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The current research explored the thesis that cognitive self-recognition might have an executive function in 3- and 4-year-olds. Although it is well established that children recognise themselves in mirrors by the end of infancy, the cognitive and behavioural impact of this capacity has yet to be elucidated. Experiments 1 to 6 showed that preschool children could form and maintain a cognitive link between the self and external stimuli, as a result of which, self-referent stimuli were given mnemonic priority. Experiments 4 to 8 indicated that in tasks involving self-recognition, 3- and 4-year-olds’ ability to process other-referent stimuli was compromised by self-focus. Finally, Experiments 9 and 10 demonstrated that mirror self-recognition increased preschoolers’ tendency to self-regulate, leading them to behave in line with socially accepted standards. Together, these experiments provide novel evidence to confirm that cognitive self-recognition has a role in preschoolers’ performance on tasks requiring memory, attention, inhibition, and planning. This implies that when salient, the self may become the ultimate executer of behaviour. By observing 3- and 4-year-olds’ differential processing of self- and other-referent stimuli we infer the existence of a functionally active, self-reflective agent. Moreover, the role of the self is temporally extended, influencing children’s cognition and behaviour in the past (Experiment 1 to 3), present (Experiments 4 to 8) and future (Experiments 9 to 10). This implies that preschool children may have developed the foundations necessary to build the experience of personal identity.

Thesis (M.A.)--Miami University, Dept. of Communication, 2008. / Title from first page of PDF document. Includes bibliographical references (p. 72-79).

This study is set in the broad context of the changing world of work that is characterised by the dissolution of full-time stable employment and the emergence of precarious, insecure forms of work (see e.g. Gorz, 1999, Hardt and Negri, 2005, Huws, 2016, Lorey, 2015, Ross, 2003, Ross, 2009, Smith, 2001, Standing, 2011). As a response to these labour market uncertainties a growing number of individuals are managing multiple areas of the self as part of their work or occupation. This trend has been termed 'the new worker-subjectivity' or 'the entrepreneurial self' that is formed through practices of self-management (Bührmann, 2005, Lorey, 2009). Despite increasing awareness of the emergence of the entrepreneurial worker-subjectivity, research into practices of self-management has only focused on occupational groups in formal work. Knowledge about the trend in the context of virtual workers who operate outside of conventional working relations and have no publicly recognised work identity is largely missing. In order to address this gap, this study explores how entrepreneurial worker-subjectivities manifest in professional online poker players as an emerging online occupation. It investigates how these workers manage themselves in the absence of formal organisational control and socially recognised occupational norms, and asks what are the effects of this self-management on the quality of their working lives? The study is based on 39 in-depth interviews with people involved in online poker or other similar activities such as online gaming or trading. The interviews were conducted either face-to-face in Estonia, Bulgaria, Romania and UK or over Skype between December 2012 and May 2014. The study develops an analytical framework for researching entrepreneurial worker-subjectivities in the context of an emerging occupation and a three-stage-model of the trajectory that provides a basis for exploring the career paths of professional online poker players. Using these framework, the study finds that professional online poker players manage various areas of the self by following informal occupational rules and that their sense of professionalism is largely derived from various practices of self-management that help them distinguish from recreational players. The study also discovers conflicting relations of autonomy and control among the workers and a range of negative effects that self-management practices have on professional online poker players. It concludes that professional online poker is not a sustainable long-term career option. These findings contribute to a better understanding of virtual work, the emergence of online poker playing as a form of work and the development of the entrepreneurial worker-subjectivity.

Submitted by Oliveira Santos Dilzaná (dilznana@yahoo.com.br) on 2017-01-20T15:20:50Z No. of bitstreams: 1 tese de Marcio Santana da Silva.pdf: 14516799 bytes, checksum: 7a269cc207741c949b4f201da7ec1baf (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Oliveira Santos Dilzaná (dilznana@yahoo.com.br) on 2017-01-20T15:22:46Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 tese de Marcio Santana da Silva.pdf: 14516799 bytes, checksum: 7a269cc207741c949b4f201da7ec1baf (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-01-20T15:22:46Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 tese de Marcio Santana da Silva.pdf: 14516799 bytes, checksum: 7a269cc207741c949b4f201da7ec1baf (MD5) / CAPES, FAPESB / Este estudo teve como objetivo principal compreender os processos afetivo-semióticos através dos quais mães que perderam filhos por motivos de morte violenta (homicídio) integram tal evento traumático ao senso de self, enfatizando-se os processos de emergência e mediação semiótica, bem como a organização semiótica das experiências afetivas. A fundamentação teórica do presente estudo é constituída por conceitos da psicologia cultural de orientação semiótica, bem como pela teoria do self dialógico. Da psicologia semiótico-cultural, os principais construtos teóricos articulados neste estudo foram: signos (tipos e funcionamento em processos psicológicos), sínteses pessoais, sistemas semióticos pessoais, mediação semiótica, condições de emergência semiótica e organização semiótica da experiência afetiva. Este estudo de caso descritivo e de cunho predominantemente instrumental foi desenvolvido no bairro de Plataforma, área integrante do Subúrbio Ferroviário de Salvador, Bahia, e é integrado por dois casos: o da participante Rebeca (41 anos de idade), que havia tido três filhos jovens assassinados quando de sua participação neste estudo e o outro, da participante Helena (52 anos de idade), com dois filhos jovens vítimas de homicídio à época de sua participação no estudo - a primeira participante apresentou uma integração minimamente satisfatória das perdas traumáticas ao seu senso de self, o que não ocorreu no caso de Helena. Os dados foram coletados através de uma entrevista narrativa, seguida de entrevistas semi-estruturadas e, ao fim, uma entrevista conversacional com cada participante separadamente. A análise de dados seguiu, em termos gerais, um modelo categorial baseado em episódios caracterizados como eventos ambivalentes; ademais, a análise priorizou os conteúdos compartilhados pelas participantes, embora a forma de construção de tais conteúdos tenha sido eventualmente considerada nas análises, sendo cada caso analisado separadamente. Dentre os achados, aqueles relacionados à integração pessoal da perda podem ser assim sumarizados: sínteses afetivo-semióticas pessoais (como a posição de eu pessoa forte, por exemplo), oriundas de problemáticas envolvendo elementos centrais da experiência de luto, foram fundamentadas em elementos da história de vida da mãe enlutada interconectados com elementos da história pessoal do filho falecido; nesse sentido, o foco da mãe enlutada recaiu sobre elementos das histórias de vida (sua e do filho) que haviam promovida a trajetória a qual resultaria, por fim, na morte do filho. Além disso, mesmo quando satisfatórias e funcionais (a partir da avaliação da própria participante), tais síntese foram caracterizadas como construções afetivo-semióticas complexas e integradas por elementos mantenedores de ambivalência, a partir de um catalisador semiótico internamente ambivalente. Com relação ao caso de não integração da perda ao senso de self, destacou-se uma série de mecanismos envolvendo tentativas de circunvenção do direcionamento social rígido das experiências afetivas de pesar e luto, dentre os quais pode-se destacar: compressão semiótica da experiência afetiva, através da contextualização de signos afetivamente relevantes e de funcionamento automático; reorganização do campo afetivo através da valoração dos afetos experienciados; e, por fim, condição errática de emergência semiótica mediada por signos fortes. Em ambos os casos, destacou-se uma ênfase pessoal intensificada na organização semiótica das experiências afetivas em relação com o rígido direcionamento social de tal organização. This case study aimed at understanding how bereaved mothers who have lost young children to homicide integrate such traumatic losses to their sense of self through affective-semiotic processes. Semiotic construction and mediation as well as semiotic organization of affective experiences are main general processes which were emphasized in this study, whose theoretical framework is that of a cultural psychology os semiotic orientation as well as the dialogical self theory. The main theoretical constructs from semiotic cultural psychology which were contextualized in this study are: signs (types and their functioning in psychological processes); personal syntheses; personal semiotic systems; conditions of semiotic emergence and semiotic mediation; and semiotic organization of affective experiences. The present descriptive case study of predominantly instrumental interest was developed in Plataforma area, in Subúrbio Ferroviário de Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, being composed by two single cases: Rebeca’s (41 years old) and Helena (52 years old). Rebeca had lost three young adult male children when she participated in the study and she presented a minimally satisfactory integration of the losses to her sense of self; Helena, who had lost two young adult children (a son and a daughter) at the time of her participation in the study, did not presented such a subjective integration as Rebeca did, still facing difficulties in constructing personally integrated meanings regarding her losses (mainly related to her deceased daughter). The data collecting procedures included a narrative interview, followed by semistructured interview and, finally, a conversational interview, being the participants interviewed individually. Data analysis followed a categorical model, focusing in episodes characterized as ambivalent situations; furthermore, the analysis also focused on the contents shared by the participants, being the form through which such contents emerged occasionally taken into consideration during the process of data analysis. Among the main findings related to Rebeca’s case, the following ones stood out: personal affective-semiotic syntheses (such as I-as-strong person), which originated from issues related to central elements of the grieving experience, wered founded upon elements of the bereaved mother’s personal trajectory intertwined with elements of the deceased sons’ personal trajectories; in this sense, the bereaved mother focused on personal life trajectories (hers and her sons’ in relation to social others) which had promoted the sons’ trajectories that ultimately led to their deaths. Besides, even when the personal syntheses were considered functional and satisfactory by the participant, such syntheses were characterized as manifold affective-semiotic constructions which were made up by ambivalence-laden elements. In such cases, the very semiotic catalyzer element was considered ambivalence-filled as well. As for Helena’s case, in which no relevant integration of the losses was presented, a series of semiotic mechanisms which involved attempts to circumvent the strict social direction of her affective experience was explored, of which the following stood out: semiotic-mediated constriction of the affective experience, through the contextualization of signs which were affectively relevant (i.e. to which the participant was affectively sensitive) and of automatic functioning; reorganization of the affective experience through valuation of the affective field; and erratic condition of semiotic emergence through contextulization of strong signs. In both cases, it was identified an intensified personal emphasis on the personal semiotic counter-organization of the affective experience in opposition to the strict social direction towards it.

Amidst the wild west of user authentication, this study introduces a new sheriff in town: the Self-Sovereign Authentication Scheme (SSASy). Traditional authentication methods, like passwords, are often fraught with usability and security concerns, leading users to find workaround ways that compromise the intended security. Federated Identities (FI) offer a convenient alternative, yet, they infringe on users' sovereignty over their identity and lead to privacy concerns. To address these challenges, this study proposes SSASy, which leverages cryptography and browser technology to provide a sovereign, usable, and secure alternative to the existing user authentication schemes. The proposal, which is a proof-of-concept, is comprised of a core library, which provides the authentication protocol to developers, and a browser extension that simplifies the authentication process for users. SSASy is available as an open-source project on GitHub for practical demonstration on multiple browser stores, bringing our theoretical study into the realm of tangible, real-world application. SSASy is evaluated and compared to existing authentication schemes using the "Usability-Deployability-Security" (UDS) framework. The results demonstrate that, although other authentication schemes may excel in a specific dimension, SSASy delivers a more balanced performance across the three dimensions which makes it a promising alternative.

This study investigated how the image of Black criminality in the media affects the racial identity and emotions of Blacks. It also examined how the image of White criminality affects the racial identity and emotions of Whites as a point of comparison. These effects were studied through the lens of self-categorization theory and inter-group emotions theory. SCT posits that a person*s biases are a result of how relevant their social identity is to their self-concept. IET posits that the emotions a person feels are derived from the social group they belong to. This study analyzed 369 responses from participants who were presented with Twitter news pages that presented all Black crime stories, all White crime stories, or negative (no race) stories. Findings showed that both Blacks and Whites decreased self-categorization with their race after viewing same-race criminality news stories. It also found that emotions were affected by content of the newsfeed. Lastly, the study found significant differences in self-categorization based on level of identification.

No description available.

The main focus of this thesis is applied research targeting industrial applications of Usage Control (UCON) and policy-based governance. Nonetheless, we also tackle an associated core problem to address the diverse requirements of the targeted application domains. The core research problem is three-fold. (1) UCON enacts usage control in a fixed life cycle of three temporal phases: pre, ongoing and post. However, emerging security paradigms require custom and finer-grained lifecycles with phases and transitions tailored for the application domain. For example, data hub applications entail data-oriented usage control throughout the different stages of the data lifecycle (e.g., collection, retention, processing and destruction). Therefore, policy systems must enable custom lifecycles to accommodate a wide variety of applications. (2) Although UCON allows attribute values to change and updates usage decisions accordingly, it does not specify a mechanism to govern attribute values. This becomes necessary in decentralised environments where attributes are collected from external parties that are not necessarily trusted. For this reason, policy systems must incorporate a mechanism to govern attributes, prepare them for policy evaluation and ensure their trustworthiness. (3) Due to its widespread adoption, UCON has been extended and adapted for diverse purposes, leading to a proliferation of frameworks. While these variations added significant contributions in their respective fields, they lack comprehensiveness and generality. Therefore, a unified solution is needed to encompass the existing variations of UCON as well as future applications. By addressing these core problems, we aim to leverage policy-based governance in the following four industrial applications: (1) Industrial/International Data Spaces (IDS), (2) data hubs, (3) smart vehicles, and (4) credential transformation.To address these challenges and fulfil our applied research goals, we present six contributions in this thesis. (1) We propose UCON+: an extensible model that extends beyond traditional access and usage control providing a comprehensive framework for policy-based governance. UCON+ builds on the same foundations of UCON, making it an attribute-based model that incorporates continuous monitoring and policy re-evaluation. However, it only defines general structures and common functions, and outlines extensible behaviour to be implemented by concrete extensions. Specifically, UCON+ allows concrete extensions to govern attribute values and updates, and to specify custom lifecycles tailored for their respective requirements. (2) We introduce a general-purpose policy engine that implements the UCON+ model. The engine conserves an Attribute-Based Access Control (ABAC) baseline using a standard policy language. The policy engine also introduces another type of policies used to govern attribute values, and to define and drive custom lifecycles. Thus, different extensions of UCON+ can be realised within the same policy engine using policies, eliminating the need for reimplementation. The policy engine leverages a modular architecture with an optimised implementation. (3) We demonstrate the use of the policy engine in a cloud service that provides an IDS for contract-based data exchange. We specifically used the policy engine and designed a custom lifecycle to govern and drive the contract negotiation between the data provider and data consumer using policies. We also used the policy engine to govern data usage based on the negotiated data sharing agreement. (4) We also showcase the policy engine in a data hub setting, where we leveraged it to track and govern data objects throughout their lifecycles. We designed a lifecycle that captures the different stages of the data lifecycle based on the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). We show how data usage is controlled at each stage of the lifecycle using policies. (5) We present a dynamic identity management and usage control framework for smart vehicles using the policy engine. We specifically introduce a policy-based Security Token Service (STS) that issues contextualised capabilities that specify what subjects are allowed to do within the vehicle. The STS also manages the capabilities throughout their lifecycles and revokes them if the corresponding policies are violated, while also taking safety measures into consideration. (6) Finally, we describe an application of the policy engine for policy-based credential transformation. Specifically, we introduce a policy-based credential bridge that exchanges, aggregates or maps credentials between different domains or regulatory frameworks. The bridge uses policies that specify how to transform or issue credentials according to the requirements of each domain.

Anotation: Špidlová, Z.: Clothing as a means for self-identification and self-representation and possible didactic applications of the theme in art education. [Diploma thesis] Prague, 2013 - Charles University in Prague, Faculty of Education, Art education, 224 p. (Attachements: Diary and file documenting the art part of diploma thesis) This thesis examines the phenomenon of clothing, its semiotic function in the context of postmodern society and social aspects with emphasis on identification with a particular social group. The research brings knowledge about two groups, their clothing and social contexts. The groups are the costume culture of the Alto Minho in Portugal and the goth subculture. The results of the research are directly connected to the art part, the output of which is a clothing model combining elements of both of these groups. Didactic section presents findings on the diversity of interpretation of students from the seventh grade of basic school and the second year of middle school when dealing with the topic of identity and subculture applied on clothing. Key words: clothes, identity, self-presentation, self-identification, subculture, materials creation, postmodern society, art education