Student Perceptions Of Computer Hybrid Courses Across Three Disciplines: What Students Think About Hybrid Courses And What Type Of Delivery Format They Prefer

The present study examines student perceptions of computer hybrid courses across three primary disciplines: business, accounting, criminal justice/paralegal and those that identified themselves as belonging to other disciplines.  Students (n = 94) were asked to respond to and rate twelve specific areas related to hybrid courses in which they were enrolled during the fall semester of 2003 at a community college located in the southern region of the United States.  The courses consisted of required courses within each curriculum. Findings indicate that generally, course ratings were favorable; however, preference for enrolling in hybrid courses varied from discipline to discipline

The effect of interrupted defocus on blur adaptation

YesPurpose - Blur adaptation occurs when an observer is exposed to continuous defocus. However, it is unclear whether adaptation requires constant defocus, or whether the effect can still be achieved when the adaptation period is interrupted by short periods of clear vision. Methods - The study included 12 emmetropes and 12 myopes. All observers wore full refractive correction throughout the experiment. 1D and 3D of myopic defocus was introduced using spherical convex lenses. An automated system was used to place the blurring lens before the RE for varying periods of blurred and clear vision during adaptation. Participants watched a DVD at 3 m during each 15 min trial. Visual acuity was measured using Test Chart 2000 before and after adaptation. Results - Blur adaptation occurs to varying degrees depending on the periods of incremental blur exposure. Significant improvements in defocused visual acuity occur with continuous blur, equal blur and clear periods, as well as for longer blur periods. However, longer clear periods showed reduced adaptation and this trial is significantly different to the other three trials for both defocus levels (p < 0.001). No refractive group differences were observed for neither 1D nor 3D defocus (p = 0.58 and p = 0.19 respectively). Conclusions - Intervening periods of clear vision cause minimal disruption to improvements in defocused visual acuity after adaptation, indicating that blur adaptation is a robust phenomenon. However, when the exposure to clear vision exceeds the defocused periods, adaptation is inhibited. This gives insight into the effects of real-world tasks on adaptation to blur.Ms Kiren A. Khan was supported by a School of Optometry and Vision Science PhD studentship

Audio-Motor Integration for Robot Audition

International audienceIn the context of robotics, audio signal processing in the wild amounts to dealing with sounds recorded by a system that moves and whose actuators produce noise. This creates additional challenges in sound source localization, signal enhancement and recognition. But the speci-ficity of such platforms also brings interesting opportunities: can information about the robot actuators' states be meaningfully integrated in the audio processing pipeline to improve performance and efficiency? While robot audition grew to become an established field, methods that explicitly use motor-state information as a complementary modality to audio are scarcer. This chapter proposes a unified view of this endeavour, referred to as audio-motor integration. A literature review and two learning-based methods for audio-motor integration in robot audition are presented, with application to single-microphone sound source localization and ego-noise reduction on real data

Localisation binaurale active de sources sonores en robotique humanoïde

This thesis deals with the definition of algorithms for the localisation of still or moving sound sources from a mobile binaural sensor in robotics. The aim is to develop active strategies, combining left-right perceived signals with the sensor motor commands so as to overcome usual limitations in the case of a static world : resolve ambiguities (e.g. front-back), recover observability of variables, etc. The study focuses on two-step strategies : (1) extraction of spatial information and source activity detection from a short-term analysis of audio streams ; (2) temporal assimilation of these data and fusion with the sensor motor commands in a stochastic filtering scheme.Cette thèse concerne la définition d'algorithmes pour la localisation de sources sonores (statiques ou mobiles) depuis un capteur binaural mobile en robotique. L'objectif est de développer des stratégies actives, qui combinent les signaux gauche-droite perçus et les ordres moteurs du capteur de façon à compenser les limitations usuelles dans le cas d'un monde statique : levée d'ambiguïtés (par exemple, avant-arrière), récupération de l'observabilité de certaines variables inobservables, etc. L'étude est focalisée sur des stratégies en deux étapes : (1) extraction d'information spatiale et détection d'activité relative à la/les sources par une analyse court-terme des flux audio ; (2) assimilation temporelle de ces données et fusion avec les ordres moteurs du capteur dans un schéma de filtrage stochastique

The Mother-Infant Attachment Process in Adoptive Families

This article addresses issues relevant to mother-infant attachment in adoptive families. First, this paper presents a review of the literature on the attachment process between adopted children and their mothers. Existing empirical research is understood in relation to Bowlby's (1969) theoretical formulation of attachment, the basic thesis of which is that infants develop affectional bonds at specific ages of their development and therefore, the child's age at the time of adoption is an important determinant of secure mother-infant attachment. Second, recommendations are made for future research in the area of parent-child attachment in adoptive families. Finally, this paper describes how counselling and educational practice may help to resolve attachment and developmental issues specific to adopted children.Cet article adresse les problèmes provenant de l'attachement mère-enfant dans les familles adoptives. Premièrement, cette recherche présente une revue de la littérature sur le processus d'attachement entre les enfants adoptés et leurs mères. La recherche empirique existante est comprise en relation avec la formulation théorique d'attachement de Bowlby (1969), dont le fondement de la thèse est que les enfants développent des liens à des âges spécifiques de leur développement et par conséquent, l'âge de l'enfant lors de l'adoption est un déterminant important dans la sécurisation de l'attachement mère-enfant. Deuxièmement, des recommandations sont présentées pour la poursuite de la recherche dans le domaine de l'attachement parent-enfant dans les familles adoptives. Finallement, cette recherche décrit comment le counseling e t la pratique éducationnelle pourraient aider à résoudre les problèmes développementaux et d'attachement spécifiques aux enfants adoptés

Dimensions of managerial and professional women’s stress : interpersonal conflict and distress

The purpose of this study was to examine Lazarus and Folkman's (1984) stress and coping framework in the context of work-related interpersonal stressors. Drawing on Long, Kahn, and Schutz's (1992) stress and coping model for managerial women, I examined the relative influences of individual differences, cognitive appraisals, coping strategies, and the work environment on the experiences of distress for managerial and professional women who reported interpersonal conflicts as a source of occupational stress. The data were collected prospectively from 157 managerial and professional women (M age 41.2) employed at three-provincial universities. Participants completed three sets of questionnaires administered 2-weeks apart. The first set of questionnaires assessed demographic characteristics and dimensions of participants' personality (gender-role orientation and trait anxiety); the second set assessed stress appraisals, coping strategies (engagement and disengagement), the work environment, and experiences of daily hassles; and the third set assessed psychosomatic distress. Path analysis using LISREL VIII (Jöreskog & Sorbom, 1993) was performed to examine the hypothesized relationships among antecedent, contextual, mediating, and outcome variables central to Lazarus and Folkman's (1984) theoretical framework and Long et al.'s (1992) stress and coping model. Based on the first-order partial correlation matrix, controlling for the effects of negative affective traits, results indicated an overall poor fitting model, X² (41, N=157)=124.89, p <.001, Q=3.0, GFI=.90, AGFI=.75, RMSR=.09, CFI=.70, and D₂=.75. The pattern of variable relationships in the model provides partial support for both the hypothesized model and Lazarus and Folkman's theoretical assumptions. Within the model, work support was positively related to situational control appraisals and negatively associated with threatening work goal attainment appraisals. Unexpectedly, instrumental personality traits had a positive effect on upsetting appraisals of interpersonal work stressors. As hypothesized, situational control appraisals were negatively associated with disengagement coping and positively related to engagement coping within the model. Threatening work goal attainment appraisals had a positive effect on both engagement and disengagement coping. Additionally, upsetting appraisals predicted both disengagement coping and distress, and positive relationships were found between disengagement coping and daily hassles and between daily hassles and distress within the model. The hypothesized mediational role of cognitive appraisals was not supported in this study. Results also yielded nonsignificant relationships between expressive personality traits and both work support and stressor appraisals. Implications of these results and suggestions for future research are discussed.Education, Faculty ofEducational and Counselling Psychology, and Special Education (ECPS), Department ofGraduat

Sex-typed traits, moral and interpersonal conflict, and conflict management strategies of women managers

The focus of this study was to determine whether sex-typed traits (instrumentality, expressiveness, androgyny) and type of conflict (interpersonal and moral) differentiate conflict management styles (dominating, integrating, and compromising) of women managers. The data were collected from 134 supervisors and managers (M age 40.1) from 12 branches of the federal government and 25 ministries and offices of the provincial government (British Columbia and the Yukon Territories). Each respondent completed the Bern Sex-Role Inventory and the Rahim Organizational Conflict Inventory-II. Two research questions were posed. The first question examined whether managers resolved conflicts differently according to their sex-role orientation, regardless of the type of conflict. It was hypothesized that (a) high-instrumental managers would report greater use of the dominating conflict handling style, compared with low-instrumental managers, and (b) high-expressive managers would report greater use of the compromising conflict handling style, compared with low-expressive managers. The second research question examined whether managers resolved conflicts differently according to their sex-role orientation and the type of conflict engaged in (interpersonal or moral). It was hypothesized that high-instrumental managers would report greater use of the integrating conflict management style for interpersonal conflict, whereas they would report greater use of the dominating style for moral conflict. Also, it was predicted that androgynous managers would report greater use of the integrating conflict management strategy for both types of conflict, compared with managers who score high on the undifferentiated dimension. One 2 X 2 X 2 (High vs. Low Instrumentality X High vs. Low Expressiveness X Conflict Type) MANOVA was employed to test the hypotheses. Conflict type was used as the repeated measures factor as it was assessed twice (interpersonal conflict and moral/ethical conflict). Results supported the hypothesis that high-instrumental managers report greater use of the dominating conflict management strategy, compared with low-instrumental managers, F (1,130) = 10.20, p <.002. Analyses also revealed that both high-expressive and high-instrumental managers reported greater use of the integrating conflict management strategy (F (1,130) = 9.26, p <.003, and F (1,130) = 6.21, p <.01, respectively). This finding supports the hypothesis that androgynous managers report greater use of the integrating conflict management strategy, compared with undifferentiated persons. MANOVA, however, found no significant main effects by conflict type for expressiveness or instrumentality, thus failing to support the remaining hypotheses. Based on the study's findings, implications for future research and application are discussed.Education, Faculty ofEducational and Counselling Psychology, and Special Education (ECPS), Department ofGraduat