This study examines the relationship between social stress and gender role differentiation. Crowd and collective behavior literature suggests two competing hypotheses. Social contagion theories suggest that gender roles become dedifferentiated in crowds. Social structural theories suggest that gender roles in crowds parallel institutional gender roles. The case study format is used to assess the relationship. Six crowd events, representing varying levels of social stress, were observed. Data were gathered via systematic observations, interviews and document analysis. The findings indicate that gender roles in crowds parallel institutional gender roles. Culturally prescribed gender expectations endure across social stress settings.

Shi Jingjing. / "August 2006." / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 192-205). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstracts in English and Chinese.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, 1997. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 536-552). Also available on the Internet.

Tidigare forskning visar på att analytiker i många fall begår fel vid framtagandet av estimat, samtidigt som deras estimat anses vara en proxy för vad marknaden förväntar sig. Denna studie avser att undersöka om analytiker är den främsta representanten för marknaden eller om Crowdsourcing, som en tillämpning av Wisdom of Crowds, kan representera marknaden bättre. Jämförelsen görs genom en multipel regression där 117 observationer används för att undersöka om konsensusestimat från crowdsourcing-tjänsten Pinpoint Estimates åstadkommer en större kursreaktion än analytikers konsensusestimat, givet ett visst oväntat resultat. Jämförelser görs även för träffsäkerhet där vi genom 123 observationer undersöker vilken grupps konsensusestimat som är mer träffsäker kontra utfallen. Studien finner indikationer på att Pinpointestimat representerar marknaden bättre samt att Pinpoint generellt är mer träffsäkra än analytiker.

Enabled by the wave of online crowdsourcing activities, extracting the Wisdom of Crowds (WoC) has become an emerging research area, one that is used to aggregate judgments, opinions, or predictions from a large group of individuals for improved decision making. However, existing literature mostly focuses on eliciting the wisdom of crowds in an offline context—without tapping into the vast amount of data available on online crowdsourcing platforms. To extract WoC from participants on online platforms, there exist at least three challenges, including social influence, suboptimal aggregation strategies, and data sparsity. This dissertation aims to answer the research question of how to effectively extract WoC from crowdsourcing platforms for the purpose of making better decisions. In the first study, I designed a new opinions aggregation method, Social Crowd IQ (SCIQ), using a time-based decay function to eliminate the impact of social influence on crowd performance. In the second study, I proposed a statistical learning method, CrowdBoosting, instead of a heuristic-based method, to improve the quality of crowd wisdom. In the third study, I designed a new method, Collective Persuasibility, to solve the challenge of data sparsity in a crowdfunding platform by inferring the backers' preferences and persuasibility. My work shows that people can obtain business benefits from crowd wisdom, and it provides several effective methods to extract wisdom from online crowdsourcing platforms, such as StockTwits, Good Judgment Open, and Kickstarter. / Doctor of Philosophy / Since Web 2.0 and mobile technologies have inspired increasing numbers of people to contribute and interact online, crowdsourcing provides a great opportunity for the businesses to tap into a large group of online users who possess varied capabilities, creativity, and knowledge levels. Howe (2006) first defined crowdsourcing as a method for obtaining necessary ideas, information, or services by asking for contributions from a large group of individuals, especially participants in online communities. Many online platforms have been developed to support various crowdsourcing tasks, including crowdfunding (e.g., Kickstarter and Indiegogo), crowd prediction (e.g., StockTwits, Good Judgment Open, and Estimize), crowd creativity (e.g., Wikipedia), and crowdsolving (e.g., Dell IdeaStorm). The explosive data generated by those platforms give us a good opportunity for business benefits. Specifically, guided by the Wisdom of Crowds (WoC) theory, we can aggregate multiple opinions from a crowd of individuals for improving decision making. In this dissertation, I apply WoC to three crowdsourcing tasks, stock return prediction, event outcome forecast, and crowdfunding project success prediction. Our study shows the effectiveness of WoC and makes both theoretical and practical contributions to the literature of WoC.

Dissertation submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Masters: Public Management, Durban University of Technology, Durban, South Africa, 2016. / Protests are an integral part of many social, political and economic activities in societies all over the world, and the concept of protest is an on-going subject of scholarly endeavour. The occurrence of protests in South Africa, however, highlights significant deficit in meeting the huge expectations from a formerly disadvantaged majority of the population. Furthermore, the current preponderance of protest incidents in the Eastern Cape Province, and particularly in the Mbizana Local Municipality proffered the motive for this research. The incidence of protests in the study area, in most cases, has been attributed to poor service delivery and the high expectations for improved social and economic development. While issues related to the delivery of basic services are attended to, the continued occurrence and increasing intensity of these protest incidents, has led to the argument that other factors are also at play. Using a mixed methods approach, the study employed a questionnaire survey to elicit information linked to the incidence of protests. Two hundred and eighty respondents from three selected wards in the local municipality were randomly sampled, and three municipal officials were also interviewed to explore the factors influencing protest incidents in the study area. Findings from the study point to the profusion of unresolved community complaints coupled with slow- paced provision of services, intra-party disagreements among political factions in the municipal council, and crime-related incidents; as factors responsible for protests in the local municipality. The study shows the preponderance of disagreements among political party members as a leading cause for protest incidents, unrelated to the provision of basic services. Also, the demand for justice among victims of criminal incidents was found to be another reason for the increasing number of protest events in the Mbizana Local Municipality. / M

This thesis investigates TCP connection management mechanisms in order to understand the behaviour and improve the performance of Internet servers during overload conditions such as flash crowds. We study several alternatives for implementing TCP connection establishment, reviewing approaches taken by existing TCP stacks as well as proposing new mechanisms to improve server throughput and reduce client response times under overload. We implement some of these connection establishment mechanisms in the Linux TCP stack and evaluate their performance in a variety of environments. We also evaluate the cost of supporting half-closed connections at the server and assess the impact of an abortive release of connections by clients on the throughput of an overloaded server. Our evaluation demonstrates that connection establishment mechanisms that eliminate the TCP-level retransmission of connection attempts by clients increase server throughput by up to 40% and reduce client response times by two orders of magnitude. Connection termination mechanisms that preclude support for half-closed connections additionally improve server throughput by up to 18%.

Självskadebeteenden bland ungdomar är ett allvarligtsamhällsproblem som tycks öka. Ett flertal faktorer såsom utsatthet iskolan och vilken eller vilka sociala grupperingar en ungdom uppleversig tillhöra har i tidigare studier identifierats som riskfaktorer för attutveckla självskadebeteenden. Syftet med studien var att undersökaom utsatthet och alternativa sociala grupperingar utgör riskfaktorer försjälvskadebeteenden, samt om det finns en interaktionseffekt mellandessa faktorer i att predicera självskadebeteenden. Studien baseradespå longitudinell data insamlad bland högstadieungdomar på sju skolori centrala Sverige. En multipel regressionsanalys utfördes för att testainteraktionstermen mellan variablerna över tid. Resultatet bekräftadebåde utsatthet i skolan och identifiering med alternativa socialagrupperingar som riskfaktorer, samt att det fanns en interaktionseffektmellan de båda som ytterligare ökar risken för utvecklandet avsjälvskadebeteenden hos ungdomar. / Self-harm is a major public health concern amongst adolescents thatappears to be increasing. Several risk factors have in previous researchbeen associated with self-harm, such as peer harassment and the peercrowd or crowds an adolescent identifies with. The aim of this studywas to examine whether peer harassment and identification withalternative peer crowds constitutes risk factors and whether there wasan interaction effect between these factors in predicting self-harm. In alongitudinal study, students from seven secondary schools in centralSweden responded to a questionnaire. A multiple regression analysiswas conducted to test the interaction between these variables overtime. The results confirmed that both peer harassment andidentification with alternative peer crowds were risk factors for selfharmingbehaviors, as well as there was an interaction effect, namelythat the adolescents who were exposed to peer harassment andidentified with particular social crowds were particularly at risk fordeveloping self-harm behaviors.

Ce travail de thèse entend étudier les rassemblements de personnes. Plutôt que le terme de « foule», trop lié à la psychologie des foules, c‘est le terme de rassemblement, théorisé par Georges Lefebvre qui sera utilisé. Il est défini comme un agrégat intentionnel d‘acteurs sociaux, qui interagissent, communiquent et agissent ensemble.Contrairement aux conclusions de la psychologie des foules, les rassemblements de personnes sont conçus comme un lieu d‘intense construction sociale. Ceux-ci sont des objets sociaux normés. Ils sont le lieu de nombreuses stratégies intentionnelles de la part des acteurs sociaux qui y participent.Dans le cadre de cette étude, ce sont les fins des participants, les mécanismes de mobilisation, leur répertoire d‘action, qui sont au centre de la compréhension de notre objet. Elle passe aussi l‘étude des interactions entre participants, ainsi que des mécanismes de communication qui rendent possible ces interactions. Enfin, ce sont les dynamiques de maintien de l‘ordre et d‘exercice de pouvoir par les participants qui sont au centre de notre attention.Ces problématiques ont été confrontées au terrain par une étude comparative entre manifestations, rassemblements sportifs et rassemblements festifs. Elle a permis de dégager les points communs, mais aussi les différences entre ces évènements. / This dissertation is about crowd gatherings. Rather than the term ―crowd‖, methodologically linked to the psychology of crowds, we will use the term ―gathering‖, theorized by Georges Lefebvre. It is defined as an intentional aggregate of social actors who interact, communicate and act together.Unlike the psychology of crowds, gatherings of people are considered as a place of intense social construction. Those objects are understandable by the social norms that they adopt. They are also a place of numerous intentional strategies put into place by the social actors involved.In this study, the objectives of the participants as well as mechanisms of mobilization and repertories of action, are central to the understanding of our subject . It will also involve the study of interactions between participants as well the communication mechanisms within the gathering. Finally, we will focus on crowd control, law enforcement and the empowerment of the participants.These issues have been confronted to the social field by a comparative case study between demonstrations, sports gatherings and festive gatherings. It identifies the common points but also differences between these events.

Orientadora: Maria das Graças Bruno Marietto. / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Federal do ABC. Programa de Pós-graduação em Engenharia da Informação.