The current literature highlights the significant role of psychological factors including cognitive (pain related thoughts and beliefs) and acceptance components (pain willingness, activity engagement, psychological inflexibility) in the management of chronic pain. The research is however in the preliminary stages in terms of investigating the specific relationships that exist between these psychological processes in their ability to predict adjustment to pain. This study aims to extend the current findings by investigating the relationships between several cognitive and acceptance components in their ability to predict emotional and physical adjustment in the context of chronic pain. The hypotheses that cognitive and acceptance components mediate the relationship between pain severity and pain adjustment, and also that acceptance mediates the relationship between cognitive components and pain adjustment will be tested. Method The study employed a cross-sectional survey-based design, including 214 chronic pain patients recruited from an NHS pain clinic. Participants completed a series of self-report questionnaires measuring pain severity, fear of movement beliefs, pain self-efficacy beliefs, pain catstrophising, acceptance and psychological flexibility, pain disability, and depression and anxiety. Structural Equation Modeling was used in order to conduct path analyses, investigating the complex relationships between these variables in predicting physical and emotional adjustment to chronic pain. Results The results from a Confirmatory Factor Analysis indicated that a three factor model comprising pain, cognitive and acceptance components as separate latent variables had a poor fit and therefore could not be used in further analysis. The results of path analyses showed that pain self-efficacy was the only variable to have a strong mediating influence between pain and physical adjustment. Findings also supported a nested path model demonstrating that acceptance, catastrophising and self-efficacy were mediators between pain and emotional adjustment, and that acceptance was also a mediator for pain catastrophising and a partial mediator for pain self-efficacy in their relationship with emotional adjustment. Conclusions The importance of pain self-efficacy specifically in predicting physical adjustment to pain is highlighted. A more complex model however is required to explain emotional adjustment, with acceptance playing a more prominent role in comparison with other variables. The findings also provide support for both Cognitive and Acceptance-based interventions in improving adjustment to living with chronic pain. Given the preliminary nature of these findings, further research employing similar statistical methods are required to provide further support.

La mémoire de travail (MdeT) est le sujet de plusieurs études récentes, notamment en raison des liens qu'elle entretient avec des variables d’intérêt telles que l’intelligence (Kuhn, 2016), le langage (Dehn, 2008) et les apprentissages (Alloway & Alloway, 2010). Le modèle de la MdeT de Baddeley et Hitch (1974) est le plus souvent utilisé dans les études sur le développement cognitif (Kroesbergen, van’t Noordende, & Kolkman, 2014). Ce modèle est dit multi-composantes puisqu’il divise la MdeT en trois principales composantes, soit l’administrateur central, la boucle phonologique et le calepin visuo-spatial. Ces trois composantes sont liées à la performance générale en mathématiques (p. ex., De Smedt et al., 2009, Meyer, Salimpoor, Wu, Geary, & Menon, 2010; Rasmussen & Bisanz, 2005). Par contre, les résultats restent divergents quant aux liens entre les composantes de la MdeT et des habiletés mathématiques spécifiques. La présente recherche vise donc à préciser, en premier lieu, les liens qui unissent les composantes de la MdeT à la performance en arithmétique et en résolution de problèmes chez des enfants tout-venant de 1re et de 2e année. Pour ce faire, 77 enfants tout-venant ont été évalués. Les résultats montrent que la MdeT est liée à la performance en arithmétique et en résolution de problèmes. Par contre, le calepin visuo-spatial n’est pas impliqué, ce qui sous-tend l’usage de stratégies verbales dès la 1re année. L’implication des deux autres composantes de la MdeT varie, quant à elle, selon le niveau scolaire, mais pas selon l’habileté mathématique. Effectivement, alors que l’administrateur central est impliqué en arithmétique et en résolution de problèmes en 1re et en 2e année, la boucle phonologique n’est impliquée qu’en 1re année, ce qui sous-tend un changement vers des stratégies de récupération directe en mémoire à long terme en 2e année. La présence de liens entre la MdeT et les mathématiques ouvre par ailleurs la porte à des interventions prometteuses, telles que l’entrainement de la MdeT, pour améliorer les performances en mathématiques. Notre recherche vise donc, en second lieu, à vérifier les effets d’un entrainement de la MdeT sur les principales composantes de la MdeT et sur la performance en arithmétique et en résolution de problèmes chez des jeunes du premier cycle du primaire. Pour vérifier les effets de l’entrainement, 73 participants ont été séparés entre un groupe contrôle de type liste d’attente et un groupe expérimental qui a bénéficié d’un entrainement de la MdeT pendant 6 semaines. Les enfants ont été évalués à trois reprises, soit avant l’entrainement, tout de suite après l’entrainement et 6 mois plus tard. Les résultats révèlent que l’entrainement informatisé de la MdeT améliore seulement les capacités de l’administrateur central; ces gains, dans la modalité verbale, tendent à se maintenir sur 6 mois contrairement à ceux en modalité visuo-spatiale. Les bienfaits de l’entrainement ne se transfèrent pas à la performance en mathématiques. En revanche, un effet compensatoire est observé en résolution de problèmes, puisqu’une amélioration de la performance est observée chez les enfants qui avaient une plus faible MdeT au départ. Ainsi, les effets de l’entrainement sont spécifiques; de façon générale, à la MdeT et plus particulièrement à l’administrateur central, et de façon différentielle, aux habiletés de résolution de problèmes pour les élèves ayant de plus faibles capacités de MdeT.

The purpose of the survey is to find out what perception children in preschool have about the car as a technical system, how its components interact, and also their perception on various components of the traffic system. Qualitative interviews were conducted with eleven children in the age of three about their experiences on this.   The result shows that most of the children in the study have experience on the components that are most prominent on a car such as steering wheel, wheels and engine. The results are mixed in terms of knowledge of the components' importance and how they interact with each other. The survey also shows that the children who have the greatest knowledge of the components' importance are those who have been with an adult when changing tires, refueling, minor repairs, etc. According to the results, most of the kids know that there must be roads to drive on and they recognize for example traffic lights and Mr. Gårman plate available at pedestrian crossings. However, there is general uncertainty about the significance of them. / Syftet med undersökningen är att ta reda på vad barn i förskolan har för uppfattning om bilen som ett tekniskt system, hur dess komponenter samverkar, samt vad de har för uppfattning kring olika komponenter i trafiksystemet. För att ta reda på det har kvalitativa intervjuer genomförts med elva barn i treårsåldern om deras erfarenheter kring detta.   Resultatet visar att de flesta barnen i undersökningen har erfarenhet av de komponenter som är mest framträdande på en bil som t.ex. ratt, hjul och motor. Resultatet är blandat vad gäller kunskapen kring komponenternas betydelse och samverkan med varandra. Undersökningen visar också att de barn som har störst kunskap kring komponenternas betydelse också är de som fått vara med någon vuxen vid däckbyte, tankning, enklare reparationer etc. Enligt resultatet har de flesta av barnen kunskap om att det måste finnas vägar att köra på och de känner igen t.ex. trafikljus och Herr Gårmanskylten som finns vid övergångsställen. Däremot finns överlag en osäkerhet kring betydelsen av dem.

This study was to determine if the importance assigned by health educators (judges) to components of corporate health promotion programs is the same as or different from program components most frequently offered by corporations for employees. This involved establishing a list of program components that judges felt were important for wellness programs and comparing this list with programs actually existing in polled corporations. A literature review was used to establish an initial list of program components. Thirty-eight judges returned questionnaires incorporating the list. A Spearman's rho and scattergram were used to test for correlations between judges' opinions and corporate practices. The report concludes that no correlation exists but that there is agreement among the judges polled that corporations should promote employee wellness programs.

Batch effects are due to probe-specific systematic variation between groups of samples (batches) resulting from experimental features that are not of biological interest. Principal components analysis (PCA) is commonly used as a visual tool to determine whether batch effects exist after applying a global normalization method. However, PCA yields linear combinations of the variables that contribute maximum variance and thus will not necessarily detect batch effects if they are not the largest source of variability in the data. We present an extension of principal components analysis to quantify the existence of batch effects, called guided PCA (gPCA). We describe a test statistic that uses gPCA to test if a batch effect exists. We apply our proposed test statistic derived using gPCA to simulated data and to two copy number variation case studies: the first study consisted of 614 samples from a breast cancer family study using Illumina Human 660 bead-chip arrays whereas the second case study consisted of 703 samples from a family blood pressure study that used Affymetrix SNP Array 6.0. We demonstrate that our statistic has good statistical properties and is able to identify significant batch effects in two copy number variation case studies. We further compare existing batch effect correction methods and apply gPCA to test their effectiveness. We conclude that our novel statistic that utilizes guided principal components analysis to identify whether batch effects exist in high-throughput genomic data is effective. Although our examples pertain to copy number data, gPCA is general and can be used on other data types as well.

High-pressure solution behavior such as density and phase behavior is a critical fundamental property for the design and optimization of various chemical processes, such as distillation and extraction in the production and purification of oils, polymers, and other natural materials. In this PhD study, solution behavior data are experimentally determined and equation of state (EoS) modeled for n-hexadecane, n-octadecane, n-eicosane, methylcyclohexane, ethylcyclohexane, cis-1,2-dimethylcyclohexane, cis-1,4-dimethylcyclohexane, trans-1,4-dimethylcyclohexane, o-xylene, m-xylene, p-xylene, and 2-methylnaphthalene at temperatures to 525 K and pressures to 275 MPa. A variable-volume view cell coupled with a linear variable differential transformer is used for the high-pressure determination. The reported density data are less than 0.4% of available literature data, which is within the estimated accumulated experimental uncertainty, 0.75%. Special attention is paid to the effect of architectural differences on the resultant high-pressure solution behavior. The reported data of low molecular weight hydrocarbons are modeled with Peng-Robinson (PR) equation of state (EoS), high-temperature high-pressure volume-translated cubic (HTHP VT-cubic) EoS, and perturbed-chain statistical fluid theory (PC-SAFT) EoS. The three pure-component parameters in PC-SAFT EoS can be either obtained from literature or from a group contribution (GC) method. Generally, PR EoS gives the worst predictions and HTHP VT-cubic EoS provides modest improvements over the PR EoS, but both of the equations underpredict the densities at high pressures. On the other hand, PC-SAFT EoS, with parameters from the literature or from a GC method, gives the improved density predictions with respect to PR EoS and HTHP VT-cubic EoS, although an overprediction of densities is found at high pressures. Model calculations also highlight the capability of these equations to account for the different densities observed for the hydrocarbon isomers. However, none of the EoS investigated in this study can fully account for the effect of isomeric structural differences on the high-pressure densities. For a better prediction of densities at high pressures, a new set of PC-SAFT pure-component parameters are obtained from a fit of the experimental density data obtained in this study and the mean absolution percent deviation is within 0.4%. The experimental technique and PC-SAFT EoS modeling method are extended to a star polymer-propane mixture. Star polymers with a fixed number of arms have a globular structure that does not promote chain entanglements. Star polymers can be synthesized with a large number of functional groups that can be readily modified to adjust their physical properties for specific applications in the areas of catalysis, coatings, lubrication, and drug delivery. In this study, a star polymer with a divinylbenzene core and statistically random methacrylate copolymer arms is synthesized with reversible addition-fragmentation-transfer method and fractionated with supercritical carbon dioxide and propane to obtain fractions with low molecular weight polydispersity. The phase behavior and density behavior are experimentally determined in supercritical propane for fractionated star polymers and the corresponding linear copolymer arms at temperatures to 423 K and pressures to 210 MPa. Experimental data are presented on the impact of the molecular weight, the backbone composition of the lauryl and methylmethacrylate repeat units in the copolymer arms, and the DVB core on the polymer-propane solution behavior. The star polymer is significantly more soluble due to its unique structure compared with the solubility of the linear copolymer arms in propane. The resultant phase behavior for the two homopolymers and the copolymers in propane are modeled using the PC-SAFT and copolymer PC-SAFT EoS, which give reasonable predictions for both phase behavior and density behavior. Model calculations are not presented for the phase behavior of the star polymers in propane since the PC-SAFT approach is not applicable for star polymer structures.

In my diploma thesis, there was created the summary of solar construcion, toys and another elements, which are available on the market. At first some construction were selected, than there were the experiments were drawn up and at the end the experiments were done by students dutiny the lessons.There is also a short movie including these experiment. The diploma thesis contains my own design of solar construction, the description of its manufactory and its use in teaching physics. There is also the description of accompanying website. On this website i tis possible to download the wokrsheets. These worksheets were tested dutiny the teaching and later than at work evalueted.

Today, in the era of mobile technology boom, more and more companies equip their employees working in the field (salesmen, insurance agents, service workers etc.) with mobile applications in order to improve the efficiency of their work. On the market, there exist several universal applications which, however, require using some middleware, or they cannot be sufficiently modified to the customer specific needs. In this case comes the development of custom mobile application. The aim of this work is to analyze the requirements for such applications and based on this analysis propose a set of reusable components that will facilitate the development of these native applications on the Android platform. This work will also include a pilot application demonstrating the use of individual components on the sample data. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

Title: Reduction of body weight of adults. Objectives: Aim of this thesis is to find out how many people have resorted to reduce their weight, for what reason and whether their attempts were successful. Methods: In my thesis I questioned 246 randomly selected respondents. Questioning was done by the form of inquiry. Respondents were people who live around me and my family. The condition for completing the questionnaire was age of 18 years or older, and access to an internet connection. Survey form was distributed electronically. Results: I found out that 38% of respondents aren't satisfied with their weight and therefore they usually decide to follow various forms of reducing modes. 82% of them follows different kinds of diets (reducing modes) multiple times. The reason for that is going back to regular diet habits and lack of exercise out of diet mode. 73% of respondents confirmed high activity during reducing modes, I consider that successfull. Keywords: Dietotherapy, active regiment, drinks regiment, the basic components of diet

SOFA 2 is a component system employing hierarchically composed components in distributed environment. It contains concepts, which allow for specifying dynamic reconfigurations of component architectures at runtime, which is essential for virtually any real-life application. The dynamic reconfigurations comprise creating/disposing components and creating/disposing connections between components. In contrast to majority of component systems, SOFA 2 is able to specify possible architectural reconfigurations in the application architecture at design time. This allows SOFA 2 runtime to follow the dynamic behavior of the application and reflect the behavior in architectural reconfigurations. The goal of this thesis is to reify these concepts of dynamic reconfigurations in the implementation of SOFA 2 and demonstrate their usage on a demo application.