4,063 research outputs found

    Undergraduate Catalog of Studies, 2023-2024

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    Personality Dysfunction Manifest in Words : Understanding Personality Pathology Using Computational Language Analysis

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    Personality disorders (PDs) are some of the most prevalent and high-risk mental health conditions, and yet remain poorly understood. Today, the development of new technologies means that there are advanced tools that can be used to improve our understanding and treatment of PD. One promising tool – indeed, the focus of this thesis – is computational language analysis. By looking at patterns in how people with personality pathology use words, it is possible to gain access into their constellation of thinking, feelings, and behaviours. To date, however, there has been little research at the intersection of verbal behaviour and personality pathology. Accordingly, the central goal of this thesis is to demonstrate how PD can be better understood through the analysis of natural language. This thesis presents three research articles, comprising four empirical studies, that each leverage computational language analysis to better understand personality pathology. Each paper focuses on a distinct core feature of PD, while incorporating language analysis methods: Paper 1 (Study 1) focuses on interpersonal dysfunction; Paper 2 (Studies 2 and 3) focuses on emotion dysregulation; and Paper 3 (Study 4) focuses on behavioural dysregulation (i.e., engagement in suicidality and deliberate self-harm). Findings from this research have generated better understanding of fundamental features of PD, including insight into characterising dimensions of social dysfunction (Paper 1), maladaptive emotion processes that may contribute to emotion dysregulation (Paper 2), and psychosocial dynamics relating to suicidality and deliberate self-harm (Paper 3) in PD. Such theoretical knowledge subsequently has important implications for clinical practice, particularly regarding the potential to inform psychological therapy. More broadly, this research highlights how language can provide implicit and unobtrusive insight into the personality and psychological processes that underlie personality pathology at a large-scale, using an individualised, naturalistic approach

    How social media brand community development impacts consumer engagement and value formation; perspectives from the cosmetics industry

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    Social media and social media brand communities (SMBCs) are powerful tools for long-term consumer-brand relationship building. As a result, SMBCs are becoming significant marketing channels. Despite the wide use and adoption of SMBCs, further research is called for, as both practitioners and academics lack an understanding of the processes taking place within SMBCs. This study aims to contribute to knowledge of: (1) consumer engagement, (2) value formation in SMBCs, and (3) establishing the relationship between consumer engagement and value formation within the SMBC environment. This thesis adopts netnography, a method commonly employed to explore online communities in the social media environment. Three cosmetics brands were selected for this study. The selection was driven by geographical location, posting frequency and user activity. Data were retrospectively collected from Facebook SMBCs between 1st December 2019 and 31st January 2020. The data analysis employed thematic analysis techniques and was further guided by netnographic procedural steps, encompassing 25 distinct data operations. In total, 87 conversation threads were examined, which included 6,401 consumer comments. The findings present a typology of brand posts consisting of five overarching themes: presentation of offerings, belongingness building, engagement building, value-led, and educational. The research also identified a consumer comment typology consisting of four overarching themes brand-centred communication, cognitive-centred communication, conversation-centred communication, and personal experience-centred communication. Additionally, the thesis explores value formation processes within SMBCs, and the value types formed through consumer-to-consumer value formation interaction, brand-to-consumer value formation interaction, consumer-to-brand value formation interaction, as well as individual value formation processes, i.e., customer independent value formation and brand independent value facilitation. Through the findings, thesis broadens knowledge of the implication of SMBC development on consumer engagement. Additionally, this study extends the scope of value formation beyond service marketing, providing valuable insights into how value is created and perceived in the context of SMBCs. This research is also of significance for practice as it offers guidance and insight into how different brand posts can facilitate SMBC development, and, in turn, consumer engagement and value formation. The research provides a link between SMBC development and consumer engagement, highlighting the importance of SMBCs in the successful facilitation of consumer engagement. In particular, it provides evidence that the development of an SMBC has a significant impact on consumer engagement. The typology of brand posts that this study generates highlights the link between the types of posts published by the brand and SMBC development. In addition, the typology of consumer posts also suggests that there is a link between the types of comments published by consumers and the degree of SMBC development. As a result, the findings indicate significant growth in the variety of topics discussed within more developed SMBCs alongside a shift within the topics discussed. The study also investigates value formation within SMBCs, thereby enhancing the understanding of how SMBCs can facilitate value formation. By doing so, this research successfully extends the value formation lens predominantly applied in service marketing. In particular, the findings highlight the role of different actors in enabling the formation of different value types. Furthermore, the research emphasises the value of SMBCs as knowledge repositories as important virtual spaces for both brands and consumers. The findings facilitate understanding of the importance of SMBCs in value formation processes, contributing to advancing knowledge of the role of SMBCs in the development of consumer engagement and value formation. The thesis presents a contextualised conceptual framework of value formation within SMBCs, that captures different interactions taking place in the SMBC environment but also draws attention to the different value types generated through interaction between different actors. Finally, the thesis offers a conceptual framework of SMBCs, consumer engagement and value formation, which captures the correlation between the three researched concepts

    Multidisciplinary perspectives on Artificial Intelligence and the law

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    This open access book presents an interdisciplinary, multi-authored, edited collection of chapters on Artificial Intelligence (‘AI’) and the Law. AI technology has come to play a central role in the modern data economy. Through a combination of increased computing power, the growing availability of data and the advancement of algorithms, AI has now become an umbrella term for some of the most transformational technological breakthroughs of this age. The importance of AI stems from both the opportunities that it offers and the challenges that it entails. While AI applications hold the promise of economic growth and efficiency gains, they also create significant risks and uncertainty. The potential and perils of AI have thus come to dominate modern discussions of technology and ethics – and although AI was initially allowed to largely develop without guidelines or rules, few would deny that the law is set to play a fundamental role in shaping the future of AI. As the debate over AI is far from over, the need for rigorous analysis has never been greater. This book thus brings together contributors from different fields and backgrounds to explore how the law might provide answers to some of the most pressing questions raised by AI. An outcome of the Católica Research Centre for the Future of Law and its interdisciplinary working group on Law and Artificial Intelligence, it includes contributions by leading scholars in the fields of technology, ethics and the law.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

    Information about cancer on the internet : comparative analysis of the institutional website of AECC, GEPAC and FEFOC

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    La búsqueda de información sobre salud en internet está asociada fundamentalmente al diagnóstico de una enfermedad del usuario o de un familiar y puede considerarse la primera fuente a la que acuden tras una consulta médica (Marín-Torres et al., isanidad.com, 2015; 2012; III Barómetro PIC, 2019; INE, 2019;). Las principales barreras para el acceso y uso de la eSalud (eHealth en su terminología inglesa) tienen que ver con la legibilidad del contenido y con una pobre usabilidad de los sitios (Cline y Haynes, 2001; Kim y Xie, 2017). A esto se suma en el contexto actual el enorme volumen de datos disponible en la red que hace imprescindible desarrollar protocolos de análisis que permitan a los usuarios identificar de un modo comprensible los sitios que ofrecen información de calidad tanto en sus contenidos como en su presentación. Esta investigación plantea un análisis de las páginas web corporativas de tres instituciones españolas de reconocido prestigio —y naturaleza diversa— en el ámbito de la divulgación y prevención del cáncer: la Asociación Española Contra el Cáncer, el Grupo Español de Pacientes con Cáncer y la Fundación para la Educación Pública y la Formación en Cáncer; abordando tanto la usabilidad como el tipo de información ofrecida, con el objetivo de conocer el estado de la información en la red sobre el cáncer en España y de identificar buenas prácticas en la comunicación sobre la enfermedad.The search for health information on the Internet is fundamentally associated with the diagnosis of a disease of the user or a relative and it can be considered the first source to which they come after a medical consultation(Marín-Torres et al., isanidad.com, 2015; 2012; III Barómetro PIC, 2019; INE, 2019;).The main barriers to the access and use of eHealth have to do with the readability of the content and with a poor usability of the sites (Cline and Haynes, 2001; Kim and Xie, 2017). Added to this, the enormous volume of data available on the network in the current context is what makes it essential to develop analysis protocols that allow users to identify in a comprehensible way the sites that offer quality information both in their content and in their presentation.This research proposes an analysis of the corporate sites of three Spanish institutions of recognized prestige -and diverse nature- in the field of cancer promotion and prevention: Asociación Española Contra el Cáncer, Grupo Español de Pacientes con Cáncer and Fundación para la Educación Pública y la Formación en Cáncer; addressing both the usability and the type of information offered, in order to know the status of online information on cancer in Spain and to identify good practices in comvbmunication about the disease

    Patterns and Variation in English Language Discourse

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    The publication is reviewed post-conference proceedings from the international 9th Brno Conference on Linguistics Studies in English, held on 16–17 September 2021 and organised by the Faculty of Education, Masaryk University in Brno. The papers revolve around the themes of patterns and variation in specialised discourses (namely the media, academic, business, tourism, educational and learner discourses), effective interaction between the addressor and addressees and the current trends and development in specialised discourses. The principal methodological perspectives are the comparative approach involving discourses in English and another language, critical and corpus analysis, as well as identification of pragmatic strategies and appropriate rhetorical means. The authors of papers are researchers from the Czech Republic, Italy, Luxembourg, Serbia and Georgia

    The Individual And Their World

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