Yes / To assess whether magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-based measurements of T2, fat fraction, diffusion tensor imaging, and muscle volume can detect differences between the muscles of myositis patients and healthy controls, and to identify how they compare with semi-quantitative MRI diagnosis. Sixteen myositis patients and 16 age- and gender-matched healthy controls underwent MRI of their thigh. Quantitative MRI measurements and radiologists' semi-quantitative scores were assessed. Strength was assessed using an isokinetic dynamometer. Fat fraction and T2 values were higher in myositis patients whereas muscle volume was lower compared to healthy controls. There was no difference in diffusion. Muscle strength was lower in myositis patients compared to healthy controls. In a subgroup of eight patients, scored as unaffected by radiologists, T2 values were still significantly higher in myositis patients. Quantitative MRI measurements can detect differences between myositis patients and healthy controls. Changes in the muscles of myositis patients, undetected by visual, semi-quantitative scoring, can be detected using quantitative T2 measurements. This suggests that MRI T2 values may be useful for the management of myositis patients. / National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Leeds (BRC) and Health Education England

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In contemporary American society, the nonprofit board is accountable for ensuring that an organization has sufficient resources to carry out its mission. Filling the gap between demands for services and the resources to meet them is often a struggle for small, local nonprofit organizations. This hermeneutic phenomenological study examined how board members of small, local nonprofits in the focal community perceive organizational effectiveness. Understanding the nature of nonprofit organization effectiveness according to board members contributes to understanding how those accountable meet their organizational objectives. A review of the literature revealed that nonprofit effectiveness involves the action of contributing and the motivation behind the action, both of which are associated with trust and reciprocity. Guided by social constructivism, this study employed a qualitative analysis of repeated iterations of semiotic data from board members (n = 30) and text analysis of organizational mission statements (n = 21), generating thick descriptions of the board members' understanding of effectiveness. Findings were derived from successive coding iterations starting with the raw data, through locating text related to specific codes, to verifying relationships among codes, and incorporating researcher reflection. The analysis revealed that strategies focused on developing reciprocity and mitigating mistrust among board members contribute to board members' perceiving their organizations as effectively achieving their objectives. The study's findings support positive social change by informing social scientists and members of local nonprofit boards of the perceived gap between services demands and the resources to meet them among board members.

A quantitative trait locus (QTL) is the location of a gene that affects a trait that is measured on a quantitative (linear) scale. Many important agricultural traits such as weight gain, milk fat content and intramuscular fat in cattle are quantitative traits. There is a need to integrate genomic sequence data with QTL data and to develop an analytical tool to visualize the data. Without integration, application of this data to agricultural enterprise productivity will be slow and inefficient. My thesis presents a web-accessible tool called the Bovine QTL Viewer developed to solve this problem. It consists of an integrated database of bovine QTL and the QTL viewer to view the QTL and their relative chromosomal position. This tool generates dynamic and interactive images and supports research in the field of genomics. For this tool, the data is modeled and the QTL viewer is developed based on the requirements and feedback of experts in the field of bovine genomics.

A quantitative trait locus (QTL) is the location of a gene that affects a trait that is measured on a quantitative (linear) scale. Many important agricultural traits such as weight gain, milk fat content and intramuscular fat in cattle are quantitative traits. There is a need to integrate genomic sequence data with QTL data and to develop an analytical tool to visualize the data. Without integration, application of this data to agricultural enterprise productivity will be slow and inefficient. My thesis presents a web-accessible tool called the Bovine QTL Viewer developed to solve this problem. It consists of an integrated database of bovine QTL and the QTL viewer to view the QTL and their relative chromosomal position. This tool generates dynamic and interactive images and supports research in the field of genomics. For this tool, the data is modeled and the QTL viewer is developed based on the requirements and feedback of experts in the field of bovine genomics.

This report presents a quantitative research and trading system (QUARTS) for US equities. After introduction of US stock market structure, it presents the quantitative model concept, specifically, its components and its interactions with different environments. Equipped with a software architecture design discipline that follows three steps -- define the problem; design the solution; and deploy to sites -- it designs the architecture of QUARTS. This is followed by a prototype implementation of research environment. Finally it gives two sample quantitative models to demonstrate the use of research environment. The report includes a detailed survey of Software Architecture and Design Methodologies to help readers to better understand the derivation of QUARTS architecture. / text

Ma thèse porte sur l'émergence et l'évolution de la RSE au niveau mondial et local dans une perspective institutionnelle. Elle aborde le mécanisme dynamique du champ de la RSE à partir d'une perspective à plusieurs niveaux en trois modes: (1) en tant que gouvernance transnationale, (2) en tant que pratique d'entreprise mondiale évoluée à partir d'une idée ou d'une pratique localement incorporée et (3) en tant que un domaine (quasi-) professionnel. Plus précisément, le premier essai explore les façons dont un État-nation réinvente ses relations avec d'autres acteurs dans le processus de gouvernance transnationale de la RSE. Mon deuxième essai étudie la coévolution des attentes en Corée du Sud en ce qui concerne la responsabilité des entreprises et du système d'affaires national. Mon troisième essai porte sur les mécanismes de micro-professionnalisation du domaine de la RSE en Corée du Sud. D'un point de vue méthodologique, j'utilise des études de cas et des analyses qualitatives pour examiner des ensembles de données composés d'entretiens, d'observations sur le terrain et de données archivistiques. Pour ma thèse, j'ai principalement porté sur 81 interviews de professionnels dans le domaine de la RSE et plus de 200 articles de journaux parlant de la responsabilité des entreprises (ou des riches quand un type moderne d'entreprise n'existait pas en Corée du Sud avant 1960) et “CSR”, qui ont été publiés en Corée du Sud depuis les années 1920, afin de comprendre le champ lui-même et de reconstruire une histoire de l'émergence et de l'évolution du champ. Avec les données que j'ai recueillies, ces trois modes donnent des lignes directrices fondamentales pour mes recherches actuelles et futures. / Going back to the disagreement of Wilensky (1964) in the beginning of this paper, I have some concluding thoughts with respect to my findings. Wilensky (1974) made his stance quite clear by arguing that everyone cannot be professionalized because of quasi-professionals or semi-professionals do not possess tentative knowledge and skills and other conditions as the functionalist approach in the sociology of profession generally argue. Current researchers have argue that contemporary professional fields have lost the essence of professionalism, which is a broad sense of serving societal missions, and have become more interest groups to do their businesses (R. Greenwood, 2007; Saks, 2012). Hence, current established professional organizations are being under de-legitimization and de-institutionalization (Ackroyd, 1996; Brock, 2006). My findings showed that many of CSR professionals, one of emerging quasi-professional groups, tended to share a strong sense of serving societal missions. Some of them (with the strategic corporate giving and the sustainability transition frame) emphasized even more than their business missions, commercial values, and self-interests. Just like any other professionals, some of CSR professionals, especially those within the social innovation and the risk management frame, also underscored the importance of business-like and commercial values to vitalize the CSR field and to grow themselves as stronger professionals. However, they were clearly aware of that what they were doing ultimately generated social benefits, and they appreciated the fact that their professional lives satisfied both their economic interests and societal interests. Hence, their professionalism was actually quite stronger than any other contemporary professionals, which have been criticized for lack of such professionalism. In this regard, why cannot we call CSR professionals, professionals ?

abstract: Including a covariate can increase power to detect an effect between two variables. Although previous research has studied power in mediation models, the extent to which the inclusion of a mediator will increase the power to detect a relation between two variables has not been investigated. The first study identified situations where empirical and analytical power of two tests of significance for a single mediator model was greater than power of a bivariate significance test. Results from the first study indicated that including a mediator increased statistical power in small samples with large effects and in large samples with small effects. Next, a study was conducted to assess when power was greater for a significance test for a two mediator model as compared with power of a bivariate significance test. Results indicated that including two mediators increased power in small samples when both specific mediated effects were large and in large samples when both specific mediated effects were small. Implications of the results and directions for future research are then discussed. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.A. Psychology 2013

Ces travaux de thèse sont motivés par le développement de techniques d’imagerie alternatives pour le diagnostic précoce du cancer du sein. Parmi celles-ci, l’imagerie photoacoustique couple potentiellement les avantages de deux modalités d’imagerie non-invasives, à savoir la quantification de contrastes physiologiques du fait de l’excitation optique et la haute résolution du fait d’un sondage acoustique.Le but de ces travaux est de proposer une modélisation multiondes du phénomène photoacoustique, et d’incorporer ce modèle dans un algorithme de reconstruction efficace pour résoudre le problème inverse. Celui-ci se rapporte à la reconstruction de cartes de propriétés physiques (optique et/ou acoustiques) de l’intérieur du sein. La Méthode des Eléments Finis (MEF) a été retenue pour résoudre l’équation de propagation optique. Pour la résolution de l’équation de propagation acoustique, une méthode semi-analytique, basée sur des calculs par transformées de Fourier (méthod k-space), a été choisie. Pour la résolution du problème inverse, deux approches ont été étudiées : i) un sondage passif, permettant de remonter à la distribution de pression initiale, à l’aide de la méthode de retournement temporel ; ii) un sondage actif, où l’on interroge le milieu sélectivement sous différentes excitations, permettant de remonter quantitativement aux propriétés optiques du milieu. On appelle cette dernière approche Tomographie PhotoAcoustique Quantitative (TPAQ). Une étude spécifique sur le protocole d’illumination/détection a été conduite, prenant également en compte les contraintes expérimentales. / The present work was motivated by the development of alternative imaging techniques for breast cancer early diagnosis, that is photoacoustic imaging, which potentially couples the merits of optical imaging and ultrasound imaging, that is high optical functional contrasts brought by optical probing and high spatial resolution by ultrasound detection. Our work aims at modeling the photoacoustic multiwave phenomenon and incorporate it in an efficient reconstruction algorithm to solve the inverse problem. The inverse problem consists in the recovery of interior maps of physical properties of the breast. The forward model couples optical and acoustic propagations. The Finite Element Method (FEM) was chosen for solving the optical propagation equation, while a semi-analytical method based on Fourier transforms calculations (k-space method) was preferred for solving the acoustic propagation equation. For the inverse model, time reversal method was adopted to reconstruct the initial pressure distribution, an active approach of the inverse problem was also achieved, which decoupled the optical properties from measured photoacoustic pressure, this approach is called quantitative photoacoustic tomography (QPAT), in this approach, illumination/detection protocol was studied, and the experimental set up is also take into consideration. In the last step, photoacoustic pressure measurements obtained from experiment and simulation are studied and compared.