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Brill, Markus [Verfasser], Felix [Akademischer Betreuer] Brandt, and Jérôme [Akademischer Betreuer] Lang. "Set-Valued Solution Concepts in Social Choice and Game Theory : Axiomatic and Computational Aspects / Markus Brill. Gutachter: Felix Brandt ; Jérôme Lang. Betreuer: Felix Brandt." München : Universitätsbibliothek der TU München, 2012. http://d-nb.info/1031512683/34.
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Loreggia, Andrea. "Iterative Voting, Control and Sentiment Analysis." Doctoral thesis, Università degli studi di Padova, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/11577/3424803.
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In multi-agent systems agents often need to take a collective decision based on the preferences of individuals. A voting rule is used to decide which decision to take, mapping the agents' preferences over the possible candidate decisions into a winning decision for the collection of agents. In these kind of scenarios acting strategically can be seen in two opposite way. On one hand it may be desirable that agents do not have any incentive to act strategically. That is, to misreport their preferences in order to influence the result of the voting rule in their favor or acting on the structure of the election to change the outcome. On the other hand manipulation can be used to improve the quality of the outcome by enlarging the consensus of the winner. These two different scenarios are studied in this thesis. The first one by modeling and describing a natural form of control named ``replacement control'' and characterizing for several voting rules its computational complexity. The second scenario is studied in the form of iterative voting frameworks where individuals are allowed to change their preferences to change the outcome of the election. Computational social choice techniques can be used in very different scenarios. This work reports a first attempt to introduce the use of voting procedures in the field of sentiment analysis. In this area computer scientists extract the opinion of the community about a specific item. This opinion is extracted aggregating the opinion expressed by each individual which leaves a text in a blog or social network about the given item. We studied and proposed a new aggregation method which can improve performances of sentiment analysis, this new technique is a new variance of a well-known voting rule called Borda.Nei sistemi multi agente spesso nasce la necessità di prendere decisioni collettive basate sulle preferenze dei singoli individui. A tal fine può essere utilizzata una regola di voto che, aggregando le preferenze dei singoli agenti, trovi una soluzione che rappresenti la collettività. In questi scenari la possibilità di agire in modo strategico può essere vista da due diversi e opposti punti di vista. Da una parte può essere desiderabile che gli agenti non abbiano alcun incentivo ad agire strategicamente, ovvero che gli agenti non abbiano incentivi a riportare in modo scorretto le proprie preferenze per influenzare il risultato dell'elezione a proprio favore, oppure che non agiscano sulla struttura del sistema elettorale stesso per cambiarne il risultato finale. D'altra parte l'azione strategica può essere utilizzata per migliorare la qualità del risultato o per incrementare il consenso del vincitore. Questi due diversi scenari sono studiati ed analizzati nella tesi. Il primo modellando e descrivendo una forma naturale di controllo chiamato "replacement control" descrivendo la complessità computazione di tale azione strategica per diverse regole di voto. Il secondo scenario è studiato nella forma dei sistemi di voto iterativi nei quali i singoli individui hanno la possibilità di cambiare le proprie preferenze al fine di influenzare il risultato dell'elezione. Le tecniche di Computational Social Choice inoltre possono essere usate in diverse situazioni. Il lavoro di tesi riporta un primo tentativo di introdurre l'uso di sistemi elettorali nel campo dell'analisi del sentimento. In questo contesto i ricercatori estraggono le opinioni della comunità riguardanti un particolare elemento di interesse. L'opinione collettiva è estratta aggregando le opinioni espresse dai singoli individui che discutono o parlano dell'elemento di interesse attraverso testi pubblicati in blog o social network. Il lavoro di tesi studia una nuova procedura di aggregazione proponendo una nuova variante di una regola di voto ben conosciuta qual è Borda. Tale nuova procedura di aggregazione migliora le performance dell'analisi del sentimento classica.
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Dennig, Francis. "On the welfare economics of climate change." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2014. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:aefca5e4-147e-428b-b7a1-176b7daa0f85.
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The three constituent chapters of this thesis tackle independent, self-contained research questions, all concerning welfare economics in general and its application to climate change policy in particular. Climate change is a policy problem for which the costs and benefits are distributed unequally across space and time, as well as one involving a high degree of uncertainty. Therefore, cost-benefit analysis of climate policy ought to be based on a welfare function that is sufficiently sophisticated to incorporate the three dimensions of aggregation: time, risk and space. Chapter 1 is an axiomatic treatment of a stylised model in which all three dimensions appear. The main result is a functional representation of the social welfare function for policy assessment in such situations. Chapter 2 is a numerical mitigation policy analysis. I modify William Nordhaus' RICE-2010 model by replacing his social welfare function with one that allows for different degrees of inequality aversion along the regional and inter-temporal dimension. I find that, holding the inter-temporal coefficient of inequality aversion fixed, performing the optimisation with a greater degree of regional inequality reduces the optimal carbon tax relative to treating the world as a single aggregate consumer. In Chapter 3 I analyse climate policy from the point of view of intergenerational transfers. I propose a system of transfers that allows future generations to compensate the current one for its mitigation effort and demonstrate the effects in an OLG model. When the marginal benefit to a - possibly distant - future generation is greater than the cost of compensating the current generation for its abatement effort, a Pareto improvement is possible by a combination of mitigation policy and transfer payments. I show that under very general assumptions the business-as-usual outcome is Pareto dominated by such policies and derive the conditions for the set of climate policies that are not dominated thus.
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Wilczynski, Anaëlle. "Interaction entre agents modélisée par un réseau social dans des problématiques de choix social computationnel Strategic Voting in a Social Context: Considerate Equilibria Object Allocation via Swaps along a Social Network Local Envy-Freeness in House Allocation Problems Constrained Swap Dynamics over a Social Network in Distributed Resource Reallocation Poll-Confident Voters in Iterative Voting." Thesis, Paris Sciences et Lettres (ComUE), 2018. http://www.theses.fr/2018PSLED073.
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Le choix social repose sur l’étude de la prise de décision collective, où un ensemble d’individus doit convenir d’une solution commune en fonction des préférences de ses membres. Le problème revient à déterminer comment agréger les préférences de différents agents en une décision acceptable pour le groupe. Typiquement, les agents interagissent dans des processus de décision collective, notamment en collaborant ou en échangeant des informations. Il est communément supposé que tout agent est capable d’interagir avec n’importe quel autre. Or, cette hypothèse paraît irréaliste pour de nombreuses situations. On propose de relâcher cette hypothèse en considérant que la possibilité d’interaction est déterminée par un réseau social, représenté par un graphe sur les agents. Dans un tel contexte, on étudie deux problèmes de choix social : le vote stratégique et l’allocation de ressources. L’analyse se concentre sur deux types d’interaction : la collaboration entre les agents, et la collecte d’information. On s’intéresse à l’impact du réseau social, modélisant une possibilité de collaboration entre les agents ou une relation de visibilité, sur la résolution et les solutions de problèmes de vote et d’allocation de ressources. Nos travaux s’inscrivent dans le cadre du choix social computationnel, en utilisant pour ces questions des outils provenant de la théorie des jeux algorithmique et de la théorie de la complexitéSocial choice is the study of collective decision making, where a set of agents must make a decision over a set of alternatives, according to their preferences. The question relies on how aggregating the preferences of the agents in order to end up with a decision that is commonly acceptable for the group. Typically, agents can interact by collaborating, or exchanging some information. It is usually assumed in computational social choice that every agent is able to interact with any other agent. However, this assumption looks unrealistic in many concrete situations. We propose to relax this assumption by considering that the possibility of interaction is given by a social network, represented by a graph over the agents.In this context, we study two particular problems of computational social choice: strategic voting and resource allocation of indivisible goods. The focus is on two types of interaction: collaboration and information gathering. We explore how the social network,modelingapossibilityofcollaboration or a visibility relation among the agents, can impact the resolution and the solution of voting and resource allocation problems. These questions are addressed via computational social choice by using tools from algorithmic game theory and computational complexity
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Liu, Xudong. "MODELING, LEARNING AND REASONING ABOUT PREFERENCE TREES OVER COMBINATORIAL DOMAINS." UKnowledge, 2016. http://uknowledge.uky.edu/cs_etds/43.
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In my Ph.D. dissertation, I have studied problems arising in various aspects of preferences: preference modeling, preference learning, and preference reasoning, when preferences concern outcomes ranging over combinatorial domains. Preferences is a major research component in artificial intelligence (AI) and decision theory, and is closely related to the social choice theory considered by economists and political scientists. In my dissertation, I have exploited emerging connections between preferences in AI and social choice theory. Most of my research is on qualitative preference representations that extend and combine existing formalisms such as conditional preference nets, lexicographic preference trees, answer-set optimization programs, possibilistic logic, and conditional preference networks; on learning problems that aim at discovering qualitative preference models and predictive preference information from practical data; and on preference reasoning problems centered around qualitative preference optimization and aggregation methods. Applications of my research include recommender systems, decision support tools, multi-agent systems, and Internet trading and marketing platforms.
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Riquelme, Csori Fabián. "Structural and computational aspects of simple and influence games." Doctoral thesis, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/10803/283144.
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Simple games are a fundamental class of cooperative games. They have a huge relevance in several areas of computer science, social sciences and discrete applied mathematics. The algorithmic and computational complexity aspects of simple games have been gaining notoriety in the recent years. In this thesis we review different computational problems related to properties, parameters, and solution concepts of simple games.
We consider different forms of representation of simple games, regular games and weighted games, and we analyze the computational complexity required to transform a game from one representation to another. We also analyze the complexity of several open problems under different forms of representation. In this scenario, we prove that the problem of deciding whether a simple game in minimal winning form is decisive (a problem that is associated to the duality problem of hypergraphs and monotone Boolean functions) can be solved in quasi-polynomial time, and that this problem can be polynomially reduced to the same problem but restricted to regular games in shift-minimal winning form. We also prove that the problem of deciding wheter a regular game is strong in shift-minimal winning form is coNP-complete. Further, for the width, one of the parameters of simple games, we prove that for simple games in minimal winning form it can be computed in polynomial time. Regardless of the form of representation, we also analyze counting and enumeration problems for several subfamilies of these games.
We also introduce influence games, which are a new approach to study simple games based on a model of spread of influence in a social network, where influence spreads according to the linear threshold model. We show that influence games capture the whole class of simple games. Moreover, we study for influence games the complexity of the problems related to parameters, properties and solution concepts considered for simple games. We consider extremal cases with respect to demand of influence, and we show that, for these subfamilies, several problems become polynomial.
We finish with some applications inspired on influence games. The first set of results concerns to the definition of collective choice models. For mediation systems, several of the problems of properties mentioned above are polynomial-time solvable. For influence systems, we prove that computing the satisfaction (a measure equivalent to the Rae index and similar to the Banzhaf value) is hard unless we consider some restrictions in the model. For OLFM systems, a generalization of OLF systems (van den Brink et al. 2011, 2012) we provide an axiomatization of satisfaction. The second set of results concerns to social network analysis. We define new centrality measures of social networks that we compare on real networks with some classical centrality measures.Los juegos simples son una clase fundamental de juegos cooperativos, que tiene una enorme relevancia en diversas áreas de ciencias de la computación, ciencias sociales y matemáticas discretas aplicadas. En los últimos años, los distintos aspectos algorítmicos y de complejidad computacional de los juegos simples ha ido ganando notoriedad. En esta tesis revisamos los distintos problemas computacionales relacionados con propiedades, parámetros y conceptos de solución de juegos simples. Primero consideramos distintas formas de representación de juegos simples, juegos regulares y juegos de mayoría ponderada, y estudiamos la complejidad computacional requerida para transformar un juego desde una representación a otra. También analizamos la complejidad de varios problemas abiertos bajo diferentes formas de representación. En este sentido, demostramos que el problema de decidir si un juego simple en forma ganadora minimal es decisivo (un problema asociado al problema de dualidad de hipergrafos y funciones booleanas monótonas) puede resolverse en tiempo cuasi-polinomial, y que este problema puede reducirse polinomialmente al mismo problema pero restringido a juegos regulares en forma ganadora shift-minimal. También demostramos que el problema de decidir si un juego regular en forma ganadora shift-minimal es fuerte (strong) es coNP-completo. Adicionalmente, para juegos simples en forma ganadora minimal demostramos que el parámetro de anchura (width) puede computarse en tiempo polinomial. Independientemente de la forma de representación, también estudiamos problemas de enumeración y conteo para varias subfamilias de juegos simples. Luego introducimos los juegos de influencia, un nuevo enfoque para estudiar juegos simples basado en un modelo de dispersión de influencia en redes sociales, donde la influencia se dispersa de acuerdo con el modelo de umbral lineal (linear threshold model). Demostramos que los juegos de influencia abarcan la totalidad de la clase de los juegos simples. Para estos juegos también estudiamos la complejidad de los problemas relacionados con parámetros, propiedades y conceptos de solución considerados para los juegos simples. Además consideramos casos extremos con respecto a la demanda de influencia, y probamos que para ciertas subfamilias, varios de estos problemas se vuelven polinomiales. Finalmente estudiamos algunas aplicaciones inspiradas en los juegos de influencia. El primer conjunto de estos resultados tiene que ver con la definición de modelos de decisión colectiva. Para sistemas de mediación, varios de los problemas de propiedades mencionados anteriormente son polinomialmente resolubles. Para los sistemas de influencia, demostramos que computar la satisfacción (una medida equivalente al índice de Rae y similar al valor de Banzhaf) es difícil a menos que consideremos algunas restricciones en el modelo. Para los sistemas OLFM, una generalización de los sistemas OLF (van den Brink et al. 2011, 2012) proporcionamos una axiomatización para la medida de satisfacción. El segundo conjunto de resultados se refiere al análisis de redes sociales, y en particular con la definición de nuevas medidas de centralidad de redes sociales, que comparamos en redes reales con otras medidas de centralidad clásicas
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GALBIATI, Marco. "Three essays on game theory and social choice." Doctoral thesis, European University Institute, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/1814/7005.
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Defence date: 30 January 2007Examining Board: Antonio Cabrales, (Universitat Pompeu Fabra); Pascal Courty, (European University Institute); Karl Schlag, (European University Institute); Antonio Villar, (Universidad de Alicante)
PDF of thesis uploaded from the Library digital archive of EUI PhD theses
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Baigent, N. "Papers in social choice and welfare economics." Thesis, University of Essex, 1986. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.371893.
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Isacsson, Marcus. "Topics in hardness of approximation and social choice theory /." Göteborg : Chalmers University of Technology, 2010. http://publications.lib.chalmers.se/cpl/record/index.xsql?pubid=120378.
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Sprumont, Yves. "Three essays in collective choice theory." Diss., Virginia Tech, 1990. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/40872.
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Letsou, Christina. "Preferences for Randomization in Social Choice:." Thesis, Boston College, 2020. http://hdl.handle.net/2345/bc-ir:108719.
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Thesis advisor: Uzi SegalThis dissertation consists of three chapters analyzing preferences for randomization in social choice problems. The first two chapters are related and in the fields of distributive justice and social choice. They concern allocation of an indivisible good in social choice problems where efficiency is at odds with equality. The last chapter addresses a social choice problem from an individual's perspective using decision theoretical analysis. In this dissertation I demonstrate why randomization may be an attractive policy in social choice problems and demonstrate how individuals may have preferences over the precise method of randomization. The first chapter is titled "Live and Let Die." This paper discusses how to allocate an indivisible good by social lottery when agents have asymmetric claims. Intuition suggests that there may exist agents who should receive zero probability in the optimal social lottery. In such a case, I say that these agents have weak claims to the good. This paper uses a running example of allocating an indivisible medical treatment to individuals with different survival rates and reactions to the treatment in order to provide conditions for consistency of weak claims. As such, I develop two related assumptions on a social planner's preferences over lotteries. The first -- survival rate scaling -- states that if an individual has a weak claim, then his claim is also weak when survival rates increase proportionally. The second -- independence of weak claims -- states that if an individual has a weak claim, then his removal does not affect others' probabilities of receiving the treatment. These assumptions imply that a compatible social welfare function must exhibit constant elasticity of substitution, which results in potentially-degenerate weighted lotteries. The second chapter is titled "Why is Six Afraid of Seven? Bringing the "Numbers" to Economics." This chapter discusses the numbers problem: the question of if the numbers of people involved should be used to determine whether to help certain people or to help certain other people. I discuss the main solutions that have been proposed: flipping a coin, saving the greater number, and proportionally weighted lotteries. Using the economic tools of social choice, I then show how the model of the previous chapter, "Live and Let Die," can be extended to address numbers problems and compare the implications of prominent social welfare functions for numbers problems. I argue that potentially-degenerate weighted lotteries can assuage the main concerns discussed in the literature and I show that both the Nash product social welfare function as well as constant elasticity of substitution (CES) social welfare functions are compatible with this solution. Finally, I discuss a related problem known as "probability cases," in which individuals differ in survival chances rather than numbers of individuals at risk. When the model is extended to allow for both asymmetries in survival chances and numbers of individuals in groups, CES results in potentially-degenerate weighted lotteries whereas Nash product does not. The third chapter is titled "All Probabilities are Equal, but Some Probabilities are More Equal than Others," which is joint work with Professor Uzi Segal of the Economics Department at Boston College and Professor Shlomo Naeh of the Departments of Talmud and Jewish Thought at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In this chapter we compare preferences for different procedures of selecting people randomly. A common procedure for selecting people is to have them draw balls from an urn in turn. Modern and ancient stories (for example, by Graham Greene and the Talmud) suggest that such a lottery may not be viewed by the individuals as "fair.'' In this paper, we compare this procedure with several alternatives. These procedures give all individuals equal chance of being selected, but have different structures. We analyze these procedures as multi-stage lotteries. In line with previous literature, our analysis is based on the observation that multi-stage lotteries are not considered indifferent to their probabilistic one-stage representations. As such, we use a non-expected utility model to understand the preferences of risk-averse individuals over these procedures and show that they may be not indifferent between them
Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2020
Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
Discipline: Economics
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Zhou, Zhuzhu. "Essays in Social Choice and Econometrics:." Thesis, Boston College, 2021. http://hdl.handle.net/2345/bc-ir:109181.
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Thesis advisor: Uzi SegalThe dissertation studies the property of transitivity in the social choice theory. I explain why we should care about transitivity in decision theory. I propose two social decision theories: redistribution regret and ranking regret, study their properties of transitivity, and discuss the possibility to find a best choice for the social planner. Additionally, in the joint work, we propose a general method to construct a consistent estimator given two parametric models, one of which could be incorrectly specified. In “Why Transitivity”, to explain behaviors violating transitivity, e.g., preference reversals, some models, like regret theory, salience theory were developed. However, these models naturally violate transitivity, which may not lead to a best choice for the decision maker. This paper discusses the consequences and the possible extensions to deal with it. In “Redistribution Regret and Transitivity”, a social planner wants to allocate resources, e.g., the government allocates fiscal revenue or parents distribute toys to children. The social planner cares about individuals' feelings, which depend both on their assigned resources, and on the alternatives they might have been assigned. As a result, there could be intransitive cycles. This paper shows that the preference orders are generally non-transitive but there are two exceptions: fixed total resource and one extremely sensitive individual, or only two individuals with the same non-linear individual regret function. In “Ranking Regret”, a social planner wants to rank people, e.g., assign airline passengers a boarding order. A natural ranking is to order people from most to least sensitive to their rank. But people's feelings can depend both on their assigned rank, and on the alternatives they might have been assigned. As a result, there may be no best ranking, due to intransitive cycles. This paper shows how to tell when a best ranking exists, and that when it exists, it is indeed the natural ranking. When this best does not exist, an alternative second-best group ranking strategy is proposed, which resembles actual airline boarding policies. In “Over-Identified Doubly Robust Identification and Estimation”, joint with Arthur Lewbel and Jinyoung Choi, we consider two parametric models. At least one is correctly specified, but we don't know which. Both models include a common vector of parameters. An estimator for this common parameter vector is called Doubly Robust (DR) if it's consistent no matter which model is correct. We provide a general technique for constructing DR estimators (assuming the models are over identified). Our Over-identified Doubly Robust (ODR) technique is a simple extension of the Generalized Method of Moments. We illustrate our ODR with a variety of models. Our empirical application is instrumental variables estimation, where either one of two instrument vectors might be invalid
Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2021
Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
Discipline: Economics
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Kruger, Justin. "Steps towards decisiveness in social choice." Thesis, Paris Sciences et Lettres (ComUE), 2019. http://www.theses.fr/2019PSLED050.
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Le choix social repose sur l’agrégation de préférences, parfois conflictuelles, afin de produire une décision collective pour le groupe. Nous examinons dans quelle mesure une procédure de choix social peut être décisive c'est-à-dire renvoyer une décision sans ex-æquo. Pour introduire cette question, nous prenons l'exemple d'un concours sportif, pour lequel on ne veut qu'un seul gagnant. De manière générale, nous décrivons une méthode pour rendre des procédures plus décisives. En particulier nous étudions des procédures basées sur les tournois, une représentation spécifique des préférences. Avec une interprétation globale des informations sur les préférences, nous définissons un concept abstrait, saisissant le caractère décisif d'une procédure. D'un autre côté, en nous basant sur une interprétation locale des informations disponibles, nous rendons la propriété célèbre d'« indépendance des alternatives non pertinentes » plus faible en utilisant certaines restrictions de domaine sur les préférences. Enfin nous combinons deux cadres d’agrégation : l'approche « Arrovian » qui s'appuie sur des préférences relatives où les alternatives sont comparées par paire et l'approche que nous nommons « évaluative » où les alternatives sont jugées dans l'absolu, indépendamment les uns des autresThe problem of social choice concerns aggregating multiple, perhaps conflicting preferences into a collective preferences or outcome. We consider how the information utilised affects how decisive the procedure can be that is to what extent ties can be avoided. As an introduction to these problems, we consider the problem of selecting the winners of a sports competition, for which a single winner is a desirable property. We describe a general method for making social choice procedures more decisive. In particular, we study procedures based upon preferences represented as structures called tournaments. Taking a global view of available information, we define an abstract concept which captures the notion of the decisiveness of a procedure. On the other hand, taking a local view of available information, we successfully weaken the property known as "(Arrovian) independence of irrelevant alternatives" in conjunction with domain restrictions.Finally we combine two frameworks of aggregation; the "Arrovian" approach wherein preferences are taken to be binary relations, for which alternatives are compared in pairs; and the approach that we call "evaluative", where the alternatives are given absolute evaluations, each alternative evaluated independently of the others
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Jessup, Ryan K. "Neural correlates of the behavioral differences between descriptive and experiential choice an examination combining computational modeling with fMRI /." [Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2008. http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&res_dat=xri:pqdiss&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:3337258.
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Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Psychological & Brain Sciences, 2008.Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on Feb. 17, 2010). Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 69-12, Section: B, page: 7830. Advisers: Jerome R. Busemeyer; Peter M. Todd.
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Kerr, William Fraser. "Darwinian social evolution as a theory of social change." Thesis, University of Edinburgh, 2018. http://hdl.handle.net/1842/31066.
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This thesis investigates the use of a reconceptualised social evolutionary theory for understanding and explaining how and why societies change, specifically looking at this question through the frame of nationalism. The thesis is split into three parts: in the first part I first examine older forms of social evolutionary theory (conceptions from Marx, Spencer and generalized evolutionary accounts) and critique them on the grounds that they are too ‘progressive’ in character, suffer from teleology and have a notion that all societies change linearly, i.e. pass through the same set of stages. After this I elaborate on a reconstructed version of social evolutionary theory, taking it along more Darwinian lines: that the process should be understood as contingent and non-linear, where cultural variants and social intuitions change in response to selective pressures brought about by environmental conditions. To reconstruct social evolution I draw mainly on accounts from Runciman (2009), Hodgson and Knudsen (2010), Sperber (1996), Hull (1988) and Richerson and Boyd (2006). In the second part of the thesis I look at four different theories of social change and utilize Darwinian social evolutionary theory to critique them. The four in question are: Immanuel Wallerstein (world-systems theory); Michael Hechter (rational-choice theory); Michael Mann (sources of social power); and Ernest Gellner (functionalism). These four theories were chosen as they either have, or represent, different theories of social change, and also because they are all concerned to some extent with the rise of the nation-state and nationalism. The main argument in this section is that Darwinian social evolutionary theory can incorporate elements of these theories whilst also going beyond them in explaining and understanding why societies undergo changes. In the case of Mann and Gellner I also note that they are, to a certain extent, implicitly relying on a social evolutionary account, and that drawing this out more explicitly helps provide greater theoretical solidity to their arguments. In the final part of the thesis I apply the theory to two case-studies, looking at the rise of nationalism in Britain (with a focus on England) and Japan. In both cases I examine each development of nationalism historically, using Darwinian social evolution to assess why nationalism emerged at the point that it did in each case, and not before. A final synthesis chapter then looks comparatively at the two cases and applies Darwinian social evolutionary theory to address the question of why nationalism generated in England/Britain, but did not in Japan and why the nationalist movements took the forms that they did. The chapter centres on three main themes, the role of war in forming identities, the role of variation in generating institutions, and the role of lineages in creating continuity in discontinuity. Finally it address the question of why nationalism became the dominant movement and not something else. Together this demonstrates demonstrate the usefulness of the framework for addressing questions concerning social change, in providing a different perspective and insights from other theories of social change. A final chapter summarizes and concludes the thesis, as well as pointing to new directions that research could develop.
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Bonato, Roberto. "An Integrated Computational Approach to Binding Theory." Phd thesis, Université Sciences et Technologies - Bordeaux I, 2006. http://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-00418563.
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Les pronoms jouent un rôle primordial dans toutes les langues humaines en tant qu'éléments fondamentaux pour assurer la cohésion sémantique d'un texte. Le probl`eme de l'automatisation de la résolution d'anaphores (reconnaissance de leur contenu sémantique) est un défi majeur pour toute application informatique qui vise une analyse sémantique ?ne du langage humain. La théorie du liage (Binding Theory) est une partie de la linguistique générative dédiée à l'identi?cation des principes qui régissent la distribution et l'interpretation des pronoms dans une phrase. Nous proposons une procédure algorithmique pour intégrer les principes de la théorie du liage dans une sémantique computationnelle. Notre algorithme combine des éléments des trois plus importantes approches de la théorie du liage et les intègre dans une synthèse originale. Nous étudierons aussi les points de convergence et de divergence entre notre approche et celle purement sémantique récemment proposée par Philippe Schlenker.
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Li, Ji. "Essays on discrete choice under social interaction methodology and applications /." Columbus, Ohio : Ohio State University, 2007. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc%5Fnum=osu1180499711.
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Bavetta, Sebastiano. "Individual freedom in economics : opportunities and constraints in the social choice theory perspective." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 1999. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.312164.
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Snipes, Katherine H. "Decisions, decisions, decisions recreation site choice with expected congestion and social interaction /." Columbus, Ohio : Ohio State University, 2009. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc%5Fnum=osu1242771608.
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Birks, Daniel J. "Computational Agent-Based Models of Offending: Assessing the Generative Sufficiency of Opportunity-Based Explanations of the Crime Event." Thesis, Griffith University, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/10072/367327.
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This thesis demonstrates that agent-based modelling offers a viable compatriot
to traditional experimental methodologies for criminology scholars,
that can be applied to explore the divide between micro-level criminological
theory and macro-level observations of crime; and in turn, aid in the
assessment of those theories which aim to describe the crime event.
The following overarching research question is addressed:
Are the micro-level mechanisms of the opportunity theories generatively sufficient
to explain macroscopic patterns commonly observed in the empirical
study of crime?
Drawing on the approach of generative social science (Epstein, 1999), this
thesis presents a systematic assessment of the generative sufficiency of three
distinct mechanisms of offender movement, target selection and learning derived
from the routine activity approach (Cohen & Felson, 1979), rational
choice perspective (Clarke, 1980; Cornish & Clarke, 1986) and crime pattern
theory (Brantingham & Brantingham, 1978, 1981). An agent-based model
of offending is presented, in which an artificial landscape is inhabited by
both potential victims and offenders who behave according to several of the
key propositions of the routine activity approach, rational choice perspective
and crime pattern theory. Following a computational laboratory-based approach,
for each hypothetical mechanism studied, control and experimental
behaviours are developed to represent the absence or presence of a proposed
mechanism within the virtual population.Thesis (PhD Doctorate)
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
School of Criminology and Criminal Justice
Arts, Education and Law
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Kazemi, Ali. "Distributive preferences in social dilemmas /." Göteborg : Dept. of Psychology, Göteborg University, 2006. http://bvbr.bib-bvb.de:8991/F?func=service&doc_library=BVB01&doc_number=015509278&line_number=0001&func_code=DB_RECORDS&service_type=MEDIA.
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Wilson, Robyn Suzanne. "What motivates choice? Behavioral decision theory for environmental policy and management /." Columbus, Ohio : Ohio State University, 2006. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc%5Fnum=osu1164665160.
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Krabuanrat, Tanasak. "Electronic communication and manager's media choice : a structural equation modelling from rational and social perspectives." Thesis, City University London, 2000. http://openaccess.city.ac.uk/7586/.
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This exploratory study examines the communication media choice of managers. Despite a substantial body of theories on media choice, inadequacies are apparent in the literature particularly in relation to modem communication technologies. A field study approach was adopted to explore some of these inadequacies and to study the media choice of subject from a manager background. Overall, within the limitations and confines of this exploratory study, this thesis has made the following contributions. First, this thesis identifies and has demonstrate at the unduly narrow focus on task equivocality in prior media choice studies has undermined the study's ability to explain the observed media choice. There is a need to consider the full range of task characteristics in explaining the communication media choice process. Second, Information Richness Theory( IRT) has enjoyed acceptance information systems researchers throughout the last decade,b ut recent unfavourable empirical evidence has precipitated a shift away from it and a search for a new theory. The application of social interaction theories responded to the problem of media richness/social presence by postulating that media selection, like most tasks in organisations, is influenced by a combination of social forces. This means that , while the media richness/social presence scale matching tasks with media would apply in most cases, it is perfectly predictable that some groups or individuals will define either tasks or media traits differently, thus explaining the problems with media richness/social presence theories. Third, drawing together ideas in the literature a broad overview of the media choice process is developed into a comprehensive framework model. A novel aspect of this framework is, to find whether Information richness and Social interaction theories directly influence media choice; or the Social interaction theories influence media choice indirectly through the Information richness theory.
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Baldiga, Katherine. "Essays in Microeconomic Theory and Experimental Economics." Thesis, Harvard University, 2012. http://dissertations.umi.com/gsas.harvard:10130.
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This dissertation consists of three essays on microeconomics. The first two are theoretical papers that address issues in collective decision-making. The last is an experimental paper that explores gender differences in test-taking strategies. In the first essay, we define a family of social choice rules that depend on the population’s preferences and on the probability distribution over the sets of feasible alternatives that the society will face. Our rules can be interpreted as distance-minimization – selecting the order closest to the population’s preferences, using a metric on the orders that reflects the distribution over the possible feasible sets. The distance is the probability that two orders will disagree about the optimal choice from a randomly-selected available set. In the second essay, we study representative democracy and contrast it with direct democracy. The key question is whether representative democracy, with its practical advantages, succeeds in implementing the choices that the group would make under the more normatively attractive direct democracy. We find that, in general, it does not. We analyze the theoretical setting in which the two methods are most likely to lead to the same choices, minimizing potential sources of distortion. We show that even in this case, where the normative recommendation of direct democracy is clear, representative democracy may not elect the candidate with this ordering. In the third essay, we present the results of an experiment that explores whether women skip more questions than men on multiple-choice tests. The experimental test consists of practice questions from SAT II subject tests; we vary the size of the penalty imposed for a wrong answer and the salience of the evaluative nature of the task. We find that when no penalty is assessed for a wrong answer, all test-takers answer every question. But, when there is a small penalty for wrong answers and the task is explicitly framed as an SAT, women answer significantly fewer questions than men. We show that, conditional on their knowledge of the material, test-takers who skip questions do significantly worse on our experimental test, putting women and more risk averse test-takers at a disadvantage.Economics
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Montgomery, Amanda Brooke. "KENTUCKY WOMEN TEACHERS' EDUCATION AND CAREER CHOICE DECISIONS: AN APPLICATION OF SOCIAL COGNITIVE CAREER THEORY." Lexington, Ky. : [University of Kentucky Libraries], 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/10225/1166.
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Thesis (M.S.)--University of Kentucky, 2009.Title from document title page (viewed on May 26, 2010). Document formatted into pages; contains: vii, 76 p. Includes abstract and vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 73-75).
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Garrett, Krista L. "Social Cognitive Career Theory, Academic Choice Behavior, and Academic Performance in African American College Students." Thesis, University of North Texas, 2015. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc804833/.
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The current study examined the impact that components of Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT) have on choice behavior and academic performance in African American or Black, undergraduate students. SCCT is a highly valued and researched theory, but few studies examine the impact that SCCT components have on choice behavior and academic performance in Black college students. This study focused on evaluating SCCT components’ relevance to variables that have been shown to predict later objective career success. This is important because African Americans tend to have significantly lower paying and less prestigious jobs, as well as attain lower levels of education than most other racial populations in the United States. However, there is a paucity of current career development and attainment literature specific to the African American undergraduate population. In an effort to promote understanding of within group differences in SCCT variables that can contribute to educational and career success, 247 African American undergraduates were recruited to participate in this study. The participants completed online questionnaires regarding demographic information, self-efficacy, contextual barriers, contextual supports, choice goals, and choice behavior. Participants also gave permission for researchers to access grades. Findings indicate that academic coping self-efficacy, contextual barriers, and contextual supports may be particularly important to academic choice behavior in African American college students. Further, choice behavior appears to be important to grade point average. Implications, limitations, and recommendations for future research associated with this study’s findings are discussed.
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Tong, Ching Hua. "Social networks and dynamic interaction among imperfectly rational agents /." Diss., Connect to a 24 p. preview or request complete full text in PDF format. Access restricted to UC campuses, 1997. http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/ucsd/fullcit?p9812498.
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Baumeister, Dorothea [Verfasser], Jörg [Akademischer Betreuer] Rothe, Egon [Akademischer Betreuer] Wanke, and Ulle [Akademischer Betreuer] Endriss. "Computational Complexity in Three Areas of Computational Social Choice: Possible Winners, Unidirectional Covering Sets, and Judgment Aggregation / Dorothea Baumeister. Gutachter: Egon Wanke ; Ulle Endriss. Betreuer: Jörg Rothe." Düsseldorf : Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek der Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf, 2012. http://d-nb.info/1027368913/34.
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Yan, Chang. "A computational game-theoretic study of reputation." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2014. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:e6acb250-efb8-410b-86dd-9e3e85b427b6.
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As societies become increasingly connected thanks to advancing technologies and the Internet in particular, individuals and organizations (i.e. agents hereafter) engage in innumerable interaction and face constantly the possibilities thereof. Such unprecedented connectivity offers opportunities through which social and economic benefits are realised and disseminated. Nonetheless, risky and damaging interaction abound. To promote beneficial relationships and to deter adverse outcomes, agents adopt different means and resources. This thesis focuses on reputation as a crucial mechanism for promoting positive interaction, and examines the topic from game-theoretic perspective using computational methods. First, we investigate the design of reputation systems by incorporating economic incentives into algorithm design. Focusing on ubiquitous user-generated ratings on the Internet, we propose a truthful reputation mechanism that not only enforces honest reporting from individual raters but also takes into account their personal preferences. The mechanism is constructed using a blend of Bayesian Truth Serum and SimRank algorithms, both specifically adapted for our use case of online ratings. We show that the resulting mechanism is Bayesian incentive compatible and is computable in polynomial time. In addition, the mechanism is shown to be resistant to common manipulations on the Internet such as uniform fake ratings and targeted collusions. Lastly, we discuss detailed considerations for implementing the mechanism in practice. Second, we investigate experimentally the relative importance of reputational and social knowledge in sustaining cooperation in dynamic networks. In our experiments, U.S-based subjects play a repeated game where, in each round, an endogenous network is formed among a group of 13 players and each player chooses a cooperative or non-cooperative action that applies to all her connections. We vary the availability of reputational and social knowledge to subjects in 4 treatments. At the aggregate level, we find that reputational knowledge is of first-order importance for supporting cooperation, while social knowledge plays a complementary role only when reputational knowledge is available. Further community-level analysis reveals that reputational knowledge leads to the emergence of highly cooperative hubs, and a dense and cluster network, while social knowledge enhances cooperation by forming a large, dense and clustered community of cooperators who exclude outsiders through link removals and link refusals. At the individual level, reputational knowledge proves essential for the emergence of network structural characteristics that are associated with cooperative actions. In contrast, in treatments without reputational information, none of the network metrics is predicative of subjects' choices of action. Furthermore, we present UbiquityLab, a pioneering online platform for conducting real-time interactive experiments for game-theoretic studies. UbiquityLab supports both synchronous and asynchronous game models, and allows for complex and customisable interaction between subjects. It offers both back-end and front-end infrastructure with a modularised design to enable rapid development and streamlined operation. For in- stance, in synchronous mode, all per-stage and inter-stage logic are fully encapsulated by a thin server-side module, while a suite of client-side components eases the creation of game interface. The platform features a robust messaging protocol, such that player connection and game states are restored automatically upon networking errors and dropped out subjects are seamlessly substituted by customisable program players. Online experiments enjoy clear advantages over lab equivalents as they benefit from low operation cost, efficient execution, large and diverse subject pools, etc. UbiquityLab aims to promote online experiments as an emerging research methodology in experimental economics by bringing its benefits to other researchers.
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ABOUEIMEHRIZI, MOHAMMAD. "Election Control via Social Influence." Doctoral thesis, Gran Sasso Science Institute, 2021. http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12571/21656.
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In the past, the power of news dissemination was under a few people's control, like newspapers' editors and TV channels. Thanks to social networks, this power is in the hand of everyone now. Social networks became very popular as soon as they were launched, and many societies extensively welcomed them. They have provided an engaging environment so that people can share their moments with their relatives, friends, colleagues, and even their unseen friends (so-called virtual friends) as their `followers.' In this virtual world, people can also share their opinions with their followers by broadcasting a message. Diffusing information and news among the followers will affect them and slightly change their opinions. When a follower is influenced, she may shares/retweets/forwards the message to her own followers and cause more propagation. There are many shreds of evidence that a message shared by few people (even in some cases one person) has been watched by millions of users and went viral. Hence, social media is an inseparable part of our life that can provide many opportunities, e.g., teaching, entertainment, news, and give us the power of sharing our experiences. Researchers have shown that many people prefer to get news from social networks rather than related websites as they are speedy tool to provide news from everywhere.
Therefore, social media is considered one of the most effective tools to manipulate the users' opinions, and it is an attractive means of election control for political campaigns/parties/candidates. As a real example, in the 2016 US presidential election, it has been shown that 92% of Americans saw and remembered pro-Trump fake news stories, 23% remembered pro-Clinton false news, and a very high portion of them believed the news. Moreover, the campaigns can use social influence in order to polarize the users such that a voter receives specific messages in support/oppose of a candidate/party and not all possible messages. These activities impair the integrity of the elections and our democracies because people should have access to all reliable news from different perspectives to make a fair judgment. In this thesis, we investigate the computational aspects of this problem and study different manipulators' strategies to understand how they work. Our goal is to prevent malicious activities as they have enough potential to cause drastic consequences for any society.
We study different aspects of controlling elections utilizing social influence. First, we consider a multi-winner election control where some parties are running for an election, and more than one candidate will be selected as winners. There is a social network of voters and an attacker trying to bribe some users/voters to start a diffusion process and spread a message among them; her goal is to change the voters' opinion regarding a target party. In the constructive model, the attacker tries to maximize the number of winners in the target party, while in the destructive case, she wants to minimize it. In this model, we present some hardness results, approximation guarantee, and polynomial-time algorithms regarding different structures (e.g., graphs, trees, and arborescent), objective functions, diffusion models (e.g., linear threshold and independent cascade models), and different configurations of influencing voters.
Second, we investigate a single-winner election control problem where the attacker does not know the exact voters' preference list; instead, she has/guesses a probability distribution over all candidates for each voter. In this case, we show that the problem is at least as hard to approximate as the Densest-k-subgraph problem, which is hard to approximate for some constant under the exponential time hypothesis. Then we consider a lightly relaxed version and present some hardness and constant factor approximation algorithms for some objective functions regarding both constructive and destructive models. We also examine some real-world social networks and experimentally show that our algorithm works well.
Finally, we present a Stackelberg game variation for competitive election control where there are two players called attacker and defender. They have a budget and the number of their seed nodes should not exceed their budget. The attacker plays first and selects a set of seed nodes to start a diffusion and change the voters' opinion. She knows that the defender is aware of everything and plays afterward. When the attacker's diffusion process is finished, the defender selects her seed nodes to cancel the attacker's influence over the infected voters. Indeed, the attacker tries to maximize the number of infected voters after both diffusion processes, while the defender attempts to minimize it. For simplicity, we first investigate the influence maximization model of this problem and then extend it to the election control through social influence for a single-winner election control problem regarding plurality scoring rule under the independent cascade model. We show that the attacker's problem is $Sigma_2^p$-hard when the defender is able to find an optimal strategy. We also show the same hardness result regarding any approximation algorithm. Moreover, we show that the defender's problem is NP-hard to approximate within any factor $alpha geq 1$. Since the problems are inapproximable, we consider a relaxed version in which the defender selects her seed nodes based on a probability distribution over the nodes, and the attacker is aware of the distribution. In the relaxed model, we give a constant-factor approximation algorithm for the attacker's problem. We also simulate our results and show that the attacker can activate many voters even when the defender can find the optimal solution. Moreover, we show that the greedy influence maximization algorithm works very well for the defender.
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Zhang, Feng, and Mi Zhou. "Factors affecting Chinese students’ choice of studying in Sweden." Thesis, Uppsala universitet, Företagsekonomiska institutionen, 2018. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-355292.
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Chinese families investing in education for their children has prompted an increasing number of students to study abroad. Sweden is becoming one of the destinations that attract a large number of Chinese students. Why do they choose Sweden? What are the factors that affect their decisions to study abroad? This article analyzes Micro-level factors (Family Influence, Gaining International Experience, Expectation, Language, etc.), Meso-level factors (Scholarships, Tuitions, Reputation of the Institution, and Quality of Education in host country), and Macro-level factors (Immigration Policy, Security Factors, and Social Culture) to find out the factors influencing Chinese students to study in Sweden. Based on this, it provides suggestions for the future promotion strategies of Swedish Universities to attract more number of Chinese students. The data was collected through interviews with Chinese students (Exchange, Undergraduate, Master Students as well as Postgraduate Students), Swedish Teachers and Chinese Teachers. Further, surveys were conducted with Chinese applicants for Study in Uppsala University to gather more comprehensive data. Therefore, we used both qualitative and descriptive research to analyze the data.
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Burghart, Daniel Robert. "Demand for public goods /." view abstract or download file of text, 2007. http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=1421618221&sid=2&Fmt=2&clientId=11238&RQT=309&VName=PQD.
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Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2007.Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 109-115). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.
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Whalen, Andrew. "Computational, experimental, and statistical analyses of social learning in humans and animals." Thesis, University of St Andrews, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/8822.
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Social learning is ubiquitous among animals and humans and is thought to be critical to the widespread success of humans and to the development and evolution of human culture. Evolutionary theory, however, suggests that social learning alone may not be adaptive but that individuals may need to be selective in who and how they copy others. One of the key findings of these evolutionary models (reviewed in Chapter 1) is that social information may be widely adaptive if individuals are able to combine social and asocial sources of information together strategically. However, up until this point the focus of theoretic models has been on the population level consequences of different social learning strategies, and not on how individuals combine social and asocial information on specific tasks. In Chapter 2 I carry out an analysis of how animal learners might incorporate social information into a reinforcement learning framework and find that even limited, low-fidelity copying of actions in an action sequence may combine with asocial learning to result in high fidelity transmission of entire action sequences. In Chapter 3 I describe a series of experiments that find that human learners flexibly use a conformity biased learning strategy to learn from multiple demonstrators depending on demonstrator accuracy, either indicated by environmental cues or past experience with these demonstrators. The chapter reveals close quantitative and qualitative matches between participant's performance and a Bayesian model of social learning. In both Chapters 2 and 3 I find, consistent with previous evolutionary findings, that by combining social and asocial sources of information together individuals are able to learn about the world effectively. Exploring how animals use social learning experimentally can be a substantially more difficult task than exploring human social learning. In Chapter 4, I develop and present a refined version of Network Based Diffusion analysis to provide a statistical framework for inferring social learning mechanisms from animal diffusion experiments. In Chapter 5 I move from examining the effects of social learning at an individual level to examining their population level outcomes and provide an analysis of how fine-grained population structure may alter the spread of novel behaviours through a population. I find that although a learner's social learning strategy and the learnability of a novel behaviour strongly impact how likely the behaviour is to spread through the population, fine grained population structure plays a much smaller role. In Chapter 6 I summarize the results of this thesis, and provide suggestions for future work to understand how individuals, humans and other animals alike, use social information.
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Wood, Jason A. "More Than a Feeling: Measuring the Impact of Affect and Socio-Cultural Differences on Vote Choice." University of Cincinnati / OhioLINK, 2011. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1307321687.
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Dandignac, Mitchell Edward. "A Computational Linguistic Paradigm for Assessing the Comprehension and Social Diffusion of Medical Information." Miami University / OhioLINK, 2021. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami1626091707909761.
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Katsea-Sarantou, Danai. "Gay male parenting in Greece : Examining families of choice." Thesis, Linköpings universitet, Institutionen för tema, 2019. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:liu:diva-163596.
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This thesis aims to look at the topic of gay male parenting in Greece by focusing on how heteronormativity is forming the norms and the stereotypes that may affect gay men’s decisions and lives. By invoking a queer theory framework and through semistructured interviews with male gay couples, this study is engaging on their experiences and their opinions and attempts to produce new knowledge let their voices be heard. By using the lived experience of the participants, this study provides an inside perspective and combines theoretical knowledge with real-life issues and situations. Drawing on the concept of queer kinship and Kate Weston’s families of choice”, I am questioning the feasibility of this new family formation in Greece.
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Ferhatosmanoglu, Nilgun. "Optimal design of experiments for emerging biological and computational applications." Columbus, Ohio : Ohio State University, 2007. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc%5Fnum=osu1179177867.
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Joseph, Kenneth. "New Methods for Large-Scale Analyses of Social Identities and Stereotypes." Research Showcase @ CMU, 2016. http://repository.cmu.edu/dissertations/690.
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Social identities, the labels we use to describe ourselves and others, carry with them stereotypes that have significant impacts on our social lives. Our stereotypes, sometimes without us knowing, guide our decisions on whom to talk to and whom to stay away from, whom to befriend and whom to bully, whom to treat with reverence and whom to view with disgust. Despite these impacts of identities and stereotypes on our lives, existing methods used to understand them are lacking. In this thesis, I first develop three novel computational tools that further our ability to test and utilize existing social theory on identity and stereotypes. These tools include a method to extract identities from Twitter data, a method to infer affective stereotypes from newspaper data and a method to infer both affective and semantic stereotypes from Twitter data. Case studies using these methods provide insights into Twitter data relevant to the Eric Garner and Michael Brown tragedies and both Twitter and newspaper data from the “Arab Spring”. Results from these case studies motivate the need for not only new methods for existing theory, but new social theory as well. To this end, I develop a new sociotheoretic model of identity labeling - how we choose which label to apply to others in a particular situation. The model combines data, methods and theory from the social sciences and machine learning, providing an important example of the surprisingly rich interconnections between these fields.
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Caines, Valerie Dawn. "Late-Life Career Choice: The Antecedents of Self-Employment Interest for Older Workers." Phd thesis, Canberra, ACT : The Australian National University, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/1885/142418.
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Workforce ageing has stimulated research interest in entrepreneurship in later life. For older workers, self-employment is an important alternative to waged employment. The literature addressing entrepreneurial motivation has mainly examined young cohorts, and less is known about how age-related factors intersect with entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurial motivation in later life is multifaceted, involving a social transaction whereby entrepreneurial interest is developed in a context-dependent social process. Accordingly, the social context in which people work and live influences their interest in entrepreneurship. For instance, older people as entrepreneurs are often viewed as socially unacceptable, which can dissuade their move towards self-employment. The present research draws on social learning theory and social cognitive career theory (SCCT) to explore self-employment in later life and develop and test a mediated model of self-employment interest over three studies. Study 1 explored factors influencing late-career decisions and how self-employment is perceived among the other late-career options, such as retirement. Results of interviews with 31 professional association members (aged 40 years and above) identified several age-related factors that influence older worker’s self-efficacy and outcome expectations in the work domain. A model of late-career interest was developed incorporating the study results. The prominence of self-employment in the narratives supported the proposition that self-employment is an important career option in later life. Study 2 tested a model of self-employment interest focusing on the effects of future time perspective and social support on entrepreneurial self-efficacy - pre-venture, outcome expectations and self-employment interest. Findings from a sample of 174 members (aged 40 years and above) of a professional association revealed that an open-ended time perspective positively influenced entrepreneurial self-efficacy – pre-venture, and Support positively influenced outcome expectations. Consistent with SCCT, entrepreneurial self-efficacy – pre-venture mediated the relationship between future time perspective and self-employment interest, and outcome expectations mediated the relationship between Support and self-employment interest. Study 3 examined the influence of age norms. Findings from a sample of 598 financial services employees (aged 45 and above) supported prior hypotheses, replicating Study 2. Additionally, favourable age norms were positively related to entrepreneurial self-efficacy - pre-venture and outcome expectations. Consistent with SCCT, entrepreneurial self-efficacy - pre-venture and outcome expectations mediated the relationship between age norms and self-employment interest. Examination of the two-way interaction effect between age norms and future time perspective on entrepreneurial self-efficacy found that when age norms are favourable and time perspective is open ended, entrepreneurial self-efficacy – pre-venture was at its highest. The two-way interaction effect between age norms and Support on entrepreneurial self-efficacy - pre-venture suggested that when age norms were highly favourable, support was not related to entrepreneurial self-efficacy – pre-venture. However, when age norms are not favourable, Support was positively related to entrepreneurial self-efficacy - pre-venture, suggesting that age norms and Support complement each other in the development of interest in self-employment. This research extends current career and entrepreneurship theory in several ways. First, the inclusion of age-related psychosocial and sociocultural factors in the model shed light on the intersection between older age, the contextual environment and development of self-employment interest. Second, the findings support earlier arguments that older entrepreneurship is a social process whereby the social context in which people work and live influences their interest in entrepreneurship, and that entrepreneurial behaviour among older people needs to be sanctioned and supported to occur. Finally, the findings suggest the utility of SCCT in informing the development of self-employment interest in the late career stage. Practical implications, limitations and suggestions for future research directions are also discussed.
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Geist, Christian Verfasser], Felix [Akademischer Betreuer] [Gutachter] Brandt, and Tobias [Gutachter] [Nipkow. "Generating Insights in Social Choice Theory via Computer-aided Methods / Christian Geist ; Gutachter: Felix Brandt, Tobias Nipkow ; Betreuer: Felix Brandt." München : Universitätsbibliothek der TU München, 2016. http://d-nb.info/111488507X/34.
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Schreiber, Kerstin. "Growing on (Un)common Ground: Motivations and Locational Choice of Urban Agriculture Entrepreneurs." Thesis, Malmö universitet, Fakulteten för kultur och samhälle (KS), 2018. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:mau:diva-23101.
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Urban agriculture in post-industrial countries is commonly represented in form of shared community gardens or individual gardening lots. However, within the last years, an increasing number of commercial urban farming enterprises around the globe have started their operations. While recreational projects have received much attention, the commercial and entrepreneurial remained mainly uninvestigated. Using a grounded theory approach, this explorative dissertation aims to contribute to an understanding of farming as a new urban profession and the motivation of commercial urban farmers (CUFs) to grow in the city, rather than the countryside. Based on ten semi-standardized in-depth interviews, this study reveals first, that CUFs merge the commonly rural occupation of farming and their desire for autonomic labor with the urban lifestyle as self-made growers, without significant relevant personal or educational background in farming, using alternative growing techniques. Second, the study finds two CUF categories: urbanists, who perceive themselves as actors in sustainable urban development and pursue urban growing activities to contribute to this target; and bargainers, who regard urban growing as a means to an end to progress to small-scale rural agriculture. This suggests that CUFs must engage in inner negotiations between their economic capabilities, the geographic location, and the more society oriented visions they commit themselves to. This research conceptualizes urban farming as tool to fulfill not only food and sustainability goals, but that could also function as basis for sustainable small-scale growing in the countryside.
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Valenti, Greta Rachel. "Considering Roads Taken and Not Taken: How Psychological Distance Impacts the Framing of Choice Events." The Ohio State University, 2012. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1337369615.
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Cummings, Devon Leeann. "Using Social Cognitive Career Theory to Conceptualize and Develop a Measure of the Barriers to Career Choice for Individuals Who Have Criminal Records." University of Akron / OhioLINK, 2008. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=akron1226532928.
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Ingham, Sean. "Instrumental Justifications of Popular Rule." Thesis, Harvard University, 2012. http://dissertations.umi.com/gsas.harvard:10445.
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Ordinary citizens are rarely charged with making consequential decisions in representative democracies. Almost all consequential decisions are delegated to elected representatives or political appointees. On what basis should we judge whether decisions should be placed in the hands of ordinary citizens or delegated to political elites? I argue that decision-making authority should be allocated in whatever way an assembly of randomly selected citizens would choose, given reasonable beliefs about the consequences of their possible choices. The standard I defend is a variation of the principal-agent model of political representation, in which the people are viewed as a principal and officeholders as their agents. As it is usually formulated, the objectives of the people are defined by the preferences of the majority. I draw on this formulation in chapter 4 to explain why the majority might rationally prefer to delegate authority to a citizens’ assembly instead of an elected legislature and why they might rationally view citizens’ assemblies with distrust, when they are organized and administered by elites. But the standard formulation of the principal-agent model does not provide a coherent standard when the will of the majority is not well-defined. Several chapters on social choice theory explain this problem and why political theorists’ previous responses to it have been unconvincing. In light of this problem, I argue for a revisionary understanding of the principal-agent model, according to which the people and its will are identified not with the preferences of the majority but rather with the decisions of a citizens’ assembly. To motivate this approach I offer a critique of the recent literature on “epistemic democracy,” which describes an alternative form of justification for empowering ordinary citizens. Appeals to expertise and knowledge have historically figured prominently in justifications of political exclusion and hierarchy, but epistemic democrats put them to use in defending participatory forms of democratic politics. Epistemic democrats claim that decision processes in which inexpert, ordinary citizens participate can exhibit greater “collective wisdom” than elite- or expert-dominated decision-making. Chapters 2 and 3 explain why these arguments sit uncomfortably with the nature of disagreements in politics.Government
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Brandl, Florian [Verfasser], Felix [Akademischer Betreuer] Brandt, Felix [Gutachter] Brandt, Clemens [Gutachter] Puppe, and Herve [Gutachter] Moulin. "Zero-Sum Games in Social Choice and Game Theory / Florian Brandl ; Gutachter: Felix Brandt, Clemens Puppe, Herve Moulin ; Betreuer: Felix Brandt." München : Universitätsbibliothek der TU München, 2018. http://d-nb.info/1168798558/34.
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Hutmire, Jennifer L. "Meaningfulness of Work as Perceived by Women from Diverse Social Classes: A Grounded Theory Exploration." ScholarWorks, 2016. https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/dissertations/1998.
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Despite research connecting the meaningfulness of work with positive organizational outcomes, such as increased employee well-being, job satisfaction, engagement, and retention, there remains a lack of adequate, inclusive research explaining differences in women's perceptions of the meaningfulness of work. The purpose of this qualitative grounded theory study was to address this gap in the literature by developing a theory about the formation of perceptions of the meaningfulness of work and about the impact of those perceptions. Research questions explored perceptions that women from diverse social classes have of the meaningfulness of work, what influenced those perceptions, the impact of those perceptions on their career choices, and the influence of those perceptions on workplace experiences and behaviors. Data for this study were collected through in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 25 women from different social classes. Transcribed interviews, results from a demographic screening survey, and researcher memos were analyzed using constant comparison in open, axial, and selective coding phases. Results indicated that perceptions of the meaningfulness of work are primarily defined by the potential impact of meaningful work and that the type, scope, and target of that impact are influenced by contextual and experiential factors, filtered through personal identity. The analogy of a stream was used to demonstrate the theory that blockages caused by negative workplace experiences and behaviors may prevent work from having a meaningful impact, but that channels can be created to bypass these blockages. Positive social change occurs when these channels allow employees' goals for impact to be realized, leading them to experience their work as meaningful and to engage in organizational citizenship behavior.
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Graff, Curt Gerard. "Course selection theory and college transition seminars: an adaptation of college choice models to explain first-year students' course enrollment behavior." Diss., University of Iowa, 2011. https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/1141.
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This dissertation examines the course-enrollment behavior of first-year students at a public Midwestern university. Using the student choice construct, modern college choice theory, and the constructs of habitus, human capital, financial capital, social capital, cultural capital, along with background variables such as gender and locus of control, a course selection theory is proposed to explain students' voluntarily enrollment in a seminar designed to assist with the academic and social transitions to college. The literature review shows numerous studies have been done examining the impacts these courses may have on first-year students' academic performance, retention, and graduation rates. In many of these studies, however, subsets of students were targeted for enrollment and participation in the seminars was not voluntary. In others, students self-select into the first-year transition seminars, raising questions about whether or not their subsequent success is attributable to their participation in these courses. Prior to this study, few, if any, studies have examined enrollment in these first-year seminars as the dependent variable and attempted to explain how various factors impact whether or not students voluntarily choose to enroll.
This quantitative research looked at 7,561 first-year students enrolling in 2006-2007 and 2007-2008 and, using logistic regression, attempted to explain whether or not students chose to enroll in a transition seminar. Data was gathered from institutional offices (Admissions, Registrar, and Student Financial Aid) and through an Entering Student Survey completed by 99% of each entering cohort. Of the 52 independent variables included in the model, 17 were significant in one or more steps (or blocks) of the model.
This study found that students more advantaged in their individual or family college-going resources (e.g., higher ACT-Composite scores or a higher self-evaluation of their ability to appreciate fine arts, music, and literature) are less likely to enroll in the college transition seminar than students that could be described as more disadvantaged in terms of their college-going resources (i.e., an external locus of control, receiving a Pell Grant, and less access to various forms of capital). There is also evidence that students with past experiences where they may have learned the value of community or teamwork through in- and out-of-class experiences may see the first-year transition seminar as a way to begin creating these same types of connections or communities on the college campus. The dissertation concludes with a consideration of implications for future research, theory development, and institutional policy and practice.
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Arrhenius, Gustaf. "Future generations : A challenge for moral theory." Doctoral thesis, Uppsala universitet, Filosofiska institutionen, 2000. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-787.
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For the last thirty years or so, there has been a search underway for a theory that canaccommodate our intuitions in regard to moral duties to future generations. The object ofthis search has proved surprisingly elusive. The classical moral theories in the literature allhave perplexing implications in this area. Classical Utilitarianism, for instance, implies thatit could be better to expand a population even if everyone in the resulting populationwould be much worse off than in the original. The main problem has been to find an adequate population theory, that is, a theoryabout the moral value of states of affairs where the number of people, the quality of theirlives, and their identities may vary. Since, arguably, any reasonable moral theory has totake these aspects of possible states of affairs into account when determining the normativestatus of actions, the study of population theory is of general import for moral theory. A number of theories have been proposed in the literature that purport to avoidcounter-intuitive implications such as the one mentioned above. The suggestions arediverse: introducing novel ways of aggregating welfare into a measure of value, revising thenotion of a, life worth living, questioning the way we can compare and measure welfare,counting people's welfare differently depending on the temporal location or the modalfeatures of their lives, and challenging the logic of axiological and normative concepts. Weinvestigate the concepts and assumptions involved in these theories as well as theirimplications for population theory. In our discussion, we propose a number of intuitively appealing and logically weakadequacy conditions for an acceptable population theory. Finally, we consider whether it ispossible to find a theory that satisfies all of these conditions. We prove that no such theory exists.
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Urbanavičiūtė, Ieva. "The Internal and External Factors of Vocational Path Choice." Doctoral thesis, Lithuanian Academic Libraries Network (LABT), 2010. http://vddb.laba.lt/obj/LT-eLABa-0001:E.02~2010~D_20100204_100201-30861.
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The main objective of the doctoral thesis was to analyze the features of one’s vocational path during the time of undergraduate studies. Undergraduate studies can be treated as a pathway of transition from school to the world of work. Therefore, it is especially important to identify what makes vocational choice successful during this period of time. In the study, several psychological success indicators of vocational path choice were distinguished. Moreover, the following factors were analyzed as their possible predictors: internal-cognitive factors (self-efficacy and vocation-related expectations), internal-personality factors (Big Five trait dimensions), external factors (situational-demographic characteristics). The study was conducted in the framework of Social Cognitive Career Theory. 625 undergraduates representing various Lithuanian universities took part in the main study. The results provide a basis for distinguishing the most important factors of vocational path choice during the transition period, i.e., those factors that most strongly relate either to vocational choice success indicators or to the adequacy of its planning. In the discussion, both theoretical implications and practical recommendations are provided.Disertacijoje nagrinėjami profesinio kelio ypatumai bakalauro pakopos studijų metu – pereinamuoju laikotarpiu tarp mokyklos baigimo ir įėjimo į darbo pasaulį. Darbe buvo siekiama išskirti psichologinius sėkmingo profesinio kelio pasirinkimo rodiklius bei įvertinti, kokie veiksniai jiems turi daugiausiai reikšmės. Remiantis socialine kognityvine karjeros teorija ir pereinamojo laikotarpio tyrimų apžvalga, nagrinėti vidiniai kognityviniai (įvairūs saviveiksmingumo aspektai, profesiniai lūkesčiai), asmenybės (Didžiojo Penketo asmenybės bruožai) ir išoriniai (situaciniai-demografiniai) veiksniai. Tyrime dalyvavo 625 įvairių Lietuvos universitetų bakalauro pakopos, 1–4 kurso studentai. Gauti rezultatai leidžia išskirti svarbiausius vidinius ir išorinius profesinio kelio veiksnius – tuos, kurie pereinamuoju laikotarpiu labiausiai sietini su sėkmingu profesinio kelio pasirinkimu ar adekvačiu jo planavimu. Aptariant tyrimo rezultatus, diskutuojama tiek jų reikšmė teorine prasme, tiek pritaikymo galimybės profesinio orientavimo ir konsultavimo praktikoje.
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Intravia, Jonathan. "The Roles of Social Bonds, Personality, and Rational Decision-Making: An Empirical Investigation into Hirschi’s “New” Control Theory." Scholar Commons, 2009. https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/2023.
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Control theories have substantively contributed both theoretically and empirically to criminological research. Recently, Hirschi moved away from the personality constructs associated with self-control and created a new conceptualization that favors social bonds. Specifically, Hirschi suggests that counting the number of inhibitors (derived from social bonds) is the best way to predict delinquency. Using middle school and high school students from Largo Florida, this study examines Hirschi's new conceptualization of inhibitors by comparing it with self-control and a traditional social bonding scale. In addition, this study also explores whether Hirschi's new conceptualization and self-control operate through a cognitive scale. Results suggest that some components of Hirschi's new conceptualization of inhibitors are supported, while others are not. Finally, limitations are discussed and directions for future research are outlined.