Thesis (Ph. D.)--Oregon State University, 2008. / Printout. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 199-211). Also available on the World Wide Web.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2005. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 132-139). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.

Background: From October 2010 through February 2016, Arizona conducted surveillance for severe acute respiratory infections (SARI) among adults hospitalized in the Arizona-Mexico border region. There are few accurate mortality estimates in SARI patients, particularly in adults >= 65 years old. The purpose of this study was to generate mortality estimates among SARI patients that include deaths occurring shortly after hospital discharge and identify risk factors for mortality. Methods: Patients admitted to two sentinel hospitals between 2010 and 2014 who met the SARI case definition were enrolled. Demographic data were used to link SARI patients to Arizona death certificates. Mortality within 30 days after the date of admission was calculated and risk factors were identified using logistic regression models. Results: Among 258 SARI patients, 47% were females, 51% were white, non-Hispanic and 39% were Hispanic. The median age was 63 years (range, 19 to 97 years) and 80% had one or more pre-existing health condition; 9% died in hospital. Mortality increased to 12% (30/258, 30% increase) when electronic vital records and a 30-day post-hospitalization time frame were used. Being age >= 65 years (OR = 4.0; 95% CI: 1.6-9.9) and having an intensive care unit admission (OR = 7.4; 95% CI: 3.0-17.9) were independently associated with mortality. Conclusion: The use of electronic vital records increased SARI-associated mortality estimates by 30%. These findings may help guide prevention and treatment measures, particularly in high-risk persons in this highly fluid border population.

In this master thesis, a methodology is proposed for building stock classification and archetype building development based on deterministic information available in Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) of existing buildings in the city of Uppsala.This study aims to answer if the EPC database can be used as a reliable data source for archetype development and further UBEM models.The EPC data is cleaned and organised using Matlab. The building stock is then categorised into archetypes by energy performance and building characteristics and a model of each archetype building is created in the software EnergyPlus.The South-West part of Uppsala is used as a case study and to represent the building stock of that area 20 archetypes is developed. Simulations in EnergyPlus shows that the defined archetypes is a reliable estimation of buildings in Sweden with the same characteristics and construction period.By using GIS data the results can be aggregated to city level with the resulting total energy demand for heating calculated to 1455,7 GWh, compared to the actual value of 1397,0 GWh.The lack of validation data on a smaller scale is a large issue for this study, as well as some issues with data reliability in the EPCs. Despite this, the results of this study points to that the gathered values are a decent enough estimate to make a reliable assumption of the total energy demand for heating. The EPCs thus provide a useful source of data for energy demand purposes and building characteristics.

This essay is a study of the government bills for a new grading scale in the Swedish schools. There have been many complaints about the current grading scale and the main problem seems to be that teachers are interpreting the criteria for certificates differently. There are two major challenges for Swedish teachers, one is how to interpret the criteria for certificates, the other one is the equality problem , students can not be sure of that two different teachers would give the same grades. The main point of the essay is to try to find out whether the new grading scale will solve this problem. To my help I have made an analysis of the bills of the Swedish government for the new grading scale. I have used two theories in my essay to help me in my analysis; these theories are radical behaviourism and cognitive theory. The conclusions of my analysis are that the new grading scale and the new criteria for certificates will not make the problems with interpretation to disappear. I have also found out that the government in its writings tends to use more of the ideas of the radical behaviourism than before. This leads to a mixture of both behavioural and cognitive thoughts about knowledge in the government bills for a reformed school. This might partly explain the difficulties with constructing more useable criteria for certificates.

No description available.

This is a study on the development of a re-authentication prototype. Re- authentication serves as a receipt for e.g. system administrators that authorise them to carry out a critical operation in a system that already is protected by a security architecture. A critical operation is a kind of operation that can cause serious damage to a network node or a set of network nodes, if it is done without one giving it a second thought. The purpose is to prevent mistakes and secure the users’ audit trail. The main task is to propose and implement a re-authentication prototype, that is to enable the incorporation of the re-authentication prototype to an already complete security architecture and yet preserve the security and performance level of the architecture. This thesis deals with this problem by using digitally signed certificates to provide the necessary security issues. The certificates used are called re- authentication certificates and follows the X.509 attribute certificate standard. The re-authentication certificate is optimised so that it only holds authorisation information regarding one critical operation. An access control decision function is used to decide if the re-authentication certificate and its owner are authentic. On basis of that decision the user can get the authority to execute critical operations. The finished prototype confirms that a re-authentication can be incorporated with the security architecture. The report also shows that the security status of the architecture is preserved. The performance of the prototype is rather difficult to prove since the prototype implementation only initialises the objects that are required to prove the security issues. A performance test can therefore never prove how the prototype will perform in an authentic environment. The performance is assumed to be adequate since it uses the same authentication function that is used by the security architecture.

O objetivo da tese é descrever uma coorte de nascidos vivos e os óbitos neonatais dela derivados e estimar as probabilidades de morte segundo características do recém-nascido, da gestação, do parto e da mãe, bem como das causas de morte. Utilizou-se como fonte de obtenção de dados as Declarações de Nascido Vivo (DN) e de Óbito (DO),documentos básicos dos Sistemas Oficiais de Informação do país. A coorte foi formada por 3225 nascimentos vivos de mães residentes e ocorridos no Munícipio de Santo André, no 1º semestre de 1992. Para a identificação dos óbitos neonatais foi empregada a técnica de \"linkage\", pareando-se as DO com as respectivas DN, obtendo-se 55 óbitos neonatais. A proporção de nascidos vivos de baixo peso ao nascer foi de 6,8 por cento . Obteve-se associação estatisticamente significativa para os nascidos vivos de baixo peso e a presença de gestações de pré-termo, parto normal e cujo nascimento havia ocorrido no hospital público do SUS. Este hospital é referência para as gestações de risco do municipio. Essa associação estava presente também nos recém-nascidos de mães adolescentes e idosas e nos de mães prímiparas ou grandes multíparas. Não se encontrou associação entre o baixo peso ao nascer e sexo, bem como com a variável anotação do nome do pai na DN. Os óbitos concentraram-se no 10 dia de vida (54,5 por cento ).Verificou-se que 94,6 por cento das crianças morreram sem que estas tivessem deixado o hospital após o nascimento. Com relação às causas básicas de morte, as mais frequentes foram as afecções perinatais. A análise das causas múltiplas permitiu uma melhor avaliação da participação da imaturidade/prematuridade e das infecções perinatais no processo que levou a morte. Estas causas estiveram presentes como causa básica ou associada em 63,6 por cento e 25,5 por cento dos óbitos, respectivamente. Os fatores de risco para os óbitos neonatais foram baixo peso ao nascer, gestações de pré-termo e a ausência do registro do nome do pai. Os partos cesareanos foram considerados como fator de confusão para o risco de morte neonatal, o efeito protetor destes partos desapareceu ao se controlar o peso ao nascer. O maior risco de morte encontrado nos nascimentos no hospital público do SUS também deixou de existir ao se controlar a variável peso. Observou-se um risco de morte significativamente maior para os nascidos vivos de baixo peso do sexo masculino que nos do sexo feminino. A categoria de recém-nascidos de baixo peso e de pré-termo apresentou risco de morte 82 vezes maior que os de termo com peso igual ou superior a 2500 gramas. Não se encontrou um risco de morte significativo para os nascidos vivos de mães primíparas ou grandes multíparas e de mães adolescentes ou idosas em relação aos recém-nascidos de mães multíparas e com idade entre 20 e 34 anos. Foram considerados como nascidos vivos de risco os nascimentos de baixo peso. Observou-se um risco de morte significativamente maior por anomalias congênitas e afecções perinatais nos nascimentos de baixo peso que entre aqueles que tinham peso igual ou acima de 2500 gramas. O risco de morte por infecções perinatais foi 94,0 vezes maior nesse grupo de recém-nascidos. Os nascidos vivos de baixo peso do sexo masculino apresentaram uma chance 3,6 vezes mais elevada de morrer por afecções respiratórias que os do sexo feminino deste grupo. Os dados obtidos sugerem que muitos destes óbitos poderiam ter sido evitados se houvesse uma melhor identificação das gestações de risco no pré-natal e fosse assegurada uma adequada atenção ao parto e aos recém-nascidos, bem como indicam que nem todos recém-nascidos de risco receberam os cuidados nescessários após o parto. / A cohort of live births was analysed and the risk of death according to some variables was estimated. The data was obtained from the birth and death certificates. The records were linked, and each death was matched with the birth certificate, in order to identify the neonatal deaths and the survivals of the cohort. It was studied 3,225 live borns of resident mothers of the Santo André Municipality. The births occurred in this area from 01/101/1992 to 06/30/1992. The incidence of low birthweight was 6.8 per cent and the proportion of preterm infants was 5.3 per cent . The low birthweight was associated to the preterm gestation, vaginal deliveries, and to the births which occurred on the SUS public hospital. There was also an association between the low birthweight and the live borns from adolescent and older mothers. The low and high parity were risk factors to the low birthweight. The abscence of notation of the father\'s name on the birth certificate was not associated to the low birthweight. The deaths occurred mainly in the first day of the life (54.5 per cent ) . The data showed that 94.6 per cent of the infant deaths occurred before hospital discharge . The perinatal afections were the leading cause of death. The prematurity/imaturity was assigned as underlying or associated cause in 63.6 per cent of the deaths and the perinatal infections in 25.5 per cent of these deaths. It was found a higher risk of death in low birthweight and preterm newborns and in infants with abscence of the father\'s name on the birth certificate. The cesarean section deliveries showed to be a confounding factor to the neonatal deaths, as well as, the type of the hospital in which the infants were deliveried. The male low birthweight infants presented higher risk of death than the female infants. The low birthweight and preterm babies showed a 82 times higher risk of dying than the normal weight and term infants. The low birthweight newborn showed a higher risk of death from congenital anommalies and perinatal afections. This group of live births, also presented a risk of death from perinatal infections 94.0 times higher than the normal weight babies. The male low birthweigth infants presented 3.6 times higher chance of dying from perinatal respiratory afections than the female newborns of this group. These results suggest that some deaths could be avoided by adequate prenatal, delivery and neonatal care in the maternity wards. The high risk death found in the preterm and very low birth weight infants also suggest that some of these high risk newborns did not had access to neonatal intensive care.

Desde os anos 1980, o governo brasileiro vem realizando ações no sentido de promover a eficiência energética, seguindo a tendência mundial de se poupar energia, enfatizada após os dois choques do petróleo. No âmbito do segmento de energia elétrica, as ações de conservação de energia levaram à criação do PROCEL, em 1985. Nessa mesma linha, nos anos 1990, foi criado o Programa de Eficiência Energética (PEE/ANEEL). Desde então, este Programa tem sido a principal fonte de investimentos em projetos de eficiência energética no Brasil. Observa-se, entretanto, que nesta segunda década do novo milênio, o Brasil ainda apresenta níveis muito baixos de redução no consumo de energia elétrica, face aos potenciais por ele exibidos. Neste contexto, esta tese tem o objetivo de propor uma sistemática alternativa ao PEE/ANEEL, de forma a incentivar uma redução mais intensa de consumo de energia elétrica, visando a aproveitar melhor os potenciais existentes e também a reduzir barreiras à implantação de medidas e/ou projetos nessa linha. Para atingir tal objetivo, este trabalho propõe a implantação no país de um sistema denominado White Certificate. Este tipo de sistema se baseia na criação de um mercado para a energia economizada e, sendo assim, pode gerar aumento na atratividade financeira de projetos de eficiência energética. Para tanto, o trabalho partiu da análise de projetos de eficiência energética existentes e potenciais para simular e mensurar o potencial de incremento na atratividade financeira desses projetos, caso existisse a possibilidade de se comercializar a energia economizada. Os resultados indicam que a sistemática proposta mostrou-se um instrumento de incentivo eficaz, capaz de gerar um incremento significativo na atratividade financeira desses projetos, contribuindo para que mais agentes se interessem em promover e perseguir a eficiência energética no país. / Since the 1980s, the Brazilian government has undertaken actions to promote energy efficiency, following the global trend of concern over the issue after the two oil shocks. Within the electricity sector, electricity conservation actions lead to the creation of PROCEL in 1985. In the same vein, in the 1990s, the Energy Efficiency Program (PEE/ ANEEL) was created. Since then, this Program has been the main source of energy efficiency funds in Brazil. It is noted, however, that in this second decade of the new millennium, Brazil still presents quite low levels of reduction in power consumption compared to the potential that the country shows. In this context, this thesis aims to propose an alternative mechanism to the established PEE/ANEEL in order to encourage a more intense reduction of energy consumption. The proposed mechanism also aims at making better use of the existing potential for energy efficiency and at reducing the barriers to the implementation of measures and / or projects in this line. To achieve this goal, this work proposes the implementation in the country of a mechanism called White Certificates in which it is created a market for energy savings, in order to increase the financial attractiveness of energy efficiency projects. The research departures from the analysis of energy efficiency projects existing and potential ones and simulates the potential increase in financial attractiveness of these projects, if there were the possibility of trading the energy saved. The results indicate that the proposed mechanism can generate a significant increase in financial gains of these projects, attracting more agents interested in pursuing and investing in energy efficiency projects in the country.

by Michael Lee Tan Hang. / Thesis (M.B.A.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1980. / Bibliography: p. leaves 40-41.