Extension de bande paramétrique pour les signaux audio de parole et de musique

Dans le domaine du codage audio, l’utilisation d’une extension de bande paramétrique pour encoder les hautes fréquences permet une économie de débit. Contrairement à la majorité des méthodes d'extension de bande qui effectuent leur traitement dans le domaine temporel, le traitement proposé dans ce mémoire s’effectue dans le domaine fréquentiel pour créer une extension de bande audio de 8 à 16 kHz sur les signaux monophoniques de parole et de musique. Le projet de maîtrise étudie plusieurs éléments : les techniques de régénération des hautes fréquences, l'utilisation du cepstre pour le calcul et la représentation de l'enveloppe spectrale, ainsi que des techniques d’amélioration de la dynamique du spectre. Les résultats de tests subjectifs formels montrent un gain sur certaines catégories de signaux par rapport au codec AMR-WB+, lequel est reconnu comme étant un standard international développé à l'Université de Sherbrooke

Self-Compassion, Chronic Age-Related Stressors, and Diurnal Cortisol Secretion in Older Adulthood

Background: Many older adults experience chronic age-related stressors (e.g., life regrets or health problems) that are difficult to control and can disturb cortisol regulation. Self-compassion may buffer adverse effects of these stressful experiences on diurnal cortisol secretion in older adulthood. Purpose: To examine whether self-compassion could benefit older adults’ cortisol secretion in the context of chronic and largely uncontrollable age-related stressors. Methods: 233 community- dwelling older adults reported their levels of self-compassion, age-related stressors (regret intensity, physical health problems, and functional disability), and relevant covariates. Diurnal cortisol was measured over 3 days and the average area-under-the-curve (AUC) and slope were calculated. Results: Higher levels of self-compassion were associated with lower daily cortisol levels among older adults who reported higher levels of regret intensity, physical health problems, or functional disability (βs .28). Conclusions: These results suggest that self- compassion may represent an important personal resource that could protect older adults from stress- related biological disturbances resulting from chronic and uncontrollable stressors

Pain catastrophizing and worry about health in generalized anxiety disorder

Because the diagnostic criteria of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) are not tied to specific worry domains (worry is ‘generalized’), research on the content of worry in GAD is lacking. To our knowledge, no study has addressed vulnerability for specific worry topics in GAD. The goal of the current study, a secondary analysis of data from a clinical trial, is to explore the relationship between pain catastrophizing and worry about health in a sample of 60 adults with primary GAD. All data for this study were collected at pretest, prior to randomization to experimental condition in the larger trial. The hypotheses were that (1) pain catastrophizing would be positively related to the severity of GAD, (2) the relationship between pain catastrophizing and the severity of GAD would not be explained by intolerance of uncertainty and psychological rigidity, and (3) pain catastrophizing would be greater in participants reporting worry about health compared to those not reporting worry about health. All hypotheses were confirmed, suggesting that pain catastrophizing may be a threat-specific vulnerability for health-related worry in GAD. The implications of the current findings include a better understanding of the ideographic content of worry, which could help focus treatment interventions for individuals with GAD

From Me to You: Stress Spillover and Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia

Stress spillover describes how stress in one life domain affects other life domains. For example, parenting stress, defined as stress related to raising a child, tends to affect how romantic partners think about, feel, and behave in their romantic relationship with their spouse. Evidence suggests that, on average, parents of young children experience a decline in romantic relationship quality as they transition into parenthood. However, not all parents experience stress spillover from their child-related stress to their romantic relationship. This study evaluated whether respiratory sinus arrhythmia, a biomarker of emotion regulation capabilities in interpersonal relationships, moderates the effect of child-related stress on marital stress among parents of young children. As part of a dyadic study, 82 cohabiting couples raising preschool aged children had their resting RSA assessed during a laboratory visit, and independently reported on their daily child-related stress and marital stress for seven consecutive days. Actor partner interdependence modelling tested the associations between child-related and marital stress for both members of the couple, as well as the moderating role of each partners’ RSA. Results indicated significant actor and partner effects of child-related stress on actor marital stress. These results show that one partner’s reports of child-related stress were related to their own reports of marital stress and to their partner’s reports of marital stress, even after adjusting for their partner’s reports of child-related stress, indicating the presence of a stress spillover effect. Furthermore, a significant interaction between partner’s reports of child-related stress and partner’s RSA when predicting actor’s marital stress revealed that this stress spillover effect was larger among individuals with lower RSA. Our findings suggest that RSA influences the extent to which parenting stress impacts one’s interpersonal behaviours in their romantic relationship

Associations between daily mood states and brain gray matter volume, resting-state functional connectivity and task-based activity in healthy adults

Numerous studies have shown differences in the functioning in the areas of the frontal-limbic circuitry between depressed patients and controls. However, current knowledge on frontal-limbic neural substrates of individual differences in mood states in everyday life in healthy individuals is scarce. The present study investigates anatomical, resting-state, and functional neural correlates of daily mood states in healthy individuals. We expected to observe associations between mood and the frontal-limbic circuitry and the default-mode network (DMN). A total of 42 healthy adults (19 men, 23 women; 34 ± 1.2 years) regularly followed for behavior and psychosocial functioning since age of 6, underwent a functional magnetic resonance imaging scan, and completed a daily diary of mood states and related cognitions for 5 consecutive days. Results showed that individuals with smaller left hippocampal gray matter volumes experienced more negative mood and rumination in their daily life. Greater resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) within the DMN, namely between posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) and medial prefrontal cortex regions as well as between PCC and precuneus, was associated with both greater negative and positive mood states in daily life. These rsFC results could be indicative of the role of the DMN regional functioning in emotional arousal, irrespective of valence. Lastly, greater daily positive mood was associated with greater activation in response to negative emotional stimuli in the precentral gyri, previously linked to emotional interference on cognitive control. Altogether, present findings might reflect neural mechanisms underlying daily affect and cognition among healthy individuals

Initial Mainstream Cultural Orientations Predict Early Social Participation In The Mainstream Cultural Group

This work adopts a perspective that construes acculturation as a dynamic intergroup process and social contact with members of the new community as a key mechanism underlying cultural adaptation. We argue that migrants' initial self-reported mainstream cultural orientation constitutes an important antecedent of early social participation in the new community. Results from two longitudinal studies of newly arrived international students (N=98 and N=60) show that more positive initial mainstream cultural orientations prospectively predict higher social participation specifically in the mainstream group over the following months. This relation held after controlling for important alternative predictors, namely extraversion/shyness, mainstream language proficiency, and respiratory sinus arrhythmia, a physiological index of social engagement capacity. These studies focus on the very initial stages of the temporal dynamics of acculturation, contribute to bridging research on acculturation and on intergroup relations, and establish a link between cultural orientations, a subjective attitudinal construct, and concrete social engagement behaviors

Dyadic Coping, Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia, and Depressive Symptoms Among Parents of Preschool Children

Respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) is a biomarker of cardiac vagal tone that has been linked to social functioning. Recent studies suggest that RSA moderates the impact of interpersonal processes on psychosocial adjustment. The goal of this study was to assess whether RSA would moderate the association between dyadic coping (DC) and depressive symptoms. Eighty cohabiting couples raising preschool children completed the Dyadic Coping Inventory, the Center for Epidemiological Study-Depression scale and had their RSA assessed during a laboratory session. Couples completed follow-up assessments of depressive symptoms 6 and 12 months later. Data were analyzed using an Actor-Partner Interdependence Model. Results indicated that RSA moderated the actor effect of negative DC on depression in men, such that men with lower RSA had a stronger association between their own ratings of negative DC within the couple relationship and their own depressive symptoms, compared to their counterparts with higher RSA. RSA also moderated the partner effect of delegated DC on depressive symptoms. Among men with higher RSA, there was a significant negative association between their partner’s ratings of delegated DC within the couple relationship and the men’s depressive symptoms, whereas partner-rated delegated DC was unrelated to depressive symptoms among men with lower RSA. These results suggest that men with higher RSA may possess social skills and abilities that attenuate the association between stressful marital interactions and negative mood

Multifunctionnality: sea fishing, shellfish culture activities and durability

Evaluation SMART - Auteur hors unité au moment de la publicationIn the context where striking a balance between safeguarding the resource, rationalisation of economic activity and maintenance of social objectives is more and more difficult, the asseftion of a multifunctionality of sea fishing and shellfish culture would also have, as for agriculture, to allow the continued existence of a significant uumber of entelprises because of the generated complementary incomes and finaucitrg of non commercial services ensuled within this framework. As in agriculture, specific measul'es would make it possible to genelate new activities in order to make them economically viable in the medium term in particular irnprovement of methods of fishing, diversification of the activities arrd enhancement of sea food products

A“Proteoglycan Targeting Strategy” for the Scintigraphic Imaging and Monitoring of the Swarm Rat Chondrosarcoma Orthotopic Model

Our lab developed 99mTc-NTP 15-5 radiotracer as targeting proteoglycans (PGs) for the scintigraphic imaging of joint. This paper reports preclinical results of 99mTc-NTP 15-5 imaging of an orthotopic model of Swarm rat chondrosarcoma (SRC). 99mTc-NTP 15-5 imaging of SRC-bearing and sham-operated animals was performed and quantified at regular intervals after surgery and compared to bone scintigraphy and tumoural volume. Tumours were characterized by histology and PG assay. SRC exhibited a significant 99mTc-NTP 15-5 uptake at very early stage after implant (with tumour/muscle ratio of 1.61 ± 0.14), whereas no measurable tumour was evidenced. As tumour grew, mean tumour/muscle ratio was increased by 2.4, between the early and late stage of pathology. Bone scintigraphy failed to image chondrosarcoma, even at the later stage of study. 99mTc-NTP 15-5 imaging provided a suitable set of quantitative criteria for the in vivo characterization of chondrosarcoma behaviour in bone environment, useful for achieving a greater understanding of the pathology

Associations among oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR) DNA methylation in adulthood, exposure to early life adversity, and childhood trajectories of anxiousness

Gouin, J.-P., Zhou, Q. Q., Booij, L., Boivin, M., Côté, S. M., Hébert, M., Ouellet-Morin, I., Szyf, M., Tremblay, R. E., Turecki, G. & Vitaro, F. (2017) Associations among oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR) DNA methylation in adulthood, exposure to early life adversity, and childhood trajectories of anxiousness. Scientific Reports, 7(1), 1-14 (7446).Recent models propose deoxyribonucleic acid methylation of key neuro-regulatory genes as a molecular mechanism underlying the increased risk of mental disorder associated with early life adversity (ELA). The goal of this study was to examine the association of ELA with oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR) methylation among young adults. Drawing from a 21-year longitudinal cohort, we compared adulthood OXTR methylation frequency of 46 adults (23 males and 23 females) selected for high or low ELA exposure based on childhood socioeconomic status and exposure to physical and sexual abuse during childhood and adolescence. Associations between OXTR methylation and teacher-rated childhood trajectories of anxiousness were also assessed. ELA exposure was associated with one significant CpG site in the first intron among females, but not among males. Similarly, childhood trajectories of anxiousness were related to one significant CpG site within the promoter region among females, but not among males. This study suggests that females might be more sensitive to the impact of ELA on OXTR methylation than males