Le contrôle de l’équilibre contractuel constitue l’un des marqueurs du droit des contrats contemporain. Plusieurs fondements président à l’instauration d’un tel contrôle. Certains auteurs évoquent la morale, d’autres la justice contractuelle et d’autres enfin son utilité économique. Appliqués aux déséquilibres entre professionnels, les outils mis en œuvre pour assurer ce contrôle trahissent l’existence d’un contrôle objectif de l’équilibre attendu du contrat. L’équilibre subjectif voulu par les parties n’est pas écarté, mais il se trouve concurrencé par la détermination d’une forme d’équilibre objectif motivé tant par la volonté de protéger la partie faible que par celle de promouvoir une certaine vision de l’économie, et des échanges commerciaux. Le droit des pratiques restrictives se présente à cet égard comme une discipline intégratrice permettant d’allier protection de la partie faible et protection du marché. L’influence que cette discipline exerce sur le droit commun des contrats, et la « civilisation », à l’inverse, du droit de la concurrence sous l’influence du droit commun, permettent d’éclairer les rouages de ce contrôle objectif de l’équilibre contractuel. Cette étude propose de décrire l’objectivation des critères d’identification du déséquilibre contractuel et celle des remèdes qui lui sont réservés. Pour ce faire, le droit commun des contrats et celui des pratiques restrictives de concurrence seront mis en miroir afin d’éclairer les implications de ce contrôle sur l’une et l’autre des matières. Plus exactement, cette thèse propose de déjouer les phénomènes de superposition et de concurrence des dispositifs de contrôle objectif de l’équilibre contractuel existant dans ces deux disciplines par une identification précise de leurs champs d’applications et de leurs objectifs respectifs. Elle tend enfin à décrire les fonctions de ce contrôle objectif tant à l’égard des parties qu’à celui du marché, en insistant sur la nécessité d’envisager conjointement les dimensions micro et macro-économiques des contrats étudiés. / Control of contractual balance is one of the markers of contemporary contract law. Such control is grounded in several basic concepts: some authors refer to morality, while others invoke contractual justice or its economic relevance. Applied to imbalance between professionals, the tools implemented to ensure this control reveal the existence of objective control of the contracts’ expected balance. Although the subjective balance sought by the parties is not set aside, it is overshadowed by the determination of a kind of objective balance motivated by a will both to protect the weaker party and to promote a certain vision of the economy, and commercial exchanges. In this respect, restrictive practices law is an integrative discipline in which it is possible to combine protection of the weaker party with protection of the market. The influence of this discipline on common contract law and, conversely, the “civilization” of competition law under the influence of common law help better understand the mechanism of such objective control of contractual balance. This research aims to describe the objectification of identification criteria for contractual imbalance and the ways of remedying it. To this end, common contract law and law governing restrictive competition practices will be compared to shed light on such control in both these areas. More specifically, this thesis proposes to thwart phenomena of superimposition of and competition between existing systems for the objective control of contractual balance in both these disciplines through precise identification of their fields of application and their respective purposes. It also aspires to describe the functions of such objective control for both the parties and the market by emphasizing the need to examine these contracts by taking into consideration together both their micro and macroeconomic dimensions.

The financial markets have been in a state of chaos for a number of years. Some of the chaos was attributed to appraisers bending under unethical pressure exerted by lenders. The purpose of this study was to explore whether mode of instruction affected appraiser morality when participating in a Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) course, as measured by Rest's Defining Issues Test (DIT-2). The research question examined the difference between the effect on the morality schema of continuing appraisal students taking the 7-hour USPAP CE course online versus students taking the course in a face-to-face environment. The research consisted of administering the DIT-2 before the USPAP course as a baseline, and then again after the USPAP course to determine if there was a difference in moral outlook. Eight online and 11 face-to-face students completed pre and post DIT-2. MANCOVA determined that there was no significant difference in the post instruction DIT-2 scores between face-to-face and online instruction, controlling for pre instruction score. Further study is recommended with larger sample size and multiple online and face-to-face classes. The results of this research resulted in recommendations to create USPAP courses with ethics components (Appraise Your Ethics). Such courses can be online or face-to-face. The conclusions of this study could lead to enhancements in the design and delivery of the USPAP course, resulting in a positive social change of enhanced appraiser morality and a reduction in unethical behaviors.

Somatic Copy Number Alterations (CNAs) are common events in human cancers. Identifying CNAs and Significant Copy number Aberrations (SCAs) in cancer genomes is a critical task in searching for cancer-associated genes. Advanced genome profiling technologies, such as SNP array technology, facilitate copy number study at a genome-wide scale with high resolution. However, due to normal tissue contamination, the observed intensity signals are actually the mixture of copy number signals contributed from both tumor and normal cells. This genetic confounding factor would significantly affect the subsequent copy number analyses. In order to accurately identify significant aberrations in contaminated cancer genome, we develop a Java AISAIC package (Accurate Identification of Significant Aberrations in Cancer) that incorporates recent novel algorithms in the literature, BACOM (Bayesian Analysis of Copy number Mixtures) and SAIC (Significant Aberrations in Cancer). Specifically, BACOM is used to estimate the normal tissue contamination fraction and recover the "true" copy number profiles. And SAIC is used to detect SCAs using large recovered tumor samples. Considering the popularity of modern multi-core computers and clusters, we adopt concurrent computing using Java Fork/Join API to speed up the analysis. We evaluate the performance of the AISAIC package in both empirical family-wise type I error rate and detection power on a large number of simulation data, and get promising results. Finally, we use AISAIC to analyze real cancer data from TCGA portal and detect many SCAs that not only cover majority of reported cancer-associated genes, but also some novel genome regions that may worth further study. / Master of Science

The purpose of the study was to provide evidence-based outcomes related to a couples adaptive sports event intended to facilitate posttraumatic growth, increase marital satisfaction, leisure satisfaction, feelings of competence in sports, and reduce symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) for veterans with PTSD and their significant others. The sample consisted of three groups of couples, experimental Group A had five couples, experimental Group B had six couples, and the Control Group had six couples. ANCOVA analysis indicated significant differences between Group A and the Control Group for overall PTSD and the subscale of hyperarousal. There were also significant increases in marital satisfaction, leisure satisfaction, significant decreases in the symptoms of posttraumatic stress overall, and in all three subscales: re-experiencing, avoidance/emotional numbing, and hyperarousal. Findings supported Kleiber's, Hutchinson's, and Williams' (2002) four functions of leisure in transcending negative life events. Findings indicated participation in a couple's adaptive sports program has positive impacts on the veteran's and their significant other's marital satisfaction and reduces symptoms of PTSD. It is recommended that recreation providers facilitate couple adaptive sports programs for veterans and their significant others to reduce symptoms of PTSD and increase marital satisfaction.

There is evidence of false recognition (FR) driven by orthographic similarities within languages (Lambert, Chang, & Lin, 2001; Raser, 1972) and some evidence that FR crosses languages (Parra, 2013). No study has investigated whether FR based on orthographic similarities occurs for unknown words in an unknown language. This study aimed to answer this question. It further explored whether FR based on orthographic similarities is more likely in a known (English) than in an unknown (Spanish) language. Forty-six English monolinguals participated. They studied 50 English and 50 Spanish words during a study phase. A recognition test was given immediately after the study phase. It consisted of 40 Spanish and 40 English words. It included list words (i.e., words presented at study); homographs (i.e., words not presented at study, orthographically similar to words presented at study); and unrelated words (i.e., words not presented at study, not orthographically similar to words presented at study). The LSD post-hoc test showed significant results supporting the hypothesis that false recognition based on orthographic similarities occurs for words in a known language (English) and in an unknown language (Spanish). Further evidence was provided by the LSD post-hoc test supporting the hypothesis that false recognition based on orthographic similarities was more likely to occur in a known language than an unknown language. Results provided evidence that the meaning and orthographic form are used when information is encoded thereby influencing recognition decisions. Furthermore, these results emphasize the significance of orthography when information is encoded and retrieved.

Sjuksköterskeyrket innebär möten med patienter såväl som närstående tillpatienterna. Sjukdom och dödsfall är inte något som bara drabbar den enskildapersonen utan händelsen kan vara lika svår eller svårare för den drabbades familjoch närstående. Det är viktigt för sjuksköterskan att ha insikt i de närståendesupplevelser och behov för att bättre kunna möta dessa. Denna studies syfte är attbeskriva upplevelser och behov hos närstående till kritiskt sjuka patienter samt attbeskriva hur sjuksköterskan kan möta dessa behov. Genom en litteraturstudie harkvalitativa och kvantitativa vetenskapliga artiklar granskats. Studienshuvudresultat visar att de närstående är i behov av information, tillförsikt, närhet,familjens stöd och bekvämlighet. Studiens slutsats är att sjuksköterskan behöverkunskap och insikt beträffande dessa resultat för att på ett bra sätt möta denärståendes behov. / When working with critical ill patients the nurse also get in contact withsignificant others related to the patient. Illness and accidents don’t strike only atthe patient it also strikes just as hard or harder at the significant others of thepatient. It’s important that the nurse has knowledge about the related person’sexperiences and needs in these situations, to better be able to meet these needs.This study aimed to describe experiences and needs of significant others whenthey have a critical ill person hospitalized. It also aimed to describe how the nursecan meet these needs. Through a literature review has both quantitative andqualitative scientific articles been reviewed. The study’s main results show thatthe needs of the related are information, assurance, proximity, family support andcomfort. The study concludes that the nurse needs knowledge and understandingsregarding these results to in a good way meet the relative’s needs.

The wave field in the Baltic Sea has been modelled for a two-year period with the spectral wave model HYPAS. There is a large seasonal variation in the field and a minor annual one, both reflect the wind variation in the area. Since the Baltic Sea is fetch limited, the dominant wind direction is important for the maximum wave heights. By studying the modelled wave energy density in combination with bottom type maps, the effect of the wave field on the sediment surface is examined. Up to half the bottoms in the Baltic Sea are affected ~25% of the time. A statistical relation between wave energy density and bottom types is found for the Gulf of Riga, but in the rest of the area the sediment maps were to coarse. It is, due to this, not possible to say if the result is valid for the whole area or if it is site specific. During resuspension events the remineralisation is increased since deposited organic material is reintroduced into the watermass and there exposed to higher levels of oxygen. This process could act as an increased regional source of nitrogen in nutrient budgets and thus influence the conditions for nitrogen fixation and perhaps explain some of the geographical differences in the nitrogen fixation rates.

Selective encryption (SE) methods for images often encrypt the sign bits, i.e., the most significant bits (MSBs) of the codewords corresponding to key syntax elements (in compressed images) or to pixel intensities (for uncompressed images). Our work is motivated by the key observation that the binary code (BC) used for these representations has an impact on the quality of the reconstruction at the eavesdropper (Eve), which can be regarded as a measure of the degree of security of the encryption (the lower the quality, the higher the level of security). Therefore, we address the design of BCs that enhance the security of MSB-based SE by increasing the degradation at Eve’s side when she uses a simple replacement attack (replacing all MSBs either by 0s or by 1s). We first consider the scenario of fixed-length BCs, i.e., where all the codewords have the same length. We formulate the design problem as an optimization problem with the objective of maximizing the distortion at Eve’s without any constraint or with a constraint on the entropy of the MSBs in order to shorten the size of the MSB stream to reduce the computational overhead of encryption. We show that the problem can be cast as a binary integer linear program equivalent to a weighted non-bipartite graph matching problem, for which polynomial-time solution algorithms exist. We empirically assess the performance of the optimized BCs on a Mixed Gaussian source, as well as on Gaussian and Laplacian sources, the latter two being commonly used to model the distribution of transform coefficients and prediction residuals. Our experiments lead to the conclusion that MSB-based SE schemes could benefit from the proposed BC designs. For the case of uncompressed images, we also propose a family of structured BCs for the pixel intensity values. These BCs are constructed such that intensity values that are close have reconstructions that are far apart. As a result, the reconstruction with the replacement attack significantly destroys the smooth areas and blurs the edges, therefore increasing the degree of security. Next, we focus on the construction of variable-length BCs for the non-zero quantized AC coefficients in JPEG compressed images. For this, we first formulate the BC design problem as the problem of maximizing the distortion at Eve’s side with a constraint on the entropy. This problem can also be cast as a weighted non-bipartite graph matching problem and, therefore, can be solved efficiently. Furthermore, by gaining insights from the optimization results, a simpler and faster method for BC design is devised, which consists of only swapping a few codewords in the original code used in JPEG. We assess the practical performance of the proposed BCs for the SE method of JPEG images that encrypts only the MSBs of the non-zero quantized AC coefficients, along with the full encryption of the DC coefficients. Our experimental results show that high visual security can be achieved with only a small sacrifice in compression efficiency. In addition, the proposed BCs can be tuned to achieve various levels of degradation at Eve’s side, a property that is convenient for certain applications. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

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