Interruption interference refers to significant decreases in performance that occur following task interruption. Evidence has suggested that practicing recovering from interruptions can reduce interruption interference as measured by the time required for resuming the interrupted task. Conflicting evidence, however, has indicated that interruption practice might only improve resumption for the practiced primary and interrupting task-pair. The studies within this dissertation utilize a transfer paradigm to resolve this conflict and determine whether or not interruption resumption practice in one task-pair context can benefit interruption resumption in a novel task-pair context. A new theory, Interruption Recovery Goal, defines the mechanisms of interruption handling skill acquisition and transfer as production consolidation that facilitates the storage and maintenance, via rehearsal, of the pre-interruption task state, as well as any planned action sequences, for retrieval after the interruption. The first two reported studies provided evidence that interruption handling skill for one task-pair context transferred to a novel task-pair when one (first study) or both (second study) tasks in the context changed. The third study supported theories that have defined the mechanism of interruption handling skill as an improvement to primary task goal state and action sequence memory, rather than reconstruction, by showing that resumption times improved even when the onscreen display of the primary task’s target state was removed at resumption. This study also supported the task-general view of interruption handling skill by providing evidence that interruption handling skill acquisition and transfer did not strongly relate to primary task skill acquisition and transfer. The fourth study tested for interruption handling skill transfer across novel interruption contexts when interruption duration, the availability of pre-interruption rehearsal, or both differed at transfer. The results showed resumption time improvements across interruption contexts, indicating that rehearsal and retrieval mechanisms vital for interruption resumption remained similar across contexts for skill transfer. Although further research is needed to understand the extent to which this transfer is fully task-general, the theory supported by these studies provides new directions for the study of interruption handling skill and has implications for the development of training methods for reducing interruption interference in high-risk workplaces.

Background Mental health stigma-reducing and awareness trainings encourage trainees to talk about mental health with the hope that increased discussions will lead to reduced stigma and increased access to mental health services. This survey study aimed to examine the current levels of confidence among participants, or “first aiders” who completed the Youth Mental Health First Aid (YMHFA) training in their ability to demonstrate the skills that were taught in the training. Additionally, this study examined the difference in levels of confidence between the YMHFA instructors and first aiders in the ability of the first aiders to demonstrate the skills that were taught in the training. We examined differences in levels of confidence among first aiders according to their socio-demographic and personal characteristics. Finally, we explored the ways in which first aiders who completed the course used their knowledge and skills after the training. Methods Seven hundred fifty-seven first aider participants were surveyed post-training and 129 first aider participants were surveyed at follow-up. Fourteen YMHFA instructors were surveyed. Results The data indicated that there was a significant decrease in confidence among first aiders between post-training and follow-up. With the exception of age, there were no statistically significant differences in levels of confidence among first aiders according to the following sociodemographic and personal characteristics: a.) gender; b.) race; c.) reason for attendance; d.) role of use. Survey data also indicated the various ways in which first aiders are currently using their training. Conclusions First aiders’ confidence declined after follow-up even though they reported various ways in which they are using their training. Instructors reported positive perceptions of the training and reported a high level of confidence in the ability of their trained first aiders to demonstrate the taught skills.

Abstract - Mobile devices in the near future will need to collaborate to fulfill their function. Collaboration will be done by communication. We use a real world example of robotic soccer to come up with the necessary structures required for robotic communication. A review of related work is done and it is found no examples come close to providing a RANET. The robotic ad hoc network (RANET) we suggest uses existing structures pulled from the areas of wireless networks, peer to peer and software life-cycle management. Gaps are found in the existing structures so we describe how to extend some structures to satisfy the design. The RANET design supports robot cooperation by exchanging messages, discovering needed skills that other robots on the network may possess and the transfer of these skills. The network is built on top of a Bluetooth wireless network and uses JXTA to communicate and transfer skills. OSGi bundles form the skills that can be transferred. To test the nal design a reference implementation is done. Deficiencies in some third party software is found, specifically JXTA and JamVM and GNU Classpath. Lastly we look at how to fix the deciencies by porting the JXTA C implementation to the target robotic platform and potentially eliminating the TCP/IP layer, using UDP instead of TCP or using an adaptive TCP/IP stack. We also propose a future areas of investigation; how to seed the configuration for the Personal area network (PAN) Bluetooth protocol extension so a Bluetooth TCP/IP link is more quickly formed and using the STP to allow multi-hop messaging and transfer of skills.

Background: Due to the deficit of knowledge on fine motor skill far transfer from one domain of expertise to another, piano performance and surgical training serve as a relevant, interdisciplinary context in which to study the transfer of motor skills given both have relatively well-established levels of performance and require complex fine motor skills. Musicians tend to demonstrate greater ease in all aspects of procedural knowledge which are known to contribute to the early stages of motor learning. Previous research in the Piano Pedagogy Research Laboratory (PPRL) found that extensive piano training was correlated with faster learning of surgical knot-tying skills. However, the short-term two-day timeline was a limitation of the study. Objective: Our project has built on previous work in the PPRL to address the short-term nature of previous studies by measuring a long-term performance curve as well as retention of surgical training and also expanded on the previous project by focussing this time on laparoscopic tasks. This study compared performance curves of two participant groups (pianists and controls) over five consecutive days and retention one week later, as measured by speed and accuracy of task completion. Laparoscopic training consisted of six tasks repeated at every session. Since laparoscopy involves a variety of abilities concurrently, we also administered a battery of ten psychometric tests to isolate and measure specific aspects of non-motor and fine motor skills. Results: There was no statistical difference between participant groups on the majority of laparoscopic training and psychomotor assessments based on two-way mixed ANOVA and Mann-Whitney U test analysis, respectively. There were also little to no significant correlations between abilities and laparoscopic performance. The only significant confounding variable was that the control group was significantly more interested in surgery than the musician group (p = .037). Conclusion: Overall, these results demonstrate that piano performance training did not far transfer to laparoscopic surgery. This is relevant to the debate on far transfer of motor skills given this study’s robust design which addressed previous shortcomings by including a longer timeline and more specifications of musicians’ characteristics. Our findings indicate that fine motor skills are domain specific to music and surgery, respectively.

Objectifs: Etudier l'évolution de l'introduction du rôle de l'IPA et proposer des recommandations pour les études ultérieures.Méthodes: Une revue de la littérature française et internationale concernant l'IPA. Participation à un groupe de travail national concernant l'avancement de ce rôle et les réformes éducationnelles. Une étude rétrospective comparant la prise en charge de patients hypoglycémiques en milieu pré-hospitalier par infirmiers et physiciens. Un questionnaire étudiant les perceptions des premiers étudiants en cursus IPA.Résultats: Différents niveaux de transferts de compétence et de collaboration médecin/infirmière existent déjà en France. Dans l'étude rétrospective, la qualité de soin des infirmières a été similaire à celle des médecins. Dans l'étude sur l'IPA, la majorité des étudiants a indiqué que les autres infirmières et docteurs ne sont pas au courant du rôle de l'IPA, et que des barrières bloquent son développement.Conclusions: La création du rôle d'IPA et le développement de la formation des infirmières en France peuvent répondre aux défis de santé publique, telle l'incidence croissante des maladies chroniques et la pénurie de médecins. Les recommandations suivantes furent proposées pour le développement du rôle de l'IPA : définir et faire reconnaître le rôle de la pratique infirmière avancée et ses compétences, promouvoir le rôle plus largement dans les disciplines médicales, soutenir les efforts de communication entre l'état et les professionnels de santé, développer des programmes au niveau master et doctorat, et promouvoir des travaux de recherche infirmiers et interdisciplinaires. / Background: In the context of public health challenges and health care reforms in France, the evolving advanced practice nurse (APN) role may be a solution. Objectives: To study the introduction of the ANP role and provide evidence-based recommendations for future research.Methods: A review of the international and French APN literature was performed. Participation in a national task force concerned advancement of the role and education reforms. In a retrospective study, nurses and physicians were compared in the pre-hospital management of hypoglycemic patients. Finally, a survey was administered to the first French APN Master's students to identify their perceptions of the APN role.Results: Variables levels of skill transfer and doctor-nurse collaboration currently exist in France. In the retrospective study, the pre-hospital quality of care of nurses was comparable to that of doctors. In the APN student survey, the majority indicated that other nurses and doctors were not aware of the APN role, and that barriers exist in role development. Conclusions: Creation of the APN role and advancement of nursing education in France can respond to public health challenges including the rising incidence of chronic diseases and an impending physician shortage. The following recommendations were proposed for APN role development: to define and recognize the advanced practice nurse role and related competencies, promote the role in a wider range of medical disciplines, facilitate clear communication between government and health care professionals, develop nursing Master's and Doctorate programs, and promote nursing and interdisciplinary research.

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The present dissertation develops an invariant framework for 3D gesture comparison studies. 3D gesture comparison without Lagrangian models is challenging not only because of the lack of prediction provided by physics, but also because of a dual geometry representation, spatial dimensionality and non-linearity associated to 3D-kinematics. In 3D spaces, it is difficult to compare curves without an alignment operator since it is likely that discrete curves are not synchronized and do not share a common point in space. One has to assume that each and every single trajectory in the space is unique. The common answer is to assert the similitude between two or more trajectories as estimating an average distance error from the aligned curves, provided that the alignment operator is found. In order to avoid the alignment problem, the method uses differential geometry for position and orientation curves. Differential geometry not only reduces the spatial dimensionality but also achieves view invariance. However, the nonlinear signatures may be unbounded or singular. Yet, it is shown that pattern recognition between intrinsic signatures using correlations is robust for position and orientation alike. A new mapping for orientation sequences is introduced in order to treat quaternion and Euclidean intrinsic signatures alike. The new mapping projects a 4D-hyper-sphere for orientations onto a 3D-Euclidean volume. The projection uses the quaternion invariant distance to map rotation sequences into 3D-Euclidean curves. However, quaternion spaces are sectional discrete spaces. The significance is that continuous rotation functions can be only approximated for small angles. Rotation sequences with large angle variations can only be interpolated in discrete sections. The current dissertation introduces two multi-scale approaches that improve numerical stability and bound the signal energy content of the intrinsic signatures. The first is a multilevel least squares curve fitting method similar to Haar wavelet. The second is a geodesic distance anisotropic kernel filter. The methodology testing is carried out on 3D-gestures for obstetrics training. The study quantitatively assess the process of skill acquisition and transfer of manipulating obstetric forceps gestures. The results show that the multi-scale correlations with intrinsic signatures track and evaluate gesture differences between experts and trainees.

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