Objective: Residential outcomes of adults with severe and persistent mental illness (SPMI) and substance use disorders were studied over 18-months, during which participants received integrated concurrent disorders services from two models of community-based intensive case management programs. Of primary interest in this analysis were the risks associated with co-occurring addictions on housing quality and stability, and the relative effectiveness of assertive community treatment (ACT) and intensive case management (ICM) on housing outcomes. Methods: Data for this secondary analysis was drawn from one of six projects organized under the Community Mental Health Evaluation Initiative. Clients who were diagnosed as having SPMI with and without co-morbid substance dependence (N=80) were randomly assigned to two case management programs in Toronto, Canada. All clients with concurrent disorders received integrated mental health and substance abuse treatment, but half were provided more fully integrated services from ACT. Housing was classified in one of three categories to describe the quality and consistency of residential tenure: stable housing, unstable accommodation defined by number of address changes, or homeless. Results: Participants with concurrent disorders were much more likely to be homeless or living in unstable, substandard housing than subjects without substance dependence. ICM clients with co-morbid disorders showed greater improvement on housing outcomes, but both case management groups showed strong gains on subjective measures of community adjustment, including empowerment, social support, and symptom distress. Housing stability was mediated by intensity of service contacts. Conclusion: Integrated treatment is a recent innovation in service delivery for persons with concurrent disorders. The favourable outcomes found for ICM in this study raise questions about the relative effectiveness of different implementation strategies to achieve integrated treatment within individual case management programs. The results provide strong support for the hypothesis that service intensity is a critical component promoting community tenure for this at-risk population. / Thesis / Master of Social Work (MSW)

In this thesis, the management of product information in concurrent design systems has been investigated with particular reference to product development in small and medium enterprise (SME) industry and design education at polytechnic level in Singapore. From a critical review of the relevant literature on product design and development processes, concurrent engineering, concurrent design systems, product data management and related methods, it is found that there is a clear need for a new design of a system for organizing and managing product information in a concurrent design environment in the above contexts. This finding has led to the development of a conceptual rationale, termed the Design Tensor Method, and the design and development of an innovative product information management system called PRIMAS. PRIMAS is a systematic methodology for the classification, organization, integration, communication, storage and management of product information in the product development process. A software prototype based on PRIMAS has been subsequently developed. PRIMAS along with its conceptual principles have been applied and tested in a product design project in a tertiary educational institution and in two significant industrial product development projects based respectively in two SMEs. Positive evaluation feedback on PRIMAS has been obtained in these studies. The product development projects investigated with PRIMAS have also produced outcomes that meet the original specified design requirements. The findings from this research have led to the conclusion that PRIMAS is a viable product information management system that can be used effectively for managing product information in concurrent design projects in SME industry and design education. Substantial PRIMAS databases of useful product information have been compiled for the product development projects investigated with PRIMAS. Finally, recommendations are made for future research.

A review of techniques that support Concurrent Engineering or Simultaneous Engineering (CE/SE) is presented. It is shown that the management of projects consistent with the principles of CE/SE is hampered by the lack of a suitable activity network modelling tool. The limitations of existing methods such as the Critical Path Analysis Method (CPM) and the related Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT) for the management of complex design projects are demonstrated. Recent enhancements and alternatives to CPMlPERT are reviewed. A network model is proposed that supports CE/SE and is capable of representing uncertain task outcomes, partial dependencies and task iterations characteristic of complex design projects. Discrete-event simulation is used to evaluate the network and show the effect of resources constraints, communications efficiency and activity control logic on project completion timescales and product quality. The proposed model is designed so that the activity network can be derived from and directly related to a Quality Function Deployment (QFD) matrix. This allows project completion to be expressed in terms of customer requirements and priorities. The network model is illustrated by showing how it can be applied to an aerospace design project.

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This thesis is a proposed solution to the problem of including an effective interrupt mechanism in the set of concurrent- processing primitives of a block-structured programming language or system. The proposed solution is presented in the form of a programming language definition and model. The language is called TRIPLE.

ABSTRACT Six hens responded under an increasing Fixed Ratio schedule of reinforcement to assess demand separately for two different food types: wheat and puffed wheat. Demand curves generated showed the least preferred food, puffed wheat, yielded a higher initial (ln L) demand than the more preferred food, wheat. While responding for the more preferred food, wheat, produced lower initial (ln L) demand functions, responding for wheat was maintained to higher increasing FR schedules of reinforcement than was that for puffed wheat. This phenomenon occurred across all six hens. To assess preference between the two food types the hens responded under a two-link concurrent-chain schedule of reinforcement. Under the concurrent-chain schedule of reinforcement there were three conditions, each consisted of a initial link with VI 90-s VI 90-s in effect, and terminal links of FR1, FR8 and FR32. The concurrent-chain schedule was used to examine if or how preference may relate to demand. Preference measures obtained showed wheat was generally preferred to puffed wheat across all prices throughout the preference assessment. As price increased in the terminal link during the preference assessment, preference for wheat became more extreme as did the hens responding. The results suggest that while there is a systematic relation between preference and demand, in that at higher FR values food with higher demand levels is preferred. This does not seem to hold, however, at FR1

Thesis (M. Sc.)--University of Hong Kong, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references.

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No description available.