The aim of this study was to get a better knowledge of the metal pollution and the mining history of the Falun area. It adds new information on the geochemistry of the lakes and the beginning of mining in the Falun region, together with the influence of early land use. The main focus is on three lakes Hagtjärnen, Stugutjärnen and Nästjärnen, which were previously dated and analyzed regarding acidification by Anna Ek. Additional supporting information is provided from records from 10 other lakes, which are located at distances between 0-27 km from the Falun Copper mine. Another specific focus is on the lake Tisken, which has been assumed over the past 50 years to represent faithful historical record of mining in the Falun area. In this study this lake record was dated and analyzed, too. The analyses of all the lakes included resulted in four significant phases of environmental change, indicating the start of agriculture and mining, the development of each sector, as well as the sharp increase in pollution in the modern time period. Phase I covers the time period A.D. 700-1000 and represents the time of the early beginning of land use and small scale mining activities. Phase II represents the time between A.D. 1200 to 1450, which is dominated by an ongoing development of mining and a sharp increase in metal concentrations and occurrence of cultivated plants and plants favored by disturbance from A.D. 1450 onwards. The third phase, representing the year A.D. 1540, clearly displays another period of sharp increases among the metal concentrations, which coincides with a peak in Cu production volumes. Phase IV covers the time period A.D. 1750-1900, referred to as Modern time, and features a clear increase in Pb pollution, which is linked to the introduction of tetra ethyl Pb in the 1970s. Other metals increase also, together with cultivated plants like cereals, indicating an ongoing expansion of mining and agriculture. The results also indicate that Cu was not emitted as far as other elements, like for example Pb, which led to great pollution only in the lakes close to the Falun mine. Another important finding is that the lake Tisken does not represent a continual historical record, because the sediment is not a chronological sequence and instead likely represents mostly a catastrophic input of debris of mixed age. The C-14 dating shows, that the sediment is mixed and disturbed in Tisken. As a consequence, the long-standing interpretation of Tisken’s sediment record as an archive for the historical start and late development of mining at the Falun copper mine is incorrect

The problem of records retention is often viewed as simply deleting records when they have outlived their purpose. However, in the world of relational databases there is no standardized notion of a business record and its retention obligations. Unlike physical documents such as forms and reports, information in databases is organized such that one item of data may be part of various legal records and consequently subject to several (and possibly conflicting) retention policies. This thesis proposes a framework for records retention in relational database systems. It presents a mechanism through which users can specify a broad range of protective and destructive data retention policies for relational records. Compared to naïve solutions for enforcing records management policies, our framework is not only significantly more efficient but it also addresses several unanswered questions about how policies can be mapped from given legal requirements to actions on relational data. The novelty in our approach is that we defined a record in a relational database as an arbitrary logical view, effectively allowing us to reduce several challenges in enforcing data retention policies to well-studied problems in database theory. We argue that our expression based approach of tracking records management obligations is not only easier for records managers to use but also far more space/time efficient compared to traditional metadata approaches discussed in the literature. The thesis concludes with a thorough examination of the limitations of the proposed framework and suggestion for future research in the area of records management for relational database management systems.

The samples for this study were adopted from the drilling cores for the slope-stability monitoring project inside the campus of NSYSU. Stratigraphically the strata belongs to the Gutingken Formation and is lain below the Kaohsiung Limestone. Two cores were selected for this research, one is W-2 (N: 2504008.088; E: 174168.943, 60m in length) and the other is S-4 (N: 2503968.458; E: 174009.179, 55m in length). The thickness of the Gutingken Mudstone in cores W2 and S4 is 38.7m and 21.8m, respectively. Each sample was obtained at every 10 cm interval for W2 and 30~40 cm for S4 with an average weight of 40 g. This study mainly contains two parts: analyzing the planktonic foraminifera for their carbon and oxygen stable isotopic compositions and dating the downcore records by correlating with the nannobiostratigraphy. Particular is the stable isotopic compositions of planktonic foraminifera in these terrestrial sedimentary sequences which has not been done in Taiwan before. Overall the mudstone analyzed in this study falls in the biostratigraphic range of small Gephyrocapsa Subchron, which spreads within 1.242 Ma~1.031 Ma. according to previous report. The age range is further constrained at about 1.186~1.065 Ma based on the oxygen isotope record and thus can be regarded as a high-resolution isotopic stratigraphy within the small Gephyrocapsa subchron. The average sedimentation rate inferred by the best age model from these cores is about 31cm/ky. It shows a progressive decrease in sedimentation rates: the younger the strata, the lower the sedimentation rate. On the contrary, the sedimentation rate varies dramatically at the lower part of the record. The turbidity current might be a potential factor responsible for the change. In addition, the spectral analysis of £_18O data presents a comparatively significant cycle of about 2.5ky through out the record. It might indicate a periodic forcing which influenced the environment during sediment depositation. The £_13C record obtained from this study fail to reflect the high productivity during the glacials. The mechanism that might affect the productivity in the area is not clear and still needs advanced research.

Records of embryo production in Red Brahman donor cows (n=50) and F1 recipients (n=531) were evaluated from the collection day to the birth of the embryo produced. The effects of the sire of the donor and the embryo, protocol, season-protocol, and body condition of the donor on the total number of good, degenerated, unfertilized, and total embryos were evaluated. The number of donors collected for protocols 1, 2, and 3 were 50, 39, and 46 respectively. The production of good transferable embryos, and embryos/collection for protocols 1, 2, and 3 were 171 (4.6), 152 (4.6), and 208 (6.3) respectively. The final status of each recipient was recorded as non-pregnant, resorption, abortion, and live calf. The model used to analyze pregnancy state was: protocol, embryo stage, embryo quality, corpora lutea size, and season. The effects of sire of the embryo, season-protocol, protocol, embryo stage, embryo quality, body condition score, and corpora lutea size on gestation length and birth weight were analyzed. Season-protocol affected (P<0.05) the number of degenerated embryos. Mean number of degenerated embryos were higher (P<0.05) during winter for protocols 2 and 3 than during other seasons. The ratio for good embryos differed (P<0.01) by sire of donor. The final status of recipients was affected (P<0.01) by protocol. The maximum percentage of live calves and the minimum percentage of non-pregnant recipients were achieved for protocol 3. Gestation length differed (P<0.01) by sire of the embryo, season-protocol, protocol, and body condition score. Spring-protocol 3 resulted in the shortest while Fall-protocol 2 resulted in the longest mean gestation length. Calf birth weight differed (P<0.05) by season-protocol and by embryo quality. The lightest birth weights resulted from embryo quality grade 2 and from spring-protocol 3. These results indicate that using protocols that combine 17??-estradiol, FSH and GnRH (protocol 3) during the spring in conjunction with selection for sire of donor can increase embryo production by Red Brahman cows. Use of protocol 3 with donors in the spring, selection of embryo sire for short gestation length and transfer of quality grade 2 embryos can be used to minimize the incidence of dystocia in recipients.

Thesis (MSc (School of health systems and public health))--University of Pretoria, 2009. / Summary in English. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Wisconsin--Milwaukee, 1998. / Online version produced by the University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries. Title from title screen (viewed Nov. 8, 2001). Includes bibliographical references (leaves 178-183). Online version of the print edition.

eHR is one of the main development area in healthcare sector to ensure a high quality and effective healthcare service in Hong Kong is provided. However, the present development of eHR in Hong Kong is mainly focused on public sectors healthcare providers – the hospitals and clinics under HA and DH. Most of the private hospitals and clinics are still using paper based health records. Although some of them may have implemented their own eHR systems, there is no interconnection among other healthcare providers. In this dissertation, the eHR system development in Hong Kong for both public and private sectors will be reviewed, to figure out the development of eHR and various clinical management systems, as well as the problems facing by the healthcare workers and patients. Also, HKSAR government shows supportive to the eHR development both in the governance and financial aspects. To facilitate the coordination of developing her sharing system among different healthcare providers, an eHR Office has been setup under Food and Health Bureau for this purpose. The eHR office will monitor the progress of the eHR development process. As HA has a well-developed world-known Clinical Management System (CMS), which handles patient records in electronic forms in public hospitals daily. HA acts as one major advisor in her implementation for HKSAR. Data privacy and data security issues are the major concerns of healthcare workers and patients. The Personal Data Protection Ordinance (PDPO) provides protection on the data privacy in legal aspect. However, no legislation on data privacy has been specified for eHR currently. Meanwhile, various physical security protections have been adopted in the implementation of eHR in technology side, which provided a certain level of data security to the system. Chinese Medicine has been developed rapidly recently, it is expected the Chinese Medicine would become one of the core service area in healthcare sector in Hong Kong, sharing the healthcare service with the Western Medicine. However, there is no integration between Chinese Medicine and Western Medicine in current her sharing system development. eHR development involves huge investment, to evaluate the feasibility of developing the eHR system, a scientific tool is recommended, a Cost and Benefit Analysis is hence conducted for the eHR in Hong Kong, to compare the effectiveness of eHR with the traditional paper-based health records in the healthcare setting. As recommended from the CBA, the eHR system will be developed with the consideration on the system flexibility and the adaptability from all the healthcare providers. On the other hand, the implementation of the her system will be a long and complex process and will require the contribution and participation from all parties. / published_or_final_version / Politics and Public Administration / Master / Master of Public Administration

Objectives: To investigate the impact of electronic health record (EHR) on diabetes management through examination of the effectiveness of implementation of EHR and to improve the quality of care and the cost-effectiveness on the use of EHR. Methods: Three databases, PubMed, Ovid Medline and Google Scholar, were searched with specific combination keywords including electronic medical record and electronic health record, and diabetes. Quality appraisal and extraction of data were conducted on literature that met with the inclusion criteria. Results: 10 literature studies, a total of 204,251 participants with diabetes, were included in this study. All subjects, with similar demographic and clinical characteristics, were from clinic and primary care setting with the use of EHR. Different outcome measures were compared and to evaluate the effectiveness of EHR on quality of care and cost-effectiveness. Discussion: The impact of EHR on effectiveness of diabetes management, potential factors of barrier for adoption and the limitation for implementation of EHR were discussed. These suggested that further research is needed to have stronger evidence to widespread the use of EHR in Hong Kong as a future direction on public health issue. Conclusion: In this systematic review, EHR showed potential benefit in improving the quality of care and reduce the health care expenditure for long term running. Patient safety and efficiency are yet to be covered in the studies. Further research is needed on the acceptability and applicability of the use of EHR in Hong Kong. / published_or_final_version / Public Health / Master / Master of Public Health

In the last decade modern information technology systems have been introduced to healthcare in order to improve it. The aim of this study is to present the impact of such information system’s adoption on patient safety and efficiency within healthcare. Interviews, observations along with literature study were conducted in order to study the impact of the adoption on patient safety and efficiency at hospital’s wards where a new information system is implemented. The conclusion of this study is that such information technology systems can improve patient safety. However it is believed that the information technology system can improve efficiency in some aspects such as the communication among medical care personnel while other aspects within efficiency can be achieved if some improvements are made. Moreover the ability to access Electronic Healthcare Records is considered to be important to improve the medical care, which can increase patient safety.

published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / Computer Science and Information Systems / Master / Master of Philosophy