Burnout and job satisfaction among 108 clinical psychologists working in multi-disciplinary teams (MDTs), was explored in relation to perceived team climate, clarity of team and personal role, and professional and team identificaton. The study employed a cross-sectional within-group and between group design involving a quantitative and qualitative methodology to explore the relationship between variables. Clinical psychologists reported high job satisfaction and high emotional exhaustion, and perceived team climate to be low on a number of aspects. Professional identification was higher than team identification, although team identification was strong. Team identification was associated with aspects of job satisfaction, but not burnout. Clarity regarding personal role in the team was positively associated with job satisfaction and negatively associated with emotional exhaustion. Clarity regarding the role of the team was associated with team identification and job satisfaction. Multi-disciplinary team experience, experience as a psychologist, length of time and the number of sessions worked with the team, were not associated with team identification. Amount of contact with other psychologists was not associated with professional identification. Team climate was associated with job satisfaction and team identification. The findings are discussed and the implications for services, clinical practice and clinical psychology training are addressed.

The concept of sustainable development is commonly used worldwide. In the public sector, characterized by a rationalization focus, conclusions about the sustainability of lean production (lean), as a management concept for organizational change, are contradictory. This thesis aims to identify conditions promoting sustainable development in the public sector, in particular the healthcare sector, when implementing lean. Two qualitative and one quantitative case study were conducted using longitudinal data collection: focus group interviews, semi-structured interviews, analysis seminars, steering board meetings, and a questionnaire. The empirical data was collected from national lean programs in Sweden. The results describe that socio-technical principles may be used as indicators of sustainability as well as a guide in the implementation of lean in healthcare. Active ownership among stakeholders, a developmental view in the organization, stakeholder participation, organized joint innovative learning activities, role and goal clarity may be conditions influencing the sustainability of lean in the public sector. Furthermore, when supported by a favorable lean context, the results show that the lean tools value stream mapping, standardized work and 5S (housekeeping) may promote a sustainable implementation of lean in healthcare by the promotion of employees and managers’ working conditions and/or employee individual innovation. Visual follow-up boards may inhibit employees and managers’ job satisfaction, when not supported by job resources. Personnel stability, time for development, and information to be able to participate were in this context shown to be central job resources. In conclusion, conditions which may promote sustainable development in the public sector, when implementing lean are: stakeholder values of inclusive social well-being, an implementation process including stakeholder ownership and joint innovative learning, and a favorable lean context: balancing job resources and job demands. Lean tools may empower public healthcare employees to engage in development and counteract a poor implementation process and a poor lean context but only to a limited degree. The lean contexts studied were unfavorable, i.e., a weak implementation process and job resources not balancing the job demands. Hence, the lean implementations studied could not be considered sustainable. / <p>QC 20160901</p>

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Past research on emotional clarity (EC), the ability to identify and label one’s own emotions, has illustrated a connection between EC deficits and poor psychosocial outcomes during the adolescent years. For youth ages 12-17, low EC is associated with internalizing problems, dysfunction in peer and parental relationships, and risky behavior such as substance use. Likewise, high EC is linked with positive outcomes, such as psychosocial maturity and adaptive emotion regulation skills. Although past research has connected EC to psychosocial outcomes during adolescence in cross-sectional and longitudinal designs, no studies have traced the trajectory of EC over time to determine the developmental course of the construct during adolescence. Thus, this study investigated how EC developed over five years during adolescence and what factors were associated with the developmental trajectory of emotional clarity. Results indicated that EC tended to decrease over adolescence, and females, on average, had a steeper decline of EC over time than males. The trajectory of EC change predicted psychosocial outcomes, including depression, family functioning, well-being, and the trajectory of peer victimization over time. Results are discussed with the ultimate goal of informing novel prevention and intervention programs to promote adaptive emotional functioning during an influential time in human development. / Psychology

Thesis advisor: Michael C. Martin / One way in which these ideas and influences are presented to humanity is through literature. By illustrating the processes and insights of the characters in search of the answers to these ultimate questions, novels can successfully portray the philosophical moment of clarity. Two novels in which the reader gains an insight into this moment of clarity are Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse and Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. Each of these novels provides a different lens, focus and conclusion in the search for what is important in life and how humanity should view the world. Both authors use literature, specifically character experiences of moments of clarity, in order to portray a philosophy to the reader. Through the medium of literature, the reader is able to emotionally engage and become invested in the outcome of the characters and conclusion of the authors. This engagement of the reader creates a unique connection which fosters the ability for the reader to identify elements of the philosophical application in his or her own life which is absent through traditional philosophical texts. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2007. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Philosophy. / Discipline: College Honors Program.

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Smallmouth bass (Micropterus dolomieu) have experienced substantial range expansions in northern Ontario over the past century, with adverse consequences for native salmonid predators. It is unclear how climate-induced water clarity shifts will affect interactions between native dark-adapted walleye (Sander virteus) and invading smallmouth bass in northern Ontario. This study used stable isotopes of nitrogen (15N/14N) and carbon (13C/12C) in fish muscle tissue to investigate how resource partitioning between walleye and smallmouth bass is related to water clarity in 34 small (100-200 ha) Boreal Shield lakes (ranging from 1 to 8.5 m Secchi depth, and from 3.2 to 13.1 mg/L DOC). Quantitative metrics of trophic niche dimensions (based on the size, position, and dispersion of multivariate ellipses drawn around sampled individuals in δ15N vs. δ13C biplot space) were calculated for each individual population and used to determine trophic interactions and niche overlap between sympatric walleye and smallmouth bass. Linear and multiple regressions were then used to explore potential relationships between trophic interactions and water clarity. Available habitat and fish assemblage data was also explored for potential influences on isotopic niche dimensions and trophic interactions of walleye and smallmouth bass. Total occupied niche space decreased significantly with increasing water clarity for smallmouth bass as populations occupied a narrower range of trophic levels and made greater use of pelagic resources. In contrast, walleye trophic niche dimensions did not respond significantly to water clarity. Isotopic niche overlap ranged from 0 to 65%, but no metric of trophic overlap was significantly related to water clarity. Other abiotic and biotic variables, however, did have a significant influence on the similarity between some aspects of walleye and smallmouth iv bass isotopic niche dimensions (but not interaction). Both species fed on more isotopically similar carbon sources as lakes became shallower, which may be a result of a lack of distinct littoral and limnetic habitats. Walleye and smallmouth bass niche size also became more similar with increasing DOC but this may be a result of lower prey diversity. Both species also occupied more similar average food web positions as yellow perch relative abundance increased, indicating that the exploitation of yellow perch by both species increased with perch abundance. Together with other studies that have found little evidence for an impact of smallmouth bass on walleye fitness and abundance, this research suggests that, unlike salmonid and cyprinid species, walleye may be resilient against smallmouth bass invasions regardless of water clarity conditions in oligotrophic boreal lakes.

Aim When speech signals are transmitted via radio, the process of transmission may add noise to the signal of interest. This study aims to examine the effect of radio transmission on the quality of speech signals transmitted using a combined acoustic and perceptual approach. Method A standard acoustic recording of the Phonetically Balanced Kindergarten (PBK) word list read by a male speaker was played back in three conditions, one without radio transmission and two with two types of radio transmission. The vowel segments (/i, a, o, u/) embedded in the original and the re-recorded signals were analysed to yield measures of frequency loci of the first two formant frequencies (F1 and F2), amplitude difference between the first two harmonics (H1-H2), and singing power ratio (SPR). Other measures included Spectral Moment One (mean), Spectral Moment Two (variance), and the energy ratio between consonant and vowel (CV energy ratio). To examine how H1-H2 and SPR were related to the perception of vowel intelligibility and clarity, vowels at five levels of each of these two measures were selected as stimuli in the perceptual study. The auditory stimuli were presented to 20 normal hearing listeners, including 10 males and 10 females aged between 21 to 42 years, the listeners were asked to identify the vowel for each vowel stimulus in the vowel identification task and judge from a contrast pair which vowel sounded “clearer” in the clarity discrimination task. A follow-up study using vowel stimuli with a constant length and five H1-H2 or five SPR levels was conducted on five listeners to determine the relationship between the perception of speech clarity and H1-H2 or SPR. Results Results from a series of one-way or two-way analyses of variance (ANOVAs) or ANOVAs on Ranks and post-hoc test revealed that radio transmission had a significant effect on all of the selected acoustic measures except for the CV energy ratio. Signal degeneration due to radio transmission is characterized by changes of F1 or F2 frequencies toward a more compressed vowel space, a H1-H2 value indicating an increase of H1 dominance, a SPR value suggestive of an increase in the energy around the 2-4 kHz region, and a loss of differentiation between /s/ and /sh/ on the measures of Spectral Moments One and Two. Vowel duration was also found to play a major role in affecting the perception of vowel intelligibility and clarity. The follow-up study, with a control on vowel duration, found that SPR played a role in affecting the perception of vowel intelligibility and clarity. Conclusion It was concluded from the findings that measures of energy ratio between different frequency regions, as well as the frequencies of the first two formant frequencies, were sensitive in detecting the effect of radio transmission.

The newly emerging Clarity™ Clear Aligner System from 3M has set out to address one of the biggest pitfalls of thermoplastic aligners: accuracy of orthodontic movements. The 3M Clarity™ Clear Aligner System is unique among clear aligners because it employs a proprietary, sophisticated machine-learning algorithm to design orthodontic movement schematics. The core of the Clarity™ Aligner System is artificial intelligence, meaning that a prospective analysis of preliminary data is essential for the development and improvement of the accuracy of the algorithm. This study investigates movement and accuracy of the Clarity™ Aligner System, from a preliminary data subset from ongoing prospective, randomized clinical trials. Movement from the first trial subset is examined in terms of the following movement factors: secondary premolar-secondary premolar (5+5 in the Palmer system) arch expansion or crowding resolved, absolute rotation, absolute mesial-distal tipping, and absolute torque for both the crown and root. These movements are further examined according to specific tooth types. Both actual observational orthodontic movements and theoretical movements are designed by the Clarity™ System. The accuracy of actual movement in terms of theoretical movements is calculated; however, it is impossible to calculate the significance of these accuracies due to a complete lack of benchmark movement values for the clear aligner market. There are no benchmark values to compare to, so orthodontic movements will be critically examined for performance, and casually compared to alternative aligner systems. Identifying potential weaknesses in the Clarity™ Aligner System is imperative for maximizing its effectiveness.

Organisations have been under enormous pressure due to the changes that they are constantly faced with. Most organisations have at some stage been involved in restructuring, laying-off of employees, and outsourcing of non-core business activities with the aim of coping with the change process. When organisations go through these changes, they still need to support their employees. They must ensure that the employees' roles are clarified, and that they feel secure in their jobs in order to improve their commitment to the organisation. The objective of this study was to determine the relationship between perceived organisational support, role clarity, job insecurity and organisational commitment. Employees from a business unit in a petrochemical organisation were targeted for this research. The study population included employees from managerial, non-managerial and specialist categories. A cross-sectional design was used to achieve the research objectives. Measures of Perceived Organisational Support (POSQ), Role Clarity (RCQ), Job Insecurity (JIQ), Affective Organisational Commitment (OCQ) and a biographical questionnaire were administered for the study. The statistical analysis was carried out with the help of the SPSS program as well as the AMOS program. Pearson product-moment correlations indicated that when perceived organisational support increases, affective organisational commitment and role clarity will also increase. When perceived organisational support increases, role conflict and job insecurity will Vll decrease. Affective organisational commitment as well as role clarity is predicted by perceived organisational support. MANOYA analysis indicated that male employees experience higher levels of role conflict than their female counterparts. It seems that employees in first line management and professional categories experience significantly higher levels of perceived role conflict than employees in lower level positions. Employees in non-management positions experience significantly higher levels of affective job insecurity than employees in senior management positions. Employees in senior management positions experience significantly lower levels of cognitive job insecurity than employees in non-management positions. Recommendations were made for future research. / Thesis (M.A. (Industrial Psychology))--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2008.