate that using advanced registration methods, we can outperform the standard registration-projection approach both in terms of sensitivity and specificity. The coarse resolution of the data typically causes partial volume effects that bias the diffusion parameters and potentially mislead the interpretation of a group study outcome. We provide evidence that these effects can be addressed by constraining the diffusion model parameter space, which leads to marginally lower sensitivity, but allows an accurate interpretation of the results. Additionally, we suggest that additional information inferred with a data driven approach might mitigate the loss in sensitivity. Finally, we design an original tract-specific modelling framework that enables to estimate microstructural parameters unbiased by the presence of foreign fibre populations or tissues. We demonstrate the sensitivity of our method in a study relating microstructure and behaviour.

Existem 82 Faculdades de Nutrição no Estado de São Paulo. Dessas, a sua totalidade possui a disciplina Bioquímica na grade curricular, apontando sua importância para os cursos de Nutrição. Entretanto, levantamentos preliminares com alunos do curso de Nutrição da USP apontaram desinteresse destes para com as disciplinas de Bioquímica. Os motivos mais citados foram a desvinculação da Bioquímica com a área de atuação/interesse do nutricionista, o método aplicado e a distância entre professor e aluno. A presente pesquisa concentrou-se em resolver os problemas levantados, alterando o currículo e propondo um método, diferente dos até então aplicados em cursos de Bioquímica para a Nutrição, baseado no ensino colaborativo derivado da teoria de Vygotsky. Constatou-se ausência de critérios dos alunos que permitissem diferenciar informações científicas das advindas do senso comum, veiculadas pela Internet ou revistas de grande circulação. Como o desenvolvimento desta capacidade crítica é exatamente um dos objetivos mais reiteradamente propostos para a formação de profissionais, decidiu-se iniciar os alunos na literatura científica e posteriormente na atividade científica. Para tanto, foi estabelecida a atividade propedêutica ao trabalho científico. Esse trabalho procurou: 1- Vincular precocemente as disciplinas com a área de atuação profissional, enfatizando a importância da Bioquímica para a Nutrição. 2-Promover o desenvolvimento da capacidade crítica, por meio de discussões e trabalho em equipe. 3- Buscar o aprendizado significativo. 4- Familiarizar os alunos com o modelo de método científico presente em artigos científicos e com a forma estabelecida de fazer ciência na universidade. 5- Mostrar a importância da formação científica. 6-Desenvolver a atitude científica. 7- Desenvolver habilidades de redação científica, espírito crítico e busca e seleção de informações, bem como a apresentação e avaliação de trabalhos. As disciplinas foram elaboradas para que fossem aplicadas no formato de grupos de discussão, com participação ativa dos alunos nas aulas. O desempenho dos alunos nas disciplinas do curso de Bioquímica e nas atividades paralelas foi muito expressivo com médias muito superiores à nota de aprovação. Todos os dados permitem afirmar que as disciplinas envolvidas no projeto foram bem avaliadas pelos alunos que a cursaram. Essas avaliações, associadas ao desempenho dos alunos nas avaliações somativas, permite concluir que o método aplicado no curso de Bioquímica da turma da Nutrição revela algumas qualidades educacionais / There are 82 Nutrition Colleges in São Paulo state. All of them have the subject Biochemistry included in their curriculum, which demonstrates its importance for the Nutrition course. However, preliminary research with the students of University of São Paulo\'s Nutrition course showed lack of interest from them regarding Biochemistry. The reasons most commonly stated were the lack of a link between Biochemistry and the areas of interest/work of the nutritionist, the teaching method and the distant relationship between professors and students. The present research focused on solving the issues raised, modifying the curriculum and proposing a method which differs from the ones used in Biochemistry courses applied to Nutrition, based on the collaborative teaching derived from Vigotsky\'s theory. It was reported that students lack criteria to differ scientific information from those based on common sense, those found on the internet or on magazines of wide circulation. Since the development of this analytical ability is precisely one of the most reiterated goals in the formation of the professional, it was decided to initiate students into the scientific literature and afterwards into the scientific practice. In order to do so it was established the introductory activity to scientific work. This project has attempted to: 1- Precociously link the subject to the area of work, emphasizing the importance of Biochemistry to Nutrition. 2- Promote the development of analytical skills, through discussions and group work. 3- Seek meaningful learning. 4-Make the students familiar to the model of scientific method presented in scientific articles and the established way to make Science at university level. 5- Show the importance of scientific formation. 6-Develop the scientific attitude. 7- Develop skills on scientific writing, critical spirit and searching and selecting information, as well as presenting and assessing projects. The subjects were elaborated to be applied in the format of discussion groups, with the active participation of the students in class. The performance of the students in the subject of Biochemistry and in the parallel activities was significantly better, presenting marks way above the average. Based on the available data it can be affirmed that the subjects involved in the project were well-evaluated by the students who took the course. These evaluations, associated to the students\' performance on the summary evaluations, lead to the conclusion that the method applied on the Biochemistry course of the Nutrition class reveals some educational qualities.

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) is a noninvasive imaging method that reflects local changes in brain activity. FMRI group studies involves the analysis of the functional images acquired for each of a group of subjects under the same experimental conditions. We propose a spatial marked point-process model for the activation patterns of the subjects in a group study. Each pattern is described as the sum of individual centres of activation. The marked point-process that we propose allows the researcher to enforce repulsion between all pairs of centres of an individual subject that are within a specified minimum distance of each other. It also allows the researcher to enforce attraction between similarly-located centres from different subjects. This attraction helps to compensate for the misalignment of corresponding functional areas across subjects and is a novel method of addressing the problem of imperfect inter-subject registration of functional images. We use a Bayesian framework and choose prior distributions according to current understanding of brain activity. Simulation studies and exploratory studies of our reference dataset are used to fine-tune the prior distributions. We perform inference via Markov chain Monte Carlo. The fitted model gives a summary of the activation in terms of its location, height and size. We use this summary both to identify brain regions that were activated in response to the stimuli under study and to quantify the discrepancies between the activation maps of subjects. Applied to our reference dataset, our measure is successful in separating out those subjects with activation patterns that do not agree with the overall group pattern. In addition, our measure is sensitive to subjects with a large number of activation centres relative to the other subjects in the group. The activation summary given by our model makes it possible to pursue a range of inferential questions that cannot be addressed with ease by current model-based approaches.

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / Desde o início dos estudos lingüísticos das afasias, muito se discute a validade de se agruparem indivíduos para a realização de pesquisas. Alguns autores criticam os estudos de grupo por considerarem haver muita variação entre os indivíduos estudados, e serem os critérios utilizados para os agruparem pré-teóricos e subjetivos, visto que, geralmente, são baseados em impressões clínicas e não são lingüisticamente estruturados. Esses autores acreditam que apenas estudos de caso sejam metodologicamente adequados (Badecker e Caramazza, 1985, 1991). Em oposição, os defensores dos estudos de grupo consideram que apenas esse tipo de metodologia pode dar conta da citada variação, pois estudos de caso não permitem identificar as exceções no desempenho dos indivíduos (Caplan, 1986; Zurif, Swinney e Fodor, 1991). A despeito de todo o debate, poucos autores procuram soluções para a principal causa do desacordo citado, que pode ser considerada uma das maiores deficiências da área: a má seleção de sujeitos de pesquisa. Os critérios de seleção de pacientes comumente utilizados são teoricamente ultrapassados, podendo mesmo variar dependendo dos objetivos de cada pesquisador (Caplan, 1995). A presente dissertação tem como objetivo demonstrar a necessidade de se reverem esses critérios. Por meio de uma pesquisa realizada com quatro afásicos de Broca selecionados pelos critérios clássicos, procuramos demonstrar como a má seleção de pacientes pode prejudicar o desenvolvimento da área por tornar tendenciosos tanto estudos de caso quanto de grupo, aumentando a falta de consenso teórico entre os autores. Para tal, os pacientes foram submetidos a dois experimentos que investigavam seus desempenhos na compreensão de sentenças ativas, passivas e interrogativas QU, de sujeito, objeto e objeto in situ. Ainda, foi realizada uma avaliação desses pacientes sem que se assumissem tais critérios de classificação, partindo-se de uma caracterização lingüística inicial obtida a partir dos resultados nas sentenças ativas e passivas, ficando esta análise isenta dos problemas de seleção de pacientes comuns tanto aos estudos de caso quanto aos estudos de grupo. Como resultado, observou-se que a utilização de uma forma diferente de análise dos desempenhos pode informar a respeito do déficit, bem como sobre a organização do sistema lingüístico, sem a necessidade de se vincular a uma metodologia de caso ou de grupo no sentido tradicional / Since the beginning of linguistic aphasiology studies, the validity of grouping aphasics for research purposes has been widely debated. Some authors criticize group studies because they believe there is too much variation among individuals performance and consider the criteria used for grouping patients together to be subjective and pre-theoretical, since those are usually defined by clinical impressions and are not linguistically grounded. Under these assumptions they judge the case studies to be the only adequate methodology (Badecker e Caramazza, 1985, 1991). On the opposite direction, there are some authors who support group studies as they believe that solely this methodology could account for the variation, which would be impossible on case studies, in which the identification of exceptionalities on individuals performance is unattainable (Caplan, 1986; Zurif, Swinney e Fodor, 1991). In spite of this debate, there are only a few authors who actually look for solutions to the main cause of the conflict, which may also be considered as one of the major flaws in this field of study. The criteria of patients selection commonly applied in the studies are theoretically antiquated and can even vary depending on each authors objectives (Caplan, 1995). The goal of this dissertation is to demonstrate the need for a reevaluation of these criteria. With this intention in mind, we undertook an investigation of four (traditionally classified) Brocas aphasics comprehension on two experimental tasks which measured their performance on active and passive sentences, as well as in subject, object and in situ object WH questions. The results of these experiments allowed us to demonstrate how a problematic patients selection hinders the development of this field of study, as it makes both case and group studies biased, increasing the theoretical disagreements among the authors. Thus, conversely to what is generally done, we carried out an evaluation of the patients performances without assuming those problematic, pre-established classification criteria, which relieves our work from the problems found on case or group studies, since we assumed an initial linguistic characterization of the patients, considering their results on active and passive sentences, instead of the clinical one. As a result, we noticed that through this different way of analyzing patients performance it is possible to get information concerning the deficit and the organization of the linguistic system, without needing to be compromised with case or group views in a traditional way

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / Desde o início dos estudos lingüísticos das afasias, muito se discute a validade de se agruparem indivíduos para a realização de pesquisas. Alguns autores criticam os estudos de grupo por considerarem haver muita variação entre os indivíduos estudados, e serem os critérios utilizados para os agruparem pré-teóricos e subjetivos, visto que, geralmente, são baseados em impressões clínicas e não são lingüisticamente estruturados. Esses autores acreditam que apenas estudos de caso sejam metodologicamente adequados (Badecker e Caramazza, 1985, 1991). Em oposição, os defensores dos estudos de grupo consideram que apenas esse tipo de metodologia pode dar conta da citada variação, pois estudos de caso não permitem identificar as exceções no desempenho dos indivíduos (Caplan, 1986; Zurif, Swinney e Fodor, 1991). A despeito de todo o debate, poucos autores procuram soluções para a principal causa do desacordo citado, que pode ser considerada uma das maiores deficiências da área: a má seleção de sujeitos de pesquisa. Os critérios de seleção de pacientes comumente utilizados são teoricamente ultrapassados, podendo mesmo variar dependendo dos objetivos de cada pesquisador (Caplan, 1995). A presente dissertação tem como objetivo demonstrar a necessidade de se reverem esses critérios. Por meio de uma pesquisa realizada com quatro afásicos de Broca selecionados pelos critérios clássicos, procuramos demonstrar como a má seleção de pacientes pode prejudicar o desenvolvimento da área por tornar tendenciosos tanto estudos de caso quanto de grupo, aumentando a falta de consenso teórico entre os autores. Para tal, os pacientes foram submetidos a dois experimentos que investigavam seus desempenhos na compreensão de sentenças ativas, passivas e interrogativas QU, de sujeito, objeto e objeto in situ. Ainda, foi realizada uma avaliação desses pacientes sem que se assumissem tais critérios de classificação, partindo-se de uma caracterização lingüística inicial obtida a partir dos resultados nas sentenças ativas e passivas, ficando esta análise isenta dos problemas de seleção de pacientes comuns tanto aos estudos de caso quanto aos estudos de grupo. Como resultado, observou-se que a utilização de uma forma diferente de análise dos desempenhos pode informar a respeito do déficit, bem como sobre a organização do sistema lingüístico, sem a necessidade de se vincular a uma metodologia de caso ou de grupo no sentido tradicional / Since the beginning of linguistic aphasiology studies, the validity of grouping aphasics for research purposes has been widely debated. Some authors criticize group studies because they believe there is too much variation among individuals performance and consider the criteria used for grouping patients together to be subjective and pre-theoretical, since those are usually defined by clinical impressions and are not linguistically grounded. Under these assumptions they judge the case studies to be the only adequate methodology (Badecker e Caramazza, 1985, 1991). On the opposite direction, there are some authors who support group studies as they believe that solely this methodology could account for the variation, which would be impossible on case studies, in which the identification of exceptionalities on individuals performance is unattainable (Caplan, 1986; Zurif, Swinney e Fodor, 1991). In spite of this debate, there are only a few authors who actually look for solutions to the main cause of the conflict, which may also be considered as one of the major flaws in this field of study. The criteria of patients selection commonly applied in the studies are theoretically antiquated and can even vary depending on each authors objectives (Caplan, 1995). The goal of this dissertation is to demonstrate the need for a reevaluation of these criteria. With this intention in mind, we undertook an investigation of four (traditionally classified) Brocas aphasics comprehension on two experimental tasks which measured their performance on active and passive sentences, as well as in subject, object and in situ object WH questions. The results of these experiments allowed us to demonstrate how a problematic patients selection hinders the development of this field of study, as it makes both case and group studies biased, increasing the theoretical disagreements among the authors. Thus, conversely to what is generally done, we carried out an evaluation of the patients performances without assuming those problematic, pre-established classification criteria, which relieves our work from the problems found on case or group studies, since we assumed an initial linguistic characterization of the patients, considering their results on active and passive sentences, instead of the clinical one. As a result, we noticed that through this different way of analyzing patients performance it is possible to get information concerning the deficit and the organization of the linguistic system, without needing to be compromised with case or group views in a traditional way