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Patronage behavior was investigated in this study with regard to the nutrition orientation of consumers. The objective of this research was to determine if consumers' patronage behavior of grocery stores, health food stores or restaurants would be significantly related to attitudes and concerns toward nutrition and toward attitudes of their overall present and future state of health. This study relied on theories of retail patronage behavior, and empirical evidence from areas of consumer behavior, nutrition, and health to provide the framework for the design of this research. This study employed the use of a questionnaire as the research method. Consumers were surveyed and asked to indicate their patronage and food purchase behaviors, their attitudes and concerns toward nutrition, and their attitudes toward their preventive health. Results and conclusions from this research support the linkage between the nutritional motivations of consumers impacting upon their decisions to patronize specific retail food establishments. That is, consumers' predispositions concerning nutrition influence where and what types of food products are purchased. / Master of Science

Nonnutritive Sucking (NNS) has long been used to soothe crying infants. Systematic observations of this effect in newborn infants have revealed that NNS reduces arousal in general. Among preterm infants NNS has been used as an effective intervention in the newborn intensive care unit. However, there has been little systematic research on the immediate behavioral effects of NNS in this population of infants. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of NNS on behavioral state in preterm infants. The results indicated that the amount of quiet sleep was increased following NNS, but that this increase was not greater than the amount of quiet sleep observed in two hours of undisturbed rest. These results are discussed in terms of intervention strategies which are designed to increase the amount of quiet sleep among preterm infants. It is suggested that a pacifier can increase the amount of quiet sleep when longer periods of uninterrupted sleep cannot be arranged. Additional results indicated that the rhythmic organization of state was more complex following NNS than during control conditions. A basic 40- to 60-minute rhythm in state was not affected by NNS. However, spectral analysis indicated that there were other faster frequency fluctuations in state. Following NNS there were more of these fluctuations and they accounted for more variance in state. This pattern is more similar to the pattern observed in low-risk newborns. These results are discussed in terms of inducing behavior patterns in preterm infants which are more similar to behavior seen in full term infants. Finally, a model is presented which suggests that the reduced arousal seen following NNS is an adjunct to an increase in parasympathetic activity. This increase in parasympathetic activity is hypothesized to be adaptive. Through this mechanism sucking is hypothesized to have a distinct behavioral effect on energy regulation in newborn infants outside of the requirements for feeding. / Ph. D.

Submitted by Deidre Raquel Whitfield (deidre.whitfield2015@fgvmail.br) on 2015-01-26T14:28:47Z No. of bitstreams: 1 CIM Thesis Modification - TNR Discrimination in the Workplace - 29 November 2014.pdf: 6213678 bytes, checksum: c71a107036fdb9510410fef984976165 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Janete de Oliveira Feitosa (janete.feitosa@fgv.br) on 2015-01-28T14:08:09Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 CIM Thesis Modification - TNR Discrimination in the Workplace - 29 November 2014.pdf: 6213678 bytes, checksum: c71a107036fdb9510410fef984976165 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Marcia Bacha (marcia.bacha@fgv.br) on 2015-02-05T16:21:04Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 CIM Thesis Modification - TNR Discrimination in the Workplace - 29 November 2014.pdf: 6213678 bytes, checksum: c71a107036fdb9510410fef984976165 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2015-02-05T16:26:12Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 CIM Thesis Modification - TNR Discrimination in the Workplace - 29 November 2014.pdf: 6213678 bytes, checksum: c71a107036fdb9510410fef984976165 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-10-29 / Discrimination, in its best form, is a hard concept to fathom as an employee or ordinary citizen. In the workplace, there are times when discrimination is necessary due to extenuating circumstances that revolve around the form or act of discrimination. It could be conveyed to save a life or avoid future conflict. However, it must be clearly stated as a written law that the act is lawful. When unlawful discrimination occurs, it stages an entirely different tone, as it is mainly conducted out of malice, hatred, greed, control, or ignorance. Over the last few decades, discrimination has existed in the workplace, although Federal laws mandate that it does not occur. It does not exist in just one geographical area or is country specific, but covers a wide spectrum, linking countries together from their points of view to creating rifts amongst those who are affected and those who are not, not only from a business perspective, but social humanistic relationships as well. This thesis will use quantitative and qualitative data to support discrimination of sexual harassment, race or color, and gender issues, as well as personal experiences, and how it has and will continue to impact businesses if the acts do not cease, permanently. Leadership, from the Presidents and Heads of Countries, Chief Executive Officers (CEOs), managers, lowest-ranking supervisor, and employees should make it their personal goal to ensure these issues do not continue or arise in their perspective areas of responsibilities. When employees understand that they are valued, will be taken seriously when reporting acts of discrimination, and that some form of action will be taken, performance and productivity will escalate, and morale will increase in the workplace, resulting in higher productivity and subsequently higher profit margins for the company.

The researcher is concerned about the lack of attention given to withdrawn early adolescents (WEAs) at school. During early adolescence, the foundations for lasting character, personality traits and social interaction are laid. Learners exhibiting withdrawal behaviour are described as being quiet, reserved, removed or distant. Attempts by educators to get them involved in lessons often end in failure and this causes educators to become frustrated and confused about how to deal with these learners. The aim of this study is therefore to establish the factors that contribute to withdrawal behaviour in early adolescents. The researcher devised an identification instrument that makes the identification of WEAs much easier for educators. He also established the deep seated fears and anxieties of WEAs and ascertained how they would like to be treated by their educators. / Psychology of Education / M. Ed. (Psychology of Education)

Emotion adds an important element to the discussion of how information is conveyed and processed by humans; indeed, it plays an important role in the contextual understanding of messages. This research is centered on investigating relevant features for affect classification, along with modeling the multimodal and multitemporal nature of emotion. The use of formant-based features for affect classification is explored. Since linear predictive coding (LPC) based formant estimators often encounter problems with modeling speech elements, such as nasalized phonemes and give inconsistent results for bandwidth estimation, a robust formant-tracking algorithm was introduced to better model the formant and spectral properties of speech. The algorithm utilizes Gaussian mixtures to estimate spectral parameters and refines the estimates using maximum a posteriori (MAP) adaptation. When the method was used for features extraction applied to emotion classification, the results indicate that an improved formant-tracking method will also provide improved emotion classification accuracy. Spectral features contain rich information about expressivity and emotion. However, most of the recent work in affective computing has not progressed beyond analyzing the mel-frequency cepstral coefficients (MFCC’s) and their derivatives. A novel method for characterizing spectral peaks was introduced. The method uses a multi-resolution sinusoidal transform coding (MRSTC). Because of MRSTC’s high precision in representing spectral features, including preservation of high frequency content not present in the MFCC’s, additional resolving power was demonstrated. Facial expressions were analyzed using 53 motion capture (MoCap) markers. Statistical and regression measures of these markers were used for emotion classification along the voice features. Since different modalities use different sampling frequencies and analysis window lengths, a novel classifier fusion algorithm was introduced. This algorithm is intended to integrate classifiers trained at various analysis lengths, as well as those obtained from other modalities. Classification accuracy was statistically significantly improved using a multimodal-multitemporal approach with the introduced classifier fusion method. A practical application of the techniques for emotion classification was explored using social dyadic plays between a child and an adult. The Multimodal Dyadic Behavior (MMDB) dataset was used to automatically predict young children’s levels of engagement using linguistic and non-linguistic vocal cues along with visual cues, such as direction of a child’s gaze or a child’s gestures. Although this and similar research is limited by inconsistent subjective boundaries, and differing theoretical definitions of emotion, a significant step toward successful emotion classification has been demonstrated; key to the progress has been via novel voice and visual features and a newly developed multimodal-multitemporal approach.

The demand for human services has grown exponentially in recent years. Self-help groups now fill the gap between consumer needs and the reach of traditional health care. This study examines the perception of the members of these groups toward the professional community. Four self-help groups, all based on principles of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and all primarily concerned with the control of excessive behavior were examined: (1) Parents Anonymous (PA), (2) Overeaters Anonymous (OA), (3) Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and (4) Narcotics Anonymous (NA). A 60 item questionnaire was designed to obtain the following information: (1) demographic, (2) membership participation, (3) professional contact, and (4) attitude expression regarding respondents' perception of their particular self-help group, perceptions of health care professionals and perceptions of society's beliefs regarding their behavior. Among the 110 respondents from the four groups responding to the questionnaire, (overall return rate of 52%), there was strong support of the methods and conduct of the self-help groups. Criticism of the self-help groups was negligible. Criticism of the health care community was consistently strong, although respondents indicated relatively high usage of health care providers. The respondents from all four groups appeared to support any individual member's decision to pursue whatever assistance that individual might deem necessary, but maintained firm delineation between the individual's freedom to choose alternative or adjunctive assistance and the group's decision to remain "forever nonprofessional". Despite a common theoretical background, the groups have developed in different directions. PA, which has included health care professionals as group sponsors since its inception, was more open to professional involvement in group affairs than the others and cited a higher rate of professional referral to the group. OA, with less mental health contact and with more medical involvement, expressed greater reluctance to involve professionals in any aspect of the group's activities. AA and NA tended to take more intermediate positions, however, both groups were firmly against professional involvement in group activities. Information of this nature may assist professionals and self-help groups in developing a collaborative and respectful working relationship.

Cette thèse est effectuée en collaboration entre le LaBRI (Laboratoire bordelais de recherche en informatique) et MIRANE S.A.S., le leader français en Publicité sur Lieu de Vente (PLV) Dynamique. Notre but est d'analyser des comportements humains dans un point de vente. Le long de cette thèse, nous présentons un système d'analyse vidéo composé de plusieurs procédés de divers niveaux. Nous présentons, dans un premier temps, l'analyse vidéo de bas niveau composée de la détection de mouvement et du suivi d'objets. Puis nous analysons le comportement de ces objets suivis, lors de l'analyse de niveau moyen. Finalement, l'analyse de haut-niveau est composée d'une interprétation sémantique de ces comportements et d'une détection de scenarios de haut-niveau. / Along this thesis various subjects are studied, from the lowest to the higher level of video analysis. We first present motion detection and object tracking that compose the low-level processing part of our system. Motion detection aims at detecting moving areas, which correspond to foreground, of an image. The result of motion detection is a foreground mask that is used as input for the object tracking process. Tracking matches and identifies foreground regions across frames. Then, we analyze the behavior of the tracked objects, as the mid-level analysis. At each frame, we detect the current state of action of each tracked object currently in the scene. Finally, the system generates a semantic interpretation of these behaviors and we analyze high-level scenarios as the high-level part of our system. These two processes analyze the series of states of each object. The semantic interpretation generates sentences when state changes occur. Scenario recognition detect three different scenarios by analyzing the temporal constraints between the states.

The general purpose of this study is to examine the effects of socialization background and cognitive style on individuals' patterns of behavior. The more specific purpose is to integrate the individual differences factor using the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator with Meadian Theory of Socialization in order to explore the ways in which a group of incarcerated individuals with prior felony and misdemeanor convictions and a group of college students are different regarding their different socialization background and cognitive styles. Data for this study were collected from a university and a county jail in Texas. During the process of data collection, two questionnaires consisting of 117 items were used to measure individual characteristics and elements of socialization background. This study is organized into four different chapters. Chapter I involves a detailed review of related literature, the purpose of the study, stated hypotheses, significance of the study, and limitations. Chapter II discusses methodological procedures and Chapter III presents the findings of the study. The last chapter includes a detailed conclusion and practical implications of the study. The findings in this study indicated that the group of incarcerated individuals and the group of college students are significantly different in terms of their different individual characteristics and socialization backgrounds. However, it was found that socialization background has the most significant effects on patterns of behavior among the two groups under study. It was concluded that while accepting the crucial importance of socialization factors, specific psychological characteristics of people also need to be integrated into sociological studies concerning human behavior for the better understanding of different groups and individuals in society.