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Altering driver's goals and motives for at-risk driving is likely to reduce the frequency of at-risk driving behaviors and their associated crashes and injuries. However, most driving occurs when people are alone with little supervisions or accountability. Thus, a self-management for safety (SMS) intervention may be the most appropriate technique to decrease at-risk driving behaviors. The current research evaluated an SMS process with college students on a simulated driving task. Participants included 93 university students (41 males, 52 females) randomly assigned to one of three groups (31 participants per group). Participants in the Control group did not receive any of the intervention materials; they were instructed to drive as they normally drive on each trial. Participants in the Self-Monitoring + Objective Feedback group received objective feedback from the experimenter about their actual performance on the target driving behavior as well as personal feedback from their self-monitoring forms. These participants recorded their individual improvement goals on the targeted driving behavior. Participants in the Self-Monitoring group recorded their individual improvement goals on the targeted driving behavior, but received only personal feedback from their self-monitoring forms. Similar to past self-management interventions directed at increasing safety-related driving behavior (Hickman & Geller, in press; Krause, 1997; Olson & Austin, 2001), SMS led to clear improvement in subsequent safety performance. Based on the recorded driving behaviors of 93 participants, SMS was effective in increasing the mean percentage of total driving time traveling below the posted speed limit compared to a Control group that did not receive any of the SMS components. Across the four trials, participants in the SM and SM + OFB group significantly increased the percentage of total driving time traveling below the posted speed limit by 13.4 (18.3%) and 14.5 (19.8%) percentage points, respectively, compared to participants in the Control group. / Ph. D.

Weight management is problematic among Americans, as the number of overweight adults has risen to two-thirds of the population (1). Without the identification of successful approaches to promote weight stability, it is predicted that 86% of American adults will be overweight or obese by 2030 (2). Body-weight influenced diseases, such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease, are now leading causes of death (3). Annually, adult Americans are thought to increase their body weight by 0.5-0.9 kg (4). Of this gain, 52% is believed to occur during the winter holiday period of mid-late November to early January (5). Unfortunately, obesity research specific to this high-risk period is limited. Older adults and weight-reduced individuals are thought to be highly susceptible to significant holiday body weight gains (1, 6). To date, little research has investigated effective interventions that may be used to assist in successful body weight maintenance during the winter holiday period. Therefore, our purpose was to determine if daily self-monitoring of body weight, physical activity, and step counts is a feasible and effective tool to prevent weight gain in older, weight-reduced adults during the winter holiday period. This intervention represents a holiday weight maintenance approach that may be translatable to larger, more diverse populations. / Master of Science

Mental health in young adults can vary significantly with a large proportion struggling with clinical disorders. Despite the high prevalence of psychopathology, many do not receive help. Relevant barriers to help-seeking include self-reliance, lack of awareness of symptoms or sources of help, and stigma. Measurement Feedback Systems (MFSs) and self-monitoring are potential avenues to assist in treatment engagement. In this study, Bi-Weekly Monitoring with Informational Feedback (BWM) was implemented in a college student population (N = 74) where students were asked to report on their overall psychological functioning and set goals every other week. BWM was evaluated for feasibility, effects on help-seeking overall, and mechanisms of self-monitoring were explored. BWM was determined to be feasible in this population; although, help-seeking attitudes did not change over time as a result of BWM. Ancillary analyses explored the effects of BWM and mental health symptomatology. Participants reported on their attitudes towards BWM which were generally in favor of BWM. Some promising results emerged; however, they were largely statistically insignificant. Limitations of this study include a large drop-out rate in the control group, which left unequal groups. As such, analyses should be interpreted with caution. Future studies should evaluate BWM on a weekly basis with a larger sample to better understand the effects of BWM on self-monitoring mechanisms. / Master of Science / Mental health in young adults can vary significantly with a large proportion struggling with clinical disorders. Despite the high prevalence of psychopathology, many do not receive help. Relevant barriers to help-seeking include self-reliance, lack of awareness of symptoms or sources of help, and stigma. Measurement Feedback Systems (MFSs) and self-monitoring are potential avenues to assist in treatment engagement. In this study, Bi-Weekly Monitoring with Informational Feedback (BWM) was implemented in a college student population (N = 74) where students were asked to report on their overall psychological functioning and set goals every other week. BWM was evaluated for feasibility, effects on help-seeking overall, and mechanisms of self-monitoring were explored. BWM was determined to be feasible in this population; although, help-seeking attitudes did not change over time as a result of BWM. Attitudes towards BWM were variable, yet largely favorable. While some promising results emerged, there has yet to be concrete support for BWM. This study is limited due to a large drop-out rate in the control group, as such the results should be interpreted with caution. Future studies should evaluate BWM on a weekly basis with a larger sample to better understand the effects of BWM on self-monitoring mechanisms.

Several empirical studies have suggested that self-monitoring is an effective strategy to increase appropriate behavior in children and adults with developmental disabilities. Results of a comprehensive review of self-monitoring research with people who have developmental disabilities revealed that 71% of the participants were trained by researchers. However, researchers are not typical intervention agents. To ensure that people who are typically in the participant’s environment (e.g., teachers, parents, caregivers) can effectively teach people with developmental disabilities to self-monitor and that this in turn will change the participant’s behavior, it is important that research examine the effectiveness of self-monitoring when the training is provided by typical intervention agents. Thus, the purpose of this dissertation study was to investigate the effects of a self-monitoring intervention package on both teacher and student behavior in the classroom. The self-monitoring intervention package consisted of training teachers to use self-monitoring, providing feedback on the self-monitoring intervention developed by the teacher, providing feedback to teachers while training the student to self-monitor, and providing feedback to teachers while they implemented the self-monitoring intervention in the classroom. During intervention, the researchers provided feedback to teachers to ensure that teachers were correctly instructing the students to self-monitor. Teachers then implemented the self-monitoring intervention without researcher feedback (maintenance). Teachers required very little to no feedback after the self-monitoring training, feedback on the self-monitoring intervention they developed, and student self-monitoring training. The researcher provided immediate feedback during the first session when the self-monitoring intervention was implemented in the classroom to ensure the teachers implemented the self-monitoring intervention with fidelity. Rate of inappropriate sitting decreased for all students after the self-monitoring intervention was introduced, and the percentage of non-overlapping data metric values indicated that the self-monitoring interventions were highly effective for three participants and effective for one participant. Some teachers and some students generalized the use of self-monitoring interventions to other activities, students, and target behaviors. Social validity measures indicate that self-monitoring interventions for young children with developmental disabilities are socially important. / text

Organisationen haben Strukturen und Prozesse, in denen ihre Führungskräfte Self-Monitoring betreiben, um sich möglichst situationsangemessen zu verhalten. Die These: Self-Monitoring kann wissenschaftlich nicht nur als Eigen-schaft von der Person der Führ-ungskraft aus gedacht werden. Es wird die These begründet, dass Self-Monitoring in Führungsprozessen vor allem vom jeweiligen organisationalen Kontext aus bestimmt werden muss. Der Ansatz: In einer qualitativ-explorativen Studie wird das aus der Psychologie kommende Konzept des Self-Monitoring nach Snyder (1986) untersucht. Das Ziel ist die Erkundung der relevanten Einflussfaktoren und Bedingungen von Self-Monitoring bei Führungskräften in der Bundeswehr. Mit dieser Voraussetzung lässt sich ein strategisches und werteorientiertes Kompetenzmanagement gestalten.

Organisationen haben Strukturen und Prozesse, in denen ihre Führungskräfte Self-Monitoring betreiben, um sich möglichst situationsangemessen zu verhalten. Die These: Self-Monitoring kann wissenschaftlich nicht nur als Eigen-schaft von der Person der Führ-ungskraft aus gedacht werden. Es wird die These begründet, dass Self-Monitoring in Führungsprozessen vor allem vom jeweiligen organisationalen Kontext aus bestimmt werden muss. Der Ansatz: In einer qualitativ-explorativen Studie wird das aus der Psychologie kommende Konzept des Self-Monitoring nach Snyder (1986) untersucht. Das Ziel ist die Erkundung der relevanten Einflussfaktoren und Bedingungen von Self-Monitoring bei Führungskräften in der Bundeswehr. Mit dieser Voraussetzung lässt sich ein strategisches und werteorientiertes Kompetenzmanagement gestalten.

Master of Science / Department of Psychology / Laura A. Brannon / Self-monitoring was examined as a moderator of the effectiveness of persuasive messages for reducing college student binge drinking. Low self-monitors tend to be influenced by their personal values and attitudes, while high self-monitors tend to be influenced by the behavior of those around them. Via a website simulation, college students were presented with one of three types of anti-binge drinking messages: a self-schema message, which highlighted how responsible drinking is consistent with the message recipient’s personal values and attitudes; a social norms message, which explained that most college students drink less than one might think they do; or a control message, which stated in general terms that people can experience a variety of problems from binge drinking. Overall intended drinking behavior in the self-schema message condition was almost identical to that of the social norms message condition, both of which were lower than drinking intentions in the control message condition. When presented with a self-schema matched message, low self-monitors intended to drink less alcohol than did high self-monitors, but these means were not significantly different. However, high self-monitors intended to drink significantly less than did low self-monitors when presented with a social norms message. The results suggest that self-schema matched messages may be effective at reducing binge drinking for most students, and that social norms messages may be equally as effective but only for high self-monitors.

Motivated by challenges and opportunities in nutritional epidemiology and food journaling, ubiquitous computing researchers have proposed numerous techniques for automated dietary monitoring (ADM) over the years. Although progress has been made, a truly practical system that can automatically recognize what people eat in real-world settings remains elusive. This dissertation addresses the problem of ADM by focusing on practical eating moment detection. Eating detection is a foundational element of ADM since automatically recognizing when a person is eating is required before identifying what and how much is being consumed. Additionally, eating detection can serve as the basis for new types of dietary self-monitoring practices such as semi-automated food journaling. In this thesis, I show that everyday eating moments such as breakfast, lunch, and dinner can be automatically detected in real-world settings by opportunistically leveraging sensors in practical, off-the-shelf wearable devices. I refer to this instrumentation approach as "commodity sensing". The work covered by this thesis encompasses a series of experiments I conducted with a total of 106 participants where I explored a variety of sensing modalities for automatic eating moment detection. The modalities studied include first-person images taken with wearable cameras, ambient sounds, and on-body inertial sensors. I discuss the extent to which first-person images reflecting everyday experiences can be used to identify eating moments using two approaches: human computation, and by employing a combination of state-of-the-art machine learning and computer vision techniques. Furthermore, I also describe privacy challenges that arise with first-person photographs. Next, I present results showing how certain sounds associated with eating can be recognized and used to infer eating activities. Finally, I elaborate on findings from three studies focused on the use of on-body inertial sensors (head and wrists) to recognize eating moments both in a semi-controlled laboratory setting and in real-world conditions. I conclude by relating findings and insights to practical applications, and highlighting opportunities for future work.

<p>If not purified leachate from landfills would cause damages on the environment. At most landfills in Sweden local treatment of leachate is achieved, at the rest the leachate is transported to sewertreatment. While no comprehensive legal provisions for discharge exist in Sweden there is a difference in discharges between the installations for landfill. If no comprehensive legal provisions is produced guidance must improve.</p><p>Treatment of leachate and self monitoring system at fifteen installations in Sweden has been studied and compared. A study of literature about different treatment solutions has also been performed. Practical information about the landfills has been gathered through visits. Processes of treatment described in literature correspond to measures. Variations exists between the self monitoring systems at the installations both between parameters for analyses, how often controls take place and were testpoints are situated.</p><p>Knowledge of reactions and techniques for treatment of compounds common in leachate exist. Further research about compounds whose effect we do not know for certain must be achieved.</p> / <p>Lakvattenrening och egenkontrollprogram vid femton deponier i Sverige har studerats och jämförts. En litteraturstudie angående olika reningstekniker har även utförts. Information om deponierna och reningsprocesserna har inhämtats via studiebesök och miljörapporter. Vid jämförelse av rening har olika processer studerats separat. Den beskrivning av processerna som finns i litteraturen stämmer väl med uppmätta resultat. Exempel på detta är ammoniumhalter som reduceras i luftad damm, halter totalkväve som minskar genom rening i Satsvis Biologisk Reaktorteknik och reducerad halt suspenderat material som inträffar vid rening genom markfilter. Egenkontrollprogrammen vid de olika deponierna varierar dels i avseende på vilka parametrar som kontrolleras och dels hur ofta kontroller utförs och var provpunkter är belägna.</p><p>För de vanligast förekommande ämnen som existerar i lakvatten finns kunskap om reaktioner och fungerande tekniker för rening. Problem uppstår för de ämnen vilkas reaktioner och förändringar man ej känner till. Farhågor finns dessutom att det i lakvatten finns föreningar vars existens och verkan vi ej känner till. På grund av detta krävs ytterligare forskning på lakvatten.</p>