<p>Dynamic muscle strength (1 RM), symptom limited treadmill endurance, and bone mineral density and content, were compared among three groups (5 males and 5 females in each group) of elderly subjects (mean age of72.5 years) who had either continued to weight train twice per week for 5 years (TR), ceased to weight train after 2 years (DETR), or had acted as controls throughout (CON). The TR and DETR trained hard (progressing up to 3 sets at up to 80% of I RM) for 2 years; the TR continued training for an additional 3 years at a maintenance level (2-3 sets at 60-70% 1RM), whereas the DETR stopped training; the 10 CON subjects did not train for the duration of the study but took part in identical testing procedures. After two years of resistance training, dynamic strength in the TR and DETR groups increased significantly above the baseline and CON values for all exercises (p<0.0001). Following 3 years of maintenance level training, leg press, arm curl, and bench press 1 RM (sum of both limbs) in the TR remained 21.6kg (17%), 15.7kg (82%), and 8.3kg (34%) above baseline values respectively. The I RM in the DETR were 18.4kg (14%), 5.3kg (24%), and 1.4kg (9"10) above baseline for leg press, arm curl, and bench press after 5 years, whereas the CON declined over the 5 year period by 18.4kg (9.7%), 4.4kg (19"10), and 3.5kg (6%) respectively. There were non-significant improvements in treadmill performance in the TR and DETR and decline in the CON after 2 years of resistance training. Treadmill performance declined between years 2 and 5 in all groups. Bone mineral density and content were not different among the groups across all time points. We conclude that: 1) The strength gains from long-term resistance training in the elderly are not entirely lost even after 3 years of detraining, 2) The effects are specific to the exercises performed in the training program.</p> / Master of Science (MS)

<p>Thirty women (20-22 y) were randomly assigned to 3 groups of 10: a total body (TB) and a split body (SB) training groups and control group. The SB group performed 4 strength training sessions per week (two upper and two lower body), while the TB group trained both upper and lower body muscle groups together, twice weekly. It took 45-60 minutes to complete training either the upper or lower body muscle groups. Training consisted of five sets of 6-12 repetition maximum (RM) per exercise for 20 weeks. In comparison to the control group, the trained groups decreased relative fat mass (dual-energy x-ray densitometry, -1. 2%, P < 0.006) and increased whole body (3.3%, P < 0.001) and combined arm lean mass (10.0%, P < 0.007) as well as 1 RM (P < 0.0005) arm curl (73%), bench press (28%) and leg press (22%) strength. In contrast, training caused no increase in electrically evoked twitch peak torque or motor unit aotivation (interpolated twitch method) for right knee extension or elbow flexion. Only elbow flexion increased in maximum voluntary isometric strength. Arms were more responsive to training than legs. There appeared to be a trend toward greater gains in strength and muscle size with TB training. However, these differences were not statistically significant. No advantage resulted when a total body strength training session of less than 2 hours was split into separate upper and lower body workouts. Key Words: weight training; training specific and non-specific strength; muscle hypertrophy</p> / Master of Science (MS)

<p>Maximal weight-lifting performance, isometric strength, isokinetiic torque, whole muscle and individual fibre cross-sectional areas, and muscle evoked contractile properties were assessed in 14 elderly males before and after 12 weeks of weight-lifting training. Dynamic elbow flexion training of one arm resulted in a significant 48% mean increase in the maximal load that could be lifted once (1 RM) and a smaller improvement in isokinetic torque (8. 8%) but no change in isometric strength. In the contralateral control arm, 1 RM and isokinetic torque increased by 12.7 and 6. 5 %, respectively, but isometric strength did not change. The interpolated twitch technique confirmed complete motor unit activation during a maximal isometric contraction of the elbow flexors before and after training. Bilateral leg press training effected mean increases of 17 and 23% in isokinetic torque and dynamic lifting capacity, respectively. The mean maximal cross-sectional area of the elbow flexors (biceps brachii and brachialis) increased by 17.4% in the trained arm but did not change in the control arm. The increase in the mean area of the Type II fibres in the biceps brachii muscle in the trained arm (30.2%) was greater than the corresponding change in the control arm (10.7%, P< 0.05). The most significant change in the the evoked contractile properties of the trained elbow flexors was the increase in twitch half-relaxation time. It is concluded that older individuals retain the potential for significant increases in strength performance and upper limb muscle hypertrophy in response to overload training.</p> / Master of Science (MS)

<p>Many people suffer from some form of low back pain during their lifetime. A well designed morbidity study of general practice in England; using data collected from over 100 general practices, showed the incidence to be 1.6% per year and the prevalence to be 17.5% (62). Severe back pain may necessitate job changes or even job loss.</p> <p>Forty-two million dollars were spent on industrial back injuries during 1974 in Ontario (86).</p> <p>Review of the literature is hampered by the fact that only in a minority of cases can a diagnosis be made with any degree of certainty based on knowledge of pathophysiological mechanisms. Perhaps even less relisble is the chance that the doctor may know some therapy which will actually be superior to the spontaneous recovery rate. The spontaneous recovery rate is estimated at 70% after three weeks of symptoms (76). Because of the lack of progress in the area of diagnosis and treatment many studies lack methodological rigor.</p> <p>This thesis attempts to examine and summarize some of the physiological, anatomical and mechanical factors that may be implicated in the etiology of low back pain and serve as a basis for rational therapy. It also reviews the encouraging advances in basic research which have taken place in the last decade.</p> <p>In an effort to determine whether proven clinical outcomes occur, with certain standard treatment regimes, a randomized clinical trial is proposed to test the effectiveness of four different programs in a two by two factorial design. All participants will receive analgesics and/or anti-inflammatory agents at the discretion of their family physician. One group will receive no further treatment. The remaining three groups will have bed rest alone, bed rest with physiotherapy, or physiotherapy alone.</p> <p>Baseline measurements will be obtained by objective methods of assessing spinal flexion, pain, and activities of daily living.</p> <p>Prior to the commencement of the trial the study population will be divided into two prognostic groups by the method center based on the decision of the family physician to give the patient either major anti-inflammatory medication or minor analgesics.</p> <p>It is expected that about 260 subjects suffering from low back pain will be identified by five groups of family physicians within a period of six months. For the patients receiving physiotherapy the same physiotherapist will visit each of the five groups two half-days a week in order to supervise the treatment. Compliance with medication will be assessed by pill counts.</p> <p>Assessment of bed rest compliance will be measured by self-reporting, reports from a friend and a home visit.</p> <p>One month after treatments begin, another family physician who is blind as to which group the patient is in will perform some of the outcome measures. Outcome results will consist of relief of pain, return to work, return to normal activities, and relapse rate up to three months.</p> / Master of Science (MS)

<p>There is evidence that a number of psychiatric disorders, particularly depression and schizophrenia, are frequently associated with lateralized disturbances of brain function, or alterations in normal patterns of lateralized function. It is also known that many such disturbances, especially in schizophrenia, involve central dopamine (DA) systems. Several studies in recent years have established that lower animals often exhibit lateralization of brain function, both on the neurochemical and behavioral level. Central DA systems appear to be particularly asymmetrical. Left/right hemispheric asymmetries in rats have been reported at the population level for a variety of DA-modulated behaviors which may variously reflect motor, sensory, spatial, or stress/arousal processes. However, the directions of reported population asymmetries can vary across studies, depending in part upon the particular processes predominantly reflected in the measured behavior, and consequently leading to difficulties in interpretation. Given the potential relevance to both normal and abnormal brain function in humans, it is of much interest to determine what paraliels exist between lateralization in humans and lower animals.</p> <p>The objectives of the present thesis were twofold. First, we sought to determine which DA-mediated behaviors exhibit left/right hemispheric asymmetries at the population level in rats, by employing specific paradigms to measure motor, sensorimotor, spatial and stress-related processes. The basic approach was to compare the effects of unilateral DA-depleting lesions (with 6-hydroxydopamine), in left or right brain structures of male rats. Behavioral and neurochemical asymmetries were also examined in nonlesioned controls. A second objective was to study the role of interhemispheric connections in the expression of behavioral asymmetries characteristic of rats with unilateral lesion-induced DA depletion. Specifically, we describe the effects of sectioning the corpus callosum in unilaterally lesioned (6-OHDA) rats, on motor and sensorimotor asymmetries.</p> <p>Regarding the first objective, hemispheric population asymmetries were not found for any of three measures of motor activation, in rats with left or right lesions of the substantia nigra. These measures included ipsiversive turning behavior in response to amphetamine, contraversive turning in response to apomorphine and spontaneous locomotor measures in activity monitors. Similarly, groups did not differ in a measure of sensory/spatial bias, namely the orientation to edges during exploration of a large openfield. The same animals did differ however, in the performance of the Morris water maze task for spatial localization, suggesting that right brain mechanisms may be preferentially involved in successful task performance. A follow-up study with the water maze paradigm, using nonlesioned rats distinguished by the preferred direction of amphetamine-induced turning (and by inference the hemisphere of greater DA activity), further supported a preferential role for right brain DAergic mechanisms in this task. An additional test of population hemispheric asymmetry which focused on stress mechanisms, compared the effects of mesocortical DA depletion (left, right or hilateral) on the development of restraint stress-induced gastric pathology. Rats depleted of DA in the right anterior midline cortex, developed significantly more severe stress pathology than did nonlesioned controls. In contrast, left or bilateral cortical DA depletion resulted in nonsignificant trends for increased pathology. All three lesion types resulted in significant and unique effects on DAergic systems in subcortical brain structures, which may have in part contributed to the asymmetric effects on development of stress pathology.</p> <p>Regarding the second objective of the study, it was found that corpus callosum section eliminated the asymmetrical orientation to openfield edges in unilaterally lesioned rats. Conversely, there was no effect of callosotomy on asymmetries in direction of turning behavior, either drug-induced or externally cued in the behavioral competition for food. Taken together with the report that callosal section potentiates lateralization of emotional expression, the findings emphasize the anatomical dissociability of these functional asymmetries, despite their mediation by DAergic systems at various levels.</p> <p>Based on these and other literature reports, it is proposed that the most fundamental processes exhibiting consistent left/right hemispheric population biases in rats, are those related to stress. The greatest degree of functional asymmetry is found in the cortex, which modulates sutcortical structures in a highly asymmetrical manner. The data extend recent suggestions that the right cortex is preferentially involved in the mediation of high arousal states (such as uncontrollable stress). Other studies have shown that activation of mesocortical DA by stress initially favors the left brain, and later predominates in the right brain as stress is prolonged. Given the evidence that cortical DA facilitates coping ability, and based on a variety of neurochemical and behavioral reports of DAergic asymmetries, it is suggested that a normal left brain DAergic dominance may exist at the population level, for both rats and humans. Such an asymmetry is proposed to confer an adaptive advantage in the rapid execution of responses to minor stressors. Finally, it is proposed that disturbances in patterns of cortical activity may lead to (psycho)pathological states which are associated with vulnerability to stress.</p> / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

<p>This thesis examines the sensitivity and specificity of manometry and defecography assessments; the relationship between function and symptoms; and the relationship between age and parity and patient assessments.</p> <p>The manometry assessments of 72 incontinent and 50 constipated female patients were compared to 86 healthy volunteers using discriminant function and classification analysis (DFA). The defecography assesssments of a subset of these patients, 21 incontinent and 25 constipated, were compared to 22 healthy female volunteers. These data were used to examine the factors age, parity, severity of symptoms and rectal wall morphology on function.</p> <p>The results show that the variables of total squeeze pressure and resting pressure have a sensitivity of 79% for the incontinent patients and 32% for the constipated patients. The specificity was 87%. The manometry variables resting pressure, squeeze pressures, volume to urgency were significantly different in the patient groups. Aging was a significant factor for lower resting pressures and increased parity was a significant factor for lower squeeze pressures in the patient groups.</p> <p>The sensitivity of the combination of the defecography variables, lift and strain angles and junction levdls, was 90% for the incontinent patients and 88% for the constipated patients. The specificity was 95%. The defecography variables were not significantly different in the patient groups. Rest and lift angles were significantly wider with increased age and parity.</p> <p>Neither the defecography and manometry variables nor rectal wall morphology changes were associated with varying severity of either constipation or incontinence.</p> <p>The manometry and defecography assessments are presented in graphs, which may enhance the dinical usefulness of the assessments by demonstrating the difference between patient values and healthy controls. The manometry data are also presented in an index which makes areas of specific impairment more obvious.</p> <p>DFA of the manomeby and defecography variables provides probability rates which may be useful in predicting patient outcomes. The discriminant scores from the analysis of the defecography and manometry variables can be used to develop a continuum from health to incontinence.</p> / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Typescript, etc. / Digitized by Kansas State University Libraries

The pursuit for improved productivity through human resources has its beginning in the early 1900's. Taylor's scientific management principles created an awareness regarding human resources. It was earlier considered as a mere instrument of production ready to work from dawn to dusk under whatever conditions and being motivated by the lure of money. From then onwards research and experiments have been undertaken to understand human beings at work and the ways to improve their job satisfaction, balanced with the aim of the organizations to combine better productivity with job and employee satisfaction. The concept of QWL (quality of work life) has originated from the continuous research process. The term QWL was introduced by Dav is (1972) at the first International QWL conference held in Toronto. The focus of this research concerns a study of the quality of work life for the employees at SARS in the Mmabatho Branch in the North West province. The aim of this paper was to determine whether and how quality of work life affects the satisfaction level of the employees and the implications of these findings suggest that the quality of work life at SARS can be enhanced by factors such as adequate income and fair compensation, safe and healthy working conditions, opportunities for career growth and development of human capabilities and social integration in the workforce. A convenience or accidental sampling was used for this study, out of93 questionnaires sent out, a total of 77 usable questionnaires were returned, representing an overall response rate of (82,8%). The study reveals that a clear and consistent communication of the organisational goals and objectives is essential to both employer and employees. The study also recommends that an establishment of new policies and practices that promote a workplace culture that stimulates employees with the aim of reducing stress, poor performance and low morale of employees. Alignments of organisational goals to day-to-day work by maintaining healthy working conditions: reduce high absenteeism levels and occupational burnout and fair remuneration of employees. The study also recommends that maintenance and open dialogue among the middle and junior employees. / Thesis (MBA) North-West University, Mafikeng Campus, 2011

Ovarian stimulation plays a pivotal role in assisted reproductive therapies, to increase the number of embryos available for treatment; however, there is no clear consensus from meta-analyses in the literature which, if any, of the preparations in use are superior in terms of clinical outcomes. The aim of this thesis was to examine the effect of common human gonadotrophin preparations with different half lives and LH activity (hMG, rFSH and Pergoveris) on embryo quality and resulting offspring, compared to non- stimulated negative controls and positive PMSG treated controls, using the mouse model. The studies in this thesis indicated that an LH ceiling threshold is evident during folliculogenesis, where the use of long acting LH preparations resulted in higher numbers of fragmented oocytes, absent of cumulus cells (P<0.001), reduced expression of the pro and anti-angiogenic factors, MYHII and PEDF in cumulus cells (P<0.05), increased embryonic developmental arrest (P<0.001) and perturbed IGF2 (P<0.05) and VEGFA gene expression in resulting blastocysts (P<0.01), compared to negative controls. Use of preparations containing LH bioactivity resulted in offspring with altered total body weight trajectories and internal organ weight abnormalities (P<0.05), which were, in some instances, compounded by in vitro culture. In addition, we elucidated a relationship between FSH half life differences between urinary and recombinant preparations and embryo quality. The urinary human gonadotrophin preparation, hMG, could yield developmentally competent embryos at lower concentrations, than the recombinant Pergoveris treatment. In addition to FSH, these preparations contain LH and both low doses of preparations composed of short half life rFSH and rLH and high doses of preparations containing long acting LH bioactivity, resulted in the highest rates of developmental arrest. These groups were observed to have complete absence of H19 expression. The results of this thesis provide clear evidence that ovarian stimulation does negatively impact the embryo and subsequent offspring and provides support for an LH ceiling threshold, above which detrimental effects occur, both on in vitro embryo development and in vivo foetal development, which later effects postnatal growth.

The aim of this thesis is to suggest a model of development for the writings of Richard Rolle, based on the hermit's application of the theological concept of election. The thesis falls into three parts, corresponding broadly to the early, middle and late phases of Rolle's career. Chapter One charts Rolle's attempts to define the credentials of the electi in terms of the contemplative life in the early Judica me Deus, and points to certain tensions in Rolle's approach to the pastoral manual form. Chapter Two examines Rolle's subsequent attempts in the Tractatus super Apocalypsim to clarify the relationship of the electi to the signs hidden in Scripture and in phenomena, and places this within the teleological framework of the Apocalypse. Chapter Three begins with the Canticum Amoris lyric and leads to the Super Canticum Canticorum, Rolle's Commentary on the Song of Songs, in an attempt to show the movement from the experimental Marian focus of the lyric to the explicit Christological emphasis of Rolle's middle period. By reference to Augustine and to Bernard of Clairvaux, the latter part of the chapter attempts to show the influence of the concept of election in this movement. Using the Contra Amatores Mundi treatise as a focus, Chapter Four examines Rolle's pervasive sense of the universal movement in which the contemplative life plays a pre-ordained part, and considers the ways in which this teleological analysis defines the experience of contemplation. Chapter Five returns to the Super Canticum Canticorum, and examines the stylistic manifestations of Rolle's belief in the predestined purpose and authority of his writings. With reference to Ciceronian and Augustinian principles of rhetoric, this chapter points to Rolle's growing sense of his own writings as possessing a performative, para-liturgical function. This movement reaches its fullest expression in the Melos Amoris, and this rhetorical development is related, in Chapter Six, to Rolle's increasing assurance of his status as an electus. Dealing with the final phase of the hermit's career, after 1343, Chapter Seven considers Rolle's Latin Emendatio Vitae and English writings, in an attempt to explain the apparent disappearance of the ideas and themes that have hitherto shaped Rolle's development; the latter part of the chapter argues that these have been incorporated within the famous `three degrees' of love