Representing part-whole relationships in conceptual modeling: An empirical evaluation

The part-of or part-whole construct is a fundamental element of many conceptual modeling grammars that is used to associate one thing (a component) with another thing (a composite). Substantive theoretical issues surrounding the part-whole construct remain to be resolved, however. For instance, contrary to widespread claims, the relationship between components and composites is not always transitive. Moreover, how the partwhole construct should be represented in a conceptual schema diagram remains a contentious issue. Some analysts argue composites should be represented as a relationship or association. Others argue they should be represented as an entity. In this paper we use an ontological theory to support our arguments that composites should be represented as entities and not relationships or associations. We also describe an experiment that we undertook to test whether representing composites as relationships or entities enables users to understand a domain better. Our results support our arguments that using entities to represent composites enables users to better understand a domain.

Event-related potential effects of object repetition depend on attention and part-whole configuration

The effects of spatial attention and part-whole configuration on recognition of repeated objects were investigated with behavioral and event-related potential (ERP) measures. Short-term repetition effects were measured for probe objects as a function of whether a preceding prime object was shown as an intact image or coarsely scrambled (split into two halves) and whether or not it had been attended during the prime display. In line with previous behavioral experiments, priming effects were observed from both intact and split primes for attended objects, but only from intact (repeated same-view) objects when they were unattended. These behavioral results were reflected in ERP waveforms at occipital-temporal locations as more negative-going deflections for repeated items in the time window between 220 and 300 ms after probe onset (N250r). Attended intact images showed generally more enhanced repetition effects than split ones. Unattended images showed repetition effects only when presented in an intact configuration, and this finding was limited to the right-hemisphere electrodes. Repetition effects in earlier (before 200 ms) time-windows were limited to attended conditions at occipito-temporal sites (N1), a component linked to the encoding of object structure, while repetition effects at central locations during the same time window (P150) were found only from objects repeated in the same intact configuration—both previously attended and unattended probe objects. The data indicate that view-generalization is mediated by a combination of analytic (part-based) representations and automatic view-dependent representations.

Research commentary: Information systems and conceptual modeling - A research agenda

Within the information systems field, the task of conceptual modeling involves building a representation of selected phenomena in some domain. High-quality conceptual-modeling work is important because it facilitates early detection and correction of system development errors. It also plays an increasingly important role in activities like business process reengineering and documentation of best-practice data and process models in enterprise resource planning systems. Yet little research has been undertaken on many aspects of conceptual modeling. In this paper, we propose a framework to motivate research that addresses the following fundamental question: How can we model the world to better facilitate our developing, implementing, using, and maintaining more valuable information systems? The framework comprises four elements: conceptual-modeling grammars, conceptual-modeling methods, conceptual-modeling scripts, and conceptual-modeling contexts. We provide examples of the types of research that have already been undertaken on each element and illustrate research opportunities that exist.

Tals del-helhetsrelationer : Elevers sätt att urskilja del-helhetsrelationer i öppna utsagor.

På vilket sätt kan vi hjälpa alla elever att bli förtrogna med matematikens uttrycksformer? Ett sätt är att bygga en stadig aritmetisk grund för eleverna där de befäster talens innehåll. Det är vad den här uppsatsen handlar om. Uppsatsen beskriver vad som skiljer användandet av del-helhetsrelationer från andra sätt att lösa öppna utsagor på. Uppsatsen beskriver även vilka kritiska aspekter om öppna utsagor som kan förekomma hos elever i årskurs 1 och 2. Uppsat-sen är skriven ur en fenomenografisk ansats med variationsteoretiska inslag eftersom de två teorierna är nära besläktade. Studien genomfördes genom filmade intervjuer med 11 elever som valdes ut genom en munt-lig och en skriftlig diagnos samt ett skriftligt arbetsblad. Resultatet visar att elever som använ-der automatiserade del-helhetsrelationer har en fördel när de löser öppna utsagor jämfört med elever som använder andra lösningsmetoder. Skillnaderna syns tydligt när det gäller lösandet av öppna subtraktionsutsagor där helheten saknas. En väg till den abstrakta förståelsen för tals del-helhetsrelationer går via fingertalen. Min slutsats är att eleverna redan tidigt i skolan måste få undervisning om fingertalen samt talens del-helhetsrelationer för att undvika att de utvecklar matematiksvårigheter.

Aprendizagem dos números racionais não negativos com alunos do 3.º ano

Este estudo visa compreender as dificuldades que os alunos evidenciam na aprendizagem da noção de número racional não negativo. Ao longo da minha experiência como docente do 2.º ciclo, permitiu-me questionar por que razão os alunos de 5.º e 6.º ano apresentam dificuldades em compreender o conceito de fração nos seus diversos significados: número, partetodo, quociente, medida e operador multiplicativo. Foi no sentido de entender esta dificuldade na apropriação dos conhecimentos matemáticos sobre frações, que resolvi aplicar esta investigação a alunos do 1.º ciclo, nomeadamente a uma turma do 3.º ano, uma vez que é neste ano escolar que o estudo dos números racionais não negativos é aprofundado. A metodologia constou de um estudo de abordagem de carácter qualitativo, de natureza interpretativa. A recolha de dados inclui as produções escritas dos alunos e as gravações de áudio das intervenções verbais dos mesmos. A análise dos resultados realizou-se a partir das estratégias cognitivas que os alunos utilizaram para responderem às tarefas propostas. Os resultados deste estudo mostraram que a construção do sentido de número racional não é de fácil compreensão. É um conceito que requer uma abordagem multifacetada, apoiada com a manipulação de materiais estruturados ou não estruturados, para que os diferentes significados de fração fiquem bem consolidados nas estruturas cognitivas dos alunos.

La capacité d'auto-soin et le sentiment d'auto-efficacité des patients effectuant des auto-sondages intermittents à domicile

La complexité des mécanismes de contrôle neurologique du système vésicosphinctérien fait que toute pathologie concernant le cerveau, la moelle épinière ou les nerfs périphériques peut avoir des répercussions sur la continence urinaire et indirectement sur la fonction rénale. Actuellement, l'auto-sondage intermittent (ASI) est le traitement recommandé pour les personnes qui présentent des dysfonctionnements de l'appareil urétro-vésical entrainant une vidange incomplète de la vessie ou une incontinence urinaire. Toutefois, cette procédure implique un engagement, des connaissances et une participation des personnes concernées pouvant s'avérer lourds au quotidien. De ce fait, les infirmières ont un rôle primordial à jouer dans l'éducation thérapeutique et le suivi de ces personnes. Le but de cette étude descriptive corrélationnelle est d'évaluer d'une part, les relations entre le sentiment d'auto-efficacité et la capacité d'auto-soin, et d'autre part, les relations entre ces deux variables et les variables sociodémographiques et de santé des personnes pratiquant l'ASI. La théorie des auto-soins d'Orem a été retenue comme cadre de référence. Le recrutement des participants a eu lieu en Suisse romande, auprès de deux institutions de soins et d'une association de patients. L'échantillon de convenance est composé de 77 personnes pratiquant ou ayant arrêté l'ASI. Les données de l'étude ont été recueillies à l'aide d'un questionnaire de données sociodémographiques et de santé, et de deux instruments de mesure validés en français. Les trois instruments étaient auto-administrés. Les résultats montrent qu'il existe une relation entre le sentiment d'autoefficacité et la capacité d'auto-soin des personnes qui pratiquent l'ASI à domicile, r = 0,299, p = 0,0084, IC 95% [0,080, 0,490]. Le sentiment d'auto-efficacité est quant à lui associé au niveau de formation, à la durée des troubles urinaires et à l'utilisation de protection pour l'incontinence. En ce qui concerne la capacité d'auto-soin, elle est associée à l'âge des personnes qui pratiquent l'ASI. En conclusion, les résultats de cette étude nous aident à mieux comprendre quelques enjeux pouvant influencer l'utilisation des ASI à domicile. Leur intégration dans la pratique clinique devrait permettre le développement de nouvelles interventions en éducation thérapeutique et ouvrir des perspectives pour de futures recherches dans ce domaine. Cette étude représente une des premières réalisées en Suisse sur l'utilisation de l'ASI avec des patients atteints de lésion médullaire et de sclérose en plaques. Dans ce contexte, il s'avère indispensable de poursuivre nos explorations.

Other-race faces : limitations of expert face recognition /

Adults' expert face recognition is limited to the kinds of faces they encounter on a daily basis (typically upright human faces of the same race). Adults process own-race faces holistically (Le., as a gestalt) and are exquisitely sensitive to small differences among faces in the spacing of features, the shape of individual features and the outline or contour of the face (Maurer, Le Grand, & Mondloch, 2002), however this expertise does not seem to extend to faces from other races. The goal of the current study was to investigate the extent to which the mechanisms that underlie expert face processing of own-race faces extend to other-race faces. Participants from rural Pennsylvania that had minimal exposure to other-race faces were tested on a battery of tasks. They were tested on a memory task, two measures of holistic processing (the composite task and the part/whole task), two measures of spatial and featural processing (the JanelLing task and the scrambledlblurred faces task) and a test of contour processing (JanelLing task) for both own-and other-race faces. No study to date has tested the same participants on all of these tasks. Participants had minimal experience with other-race faces; they had no Chinese family members, friends or had ever traveled to an Asian country. Results from the memory task did not reveal an other-race effect. In the present study, participants also demonstrated holistic processing of both own- and other-race faces on both the composite task and the part/whole task. These findings contradict previous findings that Caucasian adults process own-race faces more holistically than other-race faces. However participants did demonstrate an own-race advantage for processing the spacing among features, consistent with two recent studies that used different manipulations of spacing cues (Hayward et al. 2007; Rhodes et al. 2006). They also demonstrated an other-race effect for the processing of individual features for the Jane/Ling task (a direct measure of featural processing) consistent with previous findings (Rhodes, Hayward, & Winkler, 2006), but not for the scrambled faces task (an indirect measure offeatural processing). There was no own-race advantage for contour processing. Thus, these results lead to the conclusion that individuals may show less sensitivity to the appearance of individual features and the spacing among them in other-race faces, despite processing other-race faces holistically.

Approche probabiliste pour l’analyse de l’impact des changements dans les programmes orientés objet

Nous proposons une approche probabiliste afin de déterminer l’impact des changements dans les programmes à objets. Cette approche sert à prédire, pour un changement donné dans une classe du système, l’ensemble des autres classes potentiellement affectées par ce changement. Cette prédiction est donnée sous la forme d’une probabilité qui dépend d’une part, des interactions entre les classes exprimées en termes de nombre d’invocations et d’autre part, des relations extraites à partir du code source. Ces relations sont extraites automatiquement par rétro-ingénierie. Pour la mise en oeuvre de notre approche, nous proposons une approche basée sur les réseaux bayésiens. Après une phase d’apprentissage, ces réseaux prédisent l’ensemble des classes affectées par un changement. L’approche probabiliste proposée est évaluée avec deux scénarios distincts mettant en oeuvre plusieurs types de changements effectués sur différents systèmes. Pour les systèmes qui possèdent des données historiques, l’apprentissage a été réalisé à partir des anciennes versions. Pour les systèmes dont on ne possède pas assez de données relatives aux changements de ses versions antécédentes, l’apprentissage a été réalisé à l’aide des données extraites d’autres systèmes.

L’évolution de la course à pied en endurance et ses impacts sur le corps humain

Travail d'intégration réalisé dans le cadre du cours PHT-6113.

Síndrome de Burnout en médicos generales de consulta externa

Objetivos : Establecer la prevalencia de Síndrome de Burnout en 17 médicos de consulta externa de una IPS de Bogotá, antes de la jornada laboral y después de la misma. Determinar las dimensiones del Síndrome de Burnout y relacionarlas con las variables sociodemográficas escogidas para este caso. Metodología: Se realizó un estudio longitudinal con una población de 17 médicos generales de consulta externa de una IPS de la cuidad de Bogotá Colombia, en el año 2009. Se les aplicó el Test de Maslach, para determinar las tres dimensiones del Síndrome de Burnout las cuales son: agotamiento emocional, despersonalización y realización personal para establecer la relación con las variables escogidas previamente. Para el análisis estadístico se usó el Software Epi Info Versión 3.51. Las variables cuantitativas fueron resumidas teniendo en cuenta medidas de tendencia central y las variables cuantitativas se expresaron en forma de proporciones. Para realizar las comparaciones se utilizó la prueba Ji cuadrado con ajuste por Test de Fischer. Se consideró significancia estadística con p ‹ 0.05. Resultado : La población estudiada fue en su mayoría de género femenino, con una mediana de edad de 30 años. El 41.2% de los médicos trabajan 8 horas diarias y el 35.3% trabajan más de 8 horas al día. Se calificaron las tres dimensiones que propone el test de Maslach, las cuales son agotamiento emocional, despersonalización y realización personal dando un puntaje de alto medio y bajo según las respuestas de los médicos evaluados. . Dentro de las dimensiones analizadas del test de Maslach antes de la jornada laboral el 35.3 % presentan agotamiento emocional dentro de la puntuación alta y después de la jornada se aumenta a 47.1%. En cuanto al puntaje para medio en esta misma dimensión fue de 23.5 % y bajo 41.2% previo a la jornada , con un porcentaje al finalizar de la jornada de 17.6% y 35.3% respectivamente. La dimensión de despersonalización antes de la jornada fue de 29,4% para alto, 23.5% para medio y 47.1% para bajo. Al finalizar la jornada no se observan cambios significativos en los porcentajes de esta dimensión. No se obtuvo prevalencia significativa entre las variables estudiadas y cada una de las dimensiones del Test de Maslach. Discusión : Los resultados muestran que existe un cambio en la dimensión de agotamiento emocional al inicio de la jornada laboral comparado con el final de la misma. Las calificaciones obtenidas tuvieron valores altos, mientras que en los de valores medio y bajo disminuyó este agotamiento al finalizar la jornada. Para la despersonalización los valores no se vieron modificados tras la jornada de trabajo. En cuanto a la realización personal hubo una variación ya que los sujetos que fueron calificados al iniciar la jornada con valores altos disminuyeron al finalizar y los de valores medio y bajo aumentaron su realización personal al finalizar la jornada. De otra parte no se establecieron relaciones significativas con los factores extralaborales e individuales evaluados, teniendo en cuenta probablemente el tamaño de la población de estudio y el tiempo de evaluación.

Estimating the benefits of farm animal welfare legislation using the contingent valuation method

This paper presents the method and findings of a contingent valuation (CV) study that aimed to elicit United Kingdom citizens' willingness to pay to support legislation to phase out the use of battery cages for egg production in the European Union (EU). The method takes account of various biases associated with the CV technique, including 'warm glow', 'part-whole' and sample response biases. Estimated mean willingness to pay to support the legislation is used to estimate the annual benefit of the legislation to UK citizens. This is compared with the estimated annual costs of the legislation over a 12-year period, which allows for readjustment by the UK egg industry. The analysis shows that the estimated benefits of the legislation outweigh the costs. The study demonstrates that CV is a potentially useful technique for assessing the likely benefits associated with proposed legislation. However, estimates of CV studies must be treated with caution. It is important that they are derived from carefully designed surveys and that the willingness to pay estimation method allows for various biases. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Clitic-doubled left dislocation and focus fronting in L2 Spanish: a case of successful acquisition at the syntax-discourse interface

This experimental study tests the Interface Hypothesis by looking into processes at the syntax– discourse interface, teasing apart acquisition of syntactic, semantic and discourse knowledge. Adopting López’s (2009) pragmatic features [±a(naphor)] and [±c(ontrast)], which in combination account for the constructions of dislocation and fronting, we tested clitic left dislocation and fronted focus in the comprehension of English native speakers learning Spanish. Furthermore, we tested knowledge of an additional semantic property: the relationship between the discourse anaphor and the antecedent in clitic left dislocation (CLLD). This relationship is free: it can be subset, superset, part/whole. Syntactic knowledge of clitics was a condition for inclusion in the main test. Our findings indicate that all learners are sensitive to the semantic constraints. While the near-native speakers display native-like discourse knowledge, the advanced speakers demonstrated some discourse knowledge, and intermediate learners did not display any discourse knowledge. The findings support as well as challenge the Interface Hypothesis.

Interpersonal interaction and economic theory: the case of public goods

Interpersonal interaction in public goods contexts is very different in character to its depiction in economic theory, despite the fact that the standard model is based on a small number of apparently plausible assumptions. Approaches to the problem are reviewed both from within and outside economics. It is argued that quick fixes such as a taste for giving do not provide a way forward. An improved understanding of why people contribute to such goods seems to require a different picture of the relationships between individuals than obtains in standard microeconomic theory, where they are usually depicted as asocial. No single economic model at present is consistent with all the relevant field and laboratory data. It is argued that there are defensible ideas from outside the discipline which ought to be explored, relying on different conceptions of rationality and/or more radically social agents. Three such suggestions are considered, one concerning the expressive/communicative aspect of behaviour, a second the possibility of a part-whole relationship between interacting agents and the third a version of conformism.

Elephants in pyjamas: testing the weak central coherence account of autism spectrum disorders using a syntactic disambiguation task

According to the weak central coherence (CC) account individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) exhibit enhanced local processing and weak part-whole integration. CC was investigated in the verbal domain. Adolescents, recruited using a 2 (ASD status) by 2 (language impairment status) design, completed an aural forced choice comprehension task involving syntactically ambiguous sentences. Half the picture targets depicted the least plausible interpretation, resulting in longer RTs across groups. These were assumed to reflect local processing. There was no ASD by plausibility interaction and consequently little evidence for weak CC in the verbal domain when conceptualised as enhanced local processing. Furthermore, there was little evidence that the processing of syntactically ambiguous sentences differed as a function of ASD or language-impairment status.