A well-researched line showing equivalence performances in a wide variety of areas has been conducted in the field of Behavior Analysis (BA). One area demonstrates that relating relations is a behavioral account of analogical thinking. Relating relations may have implications for the development of analogical training given that analogical reasoning is seen as the foundation of intelligence yet research in this area is limited. A protocol by Stewart, Barnes-Holmes, and Weil (2009) was developed to train children in analogical reasoning using equivalence-equivalence relations. The purpose of this study was to evaluate an equivalence-equivalence training protocol based on Stewart et al. (2009) and test whether the protocol was effective in training equivalence-equivalence responding to 7 and 8-year-old children. A secondary purpose was to test whether training in equivalence-equivalence responding increased performances on analogical tests. All five participants were dismissed throughout the study. Participant 1 was dismissed during the pre-assessments and all other participants were dismissed during intervention. Because none of the participants passed the equivalence-equivalence training, increases in performance in analogical testes were not analyzed. Individual performance data from training are examined and analyzed to provide an account of the failures to pass the equivalence-equivalence protocol.

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There is very little theoretical literature about theatrical improvisation as it connects to ideas and practices of relating and specifically to ideas and practices of social work relating. This thesis involves efforts to theorize moments of relating – of being with others – in improvisation. A group of hospital social workers and a group of PhD social work research students participated in the study. The participants took part in improvisational workshops designed specifically for the study, as well as one-on-one and group interviews. This thesis explores what was created between research participants in improvisational workshops: the response-ability to and for others; an experience of grappling with the desire for control; and an embodied apprehension of interdependence. The study demonstrates an embodied and uncomfortable experience of the dominance of individualism in our relating. The study also demonstrates ways in which the art of theatrical improvisation can allow us to take up the transformative promises of social constructionism in social work relating. The thesis aims to make living space for central social constructionist concepts such as mutual constitution and interdependence – to explore and consider what happens when we fully recognize and carry these out in our practices of relating. Providing a different way into these central social constructionist concepts, this study contributes to arts-informed research, teaching and practice. More specifically, the research shows how the art of improvisation can provide transformative possibilities for social work pedagogy and the social work classroom. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / This thesis involves efforts to theorize moments of relating – of being with others – in improvisation. A group of hospital social workers and a group of PhD social work research students participated in the study. The participants took part in improvisational workshops designed specifically for the study, as well as one-on-one and group interviews. This thesis explores what was created between research participants in improvisational workshops: the response-ability to and for others; an experience of grappling with the desire for control; and an embodied apprehension of interdependence. The study demonstrates an embodied and uncomfortable experience of the dominance of individualism in our relating and provides an analysis of engagement in improvisation as an alternative to a framework of independence in social work. The study contributes potential for arts-informed research, teaching, and practice, as well as social work pedagogy as it demonstrates ways in which the art of improvisation can allow us to take up the transformative promises of social constructionism in social work relating.

The title of my Master's degree thesis is "Proceedings relating to decedent's estate". I have chosen this topic because of many reasons. Although it is a traditional institute of civil procedure law, the topic is still very actual with regard to the new legislation in the Act No. 89/2012 Coll., The Civil Code, which was a significant extension of inheritance law, and the related procedural legislation in the Act No. 292/2013 Coll., on special judicial proceedings. Another reason is that I find this topic interesting, mainly because of its complexity and significant blending of procedural and substantive legislation. Since participation in inheritance proceeding is an inevitable issue in person's life, I wanted to extend my knowledge of the new legislation. Moreover I find this topic wrongfully overlooked in advocacy, to which I would like to head after graduation. The aim of the thesis is to describe the course of proceedings relating to decedent's estate and to show the different stages of the procedure and also include important substantive aspects and institutes which affect this procedure in the extent necessary. With regard to the adoption of new legislation I tried to highlight the most important changes and differences between the new legislation and legislation effective until 31. 12. 2013,...

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Family Studies and Human Services / Karen S. Myers-Bowman / The goals of this study were to investigate the definitions of influence and closeness from the perspectives of the couples, the techniques or approaches couples use to share influence and maintain closeness in their relationships, the themes associated with different relating styles, ways couples handle discrepancies and incompatibilities, and the relationship issues associated with specific relating styles. Eight married couples residing in northeast Kansas were interviewed for this study. The participants were selected through a screening survey distributed to a university student body to collect basic demographics and couple relating styles. The eight couples were chosen because the relating styles they reported were diverse enough to provide the needed maximum variation and a general representation of the sample pool. A style of relating model – couple map was created to help couples visualize how they relate to their partners in terms of influence and closeness. This study begins to fill the gap in the research by creating an integrated model to understand couple relational patterns and by giving voice to couples and allowing them to share their experiences on how they share influence and maintain closeness in their relationships. Through the lens of Symbolic Interaction Theory and Social Exchange Theory, this study sheds light on the cognitive and behavioral strategies couples use to relate to each other while striving to meet personal and mutual needs for influence and closeness in their marriages.

Este projeto de mestrado apresenta uma visão de como áreas da Ciência da Computação relacionadas a desempenho (Avaliação de Desempenho, Engenharia de Desempenho de Software e Teste de Desempenho de Software) podem ser relacionas e também propõe uma metodologia de análise de desempenho que contém conceitos das áreas anteriormente apontadas, para que esta seja mais completa e possa ser compreendida por profissionais das três áreas. Para formalizar esse relacionamento, foi construída uma ontologia que mostra como ocorre a correlação entre as áreas, e a partir dessa metodologia proposta, foi possível analisar o desempenho da ferramenta ValiPar, em sua versão paralela e concluir que o principal gargalo com relação a escalabilidade dela é sua porção executada sequencialmente. Por fim, foi observado que a metodologia apresenta vantagens se comparada as demais, como uma formalização nas suas etapas de análise. / This master project presents a view of how Computers Science areas related to performance (Performance Evaluation, Software Performance Engineering and Software Performance Testing) can be related and also proposes a performance analysis methodology that contains concepts from all areas previously identified, so that it is more complete and can be understood by professionals of these three areas. To formalize this relationship, an ontology that shows how the correlation occurs between areas was built. And from the proposed methodology, it was possible to analyze the performance of ValiPar tool, in its parallel version, and it was concluded that the main bottleneck with respect to its scalability is its portion executed sequentially. Finally, it was observed that the proposed methodology has advantages compared to others, as a formalization in its analysis steps.

This thesis weaves together disparate sources of theoretical knowledge with the lived experience of 11 women to illuminate the mysterious world of pre-natal relating - the foundation for postnatal life and the beginnings of the capacity to love. Love and supportive relationships can ameliorate stress and trauma post-birth, but do they operate prenatally, and if so how? This research clearly shows that mothers relate to their preborns and from the rich detail of their stories, the author proposes a schema that captures the complexity and changing nature of prenatal relating. The basic physiological and neurological structures are formed from conception, making the preborn vulnerable to the effects of direct and maternal experience. Preborns have extensive capacities that include the potential for interaction. These capacities and experiences affect infant development post birth. This evidence supports the author's initial hypothesis that prenatal stress is a significant factor in the attentional and behavioural problems of childhood, and challenges purely genetic explanations. 'Normal' life events have greater potency during pregnancy, making the transition to parenthood stressful even for many women in low risk situations. Feeling supported is essential for the health and well-being of the mother and preborn. This thesis reports a phenomenological and prospective study of 11 pregnant women as they lived the prenatal journey. From the interviews, it describes the development of the prenatal relationship and the range of stressful and supportive factors that should be considered in the creation of child and family friendly communities. / Master of Science (Hons)

In the past 10 years, the automobile market of Taiwan has been about 400,000 automobiles per year, and the average output per automaker in Taiwan has been in the range from 30,000 to 50,000 automobiles per year. According to the relevant studies, to reach the goal of economic size of production, 100,000 automobiles should be produced per model per year and the total output of an automaker should be more than 400,000 automobiles. There are 10 automakers in Taiwan. What are the economic and trade policies that have brought about so many automakers in Taiwan? Is this an example of extreme loosening of the control of the automobile industry or if this has something to do with the big profit margin in the industry? Taiwan has entered the WTO; the economic and trade policies of Taiwan should be so set that they can further the development of the automobile industry of Taiwan in the Chinese market and other parts of the world by utilizing the trade advantages of Taiwan. In this study, we look into the changes of the economic and trade policies of Taiwan in terms of their impacts on the automobile industry of Taiwan; we also try to assess the causes of such changes. What are the policies that have caused the evolution of the automobile industry of Taiwan? Why can¡¦t the automakers in Taiwan develop their own brand like the manufacturers in the microelectronic industry, motorcycle industry and bicycle industry in Taiwan? In this study, from the economic perspective and the perspective of the relevant policies, we examine the consumer market and buyers¡¦ preferences on the demand side; while, on the supply side, we look into the competition strategies adopted by the automakers and their competitiveness through the R & D, production technologies and competitiveness of these automakers. We also examine the impacts of the relevant government policies on the automobile industry and the challenges posed by Taiwan¡¦s entry into the WTO. Our aim is to understand the problems and difficulties found in the government policies and the evolution of the automobile industry of Taiwan so that we infer how the government policies will be evolved into and the crucial factors that have caused the changes in the policies. In this study, we look into how the crucial factors have caused the changes in the automobile industry. Through the previously described approaches and the assessment of the policies relating to the automobile industry, we can identify the successful and failure experience in the past and infer the competitive advantages and the policies in the future. Also, through the simulation of the optimal development direction of the policies relating to the automobile industry, we bring forth the future development direction of the automobile industry for the reference of the relevant government agencies so as to create an environment that allows the manufacturers of the industry to establish production facilities in China and to enter other markets of the world and so that the goals of autonomous product development and the sustainable development of the automobile industry of Taiwan may be reached and the products of these manufacturers may be more competitive in terms of the global market.

In the dominant management discourse, managers and consultants are credited with the ability to move their organisation in a planned, controlled way towards an idealised future. The assumptions underpinning this discourse include the following: organisations are thought of as systems that can be designed and steered in an intended direction; culture is seen as a control system to align employees’ conduct in support of the organisation’s strategy; consultants are viewed as experts in designing and implementing effective and efficient interventions, being on top of the process. These assumptions are grounded in the natural sciences of certainty, in which rational, formative and linear causality are presumed. I argue in this thesis, through a reflexive enquiry of my own practice, that these assumptions do not sufficiently resonate with my experience as an internal consultant on leadership and culture change. I am offering a critique of the dominant way of understanding organisations, culture and control, with the implication of coming to reappraise the involvement of a consultant in processes of culture change. In understanding organisations to be self-organising patterns of human interaction, culture is a social phenomenon, as it continually emerges as social control in the day-to-day local interactions of people making sense of experience. Using webs of significance, present in one’s personal history and in society, people interpret and give order to their life as they negotiate and evaluate their engagements together. In their engagement, participants will negotiate how to functionalise general values in particular situations that involve differences and can cause anxiety or even conflict. In this process of negotiation and evaluation, they are forming and being formed by each other. In this interaction no one is in control, determining in a predictable way what will happen. The participants have an influence that impacts on potential next steps in their interaction. An internal consultant’s involvement is in facilitating these processes of local interaction, enabling participants to have the conversations they tend not to have themselves, perhaps due to the anxiety of the interaction being unpredictable and predictable at the same time while no one is in control of the process or the outcome. A consultant is, as fellow participant, involved in the interaction while forming and being formed by it. He is at the same time detached: by inviting participants to work with and reflect on their experience of engaging, he enables reflexive awareness of what they are involved in together. The internal consultant, through temporary leadership, facilitates the conversation by focusing on the present, and working with differences, allowing the potential for novelty and change to occur. This temporary leadership is not a designated role or the authority of being the expert, but emerges in social interaction, through recognition and acceptance of participants acknowledging the consultant as leader in having a stronger influence than others. I propose that this alternative perspective does not offer a set of techniques, a causal framework to improve organisations in an intended and controlled way, as supposed in the dominant discourse. Rather, the perspective of complex responsive processes of relating enables a better understanding of human interaction processes; of culture emerging as social control and consulting as a social process, within the paradoxes of predictability and unpredictability, of being and not being in control, and of stability and change at the same time. It requires an internal consultant to assume a form of temporary leadership by enabling participants, through reflexive understanding of their experience, to be responsible in a critically aware manner of the ways in which they influence the next steps of engaging.

Background Beliefs about voices, their origin, intent and powerfulness can all impact on the voice hearer, their level of distress and their need for help. Interpersonal difficulties can exacerbate distress and be reflected in the person’s relationship with their voices. Emotion regulation strategies, which may be functional or dysfunctional help the person manage their reaction. This study aims to investigate beliefs about voices, symptoms and interpersonal issues as well as how well these areas predict emotion regulation strategies Methods Two groups of participants (18 with low and 16 with high omnipotence scores) were recruited through their mental health workers. The participants completed six self-report measures that assessed beliefs, emotion regulation strategies, interpersonal difficulties, dimensions of voice hearing and symptoms. Results Omnipotence scores differentiated some of the interpersonal issues and only one symptom subscale (phobic anxiety); those who scored high on the omnipotence subscale experienced more difficulties. For the emotion regulation subscales, lower omnipotence scorers differed significantly from the higher omnipotence scorers, using more external functional and dysfunctional strategies. Regression analysis showed that ‘distress’ incorporating the PSYRATS emotion subscale, the BSI grand total and the IIP-32 total predicted the use of dysfunctional emotion regulation strategies, but omnipotence beliefs did not add much to this. Conclusions Overall voice hearers experience a range of beliefs about their voices. Those with higher omnipotence beliefs find it difficult to socialise, be involved with other people, and are too dependent and caring with reference to other people. Omnipotent beliefs did not, in general, differentiate symptoms or emotion regulation strategies. This would suggest that beliefs may not be what determines distress and subsequent help seeking. Distress and interpersonal issues predict the use of emotion regulation strategies with little being added to the prediction by omnipotent beliefs; this suggests that there may be an alternative to the single symptom approach. Further research is required to assess the contribution made by emotion regulation to the development, maintenance and course of voice hearing. Assessment and interventions with reference to emotion regulation also require investigation.