Il presente lavoro di tesi affronta il tema della psicoterapia con le famiglie ricomposte ed in particolare si pone l’obiettivo di indagare le rappresentazioni che i terapeuti italiani e americani hanno di tale tipologia famigliare. A tal proposito 125 terapeuti italiani e 45 terapeuti americani sono stati invitati a compilare un questionario rispetto agli strumenti e ai metodi adottati in terapia, agli obiettivi e alle azioni terapeutiche nonché alla concezione di famiglia sottesa a tali interventi. Dall’analisi dei risultati emerge una rappresentazione piuttosto confusa da parte dei terapeuti italiani rispetto alle famiglie ricostituite. L’assenza di una formazione specifica sul tema dà origine ad una rappresentazione incerta e ambigua della terapia con i nuclei famigliari ricomposti, tutta incentrata sull’essere del terapeuta piuttosto che sulla famiglia in trattamento. Per quanto riguarda i terapeuti americani, invece, la maggiore esperienza e formazione al trattamento delle famiglie ricomposte contribuiscono a creare una rappresentazione più specifica e più attenta alle caratteristiche e sfide peculiari che tali famiglie sono chiamate ad affrontare. Il ruolo del terapeuta rimane fondamentale ma in questo caso maggiore attenzione viene rivolta all’esperienza e ai media (internet, libri, conferenze) che ne possono garantire una formazione specifica. / The present dissertation deals with the topic of psychotherapy with stepfamilies and, in particular, it aims at investigating the representations Italian and American therapists have about such families. In this respect 125 Italian therapists and 45 American therapists were asked to fill in a questionnaire regarding the instruments and methods used in therapy, the aims and therapeutic actions as well as the idea of family that underlies such interventions. From the analysis of results, Italian therapists are shown to have a rather confused representation regarding stepfamilies. In fact, the lack of a specific training on the topic contributes to create a vague and ambiguous representation of therapy with remarried families where the main focus is the therapist him/herself rather then the family in treatment. With regards to American therapists, instead, the longer experience and higher training in the treatment of stepfamilies play a major role in shaping a more specific and accurate representation of stepfamily therapy. American therapists seem to have a greater awareness of the specific characteristic and challenges remarried families are faced with. The therapist’s role remains pivotal, however, greater attention is given to experience and to the media (internet, books, conferences) able to provide him/her with a specific training.

This paper introduces Express Location, a mobile web application, supporting drivers in delivery service in the daily coordination of work. Remote communication and cooperation takes place on a shared map view around the drivers’ locations and next stop, through a drawing/doodling tool and multiple visual object representations. The aim is to understand the working situation and the use of locations in the daily work to better support the coordination of mobile delivery work. / <p>© (2011) ACM. This is the author’s version of the work. It is posted here by permission of ACM for your personal use. Not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in <em>CSCW '11 Proceedings of the ACM 2011 conference on Computer supported cooperative work</em> http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1958824.1958956</p>

The purpose of this research was to determine if there is a model of ideal femininity communicated through advertising in girls’ and women’s magazines. To assess the representations of women in magazine advertisements, a content analysis of advertisements appearing in three top-selling, demographically-defined women’s magazines (Girls’ Life, Seventeen, and Cosmopolitan) was conducted. Using feminist theory and hegemony theory as critical lenses, advertisements were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. Each advertisement was assessed using five criteria: physical characteristics, social context, personality and attitude, and subtext. Using this data to establish the dominant representations of women, it was determined that there is a model of ideal femininity which is developed through establishing common ideals shared by all three magazines and by gradually introducing new ideals which correspond to shifts in real-world interests and experiences of women. It was concluded that a model of ideal femininity is developed through advertising in girls’ and women’s magazines, this model is used as a guide to direct girls and women towards specific ideal preferences, attitudes and behaviours, and this model continues to emphasise traditional cultural values and gender ideals which are not necessarily reflective of the range of roles women assume in today’s society.

With the increasing availability of large datasets machine learning techniques are becoming an increasingly attractive alternative to expert-designed approaches to solving complex problems in domains where data is abundant. In this thesis we introduce several models for large sparse discrete datasets. Our approach, which is based on probabilistic models that use distributed representations to alleviate the effects of data sparsity, is applied to statistical language modelling and collaborative filtering. We introduce three probabilistic language models that represent words using learned real-valued vectors. Two of the models are based on the Restricted Boltzmann Machine (RBM) architecture while the third one is a simple deterministic model. We show that the deterministic model outperforms the widely used n-gram models and learns sensible word representations. To reduce the time complexity of training and making predictions with the deterministic model, we introduce a hierarchical version of the model, that can be exponentially faster. The speedup is achieved by structuring the vocabulary as a tree over words and taking advantage of this structure. We propose a simple feature-based algorithm for automatic construction of trees over words from data and show that the resulting models can outperform non-hierarchical neural models as well as the best n-gram models. We then turn our attention to collaborative filtering and show how RBM models can be used to model the distribution of sparse high-dimensional user rating vectors efficiently, presenting inference and learning algorithms that scale linearly in the number of observed ratings. We also introduce the Probabilistic Matrix Factorization model which is based on the probabilistic formulation of the low-rank matrix approximation problem for partially observed matrices. The two models are then extended to allow conditioning on the identities of the rated items whether or not the actual rating values are known. Our results on the Netflix Prize dataset show that both RBM and PMF models outperform online SVD models.

Den här uppsatsen undersöker de diskurser som kan formuleras kring hur tatuerade personer talar om sig själva och om tatueringskonsten, utifrån en diskursanalytisk studie av intervjuer i Scandinavian Tattoo Magazine. Uppsatsens teoretiska och metodologiska ramverk är byggt kring Marianne Winther Jørgensens och Louise Phillips diskursteoretiska begreppsbygge, som i sig framförallt grundas i Ernesto Laclaus och Chantal Mouffes diskursanalytiska begrepp. De formulerade diskurserna; sexualitetsdiskursen, ironiseringsdiskursen, möjligheternas diskurs, individualitetsdiskursen och maskulinitetsdiskursen, har diskuterats utifrån begrepp tagna från Mary Douglas (renhet och fara), Slavoj Žižek (cynism) samt Peter L. Berger och Thomas Luckmann (typifieringschema och face-to-face-situationen). Uppsatsens analys visade att kvinnor inte bara föredras som representanter för tatuering i tidskriftens intervjuer, utan också att de, till skillnad från männen, sexualiseras kraftigt. Vidare har teorier framlagts kring relevanta diskursers utvecklingar vad gäller hur de intervjuade identifierar sig med själva praktiken, och slutsatser kunde även dras kring tatuerings individualiserande aspekter, där analysen tyder på att gränserna inom tatuering, vad gäller exempelvis motiv och val av placering, kommer att flyttas fram kontinuerligt i framtiden. / This essay examines the discourses that can be formulated around how tattooed people talk about themselves and about tattoo as a practice. This is based on a discourse analysis study of interviews made in Scandinavian Tattoo Magazine. The essays theoretical and methodological framework is built around Marianne Winther Jørgensens and Louise Phillips framework discourse theory, which itself is based mainly in Ernesto Laclaus and Chantal Mouffes discourse analysis concepts. They formulated discourses; the sexuality discourse, the ironic discourse, the discourse of opportunities, the discourse of individuality and the masculinity discourse, has been discussed using concepts taken from Mary Douglas (purity and danger), Slavoj Žižek (cynicism), Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann (reciprocal typification and face-to-face situations). The essays analysis showed that women are not only preferred as representatives of tattooing in the specific interviews in the magazine, but also that they, as opposed to the men, are heavily sexualized. Theories regarding how relevant discourses surrounding tattoos have developed, based on how the respondents identify with the practice, are also presented, and conclusions were also drawn around the individualizing aspects of tattooing, where the analysis suggests that the boundaries of tattooing, for example in design and choice of location, will be continuously stretched further in the future.

A narrative qualitative research approach was used to understand the role that spiritual journeys had on the lives of emerging adults. Participants were four emerging adults (2 female, 2 male) ranging in age from 20 to 29 years. All participants were of middle class social economic status and lived in a mid-size Canadian prairie city. Three of the participants were Caucasian and the fourth was of Spanish-Caucasian ancestry. Semi-structured interviews provided the opportunity for the participants to share their stories regarding the role that their spiritual journey played in their life. Data were analyzed for themes within and across the participants stories. A visual representation of their collective journeys was created along with four-part poetic representations of each participants individual story. The stories that the participants shared revealed that emerging adults spiritual journeys were cyclical in that the journeys began with feelings of discontent, which led them to seek spiritual resources and experiences to address the unhappiness in their lives. In acquiring new knowledge, the participants were faced with different theories, ideas and experiences that brought forth additional questions. These new areas of thought led these individuals to search for further answers and meaning, bring forth new questions, new meaning, and in turn, the process became a cycle. The cycle that began with their initial discontent continued because of a desire for further knowledge.<p> Findings are discussed in terms of the current literature on spirituality in emerging adulthood and spirituality in relation to meaning making; implications are discussed for counselors, educators, and researchers and recommendations are made for future research.

With the increasing availability of large datasets machine learning techniques are becoming an increasingly attractive alternative to expert-designed approaches to solving complex problems in domains where data is abundant. In this thesis we introduce several models for large sparse discrete datasets. Our approach, which is based on probabilistic models that use distributed representations to alleviate the effects of data sparsity, is applied to statistical language modelling and collaborative filtering. We introduce three probabilistic language models that represent words using learned real-valued vectors. Two of the models are based on the Restricted Boltzmann Machine (RBM) architecture while the third one is a simple deterministic model. We show that the deterministic model outperforms the widely used n-gram models and learns sensible word representations. To reduce the time complexity of training and making predictions with the deterministic model, we introduce a hierarchical version of the model, that can be exponentially faster. The speedup is achieved by structuring the vocabulary as a tree over words and taking advantage of this structure. We propose a simple feature-based algorithm for automatic construction of trees over words from data and show that the resulting models can outperform non-hierarchical neural models as well as the best n-gram models. We then turn our attention to collaborative filtering and show how RBM models can be used to model the distribution of sparse high-dimensional user rating vectors efficiently, presenting inference and learning algorithms that scale linearly in the number of observed ratings. We also introduce the Probabilistic Matrix Factorization model which is based on the probabilistic formulation of the low-rank matrix approximation problem for partially observed matrices. The two models are then extended to allow conditioning on the identities of the rated items whether or not the actual rating values are known. Our results on the Netflix Prize dataset show that both RBM and PMF models outperform online SVD models.

The purpose of this research was to determine if there is a model of ideal femininity communicated through advertising in girls’ and women’s magazines. To assess the representations of women in magazine advertisements, a content analysis of advertisements appearing in three top-selling, demographically-defined women’s magazines (Girls’ Life, Seventeen, and Cosmopolitan) was conducted. Using feminist theory and hegemony theory as critical lenses, advertisements were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. Each advertisement was assessed using five criteria: physical characteristics, social context, personality and attitude, and subtext. Using this data to establish the dominant representations of women, it was determined that there is a model of ideal femininity which is developed through establishing common ideals shared by all three magazines and by gradually introducing new ideals which correspond to shifts in real-world interests and experiences of women. It was concluded that a model of ideal femininity is developed through advertising in girls’ and women’s magazines, this model is used as a guide to direct girls and women towards specific ideal preferences, attitudes and behaviours, and this model continues to emphasise traditional cultural values and gender ideals which are not necessarily reflective of the range of roles women assume in today’s society.

The aim of this thesis is to examine representations of masculinity in the activities of a local professional wrestling promotion. After briefly outlining what professional wrestling is, the study draws on a body on feminist and intersectional theory which critiques the notion of gender as a binary and essential category. The material comprises 10 recorded shows and oth- er material published on Sthlm Wrestling’s website between 2010 and 2013, and is analyzed using a qualitative methodology derived from cultural studies. The thesis argues that there are many different types of masculinities in the narrative, which are constructed in relation to different power hierarchies such as ethnicity, class, sex and sexuality. The few female wrestlers are marginalized, but not sexualized as in the U.S. context. The heels (rule-breakers) are found on the borders of social and cultural categories, and there is an explicit SM-narrative present.

Este trabajo lleva por título, Teorías Implícitas de la Creatividad y Formación Docente: Los Significados de la Creatividad en la Licenciatura en Educación Preescolar para el Medio Indígena, 1990, es producto de la investigación realizada en la Unidad 071 de la Universidad Pedagógica Nacional, de Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Chiapas, México, durante el periodo de 2004 – 2009. Se pretendió identificar los significados que los estudiantes-profesores y asesores de la Licenciatura en Educación Preescolar para el Medio Indígena, plan 1990 (LEPMI’90) atribuían a la Creatividad, para comprender el Ser Creativo de estos actores educativos, partiendo de la reflexión de que el término Creatividad podría tener diferentes significados para los individuos dependiendo del grupo social de pertenencia, de los espacios sociales donde estudian o trabajan y de la posición que ocupan. Los objetivos específicos de investigación fueron identificar los significados que le atribuyen a la creatividad los estudiantes-profesores de la LEPMI, analizar el proceso de construcción de los significados a través de un ejercicio exploratorio para identificar sus concepciones sobre el término, identificar y analizar el concepto que tienen estos actores educativos de sí mismos y de sus alumnos como creativos y el valor que le atribuyen, así como identificar y analizar los factores que contribuyen al desarrollo del autoconcepto o autovaloración positiva o negativa de los estudiantes-profesores y asesores con relación a ser creativos. El diseño de esta investigación fue de tipo exploratorio fenomenológico y se empleó una metodología cualitativa, porque el objeto de estudio así lo requería, ya que se trataba de descubrir, entender el fenómeno de la Creatividad y su significación en la formación docente de la Licenciatura en Educación Preescolar para el Medio Indígena, 1990, desde la perspectiva subjetiva de cada participante y desde la perspectiva construida colectivamente; por sus objetivos, la investigación fue de tipo básica y no fue una investigación aplicada. Para la elaboración de los instrumentos que permitieron recolectar, organizar y sistematizar la información se atendieron las indicaciones de Abric (2001) referidas a los métodos interrogativos y asociativos. Como la comprensión y explicación de los significados de Creatividad no se agotan en un solo constructo teórico, se realizó el ejercicio de articular tres constructos: Las Teorías Implícitas, Representaciones Sociales y la Filosofía del Lenguaje, específicamente la Semántica y la Pragmática. / This work titled Implicit Theories of the Creativity and Teacher Formation: The importance of Creativity in the education of preschool teachers in indigenous communities, 1990, is the result of the research done, from 2004 to 2009, by Unit 071 of the Universidad Pedagógica Nacional, Tuxtla Gutiérrez. Chiapas. México. The research sought to define the meaning that student-teachers and assessors from the program attribute to the concept of Creativity, in order to understand the creativity of these educators, starting from the idea that the term, creativity, may have different meanings for individuals depending on their social group, the social environment where they work and study, and the social position they actually occupy. The specific research objectives were to identify the meanings attributed to the creativity of students, teachers LEPMI’1990, analyze the process of construction of meaning through an exploratory exercise to identify their conceptions about the term, identify and analyze the concept who have these educational actors themselves and their students as creative and value attributed to him, and to identify and analyze factors contributing to the development of self-concept or self-worth positive or negative student-teachers and advisers in relation to be creative. The design of the investigation was Exploratory Phenomenology, using the 'Qualitative method, due to the objectives’ requirements, now that researchers have tried to understand the phenomenon of creativity and its significance in the education of pre-school teachers in indigenous communities, from a subjective perspective of each participant and from the constructed collective perspective; for its objectives, the investigation was basic and not applied. The elaboration of the instruments that allowed the collection, organization and systemization of the information followed the Abric (2001) indications referring to the interrogative and associative methods. As the understanding and explanation of the characteristics of creativity cannot be covered in only one theoretical construct, we carried out the exercise of joining three constructs: The Implicit Theories, Social Representations and Language Philosophy, specifically the semantic and pragmatic