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The purpose of this study was to examine the practices middle school principals employed during the supervisory process. This qualitative research study examined the practices middle school principals followed during the pre-observation process, observation process, and post observation process. The study also detailed how the data collected from formal observations and classroom walk-through observations was utilized by middle school principals. Due to the increasing number of responsibilities and mounting pressure to provide quality teacher supervision, the practices employed by middle school principals during the supervisory process was an important topic in need of additional research. / Ed. D.

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The development of telerobotic systems has evolved from Single Operator Single Robot (SOSR) systems to Multiple Operator Multiple Robot (MOMR) systems. The relationship between human operators and robots follows the master-slave control architecture and the requests for controlling robot actuation are completely generated by human operators. Recently, the fast evolving advances in network and computer technologies and decreasing size and cost of sensors and robots enable us to further extend the MOMR system architecture to incorporate heterogeneous components such as humans, robots, sensors, and automated agents. The requests for controlling robot actuation are generated by all the participants. We term it as the MOMR++ system. However, to reach the best potential and performance of the system, there are many technical challenges needing to be addressed. In this dissertation, we address two major challenges in the MOMR++ system development. We first address the robot coordination and planning issue in the application of an autonomous crowd surveillance system. The system consists of multiple robotic pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) cameras assisted with a fixed wide-angle camera. The wide-angle camera provides an overview of the scene and detects moving objects, which are required for close-up views using the PTZ cameras. When applied to the pedestrian surveillance application and compared to a previous work, the system achieves increasing number of observed objects by over 210% in heavy traffic scenarios. The key issue here is given the limited number (e.g., p (p > 0)) of PTZ cameras and many more (e.g., n (n >> p)) observation requests, how to coordinate the cameras to best satisfy all the requests. We formulate this problem as a new camera resource allocation problem. Given p cameras, n observation requests, and [epsilon] being approximation bound, we develop an approximation algorithm running in O(n/[epsilon]³ + p²/[epsilon]⁶) time, and an exact algorithm, when p = 2, running in O(n³) time. We then address the automatic object content analysis and recognition issue in the application of an autonomous rare bird species detection system. We set up the system in the forest near Brinkley, Arkansas. The camera monitors the sky, detects motions, and preserves video data for only those targeted bird species. During the one-year search, the system reduces the raw video data of 29.41TB to only 146.7MB (reduction rate 99.9995%). The key issue here is to automatically recognize the flying bird species. We verify the bird body axis dynamic information by an extended Kalman filter (EKF) and compare the bird dynamic state with the prior knowledge of the targeted bird species. We quantify the uncertainty in recognition due to the measurement uncertainty and develop a novel Probable Observation Data Set (PODS)-based EKF method. In experiments with real video data, the algorithm achieves 95% area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve. Through the exploration of the two MOMR++ systems, we conclude that the new MOMR++ system architecture enables much wider range of participants, enhances the collaboration and interaction between participants so that information can be exchanged in between, suppresses the chance of any individual bias or mistakes in the observation process, and further frees humans from the control/observation process by providing automatic control/observation. The new MOMR++ system architecture is a promising direction for future telerobtics advances.

En 2006, Il a été observé que l'astéroïde (234)~Barbara possède une valeur anormalement élevée d’angle d’inversion polarimétrie. Par la suite, d'autres astéroïdes possédant la même caractéristique que Barbara ont été découverts et nommés ``Barbarians'' en référence à (234) Barbara. L'étude de ces astéroïdes constitue le sujet principal de cette thèse ayant pour but de mieux comprendre la raison de cet angle d'inversion plus élevé que la normale. La première hypothèse formulée afin d’expliquer cette anomalie polarimétrique suppose que les astéroïdes Barbarians possèdent une forme fortement irrégulière induisant une réponse polarimétrique particulière. La deuxième hypothèse stipule que les astéroïdes Barbarians possèdent une abondance anormalement élevée d'inclusions riches en aluminium et en calcium. Au cours de cette thèse, nous avons obtenu de nombreuses nouvelles données aussi bien en photométrie, spectroscopie que polarimétrie. Ces nouvelles observations d’astéroïdes ont permis de tester différentes hypothèses formulées précédemment afin d'expliquer l'anomalie polarimétrique observée. Nos observations ont permis d'éliminer une hypothèse faisant appel à une topologie particulière des astéroïdes Barbarians, mais nous avons confirmé et renforcé une autre hypothèse faisant intervenir une composition particulière de ces astéroïdes. Si cette dernière hypothèse était confirmée, cela en ferait des astéroïdes primitifs s'étant formés lors des premières étapes du Système Solaire. Leur étude permettrait donc d'en apprendre plus sur les mécanismes de formation des astéroïdes et la composition de la nébuleuse ayant donné naissance au Système Solaire. Comprendre les astéroïdes Barbarians sert à mieux comprendre les premières étapes de formation du Système Solaire et aussi celles des planètes. / A few years ago, asteroid polarimetry allowed to discover a class of asteroids exhibiting peculiar phase polarization curves, collectively called "Barbarians" from the prototype of this class, the asteroid (234) Barbara. All such objects belong to the L visible plus near infrared based taxonomic class. The anomalous polarization has been tentatively interpreted in terms of high-albedo, spinel-rich Calcium-Aluminum inclusions (CAI) that could be abundant on the surfaces of some of these asteroids, according to their spectral reflectance properties and to analogies with CO3/CV3 meteorites. Such CAIs are among the oldest mineral assemblages ever found in the Solar System. Barbarians' surfaces could therefore be rich in this very ancient material and bring information on the early phases of planetary formation. During this thesis, a systematic campaign for photometric, polarimetric and spectroscopic characterization has been conducted. These observation campaigns allowed improving our general knowledge about these peculiar asteroids and highlighting the link between polarization and polarimetric properties. Our observation also allowed discarding the hypotheses involving peculiar shape for these asteroids. However, as it was suggested, a link between the presence of CAI and the polarimetric response was found. Our observations show that the relative abundance of CAI is correlated with the polarimetric inversion angle. This is the first time that a direct link between polarimetric and spectroscopic properties is found.

Pour répondre à la fois aux nouvelles normes législatives et aux exigences du client, la complexité des camions s’est vue fortement augmentée au cours de ces dernières décennies. En plus de réduire les émissions de polluants, ces nouvelles normes imposent la mise en place d’un système de diagnostic des systèmes anti-pollution. Cela implique donc un contrôle plus fin ainsi qu’une surveillance accrue de ces dits systèmes. Le client quant à lui désire augmenter sa productivité et donc la disponibilité des camions. Afin de remplir ces exigences, le développement d’observateurs (ou capteur logiciel) représente une solution attractive. Ils permettent en effet d’obtenir plus d’informations à partir d’un nombre de capteurs donné, sans coûts supplémentaires pour le constructeur. Au cours de cette thèse, plusieurs observateurs ont été développés pour différents sous-systèmes du camion, dont des observateurs non-linéaires, LPV (Linéaire à Paramètres Variants), et avec retard. Dans un premier temps, dans le cadre de la surveillance et de la maintenance préventive, des observateurs ont été conçus dans le but d’estimer différents coefficients caractéristiques de la dégradation d’équipements tels que : un tendeur de courroie, le refroidisseur d'air de suralimentation et le refroidisseur des gaz d'échappement recirculés (EGR). Un observateur de la pression du collecteur d’échappement a également été développé dans le but de diagnostiquer un défaut du capteur mesurant cette pression. Dans un second temps, l’estimation du débit d’air massique EGR a été utilisée pour tester différentes méthodes d'observation sur banc d’essai, cette variable étant importante dans le contrôle des émissions de polluants. Enfin, dans une optique de réduction de coût, une estimation des débits d’air massiques entrant dans le moteur et celui de l’EGR a été réalisée sur la base d’un capteur soumis à un retard. / To meet both new legislative standards and customer requirements, the complexity of trucks has increased significantly in the recent decades. In addition to reducing pollutant emissions, these new standards require on board diagnosis solutions for anti-pollution systems. Therefore it implies a thiner control and increased monitoring of these systems. Besides, the customer wants to increase productivity and therefore the availability of the truck. In order to fulfil these requirements, the development of observers (or virtual sensors) is an attractive solution. Indeed, more information can be obtained from a given number of sensors, without additional cost for the manufacturer. During this thesis, several observers were developed for different truck subsystems, including non-linear, LPV (Variable Parameter Linear) or delay observers. As a first step, from a monitoring and preventive maintenance point of view, observers have been designed to estimate different equipment degradation ratio such as: a belt tensioner, a charge air cooler and an exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) cooler. An observer of the exhaust manifold pressure has also been developed to diagnose a fault of the sensor measuring this pressure. In a second step, the EGR mass flow rate estimation was used to test different observation approaches on a test bench, this variable being important for the pollutant emissions control. Finally, in order to reduce cost, the observation of the inlet air and EGR mass flow rates has been studied with a sensor submitted to a delay.

Issues concerning the process of self-observation and the development of the observing self in everyday life were examined from behavioral and psychodynamic perspectives. Nine participants first acquired accurate self-observing skills in the laboratory setting based on a training program developed in previous studies. Once participants were able to observe laboratory behaviors accurately, participants self-observed day-to-day activities in the real life settings in which these behaviors occurred for six months. Subsequently, procedures for self-observing everyday life developed from participants experiences. Generalization of self-observation to behaviors participants had not been instructed to self-observe was also investigated. Lastly, the relationship of self-observation to self-awareness was studied.

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