The thesis seeks to develop an account of collaborative activities within the framework of ecological realism—an approach to psychology developed by James J. Gibson in the course of work on visual perception. Two main questions are addressed; one ontological, and one methodological. The ontological question is: given that collaborative activities take place within an environment, what kinds of structure must this environment contain? The response emphasizes the importance of relations which exist between entities, and which connect a given perceiver-actor with the other objects and individuals in its surroundings, and with the relations between those entities. It is held that activities take place within a field of relations. This description draws on the radical empiricist doctrine that relations are real, are external, and are directly perceivable. The present proposal insists that, in addition to being directly perceivable, relations can also be directly acted upon: throwing a ball for a dog is acting on a relation between dog and ball in space. The relational field account of collaboration naturally extends to an account of speaking: people, through their history of acting in an environment populated by other speakers, come to stand in a set of relations with objects and events around them, and these relations can be directly acted upon by others through the use of verbal actions. Verbal actions serve to direct the attention of others to relevant aspects of the environment, and this allows us as speakers to coordinate and manage one another’s activity. The methodological question is this: granting that the environment may be structured as a field of relations, how are we to conduct our empirical investigations, such that we can ask precise questions which lead to useful insights about how a given collaborative activity is carried out in practice? The central issue here concerns the concept of the task. Psychologists are in the habit of using this term quite loosely, to denote the actions of an individual or a group, in a laboratory or outside. This creates confusion in discussions of collaborative phenomena: who is the agent of a ‘collaborative task’? The definition offered here states that a task is a researcher-defined unit of study that corresponds to a change in the structure of the environment that has a characteristic pattern and that is meaningful from the first-person perspective of a particular actor. On this definition, the task is a tool that allows ecological psychologists to carve up the problem space into specific, tractable questions; the task is the equivalent of the cognitivist’s mental module. Task-oriented psychology encourages us to ask the question: which specific resources is the individual making use of in controlling this particular activity? The methodology is developed through an examination of the alarm calling behaviour of vervet monkeys, which is explained in terms of actions on the relational field, and through an analysis of corpus data from a laboratory-based collaborative assembly game. The relational field model promises to provide a way of studying social and collaborative activities on ecological realist principles. The concluding chapter identifies two particular areas in which the model might fruitfully be developed: in the study of learning, and in the theory of designing objects and spaces for interaction.

Bakgrund: Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) är en motorisk koordinationsstörning som uppstår i tidig ålder. Det är vanligt att barn med diagnosen DCD undviker fysisk aktivitet, lek och även svårt att klara kraven inom skolidrotten. Interventioner med task-oriented approach har varit den behandling som främst rekommenderas för barn med DCD. De senaste åren har nyare interventioner inom task-oriented approach utvecklats och blivit allt mer populära. Syfte: Syftet med denna litteraturstudie har varit att undersöka evidensläget för behandlingsmetoder med task-oriented approach för barn med DCD och sammanställa dessa metoders effekter på balans, koordination och/eller fysisk aktivitet.  Metod: Arbetet utfördes som en narrativ litteraturstudie och en systematisk sökning efter relevanta studier genomfördes i databaserna PubMed, PEDro, Cochrane samt Cinahl. Studierna kvalitetsgranskades med PEDros granskningsmall och bedömning av evidensstyrka genomfördes med GRADEstud. Resultat: Nio studier med task-oriented approach inkluderades i studien. Artiklarnas kvalitet varierade mellan god, moderat och låg. Det sammanvägda resultatets evidensstyrka gällande effekt på balans och koordination med task-oriented approach graderades som mycket låg vid jämförelse med kontrollgrupp eller process-oriented approach och som låg vid jämförelse med annan task-oriented approach. Studiernas låga kvalitet, brist på poweranalyser samt heterogeniteten mellan interventionerna bedömdes vara orsaken till resultatet av evidensgraderingen. Konklusion: De inkluderade studierna har genomgående varit små och av varierande kvalitet. Mer forskning av hög kvalitet behövs för att kunna säkerställa en högre tillförlitlighet på effekten av task-oriented approach för barn med DCD. / Background: Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) is a motor coordination disorder that occurs at an early age. It is common for children with DCD to avoid physical activity due to their motor problems and they have difficulty meeting the demands of school sports. Interventions with a task-oriented approach have mainly been what is recommended for children with DCD. In recent years, newer interventions that fall into the task-oriented approach have become increasingly popular. Aim: The aim of this study was to investigate the scientific evidence of treatment methods with task-oriented approach for children with DCD and to summarize  the effects of these methods on balance, coordination and physical activity. Method: For this narrative literature study the search for relevant studies was conducted in the medical databases PubMed, PEDro, Cochrane and Cinahl. The quality was assessed with the PEDro scale and the reliability of the evidence was evaluated with GRADEstud.  Result: Nine studies were included in the study. The quality of the studies varied between good, moderate and low. The reliability of the results to the effect on balance and coordination was graded as very low and low. This was due to the low quality, lack of power analysis and heterogeneity in the interventions with task-oriented approach. Summary: The included studies are generally small and of varying quality. More high-quality research is needed to ensure a higher reliability of the effect of task-oriented approach for children with DCD.

No description available.

Task-oriented dialogue (ToD) systems need to interpret the user's input to understand the user's needs (intent) and corresponding relevant information (slots). This process is performed by a Natural Language Understanding (NLU) component, which maps the text utterance into a semantic frame representation, involving two subtasks: intent classification (text classification) and slot filling (sequence tagging). Typically, new domains and languages are regularly added to the system to support more functionalities. Collecting domain-specific data and performing fine-grained annotation of large amounts of data every time a new domain and language is introduced can be expensive. Thus, developing an NLU model that generalizes well across domains and languages with less labeled data (low-resource) is crucial and remains challenging. This thesis focuses on investigating transfer learning and data augmentation methods for low-resource NLU in ToD. Our first contribution is a study of the potential of non-conversational text as a source for transfer. Most transfer learning approaches assume labeled conversational data as the source task and adapt the NLU model to the target task. We show that leveraging similar tasks from non-conversational text improves performance on target slot filling tasks through multi-task learning in low-resource settings. Second, we propose a set of lightweight augmentation methods that apply data transformation on token and sentence levels through slot value substitution and syntactic manipulation. Despite its simplicity, the performance is comparable to deep learning-based augmentation models, and it is effective on six languages on NLU tasks. Third, we investigate the effectiveness of domain adaptive pre-training for zero-shot cross-lingual NLU. In terms of overall performance, continued pre-training in English is effective across languages. This result indicates that the domain knowledge learned in English is transferable to other languages. In addition to that, domain similarity is essential. We show that intermediate pre-training data that is more similar – in terms of data distribution – to the target dataset yields better performance.

Task-oriented dialogue systems are a popular way for organisations to generate extra value both internally and for customers. Modern approaches for these dialogue systems that use neural networks to enable training directly on written dialogues are very data hungry, which complicates their implementation. Crowdsourcing is an attractive solution for generating this type of training data, but the method also comes with several difficulties. We introduce a new method for generating training data based on parallel crowdsourcing of dialogues, as well as crowdsourced quality review. We use this method to collect a small dataset that takes place within the domain bus driver-traveler. We believe that this method offers an efficient way to collect new, high-quality datasets. Hybrid Code Networks is a model for dialogue systems that combines a neural network with domain-specific knowledge, and thus requires a significantly smaller amount of training data than other similar dialogue systems to achieve comparable performance. By combining Hybrid Code Networks with our new method for generating training data, we believe that the threshold for implementing task-oriented dialogue systems on domains with insufficient training data can be lowered. We implement Hybrid Code Networks and train the implementation on the collected dataset and achieve good results. / Uppgiftsorienterade dialogsystem är ett populärt sätt för företag att generera extra värde både internt och för kunder. Moderna modeller för dessa dialogsystem som använder neurala nätverk för att möjliggöra träning direkt på skriftliga dialoger är väldigt datahungriga, vilket försvårar implementationen av dessa. Crowdsourcing är en attraktiv lösning för att generera denna typ av träningsdata, men metoden kommer även med flera svårigheter. Vi introducerar en ny metod för generering av träningsdata som bygger på parallell crowdsourcing av dialoger, samt crowdsourcad kvalitetsgranskning. Vi använder denna metod för att samla in ett litet dataset som utspelar sig inom domänen busschaufför-resenär. Vi menar att denna metod erbjuder ett effektivt sätt att samla in nya, högkvalitativa dataset. Hybrid Code Networks är en modell för dialogsystem som kombinerar ett neuralt nätverk med domänspecifik kunskap, och som på så sätt kräver en betydligt mindre mängd träningsdata än andra liknande dialogsystem för att uppnå jämförbar prestanda. Genom att kombinera Hybrid Code Networks med vår nya metod för generering av träningsdata menar vi att man kan sänka tröskeln för att implementera uppgiftsorienterade dialogsystem på domäner med otillräcklig träningsdata. Vi implementerar Hybrid Code Networks och tränar implementationen på det insamlade datasetet, och uppnår goda resultat.

Inledning:I inledningen redogörs för hur köpcentrumsbranschen genomgår en förändring och behovet för upplevelser har växt fram för att fortsätta skapa värde för konsumenten. Syfte:Denna studie ämnar att undersökahur attributen atmosfär, underhållning och mat påverkar konsumentens lojalitet gentemot köpcentrum samt hur denna varierar mellan recreational-oriented consumersrespektive task-oriented consumers. Frågeställningar:Utifrån studiens syftehar följande frågeställningar formulerats: <ol type="1">Hur kan attributen atmosfär, underhållning och mat påverka kundens lojalitet gentemot köpcentrum?  Hur varierar lojalitet gentemot köpcentrum mellan recreational-oriented consumers och task-oriented consumers? Teori: I studiens teoriavsnitt presenteras mer djupgående förklaringar kring köpcentrum, upplevelse och shoppingvärde. Vidare beskrivs även attributen atmosfär, underhållning och mat samt kundtillfredsställelse, lojalitet och shopping orientations mer utförligt. Metod: Studien är baserad på en metod av kvantitativ karaktär och det har tillämpats en tvärsnittsdesign där en enkät har utformats. Det empiriska materialet har sedan analyserats med hjälp av ANOVA och korrelationsanalyser. Slutsats: Det har kunnat konstateras hur det inte räcker med en indelning i recreational-oriented och task-oriented consumers, istället har ett tredje segment upptäckts, de platsorienterade konsumenterna. Ytterligare har det även kunnat påvisas hur attributen atmosfär, underhållning och mat påverkar lojalitet gentemot köpcentrum. / Introduction:  The shopping center industry is undergoing a change. Experiences have become increasingly important in order to continue to create value for the consumer. Purpose:This study intends to examine how the attributes atmosphere, entertainment and food have an effect on the loyalty towards shopping centers.Further the study intents to examine if the loyalty varies between recreational-oriented and task-oriented consumers.  Research questions: Based on the purpose whit this study the following research questions that have been phrased:  <ol type="1">How can the atmosphere, entertainment and food attributes affect the consumer's loyalty towards shopping centers? How does loyalty towards shopping centers vary between recreational-oriented consumers and task-oriented consumers? Theory: The study's theoretical section presents more in-depth explanations about shopping centers, experiences and shopping value. Further have atmosphere, entertainment, food, consumer satisfaction, loyalty and shopping orientations been explained more profound. Method: The study is based on a method of quantitative character and a cross-sectional design has been applied where a survey has been distributed. The empirical material has been analyzed using ANOVA and correlation analysis. Conclusion: It has been discovered that the division into two shopping segments isn’t enough instead a third segment, the place-oriented, has been found. Further, do the attributes atmosphere, entertainment and food affect the loyalty towards shopping centers.

I investigated insecurity threat and its implications for employee leadership preferences. Preferences for three types of leadership style were examined: charismatic, relationship-oriented, and task-oriented leadership. It was anticipated that individuals’ salient work values would predict leadership preference more strongly after insecurity threat than under control conditions. Two different types of threats were investigated in comparison to a neutral control condition. Results showed that there were no statistically significant differences in leader ratings between threat conditions. My results suggest that threat does not significantly influence preference for charismatic or task-oriented leaders. Work values did not significantly predict a preference for a leadership type.

There is an overwhelming variation in the ways an intelligent agent can rationalize communication with a conversational partner. This variation presents many incompatibilities that lead to the specialization of conversational capabilities. This has produced a plethora of models and ideas on how an intelligent agent should understand, interact with, and incorporate communication from a human conversational participant. This dissertation approaches this problem with the thesis that there exists a language between that of human natural language and the behavioral reasoning of an intelligent agent, and that this language is capable of not only unifying the various models used in literature, but also provides the foundation for a theoretical framework for an engineering methodology for building such models. A theory of practical communication language is developed, including the introduction of the meaning-action concept, an expressive and powerful representation based on speech-act and dialogue-act theories, but extended with notions of behavioral operators as well as signatures that allow the operators to incorporate structured and well-defined concepts. An engineering methodology is presented for the construction of concepts, operators and rules that create the language and model of a specific domain, including methodology for the verification and validation of that language and model. The resultant practical communication language methodology, based on the combination of rational communication and meaning-action concepts, will introduce several major enhancements to dialogue management. These enhancements include the use of meaning-action concepts as a shared medium and the introduction of a shared concept graph. This methodology will be used along with various dialogue models from human-human, human-agent and agent-agent communication to construct a task-oriented language and model called the task communication language framework. This framework is then implemented within an intelligent agent in a real-time resource management simulation. A sample output listing from actual human interaction with that implementation is used to demonstrate that the resulting framework does indeed incorporate many of the disparate models of communication and their corresponding capabilities including command and control, information seeking, notification and bother, clarification, explanation, discussion, negotiation, mutual planning, interruption, feedback, adjustable autonomy and corrective dialogues.

Frågan om chefers ledarskaps påverkan på de anställdas hälsa har aktualiserats under senare tid. Dock finns inte mycket forskning på området, vilket gör att denna uppsats kan komma att fylla en funktion i detta sammanhang. Uppsatsen har som syfte att ta reda på hur förskolechefer i en svensk kommun utövar sitt ledarskap och om det går att se någon koppling till medarbetarnas frisknärvaro. Med hjälp av kvalitativ metod där fem semistrukturerade intervjuer genomfördes besvaras följande frågor i kandidatuppsatsen:   Vilket slags ledarskap utövar förskolecheferna? Vilka likheter finns i ledarskapsstilarna mellan de förskolechefer som har hög frisknärvaro bland medarbetarna? Skiljer sig ledarskapet åt, i så fall hur, mellan de chefer som har hög frisknärvaro och de med mellanhög och låg dito?   Min slutsats är att det finns likheter i hur cheferna utövar sitt ledarskap. Alla fem har starkt fokus på produktionsorienterat ledarskap, medan det skiljer en hel del mellan dem när det gäller det relationsorienterade dito. Tre av fem utövar mer eller mindre det salutogena ledarskapet. Den chef som har lägst frisknärvaro är den som leder på ett mest produktionsorienterat sätt. Resultatet av denna studie tyder på att ledarskap, för att öka frisknärvaron, bör utövas med tydlighet, närvaro och delaktighet. / The issue of managers' leadership influence on the health of employees has been actualized recently. However, there is a lack of research in this area, which motivates a focus on this topic. This study aims to find out how pre-school managers in a Swedish municipality exercises leadership and if you can see any connection to the staff's work attendance. By using the qualitative method in which five semi-structured interviews were conducted, I have got some answers to the following questions in this study:     1. What kind of leadership does preschool heads exercise? 2. What similarities are there in leadership styles between the  pre-school managers who have high work-attendance among staff? 3. Is there a difference in the leadership between the managers who have high work attendance and those with medium- and low ditto? If so what differs between them?   My conclusion is that there are similarities in how managers exercise their leadership. All five have a strong focus on production oriented leadership, while it differs more between them when it comes to the relationship oriented one. Three of the five exercise more or less the salutogenic leadership. The manager with staff with the lowest work attendance is the one who exercise her leadership in the most production-oriented way. Results from this study indicate that leadership, to increase work attendance, should be exercised with clarity, presence and inclusion.

Thesis (MComm)--Stellenbosch University, 2012. / As a means to measure job performance, performance appraisal plays a central role in effective individual and organisational management (Behn, 2003). Sound performance management and performance measurement are fundamental to a productive workplace and critical for a high-performing organisation (Jordan, 2002). Performance appraisal research has shifted its emphasis from psychometric issues to the examination of rater cognitive processes and the social and contextual variables which affect performance evaluation. Since raters are important factors in successful performance measurement, one line of research has investigated the effect of similarity, between rater and ratee, on subsequent performance ratings. These studies have mostly relied on similarity measures based on physical similarity characteristics, such as demographic variables. The inconclusive nature of these studies’ findings suggests that the complexity of interpersonal similarity and its effect on ratings has most likely been oversimplified. In the social-cognition literature, substantial evidence exists that rater-ratee acquaintance shifts the focus of similarity judgment to “deeper”, sometimes unobservable, characteristics, like values, motives and attitudes. This research study investigates whether rater-ratee similarity in Big Five personality traits unduly influences task-orientated performance ratings. Self-report personality data (IPIP; Goldberg, 2006) were collected from university lecturers and their students (N = 152). Actual lecturer task performance assessment data (end-of-semester student feedback ratings) were gathered concurrently. Data were analysed through polynomial regression analysis and response surface methodology. Results indicated that ratee (i.e., lecturer) extraversion (r = .357), conscientiousness (r = .413) and openness (r = .178) had significant main effects on average performance ratings. Also, rater-ratee personality similarity in extraversion (p < .001), neuroticism (p < .01) and openness (p < .001) had a significant effect on performance ratings, with the effects of agreeableness and conscientiousness also approaching significance. The present study further extends earlier research by using task performance ratings as criterion measures — as opposed to earlier studies that used contextual performance ratings — and also used “upward” ratings of seniors, instead of peer- or ‘downward’ ratings of performance, as was done in earlier studies of personality similarity effects. The results suggest that (a) earlier conclusions that personality similarity does not affect performance ratings seem to be premature, (b) more research is needed to investigate why personality similarity affects ratings and last, (c) we do not yet understand the boundary conditions that affect this phenomenon.