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Dissertation submitted in partial compliance with the requirements for the Master's Degree in Technology: Chiropractic, Durban Institute of Technology, 2002. / Blood pressure, defined as the force per unit area exerted on the wall of a blood vessel by its contained blood, is expressed in terms of millimeters mercury (mm Hg). Hypertension is a common problem in Westernised nations, including South Africa. The nervous system's role in the induction of hypertensive disease is the least understood; however, it is postulated that chiropractic adjustment normalises raised blood pressure via modification of the tonicity of the autonomic nervous system. The treatment of organic-type disorders with manipulative therapy is a controversial topic within and outside the chiropractic profession. However, research has indicated that manipulation may affect blood pressure, and the literature does propose a number of hypotheses on how this may be achieved. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of spinal manipulative therapy to the atlanta-occipital and atlanta-axial articulations on the blood pressure of normotensive Caucasian male subjects. This prospective controlled clinical trial consisted of a total of sixty normotensive Caucasian male subjects who were recruited by canvassing for volunteers from the Durban Institute of Technology campus as well as the general Durban area. By simple consecutive randomisation, 30 subjects were entered into a control group, and another 30 were entered into an experimental group. Both groups followed the same procedure with the exception that the control group did not receive any manipulation. Phase one of the study, which covered two visits, was / M

Dissertation submitted in partial compliance with the requirements for the Master's Degree in Technology: Chiropractic, Technikon Natal, 1999. / Objectives To investigate the efficacy of spinal manipulative therapy (SMT) in the management of mechanical thoracic spine pain. It was postulated by the researcher that with manipulation of the affected thoracic spinal segment, there would be a significantly greater improvement than by only applying placebo treatment. Summary of background data There have been no substantiated studies performed up to this date to investigate the efficacy of SMT on thoracic syndromes. Study design A single-blind, randomised, comparative, controlled pilot study. Methods Thirty subjects selected from the general population, diagnosed as having mechanical thoracic spine pain, were randomly divided into two different treatment groups. Each group consisted of fifteen patients between the ages of 16 and 60 years. The first group received thoracic spine manipulation. The second group received placebo treatment only. iii The research project was carried out where both groups received a maximum of six treatments over a minimum period of two weeks. Thereafter a follow-up appointment / M

Dissertation submitted in partial compliance with the requirements for the Master's Degree in Technology: Chiropractic, Technikon Natal, 1998. / Currently, no scientific evidence exits to demonstrate that radiolucent cavities, or an increase in joint space in the cervical zygapophyseal joints, occur following the manipulation of these joints. However, previous studies have demonstrated the presence of these phenomena in the metacarpophalangeal joints following the application of linear traction to these joints to the point of cavitation ('cracking'). This study was designed to determine whether such phenomena occurred in the cervical spine. Plain film and computed tomographic imaging were used for this purpose. It was hypothesized that an increase in joint space and a decrease in joint density (radiolucent cavity) would be demonstrable following the application of the manipulation in the non-traction and particularly the traction positions of the neck. Volunteers were screened for conformity with the inclusion criteria. Of these, 22 asymptomatic subjects were selected. The subjects were then assigned to one or two of 6 possible experimental groups. The subjects of each group were radiographically imaged before and immediately after the manipulation. In all cases except for Experiment 1 the subjects received : o a pre-manipulation X-ray and/or CT scan, o a pre-manipulation plus traction X-ray and/or CT scan, a post-manipulation X-ray and/or CT scan and o a post-manipulation plus traction X-ray and/or CT scan. A total of 83 CT scans consisting of 1660 images and 36 fluoroscopy-assisted plain-film radiographs were performed. / M

Dissertation presented in partial compliance with the requirements for the Master's Degree in Technology: Chiropractic, Technikon Natal, Durban, 2002. / This comparative, randomized, controlled clinical trial consisted of sixty patients, suffering from low back pain (LBP) attributable to sacroiliac and/or lumbar facet syndrome. The aim of the study was to determine the relative effectiveness of frequent and infrequent chiropractic treatments in the management of mechanical low back pain. It was hypothesised that the Frequent Treatment Group would produce better results than the Infrequent Treatment Group. Treatments consisted of spinal manipulative therapy (SMT) using diversified techniques to dysfunctional sacroiliac (SI) and or lumbar facet joints. All treatments were preceded with 5 minutes soft tissue therapy to the lumbar region. The study population was randomly divided into two treatment groups. The Frequent -Treatment Group received 9 treatments over a three-week period and the Infrequent Treatment Group received 3 treatments over the same treatment period. Data was collected before the treatment commenced and again at the beginning of the second and third weeks of the trial and finally the week following the last treatment. Subjective data gathered included results from the Numerical Pain Rating Scale 101 and the Oswestry Low Back Pain Disability Questionnaires. Objective data included an orthopedic rating scale used to assess the sacroiliac and lumbar facet joints and lumbar spine range of motion (ROM) as measured with the BROM II goniometer. Data obtained during the trial period was statistically analysed. No significant difference between the two treatment groups was found at the 95% level of confidence. These findings imply that once weekly treatments are as effective as three treatments per week in terms of the clinical measure employed in this study. The results from this study suggest that patients who receive treatments more than once a week could be receiving excessive treatments, which would make the cost of chiropractic treatment unnecessarily expensive. Intra-group analysis of the results indicated that both treatment groups improved significantly (0 =0.05) between the first and final consultation, for all measures. These findings demonstrate that chiropractic treatment is beneficial to patients with mechanical LBP. The mean values obtained for each group for the levels of pain intensity, disability, ROM and joint dysfunction show the Frequent Treatment Group to have improved slightly more than the Infrequent Treatment Group, however not significant at the 95 % level of confidence. The cost of more frequent treatment needs to be justified with superior long-term effects. Research into factors such as whether or not more frequent treatments maintain productivity and avoid chronicity may provide support for more frequent treatments. / M

M.Com. (Economics) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

The Problem: Recent increases in the number of senescents in the general population and concomitant increases in the number of medical and social problems among this age group (Greenleigh, 1952), have produced an urgent need for empirical study of the correlates of "successful” and "unsuccessful" aging. One explanation that has been offered for the difficulties encountered by older people in modern civilization is that the shift from an agricultural to an urban economy has eliminated the useful roles served by the older people as grandparents in the home while not offering any substitute useful roles (Poliak, 1948). Another explanation that has been offered for many of the difficulties in old age has been that of physical decline. However, recent studies by Rothschild (1945) and by Busse et al. (1954) have indicated that there is far from a one-to-one relationship between physical status, especially with regard to the central nervous system, and level of adjustment. Individuals were seen with gross pathology of the central nervous system who did not seem to be having any difficulties in leading satisfactory lives. The results of these studies suggested that social and attitudinal variables might have more direct relationships to adjustment level than any but the most marked physical disorders. Unfortunately, psychological studies of old age have been mostly concerned with the developmental aspects of aging and have not devoted much attention to the correlates of differential adjustment among the aged them- selves. Most investigations were restricted to study of the intellectual and psychomotor aspects of aging (Miles, 1942; Jones and Kaplan, 1945; Granick, 1950). Little attention was paid to personality factors until quite recently. However, the need for information regarding the personality characteristics associated with the aging process and especially of those associated with differentially “satisfactory” aging has been recognized and has resulted in an increasing number of broad range studies devoted to investigation of the relationships of specific personality variables to adjustment level in senescence, e. g. , interests, self-concept. Many of these studies have involved the use of the Rorschach and de- spite the marked differences in some of the social characteristics of the populations sampled in the Rorschach studies (Klopfer, 1946; Prados and Fried, 1947; Davidson and Kruglov, 1952; Caldwell, 1954), the findings have been very consistent. The conclusions in each study are generally that older people evidence reduced emotional responsiveness, and an increase in stereotyped thinking, and in intellectual inefficiency. A comparison of com- munity and institutionalized aged by Klopfer (1946) revealed little difference in Rorschach characteristics. However, the institutional population in this study came from a home for the aged where individuals with gross physical or mental difficulties were not accepted so that one may wonder whether any differences were to he expected. A major defect of these studies has been that the results have been interpreted generally in terms of comparison with young adult norms and little attempt has been made to explore the relation- ships between specific Rorschach characteristics and behavioral attributes of the aged. The published empirical studies of specific personality characteristics associated with differential adjustment level, using institutionalization or lack of it as the criterion of adjustment, have been devoted almost exclusively to investigation of the affective quality of the self-concept, i. e. , positive or negative self-concept. Tuckman, Lorge, Steinhardt and Zeman (1953) found institutionalized aged subjects to report fewer physical and mental symptoms on a health questionnaire than a group of aged subjects living in the community despite the fact that, objectively, the institutional group actually had more symptoms of poor health. The authors explained these findings in terms of the more negative self-concept of the institutionalized aged which allowed them to consider illness in old age as normal and therefore not worthy of mention. … It was in light of these considerations that the current study was undertaken in an attempt to establish a more suitable approach to the measurement of adjustment level, in terms of specific behaviors, rather than as indicated by institutionalization, or the lack of it. The self-concept, as previously noted, has long been regarded as a central psychological variable determining behavior. If certain "adjusted" behaviors can be identified, then we would expect the self-concept to predict these behaviors in a consistent manner in the aged as well as in any other group. In the following pages, we will outline the considerations which determined the specific variables that were selected for study and we will state our problem formally. / This thesis was digitized as part of a project begun in 2014 to increase the number of Duke psychology theses available online. The digitization project was spearheaded by Ciara Healy.

Credit value adjustment (CVA), as a quantified measure of counterparty credit risk for financial derivatives, is becoming an increasingly important concept for the financial industry. In this thesis, we evaluate CVA for an interest rate swap via a new structural default model. In our model, the asset value of a company is assumed to follow meromorphic Lévy processes with infinite jumps but finite variation. One important advantage of our model is that we are able to assume a random recovery rate which depends on default severity. Compared with the case with a fixed recovery rate, we show that the effect on CVA with a random recovery rate is significant. / May 2016

M.Tech.

M.Tech.