Electronic cigarettes (ECIGs) operate by heating a nicotine-containing solution resulting in an inhalable aerosol. Nicotine delivery may be affected by users’ puffing behavior (puff topography), and little is known about the puff topography of ECIG users. The purpose of this study was to examine the extent to which a mouthpiece-based topography measurement device influences the acute effects associated with ECIG use. Twenty-nine experienced ECIG users completed two sessions differing only by the presence of a mouthpiece-based topography recording device. In both sessions, participants completed one 10 puff, 30 sec inter-puff interval (IPI) ECIG-use bout and another 90 minute ad libitum bout. Acute ECIG effects (plasma nicotine concentration, heart rate [HR], and subjective effects) were largely unaffected by the presence of the topography recording device. Evaluating ECIG puff topography through clinical laboratory methodology is necessary to understand the effects of these products (including toxicant exposure) and to inform their regulation.

I take a poetic approach to graphic design practice. It is a subjectivist approach, which recognizes our human right to willful interpretation. Designers navigate form, culture, and history like poets through language. We are subjective, exploratory engines drawing formal inspiration from figural and analogical associations. Subjectivity in graphic design practice is complex, however. Subjectivity privileges the interaction between object and individual. When we designers interpret the literal world with the poet’s omni-directional sensitivity, we intentionally and intuitively create objects that accrete inexhaustible, extra-literal value for their audience.

Thèse numérisée par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

The aim of this thesis is to compare subjective life satisfaction of children at 5th and 9th grades of primary schools in Hradec Králové. The thesis focuses mainly on the way of spending their leisure time, satisfaction with the social contacts and family background, interacting in school, psychosomatic problems and addictive risks. The work compares the responses of individual years and gender of respondents. The thesis finds no significcant diferences between 5th and 9th grade. The significcant diferences were found between gender of respondents. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

Thesis advisor: John B. Williamson / This study assesses the influence of old-age pension policy on older adults' life satisfaction, and examines factors that shape this relationship. It theorizes that two distinct dimensions capture variation in the type of pension policy: individualization of risk (as opposed to socialization, or pooling, of risk) and redistribution of resources (that is, poverty prevention through income redistribution mechanisms such as non-contributory pensions). To empirically evaluate the presence of these two dimensions and to assess their influence of life satisfaction among older adults, this study analyzes data for 126,560 adults age 45 and over living in 91 countries over the period 1981-2008. Using principal component factor analysis, it finds support for the two-dimensional model of pension policy. Next, using three-level hierarchical linear regression, this study assesses the effects of pension policy individualization and redistribution on life satisfaction, generating three additional major findings. First, redistribution increases life satisfaction, but individualization--on average--has no significant effect on life satisfaction. Thus, the potential impact of individualization (whether positive or negative), and of the associated increased risk, choice, and opportunities for return, has been clearly overstated in theoretical debates on pension policy privatization. Second, the relationship between pension policy and life satisfaction is contingent on the macro-social context. Specifically, individualization that takes place in more affluent societies has beneficial impact on life satisfaction, while individualization unfolding in contexts of material scarcity has detrimental impact on life satisfaction. Further, the overall beneficial effects of redistribution on life satisfaction are substantially higher in the context of traditional cultures and lower in the context of secular-rational cultures. A third finding is that governmental commitment to social security (i.e., government expenditures on social security as a percentage of total government expenditures) also shapes the relationship between the type of pension policy and life satisfaction: Higher government commitment to social security substantially improves the life satisfaction outcomes of individualization. Findings from this study are used to integrate and advance theory on comparative public policy and the larger macro-social context shaping subjective well-being. Policy implications for pension reform are discussed, highlighting redistribution of resources and alleviation of need as more efficient avenues to increase older adults' life satisfaction than privatization or pooling of risk. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2009. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Sociology.

Os parâmetros acústicos subjetivos são critérios que definem a qualidade acústica de uma sala de música. A apreciação musical dentro da sala é afetada por diversas impressões acústicas que ocorrem ao mesmo tempo. Cada uma dessas impressões é associada a um parâmetro acústico de natureza subjetiva que está correlacionado a uma grandeza física mensurável, constituindo um conjunto de parâmetros acústicos objetivos que formam uma base científica para a análise acústica das salas de música. Neste trabalho desenvolvemos pesquisa de âmbito teórico e experimental envolvendo a análise dos parâmetros acústicos subjetivos mais relevantes para a avaliação da qualidade acústica de salas de escuta musical. Fizemos um levantamento abrangente do material já publicado sobre o assunto, o que nos orientou a respeito das medições acústicas pertinentes à referida análise e nos permitiu formalizar as devidas conclusões. Implementamos e aplicamos a tecnologia necessária para a obtenção dos parâmetros. Determinamos a metodologia experimental mais adequada e efetuamos medições em seis importantes salas de concerto, comparando os resultados. Fizemos uma análise crítica a respeito dos parâmetros acústicos obtidos e aprofundamos a compreensão sobre seus significados e suas utilidades. Por fim, fizemos uma análise subjetiva de júri correlacionando os parâmetros acústicos medidos às respectivas impressões acústicas sobre amostras musicais gravadas nas salas. / Acoustic parameters are the criteria that define the acoustic quality of a music hall. The musical audition inside a room is influenced by a group of acoustic impressions that occur at the same time. Each one of such impressions is associated with a particular subjective parameter that is correlated to a measurable physical value. These values are taken as a set of objective parameters that constitute a scientific basis for the acoustical analysis of a music hall. In this work we have conducted both a theoretical and an experimental investigation on the analysis of the most important acoustic parameters for the evaluation of the quality of a music hall. Also, we have done an extensive research on the related bibliography to support our measurement procedures and formal conclusions. We have implemented the necessary technology to obtain the acoustic parameters. We also have determined the most efficient experimental methodology to carry out acoustic measurements and we have applied this methodology to the measurement of six important concert halls. Then we have compared the data related to each hall and performed a critical analysis of this data, increasing our understanding on the meaning and the usefulness of the acoustic parameters. Finally, we have made a subjective jury analysis, correlating the measured acoustic parameters to the impressions about music samples recorded into those concert halls.

La divergence comportementale des utilisateurs sur le web résulte un problème de fluctuation de performance chez les systèmes de recommandation (SR) qui exploitent ce comportement pour recommander aux utilisateurs des items qu’ils vont apprécier. Ce problème est observé dans l’approche de filtrage collaboratif (FC) qui exploite les notes attribuées par les utilisateurs aux items, et l’approche à base de confiance (SRC) qui exploite les notes de confiance que les utilisateurs attribuent l’un à l’autre. Nous proposons une approche hybride qui augmente le nombre d'utilisateurs bénéficiant de la recommandation, sans perte significative de précision. Par la suite, nous identifions plusieurs caractéristiques comportementales qui permettent de constituer un profil comportemental de l’utilisateur. Ce qui nous permet de classifier les utilisateurs selon leur comportement commun, et d’observer la performance de chaque approche par classe. Par la suite, nous focalisons sur les SRC. Le concept de confiance a été abordé dans plusieurs disciplines. Il n'existe pas véritablement de consensus sur sa définition. Cependant, toutes s'accordent sur son effet positif. La logique subjective (LS) fournit une plateforme flexible pour modéliser la confiance. Nous l’utilisons pour proposer et comparer trois modèles de confiance, dont l’objectif est de prédire à un utilisateur source s’il peut faire confiance à un utilisateur cible. La recommandation peut s’appuyer sur l’expérience personnelle de la source (modèle local), un système de bouche à oreille (modèle collectif), ou encore la réputation du cible (modèle global). Nous comparons ces trois modèles aux termes de la précision, la complexité, et la robustesse face aux attaques malicieuses / Recommender systems (RS) exploit users' behaviour to recommend to them items they would appreciate. Users Behavioral divergence on the web results in a problem of performance fluctuations to (RS). This problem is observed in the approach of collaborative filtering (CF), which exploites the ratings attributed by users to items, and in the trust-based approach (TRS), which exploites the trust relations between the users. We propose a hybrid approach that increases the number of users receiving recommendation, without significant loss of accuracy. Thereafter, we identify several behavioral characteristics that define a user profile. Then we classify users according to their common behavior, and observe the performance of the approaches by class. Thereafter, we focus on the TRS. The concept of trust has been discussed in several disciplines. There is no real consensus on its definition. However, all agree on its positive effect. Subjective logic (LS) provides a flexible platform for modeling trust. We use it to propose and compare three trust models, which aims to predict whether a user source can trust a target user. Trust may be based on the personal experience of the source (local model), or on a system of mouth (collective model), or the reputation of the target (global model). We compare these three models in terms of accuracy, complexity, and robustness against malicious attacks

A travers cette thèse, nous étudions l'envie et explorons l'impact de cette dernière sur le bien-être et le comportement individuel. Cette thèse se compose de quatre chapitres. Dans un premier chapitre, nous définissons l'envie en nous référant à des travaux réalisés en philosophie et en psychologie. Nous concluons que l'envie est une émotion déclenchée par la prise de conscience d'un attribut désiré, possédé par autrui et qui se caractérise par une douloureuse tristesse incluant des sentiments d'hostilité. Ensuite nous élaborons un protocole expérimental dont l'objectif est d'étudier l'impact de l'envie sur le bien-être et sur le comportement individuel. Nous capturons l'envie à travers des méthodes d'évaluation subjective et nous examinons si l'envie incite les sujets à réduire la dotation de leur partenaire malgré le coût personnel induit par la réduction. Nous observons que l'envie est fortement présente mais n'explique pas pourquoi les sujets réduisent la dotation des autres. Les inégalités de dotations mesurées en termes relatifs modulent les décisions des sujets à réduire la dotation d'autrui. Dans le chapitre trois, nous nous intéressons à l'impact de l'effort sur l'envie. Pour cela nous élaborons deux traitements. Dans un traitement, les sujets reçoivent des dotations de manière aléatoire alors que dans l'autre traitement les dotations sont attribuées en fonction de la performance de chaque sujet lors d'une tache effectuée avant l'expérience. Nous trouvons que l'effort n'affecte pas la satisfaction des sujets mais partiellement leur comportement : les sujets ne sont pas plus nombreux a réduire les gains des autres mais ils en réduisent une plus grande partie. Enfin, nous nous intéressons à un type de sujets particulier dans lequel l'envie est susceptible d'être ressentie fortement : les sportifs. Nous concluons que la pratique d'activités sportives pousse les agents à ressentir de l'envie et les incite à entreprendre des actions de réduction. / Throughout this dissertation we aim at identifying envy and investigating its impacts on both individual well-being and behaviour. This dissertation consists of four chapters. The first chapter is devoted to the definition of envy by referring to both researches on philosophy and psychology. We convey that envy can be defined as an emotion triggered by the awareness of a desired attribute enjoyed by another person characterised by a painful sadness including feelings of hostility. In the second chapter, we implement an experiment so as to investigate the impact of envy on individual well-being and behaviour. We capture envy through referring to self-report methods and explore whether envy pushes subjects to reduce their opponent's endowment at a personal cost. We observe that envy is highly present but does not explain why subjects reduce others' income. Inequalities between subjects' endowments measured in relative terms modulate subjects' decisions to reduce others' income. In chapter three, we study how effort affects envy and whether the impact of envy on both individual well-being and behaviour is amplified or weakened by effort. To fulfil our purpose, we implement two different conditions. In one condition endowments are randomly attributed to subjects and in the other condition endowments are allocated according to each subject's performance in a task. We observe that effort does not affect subjects' satisfaction and partially their behaviour : subjects do not reduce more often their opponent's endowment but they cut a higher portion of their opponent's endowment when endowments are attributed according to individual effort. In the final chapter, we focus on a specific category of subjects in which envy is ought to be experienced intensively : subjects practicing sport activities. We observe that sport practice pushes subjects to experience envy and exerts them to engage in reduction decisions.

This thesis explores how Chilean teachers understand their life trajectories in terms of life-course change, socio-historical change and social mobility, examining whether they make distinctions between these different kinds of understandings of transitions. In a context of 40 years of transformations in Chile, teachers are used as a case-study for examination of the subjective dimension of social mobility, and people's sense of class location and inequality. Methodologically, this research adopted the approach of exploring people's sense of life course and social movement in its broadest sense, examining how teachers talked about their life trajectories in order to consider whether questions of social change, life-course change, social structure and social mobility featured. It is built on data collected through interviews with 41 teachers who live in Santiago, who were asked to outline their personal timelines as a way to reflect on the main changes which they regarded as significant in their life stories. The argument of this thesis draws on and contributes to sociological work on class and social mobility. Most social mobility research has been dominated by quantitative work about occupational patterns of movement, with subjective social mobility neglected because people's subjective understandings of social movement have been seen to be contradictory and inconsistent. It has been suggested that 'lay' understandings fail to distinguish 'social mobility' from socio-historical change and life-course change, so people fail to recognise the true extent of inequality and the limited nature of social mobility. This thesis foregrounds subjective social mobility and critically examines these assumptions. On the basis of my empirical research, I argue that the apparent inconsistences in 'lay' subjective social mobility disappear, or at least make more sense, when we locate people's understandings of social location, social change and social mobility within their broader sense of their life stories. These inconsistencies are partly the result of the complex ways in which people understand their life stories and position themselves within a broader social structure, and are best explained using an analytical focus which emphasises the multidimensional nature of trajectories in social space (Bourdieu, 1984) and a methodological focus which is sensitive to the multifaceted and practical ways in which people speak about their lives. The teachers in my sample resisted a linear summary of their timelines and issues of life-course change and socio-historical change also framed their accounts, adding additional layers of complexity to them, in narratives of trajectories along different dimensions which qualified or disrupted each other. Despite that the teachers framed their trajectories as complex, non-linear constructs, and some rejected 'social mobility' stories, they still all offered overall evaluations of their changing life circumstances. They looked beyond their own trajectories to make different sort of comparisons which helped them to establish a sense of relative social movement, characterising their lives as showing social improvement, stability or decline as different views of their relative social position, and of the social structure and inequalities. I argue that rather than focusing on whether or not ordinary people correctly recognise relative or absolute mobility, it is more pivotal to examine how these different understandings come into play when ordinary people reflect about their location in an unequal society. The thesis argues that subjective social mobility needs to be analysed in term of a multidimensional model of class location and class movement, and this also argues for a greater understanding of the complexities of issues of social location, trajectories and social mobility in which 'class' emerges in different way in people's accounts. Therefore, a more open-ended approach to how people understand their relative situation is needed, in order to explore whether and how issues of class position, social inequalities and social mobility feature in the accounts of 'ordinary' people when they discuss the key transitions of their lives.

Itch lies second only to disturbance of body image as a reported symptom in dermatology. This study started by concentrating on improving the measurement of itch. Itch has a paired physical response, scratch. The pairing can be exploited: preliminary work by this unit had validated the use of wrist-worn movement-measuring machines called ‘accelerometers’ to measure itch-related movement (scratch and rub). The first part of this research developed use of these machines. Simple accelerometers (‘Actiwatch Plus’) were used to observe the pattern of variation of itch over clusters of nights and in different conditions. The accelerometer scores were able to identify controls’ scores from those with itchy disease. Considerable variation (56%) was discovered in objective score between subject and considerable variation was noted (46%) even within subject. More complex accelerometers, (‘DigiTrac’) which could potentially specifically identify itch-related movement on the basis of frequency of action derived from Fast Fourier Transform (FFT), were validated against the ‘gold standard’ measurement of itch-related movement, directly observed movement (via infra red video recording). It was necessary to characterise the ‘frequency of action’ of itch on video and, as an aside, the characteristics of human itch-related movement were compared to other mammals’ itch-related movement ‘frequency of action’. The ‘frequency of action’ and video data was used to enrich the DigiTrac readouts to improve specificity of itch-related movement detection. During the accelerometer studies, an unexpected finding came to light: objective score of itch was not related to subjective score. To try to explain the lack of relationship, a 42 day longitudinal study of atopic dermatitis patients’ subjective and objective scores was undertaken. The results demonstrated autocorrelation for subjective scores, but not for the objective scores but still did not fully explain the lack of relationship. In an effort to explain the disconnect between subjective and objective scores a second tranche of experiments and the second part of this research interrogated whether the methods with which we measure disease as a whole in dermatology are robust. One study investigated whether the way patients are asked about subjective symptoms in general was resistant to the effects of focusing and framing bias. The results were reassuring as they suggested that the commonly used and recommended symptom scoring systems were robust in the face of bias. In order to assess whether perspective or perception of disease explained the disconnect, a study was designed in collaboration with the Edinburgh College of Art. A series of computer-generated images of different psoriasis severities were created and used to assess how doctors and patients assessed disease-extent. This study showed that, whilst each group had a naturally divergent opinion of extent of disease, by scoring disease using the models it was possible to unify the perspective and perception of extent. Finally, an exploratory study to reduce recall bias to a minimum, in case this had caused the disconnect between objective and subjective, was undertaken. This employed a novel questionnaire, the Day Reconstruction Method.