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Thesis (Ed.D.)--University of West Florida, 2005. / Title from title page of source document. Document formatted into pages; contains 112 pages. Includes bibliographical references.

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Nickel is frequently reported as an agent causing allergic contact dermatitis in humans and was selected as an example for the investigation into the molecular mechanisms of the sensitivity. Nickel, as a hapten, may not constitute the complete antigen. The protein of cellular conjugates of nickel formed in the skin may represent the antigenic complexes, but the number and nature are unknown. In this submission, allergic contact dermatitis to nickel is reviewed; data on the immunological processes from various human and animal-model systems relevant to this problem are appraised and experimental investigations into the antigenic complexes of nickel are described. The albino guinea-pig was selected as a suitable animal model and a test system was developed to induce and elicit allergic contact dermatitis to nickel in this species. Under the exposure conditions of this system, an incidence of the sensitivity of 70-100% in a test population was experimentally induced. This consistently high incidence was not achieved by the use of standard published animal methods. Time-coursed In vivo exposure studies, employing 63NiCl2 as a radiotracer, were performed to qualitatively and quantatively examine the absorption and accumulation of nickel in the skin. The results indicated that soluble nickel salts are poorly absorbed across the skin. Maximum plasma levels were seen after 12 hours of exposure, although these represented only a very small percentage of the appled nickel salts (0.06%). Absorbed nickel was excreted in the urine. Microautoradiography of in vivo exposed skin indicated that transappendageal passage may be the main route of entry into the body. Accumulation of nickel was apparent in the highly keratinized areas of the skin, and labelling of basal and supra-basal epidermal cells was observed. Dermal accumulation was not seen. Fractionation of the in vivo exposed epidermis by zonal ultracentrification and gel filtration revealed four main areas of nickel localization. It was found associated with a microsomal fraction, with albumin, with an epidermal protein fraction (molecular weight 8,700) and with low molecular weight (< 5,000) residues. The antigenicity of each isolated nickel-containing fraction was assessed by in vitro lymphocyte transformation. The primary antigens in this system were the epidermal protein fraction (molecular weight 8,700) and the microsomal fraction. The low molecular weight residues possessed some very weak antigenic properties. Allergic contact dermatitis appears to be a complex sensitivity reaction to more than one antigen in the skin. The recognition of antigen by the immune system is protein-carrier dependant and the processing of haptenic or antigenic information by microsomal constituents may be an importanat function in the induction phase of the dematitis.

Doctor of Philosophy / School of Family Studies and Human Services / Elaine M. Johannes / The life-span theoretical framework contends that development occurs throughout the entire life-span and that experiences at one stage of life influence later development (Baltes, 1987). With this in mind, the present studies explore the developmental experiences of gender and sexual minority (GSM) individuals as they make the transition to adulthood. The first study found that overall, there were no major differences in GSM emerging adults’ perceptions of this developmental stage when measured using the Inventory of the Dimensions of Emerging Adulthood (IDEA). The second study situated group identification as a process of identity development and found that identifying with the GSM community was a protective factor for GSM emerging adults. Higher attributions to prejudice were associated with increases in well-being when explained through group identification even though the direct effect was negative. The final study found that, similarly to their heterosexual and cisgender peers, GSM individuals’ self-esteem develops in quadratic fashion over the transition to adulthood and that perceptions of familial understanding in adolescence was significantly associated with both the initial level and the rate of change of self-esteem for this population. Implications for further research are discussed.

In the future, robots will become our companions and co-workers. They will gradually appear in our environment, to help elderly or disabled people or to perform repetitive or unsafe tasks. However, we are still far from a real autonomous robot, which would be able to act in a natural, efficient and secure manner with humans. To endow robots with the capacity to act naturally with human, it is important to study, first, how humans act together. Consequently, this manuscript starts with a state of the art on joint action in psychology and philosophy before presenting the implementation of the principles gained from this study to human-robot joint action. We will then describe the supervision module for human-robot interaction developed during the thesis. Part of the work presented in this manuscript concerns the management of what we call a shared plan. Here, a shared plan is a a partially ordered set of actions to be performed by humans and/or the robot for the purpose of achieving a given goal. First, we present how the robot estimates the beliefs of its humans partners concerning the shared plan (called mental states) and how it takes these mental states into account during shared plan execution. It allows it to be able to communicate in a clever way about the potential divergent beliefs between the robot and the humans knowledge. Second, we present the abstraction of the shared plans and the postponing of some decisions. Indeed, in previous works, the robot took all decisions at planning time (who should perform which action, which object to use…) which could be perceived as unnatural by the human during execution as it imposes a solution preferentially to any other. This work allows us to endow the robot with the capacity to identify which decisions can be postponed to execution time and to take the right decision according to the human behavior in order to get a fluent and natural robot behavior. The complete system of shared plans management has been evaluated in simulation and with real robots in the context of a user study. Thereafter, we present our work concerning the non-verbal communication needed for human-robot joint action. This work is here focused on how to manage the robot head, which allows to transmit information concerning what the robot's activity and what it understands of the human actions, as well as coordination signals. Finally, we present how to mix planning and learning in order to allow the robot to be more efficient during its decision process. The idea, inspired from neuroscience studies, is to limit the use of planning (which is adapted to the human-aware context but costly) by letting the learning module made the choices when the robot is in a "known" situation. The first obtained results demonstrate the potential interest of the proposed solution.

The problem of this study was an analysis of the process of play therapy. The purposes of this study were (1) to describe the patterns of play activity, nonverbal expression, and verbal expression during the process of play therapy over fifteen sessions; (2) to compare the patterns of play activity, nonverbal expression, and verbal expression of boys and girls during play therapy; and (3) to verify the processes of play activity, nonverbal expression, and verbal expression during extended play therapy.

The study sought to describe the factors contributing to termination of pregnancies among teenagers in Vhembe District of Limpopo Province, by studying the responses given by teenage girls aged 19 years and younger. The study also sought to determine the socio economic characteristics of teenagers who terminate pregnancies, the role of parental care in avoiding unwanted teenage pregnancies, the teenagers’ general knowledge of reproductive health issues as well as their sources of information regarding reproductive health issues. The major inferences drawn from this study included that teenagers’ knowledge of reproductive health issues was inadequate and that they have nothing tangible because of their low educational and economic status that put them at risk of being involved in sexual activities at an early age leading to unwanted pregnancies that end up in termination. Based on the findings of the study, recommendations were made for imparting knowledge regarding sexual issues to teenage girls in Vhembe District of Limpopo Province.

The present study aimed to examine how a manipulated majority position affects attitude change for intergroup and non-intergroup issues. Specifically I wanted to see how norms of tolerance and norms of prejudice differed. The study employed a 3 (majority manipulated position: positive, neutral, or negative) X 2 (issue type: intergroup or non-intergroup) ANCOVA. Additionally, I wanted to examine how participants’ perceived societal direction affects attitude change for intergroup issues with a 3 (majority manipulated position: positive, neutral, or negative) X 3 (perceived direction of attitude: support, stay the same, negative) ANOVA. Participants were randomly assigned to view a majority manipulation position. Attitude change was determined by a difference between a pre-and post-manipulation score. In partial support of my hypothesis intergroup issues elicited more norm-consistent attitude change than non-intergroup topics, however this was driven by a prejudicial social norm effect. No effect was found for perceived societal direction.