Values are directly relevant in a number of theoretical orientations in psychology, including Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). In ACT, clarification of one’s personal values is paramount. The present study examined the ability to predict clinical symptoms and psychological flexibility using variables derived from one’s performance on the ACT Values Card Sort (ACT-VCS), a novel values clarification exercise. The independent variables, obtained from the ACT-VCS, included 1) the number of values endorsed as very important in the initial sort (i.e., valuing propensity), 2) the number of values domains represented in the final sort (i.e., values diversity), and 3) the extent to which one’s values were oriented toward uncontrollable experiences (i.e., control agenda endorsement). Three hierarchical regressions were conducted to examine the extent to which these three predictors accounted for the variance in scores of a) depression, anxiety, and stress, b) psychological flexibility, and c) psychological inflexibility. The psychological flexibility model was significant (∆R squared = .25 (F (3, 69) = 12.20, p < .001) with valuing propensity (squared semi-partial correlation r = .13, p < .001) and control agenda endorsement (squared semi-partial correlation r = .05, p < .01), but not values diversity, independently accounting for a significant portion of the variance. Prior therapy experience moderated some of these relationships. These findings provide preliminary evidence for using performance variables from the ACT-VCS to predict clinical variables.

Este trabalho visa compreender os elementos materiais e simbólicos que atravessam a trajetória de vida e fundamentam o interesse de jovens mulheres residentes na localidade da Candelária no Complexo da Mangueira no Rio de Janeiro em manter uma relação amorosa com traficantes de drogas. Objetiva - se com o estudo em questão: investigar a trajetória de vida das jovens que têm envolvimento amoroso com jovens rapazes que optaram por trabalhar no tráfico de drogas, buscando conhecer os motivos que as levam a estes relacionamentos; aprofundar o conhecimento sobre a realidade familiar, comunitária e social das jovens, enquanto fatores importantes para se compreender a opção de relacionamento amoroso com os rapazes do tráfico; Investigar se a partir do início das práticas e relações amorosas com jovens do tráfico são produzidos pontos de inflexão significativos nas trajetórias de vida das jovens estudadas, bem como o sentido e a direção desta inflexão (maior ou menor vulnerabilidade social). A análise e compreensão dos dados foram construídas a partir dos pressupostos teóricos e metodológicos da Produção dos Sentidos dentro do paradigma construcionista que situa o estudo a partir da análise das práticas discursivas. Os resultados obtidos revelam que os relacionamentos se formalizam pela presença do traficante e minimamente mais duas mulheres: a Fiel + A Outra e tantas outras qualificadas como O Lanchinho da Madrugada. As motivações para a efetivação dos citados relacionamentos passam por várias determinações: sedução, fama, status, aquisição de bens materiais entre outros elementos marcam os mesmos. Estas passam a experimentar novas formas de sociabilidade: a força policial, territórios ocupados por outras facções criminosas são elementos que contribuem para maior grau de vulnerabilidade social. / This work aims at to understand the material and symbolic elements that cross the life trajectory and base the interest of young resident women on the locality of the Candelária in the Complex of the Hose in Rio de Janeiro in keeping a loving relation with dealers of drugs. Objective - with the study in question: to investigate the trajectory of life of the young that has loving envolvement with young youngsters whom they had opted to working in the traffic of drugs, searching to know the reasons that take them to these relationships; to deepen the knowledge on the familiar, communitarian and social reality of the young, while factors important to understand the option of loving relationship with the youngsters of the traffic; To investigate if from the beginning of practical and the loving relations with young of the traffic significant points of inflection in the trajectories of life of the studied young are produced, as well as the direction and the direction of this inflection (bigger or lesser social vulnerability). The analysis and understanding of the data had been constructed from the estimated theoreticians and metodológicos of the Production of the Directions inside of the construcionista paradigm that it points out study from the analysis of the practical discursivas. The gotten results disclose that the relationships if minimum legalize for the presence of the dealer and more two women: the fidiciary office + To Another one and as much other qualified ones as the Lanchinho of the Dawn. The motivations for the efetivação of the cited relationships pass for some determination: seduction, fame, statuses, acquisition of corporeal properties among others elements mark the same ones. These start to try new forms of sociability: the police force, busy territories for other criminal factions are elements that contribute for bigger degree of social vulnerability.

The special architecture of the Cell BE processor has made scientists revisit the problem of sorting. This paper implements and tests a variant of merge sort where a number of 2-to-1 mergers are connected in a pipelined tree. For large trees there are many more such mergers than processors which means they must be mapped to the processors in some way. Optimized mappings are tested and results show that changing the model used when optimizing might be beneficiary. It is also shown that the small size of the local storages on the co-processors is not limiting the performance.

This study focuses on policy makers and the intricacies and subtleties surrounding the relationship between policy formulation and policy implementation. However in this process, an important stakeholder in the teaching-learning situation has been overlooked – the teacher. It would seem as if policy makers assumed that by placing computers in school, all would bode well and the implementation of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) would unfold naturally. Present educational practice has culminated in a mismatch between what is desired by school administrators, as policy makers and what is needed by teachers as policy implementers. As such, many institutions should promote a consensus approach as a means of producing policy that is representative of the principal policy implementers. This paper focuses on an innovative approach to the formulation of an ICT policy for a school, using Q-methodology case study. The purpose of this project was to access teachers’ perceptions, beliefs and attitudes on issues they consider as pertinent in the formulation of an ICT policy. The findings of this study indicate that although unique ‘groups’ of teachers were identified, a consensus approach could now be established to negotiate the formulation of an ICT policy that will be inclusive of all teachers irrespective of their preconceived mindsets. / Dissertation (MEd (Computer Assisted Education))--University of Pretoria, 2006. / Curriculum Studies / unrestricted

Tiriant Lietuvos atvejį disertacijoje siekiama išsiaiškinti, kaip nuostatos politiniais klausimais susiformuoja(-mos) pokomunistinėje valstybėje, nepasižyminčioje aplinka, palankia ideologinėms mąstymo schemoms reikštis. Atspirties tašku konstruojant empirinį tyrimo instrumentą tampa išgryninta kognityvinių schemų teorijų prieiga. Pirmajame empirinio tyrimo etape pusiau struktūruotų kokybinių interviu metu atskleidžiamos dviem politikos klausimais, reprezentuojančiais socioekonominę bei socialinę-moralinę politikos sritis, nuostatas formuojančios kognityvinės schemos. Pirmieji rezultatai toliau plėtojami antrajame tyrimo etape, pasitelkus teiginių klasių rūšiavimo (Q-sort) metodą. Atskleidžiama, jog nuostatas politiniais klausimais formuoja dviejų tipų kognityvinės schemos: principiniame, įsitikinimų lygmenyje operuojančiosios bei pragmatiškoji racionalaus politikos pasekmių efektyvumo vertinimo schema (tyrime jos detalizuojamos ir palyginamos). Taip pat randamos penkios bendros veikiančios ideologinės įsitikinimų lygmens schemos, Lietuvoje veikiančios kaip schemų atskirais politiniais klausimais taikymą koordinuojantis ir jas paaiškinantis mechanizmas. Santykinai šias schemas galima pavadinti laisvos saviraiškos, tvirtos rankos, tradicinės moralės, globojančios valstybės bei pagrindinių teisių garantijų socialinėmis perspektyvomis. Dalis jų gali būti siejamos su tam tikromis „tradicinėmis ideologijomis“. Tačiau svarbiausia - jos leidžia teigti, jog nepaisant ideologiniam... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / Main goal of the dissertation is to, by analyzing Lithuanian case, explore how attitudes towards political issues develop in a post-communist country where favorable conditions for the ideological thinking do not exist. The arranged approach of the cognitive schema theories is taken as a starting point for developing the research instrument. In the first stage of the empirical research, the method of semi-structured interviews is used to uncover the cognitive schemas that play a vital role in forming the attitudes on two political issues representing, respectively, socioeconomic and moral spheres of politics. These findings are further elaborated in the second round of the research by employing the Q-sort method. It turns out that the development of political attitudes in both political areas is being determined by two main types of cognitive schemas: one based on fundamental virtues, principle beliefs, and the pragmatic schema based on rational evaluation of the policy outcomes’ efficiency (both of these schemas are compared and analyzed in detail). It is also explored that the usage of these schemas are coordinated and can be explained by one or another of the five shared social perspectives (or ideological schemas) operating in Lithuania. Conditionally they can be named as perspectives of free self-expression, strong leader, traditional morality, patronizing state and basic rights’ assurance. Some of these schemas can be loosely linked to certain “classical” ideologies... [to full text]

Tiriant Lietuvos atvejį disertacijoje siekiama išsiaiškinti, kaip nuostatos politiniais klausimais susiformuoja(-mos) pokomunistinėje valstybėje, nepasižyminčioje aplinka, palankia ideologinėms mąstymo schemoms reikštis. Atspirties tašku konstruojant empirinį tyrimo instrumentą tampa išgryninta kognityvinių schemų teorijų prieiga. Pirmajame empirinio tyrimo etape pusiau struktūruotų kokybinių interviu metu atskleidžiamos dviem politikos klausimais, reprezentuojančiais socioekonominę bei socialinę-moralinę politikos sritis, nuostatas formuojančios kognityvinės schemos. Pirmieji rezultatai toliau plėtojami antrajame tyrimo etape, pasitelkus teiginių klasių rūšiavimo (Q-sort) metodą. Atskleidžiama, jog nuostatas politiniais klausimais formuoja dviejų tipų kognityvinės schemos: principiniame, įsitikinimų lygmenyje operuojančiosios bei pragmatiškoji racionalaus politikos pasekmių efektyvumo vertinimo schema (tyrime jos detalizuojamos ir palyginamos). Taip pat randamos penkios bendros veikiančios ideologinės įsitikinimų lygmens schemos, Lietuvoje veikiančios kaip schemų atskirais politiniais klausimais taikymą koordinuojantis ir jas paaiškinantis mechanizmas. Santykinai šias schemas galima pavadinti laisvos saviraiškos, tvirtos rankos, tradicinės moralės, globojančios valstybės bei pagrindinių teisių garantijų socialinėmis perspektyvomis. Dalis jų gali būti siejamos su tam tikromis „tradicinėmis ideologijomis“. Tačiau svarbiausia - jos leidžia teigti, jog nepaisant ideologiniam... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / Main goal of the dissertation is to, by analyzing Lithuanian case, explore how attitudes towards political issues develop in a post-communist country where favorable conditions for the ideological thinking do not exist. The arranged approach of the cognitive schema theories is taken as a starting point for developing the research instrument. In the first stage of the empirical research, the method of semi-structured interviews is used to uncover the cognitive schemas that play a vital role in forming the attitudes on two political issues representing, respectively, socioeconomic and moral spheres of politics. These findings are further elaborated in the second round of the research by employing the Q-sort method. It turns out that the development of political attitudes in both political areas is being determined by two main types of cognitive schemas: one based on fundamental virtues, principle beliefs, and the pragmatic schema based on rational evaluation of the policy outcomes’ efficiency (both of these schemas are compared and analyzed in detail). It is also explored that the usage of these schemas are coordinated and can be explained by one or another of the five shared social perspectives (or ideological schemas) operating in Lithuania. Conditionally they can be named as perspectives of free self-expression, strong leader, traditional morality, patronizing state and basic rights’ assurance. Some of these schemas can be loosely linked to certain “classical” ideologies... [to full text]

We explore efficient parallel radix sort for the AMD Fusion Accelerated Processing Unit (APU). Two challenges arise: efficiently partitioning data between the CPU and GPU and the allocation of data in memory regions. Our coarse-grained implementation utilizes both the GPU and CPU by sharing data at the begining and end of the sort. Our fine-grained implementation utilizes the APU’s integrated memory system to share data throughout the sort. Both these implementations outperform the current state of the art GPU radix sort from NVIDIA. We therefore demonstrate that the CPU can be efficiently used to speed up radix sort on the APU. Our fine-grained implementation slightly outperforms our coarse-grained implementation. This demonstrates the benefit of the APU’s integrated architecture. This performance benefit is hindered by limitations in the APU’s architecture and programming model. We believe that the performance benefits will increase once these limitations are addressed in future generations of the APU.

The high prevalence of substance use disorders is well-documented among criminal offenders. Drug courts are specialty judicial programs designed to: 1) improve public safety outcomes; 2) reduce criminal recidivism and substance abuse among offenders with substance use disorders; and 3) better utilize scarce criminal justice and treatment resources. Drug courts operate through partnerships between the criminal justice, behavioral health and public health systems. Offenders participate in an intensive regimen of substance abuse treatment and case management while under close judicial supervision. Drug courts' effectiveness in reducing criminal recidivism and drug use has been documented through numerous primary studies as well as meta-analytic reviews. The task remains now to determine the causal mechanisms of drug courts. The current study conducted preliminary activities to develop a measure to assess drug court structures and practices based upon the Ten Key Components of drug courts (NADCP, 1997). The creation and use of such a measure is necessary to the understanding of how drug courts work, why and how best to invest scarce judicial and treatment resources to optimize drug court participant and program outcomes. An iterative process was conducted such that results from previous activities informed subsequent steps in the measurement development process. Participants consisted of a convenience sample of drug court personnel at three local drug courts as well as academic experts in drug courts and measurement. Preliminary measurement development activities included: 1) a comprehensive review of the literature; 2) semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders to inform item development; 3) construction of a draft survey protocol; 4) expert reviews of the draft survey protocol and initial item pool to assess item construct and content validity, response format and clarity; 5) pile sort activity, wherein participants sorted items into piles, one for each measure sub-construct and one `other' pile; 6) exploratory factor analyses based on a joint-proportion matrix derived from pile sort activity data on which items best represent measure sub-constructs; 7) cognitive interviews completed by key stakeholders to review items retained from exploratory factor analyses; and 8) final revisions to the item pool based upon results from cognitive interviews. The item pool developed through the current research will be used as the basis for a future large-scale pilot test to determine the true factor structure underlying the preliminary measure developed. Results of this future research are expected to identify similarities and differences in the underlying factor structure compared to the Ten Key Components.

We explore efficient parallel radix sort for the AMD Fusion Accelerated Processing Unit (APU). Two challenges arise: efficiently partitioning data between the CPU and GPU and the allocation of data in memory regions. Our coarse-grained implementation utilizes both the GPU and CPU by sharing data at the begining and end of the sort. Our fine-grained implementation utilizes the APU’s integrated memory system to share data throughout the sort. Both these implementations outperform the current state of the art GPU radix sort from NVIDIA. We therefore demonstrate that the CPU can be efficiently used to speed up radix sort on the APU. Our fine-grained implementation slightly outperforms our coarse-grained implementation. This demonstrates the benefit of the APU’s integrated architecture. This performance benefit is hindered by limitations in the APU’s architecture and programming model. We believe that the performance benefits will increase once these limitations are addressed in future generations of the APU.

With the development of the society, people are more willing to focus on their leisure activities. A growing number of new equipment are created nowadays. For example, automatic mahjong machine in China. Inspired by the automatic mahjong machine, we propose to add some devices on the billiard table to achieve sorting balls automatically. It includes recognition system, ball-separating system, and sorting system. We use Autodesk Inventor 2012 to model the billiards table. Some complex calculations and nonlinear analysis are completed by Matlab. Through our method, we can achieve the purpose of sorting balls automatically. / Med utvecklingen av samhället, människor är mer villiga att fokusera på sina fritidsaktiviteter. Ett växande antal av ny utrustning skapas nuförtiden. Till exempel, automatisk mahjong maskin i Kina. Inspirerad av den automatiska mahjong maskin, föreslår vi att lägga till några enheter på biljardbordet för att uppnå sorterings bollar automatiskt. Den innehåller igenkänningssystem, boll-separerar systemet, och sorteringssystem. Vi använder Autodesk Inventor 2012 för att modellera tabellen biljard. Vissa komplexa beräkningar och olinjär analys är klara med Matlab. Genom vår metod kan vi uppnå syftet att sortera bollar automatiskt.