The purpose of this bachelor thesis is to examine the usabilityof Oatly.com, using qualitative as well as quantitative methodswithin usercentereddesign and information architecture, inorder to propose ways of developing and improving it. Byanalyzing the content of the website’s home page, andcomparing it to the home pages of similar websites usingcompetitive benchmarking, suggestions are made on how toimprove the home page of the website, along with results fromcontextual inquiries carried out using participants representingthe company’s target group. The methods used are followedout from a usability perspective, and are focused on the needsand preferences of the target group. The conclusion reached inthis thesis suggests that the overall quality of Oatly.com iswell thought out and adjusted to appeal to the desired targetgroup. However suggestions are made on how the website canbe adjusted and improved in order to appeal to the targetaudience, as well as ways for Oatly to continue the assessmentand analysis of how to continually evolve and improve thewebsite. The suggestions for development of the websiteinclude adding a search function, adding significant content tothe productandcontact pages, adding content which explainsto the user how the company’s products can be utilized, aswell as changing the current utilization of the slider on thehome page.

Thesis advisor: Karen Kayser / Purpose: Acculturative stress has been found to mediate the relationship between acculturation and psychological distress, yet research investigating the impact of contextual factors on acculturative stress is non-existent. Based on family stress management theory (Boss, 2002), the current study investigates the contextual influence on acculturative stress and psychological distress of Latina women. Acculturation and systems of support were tested for their capacity to moderate the relationships between various significant contexts, acculturative stress and psychological distress. Unique experiences of women born in Cuba, Puerto Rico and Mexico were delineated and compared. Methods: Using the National Latino Asian American Survey, the current study involves 639 Latina women born in Mexico (N=257), Cuba (N=264) and Puerto Rico (N=118). A mediated moderation analysis was conducted through Path Analysis in MPLUS. Results: Findings indicate an inconsistent relationship between acculturative stress and psychological distress. For the combined group of Latina women, racial and daily discrimination shaped acculturative stress and psychological distress most often, followed by age and family-cultural conflict. Income and structural components of internal contexts (i.e. household decision-making power) impacted their psychological distress only. Country-specific variations argue against treating Latina women as a monolithic group. Biculturalism emerged as a more effective integration form. Only spousal support moderated the relationships between contextual factors, psychological distress and acculturative stress. Implications: These findings will inform the development of culturally sensitive clinical interventions. Social work policy makers will gain a comprehensive understanding of resources needed to promote a healthy integration of Latina women into the U.S. Community organizers are encouraged to advocate on behalf of multi-cultural immigration policies that enable the retention of aspects of native culture deemed to buffer Latina women from the negative impact of contextual factors and acculturative stress. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2011. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Social Work. / Discipline: Social Work.

Thesis advisor: Jacqueline Lerner / Understanding the family and school factors that lead to Latino children's social competence in the United States is a critical issue for the school success of our expanding Latino population. Using a Latino subsample of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998-1999 (N = 3,072), this study examined socioeconomic status, home language, and parental stress in relation to parenting behaviors as predictors of kindergarten children's social skills in the classroom. Spanish instruction in the classroom was investigated as a moderator of the relationship between parental stress and parenting behaviors. Using regression analyses, it was found that higher socioeconomic levels were associated with greater levels of parental warmth and structured rules and routines in the family. Spanish as home language was related to lower levels of harsher forms of discipline. Both marital stress and parenting stress were predictive of harsher forms of discipline and decreased structured rules and routines in the family. Marital stress alone was related to decreased levels of parental warmth. Parenting behaviors were predictive of kindergarten children's social skills. Harsher forms of discipline were related to decreases in children's self-control and interpersonal skills. Increased levels of family rules and routines were positively related to children's self-control and interpersonal skills. Evidence was found for the mediational role of parenting behaviors to children's social skills. Discipline mediated the relationship between marital stress and children's self-control and interpersonal skills. Discipline also mediated the relationship of parenting stress to children's interpersonal skills. Finally, structured rules and routines in the family mediated the relationship of marital stress to interpersonal skills. Support was found for Spanish instruction in the classroom as a moderator for the relationship of parenting stress to negative parenting behaviors. Spanish in the classroom was associated with higher levels of parental warmth and lower levels of harsh discipline, in spite of parenting stress. This result highlights the importance of providing Spanish language resources in our school systems to promote Latino children's social competence. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2011. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Applied Developmental and Educational Psychology.

Evidências anteriores deste laboratório mostraram que o núcleo mediano da rafe (NMR) está envolvido no controle do condicionamento contextual do medo. Lesão eletrolítica dessa estrutura causa sinais de desinibição comportamental com aumento da atividade locomotora medida no teste de campo aberto. Nesse trabalho, estendemos nossos estudos analisando as respostas comportamentais e autonômicas em um paradigma de condicionamento de medo contextual e clássico (pareamento luz ou som/choque nas patas) em ratos tanto com lesão neuroquímica com N-Methyl-D-Aspartato (NMDA), quanto com microinjeção de 8-hydroxy-2-(di-n-propylamino) tetralina (8-OH-DPAT) no NMR. Os animais receberam microinjeções de NMDA, 8-OH-DPAT ou salina no NMR e foram submetidos ao condicionamento em uma caixa experimental, onde eles receberam dez choques nas patas (0,7 mA, 1 s, intervalo variável entre 10 e 50 s) pareados com contexto, luz ou som (CS). No dia seguinte, os animais foram testados em presença do CS, e o tempo de congelamento, o número de levantamentos, micção e defecação foram registrados. Os animais expostos ao CS apresentaram mais congelamento que ratos controles. Essa resposta de congelamento foi inibida em ratos com lesão com NMDA ou com microinjeção de 8-OH-DPAT no NMR testados no condicionamento contextual ou com pareamento luz/choque, mas não foi alterada em animais submetidos ao condicionamento acústico. No teste de campo aberto, microinjeções de NMDA e 8-OH-DPAT no NMR causaram uma maior atividade locomotora do que o grupo controle, sem alterar o número de levantamentos. Esses resultados mostram que mecanismos serotonérgicos do NMR estão envolvidos no condicionamento de medo (contexto ou luz como estímulo condicionado). Distintos substratos neurais parecem estar envolvidos no condicionamento do medo a estímulos acústicos. / We have shown that the median raphe nucleus (MRN) is involved in the control of contextual fear conditioning. Besides, electrolytic lesion of MRN causes signs of behavioral disinhibition with an increase in the locomotor activity measured in an open field. In this work we extend this study by analyzing the behavioral and autonomic responses in a contextual and classical (light or tone/foot-shock pairings) fear conditioning paradigms in rats with either neurochemical lesion with N-Methyl-D-Aspartate (NMDA) or microinjected with 8-hydroxy-2-(di-n-propylamino) tetralin (8-OH-DPAT) into the MRN. The animals received NMDA, 8-OH-DPAT or saline microinjections into the MRN and were submitted to conditioning trials in an experimental chamber where they received ten foot-shocks (0.7 mA, 1 sec, variable interval between 10 and 50 sec) paired with the context, light or tone. The next day, animals were tested either in the same or in a different experimental chamber in the presence of light or tone, where the duration of freezing, number of rearings, bouts of micturition and number of fecal boli were recorded. Context, light or tone alone caused a significant amount of freezing. This freezing behavior was clearly inhibited in rats with NMDA lesions or with 8-OH-DPAT microinjections in the MRN tested in contextual conditioning or light/foot-shock association, but not in the conditioning fear test with tones. In the open-field test, the NMDA and 8-OH-DPAT microinjections into the MRN caused higher horizontal locomotor activity than control rats without changing the number of rearings. These results clearly show that 5-HT mechanisms of the MRN are involved in the fear conditioning (contextual or light as conditioned stimuli). Distinct neural substrates seem to subserve conditioning fear with acoustic stimuli.

Em decorrência da crescente quantidade de documentos disponíveis em formato digital, a importância da análise computacional de grandes volumes de dados torna-se ainda mais evidente na atualidade. Embora grande parte desses documentos esteja disponível em formato de língua natural, a análise por meio de processos como a Mineração de Textos ainda é um desafio a ser superado. Normalmente, abordagens tradicionais de representação de textos como a Bag of Words desconsideram aspectos semânticos e contextuais das coleções de textos analisadas, ignorando informações que podem potencializar o desempenho das tarefas realizadas. Os principais problemas associados a essas abordagens são a alta esparsidade e dimensionalidade que prejudicam consideravelmente o desempenho das tarefas realizadas. Como o enriquecimento de representações de textos é uma das possibilidades efetivas para atenuar esses tipos de problemas, nesta dissertação foi investigada a aplicação conjunta de enriquecimentos semânticos e contextuais. Para isso foi proposta uma nova técnica de representação de textos, cuja principal novidade é a abordagem utilizada para calcular a frequência dos atributos (contextos) baseando-se em suas similaridades. Os atributos extraídos por meio dessa técnica proposta são considerados dependentes já que são formados por conjuntos de termos correlacionados que podem compartilhar informações semelhantes. A efetividade da técnica foi avaliada na tarefa de classificação automática de textos, na qual foram explorados diferentes procedimentos de enriquecimento textual e versões de modelos de linguagem baseados em word embeddings. De acordo com os resultados obtidos, há evidências favoráveis a respeito da efetividade e da aplicabilidade da técnica de representação de textos proposta. Segundo os testes de significância estatística realizados, a aplicação de enriquecimentos textuais baseados em Reconhecimento de Entidades Nomeadas e em Desambiguação Lexical de Sentido pode contribuir efetivamente para o aumento do desempenho da tarefa de classificação automática de textos, principalmente nas abordagens em que também são considerados textos de fontes externas de conhecimento como a Wikipédia. Constatou-se empiricamente que a efetividade dessa técnica proposta pode ser superior às abordagens tradicionais em cenários de aplicação baseados em informações semânticas das coleções de textos, caracterizando-a como uma alternativa promissora para a geração de representações de textos com alta densidade de informações semânticas e contextuais que se destacam pela interpretabilidade. / Due to the increasing number of available documents in digital format, the importance of computational analysis of large volumes of data becomes even more evident recently. Although most of these documents are available in natural language format, analysis through processes such as text mining is still a challenge to be overcome. Normally, traditional text representation approaches such as the bag of words disregard semantic and contextual aspects of the analyzed text collections, ignoring information that can enhance the performance of the tasks performed. The main problems associated with these approaches are the high sparsity and dimensionality that considerably impair the performance of the tasks performed. As the text representations enrichment is one of the effective possibilities to attenuate these types of problems, in this dissertation the joint application of semantic and contextual enrichment was investigated. For that a new text representation technique was proposed, whose main novelty is the approach used to calculate the frequency of attributes (contexts) based on their similarities. The attributes attributes extracted by this proposed technique are considered dependent because they are formed by sets of correlated terms that can share similar information. The effectiveness of the technique was evaluated in the automatic text classification task, in which different procedures of textual enrichment and versions of language models based on word embeddings were explored. According to the results, there is favorable evidence regarding the effectiveness and applicability of the proposed text representation technique. According to the statistical significance tests, the application of textual enrichment based on named entity recognition and word sense disambiguation can effectively contribute to the increase of the performance of the automatic text classification task, especially in the approaches that are also considered texts from external knowledge sources such asWikipedia. It has been empirically verified that the effectiveness of this proposed technique can be superior to the traditional approaches in application scenarios based on semantic information of the text collections, characterizing it as a promising alternative for the generation of text representations with high density of semantic and contextual information that stand out for their interpretability.

In this experiment it was investigated how scent affect the memory. Encoding information in the same context as retrieving it has been suggested to be beneficial for memory, earlier research has mostly explored how environmental contextual cues affects the memory. In this research the contextual cue was created by a presentation of a scent. The participants were presented with two lists of words, during the encoding of the first list all the participants were presented with a scent, half of the group was directed to forget the first list straight after encoding and the other half to keep remembering the list. For the second list no one was presented with a scent. In the retrieval of both lists half of each group was reinstated with the scent they were presented with at encoding and the other half without the scent (control group). The data were analysed with univariate ANOVAs and significant effects were followed up with independent-samples t-test. The results were that participants that were reinstated with the scent were thought to remember more than the others, however there was only a significant difference in the forget condition with reinstatement, where they remembered less than in the other conditions.

No description available.

The requirement for a written element in the B.A (Hons) Arts degree has been in place since the Coldstream Report of 1960. Since that time, there have been discussions, scholarly articles and further government committees addressing the way that this component is delivered by universities and colleges. These discussions centre on the content, the assessment of the content and its relationship to students' own practice. There are many divergent views about how the subject, variously called contextual, critical or complementary studies, should be presented by the students in a way that has academic rigour and enhances studio practice. However, I have identified a gap in that literature: there also is a rich history of artists and, more recently, designers writing about their own and others' practice. I sought to establish whether or not the writing of established practitioners could be useful in improving students' own efforts and encouraging a synthesis between the written work in their final year journals, (an alternative to the traditional dissertation) and their studio practice. The methodology that seemed most appropriate was an instrumental case study, with data from interviews (transcriptions), text analysis and analytic induction of the writings by established practitioners and the students' writings about their own work and the work of others. Experience and by now conventional practice suggests that all students refer to the work of established practitioners, not always from their own chosen discipline. Although the students are not necessarily asked to research and write about other established practitioners, inevitably they will do so to engage with, identify and contextualise theory and history. There was a general lack of understanding about the complexities of the intended learning outcomes and, importantly, the sub-assessment criteria that was realised to be more difficult to explain and understand than the more traditional, essay method of the dissertation. This difficulty was mainly owing to the students' lack of experience in critical thinking and poor research skills when writing about their own work. The task for third year students was burdensome for some, but easier for those students who had critical studies embedded in their studio practice. In only one discipline were the tutors optimistic about the abilities of their students to understand the criteria and therefore likely to be successful in the assessment of the journal. This finding was mirrored in their students' responses. The lack of interest and wide knowledge of some tutors in comparison with other colleagues lead to a tension between what is currently learnt in the studio and what is learnt from non-studio teaching. I explored the relevant writings using the three themes of production, content and consumption. A comparison between students' and established practitioners' writing, using the criteria for the intended learning outcomes for the critical studies module, found that there were both some similarities and some important differences. On the basis of the evidence, the journal could provide the students with a more insightful understanding of their studio practice if there is: • A revision of the assessment criteria, using the saturation points of established practitioners writing in my analysis tables; • Much greater fostering of interest into the reading of established practitioners' writing; and• A team of tutors who are able and willing to teach critical studies/research alongside the studio work. These findings have implications for the training of the staff as well as the structure of the degree courses in art and design.

Evidências anteriores deste laboratório mostraram que o núcleo mediano da rafe (NMR) está envolvido no controle do condicionamento contextual do medo. Lesão eletrolítica dessa estrutura causa sinais de desinibição comportamental com aumento da atividade locomotora medida no teste de campo aberto. Nesse trabalho, estendemos nossos estudos analisando as respostas comportamentais e autonômicas em um paradigma de condicionamento de medo contextual e clássico (pareamento luz ou som/choque nas patas) em ratos tanto com lesão neuroquímica com N-Methyl-D-Aspartato (NMDA), quanto com microinjeção de 8-hydroxy-2-(di-n-propylamino) tetralina (8-OH-DPAT) no NMR. Os animais receberam microinjeções de NMDA, 8-OH-DPAT ou salina no NMR e foram submetidos ao condicionamento em uma caixa experimental, onde eles receberam dez choques nas patas (0,7 mA, 1 s, intervalo variável entre 10 e 50 s) pareados com contexto, luz ou som (CS). No dia seguinte, os animais foram testados em presença do CS, e o tempo de congelamento, o número de levantamentos, micção e defecação foram registrados. Os animais expostos ao CS apresentaram mais congelamento que ratos controles. Essa resposta de congelamento foi inibida em ratos com lesão com NMDA ou com microinjeção de 8-OH-DPAT no NMR testados no condicionamento contextual ou com pareamento luz/choque, mas não foi alterada em animais submetidos ao condicionamento acústico. No teste de campo aberto, microinjeções de NMDA e 8-OH-DPAT no NMR causaram uma maior atividade locomotora do que o grupo controle, sem alterar o número de levantamentos. Esses resultados mostram que mecanismos serotonérgicos do NMR estão envolvidos no condicionamento de medo (contexto ou luz como estímulo condicionado). Distintos substratos neurais parecem estar envolvidos no condicionamento do medo a estímulos acústicos. / We have shown that the median raphe nucleus (MRN) is involved in the control of contextual fear conditioning. Besides, electrolytic lesion of MRN causes signs of behavioral disinhibition with an increase in the locomotor activity measured in an open field. In this work we extend this study by analyzing the behavioral and autonomic responses in a contextual and classical (light or tone/foot-shock pairings) fear conditioning paradigms in rats with either neurochemical lesion with N-Methyl-D-Aspartate (NMDA) or microinjected with 8-hydroxy-2-(di-n-propylamino) tetralin (8-OH-DPAT) into the MRN. The animals received NMDA, 8-OH-DPAT or saline microinjections into the MRN and were submitted to conditioning trials in an experimental chamber where they received ten foot-shocks (0.7 mA, 1 sec, variable interval between 10 and 50 sec) paired with the context, light or tone. The next day, animals were tested either in the same or in a different experimental chamber in the presence of light or tone, where the duration of freezing, number of rearings, bouts of micturition and number of fecal boli were recorded. Context, light or tone alone caused a significant amount of freezing. This freezing behavior was clearly inhibited in rats with NMDA lesions or with 8-OH-DPAT microinjections in the MRN tested in contextual conditioning or light/foot-shock association, but not in the conditioning fear test with tones. In the open-field test, the NMDA and 8-OH-DPAT microinjections into the MRN caused higher horizontal locomotor activity than control rats without changing the number of rearings. These results clearly show that 5-HT mechanisms of the MRN are involved in the fear conditioning (contextual or light as conditioned stimuli). Distinct neural substrates seem to subserve conditioning fear with acoustic stimuli.

Motivated by the paucity of high quality stillbirth surveillance data and the spatial analyses of such data, the current research sets out to quantitatively describe the pattern of stillbirth events that may lead to mechanistic hypotheses. We broaden the appeal of Bayesian Poisson point process modeling to quantify excess risk while accounting for unobserved heterogeneity. We consider a practical data analysis strategy when fitting the point process model and study the utility of parameterizing the intensity function governing the point process to include a maternal contextual effect to account for variation due to multiple stillbirth events experienced by the same mother in independent pregnancies. Simulation studies suggest that our practical data analysis strategy is reasonable and that there is a variance-bias trade-off associated with the use of a maternal contextual effect. The methodology is applied to the spatial distribution of stillbirth events in Iowa during the years 2005 through 2011 obtained using an active, statewide public health surveillance approach. Several localized areas of excess risk were identified and mapped based on model components that captured the nuanced and salient features of the data. A conditional formulation of the point process model is then considered, which has two main advantages: the ability to easily incorporate covariate information attached to both stillbirth and live birth, as well as obviate the need to estimate the background intensity. We assess the utility of the conditional approach in the presence of unobserved heterogeneity, compare two Bayesian estimation techniques, and extend the conditional formulation to adequately capture spatio-temporal effects. The motivating study comes from the Iowa Registry for Congenital and Inherited Disorders who has a committed interest in the surveillance and epidemiology of stillbirth in Iowa and whether the occurrence might be geographically linked.