Les troubles de l’initiation du mouvement de la maladie de Parkinson sont invalidants et sans solution thérapeutique satisfaisante. Dans ce travail, nous nous intéressons à deux catégories de symptômes, classiquement explorées de façon indépendante : d’un côté, la lenteur à l’initiation du mouvement ou akinésie, et de l’autre, la difficulté à retenir l’initiation d’un mouvement ou impulsivité. En nous appuyant sur des avancées théoriques et méthodologiques récentes, nous tentons de revisiter ces troubles de l’initiation du mouvement en termes de dysfonctionnements exécutifs dans la maladie de Parkinson.Dans ce but, nous avons : 1) recherché les liens entre marqueurs cliniques (akinésie et impulsivité) et troubles du contrôle inhibiteur ; 2) identifié les dysfonctionnements cérébraux associés au moyen de méthodes électroencéphalographiques innovantes permettant de localiser les sources cérébrales et d’observer la dynamique des processus cérébraux ; et 3) sondé l’origine neurochimique de cette fonction à l’aide d’un protocole pharmacologique.Nos résultats suggèrent que l’impulsivité et l’akinésie sont les deux faces d’une même pièce, aux origines d’un dysfonctionnement du contrôle inhibiteur proactif non sélectif. Ils indiquent également que ce contrôle exécutif est sous-tendu par l’activité du noyau sous-thalamique et d’un réseau cortical médian comprenant le précuneus et l’aire motrice supplémentaire. Un rôle du système noradrénergique a également été mis en évidence à l’origine de ces troubles exécutifs. Ces travaux ouvrent donc la voie à de nouvelles perspectives thérapeutiques pour la maladie de Parkinson / Movement initiation disorders in Parkinson’s disease are multifaceted, are debilitating and have no satisfying therapeutic option. On the one hand, slowness and difficulties initiating voluntary movements contribute to akinesia, a cardinal symptom of the disease which is usually considered to be motor in origin and which is not fully alleviated by current medication. On the other hand, difficulties refraining voluntary movements contribute to impulsivity, a frequent side effect of current dopaminergic and neurosurgical therapies. Here, based on systematic analyses of the clinical neuroimaging literature, we suggest that these opposite forms of movement initiation disorders might be executive, not purely motor, in origin.To empirically test this hypothesis, we: 1) related clinical markers of the disease (akinesia and impulsivity) to behavioral indexes of inhibitory control impairment; 2) identified associated cerebral dysfunctions by means of advanced electroencephalographic (EEG) methods; and 3) investigated the neurochemical origin of these dysfunctions by combining pharmacological and cerebral stimulations with EEG recordings.Results suggest that impulsivity and akinesia are the two sides of the same coin. Indeed, they were found to be associated with opposite inhibitory control disorders, and dysfunctions of subthalamic cortical loops involving medial executive areas. Importantly, it was also found that restoring normal behavior and normal activity within these loops by means of deep brain stimulation depends on the level of noradrenergic tonus, opening the way for new therapeutic approaches for Parkinson’s disease

Os Sistemas de Hipermídia (SH) vem se tornando cada vez mais populares em diversas áreas de aplicação, tais como educação, marketing, comércio elétrico, informação pessoal e serviços inteligentes de interface. Atualmente um dos principais ramos da pesquisa em SH são os Sistemas de Hipermídia Adaptativa (SHA) [BRU 96] [ESP 97], juntamente com as áreas relacionadas de Modelagem do Usuário (MU) e Interfaces Inteligentes (II). Uma das características mais criticas em um SHA é o modelo do usuário, uma representação dos objetivos, conhecimento, preferências, necessidades e desejos de seus usuários. A idéia é que usuários com diferentes perfis ou modelos estarão interessados em diferentes perfis de informação dentre as apresentadas em uma página hipermídia e podem também desejar navegar no sistema através de diferentes links. A ação adaptativa em um SHA é orientada de modo a oferecer a seus usuários informação hipermídia e navegação ajustados aos respectivos modelos. A adaptação é geralmente considerada de uma forma retroativa, onde as estruturas de apresentação e navegação são produzidas como simples reações evolução passada do modelo do usuário e a oportunidades oferecidas pelo ambiente. A adaptação proativa [PAL 98] adota a idéia de seleção e mesmo a geração ativa de hiperdocumentos que serão provavelmente interessante para um determinado usuário. O uso de modelos proativos para a obtenção de informação personalizada permite a antecipação das necessidades e demandas do usuário. Isto é obtido através do emprego de algum tipo de inferência sobre os objetos hipermídia disponíveis, restrita pelo conhecimento disponível no modelo do usuário. No presente trabalho propõe-se uma metodologia para a construção de SHA, através da integração de dois modelos proativos diferentes. O primeiro desses modelos possui características conexionistas e é orientado a navegação adaptativa. Este modelo destaca a representação comportamental dos links na rede, considerando a freqüência com que estes são percorridos. O processo de modelagem é balizado pelas leis de transitividade e reflexividade, que permitem representar proativamente o hiperespaço, simplesmente através da quantização de seus links, abstraindo o conteúdo de seus nodos. O segundo modelo trata dos aspectos semânticos do processamento de informações através da lógica das situações, que oferece um arcabouço formal para a representação, composição e inferência da relação de relevância entre os nodos de sistemas de hipermídia adaptativa. O ponto de partida são os conceitos de infon, documento e descritor, assim como a semântica da relação "é sobre" que pode existir entre diferentes documentos. A integração entre os dois modelos é realizada através da sobreposição das representações em um domínio compartilhado. Uma arquitetura genérica orientada a agentes para o desenvolvimento de sistemas de HA proativa é apresentada, centrada nos processos de interfaceamento, modelagem e adaptação. A tese se completa com o projeto e desenvolvimento de um sistema educacional online com adaptação proativa para a World Wide Web. Trabalhos futuros são propostos nas áreas da educação, sistemas de informações pessoais e o trabalho colaborativo de equipes. / Hypermedia Systems (HS) are becoming more and more popular in several application areas, like education, marketing, e-commerce, personal information and intelligent interface services. Currently, one of the main branches in HS research is Adaptive Hypermedia Systems (AHS) [BRU 96] [ESP 97], with its related technologies, like User Modeling (UM) and Intelligent Interfaces (II) . One of the most critical features in an AHS is the user model, a representation of the goals, knowledge, preferences, needs and desires of its users. The underlying idea is that users with different profiles or models will be interested in different pieces of information presented on a hypermedia page and may also want to use different links for navigation. The adaptation task performed by an AHS is oriented to assist users with personallytailored hypermedia information and navigation. Adaptation is in general viewed in a retroactive way where presentation and navigational structures are produced as simple reactions to the past evolution of the user model and environment opportunities. The proactive way [PAL 98] supports the idea of active selection or even the generation of hyperdocuments that will probably be interesting to a particular user. Use of proactive models in personal information gathering allows the anticipation of users needs and requests. This is achieved by applying some kind of inference over the available hypermedia objects, constrained by the knowledge present in the user model. In this work a methodology for AHS construction of is proposed, by means of the integration of two different proactive models. The first one has a conexionist trait and is oriented to adaptive navigation. This model enhances behavioral representation of the links in the network through the frequency in which they are activated. Modeling process is here controlled by the laws of transitivity and synmetry, allowing proactive representation of the hyperspace only by means of the links, with no regard for the nodes contents. The second model is related with semantic aspects of information processing through the theory of situations, which offers a formal framework for representing, composing and inference of the relevance relationship between nodes in AHS. The starting point here are the concepts of infon, document and descriptor, as the semantic of the aboutness relationship that may occur between documents. The integration of these two models is done by superposing the representations on a shared domain. An agent-oriented general architecture for the development of proactive AHS is presented, focusing interface, modeling and adaptation processes. The work is concluded with the project and development of a educational online system with proactive adaptation for the World Wide Web. Future work is proposed in the areas of education, personal information systems and collaborative development.

Les troubles exécutifs de la maladie de Parkinson sont invalidants et sans solution thérapeutique satisfaisante. La raison est liée au fait que les fonctions exécutives sont difficiles à appréhender, tant au niveau de leur modélisation cognitive qu'anatomo-fonctionnelle ou neurochimique. Ici, nous nous appuyons sur des avancées théoriques et méthodologiques récentes pour revisiter ces troubles exécutifs. Nous nous intéressons à une fonction, récemment mise en évidence, destinée à verrouiller par anticipation le déclenchement de toute action en situation d'incertitude : le contrôle proactif de l'inhibition non sélective de l'action. Notre hypothèse directrice est que son dysfonctionnement est susceptible de générer une grande variété de troubles exécutifs. Nous avons : 1) recherché les liens entre marqueurs cliniques et troubles du contrôle proactif ; 2) identifié les dysfonctionnements cérébraux associés au moyen de méthodes électroencéphalographiques innovantes combinées à l'enregistrement des effets de la stimulation du noyau sous-thalamique ; et 3) sondé l'origine neurochimique de cette fonction. Nos résultats suggèrent qu'un dysfonctionnement de l'inhibition proactive n'engendre pas uniquement des troubles impulsifs mais explique également des comportements hypo-productifs comme l'akinésie. Ils indiquent que ces troubles ne sont pas d'origine dopaminergique et qu'ils sont liés au dysfonctionnement de l'activité du cortex frontal médian et du noyau sous-thalamique. Ces travaux ouvrent la voie à de nouvelles perspectives thérapeutiques pour la maladie de Parkinson et à une meilleure appréhension de la clinique d'autres pathologies / Executive impairments in Parkinson’s disease are debilitating and have no satisfying therapeutic option. This is partly due to the fact that executive functions are difficult to investigate from cognitive, neuro-functional and neurochemical standpoints. Here, we build on recent theoretical and methodological improvements to revisit executive impairments. We are interested in a function that consists in locking in advance movement initiation mechanisms in the face of uncertainty: proactive control of non-selective inhibition of action. Our leading hypothesis is that dysfunction of proactive inhibitory control could generate widespread and heterogeneous executive impairments. We thus: 1) tried to relate clinical markers of the disease to behavioral indexes of proactive control impairment; 2) identified the associated cerebral dysfunctions by means of advanced electroencephalographic methods and manipulation of deep brain stimulation of the subthalamic nucleus; and 3) investigated the neurochemical origin of this function. Our results suggest that impulsivity is not the only outcome of inhibitory impairment. Disorder of proactive inhibitory control may also account for hypo-productive behaviors such as akinesia. Results also indicate that this mechanism is of non-dopaminergic origin and relies on medial frontal and subthalamic activity. This work opens the way for new therapeutic approaches for Parkinson’s disease as well as a better understanding of clinical symptoms observed in others diseases

Older adults have an increased risk for illness and disease, factors that can lead to functional impairment and intensify the need for reliance on supportive services. Planning for long-term care needs is a vital component of healthy aging and continued autonomy. Yet, many older adults fail to make plans in advance, perhaps due to differences in personal characteristics. The moderating effects of trait hope on the relationship between health-related quality of life (HRQoL) and preparation for future care needs (PFCN) was studied in a sample of 65 older adult primary care patients (<65 years) in western New York. Participants completed a questionnaire on 5 dimensions of PFCN (awareness of risk, information gathering, decisions about care preferences, concrete planning, and active avoidance). In addition, data were collected on five HRQoL domains (physical function, physical role function, emotional role function, social function, and bodily pain) and trait hope. Moderated multiple regression was used to test the moderator hypothesis controlling for personal characteristics. Post-hoc probing was used to further examine significant interactions. At the bivariate level, social functioning, physical functioning, and emotion-based role were inversely related to PFCN and positively related to hope. Multivariate moderation models covarying age, sex, race, education, illness burden, and functional impairment indicated that hopefulness, particularly agentic thinking or goal identification, moderated the relationship between those three HRQoL dimensions and PFCN behaviors. Among those with greater role limitations, lower hope was associated with more awareness of risk and information gathering and less concrete decision making, whereas among individuals with fewer role limitations and better social and physical functioning, higher levels of hopefulness were associated with increased decision making. These results highlight the need for health professionals to gain a better understanding of their patients'intrapersonal characteristics when discussing issues related to future care planning.

Personal inom gymnasiesärskolan arbetar i en verksamhet som kan vara farlig. Det är inte så ovanligt att personal möts av hot och våld i sin vardag. Elever gör rätt om de kan och frustration och stress i situationer som de upplever att de inte kan behärska kan leda till utmanande beteenden. Det är därför personalens uppgift att arbeta förebyggande för att elever inte ska behöva känna stress och frustration. Syftet med denna studie var således att få en fördjupad kunskap om hur personal inom gymnasiesärskolan kan arbeta proaktivt med elever och utmanande beteenden. Elever som upplever att lärmiljön är begriplig, hanterbar och meningsfull behöver inte känna stress och frustration. För att uppnå studiens syfte utfördes intervjuer med elva personal inom två gymnasiesärskolor. I personalens beskrivningar av sin verksamhet visar de att de har ett proaktivt förhållningssätt och att de med metoder, strategier och i sitt bemötande av elever aktivt försöker reducera belastningar så att elever inte ska behöva känna stress och frustration. Det finns dock ramfaktorer som innebär att personalen inte alltid lyckas i det proaktiva arbetet. / Personnel in upper secondary schools for students with special needs work in a field that can be dangerous. It is not uncommon for personnel to be faced with threats and violence in their everyday lives. Students do well if they can and frustration and stress in situations that they find that they cannot master can lead to challenging behaviors. It is therefore the task of the personnel to work preventively so that students do not have to feel stress and frustration. The aim of this study was thus to gain an in-depth knowledge of how personnel in the upper secondary school for students with special needs can work proactively to avoid stress and frustration among students. Pupils who feel that the learning environment is understandable, manageable and meaningful need not feel stress and frustration. To achieve the aim, interviews were carried out with eleven personnel within two upper secondary schools for students with special needs. In the personnel's descriptions of their activities, they show that they have a proactive approach and that, with methods, strategies and in their treatment of pupils, they actively try to reduce pressure so that students do not have to feel stress and frustration. However, there are framework factors that mean that the personnel does not always succeed in the proactive work.

[Truncated abstract] The overall aim of the research reported in this thesis was to explore the viability and utility of the construct of psychopathy and aggression in children and adolescents. Specifically, by taking a developmentally informed approach it sought to develop new instrumentation which measured psychopathic-like-traits, and verbal proactive and reactive aggression in non-referred mainstream school children and adolescents. To achieve this, four separate yet interrelated studies were conducted. Study One comprised three phases relating to the development and validation of two new instruments. In Phase One the instruments currently used to measure psychopathy were reviewed and items relevant to young persons were selected for inclusion in a draft version of the new psychopathy screening instrument. Phase Two, which sought to further explore the construct of psychopathy in children and adolescents, comprised a series of interviews with school principals, deputy principals, psychologists, and education officers at the main juvenile detention centre in Perth, Western Australia. These interviews provided information relating to the behaviour and characteristics of children and adolescents who present with psychopathic-like-traits. As a consequence of the feedback from the Phase Two data, Phase Three reviewed the instrumentation currently used to measure aggression in children and adolescents. From this items were selected for possible inclusion in an aggression questionnaire. The data gathered over these three phases resulted in 117 psychopathy related items being generated for the new instrument, which were subsequently reduced to 56 when duplicated items were identified and the extant knowledge of the construct applied. The 56 items were retained in a draft version of the newly developed instrument, which was named the Child and Adolescent Psychopathy Screening Instrument (CAPSI). The Study One data revealed the instrumentation used to date provided few measures of physical and verbal aggression - a characteristic of psychopathic-like behaviour. Thus, a review of instrumentation together with the information from the interviews resulted in 63 aggression items being generated. ... Study Four utilised information from the CAPSI and the CASA in conjunction with in-depth interviews to generate case studies to further elucidate the characteristics of children and adolescents with psychopathic-like-traits and extreme aggression. Case studies were undertaken with seven male students ranging in age from 8 to 15 years who had been suspended from mainstream schools. All boys scored very highly on the new instruments. All presented with extreme aggression, with some exhibiting proactive or premeditated aggression combined with a superficially engaging personality, insincere charm, lack of remorse, and lack of empathy. The findings from all four research studies are discussed in the light of the literature reviewed and the aims of the research. Implications are then drawn for researchers and clinicians, and directions for further research are suggested.

Les contraintes des marchés et les attentes de la société vis-à-vis des systèmes industriels en termes économique, sécuritaire, environnementaux... requièrent de considérer les performances de ces derniers de façon globale sur l'ensemble de leur cycle de vie. Cela nécessite de mettre en synergie, par exemple avec des ingénieries couplées dès la conception, le système principal et ses systèmes contributeurs, et notamment celui de soutien avec son processus pivot de maintenance. Cette focalisation intégrative sur la maintenance a conduit à évoluer d'anciennes pratiques de maintenance vers de nouvelles plus proactives faisant émerger des stratégies prévisionnelles dont le processus clé est le pronostic. Cependant ce processus fait l'objet d'un réel manque de formalisation et les travaux existants restent principalement centrés sur les composants, sans prendre en compte les performances des systèmes. Ainsi notre contribution porte sur la proposition d'architectures génériques de pronostic système permettant d'obtenir les évolutions futures des dégradations/défaillances des composants et des performances de niveaux système/sous-systèmes/composants : soit directement par un pronostic adapté, soit par modélisation de la causalité dysfonctionnelle sous forme de relations logiques supportées par un réseau de neurones flou ANFIS. Une méthodologie est associée pour définir les indicateurs de dégradation et de performance, aboutissant à la réalisation des architectures. Enfin la faisabilité de cette approche est démontrée sur un système de déroulage/pressage de la plateforme TELMA.

Extensive changes are taking place in working life and creating new and important areas for research. New knowledge is needed in order for individuals and organizations to be able to maintain long-term development. The aim of this thesis is to increase our understanding of how change and (im)mobility in the labor market are related to employees’ health, wellbeing, and work-related attitudes. The thesis comprises three studies, based on questionnaire data from different samples. Study I examined the potential consequences of downsizing in two organizations that had implemented change in two different ways (proactively and reactively). A proactive approach seems to lessen change-related demands and provide an opportunity for increased participation, which helps lessen the negative effects on employee work attitudes and wellbeing. The descriptive data from a representative sample in Study II revealed that 28 percent of the permanent and 50 percent of the temporary employees did not work in their preferred occupations. The results indicate that those individuals who were involuntarily embedded (locked-in position), especially among the permanent employees, had more health problems and less development at work. Study III utilizes a newly developed construct (work-related health attributions) that focuses on the individual’s perception of the relation between work and health. The results indicate that it seems to be a promising construct for predicting job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and turnover intention. For employees to have the opportunity to participate in organizational change, as well as the opportunity to exercise mobility and alter their circumstances when the organization, occupation, or job is not contributing to their better health appear to be factors that help improve health and sustainability for both employees and organizations.

The main purpose of the study was to design, develop, deliver and evaluate a new distance web design course for the needs of students in a vocational higher education institution. Proactive action research was used as a framework during the research process. This research focused on the analysis of the existing face-to-face course to mitigate its problems in the new design. Then, accomplishments and insufficiencies of the new design in the new context were investigated. For this study, data were collected in two different semesters, in a vocational higher education institution. In the first semester, an existing course was investigated to see the problems and the needs. The results revealed that there were problems associated with &ldquo / motivational&rdquo / , &ldquo / interactional&rdquo / , &ldquo / instructional activities&rdquo / , &ldquo / support materials&rdquo / , &ldquo / up-to-date content&rdquo / , &ldquo / technologic&rdquo / , and &ldquo / non-technologic&rdquo / aspects of the existing course. Before the delivery of the new distance course in the second semester, it was completely redesigned with the new characteristics to mitigate some of the predetermined problems of the existing course. In this new structure, an instructor from Ankara gave the course via smart class to this vocational institution located in another city. In the second semester, data were collected to understand what the accomplishments of the new course, and what aspects of the new course needed to be modified. To triangulate qualitative findings, two questionnaire were conducted to see the students&rsquo / attitude towards web-based instruction and students&rsquo / perceptions about learning environment. With the findings of these data collection procedures, the accomplishments of the new design can be categorized in five main headings. These are &ldquo / working with an experienced instructor&rdquo / , &ldquo / extended learning opportunities&rdquo / , &ldquo / increased future expectations of students&rdquo / , &ldquo / fulfilled software requirements&rdquo / , and &ldquo / applicability of a distance vocational course&rdquo / . On the other hand, in the new structure of the course, new problems emerged such as &ldquo / course delivery problems&rdquo / and &ldquo / students&rsquo / readiness&rdquo / , because technology use in education sometimes comes with its unique problems including the solutions. Those accomplishments and insufficiencies points of the new design would be helpful in the new distance course design projects.

Amb aquest estudi es pretén conèixer els nivells de Satisfacció amb la vida i simptomatologia afectiva dels estudiants de Psicologia de la Universitat de Girona, analitzar la influència de les diferències individuals en l'explicació de la Satisfacció amb la vida i la simptomatologia afectiva i aportar dades empíriques que ajudin a clarificar les relacions existents entre diferents característiques de personalitat i la seva influència sobre la conducta Proactiva de vinculació social dels estudiants universitaris.Han participat en l'estudi 159 alumnes dels estudis de psicologia de la Universitat de Girona (86'2% dones i 13'8% homes).Els resultats obtinguts mostren que hi ha un 28'5 % d'estudiants que manifesten no sentir-se satisfets amb la seva vida en general. Els dominis més directament vinculats al jo, com la percepció d'un mateix i el suport afectiu que reps dels altres, són els que millor contribueixen a l'explicació de la Satisfacció amb la vida. Els resultats també mostrem que són les característiques de personalitat (neuroticisme, responsabilitat i extraversió) les variables que millor prediuen la Satisfacció amb la vida en general i per dominis. / This study aims (a) to determine the level of satisfaction with life and of affective symptomatology of psychology students at the University of Girona, (b) to analyse the influence of individual differences to explain satisfaction with life and affective symptomatology, and (c) to provide empirical data that clarify the existing relationship between different personality characteristics and their influence on the proactive social behaviour of the university students.A total of 159 psychology students (86.2% female and 13.8% male) from the University of Girona participated in the study. The results obtained demonstrate that 28.5% of the students claim to generally not be satisfied with their lives. The domains most directly associated with the ego, such as self perception and the affective support received from others, contribute most to explain satisfaction with life. The results also show that personality characteristics (neuroticism, responsibility and extraversion) are the variables that best predict satisfaction with life, both in general and by domains.