Hair is an important piece of evidence in forensic and archaeological investigations. Analysis of the morphological features of hair has been reported since at least the early 1800's. However, many questions still remain unanswered such as, how can human groups (or local populations) be analyzed and possibly distinguished from each other based on the morphology of their hair? This investigation successfully established a set of procedures for analysis of human hair morphology and explored the possibility of separating populations by examining a case study of 40 hairs from five sample populations (Mongolian, English, Vietnamese, Native American Sioux and Oneida). The methodology leads the investigator from the point of receiving a single hair to acquiring a list of specific, discernible traits characterizing that hair. These methods included a variety laboratory procedures (cleaning, casting, mounting and microtome sectioning of the hair) and examination procedures (microscope and computer imaging and developing a key and database). Statistical analysis was then utilized in order to determine the variability and/or relationships between the populations. Although the results were not statistically significant, they weakly support a division of three groups: English, Mongolian and Vietnamese, and Sioux and Oneida. The small sample size and overlap between the five populations is a limiting factor in attempting to discriminate between populations and should be taken into consideration in future investigations. / Graduation date: 1999

The purpose of this study was to determine if the inferences derived from the Kingore Observation Inventory as a screening device are sufficiently valid for the identification of potentially gifted youngsters. Differences in predicting the WISC-III Full Scale IQ scores and/or percentile ranks using the KOI were assessed. The value of screening procedures to identify potentially gifted youngsters is essential for accurate identification of gifted young students. The Kingore Observation Inventory is a screening procedure administered by educators within the classroom environment over a six-week period that furnishes a percentile rank of overall intellectual functioning. The Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Third Edition is a comprehensive assessment instrument of cognitive abilities that yields a standard score with a mean of 100 and standard deviation of 15. The WISC-III is time consuming and is an expensive assessment instrument in terms of professional resources required for administration and interpretation. A less costly and more easily administered instrument that will effectively predict the intellectual functioning of youngsters would be an invaluable tool. As part of a comprehensive assessment procedure to identify young gifted children within a school district in Oregon the KOI was administered to all primary students. A stratified sample that consisted of 89 second grade children previously assessed with the KOI in the first grade were administered the WISC-III. These children varied in age from 6.5 to 8.7 years. The sample included of 42 females and 47 males, of whom 6 were Asian, 1 was Black, 2 were Hispanic, and 80 were Caucasian/Not Hispanic. A correlational analysis, logistic regression analysis, discriminant analysis, and t-tests for paired differences were performed using SAS programs (SAS Institute Inc., 1990), version 6.07. Evidence was shown for the effects of Age on KOI Percentile scores for the target population. The study findings provide clear evidence that the KOI is not an adequate screening tool for the identification of intellectual giftedness for primary-aged students in the school district. This may indicate use of the KOI is not an adequate screening device for other populations as well. / Graduation date: 1994

There is an evident under-representation of Hispanic students in Gifted and Talented (GT) programs. This is due to several reasons including lack of valid instruments, biased standardized tools, biased teacher perceptions, and misinterpretation of tests scores among others. The need to develop and/or validate instruments that reflect students?? cultural backgrounds has become a priority in the U.S. today. The purpose of this study was to analyze the reliability and validity facets of the Hispanic Bilingual Gifted Screening Instrument (HBGSI) developed by Irby and Lara-Alecio (1996), more specifically, the split-half reliability and the concurrent validity when correlated to the Bilingual Verbal Abilities Test (BVAT). Participants were 527 students from two elementary schools in Texas. Students were administered the HBGSI in May 2003 and a reduced sample was administered the BVAT in the latter part of 2003 and the beginning of 2004. Results were analyzed, interpreted and discussed. The researcher found that the HBGSI has evidence of high reliability coefficients using Guttman, Spearman-Brown and Cronbach??s alpha ranging from .93 to .97. Concurrent validity was computed using Pearson correlation coefficient r =.39. Additionally, an exploratory factor analysis was conducted and revealed the existence of 5 factors. Among the primary limitations is the generalizability of the findings. Readers should use caution in applying the findings of this study to other settings and populations. Further research is recommended to establish the concurrent validity of the HBGSI with other achievement measures. In conclusion, there has been a contemporary move to the incorporation of inclusive screening instruments for use with language minority students. This movement suggests the inclusion of portfolio and performance assessment, checklists, and teacher observations in addition to standardized measures. The HBGSI has shown promising results in the arena of Hispanic gifted identification. This instrument is recommended to be used at the first stage of the screening process of potential Hispanic GT students. This study provided insight into the improvement of practices and identification of Hispanic bilingual students.

<p>The identification of laboratory mice has been an important issue in pharmaceutical applications ever since tests have been performed on animals. As biometric identification has become an increasingly important issue over the past decade, attempts are underway to replace traditional identification methods, which are mostly invasive and limited in code space. This thesis discusses a project that aims at identifying mice by biometrically examining the blood vessel patterns in their ears.</p><p>In the proposed algorithm, firstly, the blood vessel structure within the obtained images got enhanced before segmenting the image in blood vessel and non-blood vessel portions. In the next step a sufficient amount of unique feature points got extracted from the segmented image. The obtained feature points were afterwards used for the actual identification procedure.</p><p>Out of 20 mice, 18 could be identified successfully using the proposed algorithm.</p>

To date, relatively little research has investigated participants’ ability to monitor their memory for faces and names. Four experiments were conducted with aim of developing a comprehensive profile of memory monitoring performance during face identification tasks. In each experiment, memory monitoring judgements were solicited during encoding and/or retrieval of unfamiliar face-name pairs. In general, subjective estimates of future and past memory performance were valid predictors of objective memory performance, regardless of whether a face or name was the item to be retrieved from memory. As a test of the stability of memory monitoring accuracy across different categories of stimuli, memory monitoring for face-name pairs was compared with noun-noun pairs. The predictive validity of estimates of future memory performance was similar across the categories of stimuli, but the predictive validity of estimates of past memory performance was superior for nouns compared with names. A subset of the studies examined the influence of face and name distinctiveness on memory and memory monitoring for face-name associations. This was done in an attempt to identify sources of information that individuals might use to monitor their memory during face-name learning. The beneficial effects of distinctiveness on associative memory were symmetrical between faces and names, such that relative to their typical counterparts, distinct faces enhanced memory for names, and distinct names enhanced memory for faces. These effects were also apparent in memory monitoring. Estimates of future and past memory performance were greater for face-name associations that contained a distinct face or name compared with a typical face or name, regardless of whether the distinct item was a cue or target. Moreover, the predictive validity of prospective monitoring improved with name distinctiveness, whereas the predictive validity of retrospective monitoring improved with facial distinctiveness. Altogether, the results of the dissertation indicate that participants can monitor their memory for faces and names at a level above chance, that retrospective metamemory is more accurate for nouns compared with names, and that distinctiveness not only affects the strength of the association between a face and a name, but also the ability to monitor that association.

To date, relatively little research has investigated participants’ ability to monitor their memory for faces and names. Four experiments were conducted with aim of developing a comprehensive profile of memory monitoring performance during face identification tasks. In each experiment, memory monitoring judgements were solicited during encoding and/or retrieval of unfamiliar face-name pairs. In general, subjective estimates of future and past memory performance were valid predictors of objective memory performance, regardless of whether a face or name was the item to be retrieved from memory. As a test of the stability of memory monitoring accuracy across different categories of stimuli, memory monitoring for face-name pairs was compared with noun-noun pairs. The predictive validity of estimates of future memory performance was similar across the categories of stimuli, but the predictive validity of estimates of past memory performance was superior for nouns compared with names. A subset of the studies examined the influence of face and name distinctiveness on memory and memory monitoring for face-name associations. This was done in an attempt to identify sources of information that individuals might use to monitor their memory during face-name learning. The beneficial effects of distinctiveness on associative memory were symmetrical between faces and names, such that relative to their typical counterparts, distinct faces enhanced memory for names, and distinct names enhanced memory for faces. These effects were also apparent in memory monitoring. Estimates of future and past memory performance were greater for face-name associations that contained a distinct face or name compared with a typical face or name, regardless of whether the distinct item was a cue or target. Moreover, the predictive validity of prospective monitoring improved with name distinctiveness, whereas the predictive validity of retrospective monitoring improved with facial distinctiveness. Altogether, the results of the dissertation indicate that participants can monitor their memory for faces and names at a level above chance, that retrospective metamemory is more accurate for nouns compared with names, and that distinctiveness not only affects the strength of the association between a face and a name, but also the ability to monitor that association.

The nature of user traffic in coming years will become increasingly multimediaoriented which has much more stringent Quality of Service (QoS) requirements. The current generation of the public Internet does not provide any strict QoS guarantees. Providing Quality of Service (QoS) for multimedia application has been a difficult and challenging problem. Developing predictive models for best-effort networks, like the Internet, would be beneficial for addressing a number of technical issues, such as network bandwidth provisioning, congestion avoidance/control to name a few. The immediate motivation for creating predictive models is to improve the QoS perceived by end-users in real-time applications, such as audio and video. This research aims at developing models for single-step-ahead and multi-stepahead prediction of end-to-end single flow characteristics in best-effort networks. The performance of path-independent predictors has also been studied in this research. Empirical predictors are developed using simulated traffic data obtained from ns-2 as well as for actual traffic data collected from PlanetLab. The linear system identification models Auto-Regressive (AR), Auto-Regressive Moving Average (ARMA) and the non-linear models Feed-forward Multi-layer Perceptron (FMLP) have been used to develop predictive models. In the present research, accumulation is chosen as a signal to model the end-to-end single flow characteristics. As the raw accumulation signal is extremely noisy, the moving average of the accumulation isused for the prediction. Developed predictors have been found to perform accurate single-step-ahead predictions. However, as the multi-step-ahead prediction horizon is increased, the models do not perform as accurately as in the single-step-ahead prediction case. Acceptable multi-step-ahead predictors for up to 240 msec prediction horizon have been obtained using actual traffic data.

There is an evident under-representation of Hispanic students in Gifted and Talented (GT) programs. This is due to several reasons including lack of valid instruments, biased standardized tools, biased teacher perceptions, and misinterpretation of tests scores among others. The need to develop and/or validate instruments that reflect students?? cultural backgrounds has become a priority in the U.S. today. The purpose of this study was to analyze the reliability and validity facets of the Hispanic Bilingual Gifted Screening Instrument (HBGSI) developed by Irby and Lara-Alecio (1996), more specifically, the split-half reliability and the concurrent validity when correlated to the Bilingual Verbal Abilities Test (BVAT). Participants were 527 students from two elementary schools in Texas. Students were administered the HBGSI in May 2003 and a reduced sample was administered the BVAT in the latter part of 2003 and the beginning of 2004. Results were analyzed, interpreted and discussed. The researcher found that the HBGSI has evidence of high reliability coefficients using Guttman, Spearman-Brown and Cronbach??s alpha ranging from .93 to .97. Concurrent validity was computed using Pearson correlation coefficient r =.39. Additionally, an exploratory factor analysis was conducted and revealed the existence of 5 factors. Among the primary limitations is the generalizability of the findings. Readers should use caution in applying the findings of this study to other settings and populations. Further research is recommended to establish the concurrent validity of the HBGSI with other achievement measures. In conclusion, there has been a contemporary move to the incorporation of inclusive screening instruments for use with language minority students. This movement suggests the inclusion of portfolio and performance assessment, checklists, and teacher observations in addition to standardized measures. The HBGSI has shown promising results in the arena of Hispanic gifted identification. This instrument is recommended to be used at the first stage of the screening process of potential Hispanic GT students. This study provided insight into the improvement of practices and identification of Hispanic bilingual students.

With the interest in studying nationalism, the writer initiated a study on the Taiwanese Nationalism in the Japanese Colonial Period (1895~1945), which she thinks is the most remarkable time in the Taiwan¡¦s 400 years of history and reveals exactly the essence of the nationalism theories. As a student in the field of Political Science, the writer takes it as a responsibility to make the theories she has learnt applied to the Taiwan¡¦s history, which has a lot to do with us. This graduate thesis is titled ¡§A Study of Taiwanese Nationalism in the Japanese Colonial Period, 1895~1945¡¨, and in the thesis three methods (literature analysis, history comparative analysis ) are mainly used for study on Taiwan¡¦s nationalism movements during the Japanese Colonial Period. The thesis is going to present the following aspects: first of all, to look into the interior significance of Taiwanese nationalism movements, what the Taiwanese people wanted and their ideologies during the Japanese Colonial Period; secondly, to clarify the differences among all the perspectives of the Taiwanese nationalism during that colonial time from the angle how they were influenced by factors, like the time, place and historical events; furthermore, we will talk about ¡§identification¡¨ which is the most important topic in the theories of nationalism. Therefore, in this thesis, we¡¦ll also learn about how Taiwanese people¡¦s identification shifted among Taiwan, China and Japan. The thesis does not assent to consider Taiwanese people¡¦s intention with pure ¡§Binary opposition¡¨ contention while discussing the Taiwanese nationalism in the Japanese Colonial Period. For the movement leaders or the public, identities such as ¡§Chinese ideology¡¨, ¡§Taiwanese ideology¡¨, ¡§Homeland faction¡¨, or ¡§Japanese Komin (Japanese Imperial Civilization)¡¨ are too illiberal, too strict and too simplified. Therefore, despite no historical resources can 100% reveals how the nationalism identification shifted under the same or different factors and time¡¦s effect, it is still undoubted that the movement leaders at that time wavered among the mainstreams (the Han nationality, China, Japan and Taiwan). We should not judge such identities right or wrong, because it¡¦s a question of values options. The writer thinks Taiwanese people¡¦s resistance against Japan government in the Japanese Colonial Period is the part worthiest of our attentions. At last, the thesis indicates that, Taiwanese people¡¦s orphanage consciousness in Japanese Colonial Period and they hardly had any alternatives, and that discussions of modern scholars on Taiwanese people¡¦s nationalism focus too much on their intention is absolutely not impersonal, for their perspectives were usually led into arguments on different ideologies. The charm of nationalism is to awaken the mysterious belonging and the power of returning to the start, lying deeply in people¡¦s mind. Everybody felt attached to the past, recalling ¡§long time ago¡K¡¨. This was the emotions and latent ideology the ¡§Homeland Faction¡¨ possessed during the Japanese Colonial Period and their ¡§China ideology¡¨ intention should not be erased. However, the Taiwanese were apart from their homeland under pressure for fifty years as the length of Japanese Colonial Period, and these years would surely lead to the transformation of Taiwanese people¡¦s ideologies, also we cannot deny if the so-called ¡§Taiwanese ideology¡¨ was born during this transforming process. When the Japanese put civilization into practice in Taiwan, the Taiwanese sensed the existence of ¡§another party¡¨ and then inspected internally to themselves. At that time, it was like the Taiwanese people got onto the train and claimed to find out who they were, and the destinations are China, Taiwan and Japan. Did they know where the train headed to? Not exactly, that was a question with no answers, because as written in Wu Cho-Liu's unprecedented and unrepeatable epic, the Taiwanese are the orphan of Asia.

Thèse de doctorat--Signal et images--Paris--ENST, 2007. / Bibliogr. p. 185-195. Index. Résumé en anglais et en français.