No description available.

No description available.

There is increasing acknowledgement that problematic interpersonal relationships and negative emotions are key factors in the development and maintenance of various forms of psychopathology. Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) for couples centers on changing attachment behaviours as a means to improve distressed relationships by helping partners access underlying emotions and foster positive interactions that promote accessibility and trust. EFT is a highly effective therapeutic approach that encourages the development of adaptive emotion regulation observed in secure attachment. The development and emergence of non-invasive neuroimaging techniques, in particular functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), provides a unique opportunity to investigate neural adaptations underlying successful psychotherapeutic change. Eighteen distressed couples received an average of 23 sessions of EFT, and the resulting functional and structural differences in the neural processing of threat were investigated before and after therapy using MRI methods. Female participants engaged in a stressful task in which they were confronted with the threat of electric shock, while they held their partner’s hand, a stranger’s hand, or were alone in the scanner. Results offered preliminary evidence that EFT can significantly impact emotional dysregulation, promote attenuation of neural threat by their partner, and result in structural change in a key region of emotion circuitry. Moreover, physiological data demonstrated that following EFT for couples, female partners were effectively soothed by their male partners, as demonstrated by decreased cortisol levels.

Since the development of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), there have been many novel advances in our understanding of brain structure and function. More recently, functional MRI has revealed networks of spatially isolated brain regions with temporally correlated activity, forming resting state networks. Research has long shown that mindfulness can produce psychological improvements. A new wave of research is demonstrating how mindfulness is associated with alterations in these brain networks. The current thesis examined changes in patterns of functional connectivity associated with scores from a commonly used mindfulness questionnaire in three resting state networks: the default mode network, the central executive network, and the salience network. Independent component analysis data from 32 healthy participants revealed that mindfulness is associated with altered patterns of functional connectivity in all three networks. For example, decreased connectivity was observed in the precuneus in two of the networks, a region associated with mind wandering. This suggests that mindfulness has a physiological influence on the resting state functional connectivity of the brain that coincides with the underlying principles of mindfulness. / May 2017

The main aim of this research is to develop a list of principles relevant to the design of neighbourhoods and in particular neighbourhood centres in Tehran. The study embodies two main phases, a literature review and a survey. During the literature review various dimensions of a neighbourhood centre are explored among both 'prescriptive' and 'explanatory' theories in architecture and urban design. Attempts are made to extract the essence and concepts of individual projects among the prescriptive resources, while the investigations of explanatory resources are focused on finding concepts and ideas which are applicable to design. The characteristics of neighbourhood centres are then classified into three categories called functional, perceptual and operational. These categories embody different sections which are separately studied among the literature and design principles are derived out of the writings and presented at the end of each section. Finally, a provisional list of principles is developed as the result of the literature review. The survey is designed to examine the above principles in the real world in two contrasting neighbourhood centres in Tehran. Face-to-face interviews with the residents of the neighbourhoods, together with the observation of cases, comprise the research instruments. The interviews are based on qualitative open-ended questions in order to find out the characteristics of the centres which the residents mostly appreciated or disliked. A checklist is formulated to explore design factors out of the survey responses. The design principles resulting from the survey are then compared with the initial list. The outcome of the research is the final list of generic principles which draws together the results of the literature investigation and the survey. These principles are primarily aimed at those directly engaged in the design of neighbourhood centres such as architects and urban designers. It also includes information for the management body of the centres. For the ease of users the principles are classified into ten sections under the three main categories mentioned above. Along with the above results, there are some secondary findings about the respondents' differences in perception and evaluation of their neighbourhood centre which are presented in the concluding chapter of the thesis. The study intends to decrease the gap between theoretical research and practical work by presenting design principles, extracted from the conceptual theories, that can be easily used by designers. Based on both theoretical and empirical approaches, it also helps to draw attention to the importance of neighbourhood centres in enhancing the quality of day-to-day lives of the city inhabitants.

Tsirelson space is a reflexive, separable Banach space constructed by Boris Tsirelson to be the first example of a Banach space that does not contain an isomorphic copy of the sequence spaces c_0 or l_p for 1\leqslant p

This document, in conjunction with the body of work within the exhibition The Apparatus, challenges the dichotomy of practical and theoretical definitions of utility. Presented in two opposing formats, the work within this thesis attempts to re-examine the concept of utility as a spectrum, rather than in the binary structure of the practical (functional) and theoretical (aesthetical) methods of encounter. / October 2016

Programme in Advanced Mathematics of Finance, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. / Peng introduced a typical ltration consistent nonlinear expectation, called a g-expectation in [40]. It satis es all properties of the classical mathematical expectation besides the linearity. Peng's conditional g-expectation is a solution to a backward stochastic di erential equation (BSDE) within the classical framework of It^o's calculus, with terminal condition given at some xed time T. In addition, this g-expectation is uniquely speci ed by a real function g satisfying certain properties. Many properties of the g-expectation, which will be presented, follow from the speci cation of this function. Martingales, super- and submartingales have been de ned in the nonlinear setting of g-expectations. Consequently, a nonlinear Doob-Meyer decomposition theorem was proved. Applications of g-expectations in the mathematical nancial world have also been of great interest. g-Expectations have been applied to the pricing of contingent claims in the nancial market, as well as to risk measures. Risk measures were introduced to quantify the riskiness of any nancial position. They also give an indication as to which positions carry an acceptable amount of risk and which positions do not. Coherent risk measures and convex risk measures will be examined. These risk measures were extended into a nonlinear setting using the g-expectation. In many cases due to intermediate cash ows, we want to work with a multi-period, dynamic risk measure. Conditional g-expectations were then used to extend dynamic risk measures into the nonlinear setting. The Choquet expectation, introduced by Gustave Choquet, is another nonlinear expectation. An interesting question which is examined, is whether there are incidences when the g-expectation and the Choquet expectation coincide.

This dissertation follows the history of functional ideas and their pedagogy, illuminates with many examples the implementation of my updated system of Functional Analysis, and discusses the pedagogical implications that this updated system implies. The main goal is to update a system of labeling to be as pedagogically friendly as possible, in order to assist students and teachers of harmony to more easily and enjoyably learn, teach, and engage with common-practice tonal harmonic practice. Example syllabi, assignments, classroom demonstrations, and long projects are also included, and each aspect of the labeling is carefully discussed as it is presented. By surveying the history of functional thinking in music theory, we find that desire to analyze for function is not a new idea, and has been a goal of many theorists and harmony teachers for centuries. However, the current methods for instructing in function still leave students confused or baffled, as they struggle to match functional concepts to labels that do not exemplify their analysis goals and methods that insist on starting from tiny detail instead of coming from a more complete musical perspective. The elaboration of each detail of my Functional Analysis system shows how each part of Functional Analysis has been designed to help make harmonic analysis quicker, easier, more intuitive, and more personalized. The greater pedagogical implications on a larger scale involving courses and curricula are also covered, informed by my experience both as a teacher of today’s standard system and from teaching Functional Analysis in the classroom.

Little is known, from a clinical perspective, about the use of wrist motion during daily living activities. This work aimed to identify an informative list of physical tasks that could be measured practically in a clinical setting. <br /> Measurement methods including data gloves were investigated, but these were not used for reasons of practicality and accuracy. A commercial electrogoniometer system was chosen and used to measure wrist motion in flexion/extension and radial/ulnar deviation planes while eighteen right-handed, healthy, volunteer subjects (twelve male and six female, aged 23 to 56 years, mean 29.9 years) carried out mock-ups of the twelve everyday tasks listed in the Michigan Hand Questionnaire. <br /> The 2-plane data from each task-measurement test were displayed on an angle-angle scatter plot, overlaid with an elliptical, estimated maximum-motion envelope. <br /> The mean ranges of motion, averaged over all eighteen subjects, varied widely between tasks: 1.3° of flexion/extension (S.D. 1.49°) and 1.4° of radial/ulnar deviation (S.D. 2.10°) were seen while holding a glass of water, and corresponding values of 61.4° (S.D. 12.1°) and 24.3° (S.D. 7.79°) while buttoning a shirt. Frequency plots were also generated to show which wrist positions were most commonly used during the tasks. <br /> Qualitative and quantitative methods were used to reduce the original task list to just four tasks which represented a wide range of aspects of wrist motion, including large mean ranges of motion and mean locations that were displaced away from the neutral wrist position. <br /> These four short-listed tasks (holding a frying pan, turning a key in a lock, holding a glass of water and buttoning a shirt) could all be carried out whilst seated, with little reliance on other physiological joints and with low-cost props. <br /> The overall approach described in this thesis could be refined into a useful clinical tool, either for identifying motion impairments tracking individual patients’ progress. In particular, the use of the elliptical estimated motion envelopes gave immediate and useful context to the task data.