L’analyse des risques psychosociaux en ESAT parmi des travailleurs en situation de handicap (TSH) : éléments de réflexion

Unlike the mainstream world of labour, studies on psychosocial risks (PSR) in Establishments and Work Assistance Services (ESAT) among workers with disabilities are scarce. Given the adverse effects of the PSR on both these workers and on the work itself, it seems essential to focus specifically on the PSR in the context of ESAT. The paper shows that the application of different theoretical models of PSR from the mainstream environment to the ESAT is possible. The health at work for people with disabilities requires taking into account the disorders influencing the identification and the mobilization of resources and skills. Working conditions in ESAT allow health promotion if they are adapted to the specificities and needs of people with disabilities.     

The influence of correlations between noncritical features and reinforcement on stimulus generalization

One strategy to program for generalization is to vary noncritical features in teaching exemplars, thereby avoiding noncritical features from being highly correlated with reinforcement and thus gaining faulty stimulus control. In the current translational evaluation, 2 groups of adults of typical development were taught to respond to arbitrary stimuli with experimenter‐defined critical and noncritical features in a matching‐to‐sample task. The teaching arrangement used for 1 group programmed for low correlation between noncritical features and reinforcement; the teaching arrangement used for the other group programmed for high correlation between noncritical features and reinforcement. Participants in the former group displayed (a) faster acquisition of matching, (b) less variability in correct responding, and (c) a decreased likelihood of faulty stimulus control developing during training. The results contribute towards advancing the study of stimulus control and developing an explicit technology of generalization to better serve consumers of the application of our science.     

Equivalence relations and the contextual control of multiple derived stimulus functions

Contextual control is a key aspect in equivalence research to support the claim that stimuli may have multiple functions or symbols may have multiple meanings. The present study investigated the contextual control of multiple derived stimulus functions in two experiments. In Experiment 1, equivalence classes were formed and one stimulus set from each class was used to establish two different functions: one via positive reinforcement (key-pressing) and another via negative reinforcement (button clicking), both under contextual control of two different background colors. Later, other stimuli from the equivalence class were presented on those background colors and contextual control of multiple derived stimulus functions was assessed. Experiment 2 added a third background in which no programmed response was reinforced, that is, responses were extinguished. Transfer-of-function tests revealed contextual control of three different functions, including derived extinction. Implications for equivalence relations as a behavior-analytical model of symbolic functioning are discussed.     

Face value: testing the utility of contextual face cues for face recognition

The presence of multiple faces during a crime may provide a naturally-occurring contextual cue to support eyewitness recognition for those faces later. Across two experiments, we sought to investigate mechanisms underlying previously-reported cued recognition effects, and to determine whether such effects extended to encoding conditions involving more than two faces. Participants studied sets of individual faces, pairs of faces, or groups of four faces. At test, participants in the single-face condition were tested only on those individual faces without cues. Participants in the two and four-face conditions were tested using no cues, correct cues (a face previously studied with the target test face), or incorrect cues (a never-before-seen face). In Experiment 2, associative encoding was promoted by a rating task. Neither hit rates nor false-alarm rates were significantly affected by cue type or face encoding condition in Experiment 1, but cuing of any kind (correct or incorrect) in Experiment 2 appeared to provide a protective buffer to reduce false-alarm rates through a less liberal response bias. Results provide some evidence that cued recognition techniques could be useful to reduce false recognition, but only when associative encoding is strong.     

Neuropsychological outcomes of pediatric demyelinating diseases: a review

Immune-mediated central nervous system (CNS) demyelinating diseases impact various areas of the brain, optic nerves, and/or spinal cord and can result in a wide range of neurologic symptoms including adverse cognitive outcomes. Neuropsychological outcomes in adult multiple sclerosis (MS) are well documented, while literature on such outcomes in pediatric cohorts is more limited. Furthermore, literature on neuropsychological outcomes in pediatric acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (ADEM), neuromyelitis optica (NMO), and transverse myelitis (TM) is even more limited. This paper is the first to review what is known about neuropsychological outcomes associated with immune-mediated CNS demyelinating diseases, with a focus on pediatric MS, ADEM, NMO, and TM. Additionally, this review illuminates the need to clarify differences in neuropsychological sequelae between conditions, characterize longitudinal cognitive outcomes, and investigate neuropsychological outcomes in relation to clinical variables (e.g., age of onset, disease duration, number of relapses) and psychosocial variables (e.g., fatigue, emotional problems, behavioral functioning) to better understand neuropsychological outcomes associated with these conditions.     

On Variant Selection Mechanisms in Interactive MCDA – Engineering versus Reverse Engineering

In the paper, we focus on the engineering and the reverse engineering paradigms in the context of multiple criteria decision analysis. We argue and demonstrate that if variant selection mechanisms are reverse engineered, they are simple and intuitive to understand, making multiple criteria decision analysis marketable to operational research practitioners. We present a reverse engineering scheme for variant selection mechanisms, and we illustrate its working with instructive examples. We also present some experience with that scheme gathered when teaching a multiple criteria decision analysis course to students. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Development of a Robust Multicriteria Classification Model for Monitoring the Postoperative Behaviour of Heart Patients

Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common sustained cardiac arrhythmia occurring in 2% of the general population, while the assuming projected incidence in 2050 will rise to 4.3%. This paper presents a multicriteria methodology for the development of a model for monitoring the post‐operative behaviour of patients who have received treatment for AF. The model classifies the patients in seven categories according to their relapse risk, on the basis of seven criteria related to the AF type and pathology conditions, the treatment received by the patients and their medical history. The analysis is based on an extension of the UTilités Additives DIScriminantes (UTADIS) method, through the introduction of a two‐stage model development procedure that minimizes the number and the magnitude of the misclassifications. The analysis is based on a sample of 116 patients who had pulmonary veins isolation in a Greek public hospital. The classification accuracy of the best fitted models scores between 71% and 84%. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Treating Self-Injurious Behavior:

The present study attempted to investigate the effects and possible side effects of a response cost and DRO treatment procedure on a subject's self-injurious behavior. Additionally, a number of staff management strategies were evaluated as to their effect on the maintenance of the behavior change. Finally, the acceptability of the treatment utilized was subjectively evaluated. Implications for designing maintenance strategies that are effective, feasible and acceptable are discussed.     

Direction of Effects in Multiple Linear Regression Models

Previous studies analyzed asymmetric properties of the Pearson correlation coefficient using higher than second order moments. These asymmetric properties can be used to determine the direction of dependence in a linear regression setting (i.e., establish which of two variables is more likely to be on the outcome side) within the framework of cross-sectional observational data. Extant approaches are restricted to the bivariate regression case. The present contribution extends the direction of dependence methodology to a multiple linear regression setting by analyzing distributional properties of residuals of competing multiple regression models. It is shown that, under certain conditions, the third central moments of estimated regression residuals can be used to decide upon direction of effects. In addition, three different approaches for statistical inference are discussed: a combined D’Agostino normality test, a skewness difference test, and a bootstrap difference test. Type I error and power of the procedures are assessed using Monte Carlo simulations, and an empirical example is provided for illustrative purposes. In the discussion, issues concerning the quality of psychological data, possible extensions of the proposed methods to the fourth central moment of regression residuals, and potential applications are addressed.