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1
Bradshaw, Richard H. "Agonistic behaviour and individual recognition in groups of laying hens." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1990. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.276581.
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Xu, Yang. "A Systems Approach to Dissecting Immune Gene Regulatory Networks in the Modulation of Brain Function." eScholarship@UMMS, 2010. http://escholarship.umassmed.edu/gsbs_diss/924.
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Although the central nervous system was long perceived as the ivory tower without immune entities, there is growing evidence that the immune and nervous systems are intimated connected. These two systems have been shown to communicate both cellularly and molecularly under physiological and pathological conditions. Despite our increasing understanding of the interplay between these two systems, there are still numerous open questions. In this thesis, I address such unanswered questions related to: the role of microglia and their mechanism in contributing to pathologies in Rett syndrome; the beneficial effects of T-cell secreted cytokines in supporting social brain function; the evolutionary link of the interactions between the nervous and immune systems; the transcription regulation of a subset of microglia population in common neurodegenerative diseases.
Collectively, the current thesis is focused on the joint frontier of bioinformatics and experimental work in neuroimmunology. A multifaceted approach, that includes transcriptomics, genomics and other biomolecular modules, was implemented to unearth signaling pathways and mechanisms underlying the presenting biological phenomena. The findings of this thesis can be summarized as follows: 1) MeCP2 acts as a master regulator in the transcriptional repression of inflammatory stimuli in macrophages; 2) T-cell secreted IFN-γ supports social brain function through an evolutionally conserved interaction between the immune and nervous systems; 3) The APOE-TREM2 pathway regulates the microglia phenotype switch in neurodegenerative diseases. Provided that recent technologies allow for readily manipulating the immune system, the findings presented herein may create new vistas for therapeutic interventions in various neurological disorders.
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Xu, Yang. "A Systems Approach to Dissecting Immune Gene Regulatory Networks in the Modulation of Brain Function." eScholarship@UMMS, 2017. https://escholarship.umassmed.edu/gsbs_diss/924.
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Although the central nervous system was long perceived as the ivory tower without immune entities, there is growing evidence that the immune and nervous systems are intimated connected. These two systems have been shown to communicate both cellularly and molecularly under physiological and pathological conditions. Despite our increasing understanding of the interplay between these two systems, there are still numerous open questions. In this thesis, I address such unanswered questions related to: the role of microglia and their mechanism in contributing to pathologies in Rett syndrome; the beneficial effects of T-cell secreted cytokines in supporting social brain function; the evolutionary link of the interactions between the nervous and immune systems; the transcription regulation of a subset of microglia population in common neurodegenerative diseases.
Collectively, the current thesis is focused on the joint frontier of bioinformatics and experimental work in neuroimmunology. A multifaceted approach, that includes transcriptomics, genomics and other biomolecular modules, was implemented to unearth signaling pathways and mechanisms underlying the presenting biological phenomena. The findings of this thesis can be summarized as follows: 1) MeCP2 acts as a master regulator in the transcriptional repression of inflammatory stimuli in macrophages; 2) T-cell secreted IFN-γ supports social brain function through an evolutionally conserved interaction between the immune and nervous systems; 3) The APOE-TREM2 pathway regulates the microglia phenotype switch in neurodegenerative diseases. Provided that recent technologies allow for readily manipulating the immune system, the findings presented herein may create new vistas for therapeutic interventions in various neurological disorders.
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Grigoriou, Eleni. "Graded organisation of fibronectin to tune cell behaviour." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 2017. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/8523/.
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Cells are in constant and dynamic interactions with the extracellular environment. They receive several inputs involved in the regulation of cell behaviour. Fibronectin, an abundant protein of the ECM, contains multiple binding domains and binds to cell receptors, growth factors and other ECM proteins. FN undergoes conformational changes through cell-generated contractile forces which consequently affects cell response. Tissue engineering aims at engineering biomaterials that recreate the in vivo ECM. In addition to biomaterials, stem cells have emerged as a promising source due to their inherent differentiation potential. In this work, the role of poly acrylates in controlling human mesenchymal stem cell behaviour (hMSCs) was explored. Particularly, a series of copolymers with specific ratio of ethyl(acrylate), EA, and methyl(acrylate), MA, were used. It is known that poly(ethyl)acrylate, PEA, triggers a network-like conformation of FN upon adsorption, whereas poly(methyl)acrylate, PMA, elicits a globular conformation. It was found that a different degree of FN organisation can be obtained dependent on the EA/MA ratio, with the network being more connected with increased EA ratio. This differential conformation was shown to affect the availability of critical binding sites. This system was further used to study hMSCs response in terms of adhesion and osteogenic differentiation. All surfaces support cell growth and focal adhesion formation. However, increased cell size and spreading was promoted on surfaces with higher EA concentration. Next, the potential of the surfaces after sequential adsorption of FN and the growth factor BMP-2 to drive osteogenic commitment was explored. Enhanced expression of the osteogenic markers RUNX2 and OCN was found with higher concentration of EA whereas the opposite was observed with ALP expression. Another part of this work involved investigating cell migration on PEA and PMA. Higher cell speed was found on PEA where FN adopts a more extended conformation. Moreover, the protein composition of focal adhesions was evaluated by proteomic analysis. The findings of this work give further insights into how the surface with well-defined chemical properties can modulate FN conformation and how these changes affect cellular processes.
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Scott-Phillips, Thomas C. "Social evolution of pragmatic behaviour." Thesis, University of Edinburgh, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/1842/3385.
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Pragmatics is the branch of linguistics that addresses the relationship between language and its external environment – in particular the communicative context. Social evolution (or sociobiology) is the branch of the biological sciences that studies the social behaviour of organisms, particularly with respect to the ecological and evolutionary forces with which it must interact. These two disciplines thus share a natural epistemic link, one that is concerned with the relationship between behaviour and the environment. There has, however, historically been no dialogue between them. This thesis attempts to fill that void: it examines pragmatics from the perspective of social evolution theory. Chapter 1 gives a brief introduction to the two fields and their key ideas, and also discusses why an evolutionary understanding of pragmatics is crucial to the study of language origins. In chapter 2 the vexed question of the biological function of language is discussed. Responses are given to the claims, common in the evolutionary linguistics literature, that the processes of exaptation, self‑organisation and cultural transmission provide alternatives to natural selection as a source of design in nature. The intuitive conclusion that the function of language is communication is provisionally supported, subject to a proper definition of communication. Chapter 3 reviews previous definitions and consequently argues for an account predicated on the designedness of signals and responses. This definition is then used to argue that an evolutionarily coherent model of language should recognise the pragmatic realities of ostension and inference and reject the code‑like idealisation that is often used in its place. Chapter 4 observes that this fits the argument that the biological function of language is communication and then addresses the key question faced by all evolved communication systems – that of evolutionary stability. The human capacity to record and remember the past behaviour of others is seen to be critical. Chapter 5 uses the definition of communication from chapter 3 to describe a very general model of evolved communication, and then uses the constraints of that model to argue that Relevance Theory, or at least some theory of pragmatics with a very similar logical structure, must be correct. Chapter 6 then applies the theoretical apparatus constructed in chapters 2 to 5 to a crucial and topical issue in evolutionary linguistics: the emergence of learnt, symbolic communication. It introduces the Embodied Communication Game, an experimental tool whose basic structure is significantly informed by both social evolutionary and, in particular, pragmatic theory. The novelty of the game is that participants must find a way to communicate not just the content that they wish to convey, but also the very fact that a given behaviour is communicative in nature, and this constraint is found to fundamentally influence the type of system that emerges. Chapter 7, which concludes the thesis, recounts and clarifies what it tells us about the origins and evolution of language, and suggests a number of possible avenues for future research.
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Ibarra, Olivares Rebeca. "Social mechanisms of tax behaviour." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2014. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:2893069a-a2bf-46ff-a769-e9ec4ec58b48.
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The main goal of this thesis is to provide a sociologically informed analysis of tax avoidance and tax evasion in contemporary Mexico and Sweden, focusing particular attention on the explanatory role of social networks, social interactions, and positive feedback mechanisms. Two major data sources are used: (1) A panel dataset that includes all persons, 16 years or older, who resided in Stockholm County during at least one of the years 1990 to 2003 (N=1,967,993). The dataset includes detailed information on the socio-demographic characteristics, kinship networks, and criminal offences of these individuals; (2) A random sample of 36,949 firms that appeared in the Mexican Federal Register of Taxpayers for the year 2002. The records of the Mexican Federal Administrative Fiscal Tribunal provided data on all types of tax claims appealed before them during the 2002-2008 period. A variety of approaches and techniques are used such as agent-based simulation models, discrete time event history models, random effect logit models, and hierarchical linear models. These models are used to test different hypotheses related to the role of social networks, social interactions, and positive feedback mechanisms in explaining tax behaviour. There are five major empirical findings. (1) Networks seem to matter for individuals' tax behaviour because exposure to tax crimes of family members appears to increase a person’s likelihood of committing a tax crime. (2) Positive feedback mechanisms appear relevant because if a person commits a tax crime, it seems to increase the likelihood that the person will commit more tax crimes in the future. (3) Positive feedback mechanisms are also important for explaining corporate tax behaviour because a firm that has engaged in legal tax avoidance in the past appears to be more likely to engage in tax avoidance in the future. (4) Network effects are important in the corporate world because exposure to the tax avoidance of other firms increase the propensity of a firm to engage in tax avoidance. (5) Substitution effects between tax evasion and tax avoidance are likely to exist because when tax evasion becomes more prevalent in a firm’s environment, their likelihood of engaging in legal tax avoidance is lowered. The results underscore the importance of a sociological perspective on tax behaviour that takes into account social interactions and positive feedback mechanisms. In order to understand microscopic as well as macroscopic tax evasion patterns, the results presented in this thesis suggest that much more attention must be given to mechanisms through which taxation crimes breed more taxation crimes.
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Bowles, David Bernard. "Social Capital and Volunteer Behaviour." Thesis, University of East Anglia, 2008. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.490399.
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The concept ofsocial capital has proved extremely popular, appearing to provide a valuable analytical tool to investigate contemporary social relations, particularly the perceived decline in social and civic engagemenL This thesis compares Robert Putnam's widely acclaimed work on social capital with that ofPierre Bourdieu. Unlike Putnam's 'public good' model, Bourdieu's concept ofsocial capital cannot be considered in isolation from his overall theoretical approach involving economic, cultural, social and symbolic capitals, and the concepts ofhabitus and field. In contrasting these theories a class-based approach is adopted, comparing the activities ofthe volunteers from two similar day centres for older people. Valley is set in an aflluent rural setting, while Northbury is located in a working class town. Participant observation was carried out while working as a volunteer at each of these locations. The participant observation is used to compare the two Centres as case studies and then uses Bourdieu's concepts to explore the differences between them. The comparison is argued to help look at the way social capital, in Bourdieu's formulation, can be a useful heuristic tool when looking at such volunteer behaviour. The implication is that Putnam's more popular version of social capital neglects class differences, ignoring the reality ofliving within classdivided contemporary society. The popularity ofPutnam's thesis lies not in its explanatory power, but rather in its normative call to reinvigorate 'community' through individual civic reengagement. This theoretical position fits very well with a social policy discourse that is keen to play down class differences and encourage individual responsibility for care. Bourdieu's theoretical approach is complex, but it at least provides the tools for a more realistic investigation of social capital, avoiding the sterile Third Way debates of 'community' which neglect the underlying causes ofsocial disconnectedness, particularly class inequalities.
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Al-Thawr, Abdlslam M. "A microscopic study of driver behaviour at urban priority T-junctions." Thesis, University of Strathclyde, 1997. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.285003.
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Deifalla, Ahmed Farouk Mohamed Hassan Ghobarah Ahmed. "Behaviour and strengthening of RC T-girders in torsion and shear." *McMaster only, 2007.
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Almahmood, Hanady, Ashraf F. Ashour, and Therese Sheehan. "Flexural behaviour of hybrid steel-GFRP reinforced concrete continuous T-beams." Elsevier, 2020. http://hdl.handle.net/10454/17994.
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YesThis paper presents test results of six full scale reinforced concrete continuous T beams. One beam was reinforced with glass fibre reinforced polymer (GFRP) bars while the other five beams were reinforced with a different combination of GFRP and steel bars. The ratio of GFRP to steel reinforcement at both mid-span and middle-support sections was the main parameter investigated. The results showed that adding steel reinforcement to GFRP reinforced concrete T-beams improves the flexural stiffness, ductility and serviceability in terms of crack width and deflection control. However, the moment redistribution at failure was limited because of the early yielding of steel reinforcement at a beam section that does not reach its moment capacity and could still carry more loads due to the presence of FRP reinforcement. The experimental results were compared with the ultimate moment prediction of ACI 440.2R-17, and with the existing theoretical equations for deflection prediction. It was found that the ACI 440.2R-17 reasonably estimated the moment capacity of both mid-span and middle support sections. Conversely, the available theoretical deflection models underestimated the deflection of hybrid reinforced concrete T-beams at all load stages.
The full-text of this article will be released for public view after the publisher embargo on 10 Aug 2021.
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Zainuddin, H. "Study of surface discharge behaviour at the oil-pressboard interface." Thesis, University of Southampton, 2013. https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/361715/.
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This thesis is concerned with the surface discharge behaviour at the oil-pressboard interface. For large transformers this is classified as a serious failure mode because it can lead to catastrophic failure under normal AC voltage operating conditions. To increase understanding on this failure mode, a surface discharge experiment at the oil-pressboard interface has been conducted on different moisture levels in pressboard by applying a long period of AC voltage stress. The processes in the surface discharge at the oil-pressboard interface until the appearance of a first full discharge have been recognised and correlated with the measured data. The results show that the different moisture levels within the pressboard play an important role on the partial discharge (PD) activity of certain processes. The decreasing trend in the PD data during the surface discharges cannot be treated as a reliable condition monitoring measure of health because it is the key indicator of white marks propagation toward the earth point. The characteristics of full discharge events have been analysed to develop knowledge for condition monitoring of surface discharge at the oil-pressboard interface. Full discharges are corona-like events in which their random occurrences are dominated by accumulated charges on the pressboard surface along the white marks rather than the polarity of applied AC voltage. A 2-D axial symmetry surface discharge model has also been developed using COMSOL Multiphysics, a finite element analysis (FEA) software package. The model considers the pressboard region near the interface (a transition region) as porous, whilst in the bulk region of pressboard as a perfect insulator. The model is developed using continuity equations and coupled with the Poisson’s equation to study the problem in terms of charge transport mechanisms and electric field distributions. The thermal conduction equation is included to study the thermal effects of surface discharge activity at the oil-pressboard interface. The behaviour of surface discharge is studied by validating the simulated surface discharge current pulse with the measured current. The simulation results show that a field dependent molecular ionisation mechanism plays an important role in the streamer propagation during the period of the rising front of the current pulse, whilst during the period of decaying tail of the current pulse, the contribution of an electron attachment process is dominant. The modelling results suggest that degradation marks (white and black marks) are due to high energy over long periods of partial discharge events that lead to thermal degradation at the oil-pressboard interface.
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He, Qi. "Molecular analysis of the CD2 surface glycoprotein of T lymphocytes." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1989. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.236171.
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Bending, David Alexander. "The behaviour of T helper 17 (Th17) cells in health and disease." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2011. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.609853.
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Stadler, Sophia. "Child disruptive behaviour problems, problem perception and help-seeking behaviour." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/26942.
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Disruptive behaviour problems in early childhood are found to be associated with many negative long-term outcomes, such as antisocial behaviour, adolescent delinquency, and substance abuse (Kellam, Werthamer-Larsson & Dolan (1991), as cited in Butler, 2005:1). Even after adolescence this arises, for, as Vogel (2008:16) states the 'frequency of behavioural problems or challenging behaviour among the youth of today often predicts the size of our future prison population'. These findings clearly highlight the importance of early identification of behavioural problems, adequate preventative intervention (Butler, 2005:1) and the necessity for early intervention to prevent their continuity, since behaviour problems are found to worsen without treatment (Loeber, 1982, cited in Butler, 2005:1). The goal of this study is to gain an understanding of disruptive behaviour in primary school learners. To achieve this goal, the objectives of this are to explore the nature of child disruptive behaviour problems; to explore parents and teachers' problem perception of child disruptive behaviour; to explore the problem threshold of parents and teachers toward child disruptive behaviour; and to explore their help-seeking behaviour. The study's aim, therefore, is to better understand and gain more insight in child disruptive behaviour problems before a threshold is reached by parents and teachers and help is sought from social service professionals. The study uses an exploratory qualitative research design to gain insight into child disruptive behaviour problems, problem perceptions and help-seeking behaviour in the Southern Cape Karoo District in the Western Cape. Child disruptive behaviour patterns were analysed along a three-point continuum (from less severe - 'preventative'; to moderate - 'early intervention'; and most severe - 'statutory') based, on problem perceptions of parents, teachers and social service professionals. In addition, the present study examines parents and teachers' problem thresholds to identify help-seeking behaviour and sources. A purposive sampling technique was used to select the participants according to appropriation and availability. Parents and teachers were contacted to participate voluntarily in the research from schools in the area - Acacia Primary School, Baartmansfontein Primary School, Buffelsriver Private Primary School and Matjiesfontein Primary School. The social service professionals who participated consisted of social workers, social auxiliary workers and police officials from the Department of Social Development, Child Welfare SA and the South African Police Service. The study consisted of a broad range of child ages and parental ages. Parent participants also included biological and foster parents. Data was gathered by means of a semi-structured interview schedule administered during 24 individual interviews. The schedule is based on information obtained from the literature review relevant to the models and theories selected. Previous research done by Jessica Hankinson in 2009 in America on child psychopathology, parental problem perception, and help-seeking behaviours was used as a reference for creating the data collection tool, since she also focused on child behavioural problems and used similar models in the theories. This tool was created in such a way as to be relevant to the South African context. The findings confirmed the serious nature of child disruptive behaviour amongst primary school learners, including abusive behaviour, assault, bullying, fighting, swearing, theft, criminal involvement, substance abuse, truancy and school dropouts. The participants were found to be able to perceive their child's problem behaviour and to perceive themselves to be competent parents in dealing with disruptive behaviour. Child disruptive behaviour was found to have a significant effect on classroom learning. Despite legislation banning this, the participants still resort to punitive corrective measures. Stigma related to professional services and the privacy of the family are found to be very relevant in help-seeking efforts. This lead to the conclusion that child disruptive behaviour may become a normal and acceptable phenomenon, and thus leads to late reporting - and social services being contacted only as a last resort. The most important recommendation resulting from the study indicates that there is a need for prevention and early intervention services for child disruptive behaviour. This should address the escalation of the behaviour that later results in the need for statutory services. The study further indicates that various sectors (social workers, teachers, community structures and the departments) need to collaborate and form partnerships in order to enhance the early reporting of children in need and the accessibility and availability of services rendered in rural areas. This could enhance the early identification, reporting and service delivery in order to find problem resolutions.
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Revell, Kirsten Magrethe Anita. "Mental models : understanding domestic energy systems and user behaviour." Thesis, University of Southampton, 2015. https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/386139/.
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Energy consumption due to domestic heating is a major contributor to climate change. Kempton (1986) proposed that ‘Mental Models’ of thermostat controls could be linked to energy wasting behaviour. Mental models can be thought of as ‘pictures in the mind’ that help users understand and operate systems. This thesis explored if changes to the heating interface design could influence the mental model held, to promote appropriate behaviour with heating controls. Consideration of bias is essential when undertaking research into mental models. The ‘Tree-Rings’ framework was developed to address this, resulting in the creation of the ‘Quick Association Check’ (QuACK); a method for capturing and analysing mental models and behaviour related to heating controls. QuACk was initially applied to a case study of 6 householders. This revealed a ‘systems level’ approach was necessary to understand behaviour strategies, in contrast to Kempton’s single device focus. Differences in mental models explained differences in self-reported behaviour. Misunderstandings of how heating controls worked together and the influence of thermodynamics on boiler activation, explained variations in consumption between households. Norman’s (1983) ‘7 stages of activity’ was used to produce a design specification for a ‘control panel’ style heating interface. This focused on correcting key misunderstandings in householders’ mental models, that hindered appropriate behaviour. A home heating simulation was developed to allow the design to be compared with a typical presentation of heating controls. The new interface significantly improved the appropriateness of users’ mental models at the system and device levels. More appropriate behaviour was found with specific controls and the duration of goal achievement was significantly increased. These findings have implications for strategies to reduce domestic consumption through behaviour change, and provide insights that can be used to improve the design of home heating interfaces.
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Pittaway, Luke Alan. "The social construction of entrepreneurial behaviour." Thesis, University of Newcastle Upon Tyne, 2000. http://hdl.handle.net/10443/190.
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The research examined the nature of behaviour in relation to the motivations and aspirations of small business owners. The work provides a more comprehensive understanding of business owners' behaviours and their reasons for being in business. The thesis analyses the philosophical assumptions underlying theories and previous ideas on entrepreneurship. It shows that such assumptions guide and/or restrict the process of knowledge construction in the subject. One contribution that the work provides is to develop theoretical frameworks, based on the principles of Social Constructionism, which are used to guide the methodology and field research. The field research, which involved benchmark case studies and critical incident interviews with restaurant business owners, explores and codes narrative data examining behaviours related to entrepreneurship. The results show that the interviewees' reasons for being in business have an important impact on their behavioural strategies. This affects the way they socially construct and relate to their external environment. The thesis is concluded by the presentation of an integrated typology that builds on and adds to existing knowledge in the subject area. The work thus provides a better understanding of small businesses and may better inform business support and enterprise policy.
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Jameel, L. B. "Autistic traits and everyday social behaviour." Thesis, University College London (University of London), 2016. http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/1477210/.
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Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is characterised by difficulties with social communication and interaction. A great deal of experimental work has examined the performance of people with ASD on social cognition tasks in laboratory settings, and a number of cognitive models have been postulated to account for observed differences in those with ASD. Meanwhile, clinical reports indicate that people with ASD face a range of difficulties in everyday functioning. However, very little experimental work has tried to elucidate how the postulated cognitive deficits in ASD might translate into difficulties in real-life-type settings, especially in adult populations. A range of novel scenario-based tasks were developed for the present thesis which aimed to provide more sensitive tools than traditional social cognition tasks for identifying the nature and severity of impairments in everyday social functioning. These systematically examined different aspects of social performance, in particular pro-social behaviour, moral judgment and reasoning. The present thesis adopted a trait-based approach to investigate how high versus low levels of autistic traits influenced everyday social functioning. This is in line with the continuum conceptualisation of an autistic spectrum, whereby those with clinical levels of impairment (i.e. diagnosed with ASD) are thought to lie at the extreme end of a normal distribution of autistic traits. Overall, two key findings emerged; firstly, people with high levels of autistic traits tended to be less behaviourally and emotionally responsive to others’ needs. Secondly, people with high levels of autistic traits displayed relatively intact awareness of social and moral norms that underpin everyday situations, but their understanding of these appeared to be more limited. These findings are consistent with the conceptualisation of a continuum of trait severity, whereby those with high levels of autistic traits showed similar difficulties to those seen in people with ASD, although perhaps to a lesser extent. The body of work presented in this thesis has potential clinical implications for the assessment and management of adults with ASD.
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Dos, Anjos Pablo Lucas. "Conventional social behaviour amongst microfinance clients." Thesis, Manchester Metropolitan University, 2014. http://e-space.mmu.ac.uk/326221/.
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This doctoral thesis inductively explores the role of conventional social behaviour adopted by individual microfinance clients regarding their influence over their own collective success as a microcredit group. The collective credit in question is subject to an adaptation in Mexico of the Grameen Bank lending framework. An analysis is made on the close interplay between institutional rules, i.e. the repayment conditions imposed by the microfinance institution (henceforth MFI), and the emergent cooperation and penalisation mechanisms that are handled by clients themselves to meet their targets. Thus the research is focused on the clients’ strategies to socially manage debt and defaulters. In this case study, a socio-economical fieldwork has been completed through surveying 600 microcredit clients, their 2404 active loans, 35 credit officers plus their board of directors. This took place in the southernmost state of Mexico, Chiapas, from September 2007 to February 2008, and data analysis was carried out during that period until July 2009. All findings were discussed with relevant stakeholders and policy makers. This proved key in providing influential insights that helped to improve the institutional regulatory framework. That resulted in a policy change that benefited over 20,000 clients. Apart from institutional regulations, it has also been observed group-level strategies devised by microfinance clients themselves to assess and deal with defaulters over time. These operate independently from the MFI framework as, despite influencing when and how quotas should be repaid, their criteria is entirely dealt with and evolved within credit groups. The obtained outcomes from analysing social and financial data include: • (I) insights backed by empirical data helped to influence an adaptation of the MFI funding credit policy, so that group structure and conventions are actually taken into consideration in a bid to foster more successful microcredit groups; • and (II) an analysis deemed reliable by the stakeholders for policy-making purposes, which has also guided the development of an exploratory model for simulating behaviour of how microcredit groups may deal with repayments in adversity. As a result of having developed this research project, three contributions to knowledge are discussed in the thesis. These are organised below according to relevant topics. 1. Understanding the behaviour within studied microfinance groups: based on the analysed evidence, a hypotheses is suggested about how group location and membership can influence the dynamics of acceptable behaviour regarding defaulters. 2. Informing policy-making with research findings: a demonstration of how stakeholders can assess the usefulness of knowledge –produced via research– for policymaking purposes, taking into account the phenomenon’s particular context. 3. The development of an agent-based model (henceforth ABM): application of the proposed ABM methodology, aimed at strengthening validation throughout the modelling process with emphasis on use of evidence and stakeholder participation.
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Webb, Clare Louise. "Young children's views of social behaviour." Thesis, University of Huddersfield, 1998. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.285589.
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Omair, Moayad R. "The behaviour of welded T-end plate connections to rectangular hollow section (RHS)." Thesis, Coventry University, 2000. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.313163.
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Llewelyn-Parry, A. "Behaviour and strength of stiffened tubular T- and DT-joints in offshore structures." Thesis, Swansea University, 2000. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.637938.
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This thesis addresses the understanding of the static strength and behaviour of internally ring stiffened T- and DT-joints under axial brace loading. Initial numerical work verifies the appropriateness of the Finite Element (F.E.) modelling technique and the use of the F.E. Method as an analysis tool. This was achieved through a validation study on both unstiffened and ring stiffened T-joints and on unstiffened DT-joints. There follows four substantial parametric studies on ring stiffened T- and DT-joints which investigate the effect of the variation of the stiffener dimensions of plain and T-shaped stiffeners along with the joint geometrical parameters β and γ on the strength and behaviour of the stiffener and the stiffened joint. Also the number and position of the ring stiffeners are investigated. Findings of the study enabled, where appropriate, the proposal of two methods of strength prediction for the ring stiffener. One uses Plastic Theory to postulate a ring model which is based on a five- or six-hinge failure mechanism for the stiffener, resulting in a virtual Work Equation. For this method it is assumed that a portion of the chord interacts with the stiffener in producing the strength enhancement. The stiffener cross-section is then considered as a T- and an I-section for the plain and T-shaped stiffeners respectively. The other is an empirical equation based on the variation of the non-dimensional stiffener strength with the various influencing non-dimensional parameters. It has been shown that the theoretical method can be compromised when the stiffener parameters exceed the validity range of the predictive method whereas the empirical method appears to be more robust to extrapolation of the validity ranges. Both methods provide accurate predictions of stiffener strength when compared to the newly created FE database and existing test and numerical results.
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McCarthy, D. J. "Therapeutic policing? : early intervention, anti-social behaviour and social control." Thesis, University of Surrey, 2011. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.549462.
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Davison, Paul James. "Social polymorphism and social behaviour in sweat bees (Hymenoptera: Halictidae)." Thesis, University of Sussex, 2016. http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/61422/.
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I use field observations, experiments and molecular techniques to describe the social biology of the sweat bee Lasioglossum calceatum, and to investigate the mechanisms underlying social polymorphism and body size in this species. I also investigate environmental constraints on sociality, and the impact that workers have on productivity, in the obligate social species L. malachurum. Chapter 1 introduces sweat bees as a study system, and reviews social behaviour within the group. I then provide concise introductions to the study species. In Chapter 2 I show that L. calceatum exhibits latitudinal social polymorphism in the UK, with only bees in the south expressing primitive eusociality. I then describe the social life cycle from continuous field observations, with reference to genetic data. In Chapter 3 in I examine environmental and genetic components of social phenotype in L. calceatum by conducting a field transplant of bees from the north of the UK to the south. Social phenotype is likely to be predominantly determined by fixed genetic differences between social and solitary populations. Chapter 4 examines whether the transition between social and solitary nesting results in saw-tooth size clines in L. calceatum and Halictus rubicundus. Overall, both species exhibit converse-Bergmann clines but not saw-tooth clines. In Chapter 5 I transplant the obligate social sweat bee L. malachurum to the north of the UK, to test whether sociality is constrained by season length. Phenology was considerably delayed such that the life cycle could not be completed. In Chapter 6 I investigate queen quality, productivity and costs of worker production in L. malachurum, by manipulating the number of workers per nest. I show that queens probably incurs costs from producing more workers, and that a possible mechanism is that workers from larger groups may be of lower quality. In Chapter 7 I bring together key findings of the thesis, and comment on future directions.
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Chamove, Arnold Shirek. "Social and non-social influences on the behaviour of primates." Thesis, University of Edinburgh, 1998. http://hdl.handle.net/1842/30109.
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If a baby macaque monkey must be separated from its mother, it should be pre-fed formula before its separation at around day 5-6. If a milk bottle is always present and the infant routinely lifted to the bottle to feed, it will learn to feed itself in about 30 hours. Peer contact before the age of 5 months is desirable and as little as 1 hour per day produces socially adequate monkeys. A peer, adult male, unrelated adult female, or older juvenile can be used as a mother-substitute but if a peer is used, excessive clinging results from continuous contact with the same peer(s), and excessive aggression results if contact is with only one other animal. Self-injurious behaviour (similar to human stereotypy and not human SIB) results when young monkeys cannot direct aggressive play towards another monkey because one is not present during the day when the appropriate direction for such behaviour is practised. If the young monkey is subjected to altered levels of aggression, their subsequent aggressiveness will be similarly changed, even when there is no opportunity for modelling. It is as if there is some mechanism for copying those levels of aggression which they receive. During therapy of isolate monkeys, infants keep aggression levels low. Aggression levels are also determined by visual stimuli, animals that can never see other animals showing no aggression and those intermittently viewing them showing low levels when interacting with others in darkness. Interference with visual interaction by foliage or by visual screens also reduces aggression by at least half in animals such as monkeys and farmed bulls, deer, and chickens where aggression is problematic. Personality, is less able to predict behaviour in macaques than dominance rank. High dominance rank protects animals from stress during fights, while large changes in rank are stressful in new groupings.
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Natynczuk, Stephan E. "Ultrasound and semiochemistry in rat social behaviour." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1990. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.279968.
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Chessell-Edgar, Victoria. "The local governance of Anti-Social Behaviour." Thesis, Cardiff University, 2011. http://orca.cf.ac.uk/40486/.
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The aim of this study is to explore the ‘empirical particulars’ (Garland 2001, p. vii) of policymaking in crime and disorder control, and the ways in which sub national policy actors are able to adapt and exert influence more generally over national level policy decisions as well as resist such wider forces. This research contends that some rethinking is needed away from much existing criminological literature on shifts in crime control policy that has been dominated by the ‘grand narrative’ accounts of writers such as Garland (2001). These narratives have been concerned largely with the provision of general accounts of overall shifts in policymaking at the national and at times global levels. As a result the local dimension to this process has been with a few notable exceptions neglected or downplayed. Instead the primary focus of much existing criminological literature has been upon the role of national policy elites, presenting policymaking as a top down experience that follows a relatively smooth trajectory. In contrast this study suggests that policymaking is instead a more unpredictable and messier process that can be affected by problems of implementation and resistance. In order to examine the role of the ‘local’ within policymaking, this research employed the use of a single ‘exemplifying case study’ of one English city and in turn it examined in depth one particular area of policymaking and implementation, namely the local management of Anti Social Behaviour (henceforth ASB). This sought to bring together documentary analysis and elite interviews in an effort to provide an empirically detailed account of anti social behaviour policy development. This study focused primarily on a series of semi-structured interviews, involving a range of key local policy actors. These were conducted over an extended period of time, which coincided with the rise of the national level ASB agenda. This extended period enabled observations to also be made about the ebb and flow of policy often as it emerged and caused local practitioners to have to develop and adapt policy responses. The resulting empirical findings provide an informed example of the messiness and contingency of public policymaking, whilst also providing a site in which other academic theories can be tested and applied. The intention of this study is to not only make a significant contribution to the field in which it is nested (ASB policy and practice), but also to enhance our understanding of the effects that broader policy change and the impact that key national policy drivers can have upon the formulation of local level policy responses. In brief the thesis suggests that through the interaction of key policy actors at both the national and local levels, policy formulation and implementation is realised.
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Muller, Laurent. "Heterogeneous and strategic behaviour in social dilemmas." Thesis, University of Nottingham, 2005. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.430539.
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Masood, Rukhsana. "Social factors shaping fertility behaviour in Pakistan." Thesis, University of Essex, 1996. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.307859.
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Bilakhia, Sanjay. "Machine learning for high-level social behaviour." Thesis, Imperial College London, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/59041.
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The ability to recognize and interpret the complex displays of nonverbal behavioral cues that arise in social interaction comes naturally to humans. Indeed, the survival and flourishing of early groups of homo sapiens may have depended on this ability to share implicit social information. It is a process so innate that complex social behaviours can occur without conscious awareness, even in young babies. Though we would benefit from artificial devices having the ability to understand these nonverbal cues, it has proven an elusive goal. In this thesis we are primarily motivated by the problem of recognizing and exploiting displays of high–level social behavior, focusing on behavioural mimicry. Mimicry describes the tendency of individuals to adopt the postures, gestures and expressions of social interaction partners. We first provide a background to the phenomenon of behavioural mimicry, disambiguate it from other related phenomena in social interaction, and survey its surprisingly complex dependencies on the broader social context. We then discuss a number of methods that could be used to recognize mimicry behaviour in naturalistic interaction. We list some publicly available databases these tools could be trained on for the analysis of spontaneous instances of mimicry. We also examine the scarce prior work on recognition of naturalistic mimicry behaviour, and we discuss the challenges in automatically recognizing mimicry in spontaneous data. Subsequently we present a database of naturalistic social interactions, designed for analysis of spontaneous mimicry behaviour. This has been annotated for mimicry episodes, low-level non-verbal behavioural cues, and continuous affect. We also present a new software package for web-based annotation, AstAn, which has been extensively deployed for temporal event segmentation and continuous annotation. Collecting annotation data for high-level social affect is a difficult problem. This is due to inter-annotator variance, dependent on a variety of factors including i) the content of the data to annotate ii) the complexity of the variables to annotate, and iii) the annotators' cultures and personality traits. AstAn is the first software package to enable large-scale collection of annotations relevant to affective computing, without the costly manual distribution and management of (perhaps sensitive) data. Large-scale and cost-effective data collection can significantly help to overcome the aforementioned difficulties. We present experiments showing that prevailing methods for mimicry recognition on posed data, generalize suboptimally to spontaneous data. These include methods based on cross-correlation and dynamic time warping, which are prevalent in current work on recognition of interpersonal co-ordination, including mimicry and synchrony. We also show that popular temporal models such as recurrent neural networks, when applied in a straightforward classification approach, also find it challenging to discriminate between mimicry and non-mimicry. We expand upon these baseline results using methods adapted from work on multimodal classification. Nonlinear regression models are used to learn the relationships between the non-verbal cues from each subject. Namely, for mimicry and non-mimicry classes, we learn a set of neural networks to forecast the behaviour of each subject, given the behaviour of their counterpart. The set of networks that produces the best behavioural forecast corresponds to the predicted class. Subsequently, we investigate whether high-level social affect like mimicry, conflict, valence and arousal are uniquely displayed between individuals. Specifically, we show that for episodes of a given behavioural display such as mimicry or high-conflict, the spatiotemporal movement characteristics are unique enough to construct a "kinematic template" for that behaviour. Given an unseen episode of the same behavioural display, we can compare it against the template in order to verify identity. This is useful in verification contexts where facial appearance and geometry can change due to lighting, facial hair, facial decoration, or weight loss. We present a new method, Multi-Sequence Robust Canonical Time Warping (M-RCTW), in order to construct this subject- and behaviour-specific template. Unlike prior methods, M-RCTW can warp together multiple multivariate sequences in the presence of large non-Gaussian errors, which can occur due to e.g. tracking artefacts in naturalistic behaviour, such as those resulting from occlusions. We show on two databases of natural interaction that identity verification is possible from a number of high- and low-level behaviours, and that M-RCTW outperforms existing methods for multiple sequence warping on the task of subject verification.
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Recchia, Cheri Anne. "Social behaviour of captive belugas, Delphinapterus leucas." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1994. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/12265.
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Botta, Federico. "Quantifying human behaviour using complex social datasets." Thesis, University of Warwick, 2016. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/88546/.
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Being able to better understand and measure what is happening in the world is of great importance for a range of stakeholders, including policy makers. The recent explosion in the availability of data documenting our collective behaviour offers new opportunities to gain insights into our society. Here, we focus on a series of case studies to demonstrate how new forms of data may be used to help us better understand human behaviour. Data coming from financial transactions taking place in the stock market can help us better understand financial crises. We analyse a dataset comprising the stocks forming the Dow Jones Industrial Average at a second by second resolution. We investigate changes in stock market prices and how they arise at different time scales, showing a transition between power law and exponential decay in the tails of the distribution of logarithmic returns. Accurate and quick estimates of the size of a crowd are crucial for the avoidance of crowd disasters. However, existing approaches rely on human judgement and can be slow and costly. Our findings suggest that data from mobile phone networks and social media platforms may allow us to estimate the size of a crowd. Such data could potentially be accessed in real time, leading to shorter delays than those experienced with previous approaches to crowd size estimation. We also show how communities on a network constructed from our social interactions through smartphones capture the temporal evolution of our behaviour in everyday life. The complex datasets presented here also require complex methodologies to analyse them. Complexity science, and more specifically network science, has witnessed increasing attention within the scientific community in the last two decades. Here, we will present a new technique to analyse a common feature of many real world complex networks, namely community structure. We show how our methodology addresses many of the drawbacks of current techniques, and we also introduce an efficient algorithm which outperforms analogous methods on a set of standard benchmark networks. Our findings suggest that the analysis of large complex social datasets coupled with methodological advances can allow us to gain valuable measurements of human behaviour.
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Marshall, Harry. "Social foraging behaviour in a varying environment." Thesis, Imperial College London, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/11178.
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Social foraging behaviour has an important influence on individuals’ survival and reproduction through its role in the acquisition of food resources. It also determines the amount of foraging time required in differing environments, and so the amount of time available for other activities, such as socialising and resting, which have been implicated in an individual’s fitness, as well as the stability of the wider social group. In this thesis I explore the links between these two processes by investigating the drivers of social foraging behaviour, and how the foraging time budgets that this behaviour produces vary between environments. I do this using data collected from a wild population of chacma baboons (Papio ursinus) in Namibia, under both natural and field-experimental conditions, and through the development of an individual-based model (IBM). I show that baboon foraging decisions are influenced by social and non-social factors, but that the relative influence of these factors is dependent on the characteristics of the forager and the habitat it is in. These differences in decision-making appear to allow all individuals in a group to experience similar foraging success under natural conditions, but this pattern breaks down in extreme conditions. Using these findings to build an IBM of social foraging, I show that the time individuals need to spend foraging can increase rapidly in a deteriorating environment to the point where they are no longer able to gather enough resources. Overall, the findings of this thesis contribute to the growing appreciation that social foragers can exhibit a high degree of behavioural flexibility. These findings also emphasise the long-standing recognition that individual-level behaviours have an important influence on higher-level ecological patterns and processes and that an appreciation of this is important, not only for our understanding of these patterns and processes, but also for informing conservation and management.
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Miramontes, Octavio Reymundo. "Complex interactions in social behaviour and ecology." Thesis, Imperial College London, 1995. http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/8244.
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Rungthonkit, Prathan. "Structural behaviour of structural insulated panels (SIPS)." Thesis, University of Birmingham, 2012. http://etheses.bham.ac.uk//id/eprint/3561/.
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The Structural Insulated Panel System (SIP system) has recently attracted continuingly growing interest since it is strong, energy efficient, easy to use in construction and hence has a potential to become a new alternative building material. It is anticipated that Structural Insulated Panels (SIPs) are required to withstand loads in various directions either individually or in combinations, e.g., the axial, racking and transverse loadings. Very few publications report the performance of SIPs when subjected to loads in multiple directions. Moreover, when applying SIPs as a load bearing material, there is another major concern related to their long-term performance, mainly caused by creep. This research presents studies on structural behaviours of the SIPs under both short-term and long-term loadings under single and multi-axial loadings together with two typical joint designs i.e. mini-SIP and dimensional timber spline joints with and without openings by experimental, analytical and numerical investigations. It has been demonstrated that the developed numerical models can well predict the initiation of failure load and the failure mode of SIPs. Interactive failure load curves between axial and transverse loadings have been developed by carrying out a parametric analysis for SIPs with/without openings by using two types of joint construction.
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Kohm, Amelia Margaret. "Bullying and social dilemmas : the role of social context in anti-social behaviour." Thesis, University of Bath, 2011. https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.548959.
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Research and interventions concerning anti-social behaviour have neglected the bad behaviour of “good” people or those who typically behave pro-socially. Additionally, past and current research and practice in this area have often neglected how factors in one’s current environment influence behaviour. Instead, the focus has been on how individual characteristics—borne of the interplay of genetic composition and environmental influences over time—result in anti-social behaviour. However, evidence suggests immediate contexts can foster even atypical behaviour, behavior not correlated with genetic and long-term environmental influences. The thesis is presented in four parts. Part One introduces the idea that immediate group context can have a significant effect on anti-social behaviour, particularly that of “good” people. Part Two reviews research on the impact of social dynamics on behaviour. Part Three presents the empirical study on the role of a particular group dynamic, social dilemmas, in relation to a specific type of anti-social behaviour, bullying. Finally, Part Four considers the implications of the thesis for future research and practice. Social dilemmas are situations in which individual motives are at odds with the best interests of the group and help to explain why individuals sometimes make anti-social decisions. The study at the core of this thesis tested two hypotheses: 1) both individual and group factors are associated with behaviour in bullying situations; and 2) attitudes, group norms, and social dilemmas each have a unique contribution to predicting behaviour in bullying situations. Participants were 292 middle school students at a residential school in the U.S., and data were analysed using multi-level modelling. The primary findings were, in general, consistent with the two hypotheses. The research suggests that social dilemma dynamics might be an important group factor in predicting behaviour in bullying situations.
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Lee, I.-Ling. "Self-destructive behaviour among Taiwanese young people." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 2010. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/2150/.
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This research aims to find out the factors as well as the mechanism of young people’s self-destructive behaviour in Taiwan. The research employed a mixed methodology- both quantitative and qualitative research methods. In the quantitative study, a self-reported questionnaire survey was carried out to investigate the individual and social factors that affected suicidality and self-harm among young people (N= 1043) aged 14-18. In the qualitative study, 20 semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with professionals to find out the mechanism of self-destructive behaviour. The results show that females are more vulnerable to self-destructive behaviours than males, but male suicide attempt is increasing. Self-destructive behaviour is shaped by a range of social, cultural and individual factors. General mental health and beliefs about death are the two individual factors that are highly related to young people’s self-destructive behaviour. Better general health and positive belief about death indicate lower risk of self-destructive behaviour. Social factors such as family interaction, peer relationship, traditional value, economic optimism and social-political security are five important factors to affect young people’s self-destructive behaviour. Close and supportive family interactions help reduce the risk of self-destructive behaviour. However, closer peer relationship may increase the likelihood of self-destructive behaviour because of copycat behaviour, imitation or altruistic behaviour. Holding more traditional values, young people may result in bearing many pressures during the current economic recession period.
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Veludo-de-Oliveira, Tânia Modesto. "Social marketing, volunteering, and the theory of planned behaviour : what is behind volunteering behaviour?" Thesis, Cardiff University, 2009. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.584710.
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This thesis has explored a behavioural perspective on social marketing involving volunteering. Research on volunteering is important because it addresses people from whom charitable organisations obtain help (the time donors). The focus of this study was to investigate the extent to which young volunteers perform voluntary service in the project to which they have committed themselves and for the full project period of the activities. The Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) was used as the core theoretical framework of this study. Four additional variables which have been used in TPB-based investigations (and which are related to behaviours relevant to social marketing) were brought to the conceptual framework, they are: personal norm, ascription of responsibility, affect, and self-identity. The constructs 'empathy' and 'altruism' were used to compare groups of volunteers. The 'Interpersonal Reactivity Index' was employed to assess empathic concern and perspective taking, whereas the 'Prosocial Tendencies Measure' was employed to assess the altruistic prosocial behaviour. An on-line questionnaire was sent to the volunteers of a charitable organisation which organises projects to young people and 237 usable replies were obtained (time 1). Information on the behaviour of 161 survey participants was provided by the coordinators of the projects after their conclusion (time 2). Follow-up interviews helped to unearth the main reasons for drop-outs and lack of volunteering commitment. Results indicate that subjective norm predicts volunteering behaviour for the full project period over and above the contributions from behavioural intention. An integrated model is proposed to explain the relationships amongst volunteering behaviour and the other variables. Levels of empathy and altruism have not significantly distinguished between high and low committed volunteers. The study concludes that the continued volunteering of young donors is mainly driven by the social group and that they perform voluntary service for both egoistic and altruistic motives.
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Qin, Shunde. "Shear behaviour of corroded reinforced concrete T-beams repaired with fibre reinforced polymer systems." Thesis, University of Birmingham, 2016. http://etheses.bham.ac.uk//id/eprint/6990/.
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This study investigates the shear behaviour of corrosion-damaged reinforced concrete Tbeams repaired with fibre reinforced polymer (FRP) systems. Nine beams with different corrosion levels (0% (uncorroded), 7% and 12%) and different strengthening methods were tested. Both the embedded Carbon-FRP rods and externally bonded Carbon-FRP sheets were effective in enhancing the shear strength of tested beams. The test beams were modelled using nonlinear three dimensional half models in the finite element (FE) package TNO Diana. The shear force capacity, shear force-deflection graphs and crack patterns at failure were used to validate the FE models. Reasonable agreement was obtained between the experimental and numerical results. A parametric study investigating the effect of concrete strength, steel-to-CFRP shear reinforcement ratio and shear span-to-effective depth ratio was carried out. The FE predictions suggest that the embedded CFRP shear contribution decreases with the increase in steel-to-CFRP shear reinforcement ratio and shear span-to-effective depth ratio. Finally, the FE predictions were compared with the predictions of Concrete Society TR55 design guidance. The results suggest that TR55 overestimates the shear strength enhancement offered by embedded CFRP rods.
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Norris, Karen M. "Oviposition behaviour in the UK newt species, Triturus (Lissotriton) vulgaris, T.(L.) helveticus and T. cristatus effects of substrate and body size." Thesis, University of Liverpool, 2008. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.506444.
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This thesis describes a series of studies designed to examine Triturus oviposition behaviour using a detailed approach. Specifically, two main lines of investigation were examined; the impact of egg-laying substrate material and of female body size. Triturus oviposition is a complex and unusual behaviour in which eggs are wrapped individually in the submerged leaves of aquatic plants. However, despite the apparently sequential and selective nature of this process, its likely significant cost to females and its implications for reproductive success, detailed behavioural information is lacking. A series of observational studies were set up to address this existing gap in knowledge. First, and fundamental to all subsequent comparisons, a detailed quantifiable ethogram of oviposition behaviour was developed. This revealed that deposition occurs as part of a repeated sequence of distinct behavioural elements common to all three UK newt species. From the ethogram, a series of oviposition measures were derived to facilitate all subsequent behavioural comparisons. In the first main investigative thread, the effects of substrate on oviposition were examined by comparing the behaviour of T. vulgaris females given a typical host substrate, Apium nodiflorum, with the behaviour of those given one of two more unusual substrates, Crassula helmsii or polythene strips (selected for their likely physical and chemical diversity). Key elements of the behavioural sequence, egg deposition rates and measures related to embryonic development were found to differ significantly between the substrates. On presenting the same materials to females of T. helveticus and T. cristatus, marked differences were also clearly identified. Moreover, whilst certain components clearly varied in response to different substrates, others appeared to follow a more fixed behaviour pattern. The impact of female body size on oviposition, the second main line of investigation, was initially considered by comparing the behaviour patterns generated by the three newt species in the substrate-focused experiments. These comparisons showed that there were inconsistencies in certain aspects of the process across all three species. Thus, whilst differences between overtly differently sized newts could possibly be accounted for by body size variation, it was not clear whether the subtle size disparity between T. vulgaris and T. helveticus explained the differences between these two species. A more explicit assessment of female body size examined the oviposition behaviour of the two small-bodied newts further. Correlation analyses revealed that body size impacted differently on certain elements of the process within each newt species. A more novel size-matched approach showed that small differences in body size, although these may have accounted for some of the variation, did not explain all of it. A possible underlying mechanism based on morphological differences between the species was proposed. The work in this thesis shows that both substrate material and female body size impact on the egg-laying process. It highlights the importance of collecting oviposition behaviour detail in a systematic way across a group of closely related species and clearly contributes to the existing Triturus oviposition literature. Moreover, the findings, aside from their intrinsic scientific value, have potentially wider-reaching implications for the ecology and phylogeny of these species, as well as possible conservation applications.
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Préville-Ratelle, Nicolas. "Le droit souffre-t-il?" Thesis, McGill University, 2013. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=114298.
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In 1978, the Supreme Court in Andrews imposed a ceiling of $100 000 on compensation for the bodily non-pecuniary injury. In contrast, the Supreme Court in Snyder (1998) and Hill (1995) had decided that the ceiling of Andrews does not apply to actions in defamation and moral non-pecuniary damages. Today, this situation still appears to be unjust. How is moral suffering so different from the bodily suffering? This thesis starts from this unfairness to explore the components of the law of compensation for suffering, namely, the ceiling of Andrews, the justifications of the right to be repaired, the methods of assessment of the indemnities, and the intuitions and perceptions we have of suffering. It aims to determine how the law could better understand suffering and compensate it more adequately and fairly. The law suffers from confusion, which can be observed in the coexistence of the approaches, the problems that each approach raises and the contradictions that the debate on the cap raises. The consequence of this confusion is the lack of uniformity and consistency in the law of compensation for suffering. The legal reasoning is caught between conflicting arguments and approaches among which logic is incapable to choose. As a result, the decision of judges is the product not of logic, but of intuitions rarely brought to consciousness. These intuitions generally concern the issue of the incommensurability of suffering and the value we place on bodily suffering. First, a better comprehension of the choices of incommensurability and commensurability permits us to identify a method of assessment of indemnities which is fair, consistent and predictable: I have called this method the "personalized-conceptual approach with functional reasonableness". Moreover, a better understanding of bodily suffering, by an interdisciplinary study of law and horror films, permits us to conclude that the interest we attach to bodily suffering militates in favor of the application of a single cap on all non-pecuniary damages. The analysis of these two intuitions can generally cure the confusion in the law of compensation for suffering. The law suffers, but it can be cured.En 1978, la Cour suprême dans l'arrêt Andrews a imposé un plafond de 100 000 $ aux dommages corporels non pécuniaires. À l'opposé, la Cour suprême dans les arrêts Snyder (1998) et Hill (1995) a décidé que le plafond de l'arrêt Andrews ne s'appliquait pas aux recours en diffamation et aux dommages moraux non pécuniaires. Cette situation apparaît encore aujourd'hui injuste. En quoi la souffrance morale est-elle si différente de la souffrance corporelle? Cette thèse part de cette apparence d'injustice afin d'explorer les composantes du droit de la réparation de la souffrance, c'est-à-dire le plafond de l'arrêt Andrews, les justifications du droit à la réparation, les méthodes d'évaluation de l'indemnité, les intuitions et les perceptions que nous avons de la souffrance. Elle a pour objectif de déterminer comment le droit pourrait mieux comprendre la souffrance et l'indemniser plus adéquatement et justement. Le droit souffre de confusion, qui peut être observée dans la cohabitation des approches, les problèmes que chaque approche soulève et les contradictions dans le débat sur le plafonnement des dommages non pécuniaires. La conséquence de cette confusion est le manque d'uniformité et de cohérence dans le droit de la réparation de la souffrance. Le raisonnement juridique reste pris entre des approches et des arguments contradictoires parmi lesquels il est incapable de choisir. Il en résulte que la prise de décision des juges n'est pas le produit de la logique, mais celui d'intuitions rarement portées à la conscience.Ces intuitions portent généralement sur la question de l'incommensurabilité de la souffrance et notre perception de la souffrance corporelle. D'abord, une meilleure connaissance des choix d'incommensurabilité et de commensurabilité permet de proposer une méthode d'évaluation des indemnités qui sera à la fois équitable, cohérente et prévisible : c'est-à-dire l'approche conceptuelle personnalisée à raisonnabilité fonctionnelle. Puis, une meilleure compréhension de la souffrance corporelle, par l'interdisciplinarité du droit et du cinéma d'horreur, permet de conclure que l'intérêt que nous accordons à la souffrance corporelle milite en faveur d'un même plafond pour l'ensemble des dommages non pécuniaires. L'analyse de ces deux intuitions permet de remédier généralement à la confusion du droit de la réparation de la souffrance. Le droit souffre, mais il peut être soigné.
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Smith, N. Craig. "Ethical purchase behaviour and social responsibility in business." Thesis, Cranfield University, 1985. http://hdl.handle.net/1826/3390.
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This thesis is about the decisions made in markets: whether decisions
and what decisions are made by consumers. It isa study in consumer
sovereignty and particularly In the way this may be used In ensuring
social responsibility In business.
Pressure group influence on purchase behaviour, particularly in the
use or threat of consumer boycotts, suggests an extension of consumer
sovereignty beyond its mere technical meaning within economics to a
more literal meaning. Consumer authority in the marketplace may not
simply refer to the more immediate characteristics of the offering
such as product features or price but, as boycotts show, other charac-
teristics such as whether the firm has investments in South Africa.
Consumer boycotts are but the most manifest and organised form of
purchase behaviour influenced by ethical concerns. Yet ethical
purchase behaviour, although found in many markets, is largely unre-
cognised In the literature.
The novelty of this topic and the perspective on consumer sovereignty
entailed an emphasis on conceptualisation in the research. The nature
of capitalism and consumer sovereignty, the ideology of marketing, the
problem of the social control of business, and pressure groups in the
political process and their strategies and tactics, are explored to
develop an argument which supports the notion of ethical purchase
behaviour. A model is proposed identifying a role for pressure groups
In the marketing system, explaining ethical purchase behaviour at the
micro level by recognising negative product augmentation. Survey
research and case studies support the model and the argument.
Guidelines for action are proposed for pressure groups and business,
suggesting both seek to influence a legitimacy element in the
marketing mix. At a more conceptual level, consumer sovereignty is
shown to offer potential for ensuring social responsibility in busi
-
ness. Of the three mechanisms for social control of business, the
market may be used to greater effect through ethical purchase beha-
vi our. However, consumer sovereignty requires choice as well as
information. Pressure groups may act as a countervailing power by
providing the necessary information, but competition is essential for
choice.
Consumer sovereignty Is the rationale for capitalism, the political-
economic system in the West. This study questions the basis of such a
system if political or ethical, as well as economic decisions, are not
made by consumers in markets. Hence the argument for ethical purchase
behaviour becomes an argument for capitalism.
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Parry, Lisa. ""Interpersonal behaviour and social problem solving in children" /." Adelaide, 1998. http://web4.library.adelaide.edu.au/theses/09AR.PS/09ar.psp264.pdf.
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Porkess, Malini Veronica. "The impact of social isolation on rat behaviour." Thesis, University of Nottingham, 2008. http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/10507/.
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Schizophrenia is a psychiatric disorder with symptoms including delusions, social withdrawal and cognitive deficits. The cognitive symptoms respond poorly to current antipsychotic medication and in order to develop new treatments it is necessary to model these deficits in animals. Rearing rats in isolation from weaning causes behavioural, cognitive and neurochemical alterations, some of which have relevance to the symptoms of schizophrenia. The work described in this thesis aimed to further characterise the behavioural and cognitive changes found isolation reared rats. After five weeks of isolation rats demonstrated increased locomotor activity in a novel environment and a gender specific impairment in recognition memory. After six weeks of isolation rats developed attenuated prepulse inhibition of acoustic startle. Isolation reared rats did not develop impairments in the attentional set shifting test of behavioural flexibility. However, in a further study isolated rats did show deficits in reversal learning (but not acquisition) in the water maze, which were reversed by the pro-cognitive 5-HT6 antagonist Ro 04-6790. Sub-chronic treatment with aniracetam, a modulator of the AMPA receptor had no effect on fear-related memory impairments seen in passive avoidance but aniracetam-treated isolation reared rats were able to discriminate the novel object. Finally, following controversial reports linking heavy cannabis use with increased risk of schizophrenia, weanling rats were dosed with a component of cannabis, Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). The interactions between isolation rearing and two regimens of THC treatment (low: 4x 2mg/kg and high: 8x 5mg/kg) were observed in adulthood. The low dose of THC had no effect on any behavioural test used. The high dose of THC led to impairments in recognition memory but had no effect on attentional set shifting or prepulse inhibition. High-THC and isolation rearing interacted to improve passive avoidance performance in isolates, but impair social rats. In conclusion, isolation rearing induces varied cognitive deficits which are responsive to nootropic compounds and as such is an important tool in the development of cognition enhancing and antipsychotic drugs.
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Lim, Choi Keung Sarah Niukyun. "Trust-based social mechanism to counter deceptive behaviour." Thesis, University of Warwick, 2011. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/38163/.
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The actions of an autonomous agent are driven by its individual goals and its knowledge and beliefs about its environment. As agents can be assumed to be selfinterested, they strive to achieve their own interests and therefore their behaviour can sometimes be difficult to predict. However, some behaviour trends can be observed and used to predict the future behaviour of agents, based on their past behaviour. This is useful for agents to minimise the uncertainty of interactions and ensure more successful transactions. Furthermore, uncertainty can originate from malicious behaviour, in the form of collusion, for example. Agents need to be able to cope with this to maximise their benefits and reduce poor interactions with collusive agents. This thesis provides a mechanism to support countering deceptive behaviour by enabling agents to model their agent environment, as well as their trust in the agents they interact with, while using the data they already gather during routine agent interactions. As agents interact with one another to achieve the goals they cannot achieve alone, they gather information for modelling the trust and reputation of interaction partners. The main aim of our trust and reputation model is to enable agents to select the most trustworthy partners to ensure successful transactions, while gathering a rich set of interaction and recommendation information. This rich set of information can be used for modelling the agents' social networks. Decentralised systems allow agents to control and manage their own actions, but this suffers from limiting the agents' view to only local interactions. However, the representation of the social networks helps extend an agent's view and thus extract valuable information from its environment. This thesis presents how agents can build such a model of their agent networks and use it to extract information for analysis on the issue of collusion detection.
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Martin, Natalia Wentink. "Youth conceptualisations and attitudes towards anti-social behaviour." Thesis, University of Liverpool, 2007. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.486935.
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Through a series of studies, the ways in which youths conceptualise anti-social behaviour, and evaluate and modify their judgements about anti-social behaviours is examined. This research examines and proposes a model linking conceptualisations, attitudes, and behaviour which takes into account the manner in which attitudes can change according to the perceived target status of the victim. The proposed model contextualizes Heider's Balance theory (1958) in an intervention context in which target status and reconceptualisation playa central role. The first set of analyses examined the ways in which youths conceptualise anti-social behaviour the Multiple Sorting Task. Data was analysed using Multiple Scalogram Analysis (MSA). Conceptualisations were compared by age and offending history. The second set of analyses examines the structure of youth attitudes towards antisocial behaviour using a self-report questionnaire . It is argued that participant attitudes are a function of the target or victim relative to the offender; the notion of a target status resides within a socio-cultural framework of rights and duties in society (Moghaddam & Vuksanovic, 1990; Moghaddam, 2000). Smallest Space Analysis (SSA-1) revealed general themes of pro-social and anti-social behaviours and specific themes in relation to the anonymous and familiar target status relative to the offender The third set of analyses is based a 'before and after' study of a programme targeting fire-related anti-social behaviour. Smallest Space Analysis was used to examine the structural aspects of attitude change before and after the intervention. This analysis revealed the ways is which attitudes towards specific behaviours are conceptualised and re-conceptualised in relation to each other. The process of attitude change is discussed in relation to Heider's Balance Theory and discusses the role of a change in target status relative to the offender as a key feature ofattitude change. The implications of these findings for understanding-youth anti-social behaviour are discussed. Applications of these findings in relation to future programmes targeting anti-social behaviour are outlined, and future directions for research into youth conceptualisations, attitude, and attitude change are proposed.
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Sturgeon, Brendan Joseph James. "Anti-social behaviour in post-conflict Northern Ireland." Thesis, Queen's University Belfast, 2010. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.534590.
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Blackwell, Paul Gavin. "The stochastic modelling of social and territorial behaviour." Thesis, University of Nottingham, 1990. http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/13594/.
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This thesis considers mathematical models of the interaction between social and territorial behaviour in animals, mainly by probabilistic methods. Chapter 1 introduces the Resource Dispersion Hypothesis, which suggests that territorial behaviour plus dispersed food resources can explain the existence of social groups, and describes an existing model of the process, due to Carr and Macdonald. In Chapter 2 the model of Carr and Macdonald is analysed, and in Chapter 3 an improved model is suggested and its main properties derived, primarily using renewal theory. Chapters 4 and 5 consider various spatial models for territory formation, and the effect, of spatial factors on social behaviour, using analytic and simulation-based methods. Chapter 6 considers the evolution of social behaviour using both discrete-time deterministic models and branching processes to investigate the viability of different strategies of social behaviour in the presence of dispersed resources.
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Schooling, Catherine Mary. "Health behaviour in a social and temporal context." Thesis, University College London (University of London), 2001. http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/1350107/.
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Smoking, alcohol consumption, diet and exercise are sources of risk for many chronic diseases and the need to change unhealthy behaviours is now a key aspect of health promotion policies. Interventions to change adult behaviours have been unsuccessful despite, or perhaps because of, rather dramatic secular changes. Health behaviour is usually understood in terms of three different motivating forces for action, which can be categorised as individual utility, social structure and agency (i.e. engagement in a specific social and temporal context). The first two of these have been relatively well studied. The role of individual utility has been explored using a variety of expectancy-value models that relate individual psychological attributes (attitudes, beliefs and suchlike) to health behaviour. The role of social structure has been explored by studying how behaviour varies with economic circumstances (such as income or tenure) and social relationships (such as family and neighbourhood). Less well studied has been the role of agency. This thesis develops Giddens's concept of self-identity and Simmel's ideas on fashion, to provide an operationalisation of agency. The concept of image is used to link the individual's presentation of self and the appearance of an activity, in terms of underlying attributes such as conformity, gender-identity, sociability and asceticism. Considerations of image provide a potential explanation as to why some people might be more attracted to one activity than another. The concept of status seeking is used to explore why some people are motivated to follow new trends more quickly than others. This operationalisation of the role of agency in health behaviour is tested by exploring the relationship between all these potential motivating forces (individual utility, social structure and agency) and the initiation of and change in 4 specific health behaviours (smoking, drinking, diet and exercise), using data from the 1946 national birth cohort. The 1946 cohort provides a unique opportunity to explore these relationships because it provides the historical specificity necessary to delineate the changing public image of these health behaviours. It covers a period (1946-1989) during which advice about and the public image of the 4 health behaviours changed considerably, and it has data on the cohort's health habits and self images. Results indicate that people's views of themselves in relation to public images do indeed relate to these 4 health behaviours along with the other motivating forces. Understanding how all these motivating forces operate offers the possibility of predicting future behaviour and designing strategies to promote healthy choices.
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Elliott, Mark Andrew. "The social cognitive determinants of drivers' speeding behaviour." Thesis, University of Sheffield, 2006. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.427235.
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LoÌpez, y. LoÌpez Fabiola. "Social power and norms : impact on agent behaviour." Thesis, University of Southampton, 2003. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.273756.
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