<p>This study utilised secondary data from a larger study that looked at individuals that are already infected by HIV which is entitled Implicative personal dilemmas and cognitive conflicts in health decision making in HIV positive adults and adults with AIDS. The primary aim of the larger study was to examine the cognitive construction of the individual and how they utilised their individual resources to construct who they are and how they perceived the difficulties and challenges that they face and the decisions they make regarding their health. HIV and AIDS is a debilitating disease and it affects millions worldwide. South Africa, presently, has the largest burden of this disease with those between the ages of 15 &ndash / 49 years of age being most affected. As previously&nbsp / mentioned the decisions that individuals make can impact on their health. Decisions to take necessary precautions such as protected sex during sexual intercourse can decrease the&nbsp / progression of the disease. Decisions made regarding abstinence of risky behaviour as well as being committed to taking medication could also positively impact health. People living with HIV and AIDS find it&nbsp / difficult to adjust to the challenges that this disease presents. Depression is often experienced due to the changes in self image and perception. Studies show that&nbsp / females are twice more likely to experience depression than men. There has however been no conclusive evidence showing the reason for this, however, the perception of stress based on&nbsp / gender could shed some light on this matter and how these perceptions can increase the likelihood of women being more vulnerable to depression. Due to the limitation of this study, it will&nbsp / only look at depression as it relates to HIV and AIDS. Psychological problems such as depression can hamper the adjustment process and the effect of depression is evident in that it can lower the CD 4 + cells. Not only are those&nbsp / living with HIV and AIDS affected by depression, but they also have a lifetime prevalence to depression. It is important to have an effective screening tool for depression so that the detection of this&nbsp / disease can be made and effective treatment can be implemented to enhance health. The sample consisted of 113 adult participants that have already been diagnosed with HIV and AIDS. The&nbsp / primary aim of this study was to compare the Beck&rsquo / s Depression Inventory II (BDI II) and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale &ndash / (the Depression component) (HADS-D) as a screening tool&nbsp / &nbsp / for depression. Exploratory Factor Analysis revealed a 5 factor structure which accounted for 60.14 % of the total variance. The HADS yielded one factor accounting for 14.33% of total variance. The BDI II has proven to be more a reliable measure of depression with 0.89 according to the Cronbach&rsquo / s Alpha co efficient opposed to 0.375 as per the HADS-D. The secondary aim was to establish&nbsp / the sociodemographic and disease profiles of the participants under study. </p>

<p>This study utilised secondary data from a larger study that looked at individuals that are already infected by HIV which is entitled Implicative personal dilemmas and cognitive conflicts in health decision making in HIV positive adults and adults with AIDS. The primary aim of the larger study was to examine the cognitive construction of the individual and how they utilised their individual resources to construct who they are and how they perceived the difficulties and challenges that they face and the decisions they make regarding their health. HIV and AIDS is a debilitating disease and it affects millions worldwide. South Africa, presently, has the largest burden of this disease with those between the ages of 15 &ndash / 49 years of age being most affected. As previously&nbsp / mentioned the decisions that individuals make can impact on their health. Decisions to take necessary precautions such as protected sex during sexual intercourse can decrease the&nbsp / progression of the disease. Decisions made regarding abstinence of risky behaviour as well as being committed to taking medication could also positively impact health. People living with HIV and AIDS find it&nbsp / difficult to adjust to the challenges that this disease presents. Depression is often experienced due to the changes in self image and perception. Studies show that&nbsp / females are twice more likely to experience depression than men. There has however been no conclusive evidence showing the reason for this, however, the perception of stress based on&nbsp / gender could shed some light on this matter and how these perceptions can increase the likelihood of women being more vulnerable to depression. Due to the limitation of this study, it will&nbsp / only look at depression as it relates to HIV and AIDS. Psychological problems such as depression can hamper the adjustment process and the effect of depression is evident in that it can lower the CD 4 + cells. Not only are those&nbsp / living with HIV and AIDS affected by depression, but they also have a lifetime prevalence to depression. It is important to have an effective screening tool for depression so that the detection of this&nbsp / disease can be made and effective treatment can be implemented to enhance health. The sample consisted of 113 adult participants that have already been diagnosed with HIV and AIDS. The&nbsp / primary aim of this study was to compare the Beck&rsquo / s Depression Inventory II (BDI II) and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale &ndash / (the Depression component) (HADS-D) as a screening tool&nbsp / &nbsp / for depression. Exploratory Factor Analysis revealed a 5 factor structure which accounted for 60.14 % of the total variance. The HADS yielded one factor accounting for 14.33% of total variance. The BDI II has proven to be more a reliable measure of depression with 0.89 according to the Cronbach&rsquo / s Alpha co efficient opposed to 0.375 as per the HADS-D. The secondary aim was to establish&nbsp / the sociodemographic and disease profiles of the participants under study. </p>

This study utilised secondary data from a larger study that looked at individuals that are already infected by HIV which is entitled Implicative personal dilemmas and cognitive conflicts in health decision making in HIV positive adults and adults with AIDS. The primary aim of the larger study was to examine the cognitive construction of the individual and how they utilised their individual resources to construct who they are and how they perceived the difficulties and challenges that they face and the decisions they make regarding their health. HIV and AIDS is a debilitating disease and it affects millions worldwide. South Africa, presently, has the largest burden of this disease with those between the ages of 15 – 49 years of age being most affected. As previously mentioned the decisions that individuals make can impact on their health. Decisions to take necessary precautions such as protected sex during sexual intercourse can decrease the progression of the disease. Decisions made regarding abstinence of risky behaviour as well as being committed to taking medication could also positively impact health. People living with HIV and AIDS find it difficult to adjust to the challenges that this disease presents. Depression is often experienced due to the changes in self image and perception. Studies show that females are twice more likely to experience depression than men. There has however been no conclusive evidence showing the reason for this, however, the perception of stress based on gender could shed some light on this matter and how these perceptions can increase the likelihood of women being more vulnerable to depression. Due to the limitation of this study, it will only look at depression as it relates to HIV and AIDS. Psychological problems such as depression can hamper the adjustment process and the effect of depression is evident in that it can lower the CD 4 + cells. Not only are those living with HIV and AIDS affected by depression, but they also have a lifetime prevalence to depression. It is important to have an effective screening tool for depression so that the detection of this disease can be made and effective treatment can be implemented to enhance health. The sample consisted of 113 adult participants that have already been diagnosed with HIV and AIDS. The primary aim of this study was to compare the Beck’s Depression Inventory II (BDI II) and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale –(the Depression component) (HADS-D) as a screening tool for depression.Exploratory Factor Analysis revealed a 5 factor structure which accounted for 60.14 % of the total variance. The HADS yielded one factor accounting for 14.33% of total variance. The BDI II has proven to be more a reliable measure of depression with 0.89 according to the Cronbach’s Alpha co efficient opposed to 0.375 as per the HADS-D. The secondary aim was to establish the sociodemographic and disease profiles of the participants under study. / Magister Psychologiae - MPsych

This dissertation investigates high-level decision making for agents that are both goal and utility driven. We develop a partially observable Markov decision process (POMDP) planner which is an extension of an agent programming language called DTGolog, itself an extension of the Golog language. Golog is based on a logic for reasoning about action—the situation calculus. A POMDP planner on its own cannot cope well with dynamically changing environments and complicated goals. This is exactly a strength of the belief-desire-intention (BDI) model: BDI theory has been developed to design agents that can select goals intelligently, dynamically abandon and adopt new goals, and yet commit to intentions for achieving goals. The contribution of this research is twofold: (1) developing a relational POMDP planner for cognitive robotics, (2) specifying a preliminary BDI architecture that can deal with stochasticity in action and perception, by employing the planner. / Computing / M. Sc. (Computer Science)

Thesis aims at fighter combat and maneuvring - so called Dogfighting. The purpose of this work is to create intelligent autopilot based on Agent system, eligible of executing in-air maneuvers and tactics in real-time simulation. In the first part, theoretical basis of air combat will be introduced, such as weapon systems, maneuvring and tactics in mutual combat 1 on 1, odds fight 2 on 1, and last but not least mass fights. Also agent programming will be introduced, as well as recognizing of agent rules and processes and its transformation to agent language. The second part describes building of a simple graphical simulation environment based on JMonkey game engine. Agent system maintaining every single aircraft within the simulation will be created and own network socket protocol for communication between intelligent behavior and simulation environment will be discussed and documented.

No description available.

Ce mémoire constitue la poursuite des travaux de validation de Vézina et Bourque de deux échelles d'auto-évaluation de la dépression, soient l'Inventaire de Dépression de Beck et l'Échelle de Dépression Gériatrique et ce, auprès de personnes âgées francophones. Trois volets d'analyse psychométrique ont composé ce projet de recherche dont l'objectif général était d'estimer les performances diagnostiques de ces deux échelles lorsque confrontées à un critère diagnostic de dépression majeure établi selon les critères du Diagnostic and Statistical Disorders(DSM-III-R). Le premier volet avait comme objectif principal de comparer et de déterminer lequel de ces deux instruments offrait la meilleure performance diagnostique auprès d'une population âgée francophone vivant à domicile. Il poursuivait comme autre objectif d'évaluer des indices de stabilité temporelle, de validité concomitante et discriminante ainsi que les taux de sensibilité et de spécificité pour l'ensemble des seuils d'utilisation. Le deuxième volet cherchait à mesurer lequel de ces deux instruments présentait la meilleure performance diagnostique mais cette fois-ci, auprès d'une population âgée francophone vivant en hébergement. Des taux de sensibilité et de spécificité pour tous les seuils d'utilisation, des indices de stabilité temporelle ainsi que de validité concomitante ont également été recueillis auprès de cette deuxième population. Le troisième volet adoptait une perspective d'étude différente en évaluant l'influence du milieu de vie d'hébergement et domiciliaire sur les performances diagnostiques respectives de ces deux échelles. Finalement, l'un des attraits majeur de ces analyses résidait dans l'apport novateur des courbes caractéristiques(Receiver Operating Characteristics (ROC) Curves) au domaine de la psychométrie.

Magister Psychologiae - MPsych / The aim of the present study was to determine whether it was possible to identify changes in levels of postpartum depression and maternal adjustment and attitude in primiparae before and after birth. It aimed, furthermore, at assessing certain risk factors that could provide an understanding of the etiological factors (causes, determinants) influencing postpartum levels of depression and maternal adjustment and attitude. The study focused on risk factors among married and unmarried primiparae (first time mothers), with a view to establishing vulnerability profiles of the respective groups. The specific risk factors that formed part of the investigation were social support, personality (neuroticism) and life events. All the subjects investigated were recruited from the Mitchells Plain Maternity and Obstetrics Unit. A sample of 70 subjects, in the third trimester of pregnancy, voluntarily participated in the first part of this study. Of these, 26 belonged to the married group and 44 belonged to the unmarried group. As a result of the attrition factor, 57 subjects constituted the final sample for analysis. The final sample comprised 20 married and 37 unmarried subjects. Subjects were followed up four to eight weeks postpartum. Results revealed that there were no significant changes in levels of depression between the married and unmarried groups, either before or after delivery. Of significance was that with the event of birth, the depression scores amongst women rated high in neuroticism decreased significantly. Married women with high social support satisfaction scores were found to have low depression scores. Similarly, married women who experienced fewer negative life events had lower levels of depression than did the unmarried women who experienced fewer negative life events. The maternal adjustment and attitude scores did not change before or after birth, except in the married group. The married group showed a significant increase in scores on the maternal adjustment and attitude scores after the birth of the child. Regarding personality (neuroticism), the high neuroticism scorers had significantly lower maternal adjustment and attitude than did the low neuroticism scorers. As was the case with social support and depression, married women with high social support had a higher maternal adjustment and attitude. A significant effect of negative life events on maternal adjustment and attitude was only found for the married women (after delivery) who experienced a low number of life events. A stepwise multiple regression analysis was performed, in order to yield a model in which the depression and maternal adjustment and attitude scores would be predicted by risk factors. The finding of this analysis for both depression and maternal attitude and adjustment was not significant. Social Identity theory was suggested as a possible interpretation of these results. Future research which views social identity as a factor in understanding postpartum depression and maternal adjustment and attitude has been proposed .