The best results in a sprint running are based upon covering the distance in the shortest possible time, and therefore performance has to be maximized. To achieve the best performance, the sprinter has to develop the greatest forward acceleration, reach his/her maximal speed, and keep it over the run. The greatest anteroposterior acceleration is generated in the first stance of a sprint due to the greatest propulsive force production. Thus, the first step was selected to study induced accelerations by the main muscles of the lower limb. Since a wider step width was founded out to help with force generation during long foot-ground contacts, an elite sprinter with a wide step width was selected. Ankle plantarflexors were the main contributors to body propulsion and support, while knee extensors decelerated forward propulsion but induced medial accelerations. Hip extensors and hip adductors did not offer a remarkable contribution to body COM acceleration in any direction.

No description available.

No description available.

Text in English / This research explores the meaning of the first and second-order therapeutic stances with reference to the therapist's professional and personal development. The dominant positivist paradigm was reflected in the therapist's initial position of expert observer, outside of the observed. The observed phenomena were a group of children suffering from thalassemia major, a terminal genetic disease, and their mothers. The initial idea of short-term intervention and focus on the observed evolved into six-year journey where the observer and the observed became an interconnected unit of observation, understanding and change. A first-order stance led to therapeutic stuckness, where the therapist's confrontation with her therapeutic failure and the limitations of the dominant paradigm provoked a deconstruction of the expert position and promoted a self-reflexive therapeutic stance. The author's self-searching process took her back to her personal self, her family of origin and the ''wounded healer". The researcher moved from an initial disconnection between her professional and personal selves to an awareness of the interface between the two and, ultimately, to a unification of her professional and personal selves. Such development involved an individuation process moving from a narcissistic belief in her objective stance towards a therapeutic stance where she sees herself less as a powerful agent of change and moves to an increasingly higher order of integration of the professional and personal selves (Skovholt & Ronnestad, 1992). The process with the children and mothers shifted from a focus on compliance and medical issues to more personal and emotional stories. The therapist's participation and collaborative stance created a context for change, where greatly improved medical compliance was just one of the many transformations experienced by all the participants. The researcher speculates that development of a second-order stance requires second-order change, which comes "at the end of long, often frustrating mental and emotional labor" (Watzlawick et al., 1974, p. 23), promoting integration between the professional and personal selves of the therapist. The researcher therefore contends that this process has important implications for psychotherapy training, supervision and continuing education. / Psychology / D. Litt. et Phil. (Psychology)

Text in English / This research explores the meaning of the first and second-order therapeutic stances with reference to the therapist's professional and personal development. The dominant positivist paradigm was reflected in the therapist's initial position of expert observer, outside of the observed. The observed phenomena were a group of children suffering from thalassemia major, a terminal genetic disease, and their mothers. The initial idea of short-term intervention and focus on the observed evolved into six-year journey where the observer and the observed became an interconnected unit of observation, understanding and change. A first-order stance led to therapeutic stuckness, where the therapist's confrontation with her therapeutic failure and the limitations of the dominant paradigm provoked a deconstruction of the expert position and promoted a self-reflexive therapeutic stance. The author's self-searching process took her back to her personal self, her family of origin and the ''wounded healer". The researcher moved from an initial disconnection between her professional and personal selves to an awareness of the interface between the two and, ultimately, to a unification of her professional and personal selves. Such development involved an individuation process moving from a narcissistic belief in her objective stance towards a therapeutic stance where she sees herself less as a powerful agent of change and moves to an increasingly higher order of integration of the professional and personal selves (Skovholt & Ronnestad, 1992). The process with the children and mothers shifted from a focus on compliance and medical issues to more personal and emotional stories. The therapist's participation and collaborative stance created a context for change, where greatly improved medical compliance was just one of the many transformations experienced by all the participants. The researcher speculates that development of a second-order stance requires second-order change, which comes "at the end of long, often frustrating mental and emotional labor" (Watzlawick et al., 1974, p. 23), promoting integration between the professional and personal selves of the therapist. The researcher therefore contends that this process has important implications for psychotherapy training, supervision and continuing education. / Psychology / D. Litt. et Phil. (Psychology)

When working from the systems psychodynamic stance, consultants experience that they become part of the group dynamics through projection, projective identification, transference and counter-transference. This research was undertaken to explore the impact on consultants doing systems psychodynamic consultation in their own formal system within a large financial institution in South Africa. Findings were that primary (race, gender and age), and secondary (social identity, language and skills, or level of expertise in this consulting stance) diversity factors strongly impact on them. Consultants play a strong containment role. Consultants experienced the effect at all levels of their lives, including intellectual (struggling to function and think clearly), physical (insomnia, eating disorders, usual exercise not helping), emotional (crying and anger) and social (their work not being understood by friends and family, growing apart from loved ones). For all of them the positive spin-off was the personal growth on the journey that they embarked on. / Industrial and Organisational Psychology / M. Comm. (Industrial and Organisational Psychology)

Consulting to the RIDE from a systems psychodynamic stance is different from other group relations training events. Consultants found it difficult to take up their roles as consultants and containers. They were not prepared for the impact of the island on the event and especially on themselves as consultants. The consultants had to work harder to contain their own feelings and anxieties in order to take up their roles. The symbolically laden setting of the RIDE predetermined that the diversities of race and gender were worked with while other diversities were largely ignored. During the RIDE, the consultants felt more anxious, fearful and inhibited. The consultants had to provide containment for the event as a whole, for the group and their fellow consultants as well as for themselves. The consultants found that they had never experienced a more enriching experience than they did with the RIDE. / Industrial and Organisational Psychology / M.Com. (Industrial and Organisational Psychology)

Dans le secteur industriel, la nécessité de fournir des données cliniques lors de la mise sur le marché d’un nouveau dispositif médical s’est sensiblement accrue suite à de récentes évolutions juridiques. L’objectif de ce travail de thèse était de recueillir des données cliniques relatives à l’utilisation d’un nouveau modèle d’orthèse de type releveur de pied pour valider son intérêt vis-à-vis de produits standards. Pour formuler des hypothèses raisonnées et interpréter objectivement ces données, la connaissance des caractéristiques mécaniques des orthèses étudiées a constitué l’étape préalable nécessaire. Après s’être assuré de la faisabilité et de la pertinence du protocole expérimental sur des sujets sains, l’analyse des effets du port des dispositifs lors de tâches motrices élémentaires que sont la station debout et la marche chez des patients (avec atteinte uni ou bilatérale, d’origine périphérique, des muscles fléchisseurs dorsaux de cheville) a constitué le cœur de nos investigations. Celles-ci ont ainsi pu mettre en évidence que le port d’orthèse induit des effets communs et d’autres spécifiques à chaque modèle. Dès lors, de façon originale, nous nous sommes proposés d’identifier, par des moyens simples et rapides, les patients qui tirent davantage profit d’un des modèles d’orthèse. Outre le prérequis indispensable qui est l’acceptation de l’appareillage par le patient, nos résultats précisent que le dispositif orthopédique le plus adapté est celui qui compense le(s) déficit(s) en restaurant la fonction motrice, sans contraindre les capacités préservées / In the industrial field, the necessity of providing some clinical data during the launching of a new medical device has noticeably increased after some recent legal evolutions. The aim of this thesis was to collect some clinical data concerning the use of a new ankle-foot orthosis in order to confirm its relevance in comparison with standard products. To formulate some reasoned hypotheses and objectively interpret these data, the knowledge of the mechanical characteristics of the studied orthoses has constituted the preliminary necessary step. After checking the feasibility and the relevance of the experimental protocol on healthy subjects, the analysis of the effects of the ankle-foot orthoses during some elementary motor tasks, which are the stance and gait, in patients (suffering from a uni or bilateral affection, of a peripheral origin, ankle dorsal flexor muscles) has been the core of our research. As a consequence, it results from this that the ankle-foot orthosesinfer some common effects and some other, specific to each model. From that moment on, in an original way, we were bound to identify, with some simple and fast ways the patients taking the larger advantage from one of the orthosis models. In addition to the necessary prerequisite which is the acceptance of the equipment by the patient, our results specify that the most adapted orthopaedic device compensates for the deficiency(ies) by restoring the motor function, without restraining the preserved abilities

Le système de santé est traversé aujourd’hui par une tension forte entre deux logiques : l’une privilégie, dans la tradition humaniste, le soin inconditionnel à la personne, l’autre privilégie, au nom d’impératifs de gestion, le management au service de l’efficacité productive hospitalière. Placé au cœur d’une organisation complexe, le cadre de santé semble ainsi condamné à un mouvement de balancier entre une « culture-santé » et une « culture-entreprise », ce qui lui confère un positionnement professionnel délicat au sein de l’institution. Comment se positionne-t-il et vers quoi évolue-t-il ? Nous montrerons que ces acteurs sont en tension et fortement clivés entre une idéologie humaniste et une idéologie gestionnaire, à la recherche de leur identité qui semble désormais problématique. Héritier d’une histoire et positionné dans un entre-deux, il se cherche. Comment concilie-t-il concrètement ces deux logiques dans son quotidien ? En quête d’un modèle lui permettant de résister aux pressions gestionnaires, il adopte une « posture d’accompagnement », se reconstruit ainsi à partir de compétences pédagogiques dans un espace informel, pour créer un antidote au management technicien et réintroduire ainsi un équilibre identitaire. Leurs capacités réflexives renforcent leur posture d’accompagnement et constituent alors un moyen efficace pour dépasser les tensions institutionnelles entre soin et management. Une formation en Sciences Humaines et Sociales, au service de leur développement personnel et professionnel, stabilise leur système de valeurs et leur permet de reconquérir une possible identité. / The French health-care system is currently faced with tensions arising from two different visions of health-care: the first one focuses on the unconditional care given to the patient in accordance with the humanistic tradition. The second one focuses on management priorities aiming for an efficient and productive management of hospitals. At the heart of a complex organizational structure lie the health managers, whose roles inevitably shift back and forth between a ‘company culture’ vision and that of ‘health-care culture’, thereby jeopardizing their professional position. Where do health managers stand and what is their future role? The aim of this study is to show the difficulties of juggling the humanistic tradition with the management-based approach and defining their identity. Health managers often find themselves in overlapping positions and strive to combine and apply the two visions in their work on a daily basis. In need of a model to resist management pressures, they act as a ‘support function’. This support stance helps them redefine their position and balances out the negative effects of technical management in health-care. The ability to look back on their own experience reinforces this support function and allows them to overcome the tensions arising from the cleavage between health-care and management. Providing health managers with a specific training in social and human sciences for their personal and professional development would strengthen their ethical values and allow them to regain control of their identity.

The aim of this study was to determine the impact of appreciative inquiry (AI) on the development of organisational culture after a merger. The empirical study was con-ducted among the employees of a telecommunications company in South Africa. AI was conducted after a merger of teams within a department of the organisation to assist in the development of a new and combined team culture. Interactive qualitative analysis (IQA) was used to determine the impact of AI on the new culture. The sample size for the study was 35 for the AI session and 20 for the IQA. A qualitative approach was adopted in this study in order to understand and explore the experiences of individuals who had recently been a part of the change process. The research design was based on IQA, a structured approach which constructs a systematic representation of the experience. It was found that AI allowed the teams to gain a new understanding of and insight into what it meant to work together as a unit. A significant difference was noted in the IQA facilitation that was performed six months after the AI session. This re-search therefore confirmed that the AI had a significant positive impact on the culture of the organisation under investigation. / Industrial and Organisational Psychology / M. Com. (Industrial and Organisational Psychology)