Body Image: An Addiction, Disease, and Destroyer

For some time now, society has over-emphasized physical beauty. Body image has taken a toll on many people by labeling what is unattractive and what is not. With the help of the mass media, one may critically evaluate his or her own appearance. Perceived imperfections may arise, and the obsession to correct these flaws can uncontrollably grow. The purpose of this thesis was to analyze body image within our culture and media. Beauty has somewhat evolved over the past few decades, and it is hard to attribute the phenomenon to just one aspect of change. Are “ideal” standards instilled in our brains since childhood? Does the connection of “beautiful” and “ugly” occur while a little girl is playing with her Barbie dolls and a boy with his muscular action figure? These are just a few questions I try to determine within this paper. I also examine what makes us vulnerable to distorted body image. Because not all of the blame can be placed on the media, I researched other factors that may cause it. My research consisted of various journal writings, data collected from previous studies, and my own observations. I decided to choose this topic as a whole, because I feel it is a rising problem in our society. More and more adolescents and adults are becoming at-risk for eating disorders, correctional surgeries, and drug use in relationship to these two. I believe the only way to rectify this problem is to analyze why and how it occurs, and then educate others of the realities linked to unattainable beauty.B.A. (Bachelor of Arts

Diffusion in a Time-dependent External Field

The problem of diffusion in a time-dependent (and generally inhomogeneous) external field is considered on the basis of a generalized master equation with two times, introduced in [1,2]. We consider the case of the quasi Fokker-Planck approximation, when the probability transition function for diffusion (PTD-function) does not possess a long tail in coordinate space and can be expanded as a function of instantaneous displacements. The more complicated case of long tails in the PTD will be discussed separately. We also discuss diffusion on the basis of hydrodynamic and kinetic equations and show the validity of the phenomenological approach. A new type of "collision" integral is introduced for the description of diffusion in a system of particles, which can transfer from a moving state to the rest state (with some waiting time distribution). The solution of the appropriate kinetic equation in the external field also confirms the phenomenological approach of the generalized master equation.Comment: 18 pages, no figure

Approche globale de l'ingénierie des exigences et de la prise de décision pour les systèmes complexes)

The primary goal of the systems engineering is the creation of a setof high quality products and services that enable the accomplishment of desiredtasks and needs of the clients or user groups. A typical systems engineering projectcan be divided in to three phases: definition, development, and deployment. Thedefinition phase involves the activities of requirement elicitation and refinement.By the end of system definition phase, we have all the system functional and nonfunctionalrequirements. One of the results of development phase is initial workingmodel of the system. The deployment phase consists of activities of operationalimplementation, operational testing and evaluation, and operational functioning andmaintenance. In a project life cycle there are numerous issues to be sorted out duringthe various phases to finally deliver a successful product. We proposed solution tothe problems of requirements engineering & management, design conflict detection,and stakeholders conflict resolution. This thesis is based on the recent advances inindustrial practices and research in the field of system design engineering.The objective of this thesis work is to propose an innovative and holistic conceptionmethodology taking into account the multidisciplinary environment and multiplestakeholders. We have proposed a requirements modeling language based on theGORE techniques. We have proposed a few of tools for reducing the ambiguity ofrequirements such as: using negation and test cases using negation for contractingdifficult requirements. Requirement management techniques are proposed to providebetter requirements traceability and aid for other systems engineering activities.Few guidelines have been designed to guide the design of traceability policies. Criteriaweighting technique has been designed to better carry out the conflict resolutions,during the various life cycle stages. Using the same criteria weighting technique aflexible multi criteria multi participant decision methodology is proposed for variousdecision problems arising during the life cycle of systems engineering project.Finally, a comprehensive prescriptive systems engineering approach is proposedusing all the previously made contributions and an illustrative case study of a realongoing project is presented developed using the supporting tool SysEngLab, whichimplements majority of the methods and techniques proposed during thesis.L’objectif principal de l’ingénierie des systèmes est la création d’un ensemblede produits et des services de haute qualité qui permettent l’accomplissement de tâchespour répondre aux besoins des clients. Un projet typique d’ingénierie des systèmes peutêtre divisé en trois phases : la définition, le développement et le déploiement. La phasede définition comprend les activités de capture des exigences et de leur raffinement. Àla fin de la phase de définition du système, nous avons toutes les exigences fonctionnelleset non-fonctionnelles du système. L’un des résultats de la phase de développement est lemodèle de travail initiale du système. La phase de déploiement se compose des activitésliées à (1) l’évaluation opérationnelle du système, à (2) l’utilisation du système et à (3) sonentretien. Dans un cycle de vie du projet, il y a de nombreuses questions qui doivent êtretraitées au cours des différentes phases pour finalement livrer un produit.Nous avons proposé une solution aux problèmes liés à l’ingénierie des exigences et auxtechniques de la détection, de la gestion et de la résolution des conflits entre les partiesprenantes. Cette thèse est basée sur les dernières avancées dans les pratiques industrielleset de recherche dans le domaine de l’ingénierie de conception du système.L’objectif de ce travail de thèse est de proposer une méthodologie de conception novatriceet globale en tenant compte de l’environnement multidisciplinaire et de multiplesintervenants. Nous avons proposé un langage de modélisation des exigences basé sur lestechniques GORE. Nous avons proposé quelques outils pour réduire l’ambiguïté des exigencestels l’utilisation de phrases négatives et de tests á l’aide de négation lorsqu’il s’agitde traiter certaines exigences difficiles à comprendre avec les techniques classiques. Nousavons également proposé des techniques de gestion des exigences pour mieux assurer leurtraçabilité. Concernant la résolution des conflits, nous avons proposé des techniques depondération des critères au cours des différentes étapes du cycle de vie. En utilisant lamême technique de pondération de critères, une méthode de décision multicritères et multiparticipants est proposée pour divers problèmes de décision survenant pendant le cycle devie du projet d’ingénierie systèmes.Enfin, une approche globale de l’ingénierie des systèmes est proposée pour intégrertoutes les contributions faites précédemment et est illustrée sur une étude de cas concernantun projet réel avec la présentation dŠun outil SysEngLab que nous avons développé pourmettre en oeuvre la majorité des méthodes et des techniques proposées au cours de thèse