This research examines the relationships among Ministry of Health - (MOH) decision-makers, the MOH, and structural forces shaping the evolution of Burundi’s primary health care delivery. While WHO's goal of Health for All has shaped health strategies in Sub-Saharan Africa, how primary health care (PHC) is formulated and implemented over time is relatively unknown. Using a realist perspective that allows human agency to come through, multiple methods -- including in-depth interviews with senior MOH decision-makers (>90,000 word data base), content analysis, participant observation and policy document reviews -- were employed to assess the interaction between decision-makers’ PHC beliefs, the Ministry’s PHC approach and the structural factors in a Sub-Saharan African nation, Burundi. Field work was undertaken during a two and a half year period. Findings indicate that Burundi’s history of authoritarian rule and ethnic strife molded the country’s PHC approach over time. The 1988-1993 period characterized by government democratic transition, also witnessed a major in the Ministry’s approach shift towards decentralization and community participation. Decision-makers' PHC beliefs were strongly influenced by public health education, suggesting that long- and short-term education and training are prudent strategies for promoting primary health care in the Ministry of Health’s organizational culture. Collectively, these beliefs changed the top-down institutional approach to decision-making, moving the MOH to a consensus building model in its approach to PHC issues. Despite these changes, authoritarian organizational culture and ethnic conflict conditioned decision-makers to implement their PHC beliefs cautiously and indirectly. Advances in participatory approaches to health care planning have been placed on hold given the surge in ethnic violence in 1996. / Ph. D.

Component Mode Synthesis (CMS) is a dynamic substructuring technique for the approximate eigensolution of large-degree-of-freedom (dof) systems divisible into two or more components. System synthesis using component modes results in approximate eigenparameters; in general, using more component modes in synthesis improves the approximation. A two-step CMS approach is developed in this research. The first step involves system synthesis using the minimum number of component modes required to obtain approximate eigenvalues up to a preselected cut-off frequency, and the second step introduces additional component modes in a convergence scheme operating on the system eigenparameters calculated in the first step. The method is developed using constraint modes for system synthesis. The eigenvectors resulting from the initial eigenproblem solution are used to transform the system matrices; this results in a non-linear eigenvalue problem which is solved by a modified shooting method. A perturbation approach is adopted to derive a convergence scheme in which successive iterations are performed for the eigenvalue and eigenvector in each step. A procedure for selecting initial values for the convergence scheme is presented. A condensation procedure is also developed for economical synthesis of systems with many connection coordinates compared to normal mode coordinates. Advantages of the present method include minimal order of system matrices, savings in computation time and a knowledge of the accuracy of the eigenparameters. Numerical examples of spring-mass systems and systems constructed with beam and shell elements are included to demonstrate the applicability of the method and results are compared with full-system eigensolution. The method is also applicable to the synthesis of generally damped systems. Conventional state-space formulation is used to cast the equations of motion in first-order form for each component. Complex modes are combined with an appropriately defined set of constraint modes to give the mode superset for each component. The method evolves similar to the method for undamped systems. A numerical example is included to demonstrate the method and results from CMS are compared with those obtained by full-system eigensolution. Also, the applicability of the method in solving non-linear eigenvalue problems in structural dynamics is discussed, and examples are included for demonstration. / Ph. D.

Walk-in single session therapy is a new, emerging model of clinical service delivery. This new form of therapy has grown as clinical service providers respond to the changing face of society. These changes are marked by society’s growing expectation for low cost, immediate, and convenient services. The Eastside Family Centre of Wood’s Homes in Calgary, Alberta, Canada was chosen as the site for the study. The purpose of the study was to evaluate client satisfaction in a walk-in single session therapy format. The relationship between various treatment variables and clients’ ratings of overall assistance received in their session was investigated. Clients’ feedback about the service’s greatest strengths and recommended changes was also explored. Client satisfaction with various treatment variables and overall assistance received in their walk-in single session was evaluated through a sample of 417 client satisfaction questionnaires returned immediately after the therapy session. Client satisfaction with the walk-in single session service offered at the Eastside Family Centre was high, with 83.3% of the clients in the sample reporting general satisfaction with the overall assistance received. Multiple regression analysis revealed that clients’ satisfaction with the team approach used at the centre had the greatest influence on clients’ overall rating of assistance received, while 19% of the variation in clients’ overall! rating was explained by the various treatment variables examined. Clients’ satisfaction with the explanation of confidentiality also contributed significantly to the variation of clients’ overall rating of assistance received. Persons recovering from childhood or adult abuse were hypothesized to be less likely to benefit from a single session service (Hoyt, 1995), but surprisingly 100% (N=27) of the respondents with this presenting concern reported general satisfaction with their walk-in single session therapy. Thirty percent of the clients who responded reported that the greatest strength of the walk-in single session therapy service was its immediate accessibility. Eighteen percent reported that providing someone to talk to was the greatest strength, while fifteen percent reported the caring attitude of the therapist was the greatest strength. / Ph. D.

This thesis consists of two individual mathematical papers which have been developed in the course of the author’s thesis work. They deal with certain aspects of optimal control of systems in which the system equations are nonlinear, the cost integrand is non- quadratic, or both. The first paper deals an extension from the linear-quadratic case to systems as just described of the so called Newton-Kleinman method. Here we carry out this extension theoretically and prove that the associated sequence of stabilizing feedback controls converges uniformly to the optimal control. In the second chapter of this work we generalize the existence and uniqueness theory for the nonlinear-nonquadratic optimal control problem from the critical point and periodic cases studied earlier by Lukes and Zhang, respectively, to the case where the invariant target set is a compact submanifold of the state space. / Ph. D.

The purpose of this research investigation was to investigate the characteristics allowing children who are both culturally diverse and academically talented to be successful in a program designed for gifted children. In addition, teacher characteristics and expectations, educational programming for academically advanced children, as well as parental expectations and involvement were also examined and studied. The primary research question guiding this study was: What are the characteristics that allow children who are both academically talented and culturally diverse to be successful in a program designed for gifted students? Other related questions were: 1] What is the relationship between high parent and teacher expectation and actual student performance? and 2] How are the academic and social successes of children who are both culturally diverse and academically talented affected by the educational programming they receive? This study employed a qualitative methodology using the self-contained focus group method. The researcher observed PLATO classes and conducted focus group discussions using PLATO students, parents and teachers. The findings from this study revealed that children who are both academically talented and culturally diverse are able to be successful when: 1] Parents are actively involved in their child's schooling and who encourage high academic and social expectations, 2] Teachers who value parents and are supportive of them, who understand the cultural backgrounds of the students they teach and who also establish high academic and social expectations, and 3] An educational program that provides a challenging and differentiated curriculum making use of multi-grade level grouping, student self-evaluation and serves as a platform for the interaction of students, parents and teachers. / Ph. D.

A new multicharacteristic control chart designed to detect shifts in the mean of a multivariate process is proposed. It is assumed that the correlation matrix is known and that the distribution of the data is multivariate normal. The new chart is based on the minimum standardized sample mean (Z_[1]) and the maximum standardized sample mean (Z_[p]) of p correlated quality variables or characteristics. For this reason the chart has been named the Minimax control chart. A method for calculating probabilities for the joint distribution of Z_[1] and Z_[p] is developed. This method is used to determine the position of the four control limits of the chart; the upper and lower control limits of Z_[1], and the upper and lower control limits of Z_[p]. The control limits of the chart are determined such that the chart has a fixed probability of Type I error. The chart’s performance is compared to that of the Chi-squared control chart in terms of the average run length for several combinations of the parameters of the chart. Among these parameters are the sample size, the number of variables, the probability of Type I error, the correlation matrix, and the direction and magnitude of the shift in the mean. The proposed chart outperforms the Chi-squared chart in all the cases studied where the covariance matrix has non-negative elements. The new chart provides an easy way for diagnosing the system when a signal occurs. That is to say, the chart provides a means to identify the source of the problem when a shift in the mean occurs. The criteria established for diagnosing the system is based on the positions of Z_[1] and Z_[p] in the Minimax chart. Thus, to diagnose the signals no further analysis is needed. The diagnosing criteria are shown to be particularly effective when the shifts in the mean are either axial or diagonal. / Ph. D.

In this dissertation class groups and unit groups of number fields with elementary Galois groups of order 4 and 8 are considered. In chapter 3 we consider bicyclic biquadratic extensions K/k and give a method for determining the structure of the 2-class group of K. In chapters 4 and 5 this method is applied to real and imaginary bicyclic biquadratic extensions of Q. In chapter 6 a method for determining the unit group of an imaginary octic field is given. In the final chapter all imaginary octic fields of class number less than or equal to 16 or prime class number are determined. / Ph. D.

The trend for women to follow gender-traditional educational and occupational pathways has been resistant to change, even in the face of decreased income potential. Scholars have tested hypotheses regarding women's avoidance of nontraditional occupations, but have given scant attention to the experience of women who have exited the traditional path. This research employed a qualitative methodology within a feminist theoretical framework to elicit the voices of women in nontraditional programs. The purpose of this research was to elucidate (a) the career choice process and (b) the educational environment experienced by women in gender-nontraditional programs at the community college level. It was performed at a community college in the southeastern United States. Enrollment data revealed five associate degree programs with a female enrollment of 25% or less. Eight women were selected to participate in qualitative interviews to approach an understanding of educational choice and environment from the female students' perspective. Data from interviews with instructors, site visits, and analysis of relevant documents contributed to the research findings. Findings revealed a description of the site where institutional policies, administrators, instructors, and counselors contributed to a positive learning environment for female students in nontraditional programs. Seventeen themes emerged from interviews with research participants in response to the two main research questions. These were: (1) why women work, (2) a habit of individualism, (3) role models/early influences, (4) children: effects of/on, (5) the significant other, (6) instructors: an ethic of caring, (7) instructors: negative, (8) classes and peers, (9) language, (10) earlier educational environment, (11) the subtle nature of discrimination, (12) not so subtle, (13) evolution: educational, (14) evolution: personal, (15) being allowed (16) perseverance, and (17) internalized sexism. The study resulted in a description of the women's educational environment as a place where the infrequent incidents of discrimination were far outweighed by the feeling of welcome and encouragement framed by the instructors and other faculty. The facilitators of instructor support and a positive campus climate were more than sufficient to help the women who demonstrated intrinsic strength and self-reliance overcome barriers of early educational discrimination and negative input from peers. / Ph. D.

Muskmelon seeds were harvested at eight stages of development to determine the optimal harvest time for best seed quality and long-term storage. Several types of osmotic and matric priming treatments were investigated to determine the optimal treatment for maximal seed vigor and to test the effects of priming on seed storage life. The most effective priming treatments for improved germination of muskmelon seeds occurred at water potentials (Ψ) between -1.5 and -1.8 MPa and at priming durations of 4 to 7 days. Osmotic priming in KNO₃ and PEG 8000 solutions was more effective than matric priming with calcium silicate, vermiculite, and Hayter loam soil. Priming increased the storage life of newly matured 40 and 45-days after anthesis (DAA) stored seeds but decreased the storage life of 55 DAA seeds. Fifty, 55, and 60-DAA seeds showed the greatest tolerance to adverse storage conditions and water stress and had the greatest seedling vigor. The highest quality seeds were attained 50 to 60 DAA from fruit harvested after edible maturity but before the onset of severe decomposition. After 6 years of storage, seeds washed in water at harvest were more vigorous and resistant to accelerated aging than unwashed seeds at most stages of development. Primed seeds retained some beneficial effects after 9 years of storage at optimal conditions but lost viability, vigor, and uniformity of germination more rapidly than non primed seeds following controlled deterioration. Instron analysis showed that priming weakened the perisperm envelope tissue prior to radicle emergence. Less force was required to puncture primed seed pieces than non primed. The penetration force and energy required to puncture the perisperm envelope tissue decreased gradually during imbibition, increased steadily during seed development and dry storage, and was negatively correlated with seed vigor. Priming accelerates enzymatic breakdown of perisperm envelope during germination. Endo-β-mannanase-like activity declined steadily during imbibition and was higher in non primed seeds than primed seeds, indicating that enzymatic activity in the perisperm peaked during priming. Flow cytometry revealed that the beneficial effects of priming and seed maturity do not correlate with DNA replication activity in muskmelon seeds. This study has shown that seed maturation inside the fruit until just after edible maturity is necessary for highest muskmelon seed vigor. Priming treatments should be performed as close to the planting date as possible, because primed seeds exhibit reduced storage life compared to non primed seeds. / Ph. D.

The objective of this study was to determine whether molecular orientation has an effect on the rate of physical aging in amorphous glassy polymers. There is already a large body of literature concerning the phenomenon of physical aging, although the vast majority has been directed toward isotropic, unoriented systems. The importance of this study is therefore twofold: first, from a theoretical standpoint, a better understanding of physical aging in oriented systems will help to elucidate the physics of glassy relaxation which is important since the exact mechanism behind physical aging are still unknown. Second, from an engineering standpoint, a knowledge of the orientation aging relationship will help the designer/engineer with product development since many commercially produced plastic items have some degree of orientation present as a result of the processing methods involved. To measure the aging behavior, samples of bisphenol A polycarbonate and atactic polystyrene were hot drawn (i.e. stretched above T_g) to varying stretch ratios and the degree of orientation quantified using birefringence and the Herman’s orientation function, f. Physical aging rates were determined as a function of fusing volume and linear dilatometry, mechanical creep measurements, DSC, and tensile properties. The molecular state, including the free volume, of the oriented polymers was quantified using Positron Annihilation Lifetime Spectroscopy (PALS), oxygen permeability/diffusion measurements, dynamic mechanical analysis, DSC, and density measurements. The data indicate that physical aging rates are influenced by orientation but the degree varies with the method of testing. Volume relaxation rates were approximately 50% higher for the oriented samples, however, mechanical shift rates determined from the creep data showed a slight decrease with orientation. Further analysis shows that the effective relaxation/retardation times decrease significantly with orientation even though the free volume--as determined by density and PALS measurements--also decreases. This implies a serious deficiency in the free volume theory for molecular mobility. Implications for these findings and possible explanations for this behavior are discussed. / Ph. D.