Introduction: Bandura’s self-efficacy theory postulates that confidence is a stronger determinant of behaviour than one’s actual skills or abilities. The Day and Night time Driving Comfort Scales (D-DCS and N-DCS) are new tools to measure perceived confidence in older drivers. Developed inductively with older drivers, the DCSs have good structural properties and preliminary psychometric support, including test-retest reliability. Purpose: This thesis builds on previous work by further examining the construct validity of the DCSs via (1) temporal associations (Study 1) and (2) cross-sectional relationships (Study 2). Study 1 prospectively examined the relationship between DCS scores and self-reported driving behaviour. Study 2, meanwhile, examined cross-sectional associations between DCS scores and selected sample characteristics, self-reported driving behaviour and driving problems, perceived abilities and seven objectively measured driving-related abilities (visual acuity, contrast sensitivity, disability glare, brake reaction time, lower body mobility, executive skills and visual attention). Methods: For Study 1, a convenience sample of 82 older drivers (aged 63 to 93) were assessed at baseline and follow-up (five to 17 months later). Study tools comprised the DCSs, multi-item ratings of driving frequency, avoidance and perceived abilities and a background questionnaire. Telephone interviews were conducted with a subgroup of 45 drivers to examine reasons for changes in driving comfort. For Study 2, cross-sectional relationships with the DCSs were examined using baseline data from 65 drivers (aged 63 to 93). A subgroup of 42 participants completed objective assessments of driving-related abilities assessed via ETDRS charts, Pelli-Robson charts, Brightness Acuity Tester, brake reaction time apparatus, the Rapid Paced Walk, the Trail Making Tests (Parts A and B) and the UFOV subtest 2. Results: Prospectively, lower baseline N-DCS scores (p<.001) and decreased N-DCS scores (p<.001) were significant predictors of lower self-reported situational driving frequency (R2 = 34%) and greater situational avoidance (R2 = 51%) at follow-up. While DCS scores did not change appreciably for those who continued driving, N-DCS scores were significantly lower at follow-up for seven individuals who stopped driving (p<.05). Cross-sectionally, lower DCS scores were significantly associated with lower self-reported situational driving frequency, higher situational avoidance and lower ratings of perceived abilities (p<.001). Poorer left eye acuity scores were significantly associated with lower D-DCS (p<.05) and N-DCS (p<.05), while slower performance on Part A of the Trail Making Test was significantly related to lower D-DCS scores (p<.05). Participants with a discrepancy between their perceived and actual abilities had significantly higher D-DCS, situational driving frequency and lower situational avoidance (p<.05). Conclusions: Findings are consistent with Bandura’s self-efficacy theory and Rudman’s model of driving self-regulation and, thus, provide further support for the construct validity of the DCSs. Further studies are needed with larger, more diverse samples, including those with diagnosed impairments, to establish benchmarks for driving comfort in healthy drivers and various clinical populations (such as those with stroke, Parkinson’s or visual conditions). Prospective studies should also involve longer follow-up periods, examination of actual driving behaviour and barriers to self-restriction, and attempt to pinpoint whether there is a critical level of discomfort at which voluntary cessation is likely to occur.

Losing confidence in the ability to maintain balance can be more debilitating than a fall. Therefore, considering the importance of measuring balance confidence, the purpose of this study was to examine the validity and reliability of the ABC-6, a shortened version of the ABC-16, among diverse older adults. Participants were 251 diverse (72.1% African Americans, 62.5% low-income, 61% low-education) older adults (M age = 71.2 years, SD = 8.9). Participants volunteered for a falls risk screening which assessed multiple falls risk factors and balance confidence. The ABC-6 had excellent internal consistency reliability, substantial intraclass correlations, significant moderate to large correlations with physical activity, mobility, balance, and total falls risk, the ability to discriminate between fallers and nonfallers, and it was the only significant predictor of total falls risk. The ABC-6 was a valid and reliable measure of balance confidence and is a suitable measure for use among diverse older adults.

The increasing need for more natural human machine interfaces has generated intensive research work directed toward designing and implementing natural speech enabled systems. The Spectrum of speech recognition applications ranges from understanding simple commands to getting all the information in the speech signal such as words, meaning and emotional state of the user. Because it is very hard to constrain a speaker when expressing a voice-based request, speech recognition systems have to be able to handle (by filtering out) out of vocabulary words in the users speech utterance, and only extract the necessary information (keywords) related to the application to deal correctly with the user query. In this thesis, we investigate an approach that can be deployed in keyword spotting systems. We propose a confidence measure feedback module that provides confidence values to be compared against existing Automatic Speech Recognizer word confidences. The feedback module mainly consists of a soft computing tool-based system using fuzzy Gaussian mixture models to identify all English phonemes. Testing has been carried out on the JULIUS system and the preliminary results show that our feedback module outperforms JULIUS confidence measures for both the correct spotted words and the falsely mapped ones. The results obtained could be refined even further using other type of confidence measure and the whole system could be used for a Natural Language Understanding based module for speech understanding applications.

Introduction: Bandura’s self-efficacy theory postulates that confidence is a stronger determinant of behaviour than one’s actual skills or abilities. The Day and Night time Driving Comfort Scales (D-DCS and N-DCS) are new tools to measure perceived confidence in older drivers. Developed inductively with older drivers, the DCSs have good structural properties and preliminary psychometric support, including test-retest reliability. Purpose: This thesis builds on previous work by further examining the construct validity of the DCSs via (1) temporal associations (Study 1) and (2) cross-sectional relationships (Study 2). Study 1 prospectively examined the relationship between DCS scores and self-reported driving behaviour. Study 2, meanwhile, examined cross-sectional associations between DCS scores and selected sample characteristics, self-reported driving behaviour and driving problems, perceived abilities and seven objectively measured driving-related abilities (visual acuity, contrast sensitivity, disability glare, brake reaction time, lower body mobility, executive skills and visual attention). Methods: For Study 1, a convenience sample of 82 older drivers (aged 63 to 93) were assessed at baseline and follow-up (five to 17 months later). Study tools comprised the DCSs, multi-item ratings of driving frequency, avoidance and perceived abilities and a background questionnaire. Telephone interviews were conducted with a subgroup of 45 drivers to examine reasons for changes in driving comfort. For Study 2, cross-sectional relationships with the DCSs were examined using baseline data from 65 drivers (aged 63 to 93). A subgroup of 42 participants completed objective assessments of driving-related abilities assessed via ETDRS charts, Pelli-Robson charts, Brightness Acuity Tester, brake reaction time apparatus, the Rapid Paced Walk, the Trail Making Tests (Parts A and B) and the UFOV subtest 2. Results: Prospectively, lower baseline N-DCS scores (p<.001) and decreased N-DCS scores (p<.001) were significant predictors of lower self-reported situational driving frequency (R2 = 34%) and greater situational avoidance (R2 = 51%) at follow-up. While DCS scores did not change appreciably for those who continued driving, N-DCS scores were significantly lower at follow-up for seven individuals who stopped driving (p<.05). Cross-sectionally, lower DCS scores were significantly associated with lower self-reported situational driving frequency, higher situational avoidance and lower ratings of perceived abilities (p<.001). Poorer left eye acuity scores were significantly associated with lower D-DCS (p<.05) and N-DCS (p<.05), while slower performance on Part A of the Trail Making Test was significantly related to lower D-DCS scores (p<.05). Participants with a discrepancy between their perceived and actual abilities had significantly higher D-DCS, situational driving frequency and lower situational avoidance (p<.05). Conclusions: Findings are consistent with Bandura’s self-efficacy theory and Rudman’s model of driving self-regulation and, thus, provide further support for the construct validity of the DCSs. Further studies are needed with larger, more diverse samples, including those with diagnosed impairments, to establish benchmarks for driving comfort in healthy drivers and various clinical populations (such as those with stroke, Parkinson’s or visual conditions). Prospective studies should also involve longer follow-up periods, examination of actual driving behaviour and barriers to self-restriction, and attempt to pinpoint whether there is a critical level of discomfort at which voluntary cessation is likely to occur.

Canadian cancer clinics are straining to keep up with growing numbers of patients and, as a result, the capacity to provide follow-up care to cancer patients is being stretched. The Saskatchewan Cancer Agency has structured its community follow-up program to ensure the routine follow-up of patients who have finished active cancer treatments. Follow-up letters are routinely sent to family physicians and some specialists requesting information on the disease status of their cancer patients. For this thesis, I conducted a mail survey of 925 Saskatchewan physicians serving 21,000 patients to learn about general practitioners' and specialists' views of the follow-up program. A 52.5% response rate was achieved. <p>The program was considered useful for 91.5% of physicians, with the follow-up letter serving an important role in reminding physicians to see their cancer patients for follow-up. High percentages of physicians indicated a need for additional patient-specific information (59.3%), clinical information (73.0%) and training (34.9%) to do follow-up. Logistic regression analyses found female gender, a specialty in general practice and lower physician confidence in following cancer to be associated with the need for additional patient information. Lower physician confidence was associated with the need for additional clinical information and a specialty in general practice and lower physician confidence were associated with the need for more training.<p>Percentages of physicians saying they were very confident in following various cancers ranged widely from 19.1% for lymphomas to 54.2% for breast cancer. All regression models regarding physician confidence in following six different cancers had a common correlate: the need for additional training. A physician�s number of follow-up patients was a significant correlate in four of the six regression models and physician specialty was included in half of the models.<p> The results suggest areas of the program and physician need that should be addressed to ensure the delivery of quality follow-up care and the survey findings will be helpful in devising strategies to this end. At the same time, responses indicate the program to be an essential component in the delivery of community-based follow-up care in Saskatchewan.

<p>The hypercorrection effect refers to the finding that high-confidence errors are more likely to be corrected after feedback than are low-confidence errors (Butterfield & Metcalfe, 2001). In 5 experiments I examine the hypercorrection effect, offer possible explanations for why the effect occurs, and examine the durability of the effect. In Experiment 1, I replicate the hypercorrection effect and show that delaying the feedback does not reduce the effect. In a secondary item analysis I also show that the effect is not caused by "tricky" questions. In Experiments 2 and 3, I show that subjects are more likely to remember the source of the feedback after both high-confidence errors and low-confidence correct responses. This suggests that it is the discrepancy between the subject's expectation and the actual feedback that causes the hypercorrection effect. In Experiment 4 I show that the hypercorrection effect also occurs for episodic false memories showing the diversity of the effect. Finally, in Experiment 5 I examine the durability of the effect. Initial high-confidence errors that are corrected after feedback remain corrected one week later.</p> / Dissertation

Open site measurement on the electromagnetic interference is the most direct and universally accepted standard approach for measuring radiated emissions from an equipment or the radiation susceptibility of a component or equipment. In general, if the NSA measurements we recorded at different frequencies do not exceed the ideal value +-4dB, we would regard this site as a normalized site, otherwise it is not a normalized site as long as there is one measurement exceeds the range. A one change point model had been used to fit observed measurements. For each set of observations as well as the corresponding ideal values, we have the estimated regression parameter for a one change point model. Our ideal is using the difference of regression parameters between ideal values and observations to assess whether a site is qualified for measuring EMI or not. The assessment tool for whether the testing site is normalized or not is referred to the confidence region for the regression model parameters. Finally, according to the data collected in this experiment, the estimated parameters obtained from the observations will be used to do further statistical analyses and comparing the qualities of the four different testing sites.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Department of Statistics, August 2001. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Psy.D.)--Rutgers University, 2009. / "Graduate Program in Clinical Psychology." Includes bibliographical references (p.152-157).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2000. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 184-196). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.