The objective of this thesis is to analyze the variation between two competing structures--on the one hand, a transitive verb that takes a finite nominal clause as its complement, and on the other hand, a transitive verb that takes an infinitive as its complement. This thesis seeks to address three questions: (1) Which semantic categories are more likely to use coreferential nominal clauses as complements? (2) How do coreferential finite nominal clauses compare with coreferential infinitive complements, in terms of frequency of usage? And (3) do the corpora show any variation among different countries? The corpora CREA and Web/Dialects were used to determine the frequency of usage between these two structures with four different semantic categories of verbs used in the main clause: assertive, dubitative, evaluative, and volitive. The U.S., Spain, Argentina, and Mexico were also used to compare the results by country. The findings show that when the main verb is assertive the use of a subordinate clause is favored, while main clauses with dubitative showed mixed results between the corpora, although Web/Dialects showed that dubitatives favor an infinitive complement. The evaluative verbs lamentar and odiar did not produce any coreferential results with direct object nominal clauses. Volitive verbs never accepted the use of a coreferential finite. The Web/Dialects results indicate that Spain and the U.S were more likely than Argentina and Mexico to use the finite construction after a main clause with a dubitative phrase, while still favoring the infinitive complement.

This study examines how pop culture fandoms are formed, based on five communications theories: Escapism, Mood Management, Parasocial Relationships, Identification, and Social Capital. The researcher examined the Harry Potter fandom specifically because of its global pervasiveness. Using Q Methodology, 47 respondents fell into one of four categories: Relationship Experts, Happy Introverts, Identifying Isolationists, and Isolated Self-regulators. Relationship Experts like Harry Potter because of parasocial relationships with the characters as well as the story's capacity for escapism, and Happy Introverts focus on liking Harry Potter for their own enjoyment (not that of others) and mood management. Identifying Isolationists like Harry Potter because they identify with the characters and enjoy discussing the books with those around them, while Isolated Self-regulators do not have any parasocial relationships and focus on the books' mood management capacity. It is interesting to note that Escapism played a supporting (but never leading) role in each of these Factors. All respondents agree that Harry Potter has been, and will continue to be, an important part of their lives. It is hoped that this conclusion can form the foundation of future popular culture studies.

The present study was conducted with the aim of constructing and validating a short form of the Profile of Mood States (POMS). The POMS is a widely-applied measure for the assessment of an individual’s mood. Thus, it is of great relevance for many research questions in clinical and social psychology. To develop the short scale, we first examined psychometric properties and found the optimal 16-itemsolution among all valid combinations of the full POMS in an exploratory subsample (n = 1,029) of our complete representative sample of the German general population. We then validated this model in a confirmatory subsample (n = 977). Additionally, we examined its invariance across age groups and sex, as well as its reliability. Our results indicate that the POMS-16 is a valid and reliable measure of mood states with minimal losses compared to the 35-item version. Particularly where brevity and an economical assessment is desired, the POMS-16 should be considered.

Video game developers attempt to convey moods to emphasize their game's narrative. Events that occur within the game usually convey success or failure in some way meaningful to the story's progress. Ideally, when these events occur, the intended change in mood should be perceivable to the player. One way of doing so is to change the music. This requires musical tracks to represent many possible moods, states and game events. This can be very taxing on composers, and encoding the control flow (when to transition) of the tracks can prove to be tricky as well. This thesis presents AUD.js, a system developed for procedural music generation for JavaScript-based web games. By taking input from game events, the system can create music corresponding to various Western perceptions of music mood. The system was trained with classic video game music. Game development students rated the mood of 80 pieces, after which statistical representations of those pieces were extracted and added into AUD.js. AUD.js can adapt its generated music to new sets of input parameters, thereby updating the perceived mood of the generated music at runtime. We conducted A/B tests comparing static music, both composed and computer-generated, to dynamically adapting music. We find that AUD.js provides reasonably effective music for games, but that adaptiveness of the music does not necessarily improve player experience over composed music. By conducting a user study during Global Game Jam 2014, we also find that since AUD.js provides a software solution to music composition, it can be a useful tool for game music integration under time pressure.

BACKGROUND: Both mood and anxiety disorders are more prevalent in women than men with the onset typically occurring during adolescence or early childbearing years. These disorders are particularly prevalent during pregnancy and the postpartum period. While depression during the perinatal period has received significant attention recently, anxiety has not received the same amount of attention. METHODS: The current study was a secondary analysis of a prospective cohort study that followed 91 women with mood disorders through pregnancy and the postpartum period. Our objective was to determine if a correlation existed between anxiety and suicidality. We hypothesized that pregnant women with a history of a mood disorder and comorbid anxiety are more likely to be suicidal than those without comorbid anxiety. The presence of anxiety was determined using the anxiety subscale of the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale, EPDS; a cut off score of six or greater was used to indicate significant anxiety. Suicidality was determined using three separate measures: question ten on the EPDS, question eighteen on the Inventory of Depressive Symptomatology, and question ten on the Montgomery-Asberg Depression Rating Scale. ANALYSIS: Chi square tests were used to compare the demographics of the anxious and non-anxious women based on both diagnosis of anxiety disorders and symptoms of anxiety. Z proportion tests were then used to compare the proportion women with anxiety versus those without anxiety who were suicidal. Lastly, binary logistic regression was used to determine if patients with anxiety were more likely to be suicidal. RESULTS: Among the women in this study, 62 (68.1%) had a diagnosis of major depressive disorder and 29 (31.9%) had a diagnosis of bipolar disorder based on DSM-IV-TR diagnostic criteria. In addition, 45 (49.5%) had a lifetime history of an anxiety disorder. The prevalence of significant anxiety symptoms, as determined by the anxiety subscale on the EPDS, ranged from 9.1-37.5% depending on the time point. Suicidality prevalence also varied depending on both the time point and the scale used: 0-17.5% using the MADRS, 6.7-24.7% using the EPDS, and 2.4-14.7% using the IDS. Using a binary logistic regression, we determined that anxiety was a risk factor for suicidality at time T3 (OR 2.106; 95% CI 1.274-3.481) and M1 (OR 2.057; 95% CI 1.179-3.586) on the MADRS and at T3 (OR1.758; 95% CI 1.219-2.535) on the EPDS.

In the Dravidian language Tulu, spoken in the south of present day India, in the states of Karnataka and Kerala, several verb forms exist which have hitherto been poorly described in the scientific literature. A set of these code different modal distinctions, and are thus labeled moods. Another set of non-finite verb forms are morphologically similar to the aforementioned moods, but do not code modality. For the purpose of this thesis, these are categorized under the umbrella term “verbals”. This thesis attempts to describe these forms, provide transparent, coherent and motivated terminology, describe their function, and provide some clarity as to their interplay within the paradigm of modality in the Tulu language. The moods discussed here have received different labels by different authors, often contradicting each other. Here, they will be called (in the order they are discussed in the thesis) the indicative, hypothetical, interrogative, imperative, prohibitive, hortative, permissive, potential, desiderative, optative and conditional moods. The non-finite forms that are here categorized as “verbals” have also been given various labels, again often contradicting each other and not being transparent in their meaning. One of the features that these forms have in common with each other is that they share some characteristics with other parts of speech (nouns, adjectives, adverbs). The names given to these forms in this thesis are the purposive, the perfective verbal adverb, the imperfective verbal adverb, the simultaneous verbal adverb, the negative verbal adverb, the verbal noun, and the verbal adjective. Furthermore, a distinction is made between finite and non-finite forms, finite being those verb forms that take subject index. The non-finite forms comprise all verbals and several moods. The function of finiteness is discussed, and is for moods found to possibly relate to the historical origin of the markers, whereas for the verbals it may be related to subordination, as is common cross-linguistically (Nikolaeva 2010:1).

L’inflammation systémique induite par l’obésité augmente la neuroinflammation et la réactivité gliale dans le noyau accumbens (NAc), associées à des comportements de type dépressif et anxieux. Les neurones à épines moyennes (MSN) du NAc font partie intégrante des circuits neuronaux qui contrôlent la motivation et l’humeur. Les différences fonctionnelles dans les entrées et les sorties des sous-régions du NAc – le cœur du NAc (NAcC) et la coquille du NAc (NAcSh) – fournissent une base pour étudier la divergence fonctionnelle dans les sous-territoires. Nos résultats biochimiques et chimiogénétiques préliminaires suggèrent que l’inflammation causée par une alimentation chronique riche en graisses entraîne une diminution de l’excitabilité des récepteurs D1 de la dopamine (D1R) des MSN. Notre objectif était d’étudier l’impact des états inflammatoires aigus et chroniques en étudiant l’impact du LPS et de l’alimentation riche en graisses saturées (HFD) sur l’activité des MSN du NAc et la plasticité synaptique. Pour ce faire, nous avons utilisé deux méthodes électrophysiologiques, les enregistrements de champ extracellulaire et le patch clamp intracellulaire à cellules entières, pour étudier la potentialisation à long terme (LTP) et l’activité excitatrice cellulaire dans le NAc en réponse à l’inflammation aiguë et chronique. Nos résultats suggèrent que le LPS peut induire des changements dans la LTP dans les champs de neurones du NAcC. Cela suggère que la neuroinflammation aiguë peut induire des changements dans la transmission du signal entre les synapses du NAcC. Dans les cellules patchées, nous avons constaté que les entrées excitatrices sur les MSN D1R du NAcC et du NAcSh présentaient une fréquence réduite, en réponse au LPS. Nous avons également constaté que le LPS peut induire une réduction de l’amplitude maximale des entrées inhibitrices sur les MSN D1R du NAcC et du NAcSh. Après 12 semaines d’un régime à base d’huile de palme (graisse saturée) amenant à l’obésité, les entrées excitatrices sur les MSN NAc D1R n’ont pas montré de changements significatifs. Collectivement, nos données suggèrent qu’un défi aigu au LPS, mais pas un défi chronique au Palm, peut provoquer des changements aigus dans l’activité neuronale du NAc qui pourraient être médiés par des changements dans la signalisation de la dopamine. / Obesity induced systemic inflammation upregulates neuroinflammation and glial reactivity in the nucleus accumbens (NAc) which is associated with depressive- and anxiety-like behaviors. Medium spiny neurons (MSNs) of the NAc are integral populations of the neural circuitry controlling motivation and mood. Functional differences in the inputs and outputs of NAc subregions- NAc core (NAcC) and NAc shell (NAcSh)- provide a basis to study functional divergence in the subterritories. Our preliminary biochemical and chemogenetic findings suggest that inflammation caused by chronic high-fat feeding results in decreased excitability of dopamine D1 receptor (D1R) MSNs. Our aims were to investigate the impact of acute and chronic inflammatory states by studying the impact of LPS and Palm saturated high-fat diet (HFD) on NAc MSN activity and synaptic plasticity. Given this, we used two electrophysiology methods, extracellular field recordings & intracellular whole-cell patch clamp, to study NAc long-term potentiation (LTP) and cellular excitatory activity in response to acute and chronic inflammation. Our results suggest that LPS may induce changes in LTP in neuron fields in the NAcC. This suggests that acute neuroinflammation may induce changes in signal transmission between synapses of the NAcC. In patched cells, excitatory inputs onto D1R MSNs of the NAcC and NAcSh displayed reduced frequency in response to LPS. We also demonstrate that LPS induces a reduction in the peak amplitude of inhibitory inputs onto both NAcC and NAcSh D1R MSNs. After 12 weeks on a saturated Palm diet, NAc D1R MSN excitatory inputs displayed no significant changes. Collectively, our data suggests that an acute LPS, but not chronic Palm challenge may illicit acute changes in NAc neuronal activity, perhaps mediated by changes in DA signaling.

Despite its benefits to both physical and mental health, physical activity levels worldwide remain low and new solutions for behaviour change must be sought. Smartphone apps are extremely popular and prevalent across the population, however their quality is still questionable. Physical activity produces an acute ‘feel good’ effect and intervention designers should consider the role that affect (mood) plays in uptake and maintenance of behaviours. It is timely to examine the use of affect as a motivator for physical activity, using new tools that allow real-time capture of both affect and physical activity (smartphones). The existence, characteristics and quality of physical activity apps that provide feedback on affect were explored in this thesis A mixed methods approach, comprising a systematic review (study 1) and a systematic evaluation (study 2) was taken. Data collection methods included both quantitative and qualitative assessments, using pre-existing and fit-for purpose tools. Twenty-two physical activity apps that provided feedback on affect were identified. Apps often failed to target groups most at risk of poor physical activity levels. Feedback on affect was performed in a variety of ways. Quality of apps, based on 13 criteria, was mixed. Recommendations are made for researchers, app developers and funders, including the need for development of high quality physical activity apps incorporating and emphasising affective benefits, consideration of archiving processes for developed apps once development ceases, and collaboration between researchers, developers and users when designing apps.

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