HDR

Abstract Past research has shown that motivation is an important predictor of goal-related behaviors. Sheldon and Elliot (1999) proposed the Self-Concordance Model (SCM), to distinguish between personal goals that reflect intrinsic interests and values (self-concordant goals) and personal goals that are pursued because of self-imposed and social pressures (self-discordant goals). Another important motivational construct is self-efficacy, people’s beliefs in their capabilities to exercise control over their level of functioning and their environment (Bandura, 1996). Self-efficacy has been shown to predict goal attainment and well-being as people who are self-efficacious put more effort and commitment towards their goals (Koestner, Horberg, Gaudreau, Powers, Di Dio, Bryan, Jochum & Salter, 2006). Despite the unique contribution of self-concordance and self-efficacy, little is known about their combined effects. I performed a study with 135 university students to investigate whether two self-regulatory processes could in fact be better than one. Results using hierarchical regression analyses indicated that self-efficacy did moderate the relationship between self-concordance and the outcome variables. Self-concordance was associated with greater well-being and goal progress for those high on self-efficacy (β = .21, p < .05; β = .33, p < .01) while negatively relating to well-being and goal progress for those low on self-efficacy (β = -.22, p = .07; β = -.19, p > .05 ). It appears that two motivational processes combined, self-concordance and self-efficacy, are in fact better than one.

Abstract Past research has shown that motivation is an important predictor of goal-related behaviors. Sheldon and Elliot (1999) proposed the Self-Concordance Model (SCM), to distinguish between personal goals that reflect intrinsic interests and values (self-concordant goals) and personal goals that are pursued because of self-imposed and social pressures (self-discordant goals). Another important motivational construct is self-efficacy, people’s beliefs in their capabilities to exercise control over their level of functioning and their environment (Bandura, 1996). Self-efficacy has been shown to predict goal attainment and well-being as people who are self-efficacious put more effort and commitment towards their goals (Koestner, Horberg, Gaudreau, Powers, Di Dio, Bryan, Jochum & Salter, 2006). Despite the unique contribution of self-concordance and self-efficacy, little is known about their combined effects. I performed a study with 135 university students to investigate whether two self-regulatory processes could in fact be better than one. Results using hierarchical regression analyses indicated that self-efficacy did moderate the relationship between self-concordance and the outcome variables. Self-concordance was associated with greater well-being and goal progress for those high on self-efficacy (β = .21, p < .05; β = .33, p < .01) while negatively relating to well-being and goal progress for those low on self-efficacy (β = -.22, p = .07; β = -.19, p > .05 ). It appears that two motivational processes combined, self-concordance and self-efficacy, are in fact better than one.

Invariants of knots coming from twisted signatures have played a central role in the study of knot concordance. Unfortunately, except in the simplest of cases, these signature invariants have proven exceedingly difficult to compute. As a consequence, many knots which presumably can be detected by these invariants are not a well understood as they should be. We study a family of signature invariants of knots and show that they provide concordance information. Significantly, we provide a tractable means for computing these signatures. Once armed with these tools we use them first to study the knot concordance group generated by the twist knots which are of order 2 in the algebraic concordance group. With our computational tools we can show that with only finitely many exceptions, they form a linearly independent set in the concordance group. We go on to study a procedure given by Cochran-Harvey-Leidy which produces infinite rank subgroups of the knot concordance group which, in some sense are extremely subtle and difficult to detect. The construction they give has an inherent ambiguity due to the difficulty of computing some signature invariants. This ambiguity prevents their construction from yielding an actual linearly independent set. Using the tools we develop we make progress to removing this ambiguity from their procedure.

L'objectif de notre mémoire est l’étude du système de l’indicatif du français et son transfert en lituanien. Pour donner des explications plus complètes sur le mode verbal nous avons étudié les œuvres de plusieurs grammairiens français et étrangers. Il est à noter que le trait distinctif du système temporel français, c’est la concordance des temps, fait syntaxique. Pourtant il ne faut pas comprendre la concordance des temps uniquement comme un système où les temps de la subordonnée dépendent des temps employés dans la proposition principale. Les cadres de la concordance des temps sont plus larges. Pour chaque proposition, qu'elle soit indépendante ou subordonnée, l'emploi des temps dépend du plan du récit, de tout le contexte, et avant tout du sens qu'on veut exprimer. Il est à dire que le système temporel français est beaucoup plus riche en formes temporelles que celui du lituanien. Par conséquence le transfert des formes grammaticales du français en lituanien a ses ressemblances mais il y a certaines différences. Il faut ajouter que les traducteurs lituaniens éprouvent certaines difficultés en traduisant les textes français car il n’y a pas d’équivalents pour certaines formes grammaticales. Cependant ils peuvent se servir d’autres moyens d’expression des niveaux temporels et dans ce cas les œuvres littéraires gardent leur originalité et expressivité.

The analysis of diverse data sets can yield different phylogenetic estimates that challenge systematists to explain the source of discordance. The Ambystomatidae are a classic example of this phylogenetic conflict. Previous attempts to resolve the ambystomatid species tree using allozymic, morphological, and mitochondrial sequence data have yielded different estimates, making it unclear which data source best approximates ambystomatid phylogeny. We present the first multi-locus DNA sequencebased phylogenetic study of the Ambystomatidae. Because independent loci can contain discordant gene tree histories, concatenating unlinked loci into a single data matrix can lead to strongly supported and erroneous results. Therefore, we utilized a range of analyses, including coalescent-based methods of phylogenetic estimation that account for incomplete lineage sorting and concordance-based methods that estimate the proportion of sampled loci that support a particular clade. We repeated these analyses with the removal of individual loci to determine if any locus has a disproportionate effect on our phylogenetic results. Many deep and relatively shallow clades within Ambystoma were robustly resolved. Analyses that excluded loci produced overlapping posterior distributions, suggesting no disproportionate influence of any particular locus. Our estimates differ from previous hypotheses, although there was greater similarity with previous molecular estimates, relative to morphological estimates.

Abstract Past research has shown that motivation is an important predictor of goal-related behaviors. Sheldon and Elliot (1999) proposed the Self-Concordance Model (SCM), to distinguish between personal goals that reflect intrinsic interests and values (self-concordant goals) and personal goals that are pursued because of self-imposed and social pressures (self-discordant goals). Another important motivational construct is self-efficacy, people’s beliefs in their capabilities to exercise control over their level of functioning and their environment (Bandura, 1996). Self-efficacy has been shown to predict goal attainment and well-being as people who are self-efficacious put more effort and commitment towards their goals (Koestner, Horberg, Gaudreau, Powers, Di Dio, Bryan, Jochum & Salter, 2006). Despite the unique contribution of self-concordance and self-efficacy, little is known about their combined effects. I performed a study with 135 university students to investigate whether two self-regulatory processes could in fact be better than one. Results using hierarchical regression analyses indicated that self-efficacy did moderate the relationship between self-concordance and the outcome variables. Self-concordance was associated with greater well-being and goal progress for those high on self-efficacy (β = .21, p < .05; β = .33, p < .01) while negatively relating to well-being and goal progress for those low on self-efficacy (β = -.22, p = .07; β = -.19, p > .05 ). It appears that two motivational processes combined, self-concordance and self-efficacy, are in fact better than one.

The effectiveness of local norms with two short forms of the MMPI was investigated in this study. Comparisons were made between high-point code-type concordance rates and the overall concordance rates generated by local norms and the original norms of Faschingbauer's Abbreviated MMPI (FAM) and the MMPI-168. The use of local norms did not produce significantly higher high-point code-type concordance rates than the use of original norms. The use of local norms was indicated when one is interested in overall profile concordance. However, this finding was not replicated in the cross-validation samples. No conclusion was reached regarding the superiority of one short form over the other in terms of high-point codetype concordance. In terms of overall concordance, the FAM was found to generate higher concordance rates than the MMPI-168 when original norms were used. Overall concordance rates were not significantly different between the two short forms when local norms were used. Design changes and possible explanations for the findings were discussed. The former included increasing the sample size of the cross-validation samples to reduce sampling error. The latter consisted of the lack of congruence between the factor structures of the FAM and MMPI-168 and that of the MMPI, possible similarities between the populations sampled and those upon which the FAM and MMPI-168 were standardized, and inadequate sample size.

Abstract Past research has shown that motivation is an important predictor of goal-related behaviors. Sheldon and Elliot (1999) proposed the Self-Concordance Model (SCM), to distinguish between personal goals that reflect intrinsic interests and values (self-concordant goals) and personal goals that are pursued because of self-imposed and social pressures (self-discordant goals). Another important motivational construct is self-efficacy, people’s beliefs in their capabilities to exercise control over their level of functioning and their environment (Bandura, 1996). Self-efficacy has been shown to predict goal attainment and well-being as people who are self-efficacious put more effort and commitment towards their goals (Koestner, Horberg, Gaudreau, Powers, Di Dio, Bryan, Jochum & Salter, 2006). Despite the unique contribution of self-concordance and self-efficacy, little is known about their combined effects. I performed a study with 135 university students to investigate whether two self-regulatory processes could in fact be better than one. Results using hierarchical regression analyses indicated that self-efficacy did moderate the relationship between self-concordance and the outcome variables. Self-concordance was associated with greater well-being and goal progress for those high on self-efficacy (β = .21, p < .05; β = .33, p < .01) while negatively relating to well-being and goal progress for those low on self-efficacy (β = -.22, p = .07; β = -.19, p > .05 ). It appears that two motivational processes combined, self-concordance and self-efficacy, are in fact better than one.

Both sleep diaries and actigraphy have been recommended to assess sleep in research and clinical settings. Investigators have traditionally used sleep diaries that were completed daily by participants and collected weekly but have recently begun using sleep diaries that are both completed and collected daily. No research had previously assessed the agreement between daily-collected sleep diaries and actigraph data over one week. Undergraduate students were randomly assigned to use daily- or weekly-collected sleep diaries. Sleep parameters obtained from these measures were compared to each other via concordance with concurrent actigraph data. It was hypothesized that daily-collected sleep diaries would have greater concordance with actigraphy than weekly-collected sleep diaries. Results indicated that daily-collected sleep diaries provided more reliable data than weekly-collected sleep diaries, but the differences were not statistically significant. Additional aims examined self-reported sleep diary adherence, the participation day number, and day of the week. There were trends for the Daily group to have better adherence. Overall concordance did not change based on the day number or day of the week. Both sleep diaries yield comparable sleep parameter data, suggesting that clinicians and researchers can use either method to estimate sleep parameters.