This thesis examines the problem of having an intelligent agent reasoning about interaction with users in real-time decision making environments. Our work is motivated by the models of Fleming and Cheng, which reason about interaction sensitive to both expected quality of decision (following interaction) and cost of bothering users. In particular, we are interested in dynamic, time critical scenarios. This leads first of all to a novel process known as strategy regeneration, whereby the parameter values representing the users and the task at hand are refreshed periodically, in order to make effective decisions about which users to interact with, for the best decision making. We also introduce two new parameters that are modeled: each user's lack of expertise (with the task at hand) and the level of criticality of each task. These factors are then integrated into the process of reasoning about interaction to choose the best overall strategy, deciding which users to ask to resolve the current task. We illustrate the value of our framework for the application of decision making in hospital emergency room scenarios and offer validation of the approach, both through examples and from simulations. To sum up, we provide a framework for reasoning about interaction with users through user modeling for dynamic environments. In addition, we present some insights into how to improve the process of hospital emergency room decision making.

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The thesis Risk Denial and Neglect: Studies in Risk Perception examines societal and individual attention to risks and focuses especially on the issue of neglect. Why do some risks get more attention than other risks and how is this difference in attention related to experts’ roles in society? What can explain people’s tendency to perceive risks as more pertinent to other people? These are some of the issues that are discussed in the thesis. The topics are of interest for, e.g., risk policies, risk management, and for designing campaigns aimed at minimizing risk-related behaviors. The dissertation is written within the field of economic psychology. The research questions are addressed in four separate papers based on three empirical studies. The Papers I and II focus on societal attention to risks. They address the issues of what risks are neglected and overemphasized in society and how the identification of risk is related to experts’ domain of expertise. Papers III and IV narrow down the discussion to individual processes of risk denial – why people tend to believe that risks are more pertinent to other people. The results show that experts in the present study tended to rate risks within their own domain as lower than other risks. They were more prone to act as promoters than protectors. In addition, the robust tendency of optimistic bias was shown to exist also for technological risks (related to the use of computers) and economic risks. Most people seem to hang on to their beliefs that risks are other people’s concerns – it simply won’t happen to them. The results of the present thesis suggest that the relevance of prior experience and the commonplaceness of the risk sources is an area that merits further investigation with respect to risk denial.

Mémoire (M.Ling.)--Université du Québec à Chicoutimi, 2001. / Bibliogr.: pp. 124-127. Document électronique également accessible en format PDF. CaQCU

Th. doct.--Informatique--Grenoble 1, 1995. / Bibliogr. p. 285-295. Résumé en anglais et en français. 1996 d'après la déclaration de dépôt légal.

Th. doct.-ing.--Inform. Nancy, I.N.P.L., 1985.

abstract: In any instructional situation, the instructor's goal is to maximize the learning attained by students. Drawing on the adage, 'we learn best what we have taught,' this action research project was conducted to examine whether students, in fact, learned college algebra material better if they taught it to their peers. The teaching-to-learn process was conducted in the following way. The instructor-researcher met with individual students and taught a college algebra topic to a student who served as the leader of a group of four students. At the next step, the student who originally learned the material from the instructor met with three other students in a small group session and taught the material to them to prepare an in-class presentation. Students in these small group sessions discussed how best to present the material, anticipated questions, and prepared a presentation to be shared with their classmates. The small group then taught the material to classmates during an in-class review session prior to unit examinations. Quantitative and qualitative data were gathered. Quantitative data consisted of pre- and post-test scores on four college algebra unit examinations. In addition, scores from Likert-scale items on an end-of-semester questionnaire that assessed the effectiveness of the teaching-to-learn process and attitudes toward the process were obtained. Qualitative data consisted of field notes from observations of selected small group sessions and in-class presentations. Additional qualitative data included responses to open-ended questions on the end-of-semester questionnaire and responses to interview items posed to groups of students. Results showed the quantitative data did not support the hypothesis that material, which was taught, was better learned than other material. Nevertheless, qualitative data indicated students were engaged in the material, had a deeper understanding of the material, and were more confident about it as a result of their participation in the teaching-to-learn process. Students also viewed the teaching-to-learn process as being effective and they had positive attitudes toward the teaching-to-learn process. Discussion focused on how engagement, deeper understanding and confidence interacted with one another to increase student learning. Lessons learned, implications for practice, and implications for further action research were also discussed. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ed.D. Educational Leadership and Policy Studies 2011

Submitted by Oliveira Santos Dilzaná (dilznana@yahoo.com.br) on 2013-11-04T16:05:16Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Agindo como experts... Israel de Jesus Rocha.pdf: 1585712 bytes, checksum: fe3c799c892bc9a21686aa216b69fddc (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Ana Portela (anapoli@ufba.br) on 2013-11-18T18:48:53Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Agindo como experts... Israel de Jesus Rocha.pdf: 1585712 bytes, checksum: fe3c799c892bc9a21686aa216b69fddc (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2013-11-18T18:48:54Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Agindo como experts... Israel de Jesus Rocha.pdf: 1585712 bytes, checksum: fe3c799c892bc9a21686aa216b69fddc (MD5) / A Lei de Biossegurança brasileira, após aprovação, iniciou um longo percurso pelo judiciário que se encerraria três anos mais tarde com a audiência pública e a votação sobre a constitucionalidade da referida lei. Entre uma e outra, uma série de mobilizações em torno da questão envolvendo o uso de embriões para obtenção de células-tronco ganhou os espaços midiáticos, políticos e jurídicos. O objetivo deste trabalho é analisar a controvérsia envolvendo a lei de biossegurança a partir da audiência pública, convocada a partir da ação direta de inconstitucionalidade 3510, no Supremo Tribunal Federal, descrevendo os modos de ação dos cientistas envolvidos com o tema. Para isso, procura recompor a partir de materiais audiovisuais e rastros documentais os traços deixados desde a votação no Congresso até a audiência, ao passo que tenta mostrar como as apresentações dos cientistas são pontualizações que evidenciam e mobilizam uma série de redes sociotécnicas formadas por atores humanos e não-humanos. Nosso ponto de partida considera que as relações entre a ciência e o direito não podem ser concebidas como esferas desarticuladas. Antes, elas são parte do esforço de composição de um mundo em comum para o qual escolhemos aqueles que farão parte ou não de tais arranjos. Conclui-se, então, que os vínculos estabelecidos pela ciência a partir da mobilização dos atores que a sustentam não podem ser vistos de maneira isolada da sociedade, pois há neste processo um esforço de mobilização de outros atores, como o sistema jurídico, que atuam diretamente no sentido de lançar perspectivas de significação e contextos de uso sobre os resultados alcançados pela ciência, sobretudo quando os objetos oferecem riscos e afetam diretamente um número significativo de pessoas. After approval The Biosafety Bill Law in Brazil began a long journey for judiciary that would end three years later with a public hearing and vote on the constitutionality of that law. Between them, a series of demonstrations around the issue involving the use of embryos to obtain stem cells gained the media, political and legal spaces. The objective of this study is to analyze the controversy surrounding the law biosecurity from the public hearing, requested from the direct action of unconstitutionality 3510, in Brazil’s Federal Supreme Court, describing the modes of action of the scientists involved with the topic. For this, demand recover from audiovisual and documentary materialsthe traces left from the vote in Congress by the audience, while trying to show how scientists are punctualizations presentations that highlight and mobilize a range of socio-technical networks formed by human and non-human actors. In this case we consider that the relationship between science and law can not be conceived as disjointed spheres. Rather, they are part of the effort of composing a common world in which we choose those who will be part or not of such arrangements. We conclude that the bonds established by science from the mobilization of actors that support can not be seen in isolation from society, because this process is an effort to mobilize other actors such as the legal system, which act directly to launch perspectives of meaning and contexts of use on the achievements of science, especially when objects pose risks and directly affect a significant number of people.

Online communication channels provide people with a vast amount of information from different sources. Health influencers on social media are one of the sources that people use to gain health information and support regarding health-related issues; they are people with different backgrounds and expertise that social media users follow and perceive to be experts in that field. This qualitative case study employs content analysis to analyze videos of three health influencers and explore the kind of expertise that each case communicates to their followers. Videos are analyzed based on an analytical framework that looks into Syntactic, thematic and rhetorical structures to explore how they frame their messages in order to be perceived as experts. The study detected three different kinds of expertise who have different styles in communicating their expertise and in framing their messages: the informative awareness expert, the self-referential expert and the practitioner expert. Further details on the different and common framing styles each expert used is discussed in this thesis. Analyzing expertise online provided an insight on health influencers characteristics and their strategies to perform their expertise. It also suggests the kind of health information seekers who could be interested in this kind of expertise. The research results provide insights on regulating the potential effects of health influencers online.

A utilização não-terapêutica de drogas anabolizantes está documentada na literatura médica como prejudicial à saúde e, na legislação brasileira, como infração penal ante à Lei das Drogas. Apesar dos alertas em diferentes recantos da mídia, cresce o uso destes medicamentos em meio à população brasileira. Entre os usuários, a maioria deles jovens praticantes de musculação, é possível perceber que muitos não apenas usam tais drogas com o propósito de obter ganho muscular, mas também desenvolvem conhecimentos cada vez mais sofisticados, e de várias ordens, sobre os diferentes efeitos dos anabolizantes no corpo humano visando seu melhor uso. Dada à relevância social deste tema e da relação direta com o campo da Educação Física, o presente relatório de pesquisa versa acerca do empreendimento de uma investigação strito sensu que buscou compreender o processo de aquisição, elaboração e compartilhamento dos conhecimentos acerca do uso de anabolizantes entre estudantes de graduação em Educação Física. O marco teórico que subsidiou este estudo contempla, principalmente, as discussões sobre as formulações de Nikolas Rose acerca das biopolíticas contemporâneas (políticas da própria vida), em articulação com os conceitos de enhancement corporal e expertise, além de também versar acerca da teoria da biossociabilidade de Paul Rabinow e da bioascese de Francisco Ortega. A parte mais densa do material empírico foi obtida a partir de entrevistas episódicas, entretanto, sites da Internet também serviram como fontes de informação complementar no processo de identificação sobre como ocorre a organização e sistematização do aprendizado em ambiente virtual. Os entrevistados descreveram o aprendizado sobre a utilização de medicamentos anabolizantes como algo considerado “proibido” frente aos elementos éticos e jurídicos e envolto em um clima de clandestinidade na formação inicial. A partir das entrevistas foi possível identificar que o aprendizado sobre a utilização dos medicamentos anabolizantes é uma temática que apenas tangencia o percurso curricular formal dos acadêmicos de um curso de Educação Física. Também foi possível identificar, a partir do material empírico, que além da dimensão formal de aprendizagem na Educação Física, estes estudantes encontram, fora da graduação, as seguintes dimensões de aprendizagem sobre o tema: as academias de musculação, os fóruns virtuais da Internet e os coaches, considerados os guias da construção corporal por meio do uso do anabolizante. Há também uma última dimensão de aprendizagem que consiste no momento em que os sujeitos têm sua expertise reconhecida pelos pares do grupo quando, então, tornam-se coaches, passando a aplicar os conhecimentos sobre as modificações corporais não apenas em si mesmos, mas também em outras pessoas. / The non-therapeutic use of anabolic drugs is documented in the medical literature as harmful to health and, in Brazilian legislation, as a criminal offense. In spite of warnings in different media spaces, there is an increased use of these drugs among the Brazilian population. Among the users, most of them young bodybuilders, we observed that many not only use these drugs in order to develop muscle hypertrophy, but also acquire increasingly sophisticated knowledge, from several orders, about the different effects of anabolic drugs on the human body aiming at a safer use. Taking into account the social importance of this theme and its direct relation with the Physical Education area, this study aimed to understand the process of acquisition, development and sharing of knowledge about the use of anabolic steroids among undergraduate students of Physical Education. The theoretical framework that supports this study includes mainly discussions on the formulation by Nikolas Rose about contemporary biopolitics of life, in conjunction with de concepts of body enhancement and expertise, and also discusses about the biosociality theory by Paul Rabinow and the bioasceticism by Francisco Ortega. The densest element of the empirical material was obtained from episodic interviews; however, websites also served as data sources in order to identify how learning is organized on the internet. Interview participants described learning about the use of anabolic drugs as something considered "forbidden" in face of ethical and legal elements, and surrounded by a clandestine environment in initial training. From the interviews, we could identify that learning about the use of anabolic steroids is an issue that only touches the formative trajectory of the undergraduate students of Physical Education. We also identified, from the empirical data, that, besides the formal dimension of learning in Physical Education, these students find, outside the undergraduate course, the following learning dimensions about the theme: gyms, virtual forums, and the coaches. The coaches are the last level of learning about the use of anabolic steroids. In this stage, the subjects have their expertise recognized by their peers.