Diatom abundance in surface sediments of the northern North Pacific

In order to map the modern distribution of diatoms and to establish a reliable reference data set for paleoenvironmental reconstruction in the northern North Pacific, a new data set including the relative abundance of diatom species preserved in a total of 422 surface sediments was generated, which covers a broad range of environmental variables characteristic of the subarctic North Pacific, the Sea of Okhotsk and the Bering Sea between 30° and 70°N. The biogeographic distribution patterns as well as the preferences in sea surface temperature of 38 diatom species and species groups are documented. A Q-mode factor analysis yields a three-factor model representing assemblages associated with the Arctic, Subarctic and Subtropical water mass, indicating a close relationship between the diatom composition and the sea surface temperatures. The relative abundance pattern of 38 diatom species and species groups was statistically compared with nine environmental variables, i.e. the summer sea surface temperature and salinity, annual surface nutrient concentration (nitrate, phosphate, silicate), summer and winter mixed layer depth and summer and winter sea ice concentrations. Canonical Correspondence Analysis (CCA) indicates 32 species and species groups have strong correspondence with the pattern of summer sea surface temperature. In addition, the total diatom flux data compiled from ten sediment traps reveal that the seasonal signals preserved in the surface sediments are mostly from spring through autumn. This close relationship between diatom composition and the summer sea surface temperature will be useful in deriving a transfer function in the subarctic North Pacific for the quantitative paleoceanographic and paleoenvironmental studies. The relative abundance of the sea-ice indicator diatoms Fragilariopsis cylindrus and F. oceanica of >20% in the diatom composition is used to represent the winter sea ice edge in the Bering Sea. The northern boundary of the distribution of F. doliolus in the open ocean is suggested to be an indicator of the Subarctic Front, while the abundance of Chaetoceros resting spores may indicate iron input from nearby continents and shelves and induced productivity events in the study area.

Diatom abundance in surface sediments of the Southern Ocean

Based on the quantitative analysis of diatom assemblages preserved in 274 surface sediment samples recovered in the Pacific, Atlantic and western Indian sectors of the Southern Ocean we have defined a new reference database for quantitative estimation of late-middle Pleistocene Antarctic sea ice fields using the transfer function technique. The Detrended Canonical Analysis (DCA) of the diatom data set points to a unimodal distribution of the diatom assemblages. Canonical Correspondence Analysis (CCA) indicates that winter sea ice (WSI) but also summer sea surface temperature (SSST) represent the most prominent environmental variables that control the spatial species distribution. To test the applicability of transfer functions for sea ice reconstruction in terms of concentration and occurrence probability we applied four different methods, the Imbrie and Kipp Method (IKM), the Modern Analog Technique (MAT), Weighted Averaging (WA), and Weighted Averaging Partial Least Squares (WAPLS), using logarithm-transformed diatom data and satellite-derived (1981-2010) sea ice data as a reference. The best performance for IKM results was obtained using a subset of 172 samples with 28 diatom taxa/taxa groups, quadratic regression and a three-factor model (IKM-D172/28/3q) resulting in root mean square errors of prediction (RMSEP) of 7.27% and 11.4% for WSI and summer sea ice (SSI) concentration, respectively. MAT estimates were calculated with different numbers of analogs (4, 6) using a 274-sample/28-taxa reference data set (MAT-D274/28/4an, -6an) resulting in RMSEP's ranging from 5.52% (4an) to 5.91% (6an) for WSI as well as 8.93% (4an) to 9.05% (6an) for SSI. WA and WAPLS performed less well with the D274 data set, compared to MAT, achieving WSI concentration RMSEP's of 9.91% with WA and 11.29% with WAPLS, recommending the use of IKM and MAT. The application of IKM and MAT to surface sediment data revealed strong relations to the satellite-derived winter and summer sea ice field. Sea ice reconstructions performed on an Atlantic- and a Pacific Southern Ocean sediment core, both documenting sea ice variability over the past 150,000 years (MIS 1 - MIS 6), resulted in similar glacial/interglacial trends of IKM and MAT-based sea-ice estimates. On the average, however, IKM estimates display smaller WSI and slightly higher SSI concentration and probability at lower variability in comparison with MAT. This pattern is a result of different estimation techniques with integration of WSI and SSI signals in one single factor assemblage by applying IKM and selecting specific single samples, thus keeping close to the original diatom database and included variability, by MAT. In contrast to the estimation of WSI, reconstructions of past SSI variability remains weaker. Combined with diatom-based estimates, the abundance and flux pattern of biogenic opal represents an additional indication for the WSI and SSI extent.

Characterization of urban aerosol in Cork city (Ireland) using aerosol mass spectrometry

Ambient wintertime background urban aerosol in Cork city, Ireland, was characterized using aerosol mass spectrometry. During the three-week measurement study in 2009, 93% of the ca. 1 350 000 single particles characterized by an Aerosol Time-of-Flight Mass Spectrometer (TSI ATOFMS) were classified into five organic-rich particle types, internally mixed to different proportions with elemental carbon (EC), sulphate and nitrate, while the remaining 7% was predominantly inorganic in nature. Non-refractory PM1 aerosol was characterized using a High Resolution Time-of-Flight Aerosol Mass Spectrometer (Aerodyne HR-ToF-AMS) and was also found to comprise organic aerosol as the most abundant species (62 %), followed by nitrate (15 %), sulphate (9 %) and ammonium (9 %), and chloride (5 %). Positive matrix factorization (PMF) was applied to the HR-ToF-AMS organic matrix, and a five-factor solution was found to describe the variance in the data well. Specifically, "hydrocarbon-like" organic aerosol (HOA) comprised 20% of the mass, "low-volatility" oxygenated organic aerosol (LV-OOA) comprised 18 %, "biomass burning" organic aerosol (BBOA) comprised 23 %, non-wood solid-fuel combustion "peat and coal" organic aerosol (PCOA) comprised 21 %, and finally a species type characterized by primary m/z peaks at 41 and 55, similar to previously reported "cooking" organic aerosol (COA), but possessing different diurnal variations to what would be expected for cooking activities, contributed 18 %. Correlations between the different particle types obtained by the two aerosol mass spectrometers are also discussed. Despite wood, coal and peat being minor fuel types used for domestic space heating in urban areas, their relatively low combustion efficiencies result in a significant contribution to PM1 aerosol mass (44% and 28% of the total organic aerosol mass and non-refractory total PM1, respectively).Ambient wintertime background urban aerosol in Cork city, Ireland, was characterized using aerosol mass spectrometry. During the three-week measurement study in 2009, 93% of the ca. 1 350 000 single particles characterized by an Aerosol Time-of-Flight Mass Spectrometer (TSI ATOFMS) were classified into five organic-rich particle types, internally mixed to different proportions with elemental carbon (EC), sulphate and nitrate, while the remaining 7% was predominantly inorganic in nature. Non-refractory PM1 aerosol was characterized using a High Resolution Time-of-Flight Aerosol Mass Spectrometer (Aerodyne HR-ToF-AMS) and was also found to comprise organic aerosol as the most abundant species (62 %), followed by nitrate (15 %), sulphate (9 %) and ammonium (9 %), and chloride (5 %). Positive matrix factorization (PMF) was applied to the HR-ToF-AMS organic matrix, and a five-factor solution was found to describe the variance in the data well. Specifically, "hydrocarbon-like" organic aerosol (HOA) comprised 20% of the mass, "low-volatility" oxygenated organic aerosol (LV-OOA) comprised 18 %, "biomass burning" organic aerosol (BBOA) comprised 23 %, non-wood solid-fuel combustion "peat and coal" organic aerosol (PCOA) comprised 21 %, and finally a species type characterized by primary m/z peaks at 41 and 55, similar to previously reported "cooking" organic aerosol (COA), but possessing different diurnal variations to what would be expected for cooking activities, contributed 18 %. Correlations between the different particle types obtained by the two aerosol mass spectrometers are also discussed. Despite wood, coal and peat being minor fuel types used for domestic space heating in urban areas, their relatively low combustion efficiencies result in a significant contribution to PM1 aerosol mass (44% and 28% of the total organic aerosol mass and non-refractory total PM1, respectively).

New Advancements of Scalable Statistical Methods for Learning Latent Structures in Big Data

Constant technology advances have caused data explosion in recent years. Accord- ingly modern statistical and machine learning methods must be adapted to deal with complex and heterogeneous data types. This phenomenon is particularly true for an- alyzing biological data. For example DNA sequence data can be viewed as categorical variables with each nucleotide taking four different categories. The gene expression data, depending on the quantitative technology, could be continuous numbers or counts. With the advancement of high-throughput technology, the abundance of such data becomes unprecedentedly rich. Therefore efficient statistical approaches are crucial in this big data era.

Previous statistical methods for big data often aim to find low dimensional struc- tures in the observed data. For example in a factor analysis model a latent Gaussian distributed multivariate vector is assumed. With this assumption a factor model produces a low rank estimation of the covariance of the observed variables. Another example is the latent Dirichlet allocation model for documents. The mixture pro- portions of topics, represented by a Dirichlet distributed variable, is assumed. This dissertation proposes several novel extensions to the previous statistical methods that are developed to address challenges in big data. Those novel methods are applied in multiple real world applications including construction of condition specific gene co-expression networks, estimating shared topics among newsgroups, analysis of pro- moter sequences, analysis of political-economics risk data and estimating population structure from genotype data.

Essays in the Economics of Education

This dissertation is comprised of three essays in the economics of education. In the first essay, I examine how college students' major choice and major switching behavior responds to major-specific labor market shocks. The second essay explores the incidence and persistence of overeducation for workers in the United States. The final essay examines the role that students' cognitive and non-cognitive skills play in their transition from secondary to postsecondary education, and how the effect of these skills are moderated by race, gender, and socioeconomic status.

Multi-View Weighted Network

Extensive investigation has been conducted on network data, especially weighted network in the form of symmetric matrices with discrete count entries. Motivated by statistical inference on multi-view weighted network structure, this paper proposes a Poisson-Gamma latent factor model, not only separating view-shared and view-specific spaces but also achieving reduced dimensionality. A multiplicative gamma process shrinkage prior is implemented to avoid over parameterization and efficient full conditional conjugate posterior for Gibbs sampling is accomplished. By the accommodating of view-shared and view-specific parameters, flexible adaptability is provided according to the extents of similarity across view-specific space. Accuracy and efficiency are tested by simulated experiment. An application on real soccer network data is also proposed to illustrate the model.

Bayesian Learning with Dependency Structures via Latent Factors, Mixtures, and Copulas

Bayesian methods offer a flexible and convenient probabilistic learning framework to extract interpretable knowledge from complex and structured data. Such methods can characterize dependencies among multiple levels of hidden variables and share statistical strength across heterogeneous sources. In the first part of this dissertation, we develop two dependent variational inference methods for full posterior approximation in non-conjugate Bayesian models through hierarchical mixture- and copula-based variational proposals, respectively. The proposed methods move beyond the widely used factorized approximation to the posterior and provide generic applicability to a broad class of probabilistic models with minimal model-specific derivations. In the second part of this dissertation, we design probabilistic graphical models to accommodate multimodal data, describe dynamical behaviors and account for task heterogeneity. In particular, the sparse latent factor model is able to reveal common low-dimensional structures from high-dimensional data. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed statistical learning methods on both synthetic and real-world data.

Multistabilities and symmetry-broken one-color and two-color states in closely coupled single-mode lasers

We theoretically investigate the dynamics of two mutually coupled, identical single-mode semi-conductor lasers. For small separation and large coupling between the lasers, symmetry-broken one-color states are shown to be stable. In this case the light outputs of the lasers have significantly different intensities while at the same time the lasers are locked to a single common frequency. For intermediate coupling we observe stable symmetry-broken two-color states, where both lasers lase simultaneously at two optical frequencies which are separated by up to 150 GHz. Using a five-dimensional model, we identify the bifurcation structure which is responsible for the appearance of symmetric and symmetry-broken one-color and two-color states. Several of these states give rise to multistabilities and therefore allow for the design of all-optical memory elements on the basis of two coupled single-mode lasers. The switching performance of selected designs of optical memory elements is studied numerically.

De Invloed van Altruïsme op de Samenhang tussen Leeftijd en Mentale Veerkracht

Het primaire doel van deze studie was meer helderheid te krijgen over de invloed van altruïsme op de positieve associatie tussen leeftijd en mentale veerkracht. Het secundaire doel was een factor te kunnen aanwijzen die de positieve relatie tussen leeftijd en mentale veerkracht zou mediëren of anderszins verklaren. Meer begrip over factoren die samenhangen met mentale veerkracht, zou kunnen leiden tot de ontwikkeling en verfijning van trainingen ter bevordering van mentale veerkracht. De studie kende een cross-sectionele opzet met één meetmoment. Van de 92 oudere deelnemers werden er 66 met hulp van sleuteldeelnemers in het netwerk van de onderzoeker gevonden. De overige 26 zijn oudere deelnemers uit de database van de OU. Alle jongvolwassenen zijn afkomstig uit de database van de OU. In totaal zijn er 160 deelnemers geïncludeerd in deze studie, waarvan 68 jongvolwassenen tussen de 18 en 45 en 92 oudere volwassenen van 60 jaar of ouder. De uitgevoerde regressie analyses waren gericht op de veronderstelde mediërende verklaring door altruïsme van de relatie tussen leeftijd en mentale veerkracht. Mentale veerkracht werd gemeten met de Resilience Scale (RS-nl; Portzky, 2010). De Nederlandse vertaling van de NEO Five Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI; Hoekstra, Ormel & Fruyt, 1996) werd gebruikt om altruïsme te meten. Van de RS-nl is de totaalscore geanalyseerd, van de NEO zijn alleen de vragen met betrekking tot altruïsme geanalyseerd. De mediatie-analyse is uitgevoerd middels de 4 stappen methode van Baron en Kenny (beschreven in Verboon, 2010). De hypothese betreffende de positieve samenhang tussen leeftijd en mentale veerkracht werd bevestigd (b = .12, t(153) = 3.91, p < .001). Er werd geen samenhang tussen leeftijd en altruïsme of tussen altruïsme en mentale veerkracht gevonden. Hierdoor kon er geen sprake zijn van mediatie door altruïsme op de relatie tussen leeftijd en mentale veerkracht.

De Relatie tussen Angst- en Stemmingsklachten en Self-disclosure: het Effect van Emotie-inhibitie en Mindfulness

Angst- en stemmingsklachten worden geassocieerd met verminderde self-disclosure. Met self-disclosure wordt zelfonthulling van ervaren emoties bedoeld. Dit speelt een rol bij zelfacceptatie en zelfinzicht, en is belangrijk bij gesprekstherapie. Deze studie onderzocht of emotie-inhibitie de negatieve relatie tussen angst- en stemmingsklachten en self-diclosure verklaart, en of de relatie gunstig te beïnvloeden is door mindfulness. Het effect van mindfulness op deze relatie was nog niet eerder onderzocht. Deelnemers waren 99 vrouwen van 24 t/m 74 jaar (M = 44.60, SD = 10.55) en 26 mannen van 26 t/m 77 jaar (M = 48.27, SD = 12.68), afkomstig uit de normale Nederlands populatie. Het onderzoeksontwerp betrof een cross-sectioneel online vragenlijstonderzoek, waarbij gebruik gemaakt werd van de Symptom Checklist (Arrindel & Ettema, 1986), Emotional Self-Disclosure Scale (Snell, Miller, & Belk, 1988), Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (Gross & John, 2003) en Five Factor Mindfulness Questionnaire – Short Form (Bohlmeijer, Ten Klooster, Fledderus, Veehof, & Baer, 2011). Resultaten tonen, conform bestaande literatuur, dat angst- en stemmingsklachten negatief samenhangen met self-disclosure. Emotie-inhibitie heeft echter géén mediatie-effect en mindfulness heeft géén moderatie-effect op de negatieve relatie tussen angst- en stemmingsklachten en self-disclosure. Mindfulness heeft wel mediatie-effect op deze relatie. Mindfulness hangt hierbij positief samen met self-disclosure. De relevantie van de bevindingen is vooral praktisch: om mensen met angst- en stemmingsklachten te stimuleren over hun emoties te praten zou mindfulness aangewend kunnen worden.

Testing the psychometric properties of Kidscreen-27 with Irish children of low socio-economic status

Background

Kidscreen-27 was developed as part of a cross-cultural European Union-funded project to standardise the measurement of children’s health-related quality of life. Yet, research has reported mixed evidence for the hypothesised 5-factor model, and no confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) has been conducted on the instrument with children of low socio-economic status (SES) across Ireland (Northern and Republic).

Method

The data for this study were collected as part of a clustered randomised controlled trial. A total of 663 (347 male, 315 female) 8–9-year-old children (M = 8.74, SD = .50) of low SES took part. A 5- and modified 7-factor CFA models were specified using the maximum likelihood estimation. A nested Chi-square difference test was conducted to compare the fit of the models. Internal consistency and floor and ceiling effects were also examined.

Results

CFA found that the hypothesised 5-factor model was an unacceptable fit. However, the modified 7-factor model was supported. A nested Chi-square difference test confirmed that the fit of the 7-factor model was significantly better than that of the 5-factor model. Internal consistency was unacceptable for just one scale. Ceiling effects were present in all but one of the factors.

Conclusions

Future research should apply the 7-factor model with children of low socio-economic status. Such efforts would help monitor the health status of the population.

Méthodes de Bootstrap pour les modèles à facteurs

Cette thèse développe des méthodes bootstrap pour les modèles à facteurs qui sont couram- ment utilisés pour générer des prévisions depuis l'article pionnier de Stock et Watson (2002) sur les indices de diffusion. Ces modèles tolèrent l'inclusion d'un grand nombre de variables macroéconomiques et financières comme prédicteurs, une caractéristique utile pour inclure di- verses informations disponibles aux agents économiques. Ma thèse propose donc des outils éco- nométriques qui améliorent l'inférence dans les modèles à facteurs utilisant des facteurs latents extraits d'un large panel de prédicteurs observés. Il est subdivisé en trois chapitres complémen- taires dont les deux premiers en collaboration avec Sílvia Gonçalves et Benoit Perron. Dans le premier article, nous étudions comment les méthodes bootstrap peuvent être utilisées pour faire de l'inférence dans les modèles de prévision pour un horizon de h périodes dans le futur. Pour ce faire, il examine l'inférence bootstrap dans un contexte de régression augmentée de facteurs où les erreurs pourraient être autocorrélées. Il généralise les résultats de Gonçalves et Perron (2014) et propose puis justifie deux approches basées sur les résidus : le block wild bootstrap et le dependent wild bootstrap. Nos simulations montrent une amélioration des taux de couverture des intervalles de confiance des coefficients estimés en utilisant ces approches comparativement à la théorie asymptotique et au wild bootstrap en présence de corrélation sérielle dans les erreurs de régression. Le deuxième chapitre propose des méthodes bootstrap pour la construction des intervalles de prévision permettant de relâcher l'hypothèse de normalité des innovations. Nous y propo- sons des intervalles de prédiction bootstrap pour une observation h périodes dans le futur et sa moyenne conditionnelle. Nous supposons que ces prévisions sont faites en utilisant un ensemble de facteurs extraits d'un large panel de variables. Parce que nous traitons ces facteurs comme latents, nos prévisions dépendent à la fois des facteurs estimés et les coefficients de régres- sion estimés. Sous des conditions de régularité, Bai et Ng (2006) ont proposé la construction d'intervalles asymptotiques sous l'hypothèse de Gaussianité des innovations. Le bootstrap nous permet de relâcher cette hypothèse et de construire des intervalles de prédiction valides sous des hypothèses plus générales. En outre, même en supposant la Gaussianité, le bootstrap conduit à des intervalles plus précis dans les cas où la dimension transversale est relativement faible car il prend en considération le biais de l'estimateur des moindres carrés ordinaires comme le montre une étude récente de Gonçalves et Perron (2014). Dans le troisième chapitre, nous suggérons des procédures de sélection convergentes pour les regressions augmentées de facteurs en échantillons finis. Nous démontrons premièrement que la méthode de validation croisée usuelle est non-convergente mais que sa généralisation, la validation croisée «leave-d-out» sélectionne le plus petit ensemble de facteurs estimés pour l'espace généré par les vraies facteurs. Le deuxième critère dont nous montrons également la validité généralise l'approximation bootstrap de Shao (1996) pour les regressions augmentées de facteurs. Les simulations montrent une amélioration de la probabilité de sélectionner par- cimonieusement les facteurs estimés comparativement aux méthodes de sélection disponibles. L'application empirique revisite la relation entre les facteurs macroéconomiques et financiers, et l'excès de rendement sur le marché boursier américain. Parmi les facteurs estimés à partir d'un large panel de données macroéconomiques et financières des États Unis, les facteurs fortement correlés aux écarts de taux d'intérêt et les facteurs de Fama-French ont un bon pouvoir prédictif pour les excès de rendement.

Estudo Preliminar das Propriedades Psicométricas do Inventário de Lateralidade de Edinburgh numa Amostra de Adultos da População Portuguesa

Introdução: A lateralidade é a diferença na capacidade de controlo entre os dois lados do corpo. Os métodos utilizados para avaliar a lateralidade manual incluem a observação efetiva do uso do membro dominante ou a aplicação de inventários respondidos pelo próprio indivíduo avaliado. O Inventário de Lateralidade de Edinburgh (EHI) é o instrumento mais utilizado para avaliar a lateralidade manual. Apesar do seu uso amplo, em Portugal não existem estudos que avaliem a sua validade e fidedignidade. Objetivos: Estudar as propriedades psicométricas do Inventário de Lateralidade de Edinburgh numa amostra da população portuguesa. Métodos: A amostra é constituída por 290 pessoas (135 homens e 155 mulheres), com idades compreendidas entre os 18 e os 65 anos. Todos os participantes preencheram uma declaração de consentimento informado e uma bateria de testes neuropsicológicos Resultados: A média no EHI foi de 62,36 (DP = 38,00). Os resultados demonstraram que das seis variáveis sociodemográficas (idade, sexo, escolaridade, zona de residência, regiões e profissão) três apresentaram ter influência significativa nas pontuações do EHI: idade, zona de residência e regiões. A confiabilidade e a estabilidade temporal do EHI apresentaram resultados adequados. A análise fatorial confirmatória mostrou que o modelo não é melhor explicado por um fator. Para dois fatores o modelo continua a não ser adequado. Conclusão: Apesar de termos obtido uma boa consistência interna não nos é possível considerar este teste como o mais adequado para medir o constructo da lateralidade. / Introduction: The handedness is the difference in the control capacity between the two sides of the body. The methods used to evaluate the manual handedness include the effective observation of the use of dominant member or application of inventories answered by the person assessed. The Edinburgh Handedness Inventory (EHI) is the most used to evaluate manual handedness. Even though being widely used, in Portugal there are no studies that measure its validity and reliability. Objective: To study the psychometric properties of Edinburgh Handedness Inventory in a Portuguese sample. Methods: The sample consists of 290 people (135 men and 155 women), aged between 18 and 65 years. All participants filled an informed consent form and a battery of neuropsychological tests. Results: The average in EHI was 62.36 (SD = 38.00). The results showed that 3 of 6 sociodemographic variables showed significant influence in EHI scores. The reliability and temporal stability of EHI were adequate. Confirmatory factor analysis showed that the model is not better explained by one factor. A two-factor model was not also suitable. Conclusion: Even though we got a good internal consistency we cannot consider this test as the most appropriate for measuring the handedness construct.

A Personalidade e os Sintomas Psicopatológicos numa Amostra de Estudantes de Psicologia

Atualmente, as investigações acerca da personalidade e dos sintomas psicopatológicos, nos estudantes de Psicologia, parecem ser escassas. De modo a que nos pareceu interessante perceber um pouco mais sobre estas personalidades e sobre os sintomas psicopatológicos adjacentes aos mesmos. Assim sendo, o presente estudo teve como objetivo definir o perfil dos estudantes de Psicologia, explorando as variáveis: personalidade, sintomas psicopatológicos e a relação destas com as variáveis sociodemográficas sexo e anos de curso. Para que este estudo se pudesse realizar, foram inquiridos 240 estudantes, do primeiro e segundo ciclo de Psicologia, pertencentes a Instituições de Ensino Públicas e Privadas do Centro e Norte do País. O questionário foi enviado pelas escolas, sob a forma de hiperligação e foi composto pelo Inventário dos Cinco Fatores de Personalidade (NEO-FFI), pelo Inventário dos Sintomas Psicopatológicos (BSI) e pelo Questionário Sociodemográfico, formulado pelo investigador. No NEO-FFI, verificámos que a Conscienciosidade é a dimensão da personalidade mais predominante. E no BSI, averiguámos que a Depressão e o Psicoticismo foram os sintomas psicopatológicos que apresentaram valores médios mais elevados. Na comparação entre sexos pudemos observar que existem diferenças significativas na dimensão da personalidade Abertura à Experiência (NEO-FFI) e na Sensibilidade Interpessoal e Ideação Paranóide (BSI). Em ambos os instrumentos, pudemos observar, também, que o sexo masculino tende a apresentar valores mais elevados em comparação ao sexo feminino. Em suma, neste projeto de investigação encontrámos alguns resultados similares a estudos anteriores e, também, alguns dados que nos despertam a curiosidade e suscitam interesse para futuras investigações. / Nowadays, investigations about personality and psychopathological symptoms on Psychology students seem to be scarce. Because of that it seemed interesting to us to learn more about these personalities and about the psychopathological symptoms behind them. For that reason, the main purpose of the present study was to explore the profile of psychology students in what concerns personality, psychopathological symptoms and their relation with gender and years of graduation. We inquired 240 students, studying in public and private institutions from the centre and north of Portugal, and used three instruments: the NEO Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI), The Brief Symptoms Inventory (BSI) and a Social-Demographic Questionnaire created by the investigator. The results showed that in the NEO-FFI, Conscientiousness was the most predominant dimension. Regarding the BSI, we found that Depression and Psychoticism were the symptoms that presented higher values. In what concerns gender, there was significant differences in the dimension Openness to Experience (NEO-FFI) and in Interpersonal Sensitivity and Paranoid Ideation (BSI). In both instruments there was a tendency to male students score higher than female students. In conclusion, we found some results that are similar to previous studies and also found some indicators that raise curiosity for further investigation on the profile of psychology students.

Estudo Preliminar das Propriedades Psicométricas e dos Dados Normativos da Forma Geral das Matrizes Progressivas de Raven numa Amostra da Comunidade

Objetivo: Estudar as propriedades psicométricas e os dados normativos da Forma Geral das Matrizes Progressivas de Raven numa amostra da comunidade da população portuguesa. Método: A amostra é constituída por 697 pessoas (314 homens e 383 mulheres), com idades compreendidas entre os 12 e os 90 anos. Todos os participantes preencheram uma declaração de consentimento informado e uma bateria de testes neuropsicológicos, incluindo a Forma Geral das Matrizes Progressivas de Raven (FG-MPR), Teste de Memória de 15-Item de Rey, Escala de Autoavaliação de Ansiedade de Zung, Bateria de Avaliação Frontal e Figura Complexa de Rey. Resultados: A média na FG-MPR foi de 44,47 (DP = 10,78). Os resultados demonstraram que todas as variáveis sociodemográficas (idade, sexo, escolaridade, profissão, regiões e tipologia de áreas urbanas), exceto o estado civil, apresentaram ter influência significativa nas pontuações da FG-MPR. A confiabilidade e a estabilidade temporal da FG-MPR revelaram-se adequadas. A análise fatorial exploratória e confirmatória mostrou que o modelo para um fator não é adequado. Um modelo a quatro fatores continua a não ser adequado. Conclusão: Os dados do presente estudo sugerem que se trata de um instrumento com potencialidades na sua utilização junto da população portuguesa. / Purpose: To study the psychometric properties and date normative of the Raven’s Standard Progressive Matrices in a Portuguese community sample. Method: The sample consists of 697 people (314 men and 383 women), aged between 12 and 90 years. All participants filled an informed consent form and a battery of neuropsychological tests, which included Raven’s Standard Progressive Matrices (RSPM), Rey 15-Item Memory Test, Zung Self-Rating Anxiety Scale, Frontal Assessment Battery, and Rey Complex Figure Test. Results: The average in RSPM was 44.47 (SD = 10.78). The results showed that all of the sociodemographic variables (age, sex, education, profession, region, and typology of urban areas), with the exception of civil status, showed significant influence on RSPM scores. The reliability and temporal stability of RSPM were adequate. Exploratory and Confirmatory factor analysis showed that the model is not better explained by one factor. A two-factor model was not also suitable. Conclusion: The data from this study suggest that it is an instrument with potential for its use among the Portuguese population.