This article examines the work of Highlander Research and Education Center, as founded by Myles Horton and others, implemented by staff, and experienced by program participants. Interviews with 8 program participant adult educators and community leaders illustrate Highlander's educational principles and practices, which are briefly compared with transformative educational principles and practices subsequently identified by Freire, with whom Horton ultimately met and compared notes; Mezirow, who later popularized a theory of transformative learning; and others.

Can the HEXACO personality dimensions and facets be used to explain the principal-agent problem and the disposition effect? The proposed research is designed to address the relationship between personality dimensions and individuals’ propensity to engage in self-interested behavior (agency effect) and irrational investment decisions (disposition effect). This paper proposes a correlational study that will be one of the first to apply Ashton and Lee’s (2009) HEXACO framework of personality to examine the association between the six personality dimensions and measurements of the agency and disposition effect. The HEXACO model of personality dimension includes Honesty-Humility, Emotionality, Openness to Experience, Extraversion, Conscientiousness, and Agreeableness. Total participants in both experiments will be 480 undergraduate college students. Participating students will complete the HEXACO-60 self-report inventory and take part in a stock simulation where measurements of interests are recorded. Higher scores along the Honesty-Humility and Emotionality dimensions are expected to have a strong negative relationship with the agency effect measurement, while Openness to Experience, Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, and Extraversion will have a weak to moderate positive association. Higher scores along the Emotionality dimensions are expected to have a strong negative association with the disposition effect measurement, while lower scores of Conscientiousness are expected to have a positive relationship.

Social psychology has a long tradition of studying the personality traits associated with subjective well-being (SWB). However, research often depends on a priori but unempirical assumptions about how to (a) measure the constructs, and (b) mitigate confounded associations. These assumptions have caused profligate and often contradictory findings. To remedy, I demonstrate how a computational psychology paradigm-predicated on large online data and iterative analyses-might help isolate more robust personality trait associations. At the outset, I focussed on univariate measurement. In the first set of studies, I evaluated the extent researchers could measure psychological characteristics at scale from online behaviour. Specifically, I used a combination of simulated and real-world data to determine whether predicted constructs like big five personality were accurate for specific individuals. I found that it was usually more effective to simply assume everyone was average for the characteristic, and that imprecision was not remedied by collapsing predicted scores into buckets (e.g. low, medium, high). Overall, I concluded that predictions were unlikely to yield precise individual-level insights, but could still be used to examine normative group-based tendencies. In the second set of studies, I evaluated the construct validity of a novel SWB scale. Specifically, I repurposed the balanced measure of psychological needs (BMPN), which was originally designed to capture the substrates of intrinsic motivation. I found that the BMPN robustly captured (a) dissociable experiences of suffering and flourishing, (b) more transitive SWB than the existing criterion measure, and (c) unique variation in real-world outcomes. Thus, I used it as my primary outcome. Then, I focussed on bivariate associations. The third set of studies extracted pairs of participants with similar patterns of covarying personality traits-and differing target traits-to isolate less-confounded SWB correlations. I found my extraction method-an adapted version of propensity score matching-outperformed even advanced machine learning alternatives. The final set of studies isolated the subset of facets that had the most robust associations with SWB. It combined real-world surveys with a total of eight billion simulated participants to find the traits most prevalent in extreme suffering and flourishing. For validation purposes, I first found that depression and cheerfulness-the trait components of SWB-were highly implicated in both suffering and flourishing. Then, I found that self-discipline was the only other trait implicated in both forms of SWB. However, there were also domain-specific effects: anxiety, vulnerability and cooperation were implicated in just suffering; and, assertiveness, altruism and self-efficacy were implicated in just flourishing. These seven traits were most likely to be the definitive, stable, drivers of SWB because their effects were totally consistent across the full range of intrapersonal contexts.

The purpose of the present study was to analyze the significance ofcreativity for network behavior. Similar to other network behavioral studiesthe multidimensional approach was utilized where networking was dividedinto sub dimensions with external and internal counterparts. The domainspecific approach to creativity was used in order to attempt to determinewhich creative domain is significant for different networking behaviors.106 individuals participated in the study and the sample is considered anon-random convenience sample. The results showed that certain networkbehaviors interacted with different creative domains. The creative domainof everyday and verbal creativity were both unique predictors of networkbehavior and were the creative domains who were the most relevant.Structural facets in the form of work experience, organizational size andbiological gender were also explored. Work experience was shown to be aweak moderating variable to the relationship of network behavior andcreativity. Organizational size had no significant results and biologicalgender was significant for two of the creative domains: Math / scientificand artistic creativity. Results from the present study provide furtherevidence towards an area which is relatively new. The findings can be usedto create an empirical foundation in recruitment scenarios which mayrequire individuals with particular set of psychological traits. / Syftet med denna studie var att undersöka interaktionen mellannätverksbeteende och kreativitet, samt att analysera om kreativitet är avsignifikant betydelse för nätverksbeteende. I linje med tidigare forskningom nätverksbeteende är denna studie av multidimensionell karaktär, därnätverksbeteende delas upp i interna samt externa komponenter. Dendomänspecifika paradigmen för kreativitet användes för att undersökavilka av de kreativa domänerna som är mest relevanta vidnätverksbeteende. 106 individer deltog i studien och urvalet var ettbekvämlighetsurval. Resultatet visade att några av de kreativa domäneninteragerade med nätverksbeteende, där vardaglig samt verbal kreativitetvar av högst relevans samt även unika prediktorer för nätverksbeteende. Destrukturella faktorerna arbetslivserfarenhet, organisationsstorlek samtbiologiskt kön undersöktes också. Arbetslivserfarenhet visade sig ha enmodererande effekt i relation till sambandet nätverksbeteende ochkreativitet, medan organisationsstorlek inte hade någon signifikant effekt.Resultatet för biologiskt kön indikerade att de kreativa domänenmatematisk/vetenskaplig och konstnärlig kreativitet var signifikanta, därmän skattade sig som något mer kreativa än vad kvinnor gjorde. Studiensresultat kan användas för att skapa en evidensbaserad grund irekryteringssammanhang samt i utformningen av psykometriska tester.

A rating design is a pre-specified plan for collecting ratings. The best design for a rater-mediated assessment both psychometrically and from the perspective of fairness is a fully-crossed design in which all objects are rated by all raters. An incomplete rating design is one in which all objects are not rated by all raters, instead each object is rated by an assigned subset of raters usually to reduce the time and/or cost of the assessment. Human raters have varying propensities to rate severely or leniently. One method of compensating for rater severity is the many-facets Rasch model (MFRM). However, unless the incomplete rating design used to gather the ratings is appropriately linked, the results of the MFRM analysis may not be on the same scale and therefore may not be fairly compared. Given non-trivial numbers of raters and/or objects to rate, there are numerous possible incomplete designs with various levels of linkage. The literature provides little guidance on the extent to which differently linked rating designs might affect the results of a MFRM analysis. Eighty different subsets of data were extracted from a pre-existing fully-crossed rating data set originally gathered from 24 essays rated by eight raters. These subsets represented 20 different incomplete rating designs and four specific assignments of raters to essays. The subsets of rating data were analyzed in Facets software to investigate the effects of incomplete rating designs on the MFRM results. The design attributes related to linkage that were varied in the incomplete designs include (a) rater coverage: the number of raters-per-essay, (b) repetition-size: the number of essays rated in one repetition of the sub-design pattern, (c) design structure: the linking network structure of the incomplete design, and (d) rater order: the specific assignments of raters to essays. A number of plots and graphs were used to visualize the incomplete designs and the rating results. Several measures including the observed and fair averages for raters and essays from the 80 MFRM analyses were compared against the fair averages for the fully-crossed design. Results varied widely depending on different combinations of design attributes and rater orders. Rater coverage had the overall largest effect, with rater order producing larger ranges of values for sparser designs. Many of the observed averages for raters and essays more closely approximated the results from the fully-crossed design than did the adjusted fair-averages, particularly for the more sparsely linked designs. The stability of relative standing measures was unexpectedly low.

This máster thesis presents research on the correlation of lexical information in texts in Portuguese with personality characteristics and model Big Five facets of IPIP-NEO. It elaborates, especially, on the use of classes of affective feelings LIWC lexicon. The main goal of this work is to relate the factors of the Big Five model and the IPIP-NEO facets of IPIP-NEO 120 and TIPI questionnaires with the posts of Facebook social network. For this, a tool called Personalitatem Lexicon was built. The methodology used to achieve the research objectives was bibliographical which were researched and analyzed the work done on personality inferences from texts. The result of the experiment shows that the inference of personality from the questionnaires have more precise conclusions for the same contain specific questions and answers to measure such characteristic. Already personality inference for posts is more susceptible to noise because not all experienced situations are exposed on the social network. However, inference of personality posts is possible, but the results are the moments / A presente dissertação apresenta pesquisa sobre a correlação de informações léxicas em textos em Português com características de personalidade do modelo Big Five e as facetas do IPIP-NEO. Discorre-se, especialmente, sobre o uso das classes de sentimentos afetivos do léxico LIWC. O objetivo principal desse trabalho é correlacionar os fatores do Big Five e as facetas do IPIP-NEO dos questionários IPIP-NEO 120 e TIPI com os posts da rede social Facebook. Para isso, foi construída uma ferramenta chamada de Personalitat em Lexicon. A metodologia adotada para atingir os objetivos da pesquisa foi de caráter bibliográfico onde foram pesquisados e analisados os trabalhos desenvolvidos sobre inferência de personalidade a partir de textos. O resultado do experimento mostra que a inferência de personalidade a partir dos questionários tem conclusões mais precisas pelo mesmo conter perguntas e respostas específicas para aferir tal característica. Já a inferência de personalidade por posts é mais susceptível a ruídos porque nem todas as situações vividas são expostas na rede social. Contudo, inferir personalidade por posts é possível, mas os resultados são retratos de momento.

MSc thesis - Faculty of Engineering / Service creation in the Next Generation Network (NGN) is focused around software creation and borrows heavily from the Software Engineering community. In the NGN, telecommunication companies demand simple, rapid and economical service creation. The key to this type of service creation is software re-use. Software re-use is a conundrum where limited, dedicated solutions exists. These solutions include amongst others Enterprise JavaBeansTM (EJBs), design patterns and object-oriented programming. The Telecommunications Information Networking Architecture- Conformance And Testing (TINA-CAT) workgroup has done work on a functionality centric concept called RP-facets. This report proposes a redefinition of RP-facets, as Facets, for software re-use across the design and code level. We redefine Facets as functionality centric reusable components. A Facet is independent of the implementation language and the execution platform. Facets allow containment in a structured manner via a user defined Facet Hierarchy. Facets are resource, context and data agnostic. They also introduce a structured way to allow source code to be changed based on design level decisions. Also, possessing the ability to allow the simultaneous use of other reuse solutions and programming paradigms. Abstraction of detail from developers and platform migration can be achieved by using Facets. Facets are composed of a Generic definition and any number of Implementation definitions. The definitions are supported by an underlying informational model called meta-¼. Meta- ¼ is a model at the M3 meta-level that focuses on describing entities. Most of the Facet’s capabilities are enabled by the meta-¼ model. An environment for developing Facets is created, called the Facet Development Environment (FDE). The Facet Developer (FD) role is introduced to develop and maintain Facets. The FD verifies programmes from programmers to be included into the catalogue of Facets via the FDE. The FD interacts with service creation teams to determine which Facets can be used in the service they wish to develop. Facets prove their capability in targeted areas, yet lack in other categories. It is recommended that the underlying informational model should be revised to form a more robust and flexible entity describing model. In addition, a cataloging capability to easily find Facets with particular functionality should be appended to the capabilities of the facet. It is proposed, for future work, that a development environment be created that encompasses a process for using Facets to create services.

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The quadratic traveling salesman problem (QTSP) is an extension of the (classical) Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP) where the costs depend on each two nodes that are traversed in succession, i. e., on the edges in the symmetric (STSP) and on the arcs in the asymmetric case (ATSP). The QTSP is motivated by an application in bioinformatics. It can be used in the solution of certain Permuted Markov models that are set up for the recognition of transcription factor binding sites and of splice sites in gene regulation. Important special cases are the Angular-Metric TSP used in robotics and the TSP with Reload Costs used in the planning of telecommunication and transport networks. The SQTSP and the AQTSP can be formulated as integer optimization problems over the polytope associated with the STSP resp. ATSP together with a quadratic cost function. We study the polytopes arising from a linearization of the respective quadratic integer programming formulations. Based on the proof of the dimension of the polytopes using the so called direct method we can prove the facetness of several valid inequalities. These facets and valid inequalities can be divided into three large groups. Some are related to the Boolean quadric polytope. Furthermore we introduce the conflicting edges/arc inequalities that forbid certain configurations of edges and 2-edges resp. of arcs and 2-arcs. Finally, we strengthen valid inequalities of STSP and ATSP in order to get stronger inequalities in the quadratic case. We present two general lifting approaches. One is applicable to all inequalities with nonnegative coefficients and the second allows to strengthen clique tree inequalities. Applying these approaches to the subtour elimination constraints leads to facets in most cases, but in general facetness is not preserved. In addition, the complexity of the separation problems for some of the facet classes is studied. Finally, we present some computational results using a branch-and-cut framework, which is improved by some of the newly derived cutting planes. The tested instances from biology could be solved surprisingly well. Instances with up to 100 nodes could be solved in less than 700 seconds improving the results in the literature by several orders of magnitude. For most of the randomly generated instances using some additional separators allowed to reduce the root gaps and the numbers of nodes in the branch-and-cut tree significantly, often even the running times.

This study explored mindfulness in eight self–injuring psychiatric adolescents. A concurrent triangulation mixed–method design was used. In–depth semi–structured clinical interviews and clinical records constituted the qualitative data, while quantitative data was gathered using the Five–Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ). Thematic analysis was used to generate themes and subthemes for both selfinjury and mindfulness. Findings regarding self–injury were in line with the literature. In terms of mindfulness, two groups emerged: one sometimes acting mindfully and the other often acting mindfully. Both similarities and differences were found between the groups. Similarities in self–injuring behaviour can be explained by their similar scores on Observe and Nonreact, while the differences can be explained by the differences in their scores on Describe, Act with Awareness and Nonjudge. Those who sometimes act mindfully tend to be more self–critical, report more severe and lethal self–injuring episodes and more often use self–injury for self–punishment. Although those who often act mindfully self–injure more often, they show more selfcompassion and report less severe injuries and less lethal methods. Future research should explore the usefulness of mindfulness–based interventions, especially teaching Nonjudge and Nonreact skills, to not only increase mindfulness, but to decrease selfinjuring behaviour. Seeing that this is an exploratory study on a small sample, the results presented here should be considered to be preliminary until replicated with a larger clinical sample. / Thesis (M.A. (Clinical Psychology))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2011.