Anthropogenic environmental changes are occurring globally and are having dramatic effects on wildlife. Successful urban animals can alter behaviours to adjust to these conditions, but it is not well understood how these modifications arise. In particular, exploratory personality and behavioural plasticity are predicted to facilitate colonization in urban areas. The link between exploratory personality, cognition, and plasticity has received little attention, and has never been examined in urban animals. The first objective of this thesis was to examine the relationship between exploratory personality and habituation in a novel environment, and determine whether variation at the individual-level is predicted by urbanization. The second objective was to explore the association between exploratory personality and spatial cognition within scatter hoarders, and assess spatial memory along an urban gradient. At the individual-level, I report significant inter-individual differences in exploratory personality and habituation. I found evidence that fast initial explorers tend to habituate in a novel environment over time while slow explorers do not. There was no significant relationship between exploratory personality and spatial cognition within individuals. At the population level, urbanization did not significantly predict habituation or spatial cognition. I do report a significant positive relationship between urbanization and exploration. Overall, I conclude that urban individuals are significantly faster explorers, but are not more behaviourally plastic and do not show differences in spatial memory. Further work examining personality, cognition, and plasticity within individuals is needed to determine whether these traits have implications for populations under different environmental conditions.

Focusing on the potential use of telemedicine among other efforts for better treatment of stroke patients, this study explored the role of telemedicine in the management of stroke patients and knowledge sharing among health care providers in Afghanistan. To this end, fourteen semi-structured interviews were conducted with physicians, specialists, neurologists, and decision makers from the Afghan Ministry of Public Health (MoPH). Actor-network and diffusion of innovations theories provided a theoretical framework for this exploratory qualitative study. The study was intended: 1) to find out about the major challenges and problems associated with managing stroke patients in Afghanistan; 2) to explore the perceptions of Afghan health professionals about the application of telemedicine as a means of improving the delivery of health services for stroke patients in Afghanistan; and 3) to understand the perceived barriers to knowledge sharing and to ascertain the potential role of telemedicine in knowledge sharing among health care providers in Afghanistan. The findings of this study demonstrated that almost all of the participants were optimistic about the potential positive role telemedicine could play in the management of stroke patients and knowledge sharing among health care providers in Afghanistan. Some important existing organisational, socio-economic, geographical, security, and cultural barriers to the management of stroke patients and knowledge sharing among health care providers in Afghanistan were revealed. To the best knowledge of the researcher, there has been no study of this kind conducted in Afghanistan yet; thus, the findings of this study will likely contribute to the development of health communication in the context of Afghanistan, and could likely be used as a resource for future research about the applications of telemedicine in various medical specialities.

In order of measuring the relationship between Tinder intensity and self-esteem, the Tinder Intensity Scale was developed in this present study. The scale was developed with help from exploratory factor analysis (EFA) measuring dimensionality and Cronbach's alpha testing the interrelations between the scale items. The EFA found that the Tinder Intensity Scale (Cronbach’s alpha 0.75) consists of two dimensions, one measuring frequency and emotional connection and the other measured dating behavior, such as being the first one to contact a match. The index-scores were used to measure the relationship between the self-esteem score and Tinder Intensity Scale and the scales’ two dimensions. The findings of this study suggest that the relationship between self-esteem and Tinder intensity is rather weak for both men and women, but slightly higher for men’s dating behavior and self-esteem. A reason for this could be due to the low intensity on Tinder in this sample. For future research, it is suggested to examine the relationship on a larger sample. Another suggestion is to determine causality between Tinder use and self-esteem by doing a longitudinal study, where self-esteem is measured pre-Tinder usage and after using Tinder.

The aim of the thesis is to compare methods of cluster analysis correctly classify objects in the dataset into groups, which are known. In the theoretical section first describes the steps needed to prepare a data file for cluster analysis. The next theoretical section is dedicated to the cluster analysis, which describes ways of measuring similarity of objects and clusters, and dedicated to description the methods of cluster analysis used in practical part of this thesis. In practical part are described and analyzed 20 files. Each file contains only quantitative variables and sort characters by which objects are sorted. In each file is calculated success rate of object segmentation into groups for each cluster method. At the end of the practical part is a summary description of the results of cluster methods. The main contribution of this thesis is to evaluate the success of cluster methods for classification objects into known groups.

The present study examined the structural construct validity of the LoTi Digital-Age Survey, a measure of teacher instructional practices with technology in the classroom. Teacher responses (N = 2840) from across the United States were used to assess factor structure of the instrument using both exploratory and confirmatory analyses. Parallel analysis suggests retaining a five-factor solution compared to the MAP test that suggests retaining a three-factor solution. Both analyses (EFA and CFA) indicate that changes need to be made to the current factor structure of the survey. The last two factors were composed of items that did not cover or accurately measure the content of the latent trait. Problematic items, such as items with crossloadings, were discussed. Suggestions were provided to improve the factor structure, items, and scale of the survey.

[pt] A pesquisa que apresento neste trabalho foi motivada por minhas experiências como bolsista de iniciação científica (IC) e como participante de um grupo de pesquisas durante a graduação. Norteado pelo viés ético-teórico e metodológico da Prática Exploratória (PE) (ALLWRIGHT; HANKS, 2009; MILLER, 2012; 2013), seus princípios e seu trabalho contínuo para entender (MILLER et al., 2008), (re)convidei alguns colegas de graduação, hoje professores, a buscarem, junto comigo, entendimentos sobre o puzzle Por que participar do grupo de pesquisa foi tão significativo para mim?. Assim, os momentos que tivemos nos diferentes grupos de pesquisa e de discussão dos quais fizemos parte durante nosso processo de tornar-se professor motivaram e impulsionaram uma calorosa conversa exploratória (MORAES BEZERRA; NUNES, 2013), gerando diferentes pôsteres, os quais organizaram nossa discussão em pequenas apresentações e direcionaram nossa busca por entendimentos. Em nossa discussão, percebemos que aspectos como a Qualidade de Vida (ALLWRIGHT, 2008; MILLER, 2010), o Afeto (ZEMBYLAS, 2003; 2005) e a Socioconstrução de Identidade(s) (MOITA LOPES, 2001; BASTOS, 2004; 2005) se apresentaram como de grande relevância em nossa formação e como elementos que devem ser observados e discutidos na formação de professores. Eles, ainda, nos proporcionaram construir inteligibilidade(s) sobre a sustentabilidade do trabalho para entender da Prática Exploratória na pesquisa acadêmica e no ensino (MILLER, 2013), bem como a entender que todo professor é pesquisador (ALLWRIGHT, 2016). / [en] The research that I present in this work was motivated by my experiences in a scientific initiation (IC) project and as a participant of a research group during graduation. Guided by the ethical and methodological-theoretical basis of Exploratory Practice (PE) (ALLWRIGHT; HANKS, 2009; MILLER, 2012; 2013), its principles and its continuous work for understanding (MILLER et al., 2008), I (re)invited some colleagues, today teachers, to seek, together, understandings about the puzzle Why was participating in the discussion group so significant to me?. So, the times we had in different research and discussion groups in what we took part during our process of becoming teachers motivated and boosted a warm exploratory conversation (MORAES BEZERRA; NUNES, 2013), generating different posters, which organized our discussion in small presentations and guided our quest for understanding. In our discussion, we realized that aspects such as Quality of Life (ALLWRIGHT, 2008; MILLER, 2010), Affection (ZEMBYLAS, 2003; 2005) and Socioconstruction of identity(ies) (MOITA LOPES, 2001; BASTOS, 2004; 2005) performed as been of great importance in our formation and as elements which must be observed and discussed in teacher training. They also made us build intelligibility(ies) about the sustainability of Exploratory Practice s work for understanding in academic research and teaching (MILLER, 2013), as well as to understand that every teacher is a researcher (ALLWRIGHT, 2016).

Gaming consoles’ relevance to the field of digital forensics has steadily been growing sincetheir presence in society has increased. Given how gaming platforms, such as the Xbox One,are produced for commercial interest, they are likely to be secured by use of proprietaryknowledge to safeguard personal data. The means by which information is secured isunknown, thus displaying the need for investigations to determine what information can beextracted from hard drive disk images and whether any of it is personally identifiable data.Furthermore, predecessors to the Xbox One were successfully modified by users, allowingunsigned code to be run; however, this is currently not possible on the Xbox One. In addition,due to the generational aspect of game consoles, proper digital forensic methodology needs tobe developed specifically adapted to the Xbox One. An exploratory approach was pursued toallow for the scope to remain dynamic, letting information found to point to additionalavenues of investigation and research. No personally identifiable information was found, yetthe analysis of selected files allowed for hypotheses concerning their intended purpose.Through file analysis, encryption was found to be in use on the console. Moreover, theMaster File Table was demonstrated as a significant extension to the foundation of consoleforensics methodology. Lastly, it was established that the Xbox One successfully prevents therunning of unsigned code, showing a significant improvement compared to its predecessors.

Transportation agencies in coastal urban areas face a significant challenge to enhance the long-term resilience of their networks to flooding and storm surge events exacerbated by sea level rise. The problem of sea-level rise adaptation is characterized by deep uncertainty that makes it complex to assess the value of adaptation investments. To enable informed adaptation decisions, the present study created a dynamic stochastic modeling framework based on the theoretical underpinnings of complex adaptive systems that integrates: (i) stochastic simulation of sea-level rise stressors based on the data obtained from downscaled climate studies pertaining to future projections of sea-level and precipitation; (ii) dynamic modeling of roadway conditions by considering regular decay of roadways, as well as structural damages caused by storm surge events; and (iii) a decision-theoretic modeling of agency infrastructure management and adaptation processes based on cognitive psychology, bounded rationality, and regret theories. In this framework, resilience is examined based on trend changes in the network performance measures (e.g., life cycle costs and performance). The created framework and model were tested in a case study related to the road network of the city of Miami-Beach, which global assessments rank first iv among the world's urban areas most exposed to sea-level rise risks. The results indicated that: (i) SLR Adaptation investment and life cycle costs of roadway infrastructure are negatively correlated. In addition, it was shown that the sensitivity of network’s life cycle cost to actual sea-level rise scenario decreases when adaptation investment increases. These finding emphasize the importance of proactive improvement of the network resilience to alleviate the long-term costs of sea-level rise. (ii) When funding is sufficient for all required adaptation actions, mid-term adaptation planning yields lower life cycle cost. When funding is insufficient, aggregated investment in long-term adaptation planning intervals yields lower network LCC. These findings imply that different adaptation planning approaches should be taken for different levels of adaptation investment. (iii) The agency’s perception of SLR and risk attitude do not have significant effect on life cycle cost of roadway networks. Hence, implementation of adaptation action based on any perception of sea-level rise and risk attitude can significantly reduce the life cycle costs of roadway networks under the impacts of SLR. (iv) The devised performance target has negative correlation with life cycle cost of a roadway network affected by SLR impacts. Therefore, compromising the network performance condition will never result in lower life cycle costs.

Innovation Management Software contains complex data with many different variables. This data is usually presented in tabular form or with isolated graphs that visualize a single independent aspect of a dataset. However, displaying this data with interconnected, interactive charts provide much more flexibility and opportunities for working with and understanding the data. Charts that show multiple aspects of the data at once can help in uncovering hidden relationships between different aspects of the data and in finding new insights that might be difficult to see with the traditional way of displaying data. The size and complexity of the available data also invites analyzing it with machine learning techniques. In this thesis it is first explored how machine learning techniques can be used to gain additional insight from the data and then the results of this investigation are used together with the original data in order to build a prototypical dashboard for exploratory visual data analysis. This dashboard is then evaluated by means of ICE-T heuristics and the results and findings are discussed.

This MSc Thesis was performed during a special practice at The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK. In recent years a number of new approaches for visualising and browsing document collections have been developed. These approaches try to address the problems associated with the growing amounts of content available and the changing patterns in the way people interact with information. Users now demand better support for exploring document collections to discover connections, compare and contrast information. Although visual search interfaces have the potential to improve the user experience in exploring document collections compared to textual search interfaces, they have not yet become as popular among users. The reasons for this range from the design of such visual interfaces to the way these interfaces are implemented and used. This work studies these reasons and determines the factors that contribute to an improved visual browsing experience. Consequently, by taking these factors into account, a novel visual search interface that improves exploratory search and the discovery of document relations is designed, implemented and evaluated.