La schizophrénie est un trouble psychiatrique complexe et hétérogène caractérisée par des symptômes positifs, les symptômes négatifs et des déficits cognitifs. Elle se caractérise également par des dysfonctionnements sociaux marqués, y compris des déficits dans la reconnaissance des visages. Outre des difficultés à reconnaître le visage d'autres personnes, les déficits de reconnaissance du propre visage ont également été décrits dans la schizophrénie. Notre propre visage est considéré comme un stimulus spécial, car il constitue une des caractéristiques physiques la plus distinctive d’un individu, en plus d'être une partie importante de notre identité. Par conséquent, l'objectif de cette thèse fut de mieux déterminer dans un premier temps les facteurs sous-tendant la spécificité de notre propre visage au regard des autres visages (familiers et étrangers) chez les individus non cliniques, ainsi que dans la schizophrénie, une pathologie mentale sévère altérant de nombreux domaines associés à l’identité. Quatre études ont été réalisées afin de répondre à ces deux objectifs principaux. Premièrement, une meta-analyse menée a pu mettre en évidence que l’avantage en terme de temps de réaction diminué lors du traitement de notre propre visage pourrait être mieux expliqué par un effet de familiarité ou de représentation plus stable de son propre visage plutôt que par des caratéritiques uniques et spécifiques associées à notre propre visage. En revanche, la représentation du propre visage semble être moins stable dans la schizophrénie et spécialement sensible aux contraintes de temps. De plus, nos résultats ont également montré que lorsque les patients regardent leur propre image dans un miroir, ceux-ci rapportent plus souvent des expériences anormales, notamment en lien avec la symptomatologie positive. Ainsi dans leur ensemble, nos résultats indiquent que les patients ayant reçu un diagnostic de schizophrénie sont capables de reconnaître leur visage, bien qu'ils semblent posséder une représentation plus instable de leur propre visage entraînant un sentiment d'étrangeté. / Schizophrenia is a complex and heterogeneous psychiatric characterized by positive symptoms, negative symptoms, cognitive deficits and also motor abnormalities. The disease is also characterized by marked social dysfunctions including deficits in face recognition. Besides difficulties in recognize other people’s face, self-face recognition deficits have been also described in schizophrenia. Self-face has been considered a special stimulus since it is individuals' most distinctive physical feature, besides of being an important part of our identity. Therefore, the aim of the present thesis is to further understand self-face specialness and self-face processing in healthy controls, but more importantly in schizophrenia disorder. Four studies were performed in order to respond to this main object. In the one hand, the studies found that self-face processing advantage could be better explained by a familiarity effect or a more stable representation of one's own face rather than self-specialness in healthy controls. In the other hand, the representation of the one's own face seems to be less stable in schizophrenia and especially sensible to time constraint. When no time constraint was imposed, they were capable to recognize their own face under perceptual ambiguity in photographs. Moreover, our results also showed when looking at their own image in the mirror patients reported more often abnormal experiences. All together, our results indicated that patients are capable to recognize their face and discriminate it from other’s people face, although they might possess a more unstable representation of their own face resulting in a feeling of strangeness.

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between learning styles and the choice of learning environment for Hospitality and Tourism undergraduate students. An anonymous two-part survey was sent to the instructors of Introduction to Hospitality and Tourism Management courses (both online and face-to-face) in four schools in the state of Florida. The survey was designed to gather information related to the following three research questions related to MBTI profiles for undergraduate students in attempt to identify differences between students enrolled in online classes and those in face-to-face classes. In order to determine the probability of predicting course choice behavior of undergraduate Hospitality and Tourism students, the following factors were controlled in this research: age; gender; enrollment status; employment status; university; whether they had taken an online course previously in high school, college, or other places; how many online courses they previously took; and who helped them select the delivery mode of their courses. There were 323 usable responses, which included a majority of the most common types as ESTJ. When the differences between online and face-to-face course students were analyzed through chi-square tests, the results showed significant differences between two groups for all four profiles. Overall, the most common profile for face-to-face students was ESTJ, while the most common profile for online students were ISTP. In order to examine the unique contribution of learning styles on Hospitality and Tourism students’ course choice, a hierarchical logistic regression model was used. The results of the model indicated that only profile one (P1) and profile four (P4) were significant predictors among the four profiles, along with the total number of online courses previously taken. The conclusions suggested that by looking at P1, P4, and toc1, with a 95% confidence level, the probability of students choosing face-to-face classes can be predicted if the students are extrovert, judging, and previously had taken less than five online courses. If learning styles can be determined ahead of time, students can choose appropriate courses, instructors can develop teaching strategies that will match students’ desirable learning styles, and the number of face-to-face and online courses can be adjusted in each program to offer an appropriate number of courses each semester.

This dissertation introduces work on face recognition using a novel technique based on Hidden Markov Models (HMMs). Through the integration of a priori structural knowledge with statistical information, HMMs can be used successfully to encode face features. The results reported are obtained using a database of images of 40 subjects, with 5 training images and 5 test images for each. It is shown how standard one-dimensional HMMs in the shape of top-bottom models can be parameterised, yielding successful recognition rates of up to around 85%. The insights gained from top-bottom models are extended to pseudo two-dimensional HMMs, which offer a better and more flexible model, that describes some of the twodimensional dependencies missed by the standard one-dimensional model. It is shown how pseudo two-dimensional HMMs can be implemented, yielding successful recognition rates of up to around 95%. The performance of the HMMs is compared with the Eigenface approach and various domain and resolution experiments are also carried out. Finally, the performance of the HMM is evaluated in a fully automated system, where database images are cropped automatically.

Virtual teams have emerged as a result of development in communication technologies and the inevitability for companies to compete in the global market. Differentiating features between traditional and virtual teams are minimal face-to-face interaction and a predominant use of technology-enabled communication. The objectives of this research were to investigate critical factors that contribute towards virtual team success and to further assess the role played by trust, communication, conflict and knowledge. Quantitative data collection methodology was employed for this research, using self-administered questionnaires. A total of 64 responses were received from a sample of 75. Most respondents were from South Africa (47%), while the remaining 53% were from India, United Kingdom and China. Four research questions were formulated based on gaps identified during the literature review. Factor analysis was performed by adding the outcomes of each factor and ranking them in descending order to determine the factor that was highly ranked. Based on this analysis, the study concluded that feedback about how well each team member was doing should be viewed as how well the entire team is doing. Moreover, the ability of team members to make good decisions and establishment of interim deadlines linked with celebration of the milestones, were also ranked as critical factors towards virtual teams success. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

Companies worldwide spend millions of dollars on sales training but often fail to address the significant effect of personal attributes of salespeople on sales performance. Grounded in Bandura's self-efficacy theory, the purpose of this quantitative correlational study was to examine the relationship between age, tenure, general self-efficacy, and sales performance among face-to-face salespeople of technology companies worldwide. Understanding this relationship is important to sales managers for predicting sales performance to enhance sustainability. Data were collected from 103 participants between July and September 2019 via a survey link in the largest IT sales professional LinkedIn group. Multiple hierarchical linear regression analysis indicated a significant relationship, F(3,92) = 8.64, p < .001, R2 = .22, between age, length of tenure, general self-efficacy, and sales performance of salespeople. Implications for positive social change include the potential for sales managers to understand the correlates of sales performance better to contribute to the reduction of discrimination when recruiting salespeople of various ages and experience.

The diploma thesis focuses on programming in the Matlab for the Raspberry Pi 3 platform. For the purpose of the presentation, there are two applications designed for Raspberry Pi that are using available hardware, camera and servos. The first application serves as colour object detecting and accurate tracking by using camera calibration. The second application serves as a face detection and recognition. These applications are implemented by modern methods and knowledge of computer vision. Tracking of the objects and face recognition are verified by an experiment that reveals the accuracy of the used methods.

This thesis deals with human recognition on a videorecording. Convolution neural network was used for face recognition, from which we will get multidimensional vector, which will allow to determine person&#8217;s identity. There are demands imposed on the system, for it to be able to work in real time and could be used for example for person recognition at various conferences, or as a part of security system. Whole system is written in Python language. Part of this thesis is dataset in form of videorecords with persons.

Tato diplomová práce se zabývá využitím neuronových sítí pro detekci obličeje v obraze. Práce poskytuje základní informace nezbytné pro pochopení detekce obličejů a neuronových sítí. Dále se věnuje současným nejúspěšnějším detektorům, především detektorům založeným na neuronových sítích. Detailně je pak popsán detektor, který navrhl Rowley. Z tohoto detektoru moje práce ve velké míře čerpá. Dále je popsána implementace tohoto detektoru společně s navrženými zlepšeními a jsou prezentovány výsledky provedených testů.

This diploma thesis deals with face recognition in digital pictures. The first part describes biometry and, shortly, characterizes biometrical methods which are the most oftenly used. In the second part is described the approach of face recognition in a picture. Specifically, it is described the method for face detection - Viola-Jones and method for face recognition - PCA, which will be implemented in Matlab. The last part, which is practical, describes the scheme for video-sequence recording, implementation of the PCA method in Matlab and discussion of the achieved results.

Social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook and My Space have experience rapid worldwide growth. It is crucial that this global phenomenon be investigated within the South African context. Social networking is a relatively new trend in South Africa and there is a paucity of academic literature on the topic. This quantitative study investigated one of the most popular social networking websites to date, namely Facebook. Facebook is a social networking website which was launched in early 2004. The primary research question focused on determining the usage patterns of South African Facebook users. In specific, the study investigated the purposes for which the site was used, the self-reported substitution of Facebook usage for face-to-face interaction and the relationship between Facebook affinity and Facebook use. A survey research design was used to collect data via an electronic questionnaire posted on Facebook. The theoretical point of departure was post-positivist. Media theories applied to the phenomenon under investigation include the uses and gratifications theory and the theory of the niche. The findings suggest that Facebook is primarily used for its intended purpose of communication. The respondents reported the gratification of versatile (multipurpose) communication. Furthermore, only half of the sample reported privacy concerns regarding Facebook. There was no significant indication that Facebook is a substitute for face-to-face interaction. Half of the sample claimed that their interpersonal contact has increased as a result of Facebook use. In addition, in accordance with expectations, the more affiliated a person is to Facebook, the more they will use Facebook. The findings of this study conform to other studies concerning social networking and provide a South African view of the global phenomenon of social networking websites. / Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Psychology / unrestricted