Profils individuels et dynamiques interactionnelles des parents et des enfants à risque d’aliénation parentale dans un contexte d’une rupture conjugale litigieuse

L’aliénation parentale (AP) est un phénomène connu des intervenants sociolégaux œuvrant auprès des familles éclatées chez lesquelles on retrouve un haut niveau de conflits parentaux. Ce phénomène est peu étudié empiriquement et sa définition et les balises l’entourant demeurent à ce jour non circonscrites et suscitent confusion et controverse. Cette recherche n’a pas comme objectif de trancher sur ce qui est ou n’est pas de l’aliénation parentale, mais porte plutôt sur l’étude du phénomène de Détérioration du lien parent-enfant (DLPE), qui inclut une rupture complète du lien comme dans les cas d’AP, lors de séparations conjugales litigieuses. Cette thèse doctorale a pour objectif principal d’élargir notre compréhension sur les différents facteurs qui interagissent et qui mettent en place une situation familiale de DLPE. Le présent ouvrage est composé de quatre articles, dont trois sont empiriques. Le premier article est une synthèse critique des écrits théoriques et empiriques permettant de dégager les différents facteurs, conduites ou contextes individuels et relationnels associés à une DLPE. Il ressort que la plupart des écrits proviennent de comptes rendus cliniques. De plus, peu d’auteurs abordent ce phénomène dans une perspective systémique incluant une vision multifactorielle de cette situation. Plusieurs aspects demandent à être étudiés davantage : les caractéristiques individuelles, les comportements inappropriés des acteurs et les dynamiques familiales. En définitive, il importe d’établir les facteurs de résilience. Les articles 2, 3 et 4 ont été réalisés suite à une analyse qualitative de 17 dossiers d’expertise psychosociale de familles séparées en litige autour des accès des enfants. Le second article a pour objectif d’apporter un éclairage fouillé sur les structures de personnalité des parents impliqués dans de tels litiges. Il se dégage de cette analyse que les parents contribuent différemment à la dynamique familiale en fonction de leur profil de personnalité. Quatre profils parentaux ont émergé et permettent de discerner en quoi les parents aux conduites aliénantes se distinguent des parents dénigrés au niveau des profils de personnalité et en quoi la personnalité de ces parents est respectivement différente selon qu’ils maintiennent ou pas la relation avec leur enfant. L’analyse approfondie des profils parentaux a permis de formuler certains facteurs de risque et de protection relatifs à la structure de la personnalité des parents à risque d’une DLPE. Le troisième article a pour objectif d’évaluer par une lecture psychodynamique les différentes caractéristiques individuelles des enfants dans l’optique d’établir des pistes pouvant élucider pourquoi un enfant est résistant à une DLPE ou, au contraire, ne l’est pas. L’analyse qualitative fouillée des dossiers d’expertise a permis d’extraire différents facteurs de risque et de protection d’une DLPE chez ces enfants. Le quatrième article cherche à modéliser les différents facteurs de risque ou, au contraire, qui atténuent le risque de DLPE. Trois trajectoires dénotant une dynamique de DLPE ont émergé. Une modélisation systémique reprend l’ensemble des facteurs (dynamiques personnelles et relationnelles, contexte familial, système sociojuridique, personnes tierces et temps) émergeant de l’analyse et leur déploiement spécifique à chaque trajectoire.

Harmful or helpful : perceived solicitous and facilitative partner responses are differentially associated with pain and sexual satisfaction in women with provoked vestibulodynia.

Introduction.  Provoked vestibulodynia (PVD) is a highly prevalent vulvovaginal pain condition that negatively affects women's emotional, sexual, and relationship well-being. Recent studies have investigated the role of interpersonal variables, including partner responses. Aim.  We examined whether solicitous and facilitative partner responses were differentially associated with vulvovaginal pain and sexual satisfaction in women with PVD by examining each predictor while controlling for the other. Methods.  One hundred twenty-one women (M age = 30.60, SD = 10.53) with PVD or self-reported symptoms of PVD completed the solicitous subscale of the spouse response scale of the Multidimensional Pain Inventory, and the facilitative subscale of the Spouse Response Inventory. Participants also completed measures of pain, sexual function, sexual satisfaction, trait anxiety, and avoidance of pain and sexual behaviors (referred to as “avoidance”). Main Outcome Measures.  Dependent measures were the (i) Pain Rating Index of the McGill Pain Questionnaire with reference to pain during vaginal intercourse and (ii) Global Measure of Sexual Satisfaction Scale. Results.  Controlling for trait anxiety and avoidance, higher solicitous partner responses were associated with higher vulvovaginal pain intensity (β = 0.20, P = 0.03), and higher facilitative partner responses were associated with lower pain intensity (β = −0.20, P = 0.04). Controlling for sexual function, trait anxiety, and avoidance, higher facilitative partner responses were associated with higher sexual satisfaction (β = 0.15, P = 0.05). Conclusions.  Findings suggest that facilitative partner responses may aid in alleviating vulvovaginal pain and improving sexual satisfaction, whereas solicitous partner responses may contribute to greater pain.

Development of thermoplastic conducting polymer composites based on polyaniline and polythiophenes for microwave and electrical applications

The microwave and electrical applications of some important conducting polymers are analyzed in this investigation.One of the major drawbacks of conducting polymers is their poor processability,and a solution to overcome this is sought in this investigation.Conducting polymer thermoplastic composites were prepared by the insitu polymerization method to improve the extent of miscibility probably to a semi IPN level.The attractive features of the conducting composite developed are excellent processability,good microwave and electrical conductivity,good microwave absorption,load sensitivity and satisfactory mechanical properties.The composite shows typical frequency selective microwave absorption and refelection behaviors.

Recurrence Quantification Analysis of System Signals for Detecting Tool and Chatter in Turning

In this thesis, the applications of the recurrence quantification analysis in metal cutting operation in a lathe, with specific objective to detect tool wear and chatter, are presented.This study is based on the discovery that process dynamics in a lathe is low dimensional chaotic. It implies that the machine dynamics is controllable using principles of chaos theory. This understanding is to revolutionize the feature extraction methodologies used in condition monitoring systems as conventional linear methods or models are incapable of capturing the critical and strange behaviors associated with the metal cutting process.As sensor based approaches provide an automated and cost effective way to monitor and control, an efficient feature extraction methodology based on nonlinear time series analysis is much more demanding. The task here is more complex when the information has to be deduced solely from sensor signals since traditional methods do not address the issue of how to treat noise present in real-world processes and its non-stationarity. In an effort to get over these two issues to the maximum possible, this thesis adopts the recurrence quantification analysis methodology in the study since this feature extraction technique is found to be robust against noise and stationarity in the signals.The work consists of two different sets of experiments in a lathe; set-I and set-2. The experiment, set-I, study the influence of tool wear on the RQA variables whereas the set-2 is carried out to identify the sensitive RQA variables to machine tool chatter followed by its validation in actual cutting. To obtain the bounds of the spectrum of the significant RQA variable values, in set-i, a fresh tool and a worn tool are used for cutting. The first part of the set-2 experiments uses a stepped shaft in order to create chatter at a known location. And the second part uses a conical section having a uniform taper along the axis for creating chatter to onset at some distance from the smaller end by gradually increasing the depth of cut while keeping the spindle speed and feed rate constant.The study concludes by revealing the dependence of certain RQA variables; percent determinism, percent recurrence and entropy, to tool wear and chatter unambiguously. The performances of the results establish this methodology to be viable for detection of tool wear and chatter in metal cutting operation in a lathe. The key reason is that the dynamics of the system under study have been nonlinear and the recurrence quantification analysis can characterize them adequately.This work establishes that principles and practice of machining can be considerably benefited and advanced from using nonlinear dynamics and chaos theory.

Theoretical study of magnetism, structure and chemical order in transition-metal alloy clusters

Research on transition-metal nanoalloy clusters composed of a few atoms is fascinating by their unusual properties due to the interplay among the structure, chemical order and magnetism. Such nanoalloy clusters, can be used to construct nanometer devices for technological applications by manipulating their remarkable magnetic, chemical and optical properties. Determining the nanoscopic features exhibited by the magnetic alloy clusters signifies the need for a systematic global and local exploration of their potential-energy surface in order to identify all the relevant energetically low-lying magnetic isomers. In this thesis the sampling of the potential-energy surface has been performed by employing the state-of-the-art spin-polarized density-functional theory in combination with graph theory and the basin-hopping global optimization techniques. This combination is vital for a quantitative analysis of the quantum mechanical energetics. The first approach, i.e., spin-polarized density-functional theory together with the graph theory method, is applied to study the Fe$_m$Rh$_n$ and Co$_m$Pd$_n$ clusters having $N = m+n \leq 8$ atoms. We carried out a thorough and systematic sampling of the potential-energy surface by taking into account all possible initial cluster topologies, all different distributions of the two kinds of atoms within the cluster, the entire concentration range between the pure limits, and different initial magnetic configurations such as ferro- and anti-ferromagnetic coupling. The remarkable magnetic properties shown by FeRh and CoPd nanoclusters are attributed to the extremely reduced coordination number together with the charge transfer from 3$d$ to 4$d$ elements. The second approach, i.e., spin-polarized density-functional theory together with the basin-hopping method is applied to study the small Fe$_6$, Fe$_3$Rh$_3$ and Rh$_6$ and the larger Fe$_{13}$, Fe$_6$Rh$_7$ and Rh$_{13}$ clusters as illustrative benchmark systems. This method is able to identify the true ground-state structures of Fe$_6$ and Fe$_3$Rh$_3$ which were not obtained by using the first approach. However, both approaches predict a similar cluster for the ground-state of Rh$_6$. Moreover, the computational time taken by this approach is found to be significantly lower than the first approach. The ground-state structure of Fe$_{13}$ cluster is found to be an icosahedral structure, whereas Rh$_{13}$ and Fe$_6$Rh$_7$ isomers relax into cage-like and layered-like structures, respectively. All the clusters display a remarkable variety of structural and magnetic behaviors. It is observed that the isomers having similar shape with small distortion with respect to each other can exhibit quite different magnetic moments. This has been interpreted as a probable artifact of spin-rotational symmetry breaking introduced by the spin-polarized GGA. The possibility of combining the spin-polarized density-functional theory with some other global optimization techniques such as minima-hopping method could be the next step in this direction. This combination is expected to be an ideal sampling approach having the advantage of avoiding efficiently the search over irrelevant regions of the potential energy surface.

Interaction and Intelligent Behavior

We introduce basic behaviors as primitives for control and learning in situated, embodied agents interacting in complex domains. We propose methods for selecting, formally specifying, algorithmically implementing, empirically evaluating, and combining behaviors from a basic set. We also introduce a general methodology for automatically constructing higher--level behaviors by learning to select from this set. Based on a formulation of reinforcement learning using conditions, behaviors, and shaped reinforcement, out approach makes behavior selection learnable in noisy, uncertain environments with stochastic dynamics. All described ideas are validated with groups of up to 20 mobile robots performing safe--wandering, following, aggregation, dispersion, homing, flocking, foraging, and learning to forage.

Seminar: Symbol Management systems to support democracy in development of an online Symbol Dictionary

Abstract This seminar will introduce an initial year of research exploring participation in the development of a bilingual symbol dictionary. Symbols can be a communication and literacy ‘lifeline’ for those unable to communicate through speech or writing. We will discuss how an online system has been built to overcome language, cultural and literacy skill issues for a country where 86% are expatriates but the target clients are Arabic born individuals with speech and language impairments. The symbols in use at present are inappropriate and yet there is no democratic way of providing a ‘user voice’ for making choices, let alone easy mechanisms for adapting and sharing newly developed symbols across the nation or extended Arabic world. This project aims to change this situation. Having sourced a series of symbols that could be adapted to suit user’s needs, the team needed to encourage those users, their carers and therapists to vote on whether the symbols would be appropriate and work with those already in use. The first prototype was developed and piloted during the WAISfest in 2013. The second phase needs further voting on the most suitably adapted symbols for use when communicating with others. There is a requirement to have mechanisms for evaluating the outcome of the votes, where symbols fail to represent accurate meanings, have inappropriate colours, representations and actions etc. There also remains the need to collect both quantitative and qualitative data. Not easy in a climate of acceptance of the expert view, a culture where to be critical can be a problem and time is not of the essence.

Cuando creces, yo crezco contigo”: La configuración de áreas de protección ambiental y de subjetividades en el Humedal de Córdoba y la vereda El Verjón Bajo

La configuración de lugares como áreas de protección ambiental puede ser vista como un proceso técnico y objetivo, en el que se crean políticas públicas que definen prácticas adecuadas e inadecuadas en el lugar. Pero esta configuración es un proceso histórico y negociado. Este se construye en contante diálogo entre diferentes actores que se preocupan por definir qué es la naturaleza y el cuidado ambiental, y las percepciones que individuos que habitan en o cerca a estos lugares construyen en su diario vivir. Es así como la configuración socioambiental de lugares como áreas de protección ocurre por transformaciones en la forma de percibir un lugar, la relaciones con este y sobre todo, prácticas y relaciones que se traducen en formas de negociar nociones de naturaleza y cuidado ambiental. Esta negociación tiene grandes implicaciones en los individuos, particularmente en su subjetividad. Es decir, en hechos como la forma de nombrarlo, caminarlo, observar las especies, iniciar proyectos de agricultura orgánica, cambiar prácticas productivas, el cerramiento de zonas para proteger las fuentes de agua o zonas de vegetación. También sobre su subjetividad, la manera como se sienten frente al lugar, como juzgan sus acciones y las de otros y cómo construyen objetivos personales con respecto a la idea de cuidado ambiental.

Farm and socio-economic characteristics of smallholder milk producers and their influence on technology adoption in Central Mexico

In order to identify the factors influencing adoption of technologies promoted by government to small-scale dairy farmers in the highlands of central Mexico, a field survey was conducted. A total of 115 farmers were grouped through cluster analysis (CA) and divided into three wealth status categories (high, medium and low) using wealth ranking. Chi-square analysis was used to examine the association of wealth status with technology adoption. Four groups of farms were differentiated in terms of farms’ dimensions, farmers’ education, sources of incomes, wealth status, management of herd, monetary support by government and technological availability. Statistical differences (p < 0.05) were observed in the milk yield per herd per year among groups. Government organizations (GO) participated little in the promotion of the 17 technologies identified, six of which focused on crop or forage production and 11 of which were related to animal husbandry. Relatives and other farmers played an important role in knowledge diffusion and technology adoption. Although wealth status had a significant association (p < 0.05) with adoption, other factors including importance of the technology to farmers, usefulness and productive benefits of innovations together with farmers’ knowledge of them, were important. It is concluded that the analysis of the information per group and wealth status was useful to identify suitable crop or forage related and animal husbandry technologies per group and wealth status of farmers. Therefore the characterizations of farmers could provide a useful starting point for the design and delivery of more appropriate and effective extension.

Evoked prior learning experience and approach to learning as predictors of academic achievement

Background. In separate studies and research from different perspectives, five factors are found to be among those related to higher quality outcomes of student learning (academic achievement). Those factors are higher self-efficacy, deeper approaches to learning, higher quality teaching, students’ perceptions that their workload is appropriate, and greater learning motivation. University learning improvement strategies have been built on these research results. Aim. To investigate how students’ evoked prior experience, perceptions of their learning environment, and their approaches to learning collectively contribute to academic achievement. This is the first study to investigate motivation and self-efficacy in the same educational context as conceptions of learning, approaches to learning and perceptions of the learning environment. Sample. Undergraduate students (773) from the full range of disciplines were part of a group of over 2,300 students who volunteered to complete a survey of their learning experience. On completing their degrees 6 and 18 months later, their academic achievement was matched with their learning experience survey data. Method. A 77-item questionnaire was used to gather students’ self-report of their evoked prior experience (self-efficacy, learning motivation, and conceptions of learning), perceptions of learning context (teaching quality and appropriate workload), and approaches to learning (deep and surface). Academic achievement was measured using the English honours degree classification system. Analyses were conducted using correlational and multi-variable (structural equation modelling) methods. Results. The results from the correlation methods confirmed those found in numerous earlier studies. The results from the multi-variable analyses indicated that surface approach to learning was the strongest predictor of academic achievement, with self-efficacy and motivation also found to be directly related. In contrast to the correlation results, a deep approach to learning was not related to academic achievement, and teaching quality and conceptions of learning were only indirectly related to achievement. Conclusions. Research aimed at understanding how students experience their learning environment and how that experience relates to the quality of their learning needs to be conducted using a wider range of variables and more sophisticated analytical methods. In this study of one context, some of the relations found in earlier bivariate studies, and on which learning intervention strategies have been built, are not confirmed when more holistic teaching–learning contexts are analysed using multi-variable methods.

Challenges in communicating and using ensembles in operational flood forecasting.

Following trends in operational weather forecasting, where ensemble prediction systems (EPS) are now increasingly the norm, flood forecasters are beginning to experiment with using similar ensemble methods. Most of the effort to date has focused on the substantial technical challenges of developing coupled rainfall-runoff systems to represent the full cascade of uncertainties involved in predicting future flooding. As a consequence much less attention has been given to the communication and eventual use of EPS flood forecasts. Drawing on interviews and other research with operational flood forecasters from across Europe, this paper highlights a number of challenges to communicating and using ensemble flood forecasts operationally. It is shown that operational flood forecasters understand the skill, operational limitations, and informational value of EPS products in a variety of different and sometimes contradictory ways. Despite the efforts of forecasting agencies to design effective ways to communicate EPS forecasts to non-experts, operational flood forecasters were often skeptical about the ability of forecast recipients to understand or use them appropriately. It is argued that better training and closer contacts between operational flood forecasters and EPS system designers can help ensure the uncertainty represented by EPS forecasts is represented in ways that are most appropriate and meaningful for their intended consumers, but some fundamental political and institutional challenges to using ensembles, such as differing attitudes to false alarms and to responsibility for management of blame in the event of poor or mistaken forecasts are also highlighted. Copyright © 2010 Royal Meteorological Society.

Dairy fat: perceptions and realities.

Milk provides many key nutrients but the saturated and trans fatty acids in milk fat are associated with perceived negative effects on human health, especially cardiovascular disease. Recent epidemiological studies and dietary intervention trials challenge this perception, however; available evidence does not support the concept that consumption of saturated fats or dairy products adversely affects the risk of coronary heart disease (although replacing some saturated fats with mono or polyunsaturated fats is likely to provide benefit). Furthermore, the trans fats found in dairy products are consumed in very low amounts and do not appear to have the negative health effects associated with the consumption of industrial sources of trans fat. Milk fat is an excellent source of oleic acid that originates mainly by endogenous synthesis from stearic acid, but increasing the milk fat content of unsaturated fatty acids requires dietary formulations that bypass rumen biohydrogenation. Recent research indicates that long-chain omega-3 fatty acids and conjugated linoleic acids have potential beneficial effects in health maintenance and the prevention of chronic diseases. Enhancing the milk fat content of these fatty acids offers exciting possibilities, but educating consumers about inaccurate and inappropriate generalisations about fat remains the primary challenge. Finally, individuals do not simply consume milk-fat-derived fatty acids on their own, but rather as components in dairy foods which are highly complex and may contain many beneficial ingredients. Overall, dairy products are critical in providing many of the essential nutrients in the human diet. Nevertheless, dairy products vary in their nutrient composition, including fat, and this needs to be considered in the context of dietary recommendations and our need to consume a balanced diet.

Once upon a time, there was a fabulous funambulist: What children learn about the “high-level” vocabulary they encounter while listening to stories

Previous research has shown that listening to stories supports vocabulary growth in preschool and school-aged children and that lexical entries for even very difficult or rare words can be established if these are defined when they are first introduced. However, little is known about the nature of the lexical representations children form for the words they encounter while listening to stories, or whether these are sufficiently robust to support the child’s own use of such ‘high-level’ vocabulary. This study explored these questions by administering multiple assessments of children’s knowledge about a set of newly-acquired vocabulary. Four- and 6-year-old children were introduced to nine difficult new words (including nouns, verbs and adjectives) through three exposures to a story read by their class teacher. The story included a definition of each new word at its first encounter. Learning of the target vocabulary was assessed by means of two tests of semantic understanding – a forced choice picture-selection task and a definition production task – and a grammaticality judgment task, which asked children to choose between a syntactically-appropriate and syntactically-inappropriate usage of the word. Children in both age groups selected the correct pictorial representation and provided an appropriate definition for the target words in all three word classes significantly more often than they did for a matched set of non-exposed control words. However, only the older group was able to identify the syntactically-appropriate sentence frames in the grammaticality judgment task. Further analyses elucidate some of the components of the lexical representations children lay down when they hear difficult new vocabulary in stories and how different tests of word knowledge might overlap in their assessment of these components.

Institutional pressures on financial services firms: the role of information systems in regulatory compliance

The financial crisis of 2008 led to new international regulatory controls for the governance, risk and compliance of financial services firms. Information systems play a critical role here as political, functional and social pressures may lead to the deinstitutionalization of existing structures, processes and practices. This research examines how an investment management system is introduced by a leading IT vendor across eight client sites in the post-crisis era. Using institutional theory, it examines changes in working practices occurring at the environmental and organizational levels and the ways in which technological interventions are used to apply disciplinary effects in order to prevent inappropriate behaviors. The results extend the constructs of deinstitutionalization and identify empirical predictors for the deinstitutionalization of compliance and trading practices within financial organizations.

Biology and reproductive behavior of Murgantia histrionica (Heteroptera: Pentatomidae)

Life history parameters and reproductive behaviors of the harlequin bug, Murgantia histrionica Hahn (Heteroptera: Pentatomidae), were determined. Total developmental time from egg to adult was ≈48 d. After a sexual maturation period of ≈7 d, both sexes mated repeatedly, with females laying multiple egg masses of 12 eggs at intervals of 3 d. Adult females lived an average of 41 d, whereas adult males lived an average of 25 d. Courtship and copulation activities peaked in the middle of the photophase. In mating experiments in which mixed sex pairs of virgin and previously mated bugs were combined in all possible combinations, the durations of courtship and copulation by virgin males were significantly longer with both virgin and previously mated females than the same behaviors for previously mated males. When given a choice between a virgin or previously mated female, previously mated males preferred to mate with virgin females, whereas virgin males showed no preference for virgin over previously mated females. Analyses of mating behaviors with ethograms and behavioral transition matrices suggested that a primary reason for failure to copulate by virgin males was the incorrect rotation of their pygophores to the copulation position, so that successful alignment of the genitalia could not occur.