The Relationship Between Student Engagement and Professionalism in Pharmacy Students

This study investigates the relationship between student engagement (as measured by the National Survey of Student Engagement benchmarks) and pharmacy student professionalism (as measured by the Pharmacy Professionalism Domain instrument) in first and third year pharmacy students at seven different schools of pharmacy. Engagement provides the conceptual framework. Data were analyzed from 1,405 first and third year pharmacy students at seven different schools of pharmacy during spring 2010. Factor validity of the scales was assessed using Structural Equation modeling and model fit was established at RMSEA .052. The parameter estimates suggest convergent and divergent validity of the instruments. Mean level differences in professionalism were found by year with higher means for third year students in all of the professionalism domains except Reliability, Responsibility, and Accountability. Among first year students, the Enriching Educational Experience benchmark was the most important predictor of professionalism. Among third year students, the Student-Faculty Interaction was the most important predictor of professionalism

The Influence of Imagery Use in Older Adults on Activities of Daily Living and Instrumental Activities of Daily Living

Imagery has been shown to be an effective technique to enhance numerous forms of cognition and behavioral outcomes (Hall, 2001; Taylor & Schneider, 1989). Despite its effectiveness, little is known about imagery use in older adults (Kalicinski & Lobinger, 2013). The purpose of this study was to examine the use and impact of mental imagery by older adults on their activities of daily living (ADL) and instrumental activities of daily living (IADL). Participants (N= 14) took part in a four week imagery intervention, and completed pre and post questionnaires that assessed physical ability for performing ADL and IADL, self-efficacy for performing ADL and IADL, and imagery ability. Wilcoxon signed rank tests revealed a significant difference for visual imagery ability (Z = -2.21, p \u3c 0.05), with participants demonstrating improved visual imagery post-intervention. The findings from the current study provide further support for the use of imagery with older adult populations

Catégorisation par mesures de dissimilitude et caractérisation d'images en multi échelle

Dans cette thèse, on introduit la métrique "Coefficient de forme" pour la classement des données de dissimilitudes. Cette approche est inspirée par l'analyse discriminante géométrique et on a défini des règles de décision pour imiter le comportement du classifieur linéaire et quadratique. Le nombre de paramètres est limité (deux par classe). On a également étendu et amélioré cette démarche avantageuse et rapide pour apprendre uniquement à partir des représentations de dissimilitudes en utilisant l'efficacité du classificateur des Machines à Vecteurs de Support. Comme contexte applicatif pour la classification par dissimilitudes, on utilise la recherche d'images à l'aide d'une représentation des images en multi échelle en utilisant la "Pyramide Réduite Différentielle". Une application pour la description de visages est développée. Des résultats de classification à partir du coefficient de forme et utilisant une version adaptée des Machines à Vecteurs de Support, sur des bases de données issues des applications du monde réel sont présentés et comparés avec d'autres méthodes de classement basées sur des dissimilitudes. Il en ressort une forte robustesse de la méthode proposée avec des perfommances supérieures ou égales aux algorithmes de l'état de l'art.The dissimilarity representation is an alternative for the use of features in the recognition of real world objects like images, spectra and time-signal. Instead of an absolute characterization of objects by a set of features, the expert or the system is asked to define a measure that estimates the dissimilarity between pairs of objects. Such a measure may also be defined for structural representations such as strings and graphs. The dissimilarity representation is potentially able to bridge structural and statistical pattern recognition. In this thesis we introduce a new fast Mahalanobis-like metric the Shape Coefficient for classification of dissimilarity data. Our approach is inspired by the Geometrical Discriminant Analysis and we have defined decision rules to mimic the behavior of the linear and quadratic classifier. The number of parameters is limited (two per class). We also expand and ameliorate this advantageous and rapid adaptive approach to learn only from dissimilarity representations by using the effectiveness of the Support Vector Machines classifier for real-world classification tasks. Several methods for incorporating dissimilarity representations are presented, investigated and compared to the Shape Coefficient in this thesis: Pekalska and Duin prototype dissimilarity based classifiers; Haasdonk's kernel based SVM classifier; KNN classifier. Numerical experiments on artificial and real data show interesting behavior compared to Support Vector Machines and to KNN classifier: (a) lower or equivalent error rate, (b) equivalent CPU time, (c) more robustness with sparse dissimilarity data. The experimental results on real world dissimilarity databases show that the Shape Coefficient can be an alternative approach to these known methods and can be as effective as them in terms of accuracy for classification.SAVOIE-SCD - Bib.électronique (730659901) / SudocGRENOBLE1/INP-Bib.électronique (384210012) / SudocGRENOBLE2/3-Bib.électronique (384219901) / SudocSudocFranceF

Une méthode pour l'évaluation de la qualité des images 3D stéréoscopiques.

Dans le contexte d'un intérêt grandissant pour les systèmes stéréoscopiques, mais sans méthodes reproductible pour estimer leur qualité, notre travail propose une contribution à la meilleure compréhension des mécanismes de perception et de jugement humains relatifs au concept multi-dimensionnel de qualité d'image stéréoscopique. Dans cette optique, notre démarche s'est basée sur un certain nombre d'outils : nous avons proposé un cadre adapté afin de structurer le processus d'analyse de la qualité des images stéréoscopiques, nous avons implémenté dans notre laboratoire un système expérimental afin de conduire plusieurs tests, nous avons crée trois bases de données d'images stéréoscopiques contenant des configurations précises et enfin nous avons conduit plusieurs expériences basées sur ces collections d'images. La grande quantité d'information obtenue par l'intermédiaire de ces expérimentations a été utilisée afin de construire un premier modèle mathématique permettant d'expliquer la perception globale de la qualité de la stéréoscopie en fonction des paramètres physiques des images étudiée.In a context of ever-growing interest in stereoscopic systems, but where no standardized algorithmic methods of stereoscopic quality assessment exist, our work stands as a step forward in the understanding of the human perception and judgment mechanisms related to the multidimensional concept of stereoscopic image quality. We used a series of tools in order to perform in-depth investigations in this direction: we proposed an adapted framework to structure the process of stereoscopic quality assessment, we implemented a stereoscopic system in our laboratory for performing various tests, we created three stereoscopic datasets with precise structures, and we performed several experimental studies using these datasets. The numerous experimental data obtained were used in order to propose a first mathematical framework for explaining the overall percept of stereoscopic quality in function of the physical parameters of the stereoscopic images under study.SAVOIE-SCD - Bib.électronique (730659901) / SudocGRENOBLE1/INP-Bib.électronique (384210012) / SudocGRENOBLE2/3-Bib.électronique (384219901) / SudocSudocFranceF

Organisation d'images par des cartes de Kohonen sur données de dissimilitude

Avec l'émergence d'applications en bioinformatique et en « data mining » il y a un intérêt croissant pour développer de nouvelles méthodes efficaces d'analyse de données de dissimilitude. L'algorithme « SOM » appliquée aux données de dissimilitude en est une. Des extensions de « SOM » aux données de dissimilitude (« DSOM ») ont déjà été proposées. Leur analyse révèle une difficulté majeure dans le versant « quantification » de l'algorithme où l'absence de modèles de données sous-jacent à chaque sous-partition pénalise grandement la qualité de l'organisation obtenue. Pour contrer cette difficulté nous proposons une nouvelle spécification de l'algorithme dans la phase de représentation de la partition obtenue. L'originalité réside dans une nouvelle métrique sous des hypothèses euclidiennes, pour la quantification sans avoir à calculer explicitement les prototypes. Grâce à cette nouvelle métrique qui intègre uniquement une référence implicite aux prototypes de quantification, la qualité de l'algorithme pour la préservation en sortie des voisinages est grandement améliorée. Les performances de l'algorithme proposé sont supérieures à celles des algorithmes similaires existants

Utilisation des statistiques d'ordre supérieur pour l'analyse d'images texturées

L'utilisation des statistiques d'ordre supérieur (S.O.S) est de plus en plus répandue en traitement du signal. En traitement d'image, l'analyse de textures est un domaine où l'application de telles techniques peut avoir un intérêt. L'objectif de cet article est de mettre en évidence les points forts et les points faibles d'une caractérisation par S.O.S. en la comparant avec une description par des extracteurs classiques avec les matrices de cooccurrences

The Relationship Development Assessment - Research Version: Preliminary validation of a clinical tool and coding schemes to measure parent-child interaction in autism.

The aim of this project was to replicate and extend findings from two recent studies on parent-child relatedness in autism (Beurkens, Hobson, & Hobson, 2013; Hobson, Tarver, Beurkens, & Hobson, 2013, under review) by adapting an observational assessment and coding schemes of parent-child relatedness for the clinical context and examining their validity and reliability. The coding schemes focussed on three aspects of relatedness: joint attentional focus (Adamson, Bakeman, & Deckner, 2004), the capacity to co-regulate an interaction and the capacity to share emotional experiences. The participants were 40 children (20 with autism, 20 without autism) aged 6-14, and their parents. Parent-child dyads took part in the observational assessment and were coded on these schemes. Comparisons were made with standardised measures of autism severity (Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule, ADOS: Lord, Rutter, DiLavore, & Risi, 2001; Social Responsiveness Scale, SRS: Constantino & Gruber, 2005), relationship quality (Parent Child Relationship Inventory, PCRI: Gerard, 1994) and quality of parent-child interaction (Dyadic Coding Scales, DCS: Humber & Moss, 2005). Inter-rater reliability was very good and, as predicted, codes both diverged from the measure of parent-child relationship and converged with a separate measure of parent-child interaction quality. A detailed profile review revealed nuanced areas of group and individual differences which may be specific to verbally-able school-age children. The results support the utility of the Relationship Development Assessment - Research Version for clinical practice

Near-offset vertical seismic experiments during leg 204

Three successful vertical seismic profiles (VSPs) were acquired during Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Leg 204 at South Hydrate Ridge. The data confirm earlier results from ocean bottom seismometer data and analysis of moveout from common midpoint reflection data that the average velocity between the seafloor and the bottom-simulating reflector (BSR) is <1600 m/s throughout the region and is lowest near the summit, where the amount of hydrate is greatest. This result supports the conclusions that free gas and hydrate coexist beneath the summit and that the average amount of gas hydrate present elsewhere is low. The data also indicate that low-velocity zones (LVZs) resulting from free gas beneath the BSR must be thin and stratigraphically controlled. The only LVZ resolvable from traveltime analysis of the VSP data is associated with Horizon A, which has been interpreted to be the primary conduit transporting free gas to vents at the summit of South Hydrate Ridge. Thin LVZs associated with Horizons B and B', however, are indicated by sonic logs as well as by strong negative polarity reflections in the multichannel seismic data. This limited distribution of sub-BSR free gas contrasts with previous results at North Hydrate Ridge (Leg 146) and Blake Ridge (Leg 164), which indicate the presence of free gas zones several hundred meters thick that result in distinct LVZs in the VSP data from those earlier ODP legs