The purpose of this study was to examine the predictive validity of several variables to determine if the Florida Computerized Placement Test - Reading (CPT-R) score alone, or other variables, could determine whether or not a student would successfully pass the highest level college preparatory reading course. The study examined fall sessions 1997-2004 (n=276,079) reading scores for all forms of the CPT to determine at what standard deviation below the cutoff score of 83 a student could still successfully complete the highest level college preparatory reading course. According to the College Board, the 83 scaled score, which exempts a student from taking the reading course, equates to approximately a 70% on the paper/pencil version of the test, yet the study revealed that a scaled score of 64 was the average score for fall sessions 1997-2004, which according to previous studies equates to 9/10th reading grade level on the Nelson-Denny Reading Test (Napoli & Raymond, 1998). In addition, the most frequently obtained scaled score was 75 for fall sessions 1997-2004, which equates to an 11th grade reading level on the Nelson-Denny Reading Test; however, the results of this study showed only 61% (49, 281 out of 79,167) of the upper quartile of students (scaled scores >74) passed the highest level college preparatory reading course. Although a statistically significant relationship was found between the entry test and successful completion of the highest level college preparatory reading course, the relationship was small, and therefore does not provide very good predictive validity. Interestingly, the study revealed that students who were exempt from the reading course, and still enrolled in the course, did not have higher passing rates in the course. In addition, students with higher placement scores did not have significantly higher passing rates in the reading course than students with lower placement scores. In fact, students with the lowest scaled scores of 11-20 had the highest percentage of successfully completing the highest level college preparatory reading course.The placement test scores in reading indicate a large number of students entering Florida's community colleges are not prepared for college-level courses. In addition, the results of this study indicated that the placement test did very little to discriminate between levels of students' actual reading abilities and predict which students will ultimately pass required remedial/developmental reading classes. Although many first-time-in-college students are not recent high school graduates, high schools should be required to include reading as part of the core curriculum, separate and distinct from the language arts courses.Teachers, credentialed in reading, should be teaching reading courses in all four years of high school. Diagnostic testing and year-end testing should occur each year to chart a student's progress for all four years of high school. In addition, Florida's college entrance reading placement test should be revised so that it provides a comprehensive measurement of college-level reading skills.

The main aim of this study is to explore the effects of risk factors contributing to death in the elderly American population. To achieve this purpose, we constructed Cox proportional hazard regression models and logistic regression models with the complex survey dataset from the national Second Longitudinal Study of Aging (LSOA II) to calculate the hazard ratios (HR)/odds ratios (OR) and confidence interval (CI) of risk factors. Our results show that in addition to chronic disease conditions, many risk factors, such as demographic factors (gender and age), social factors (interaction with friends or relatives), personal health behaviors (smoking and exercise), and biomedical factors (Body mass index and emotional factors) have significant effects on death in the elderly American population. This will provide important information for elderly people to prolong lifespan regardless of whether they have chronic disease/diseases or not.

<p>This study employs the Human Capital Theory (HCT), which postulates that the education of women is positively related to the likelihood of their labour force participation, in order to investigate quarterly dynamics in the labour force. This approach is an advancement of knowledge gained from previous studies such as Serumanga-Zake and Kotze (2004) and Ntuli (2004) who investigated the annual dynamics in FLFP. Investigating quarterly dynamics in FLFP is prudent as the market economy is very dynamic particularly at a point when the world economy is experiencing recession. Data for the study are extracted from the 2008 Quarterly Labour Force Survey conducted by Statistics South Africa. Logistic regression analysis modeling was employed with the dependent variable, FLFP, as a binary outcome. Other variables controlled in the analysis are gender, population group, age, marital status, education status, sector, main industry, main occupation and province. The results show that there is association between education status and FLFP status. Findings from this research are expected to contribute to the knowledge about trends in FLFP in South Africa and aid in planning of interventions aimed at improving the status of women as one of the critical steps in achieving the Millennium Development Goals.</p>

<p>This study assesses the present level of household water access and the willingness to pay in South Africa. Although the general literature informs that progress has been made in positing South Africa above the levels found in most African countries, there are some marked inequalities among the population groups and across the provinces, with some performing well and others poorly in this regard. The study looks at the extent to which households differ in terms of water access and willingness to pay according to the province of residence. The study focuses on household heads / male and female, through different social and demographic attributes, by taking account of variables such as age, education&nbsp / attainment, geographic areas, and population group to name but a few. The data used in this study comes from the 2007 General Household Survey (GHS) conducted by Statistics South Africa. The scope is national and employs cross tabulation and logistic regression to establish relationships and the likelihood of living in a household with access to safe&nbsp / drinking water in South Africa. Results presented in this study suggest that the difference is determined by socio- demographic characteristics of each household such as age, gender, population group, level of education, employment status income, dwelling unit, dwelling ownership, living quarters,household size and income. It throws more light as to what needs to be taken into account when considering demand and supply of and priorities for water intervention from the household perspective.</p>

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal

Die Sanierung notleidender Kredite ist in den Banken und in der Wissenschaft ein prominentes Thema. Banken installieren eigene Abteilungen, denen Aufgabe die Betreuung solcher in Zahlungsverzug befindlicher Engagements obliegt. Die Wissenschaft untersucht den Themenkomplex in allen Facetten, das weithin bekannteste Gebiet sind die prognostizierten Ausfallwahrscheinlichkeiten für Unternehmen und Staaten, gemeinhin Ratings. Neben der Ermittlung der Wahrscheinlichkeit eines Zahlungsverzuges widmen sich andere Autoren den Maßnahmen, welche während einer Sanierung ergriffen werden. So auch die hier vorliegende. Einem Kreditinstitut steht im Rahmen einer Sanierung eine Vielzahl an Maßnahmen zur Verfügung. Wie wirken diese Maßnahmen auf das angestrebte Ziel der Sanierung? Unterscheiden sich Maßnahmen, die einen gleich gelagerten Fokus haben, in ihrem Einfluss auf das Ergebnis der Sanierung? Läßt sich also eine Empfehlung ableiten, welche Maßnahmen ergriffen werden sollen, um beispielsweise das Überleben eines Unternehmens zu erreichen? Der Arbeit liegt ein Datensatz zugrunde, der Daten zu deutschen Unternehmen enthält, die dem Segment der Klein- und mittelständischen zuzuordnen sind. Die verwendeten Daten wurden nicht, wie sonst üblich, aus teils frei verfügbaren Datenbanken abgerufen, sondern konnten aus den Unterlagen eines Kreditinstitutes erhoben werden. Sie bieten damit ein breiteres Spektrum als bereits aufbereitete Daten. Zum anderen konnten Informationen verarbeitet werden, die nur dem Kreditinstitut zur Verfügung stehen und im Regelfall nicht an Dritte zur Veröffentlich weitergegeben werden. Die Auswertung der erhobenen und aufbereiteten Daten erfolgt in zwei Stufen. In einem ersten Schritt werden durch univariate logistische Regressionen die aussagekräftigen Maßnahmen identifiziert. Diese Variablen werden in einem zweiten Schritt in multivariaten logistischen Regression überprüft. Das Ergebnis dieses Schrittes sind Modelle, die den Einfluss bestimmter Maßnahmen auf den jeweiligen Ausgang einer Sanierung beschreiben. Die Aufbereitung und Auswertung der Maßnahmen erfolgt hier in einem sehr hohen Detailgrad, der in anderen Arbeiten nur teilweise anzuztreffen ist. Es lassen sich anhand des Datensatzes Maßnahmen identifizieren, deren Ergreifen einen Einfluss auf den Ausgang der Untersuchung hat. Durch die aufgestellten Modelle ist es nicht ur möglich, diese Maßnahmen zu identifizieren, sondern auch ihren Einfluss zu quantifizieren. Dies erfolgt über die sog. „odd ratios“, die eine Aussage darüber liefern, wie sich das Chancen-Verhältnis einer Zielgröße ändert, wenn die im Fokus stehende Variable um eine Einheit geändert wird. Neben einer Ergänzung der bestehenden Literatur zu diesem Thema schafft diese Arbeit auch konkrete Handlungsempfehlungen für die Praxis.

This research aims to develop a process for eliciting expert knowledge and incorporating this knowledge as prior distributions for a Bayesian logistic regression model. This work was motivated by the need for less data reliant methods of modelling species habitat distributions. A comprehensive review of the research from both cognitive psychology and the statistical literature provided specific recommendations for the creation of an elicitation scheme. These were incorporated into the design of a Bayesian logistic regression model and accompanying elicitation scheme. This model and scheme were then implemented as interactive, graphical software called ELICITOR created within the BlackBox Component Pascal environment. This software was specifically written to be compatible with existing Bayesian analysis software, winBUGS as an odd-on component. The model, elicitation scheme and software were evaluated through five case studies of various fauna and flora species. For two of these there were sufficient data for a comparison of expert and data-driven models. The case studies confirmed that expert knowledge can be quantified and formally incorporated into a logistic regression model. Finally, they provide a basis for a thorough discussion of the model, scheme and software extensions and lead to recommendations for elicitation research.

Metallic materials and oxygen can be a volatile combination when accompanied by ignition mechanisms. Once ignited, metallic materials can readily burn in high pressure oxygen atmospheres, releasing an enormous amount of energy and potentially destroying equipment, space missions and resulting in the loss of life. The potential losses associated with these fires led to research into the conditions under which metal fires propagate. Several organisations, including the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) and the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO), have published recommended standard test practices with which to assess the relative flammability of metallic materials. These promoted ignition tests, so called because samples are ignited with an overwhelming source of energy, are typically used to examine two important parameters as an indication of a metallic material's flammability: Threshold Pressure (TP) and the Regression Rate of the Melting Interface (RRMI). A material's TP is the minimum pressure at which it burns, therefore, TPs of different materials can be compared to assess which materials are most suited for a range of high pressure applications. The RRMI is a useful measure for ranking materials, particularly if they have the same TP, but can be used as a ranking method irrespective of TP. In addition, it is a crucial parameter to aid in understanding the complex burning process and is one of the few experimental parameters that can be measured. Promoted ignition test standards specify a standard sample geometry to use when performing the test, typically a 3.2 mm diameter cylindrical rod. The recent addition of a 3.2 × 3.2 mm square rod as an optional standard sample geometry raises the issue of how the geometry of a sample affects its flammability. Promoted ignition test results for standard geometries are often applied to assess the flammability risk for the complex geometries of real components within oxygen systems, including regulators, valves, piping etc. Literature shows that sample geometry has a significant effect on material rankings when rankings are based on testing of standard geometries, for example, cylindrical rods, compared to non-standard geometries, for example, sintered filters and meshes. In addition, the RRMI has been shown to be dependent on a sample's cross-sectional area (XA). However, it remains unclear, from a simple heat transfer analysis, why the RRMI is dependent on XA or how the shape of a sample affects its melting rate. These questions are particularly relevant since understanding how sample geometry affects burning contributes to two important research goals: to be able to accurately model and predict the flammability risk of a metallic component without the need for physical testing, and to understand the effects of different sample geometries on their relative flammabilities within the standard tests used. Promoted ignition tests were conducted on iron rods with cylindrical, rectangular and triangular cross sections for a range of XAs. Their RRMIs were measured and analysed using a statistical approach which allowed differences in RRMI to be quantitatively assessed. Statistically significant differences in RRMI were measured for rods with the same XA but of different shape. Furthermore, the magnitude of the difference was dependent on XA. Triangular rods had the fastest RRMIs, followed by rectangular rods and then cylindrical rods. Differences in RRMI based on rod shape are due to heat transfer effects and the dynamic motion of the attached molten mass during the drop cycle. The corners of the rectangular and triangular rods melt faster due to their locally higher Surface Area to Volume ratio (SA/V). This dynamic effect increases the area of contact between the molten mass and the solid rod (solid liquid interface (SLI)) which facilitates increased heat transfer to the rod resulting in a faster RRMI. This finding highlights the importance of the SLI in the heat transfer process. Although the SLI is largely dependent on the XA, the shape of the rod causes subtle changes to the size of the SLI and thus affects heat transfer, burning and observed RRMI. The relationship between rod diameter, test pressure and Extent of Reaction (ER), the proportion of metal that reacts (oxidises) whilst attached to the burning rod, was investigated. During promoted ignition testing of iron rods of varying diameter the detached drops were rapidly quenched by immersion in a water bath. Microanalysis techniques were used to qualitatively assess the ER as a function of pressure and rod diameter. It was found that the pressure dramatically affects ER. High pressure tests resulted in a slag mass consisting of oxide, with no unreacted iron, whereas low pressure tests resulted in a significant fraction of unreacted iron within the slag. This indicates that the ER contributes directly to the observed increase in RRMI with increasing test pressure. At high pressures the ER is not affected by rod diameter, since all available liquid metal reacted, but at low pressures ER is a function of rod diameter, ER decreases as XA increases. This thesis also investigates the analysis of promoted ignition test data through suitable statistical methods. Logistic regression is identified as an appropriate method for modelling binary burn/no-burn test data. The relationship between the reaction probability, defined as the probability that a sample will undergo sustained burning, and pressure, is evaluated for two different data sets. The fits of the logistic regression models are assessed and found to model the available data well. The logistic regression method is contrasted with the confidence levels associated with binary data based on the Bernoulli distribution. It is concluded that a modelling approach is beneficial in providing an overall understanding of the transition between pressures where no burning occurs and pressures where burning is expected.

This thesis presents three essays on Malaysia’s poverty profile based on the Household Expenditure Survey (HES). The first and second studies were motivated by the shortcomings of the official poverty lines and poverty measurements. There are several conceptual and measurement problems related to evaluating the extent of poverty in Malaysia. The first study offers several alternative regional poverty analyses based on the consumption expenditure approach with varying underlying assumptions. The poverty lines are estimated using Ravallion-Bidani and Kakwani-Sajaia approaches and the consumption pattern of the 10th and 20th percentile per capita expenditure (PCE) households. Regional poverty lines based on Kakwani-Sajaia and Ravallion-Bidani lower bounds produced robust poverty measurement rankings across regions in the country for both the 10th and 20th percentile PCE households. However, for the 10th percentile PCE, Ravallion’s upper bound poverty lines do not produce robust poverty rankings. In relation to the shortcomings of the official poverty measurements, the second study analyses the economies of scale in consumption, specifically amongst poor households. Using the 10th and 20th percentile PCE households, the household size economies are estimated using specifications proposed by Deaton-Paxson and Kakwani-Son. The findings show that the economies of scale indices are sensitive to the selection of methods and sample groups. Economies of scale in poor household consumption are present for food, housing, clothing, furnishing, personal goods and miscellaneous goods. This study further suggests that these indices be used as complementary to the existing national poverty measurements. The final study provides new insights into the limited urban poverty studies and to the new dimension of urban poverty. Using logistic regression, the determinants are analysed using the new poverty lines estimated in the earlier essay. The test of robustness of the determinants is conducted through re-estimating the logistic regression using a range of poverty lines. The findings show that education, locational dimension, foreign migrant workers and household size are significant determinants of poverty in the urban areas.

Nurses report high rates of back pain with consequent disability, work absenteeism and attrition from the profession. In the current climate of an international nursing shortage, efficacious interventions to reduce the impact of back pain must be developed. It is uncertain what components a back pain preventive intervention should comprise. Appropriate and reliable means to assess back pain and disability in nurses is also undetermined. The first aim of this thesis was to undertake a mixed methods program of research to inform the development of an intervention to prevent back pain in nurses. The second aim of the thesis was to examine the psychometric and measurement properties of back pain and disability outcome instruments frequently applied in nursing samples. Epidemiological studies were undertaken to examine factors associated with back pain in nursing cohorts. In student nurses, a history of manual handling work was found to be significantly associated with neck and back pain outcomes. In a large population cohort study of nurses and midwives, pain characteristics (pain severity and radiation), pain-related cognitive and behavioural factors (kinesiophobia and passive pain coping), job characteristics (job classification and manual handling task frequency) as well as demographic interactions explained sick leave due to back pain. A systematic review was undertaken to determine the efficacy of interventions aiming to prevent back pain and back injury in nurses. Due to methodological heterogeneity, a qualitative synthesis of evidence was undertaken on the 16 studies that met inclusion criteria. The review identified moderate level evidence from multiple trials that manual handling training in isolation is not effective and multidimensional interventions are effective in preventing back pain and injury in nurses. Single trials provided moderate evidence that stress management programs do not prevent back pain and limited evidence that lumbar supports are effective in preventing back injury in nurses. There was conflicting evidence regarding the efficacy of exercise interventions and the provision of manual handling equipment and training. A qualitative description study was employed to explore the beliefs and perceptions of nursing stakeholders regarding risk factors for back pain and strategies to prevent back pain in nurses. Stakeholders identified individual, intrapersonal, organisational and environmental risk factors that were consistent with the social ecological view of health. They believed that interventions targeting the individual would be ineffective in the absence of workplace and other reforms. At the individual level, they recommended strategies that address physical, psychological and occupational preparedness for nursing work. In addition, they suggested ecological intervention strategies to induce change at the intrapersonal, organisational, community and policy levels. A mixed method synthesis of evidence was performed to develop an evidence-based and stakeholder-relevant intervention that aims to reduce the impact of back pain in nurses. The proposed intervention incorporates evidence-based multidimensional strategies that address individual and organisational level factors, and proposes ecological factors that may warrant inclusion once evidence of their causal association with back pain is established. Methodological studies examined the psychometric and measurement properties of key instruments used to assess back pain and disability in nursing populations. An extended version of the Nordic Musculoskeletal Questionnaire – that is frequently modified when applied in nursing cohorts - was developed and deemed to have acceptable test-retest reliability. The Oswestry Disability Index was found to have unacceptable measurement properties for application in nursing samples, and is therefore not recommended for future studies of back pain related disability in the nursing population. In summary, this program of research contributes novel insights that can meaningfully inform understanding of back pain prevention in nurses. Factors not previously assessed in nursing populations have been examined and shown to be significantly related to back pain outcomes. The strength of existing evidence for the prevention of back pain and injury in nurses has been established, and methodological advances regarding appropriate and reliable measurement of back pain and disability have been made. The views and perceptions of stakeholders from multiple levels and vantage points have been considered and integrated within the interpretation of evidence from multiple mixed method studies. In fact, stakeholders have played a crucial role in the identification of an appropriate theoretical framework – the social ecological paradigm - to conceptualise back pain causality in nurses and identify relevant solutions. A future research agenda of expanded scope is implicated to adequately address back pain prevention in nurses.