Ostracism, the process of socially ignoring and excluding certain people, has attracted attention in recent years. Most studies have looked at full ostracism, in other words, when everyone in a group ignores a person. However, in real life, people are usually only partially ostracized – excluded by some members of a group and not by others. The present study is one of the first to provide an in-depth examination of reactions when different forms of partial ostracism occur in a group. It looks at partial ostracism in a field study and an experimental study. In the field study I proposed that because targets of partial ostracism receive mixed signals from their group, it is easier for them to interpret ostracism as an external event rather than internal; whereas in full ostracism because all the signs received by the target are the same, the target cannot interpret the act of ostracism in different ways. The results of the field study indicate that partial ostracism is not only more common than full ostracism at work, but targets of partial ostracism also make fewer internal attributions than do targets of full ostracism. The experimental study examined two dimensions of partial ostracism: activity exclusion (AE) and people exclusion (PE). Results indicate that as AE increases, i.e. targets are excluded from more activities, targets make fewer internal attributions, feel more threats to their basic needs (mediated by internal attributions), and have more desire to help others. As PE increases, targets feel more threats to their needs and put less effort into group tasks. Comparing AE and PE simultaneously, AE makes a difference in targets’ well-being while PE affects targets’ efforts in group tasks

Recent research has suggested disrupted interactions between brain regions may contribute to some of the symptoms of motor disorders such as Parkinson’s Disease (PD). It is therefore important to develop models for inferring brain functional connectivity from data obtained through non-invasive imaging technologies, such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The complexity of brain activities as well as the dynamic nature of motor disorders require such models to be able to perform complex, large-scale, and dynamic system computation. Traditional models proposed in the literature such as structural equation modeling (SEM), multivariate autoregressive models (MAR), dynamic causal modeling (DCM), and dynamic Bayesian networks (DBNs) have all been suggested as suitable for fMRI data analysis. However, they suffer from their own disadvantages such as high computational cost (e.g. DBNs), inability to deal with non-linear case (e.g. MAR), large sample size requirement (e.g. SEM), et., al. In this research, we propose applying Probabilistic Boolean Network (PBN) for modeling brain connectivity due to its solid stochastic properties, computational simplicity, robustness to uncertainty, and capability to deal with small-size data, typical for fIVIRI data sets. Applying the proposed PBN framework to real fMRI data recorded from PD subjects enables us to identify statistically significant abnormality in PD connectivity by comparing it with normal subjects. The PBN results also suggest a mechanism of evaluating the effectiveness of L-dopa, the principal treatment for PD. In addition to PBNs’ promising application in inferring brain connectivity, PBN modeling for brain ROTs also enables researchers to study dynamic activities of the system under stochastic conditions, gaining essential information regarding asymptotic behaviors of ROTs for potential therapeutic intervention in PD. The results indicate significant difference in feature states between PD patients and normal subjects. Hypothesizing the observed feature states for normal subject as the desired functional states, we further explore possible methods to manipulate the dynamic network behavior of PD patients in the favor of the desired states from the view of random perturbation as well as intervention. Results identified a target ROT with the best intervention performance, and that ROl is a potential candidate for therapeutic exercise.

This thesis looks at re-investing the landscape with community and environmental purpose, by bringing ‘infrastructure’ into the realm of ‘public works’, focusing on two community issues, that are demonstrative of a general condition that can be transferred to other sites within Toronto or other cities. The first issue discussed is the liminal condition of urban parks in the city. Since Euro-American settlement, there has been a historical devaluation of nature within the city of Toronto. This can be seen through a physical suppression of natural systems and through a psychological separation of nature from the city. The Garrison Creek, a defining element to the landscape of early Toronto, now buried underground, is one example demonstrative of this liminal condition. Proposals, by Brown+Storey Architects, in the 1990s, discussed the re-linkage of remnants of the ravine system, empty lots and urban park spaces, into a cohesive community-park-network and a watershed-system. The design aspect of this thesis builds on Brown+Storey’s neighbourhood park proposals by adding another layer - a supportive housing network. The second community issue discussed is the marginalization of special needs groups within society. The background given is a detailed history of their residential situations, from pre-institutional to Community Living trends, for various marginalized groups; with specific focus on persons with developmental disabilities. The final design proposal links the two community concerns and involves the re-linkage of disconnected neighbourhood parks in the city that would eventually become: a community park system (complete with a storm water management system), and part of a supportive housing network with neighbourhood allotment gardens. Thematically the two issues are linked, with the park as a tool for healing and reconnection of the city and nature relationship, as well as the marginalized group and community relationship. The approach taken is to look specifically at one community park (Trinity-Bellwoods, within the Garrison Creek Ravine system in Toronto), and one disadvantaged group (persons with developmental disabilities). The result is the design of a group-home complex, with varying degrees of support, for persons with developmental disabilities, sited within Trinity-Bellwoods Park. A central issue to this thesis is the use of public park space for supportive housing. Although Toronto’s Official Plan is generally prohibitive of such construction (Section 2.3.2 Policy 4 and 5, Section 4.3 Policy 2), it is the contention of this thesis that including supportive housing and gardens within parks would be highly beneficial for both the marginalized group that would be housed there and the community that it is part of. As such, it is argued that sensitive development of public park space for such a use can have positive results and should be allowed. Parks are intended to be centers for community life. Because of their central location and highly public nature, they lend themselves as venues for interaction –they are an environment where through visibility and awareness, there is encouragement towards openness, compassion, and acceptance. The final design uses gardening, as a tool for personal healing, and as a method for interaction in the form of neighbourhood allotment gardens. The hope is that such an environment would encourage engagement between the disadvantaged group and the community. This increased communication could then lead to personal identification; reducing fear, and ultimately the lessening of isolation or marginalization. Thus the final design proposal is understood as a possible prototype for the urban park, which is augmented as a place truly reflective of a “community” park, alluding to a higher purpose in the city that promotes the common good.

This thesis looks at re-investing the landscape with community and environmental purpose, by bringing ‘infrastructure’ into the realm of ‘public works’, focusing on two community issues, that are demonstrative of a general condition that can be transferred to other sites within Toronto or other cities. The first issue discussed is the liminal condition of urban parks in the city. Since Euro-American settlement, there has been a historical devaluation of nature within the city of Toronto. This can be seen through a physical suppression of natural systems and through a psychological separation of nature from the city. The Garrison Creek, a defining element to the landscape of early Toronto, now buried underground, is one example demonstrative of this liminal condition. Proposals, by Brown+Storey Architects, in the 1990s, discussed the re-linkage of remnants of the ravine system, empty lots and urban park spaces, into a cohesive community-park-network and a watershed-system. The design aspect of this thesis builds on Brown+Storey’s neighbourhood park proposals by adding another layer - a supportive housing network. The second community issue discussed is the marginalization of special needs groups within society. The background given is a detailed history of their residential situations, from pre-institutional to Community Living trends, for various marginalized groups; with specific focus on persons with developmental disabilities. The final design proposal links the two community concerns and involves the re-linkage of disconnected neighbourhood parks in the city that would eventually become: a community park system (complete with a storm water management system), and part of a supportive housing network with neighbourhood allotment gardens. Thematically the two issues are linked, with the park as a tool for healing and reconnection of the city and nature relationship, as well as the marginalized group and community relationship. The approach taken is to look specifically at one community park (Trinity-Bellwoods, within the Garrison Creek Ravine system in Toronto), and one disadvantaged group (persons with developmental disabilities). The result is the design of a group-home complex, with varying degrees of support, for persons with developmental disabilities, sited within Trinity-Bellwoods Park. A central issue to this thesis is the use of public park space for supportive housing. Although Toronto’s Official Plan is generally prohibitive of such construction (Section 2.3.2 Policy 4 and 5, Section 4.3 Policy 2), it is the contention of this thesis that including supportive housing and gardens within parks would be highly beneficial for both the marginalized group that would be housed there and the community that it is part of. As such, it is argued that sensitive development of public park space for such a use can have positive results and should be allowed. Parks are intended to be centers for community life. Because of their central location and highly public nature, they lend themselves as venues for interaction –they are an environment where through visibility and awareness, there is encouragement towards openness, compassion, and acceptance. The final design uses gardening, as a tool for personal healing, and as a method for interaction in the form of neighbourhood allotment gardens. The hope is that such an environment would encourage engagement between the disadvantaged group and the community. This increased communication could then lead to personal identification; reducing fear, and ultimately the lessening of isolation or marginalization. Thus the final design proposal is understood as a possible prototype for the urban park, which is augmented as a place truly reflective of a “community” park, alluding to a higher purpose in the city that promotes the common good.

This study will examine how the structure of preferences of group members in a decision-making group, as well as the information they have, affects the collection and the processing of information by individual members of a decision making group. Structure of preferences in this study will represent each individual group members’ preference towards a particular course of action. Using an experimental method of analysis, this study will examine how the preference structure of a group affects what and how much information a group member will analyze before making a decision. I hypothesize that the structure of the group members’ preferences should affect the subjects’ search and process of information. This study aims to answer the following questions; do group preferences affect the search and processing of information? Do group members thoroughly survey the objectives and alternatives in the decision making process?

Previous work on moving object mobile group pattern mining defined and proposed algorithms for mobile group mining based on their individual movement data. Movement data is expected to be widely available owing to the increasing popularity of tractable mobile devices on the cutting edge. However, existing approaches of mobile group pattern mining do not consider temporal dimension. Considering that human beings often act as a group according to some temporal features such as routine activities, in this thesis, we engage in the discovery of valid mobile groups that pertain to the some temporal patterns. In our research, we introduce the calendar-based representation mechanism to be our representation of temporal dimension. Taking the calendar patterns into account, we define a new problem called calendar-based mobile group mining problem and develop efficient algorithms for the problem. The proposed algorithms are evaluated via synthetic location data generated by a sensible data generator.

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A new approach is proposed to transparently share familiar single-user editors without modifying their source code. This approach tweaks a classic diff algorithm to derive edit scripts between document states. Concurrent edit scripts are merged to synchronize states of coauthoring sites. Our concept-proving prototype currently works with familiar, heterogeneous text editors such as GVim and WinEdt that can be adapted to support two basic interfaces, GetState and SetState. The adaption is less expensive and more robust than recent approaches such as ICT and CoWord, which must understand and translate editing operations at the operating system level. Experimental data show that our approach is able to provide sufficient performance for near-realtime group editing.

Collaborative editing systems (or group editors) allow a geographically dispersed group of human users to view and modify shared multimedia documents, such as research papers, design diagrams, web pages and source code together over a computer network. In addition to being useful tools, group editors are a classic research vehicle and model of interactive groupware applications, based on which a variety of social and technical issues have been investigated. Consistency maintenance as a fundamental problem in group editors has attracted constant research attention. Operational transformation (OT) is an optimistic consistency maintenance method that supports unconstrained collaboration among human users. Although significant progress has been achieved over the past decade, there is still a large space for improvement on the theoretical part of OT. In this dissertation, we are concerned with three problems: (1) How to evaluate the correctness of OT-based consistency maintenance protocols; (2) How to design and prove correct OT-based protocols; (3) What are the consistency correctness conditions for group editing systems in general. This dissertation addresses the above three problems and makes the following contributions: (1) propose a total order based framework including a new consistency model and the associated design methodology. This framework reduces the complexities of the OT design; (2) improve the total order based framework by introducing a natural order based framework. In contrast, this framework removes the requirement of defining a total order that is not necessary to the OT design; (3) establish a generic consistency model and propose the first set of practical design guidelines in OT based on this model.