Recent theories in numerical cognition suggest that humans are equipped with a mental system that supports the representation and processing of symbolic and nonsymbolic magnitudes, called the Approximate Number System (ANS). Prior research also suggests that the acuity of the ANS can predict individuals’ mathematical ability. However, results from research within the field has proven to be inconsistent with one another which raises questions about the reliability and validity of methods used to measure the ANS. The present study attempts to replicate the results found in studies suggesting that ANS acuity correlates with mathematical ability. The study also investigates the reliability and validity of different task that have been used to measure the ANS, and also presents a new method of measuring the ANS with an adaptive method. The results show that two tasks correlate significantly with mathematical ability, and multiple regression analyses show that ANS acuity can predict mathematical ability when controlling for general intelligence. Furthermore, the results also further highlight the issue of methodological flaws in previous studies.

Since there has been an abundance of research concerning high and low social status and little on inconsistents, the present study intends to shed some understanding of this group by comparing their feelings and attitudes to the highs and lows. Four principle areas are emphasized: family relationships, attitude toward sex, interpersonal relationships and self concept, with sub-areas lending added data.

In a series of experiments, with a total sample of over 2,400 participants, this thesis investigates how various threats that customers may encounter influence the customers’ subsequent purchase and choice behaviors. Furthermore, this thesis examines whether individuals’ predicted behaviors in certain consumer contexts are congruent with customers’ actual behaviors in these very contexts. Paper I takes an evolutionary approach and investigates whether a status threat to male customers, induced by exposure to physically dominant men, results in compensatory consumption of products that signal status through price or size. Paper II takes a reactance-based approach and examines whether customers whose freedom to touch has been threatened compensate by touching, and ultimately purchasing, a larger number of products. Paper III investigates whether threats to customers’ self-control in one domain influence choice behavior and consumption preferences in another unrelated domain. More specifically, the paper examines whether exposure to attractive opposite-sex faces (and hence a subtle activation of sexual desire and its associated pleasure-seeking mindset) makes individuals more motivated to choose and consume unhealthy-but-rewarding foods.      The main findings of this work can be summarized as follows: Consumer threats result in compensatory consumption, not only in the specific domain under threat, but also in unrelated or only symbolically similar domains. Such compensatory responses are in direct contrast to consumer lay beliefs and even the predictions made by marketing professors and other scholars, which suggests that people are generally unaware of the impact that certain threats have on their behavior. These results should be as interesting for customers who want to make informed choices and resist various influence attempts as for marketers, advertisers, and retail managers who want to influence customers. / In a series of experiments, this thesis investigates how threats that customers may encounter influence their subsequent purchase and choice behaviors. Moreover, this thesis examines whether individuals’ predicted behaviors are congruent with customers’ actual behaviors in certain consumer contexts. Paper I investigates whether a status threat to male customers, induced by physically dominant men, results in compensatory consumption of products that signal status through price or size. Paper II examines whether customers whose freedom to touch has been threatened compensate by touching, and ultimately purchasing, more products. Paper III investigates whether attractive opposite-sex faces threaten individuals’ self-control, thereby making them more motivated to choose and consume unhealthy-but-rewarding foods. The results reveal that consumer threats do indeed lead to compensatory consumption. Such compensatory responses are in direct contrast to lay beliefs and even predictions made by marketing professors, suggesting that people are generally unaware of the impact certain threats have on their behavior. These results should be as interesting for customers trying to make informed choices as for marketers, advertisers, and retail managers trying to influence customers.

Academics, practitioners and media agree that the topic of work-life balance is on the agenda and valued by the new business generation. Although Sweden might be considered a working friendly country, the management consultancy industry is not recognized to be the same. With an institutional perspective we will through a discourse analysis investigate the communication on Swedish management consultancies web pages in order to explore how consultancies relate to the work-life balance discourse. In this study we look at work-life balance communication as a continuum with abstract and concrete as two opposites where the level of concreteness will decide the level of responsibility dedicated from the organizations regarding employees` work-life balance. Our findings suggest that the discourse is mostly composed of abstract descriptive talk, which indicates that the communication exists as a legitimizing result of institutional pressures, and might not be an essential matter for the concultancies` everyday practice. A big part of the responsibility to achieve a work-life balance is put upon the individual employee and even though initiatives are presented they are seldom followed up by concrete targets or supported with results.

O presente estudo procura examinar criticamente a forma como as competências legislativas são interpretadas no Brasil. Em especial, pretende-se demonstrar que o tema pode e deve se beneficiar das modernas técnicas e instrumentos desenvolvidos pela dogmática do Direito Constitucional contemporâneo. O trabalho se estrutura em três partes. Na Primeira Parte, serão expostas algumas premissas teóricas sobre a interpretação constitucional, o federalismo e a sindicabilidade judicial das competências, que nortearão o desenvolvimento do estudo. Na Segunda Parte, examinam-se os processos de qualificação das leis e de interpretação das competências legislativas. A partir do esboço de uma teoria das competências legislativas, será defendida a aplicação de parâmetros segundo os quais, em princípio, todos os dispositivos de competência devem ser interpretados da forma mais ampliativa possível, sendo as eventuais restrições, impostas por outras regras de competência, consideradas e justificadas argumentativamente. Em sua Terceira Parte, e última, o estudo identificará o fenômeno dos conflitos de competências legislativas em geral, esquecidos pela doutrina brasileira , examinando, na sequência, alguns critérios para sua solução. Afastada a possibilidade de recurso à supremacia do direito federal e ao princípio da subsidiariedade, bem como a preferências de mérito, serão desenvolvidos dois parâmetros formais e um material para a solução das inconsistências insolúveis entre competências. / This paper aims to analyze critically the way heads of legislative power are read and enforced in Brazil. In particular, it tries to demonstrate that this subject can and should benefit from the modern techniques and instruments developed by contemporary Constitutional Law. The paper is divided in three parts. In the First Part, some theoretical premises are established, regarding constitutional interpretation, federalism, and the justiciability of federative conflicts, which shall guide the rest of the study. The Second Part examines the processes of characterization of laws and interpretation of heads of legislative power. After sketching a theory of legislative powers, the paper develops standards according to which, in principle, all heads of power ought to be read in their widest possible range, and restrictions imposed by heads of powers relating to other governments must be considered and justified argumentatively. In the Third Part, its last, the paper identifies the phenomenon of legal inconsistencies between heads of power usually forgotten by Brazilian authors and analyses some of the criteria proposed for their solution. Once the supremacy of federal law and the principle of subsidiarity, as well as content-based preferences are ruled out, the paper develops two form-based and one matter-based standard for the solution of the so-called real legal inconsistencies between heads of legislative power.

In accordance with societal norms and values, consumers readily indicate their positive attitudes towards sustainability. However, they hardly take sustainability into account when engaging in exchange relationships with companies. To shed light on this paradox, this paper investigates whether defense mechanisms and the more specific concept of neutralization techniques can explain the discrepancy between societal norms and actual behavior. A multi-method qualitative research design provides rich insights into consumers' underlying cognitive processes and how they make sense of their attitude-behavior divergences. Drawing on the Ways Model of account-taking, which is advanced to a Cycle Model, the findings illustrate how neutralization strategies are used to legitimize inconsistencies between norm-conforming attitudes and actual behavior. Furthermore, the paper discusses how the repetitive reinforcement of neutralizing patterns and feedback loops between individuals and society are linked to the rise of anomic consumer behavior. (authors' abstract)

Made available in DSpace on 2015-03-26T13:32:17Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 texto completo.pdf: 3004404 bytes, checksum: 18834db766750ae443a52c29a9b0decd (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-07-24 / Fundação de Amparo a Pesquisa do Estado de Minas Gerais / Time series are sometimes influenced by disruptions of events, such as strikes, the outbreak of war, among others. These interrupts originate atypical observations or outliers that directly influence the homogeneity of the series, leading to erroneous inferences and interpretations of the variable under study, being very common in climatological data. So, in the interest of detecting outliers in time series of precipitation, this study aimed to establish a method of detecting outliers. For this, there was the junction of ARIMA models and methodologies of the classical geostatistics, the self-validation. The proposed criterion compares waste of time series analysis with confidence intervals of the residue of self-validation. We analyzed time series of average monthly rainfall for rainy days of 43 rainfall stations in the state of Minas Gerais, between the years 2000 to 2005. The analysis procedures ranging from the description of the periodicity through the periodogram to obtain validation, from the estimation of the semivariogram models by ordinary least squares methods and maximum likelihood. The results for the period under study, 165 were detected outliers, spread between the 43 rainfall stations. The station Campo Grande Ranch, located in the municipality of Passa Tempo, was the season in which they recorded the highest number of outliers, 45 in total. As the results, we considered the proposed method very efficient in detecting outliers, and therefore the analysis of the homogeneity of observations. / Séries temporais são algumas vezes influenciadas por interrupções de eventos, tais como greves, eclosão de guerras, entre outras. Estas interrupções originam observações atípicas ou outliers que influenciam diretamente na homogeneidade da série, ocasionando interpretações e inferências errôneas da variável sob estudo, sendo muito comum em dados climatológicos. Assim, com o interesse de detectar outliers em séries temporais de precipitação, o presente trabalho teve por objetivo estabelecer um método de detecção outliers. Para tal, realizou-se a junção da modelagem ARIMA e de uma das metodologias clássicas de geoestatística, a autovalidação. O critério proposto compara os resíduos da análise de séries temporais com intervalos de confiança dos resíduos da autovalidação. Foram analisadas séries temporais da precipitação média mensal por dias chuvosos de 43 estações pluviométricas localizadas no estado de Minas Gerais, entre os anos de 2000 a 2005. Os procedimentos de análise vão da descrição da periodicidade por meio do periodograma até a obtenção da autovalidação, à partir da estimação dos modelos de semivariograma pelos métodos de mínimos quadrados ordinários e máxima verossimilhança. Pelos resultados, para o período sob estudo, foram detectado 165 outliers, espalhados entre as 43 estações pluviométricas. A estação Fazenda Campo Grande, localizada no município de Passa Tempo, foi a estação em que se registrou o maior número de outliers, 45 no total. Conforme os resultados obtidos considerou-se o método proposto muito eficiente na detecção de outliers e, consequentemente, na análise da homogeneidade das observações.

O presente estudo está pautado em uma pesquisa que busca analisar as práticas das equipes gestoras nas escolas de uma rede de ensino confessional, concentrado no seguinte questionamento: Existe coerência entre os discursos e as ações das equipes gestoras nas escolas da rede de ensino confessional e de que forma estes discursos e estas ações implicam na práxis docente? Para construção do processo de pesquisa, optou-se por um estudo de caso, com enfoque teórico-metodológico qualitativo, e os instrumentos que estão sendo utilizados para a coleta de dados da pesquisa são a análise de documentos, observações participantes, questionários e entrevistas semiestruturadas. Para a análise dos dados optou-se pela análise de discurso. Os achados da pesquisa demonstram que existem, sim, incoerências que geram aproximações e distanciamentos entre os desejos expressos nos documentos que norteiam as escolas/unidades de ensino da rede de ensino pesquisadas. Essas incoerências perpassam linhas muito mais tênues do que o desejo consciente do gestor e na maioria das vezes surgem sem que o próprio gestor ou as equipes gestoras percebam que ocorreu ou como ocorreu. Existe a necessidade de repensar não só o papel das equipes gestoras e os processos de formação das mesmas, mas também os processos nos quais estas estão inseridas e a forma como estes processos interferem na produção das incoerências encontradas no dia a dia da gestão. / This study is based on a research which seeks to analyze the practices of school management teams in the schools of a network of confessional teaching, concentrated on the following questioning: Is there consistency between the discourse and the actions of the management teams of the schools of the confessional schools network and in what way do this discourse and these actions implicate in the teaching praxis? For the construction of the research process, we opted for a case study with a qualitative theoretical-methodological focus and the instruments which are being used for collecting the data for the research are: analysis of documents, participant observations, semi-structured questionnaires and interviews. For the analysis of the data we opted to use discourse analysis. The findings of the research show that inconsistencies do exist which generate approximations and distancing between the desires expressed in the documents which guide the educational schools/units of the teaching network researched. These inconsistencies permeate lines much more tenuous than the conscious desire of the manager and most of the time arise without the manager him/her self or the managing teams perceiving that it happened or how it happened. There is a need to rethink not only the role of the management teams and the processes of their formation, but also the processes in which they are inserted and how these processes interfere in the production of the inconsistencies found day to day in management.

O presente estudo procura examinar criticamente a forma como as competências legislativas são interpretadas no Brasil. Em especial, pretende-se demonstrar que o tema pode e deve se beneficiar das modernas técnicas e instrumentos desenvolvidos pela dogmática do Direito Constitucional contemporâneo. O trabalho se estrutura em três partes. Na Primeira Parte, serão expostas algumas premissas teóricas sobre a interpretação constitucional, o federalismo e a sindicabilidade judicial das competências, que nortearão o desenvolvimento do estudo. Na Segunda Parte, examinam-se os processos de qualificação das leis e de interpretação das competências legislativas. A partir do esboço de uma teoria das competências legislativas, será defendida a aplicação de parâmetros segundo os quais, em princípio, todos os dispositivos de competência devem ser interpretados da forma mais ampliativa possível, sendo as eventuais restrições, impostas por outras regras de competência, consideradas e justificadas argumentativamente. Em sua Terceira Parte, e última, o estudo identificará o fenômeno dos conflitos de competências legislativas em geral, esquecidos pela doutrina brasileira , examinando, na sequência, alguns critérios para sua solução. Afastada a possibilidade de recurso à supremacia do direito federal e ao princípio da subsidiariedade, bem como a preferências de mérito, serão desenvolvidos dois parâmetros formais e um material para a solução das inconsistências insolúveis entre competências. / This paper aims to analyze critically the way heads of legislative power are read and enforced in Brazil. In particular, it tries to demonstrate that this subject can and should benefit from the modern techniques and instruments developed by contemporary Constitutional Law. The paper is divided in three parts. In the First Part, some theoretical premises are established, regarding constitutional interpretation, federalism, and the justiciability of federative conflicts, which shall guide the rest of the study. The Second Part examines the processes of characterization of laws and interpretation of heads of legislative power. After sketching a theory of legislative powers, the paper develops standards according to which, in principle, all heads of power ought to be read in their widest possible range, and restrictions imposed by heads of powers relating to other governments must be considered and justified argumentatively. In the Third Part, its last, the paper identifies the phenomenon of legal inconsistencies between heads of power usually forgotten by Brazilian authors and analyses some of the criteria proposed for their solution. Once the supremacy of federal law and the principle of subsidiarity, as well as content-based preferences are ruled out, the paper develops two form-based and one matter-based standard for the solution of the so-called real legal inconsistencies between heads of legislative power.

<p>Structured overlay networks form a major classof peer-to-peer systems, which are touted for their abilitiesto scale, tolerate failures, and self-manage. Any long livedInternet-scale distributed system is destined to facenetwork partitions. Although the problem of network partitionsand mergers is highly related to fault-tolerance andself-management in large-scale systems, it has hardly beenstudied in the context of structured peer-to-peer systems.These systems have mainly been studied under churn (frequentjoins/failures), which as a side effect solves the problemof network partitions, as it is similar to massive nodefailures. Yet, the crucial aspect of network mergers has beenignored. In fact, it has been claimed that ring-based structuredoverlay networks, which constitute the majority of thestructured overlays, are intrinsically ill-suited for mergingrings. In this thesis, we present a number of research papers representing our work on handling network partitions and mergers in structured overlay networks. The contribution of this thesis is threefold. First, we provide a solution for merging ring-based structured overlays. Our solution is tuneable, by a {\em fanout} parameter, to achieve a trade-off between message and time complexity. Second, we provide a network size estimation algorithm for ring-based structured overlays. We believe that an estimate of the current network size can be used for tuning overlay parameters that change according to the network size, for instance the fanout parameter in our merger solution.Third, we extend our work from fixing routing anomalies to achieving data consistency. We argue that decreasing lookup inconsistencies on the routing level aids in achieving data consistency in applications built on top of overlays. We study the frequency of occurence of lookup inconsistencies and discuss solutions to decrease the affect of lookup inconsistencies.</p>