Previous research on the weapon focus effect indicates that schematic knowledge plays a large role in adult witnesses' ability to recall details of a crime. This study investigated whether the weapon focus effect would be found in young children (4- and 5- year-olds), whose schemas are less developed than those of adults. An experiment was conducted in which adults and children viewed a videotape depicting a male target stealing money from a woman's purse. In the four conditions, the target's apparent occupation and the objects that he held were manipulated, so that only one condition depicted a schema inconsistency between his occupation and the object. After watching the videotape, the participants were interviewed for details regarding the target's physical appearance and the object. As predicted, the schema inconsistency resulted in decreased recall accuracy for both children and adults. These results suggest that the weapon focus effect can be generalized to young children and that their eyewitness accounts are similar to those of adults. Additionally, adults recalled a significantly greater number of details than did the children, which was also predicted. It was interesting and unexpected to find that overall. adults recalled significantly more accurate descriptions than the children. This finding was contradictory to the results of some previous studies on eyewitness memory. / Department of Psychological Science

The effect of a weapon on memory accuracy for children and adults was examined. One-hundred eighty-six participants (87 7- and 8-year-old children and 99 college undergraduates) viewed one of four videotaped scenes in which a target individual committed a crime while carrying either a weapon that was consistent or inconsistent with his schema role or a neutral non-weapon that was consistent with his role. Participants were individually interviewed about the target's physical appearance. The results indicated that participants of both age groups were less accurate when the target individual carried a weapon that was inconsistent rather than consistent with his schema role. The results also indicated that adults were more accurate overall than children. These findings are consistent with previous findings on weapon focus effect and add to our knowledge of the development of memory. / Department of Psychological Science

La disponibilité de gros volumes de données structurées selon le modèle Resource Description Framework (RDF) est en constante augmentation. Cette situation implique un intérêt scientifique et un besoin important de rechercher de nouvelles méthodes d’analyse et de compilation de requêtes pour tirer le meilleur parti de l’extraction de données RDF. SPARQL est le plus utilisé et le mieux supporté des langages de requêtes sur des données RDF. En parallèle des langages de requêtes, les langages de définition de schéma d’expression de contraintes sur des jeux de données RDF ont également évolués. Les Shape Expressions (ShEx) sont de plus en plus utilisées pour valider des données RDF et pour indiquer les motifs de graphes attendus. Les schémas sont importants pour les tâches d’analyse statique telles que l’optimisation ou l’injection de requêtes. Notre intention est d’examiner les moyens et méthodologies d’analyse statique et d’optimisation de requêtes associés à des contraintes de schéma.Notre contribution se divise en deux grandes parties. Dans la première, nous considérons le problème de l’injection de requêtes SPARQL en présence de contraintes ShEx. Nous proposons une procédure rigoureuse et complète pour le problème de l’injection de requêtes avec ShEx, en prenant en charge plusieurs fragments de SPARQL. Plus particulièrement, notre procédure gère les patterns de requêtes OPTIONAL, qui s’avèrent former un important fonctionnalité à étudier avec les schémas. Nous fournissons ensuite les limites de complexité de notre problème en considération des fragments gérés. Nous proposons également une méthode alternative pour l’injection de requêtes SPARQL avec ShEx. Celle-ci réduit le problème à une satisfiabilité de Logique de Premier Ordre, qui permet de considérer une extension du fragment SPARQL traité par la première méthode. Il s’agit de la première étude traitant l’injection de requêtes SPARQL en présence de contraintes ShEx.Dans la seconde partie de nos contributions, nous proposons une méthode d’analyse pour optimiser l’évaluation de requêtes SPARQL groupées, sur des graphes RDF, en tirant avantage des contraintes ShEx. Notre optimisation s’appuie sur le calcul et l’assignation de rangs aux triple patterns d’une requête, permettant de déterminer leur ordre d’exécution. La présence de jointures intermédiaires entre ces patterns est la raison pour laquelle l’ordonnancement est important pour gagner en efficicacité. Nous définissons un ensemble de schémas ShEx bien- formulés, qui possède d’intéressantes caractéristiques pour l’optimisation de requêtes SPARQL. Nous développons ensuite notre méthode d’optimisation par l’exploitation d’informations extraites d’un schéma ShEx. Enfin, nous rendons compte des résultats des évaluations effectuées, montrant les avantages de l’application de notre optimisation face à l’état de l’art des systèmes d’évaluation de requêtes. / Data structured in the Resource Description Framework (RDF) are increasingly available in large volumes. This leads to a major need and research interest in novel methods for query analysis and compilation for making the most of RDF data extraction. SPARQL is the widely used and well supported standard query language for RDF data. In parallel to query language evolutions, schema languages for expressing constraints on RDF datasets also evolve. Shape Expressions (ShEx) are increasingly used to validate RDF data, and to communicate expected graph patterns. Schemas in general are important for static analysis tasks such as query optimisation and containment. Our purpose is to investigate the means and methodologies for SPARQL query static analysis and optimisation in the presence of ShEx schema constraints.Our contribution is mainly divided into two parts. In the first part we consider the problem of SPARQL query containment in the presence of ShEx constraints. We propose a sound and complete procedure for the problem of containment with ShEx, considering several SPARQL fragments. Particularly our procedure considers OPTIONAL query patterns, that turns out to be an important feature to be studied with schemas. We provide complexity bounds for the containment problem with respect to the language fragments considered. We also propose alternative method for SPARQL query containment with ShEx by reduction into First Order Logic satisfiability, which allows for considering SPARQL fragment extension in comparison to the first method. This is the first work addressing SPARQL query containment in the presence of ShEx constraints.In the second part of our contribution we propose an analysis method to optimise the evaluation of conjunctive SPARQL queries, on RDF graphs, by taking advantage of ShEx constraints. The optimisation is based on computing and assigning ranks to query triple patterns, dictating their order of execution. The presence of intermediate joins between the query triple patterns is the reason why ordering is important in increasing efficiency. We define a set of well-formed ShEx schemas, that possess interesting characteristics for SPARQL query optimisation. We then develop our optimisation method by exploiting information extracted from a ShEx schema. We finally report on evaluation results performed showing the advantages of applying our optimisation on the top of an existing state-of-the-art query evaluation system.

In order to grow and survive, a firm must create value with consumers in ways that both fit in with consumer demands and stand out from competitors. Focusing on and understanding consumer and firm assessments of value and creation of value has become a central scope in the contemporary strategic management and marketing literature for understanding and explaining firm survival and success. Consequently, the overall aim of this thesis is to provide a conceptually and empirically grounded understanding of consumers’ and managers’ value assessments and behavior in value creation. This thesis draws on a consumer experience perspective and theories on social construction, organizational identity, self-congruence, and the theory of attractive quality, and combines multiple qualitative and quantitative studies. The findings in this thesis shed light on the interplay between consumers, firms, and contextual structures in value creation. Contextual structural, cultural, and political forces are shown to affect and be affected by the shared and individual cognitions of value creation that firms and consumers use in their assessment and creation value. The results of the study enhance the understanding of how firms can adopt various strategic schemas or organizing logics to optimize different types of use value creation when choosing between opposing and contradictive demands in their value creation. Furthermore, the thesis provides a deeper understanding of the hierarchical nature of consumer judgments of value that can be used to enhance the effectiveness of firm prioritizations and as a foundation for future value-creating strategies.

Thesis (MSc)--Stellenbosch University, 2001. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: In response to increased focus on schemas within cognitive therapy and specifically in the treatment of personality disorders, Young developed an instrument to measure early maladaptive schemas, the Young Schema Questionnaire (YSQ). The statistical properties of this measure have been investigated, and due to its length, a shortened version was developed (the YSQ-S). In the present study the factor structure of the YSQ-S was investigated in a group of South African undergraduate psychology students (N = 300). In contrast with the findings of the studies done on the YSQ, 14 of Young's 15 schemas were identified as factors in the YSQ-S, corresponding largely with the theoretically underlying structure. A higher order factor analysis solution was also found to resemble the structure proposed by Young. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die groter fokus op skemas binne die kognitiewe terapie, veral met betrekking tot die behandeling van persoonlikheidsversteurings, het daartoe gelei dat Young 'n meetmiddel, naamlik die Young Schema Questionnaire (YSQ), ontwikkel het om vroeë wanaangepaste skemas ("early maladaptive schemas") te meet. Die statistiese eienskappe van hierdie meetmiddel is reeds nagevors, en as gevolg van die lengte van hierdie meetmiddel, is 'n verkorte weergawe daarvan ontwikkel (YSQ-S). In die huidige studie is die faktoriale struktuur van die YSQ-S by 'n groep Suid Afrikaanse voorgraadse sielkunde studente (N = 300) ondersoek. In teenstelling met die bevindings van vroeëre studies op die YSQ, is 14 van die 15 van Young se skemas as faktore by die YSQ-S geïdentifiseer, wat grootliks ooreengestem het met die teoreties gekonseptualiseerde onderligende struktuur. Die oplossing van 'n hoër-ordefaktorontleding het ook ooreengestem met die struktuur wat deur Young voorgestel is.

In the present work we study conceptual modeling of business ar- tifacts and their implementation in Active XML. Business artifacts are key con- ceptual entities of business processes that develop in their lifecycle during these processes. There are several possible methods for definition of artifact lifecycles. In this work, we make use of emerging method called Guard-Stage-Milestone meta- model and we study the question on how to appropriately use and extend current framework for conceptual modeling of XML schemas in order to support modeling of business artifacts. We also deal with the issue of design of suitable represen- tation of business artifacts using Active XML. Last but not least, we study the question how to translate defined model into proposed Active XML representation, so that it was possible to immediately use and demonstrate functionality of defined model. Important part of this work is an implementation of proposed extension and a prototype implementation of system for execution of Active XML repre- sentations of translated models. The present work also introduces the reader in individual used concepts and describes similar existing approach for Active XML representation of business artifacts. 1

Les travaux effectués dans ma thèse portent sur la discrétisation de processus dans un domaine et sur les méthodes numériques probabilistes pour les EDP paraboliques quasilinéaires. En ce qui concerne le premier sujet, nous avons d'abord montré un résultat d'encadrement de l'erreur faible associée à un processus de diffusion hypoelliptique tué approché par son schéma d'Euler tué à temps discret, cf. Chapitre 1. Ensuite, dans le cadre non markovien des processus d'Itô, nous avons obtenu une borne pour l'erreur faible associée à la discrétisation du temps de sortie à l'aide de techniques originales de martingales, cf. Chapitre 2. Nous avons enfin, dans le cas particulier du mouvement Brownien dans un orthant, obtenu un développement de l'erreur et une méthode d'accélération de la convergence basée sur une correction adéquate du domaine, cf. Chapitre 3. Par rapport au deuxième sujet, nous avons proposé un algorithme probabiliste simple à implémenter pour approcher la solution d'EDP paraboliques quasilinéaires et nous avons établi sa vitesse de convergence. Cette méthode consiste à discrétiser l'équation différentielle stochastique progressive rétrograde (EDSPR) qui permet de donner une représentation probabiliste de l'EDP, cf. Chapitre 4.

“After the group had played [improvisation] game[s]…colours became brighter, people and spaces seem of a different size, focus is sharper. Our normal thinking dulls perception…” Keith Johnstone (1979, pg. 131) Improvisation is considered to be both the process and product of creativity. It involves the creation of new ideas, on the spur of the moment that are novel and unplanned. Spontaneity, the ability to do something on the spot with no prior preparation is seen as a key element of improvisation and distinction in relation to creativity. The process of improvisation involves thinking in different ways and as a result, could influence our thought processes. It is important to note here that while we are interested in the process of improvisation, it is only possible to measure this through the product. The product is therefore seen as a direct outcome of the process of thinking that occurs during improvisation. It has been suggested that improvisation could relate to cognitive processes (Karakelle, 2009; Schmidt, Goforth & Drew, 1975; Scott, Harris & Rothe, 2001). This program of research therefore aims to identify the cognitive changes in relation to the process of improvisation. This is measured by looking at cognitive tasks pre and post improvisation. Several studies were therefore conducted investigating the effects of improvisation on various cognitive abilities, with a focus on differences between divergent and convergent thinking; (i) the Effect of Verbal Improvisation on Mood, Creativity and Cognition; (ii) verbal improvisation in relation to divergent and convergent thinking; (iii) dance improvisation in relation to divergent and convergent thinking; (iv) Divergent thinking; Differences among expert and novice improvisers and (v) length of Treatment; Cognitive effects following a shorter improvisation treatment length. As a result of the above experiments, results were extended to a clinical sample of Parkinson’s disease. An extensive investigation was also carried out investigating the scoring of method of the Alternative Uses Task (AUT; Guilford, 1957b). Furthermore, the level of cognitive load as a result of improvisation was investigated by observing gesture in improvisation. Taken together, results showed that after a series of verbal improvisation activities, participants improved in scores of divergent thinking tasks. However, this was not observed in scores of convergent thinking tasks. Issues surrounding reliability of the scoring method of the AUT were also discussed. However, this did not affect the consistency of the results observed in this program of research. A theory of schemas was applied to the process of improvisation as a result of the cognitive changes that occured, such that improvisation helps people think in more original and flexible ways by improving access to schemas and working memory.

Since 2008 the prevalence rate of anxiety disorders has increased to 15,8%, thus putting them as the most prevalent class of psychiatric disorders in South Africa. This research firstly aimed to examine the relationship between Young’s Early Maladaptive Schemas (EMS) and four patterns of anxiety. The dimensions of anxiety included test anxiety, social anxiety, generalized anxiety and trait anxiety. Secondly, it aimed to examine the relationship between early maladaptive schemas and perceived parental rearing styles, as these are believed to influence an individual’s susceptibility to developing the early maladaptive schemas. The interest of the study centered on the student population of the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal (UKZN-PMB) as these dimensions were correctly thought to be prevalent in a student sample. The research utilised three questionnaires: firstly, a multidimensional anxiety scale; Young’s Schema Questionnaire (YSQ-S) and the Egna Minnen Betraffande Uppfostran (EMBU-s): (My Memories of My Upbringing). The results of this study established that test anxiety correlated well with the EMS of achievement, that social anxiety correlated well with EMS of self-evaluation, and generalized anxiety was found to correlate with specific EMS that could be the direct focus of excessive worry for university students. Finally, trait anxiety was found to be all encompassing and pervasive with it having the most significant and highest correlations with more EMS. The results regarding the perceived parental rearing behaviours found that the higher the levels of perceived parental rejection and overprotection, and lower levels of emotional warmth, the more inclined an individual is to develop an EMS. In conclusion, this study demonstrates the role that maladaptive cognitive schemas play in developing anxiety as well as the role that perceived parental rearing behaviours play in an individual developing an early maladaptive schema. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2013.

Fred Dretske (1981) claimed that the essence of the kind of cognitive activity that gives rise to Intentional mental states is a process by which the analogue information coming from a source-object is transformed into digital form. It is this analogue-to-digital conversion of data that enables us to form concepts of things. But this achievement comes with a cost, since the conversion must involve a loss of information. The price we pay for the lost information is a proportional diminishment in our ability to discriminate the source-object from others that may be similar to it. I argue that this fact underlies an important distinction between what a mental state may be about and to what the state may be directed, Aboutness and directedness are two of four Intentional dimensions on which this project concentrates. The other two are aspectual shape and misrepresentation. The distinction between aboutness and directedness is a part of a proposed approach to Intentionality based on the script theory of Roger Schank and Robert Abelson (1977). Scripts are schemata—organized knowledge structures that guide our understanding of the world around us. Schank and Abelson's basic ideas are extended to yield four different script-types: episodic (related to situations and events), instrumental (related to procedural knowledge), personal (representing an agent's goals and plans), and definitional (involved in object-recognition). The relationship between scripts and the Intentionality of thought is the main focus of this dissertation. An important secondary concern is the viability of externalism and internalism. It is argued that neither of these attitudes is independently adequate to provide a full account of Intentional content. Rather, the proper approach is to confine externalistic influences to aboutness and then characterize directedness in a manner that captures the world-according-to-the-agent. This strategy is implemented in the following way: aboutness is construed causally-evolutionarily; directedness is constructed with the help of the notion of an equivalence class; aspectual shape is shown to be a function of the kind of information a script provides; and an account of misrepresentation is given by comparing the different extensions generated from aboutness and directedness respectively.