No description available.

Customer churn has always been a problem to be addressed by the telecommunication service providers. So far, work done in this regard was based on analyzing historical data of the customers by using different data mining techniques. Investigations based on individual user behavior with a motive of churn prediction are expected to give an idea about the user’s point view towards churn. Data volumes/data usage of the users is seen as parameter to assess the satisfaction of the users with the service. The subjective and objective behavior of the mobile phone users has been captured by collecting data about the data volumes/data usage for both Wi-Fi and mobile services along with their ratings of Quality of Experience (QoE).   The Experience Sampling Method has been deployed to collect the user data. Android tool was used to collect weekly data volumes of the users. A questionnaire was prepared with questions regarding quality, annoyance and churn risk of the users. The questionnaire was used to collect the weekly opinions of the users on the service. A total of 22 users participated in the study, of which 3 persons churned to other service provider during the study. The data collected in the study was analyzed using averages, correlations and decision trees. Comparisons were made between Wi-Fi and mobile services, churners and non-churners/active users. A 2-fold churn prediction model was proposed based on conclusions of the study.

Public view removed at the authors request. 16/07/2006 / The daily experience of anorexia nervosa sufferers has not previously been studied and yet it is fundamental to understanding anorexia nervosa. This study examined and compared the daily experiences of anorexia nervosa patients and control participants in terms of sense of self, mood states and flow states. Flow is characterised by undivided concentration and interest in an activity for intrinsic benefits. Flow is not always desirable, as some ways of experiencing it may be harmful to the individual and society. Anorexia nervosa participants were recruited from hospitals and private practices of clinicians specialising in the treatment of anorexia nervosa. Exclusion criteria included male gender, chronic anorexia nervosa, drug abuse, and current participation in an inpatient program. Anorexia nervosa participants completed a series of questionnaires at baseline, 3-6 month follow-up and 7-12 month follow-up (stage one, two and three respectively). The questionnaires were designed to measure the severity of their eating disorder. Anorexia nervosa and control group participants completed Experience Sampling Forms (ESF) and a Repertory Grid at baseline and 3-6 months. The ESFs were completed each time a pager was activated. The pager was activated seven times a day, for four days at random times between 8.00am and 10.00pm. The pager signals were a minimum of two hours apart. The Repertory Grid consisted of 23 constructs and 13 elements provided to the participant. Thirty-one anorexia nervosa sufferers and thirty-two control participants completed stage one and eighteen anorexia nervosa sufferers and twenty-seven control group participants completed stage two of the study. Eighteen anorexia nervosa sufferers completed stage three of the study. Control participants were not required to participate in stage three. There was no difference in the severity of anorexia nervosa between completers and drop-outs The analysis of the ESFs at stage one indicated that the anorexia nervosa group participants did not spend more time alone at home or more time alone in any situation than the control group. For both groups, being alone had a negative influence on mood state, but had no effect on sense of self. The anorexia nervosa group felt lonelier and less sociable than the control group. The mood state and sense of self for the anorexia nervosa group was significantly lower over all the ESFs when compared to the control group. They were also more self-critical, experienced higher levels of guilt, were less able to live up to their own expectations, and were less satisfied with their performance in the activity they were doing. The anorexia nervosa group experienced less flow states than the control group at stage one. There was an improvement in mood state, sense of self and self-criticism for the anorexia nervosa group when they were in a flow state compared to when they were not in a flow state. There was an improvement in mood state, sense of self, guilt and self-criticism for the control group when they experienced flow, however these differences were not significant. The anorexia nervosa group had a more positive mood state and sense of self at stage two when compared to stage one. Correspondingly, there was a trend towards a reduced severity of the disorder indicated by a significant improvement on some of the psychological tests (EAT, REDS, BDI, DT). There was also a significant improvement in BMI. However, there was a significant decline in the amount of flow of anorexia nervosa participants experienced at stage two when compared to stage one. This result may be attributed to the significant decline in the response rate on ESFs in the second stage of the study for both the anorexia nervosa and control groups. Anorexia nervosa non-responders at stage two reported more severe symptoms of anorexia nervosa than anorexia nervosa responders, although this was a trend and reached significance only on minor indicators of eating disorder severity. The identification of a factor that predicted severity over a six-month period was not possible. The repertory grid analysis showed that the construct system of the anorexia nervosa participants was tighter and less complex than that of the control group. The anorexia nervosa group construed themselves as dissimilar from the way they would like to be in any context. The control group construed themselves as similar to the way they would like to be when they were alone, but as dissimilar from the way they would like to be when they were with other people. While the most salient element for both the anorexia nervosa and control groups was 'alone at home', it appears that the controls use this time for goal-directed activities. In contrast, this time was dominated by fear of losing control for the anorexia nervosa group. Although there was a trend towards a decrease in the amount of variance accounted for by the first component for the anorexia nervosa group at stage two compared to stage one, the interpretation of this result was complicated by mixed result of the control group. The anorexia nervosa groups' daily experience of life was bleak when compared to the daily experience of the control group, except for periods when the anorexia nervosa participants experienced a flow state. DeVries (1992) has documented the success of therapeutic interventions that involve the identification and replication of activities that resulted in a flow state. This investigation suggests that a similar result may be possible in the treatment of anorexia nervosa.

No description available.

People value music mainly for its abilities to induce emotions. Yet little is known about these experiences. The aim of this thesis was thus to investigate the nature and prevalence of emotional reactions to music, and what factors in the listener, the music, and the situation might contribute to such reactions. Study I explored the prevalence of musical emotions and possible factors influencing such experiences through the use of a questionnaire sent out to a random and nationally representative sample. The results indicated that a majority of the responders frequently reacted emotionally to music, and that their reactions included both basic and complex emotions. Prevalence correlated with personality, gender, age, and music education. Study II was designed to obtain a representative sample of situations where music induced emotions in listeners. The results showed that emotional reactions to music occurred in 24% of all episodes, and that the prevalence of specific emotions varied depending on the situation (e.g., other people present). However, causal inferences could not be drawn from Study I and II, so it was considered important to test predictions in a more controlled setting. Study III showed in an experiment that listeners experienced more intense emotions (a) to self-chosen music than to randomly selected music and (b) when listening with a close friend or partner than when listening alone. Moreover, Openness to experience correlated with emotion intensity. All three factors were linked to positive emotions. Overall, the thesis shows that (a) musical emotions are relatively common, (b) music can induce a variety of emotions, and (c) there are several features in the listener, the music, and the situation that may influence emotional reactions to music.

Public view removed at the authors request. 16/07/2006 / The daily experience of anorexia nervosa sufferers has not previously been studied and yet it is fundamental to understanding anorexia nervosa. This study examined and compared the daily experiences of anorexia nervosa patients and control participants in terms of sense of self, mood states and flow states. Flow is characterised by undivided concentration and interest in an activity for intrinsic benefits. Flow is not always desirable, as some ways of experiencing it may be harmful to the individual and society. Anorexia nervosa participants were recruited from hospitals and private practices of clinicians specialising in the treatment of anorexia nervosa. Exclusion criteria included male gender, chronic anorexia nervosa, drug abuse, and current participation in an inpatient program. Anorexia nervosa participants completed a series of questionnaires at baseline, 3-6 month follow-up and 7-12 month follow-up (stage one, two and three respectively). The questionnaires were designed to measure the severity of their eating disorder. Anorexia nervosa and control group participants completed Experience Sampling Forms (ESF) and a Repertory Grid at baseline and 3-6 months. The ESFs were completed each time a pager was activated. The pager was activated seven times a day, for four days at random times between 8.00am and 10.00pm. The pager signals were a minimum of two hours apart. The Repertory Grid consisted of 23 constructs and 13 elements provided to the participant. Thirty-one anorexia nervosa sufferers and thirty-two control participants completed stage one and eighteen anorexia nervosa sufferers and twenty-seven control group participants completed stage two of the study. Eighteen anorexia nervosa sufferers completed stage three of the study. Control participants were not required to participate in stage three. There was no difference in the severity of anorexia nervosa between completers and drop-outs The analysis of the ESFs at stage one indicated that the anorexia nervosa group participants did not spend more time alone at home or more time alone in any situation than the control group. For both groups, being alone had a negative influence on mood state, but had no effect on sense of self. The anorexia nervosa group felt lonelier and less sociable than the control group. The mood state and sense of self for the anorexia nervosa group was significantly lower over all the ESFs when compared to the control group. They were also more self-critical, experienced higher levels of guilt, were less able to live up to their own expectations, and were less satisfied with their performance in the activity they were doing. The anorexia nervosa group experienced less flow states than the control group at stage one. There was an improvement in mood state, sense of self and self-criticism for the anorexia nervosa group when they were in a flow state compared to when they were not in a flow state. There was an improvement in mood state, sense of self, guilt and self-criticism for the control group when they experienced flow, however these differences were not significant. The anorexia nervosa group had a more positive mood state and sense of self at stage two when compared to stage one. Correspondingly, there was a trend towards a reduced severity of the disorder indicated by a significant improvement on some of the psychological tests (EAT, REDS, BDI, DT). There was also a significant improvement in BMI. However, there was a significant decline in the amount of flow of anorexia nervosa participants experienced at stage two when compared to stage one. This result may be attributed to the significant decline in the response rate on ESFs in the second stage of the study for both the anorexia nervosa and control groups. Anorexia nervosa non-responders at stage two reported more severe symptoms of anorexia nervosa than anorexia nervosa responders, although this was a trend and reached significance only on minor indicators of eating disorder severity. The identification of a factor that predicted severity over a six-month period was not possible. The repertory grid analysis showed that the construct system of the anorexia nervosa participants was tighter and less complex than that of the control group. The anorexia nervosa group construed themselves as dissimilar from the way they would like to be in any context. The control group construed themselves as similar to the way they would like to be when they were alone, but as dissimilar from the way they would like to be when they were with other people. While the most salient element for both the anorexia nervosa and control groups was 'alone at home', it appears that the controls use this time for goal-directed activities. In contrast, this time was dominated by fear of losing control for the anorexia nervosa group. Although there was a trend towards a decrease in the amount of variance accounted for by the first component for the anorexia nervosa group at stage two compared to stage one, the interpretation of this result was complicated by mixed result of the control group. The anorexia nervosa groups' daily experience of life was bleak when compared to the daily experience of the control group, except for periods when the anorexia nervosa participants experienced a flow state. DeVries (1992) has documented the success of therapeutic interventions that involve the identification and replication of activities that resulted in a flow state. This investigation suggests that a similar result may be possible in the treatment of anorexia nervosa.

De nombreuses structures utilisées industriellement peuvent être considérées comme des guides d'ondes, comme les plaques, les tuyaux ou encore le rails. La maintenance de ces structures nécessite de pouvoir détecter efficacement des défauts internes par le Contrôle Non Destructif. Nous nous intéressons dans ce manuscrit à l'application d'une méthode d'échantillonnage, la Linear Sampling Method, au CND des guides d'ondes élastiques, qui en particulier impose des sollicitations et des mesures à la surface du guide en régime temporel. La stratégie choisie repose sur une formulation modale et multi-fréquentielle de la LSM, spécifique aux guides d'ondes, qui permet une régularisation efficace et de nature physique du problème inverse, qui est par nature mal posé. Cette stratégie permet par ailleurs une optimisation du nombre et de la position des émetteurs et des récepteurs. Nous nous limitons dans un premier temps au cas scalaire du guide d'ondes acoustiques, pour ensuite s'attaquer au cas vectoriel, et par conséquent plus complexe, du guide d'ondes élastiques.L'efficacité de la méthode inverse est dans un premier temps démontrée sur des données artificielles (obtenues numériquement), puis sur des données réelles obtenues à l'aide d'expériences réalisées sur des plaques métalliques. Ces expériences confirment la faisabilité du CND par méthode d'échantillonnage dans un cadre industriel. Dans le cas où une seule sollicitation est réalisée, l'utilisation de la LSM est exclu. Nous utilisons une approche tout à fait différente et dite "extérieure", couplant une formulation mixte de quasi-réversibilité et une méthode de lignes de niveau, pour reconstruire le défaut. / Widely used structures in an industrial context, such as plates, pipes or rails, can be considered as waveguides. Hence efficient Non Destructive Testing techniques are needed in order to detect defects in these structure during their maintenance. This work is about adapting a sampling method, the Linear Sampling Method, to the context of NDT for elastic waveguides. This context implies that the sollicitations and measurements must be on the surface of the waveguide in a time-dependent regime. A modal and multi-frequency formulation of the LSM, specific to waveguides, has been chosen to solve the problem. This formulation allows an efficient and physical regularization of the inverse problem, which is naturally ill-posed. An optimization of the number of sources and measurements and of their positioning is possible thanks to the methodology used to solve the problem. The scalar case of an acoustic waveguide is considered as a first step, while the vectorial case of an elastic waveguide, more complex by nature, is addressed in a second time.The efficiency of the method is at first tested on artificial data (numerically made), and then on real data obtained from experiments on metallic plates. These experiments show the feasibility of using sampling methods for Non Destructive Testing in an industrial context. In the case when only one sollicitation is available, the LSM can not be applied. A completely different approach is then used, which is called the ``exterior'' approach, coupling a mixed formulation of quasi-reversibility and a level-set method in order to recover the shape of the defect.

Type-2 fuzzy inferencing for generalised, discretised type-2 fuzzy sets has been impeded by the computational complexity of the defuzzification stage of the fuzzy inferencing system. Indeed this stage is so complex computationally that it has come to be known as the defuzzification bottleneck. The computational complexity derives from the enormous number of embedded sets that have to be individually processed in order to effect defuzzification. Two new approaches to type-2 defuzzification are presented, the sampling method and the Greenfield-Chiclana Collapsing Defuzzifier. The sampling method and its variant, elite sampling, are techniques for the defuzzification of generalised type-2 fuzzy sets. In these methods a relatively small sample of the totality of embedded sets is randomly selected and processed. The small sample size drastically reduces the computational complexity of the defuzzification process, so that it may be speedily accomplished. The Greenfield-Chiclana Collapsing Defuzzifier relies upon the concept of the representative embedded set, which is an embedded set having the same defuzzified value as the type-2 fuzzy set that is to be defuzzified. By a process termed collapsing the type-2 fuzzy set is converted into a type-1 fuzzy set which, as an approximation to the representative embedded set, is known as the representative embedded set approximation. This type-1 fuzzy set is easily defuzzified to give the defuzzified value of the original type-2 fuzzy set. By this method the computational complexity of type-2 defuzzification is reduced enormously, since the representative embedded set approximation replaces the entire collection of embedded sets. The strategy was conceived as a generalised method, but so far only the interval version has been derived mathematically. The grid method of discretisation for type-2 fuzzy sets is also introduced in this thesis. Work on the defuzzification of type-2 fuzzy sets began around the turn of the millennium. Since that time a number of investigators have contributed methods in this area. These different approaches are surveyed, and the major methods implemented in code prior to their experimental evaluation. In these comparative experiments the grid method of defuzzification is employed. The experimental results show beyond doubt that the collapsing method performs the best of the interval alternatives. However, though the sampling method performs well experimentally, the results do not demonstrate it to be the best performing generalised technique.

本研究旨在探討不同背景變項的大專生之獨處狀態及其與身心健康之關係。採用經驗採樣法以自我報告的方式針對國內80位大專生進行為期一星期的生活紀錄，研究者每天以手機傳簡訊3-4次，受試者在接到簡訊後立即在「獨處生活紀錄」小冊子上填答當時的狀態，並以「獨處生活紀錄」小冊子及「研究同意書」、「個人基本資料」、「一般健康量表」、「時間表」編製成「大專生獨處狀態研究問卷」以及「研究回饋單」為研究工具。調查所得資料以描述統計、獨立樣本t考驗、相依樣本t考驗、皮爾森積差相關顯著性考驗、曲線相關顯著性考驗、一元二次曲線迴歸、多元線性逐步迴歸等統計方法進行處理。研究主要發現如下： 一、大專生獨處與非獨處（與他人在一起）時之主觀經驗及動機上有差異。 二、不同性別、年齡的大專生在獨處狀態（時間比例、主觀經驗、類型、動機）上沒有差異。 三、不同獨處動機的大專生在獨處狀態（時間比例、主觀經驗、類型）上有差異。 （一）獨處動機愈高的大專生獨處的時間比例愈長。 （二）獨處動機愈高的大專生獨處的主觀經驗愈正向 （三）獨處動機愈高的大專生處於「隱匿的」獨處類型比例愈高；獨處動機愈低的大專生處於「問題解決」、「寂寞的」、「自我發現的」獨處類比例愈高。 四、大專生不同的獨處類型比例與獨處狀態（時間比例、主觀經驗）有關係。 五、大專生獨處時間比例與一般身心健康呈曲線相關。 六、獨處狀態各變項對於大專生之身心健康具有預測效果。 另外，在研究方法上，由於本研究是國內首次運用連續自我報告一星期的經驗採樣法做為資料收集的方法，因此本研究將針對此一研究方法做進一步分析與探討。最後根據本研究的發現與討論，提出對大專生、學校及輔導人員以及未來相關研究之建議。

Ausgehend von einer Charakterisierung des Flow-Erlebens als gaenzliches Aufgehen in einem glatt laufenden Taetigkeitsvollzug, den man trotz hoher Beanspruchung noch unter Kontrolle hat, wird auf die Erfassung dieser Motivationskomponente eingegangen. Dargestellt und diskutiert werden Vor- und Nachteile der bisherigen qualitativen (Interviews) und quantitativen Flow-Erfassung (Experience Sampling Method (ESM)) . Ausfuehrlicher wird eine "Flow-Kurzskala" (FKS) beschrieben, die mit zehn Items alle qualitativ verschiedenen Komponenten des Flow-Erlebens oekonomisch und reliabel erfasst. Sie liefert einen Gesamtwert sowie Werte fuer zwei Subskalen (glatter automatisierter Verlauf sowie Absorbiertheit). Daneben erfassen drei zusaetzliche Items die Besorgnis in der aktuellen Situation. Berichtet werden Vergleichskennwerte aus punktuellen Messungen und ESM-Studien. Die hoechsten Werte fuer Flow und Besorgnis wurden bislang bei Graffiti-Sprayern gefunden. Bei einer intellektuell herausfordernden Aufgabe (Postkorbuebung) sind die FKS-Werte mit der Hoffnung-auf-Erfolg-Komponente des Leistungsmotivs korreliert. Furcht-vor-Misserfolg korreliert dagegen mit dem Besorgniswert der FKS. Flow waehrend der Bearbeitung von Uebungsaufgaben fuer Statistik lieferte einen signifikanten Beitrag zur Vorhersage der nachfolgenden Klausurleistung. Dieser Beitrag blieb erhalten, auch wenn Faehigkeitsmasse kontrolliert wurden. (Buch/A.G. - ZPID)