L'augmentation constante du nombre de documents disponibles et des moyens d'accès transforme les pratiques de recherche d'information. Depuis quelques années, de plus en plus de plateformes de recherche d'information à destination des chercheurs ou du grand public font leur apparition sur la toile. Ce flot d'information est bien évidemment une opportunité pour les utilisateurs mais ils sont maintenant confrontés à de nouveaux problèmes. Auparavant, la principale problématique des chercheurs était de savoir si une information existait. Aujourd'hui, il est plutôt question de savoir comment accéder à une information pertinente. Pour résoudre ce problème, deux leviers d'action seront étudiés dans cette thèse. Nous pensons qu'il est avant tout important d'identifier l'usage qui est fait des principaux moyens d'accès à l'information. Être capable d'interpréter le comportement des utilisateurs est une étape nécessaire pour d'abord identifier ce que ces derniers comprennent des systèmes de recherche, et ensuite ce qui doit être approfondi. En effet, la plupart de ces systèmes agissent comme des boîtes noires qui masquent les différents processus sous-jacents. Si ces mécanismes n'ont pas besoin d'être entièrement maitrisés par les utilisateurs, ils ont cependant un impact majeur qui doit être pris en compte dans l'exploitation des résultats. Pourquoi le moteur de recherche me renvoie-t-il ces résultats ? Pourquoi ce document est-il plus pertinent qu'un autre ? Ces questions apparemment banales sont pourtant essentielles à une recherche d'information critique. Nous pensons que les utilisateurs ont le droit et le devoir de s'interroger sur la pertinence des outils informatiques mis à leur disposition. Pour les aider dans cette tâche, nous avons développé une plateforme de recherche d'information en ligne à double usage. Elle peut tout d'abord être utilisée pour l'observation et la compréhension du comportement des utilisateurs. De plus, elle peut aussi être utilisée comme support pédagogique, pour mettre en évidence les différents biais de recherche auxquels les utilisateurs sont confrontés. Dans le même temps, ces outils doivent être améliorés. Nous prenons dans cette thèse l'exemple de la qualité des documents qui a un impact certain sur leur accessibilité. La quantité de documents disponibles ne cessant d'augmenter, les opérateurs humains sont de moins en moins capables de les corriger manuellement et de s'assurer de leur qualité. Il est donc nécessaire de mettre en place de nouvelles stratégies pour améliorer le fonctionnement des systèmes de recherche. Nous proposons dans cette thèse une méthode pour automatiquement identifier et corriger certaines erreurs générées par les processus automatiques d'extraction d'information (en particulier l'OCR). / The constant increase of available documents and tools to access them has led to a change of research practices. For a few years now, more and more information retrieval platforms are made available online to the scientific community or the public. This data deluge is a great opportunity for users seeking information. However, it comes with new problems and new challenges to overcome. Formerly, the main issue for researchers was to identify if a particular resource existed. Today, the challenge is more about finding how to access pertinent information. We have identified two distinct levers to limit the impact of this new search paradigm. First, we believe that it is necessary to analyze how the different search platforms are used. To be able to understand and read into users behavior is a necessary step to comprehend what users understand, and to identify what they need to get an in-depth understanding of the operation of such platforms. Indeed, most systems act as black boxes which conceal the underlying transformations applied on data. Users do not need to understand in details how those algorithms work. However, because those algorithms have a major impact on the accessibility of information, and need to be taken into account during the exploitation of search results. Why is the search engine returning those particular results ? Why is this document more pertinent than another ? Such seemingly naive questions are nonetheless essential to undertake an analytical approach of the information search and retrieval task. We think that users have a right and a duty to question themselves about the relevance of such and such tool at their disposal. To help them cope with these issues, we developped a dual-use information search platform. On the one hand, it can be used to observe and understand user behavior. On the other hand, it can be used as a pedagogical medium to highlight research biases users can be exposed to. At the same time, we believe that the tools themselves must be improved. In the second part of this thesis, we study the impact that the quality of documents can have on their accessibility. Because of the increase of documents available online, human operators are less and less able to insure their quality. Thus, there is a need to set up new strategies to improve the way search platform operate and process documents. We propose a new method to automatically identify and correct errors generated by information extraction process such as OCR.

This study examined the correlation between Vietnam veterans and dependency to illicit drugs, due to their exposure and accessibility during their deployment in Vietnam. This study consisted of a sample size of 58 respondents to a survey that was disbursed throughout 2 agencies that comprise of Vietnam veterans.The survey design was implemented to ensure the consistency and accuracy of the quantitative data. Furthermore, this study included a Chi-square test to determine relevance and implications to micro social work practices. As expected, there was a positively significant statistical relationship between the exposure and accessibility that some Vietnam veterans experienced during their deployment that continues to affect their current use of illicit drugs. This study has been conducted to help future micro practitioners understand the importance and effects that this exposure and accessibility played in the lives of many Vietnam veterans.

[pt] A acessibilidade na Web é um dos grandes desafios de pesquisa na área das Ciências da Computação. Existem muitas iniciativas que visam a melhorar os sistemas, a fim de que usuários com deficiências e outras necessidades especiais tenham o pleno acesso às informações e serviços disponíveis na internet. Uma delas é o sistema apresentado neste trabalho, o WNH – Web Navigation Helper, um assistente de navegação na Web, criado para auxiliar usuários com necessidades especiais a realizarem atividades na internet, por meio de diálogos de mediação, previamente construídos, com um editor especializado, por pessoas interessadas em ajudar. Mostramos, no texto, a descrição das ferramentas desenvolvidas (editor e assistente) e a análise de três estudos exploratórios realizados, antes e depois do desenvolvimento do sistema. Apresentamos ainda como os experimentos revelaram aspectos sociais e culturais da sociedade brasileira relevantes para o design do WNH e como eles alteraram a nossa visão original do sistema. Foi preciso repensar a ferramenta, a fim de que se considerasse a variável cultural no seu desenvolvimento e avaliação. / [en] Web accessibility is one of the big challenges in the Computer Science research. There are many initiatives that aim to improve systems, in order that users with disabilities and other special needs have plain access to information and services available on the Internet. One of them is the system presented here, WNH, a Web Navigation Helper, created to support users with special needs do activities on the Internet, through mediation dialogs, previously developed, with a specialized editor, by users interested in helping these people. We present in the text, the description of the developed tools (the editor and the helper) and the analysis of three exploratory studies done, before and after the system development. We also show how the experiments revealed social and cultural aspects of Brazilian society, that are relevant to the WNH design, and we show how they changed our initial vision of the system. There was necessary to rethink the tool, in order to take account on the cultural variable in its development and evaluation.

Opioid dependence and opioid related deaths are a public health problem which the United States Centers of Disease Control have declared an epidemic. While opioid agonist therapy for opioid addiction has been accepted as the most effective treatment for opioid dependence among academics, and office based buprenorphine treatment has been available in the Unites States for over 10 years, OB buprenorphine faces many barriers to widespread adoption. Empirical data on the geographic distribution of physicians able to prescribe buprenorphine and the prescribing patterns of those physicians show considerable unevenness in access and utilization of treatment services. Federal-level policies have recently been implemented to expand access to opioid agonist therapy, but the medium and long term impacts of these policy changes on individual outcomes, public health, and geographic access equity are not yet clear. This dissertation compares two recent federal level policies on expanding access to buprenorphine treatment: raising the regulatory limit on the number of patients a provider can treat (implemented July, 2016), and extending prescribing privileges to nurse practitioners and physician assistants (implemented February, 2017), using an empirically supported Agent Based Simulation model. Policies are assessed by a novel, at-a-glance, quantitative access equity metric: the Spatial Potential Access Gini Index, in addition to year-end treatment utilization, opioid overdose deaths, and the amount of illicit medication diversion. In the simulation, expanding access by increasing the patient limit did not result in more equitable spatial access, while extending prescribing to NPs and PAs increased both utilization and spatial access equity. This is likely due to empirically supported model assumptions that NPs and PAs providing primary care often serve in medically underserved areas including rural and remote regions. Extending prescribing to these practitioners opens up new treatment locations changing the spatial distribution of treatment opportunities. Changing patient limits does not change the overall spatial distribution of services, so spatial access equity does not change even if overall treatment supply gets better or worse. The primary contribution of this work is the Spatial Potential Access Lorenz Curve and the Spatial Potential Access Gini Index, measures that aggregate individual-level Spatial Potential Access Scores commonly used in health care geography to map and identify areas of access disparity within a region. The equitability of Spatial Potential Access is calculated by using the Lorenz Curve, which is commonly used to characterize the distribution of wealth or income in a society, from which a Gini Index is calculated. The Spatial Potential Access Gini Index allows for direct comparison of complex quantitative information about the geographic distribution of supply and demand in a region with other regions, or in response to policies that impact supply or demand within the region. The measure has potential applications in simulation studies on the spatial allocation of services, allowing equity assessment of policy alternatives, as well as in empirical work, allowing equity comparisons of different regions, or in hybrid studies in which policy experiments are conducted on data-rich maps.

This in-depth qualitative, phenomenological (Smith & Fowler, 2009) research study attempted to understand the experiences of young adults with intellectual disability who had completed a 2-year, inclusive postsecondary education program. 13 participants (4 former students with ID, 5 parents, and 4 Postsecondary Education staff members) participated in semi-structured interviews. Interviews were coded to provide themes amongst each individual group of participants. A document review was also conducted to better understand the program components and add validity to self-reports from interviews. Results were analyzed and used to provide implications for future research and program development.

With the rapid urbanization, the urban residents' demand for urban public parks is increasing. As a unique and representative age group, older adults put forward new requirements for the evaluation and rational planning of urban parks. Park accessibility is an important index reflecting the rationality of park layout, the accessibility of residents to the park and the social equity of park services. In this paper, buffer analysis and network analysis based on the ArcGIS platform were selected to analyze service accessibility and green transportation accessibility of The Villages metropolitan area of Florida respectively and then make a summary analysis. In particular, this paper chooses service area, common facilities, and recreational amenities as the evaluation factors of service accessibility. Besides, the coverage area of three modes of green transportation, namely walking, public transportation and bicycle, in different periods is selected as the evaluation factor of green transportation accessibility in this paper. The results show that: 1) The accessibility level of the study area is generally low, and more than half of the study area is not within the service scope of the park. 2) The urban parks serving the study area are relatively unevenly distributed; the road network is imperfect, and there are open circuit and blank area. 3) Park accessibility ratio of four modes of transportation in different time levels motor vehicles > bicycles > walking > public transportation. The research results can provide a reference for the optimization of the spatial layout of public parks in age-friendly cities.

The purpose of this research project was to study the socio-economics of a controlled group of educable retardates who had completed their formal education. In 1965 the researcher investigated the mentally retarded students enrolled in the davenport, Iowa, Taylor and Marquette Schools and compared them to their parents and siblings. The pupil’s studies comprised three groups: (1_ a trainable group represented by pupils from 25 families; (2) a group of educable mentally handicapped students with known organic involvement represented by pupils from 165 families; and (3) a group of educable mentally handicapped pupils with no known organic involvement sufficient to account for retarded condition – commonly referred to as “familial retardation”. The results of the study supported the views that the background of the trainable and the educable children showing organic involvement was typical of that found in the general population of the United States and that the background of the familial, educable mentally retarded tended to correspond to that of lower class, underprivileged families. The data pertaining to socio-economic stats and the educational histories of the siblings supported these conclusions. For purposes of classification, the group studied in this project falls into the range Christine Ingram describes as “educationally mentally retarded” or “educationally mentally handicapped”. This researcher prefers the current term, “educationally mentally handicapped”, and refers to them as “EMH”. Their IQ range measured approximately 50-75, the lower 2 percent of the national school population in learning ability. The IQ score alone is insufficient for classification, however, suggesting that improvement can take place, accounted for by other factors. Many moderately retarded have few handicaps in addition to their mental deficiency. However, they are capable of expressing themselves adequately through language. Many, in fact, are capable of self-care and some of them are even capable of third grade level reading and mathematics skills. Hence, they find productive employment after completing their formal education. The EMH group selected for this project, Group 3 described on page 1 of this abstract, is within the range as defined above. The present study (1971-1972) investigated by longitudinal method the group numbered 3, the familial EMH. As the title indicates, the present study concentrated on the outcomes in the social and vocational areas for this group. The method used was questionnaire with door-to-door follow up to reach as many of the group as possible. The questionnaire was sent to 327 EMH within the age range of 16 to 24. A 30.5 percent feedback was received from 94 respondents.

Individuals with Intellectual Disability (ID) struggle to learn daily living skills (DLS) required for independent living. One specific skill set that is challenging for individuals with ID is grocery shopping. The current study is one of two investigations that have been undertaken entirely in the community and without the use of booster session simulations in a classroom. This study investigated the effects of using least-to-most prompting and mobile technology as a tool to assist 18 to 22-year-old adult students with ID to find six items from a grocery-shopping list. Dependent measures included the number of task steps completed correctly, selecting the correct items from the shopping list, and the duration of shopping. Sessions were conducted twice a week in a community grocery store. A single subject, multiple probe design across participants was employed. There were three phases in this study. The phases included: (a) teaching an initial grocery list, (b) teaching a re-sequenced grocery list, and (c) teaching a replacement grocery list. Overall, the participants demonstrated improvements in their ability to complete the task steps and locate grocery items during the intervention condition in phase one. Two of the three participants’ duration of shopping also improved over the course of the intervention in phase one. However, only one participant advanced to phases two and three of the study as the others did not meet the criterion of achieving 85% or better on the task analysis, which was needed to advance to the subsequent phases of the study. The results of this study suggest that the use of mobile devices used with least-to-most prompting can have a degree of positive effect on the acquisition of functional skills such as locating grocery items by 18 to 22-year-old students with ID. However, for some students either additional weekly sessions in the community setting or classroom simulations are needed. Alternatively, researchers and practitioners might consider pairing mobile technology with different prompting and prompt fading systems (e.g., most-to-least prompting) for students struggling to acquire this skill set in a community setting.

Den här studien undersöker tillgänglighet till mensskydd, utifrån ett universal design-perspektiv, vid ett urval gym- nasieskolor i Sundsvall februari och mars månad 2019 samt hur eleverna upplever tillgängligheten. En kvalitativ inter- vjustudie, bestående av intervjuer med skolsköterskor och elever vid skolorna, genomfördes utifrån en noga formule- rad intervjumanual, där resultatet sedan sammanställdes. Resultatet beskrevs, tolkades och analyserades sedan innan slutsatser kunde dras. Resultatet visar på att tillgänglighet till mensskydd, vid ett urval av gymnasieskolor i Sundsvall under februari och mars månad 2019, utifrån ett universal design-perspektiv, är bristfällig.

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