Secondhand smoke (SHS) is a harmful mixture of over 4000 chemicals released from the burning of a cigarette. It has been classified as a Class A carcinogen and exposure to SHS has been proven to be related to negative health effects in humans. Children exposed to SHS are more susceptible to negative health effects because they have higher breathing rates and immature, developing bodies. SHS has been associated with many childhood diseases, including asthma, inner ear infections, and pneumonia. SHS exposure in confined areas, such as inside a motor vehicle, is of concern due to the increased toxicity level of the SHS. The purpose of this cross-sectional study was to assess the factors associated with those who smoke in a car containing children and to determine if the estimated prevalence of those who smoke in a vehicle with children has decreased since legislation was passed in Farmington Maine in 2008. Observations were taken at different times of the day and in different seasons. Each observation period consisted of a pair of researchers whom stood at the edge of the roadside, at 7 observations sites located throughout Farmington, Maine. When a vehicle passed, the researchers recorded the child passenger(s) estimated age(s), and the adult passenger(s) estimated age(s), gender, and smoking status. Site locations were chosen based upon ease of observation and neighborhood characteristics that were used as a proxy for socioeconomic status (SES) to the location. Adult data (n=3937) were used to calculate the estimated prevalence and factors of violation. Of all adult observations from 2008 to 2010, 8.26% were observed smoking in a vehicle containing a child, 63.38% of which were male. The estimated prevalence of those smoking in a vehicle containing children decreased from 13.08% (P < .0001), when the law was first enacted in the fall of 2008, to 7.40% (P < .0001) in the fall of 2010. Smoking in vehicles containing children was observed more frequently at sites that were estimated to have a lower SES near them, such as the fairgrounds [(OR=4.48, CI95 (2.49-8.09)] and at the tobacco store location [(OR=7.47, CI95 (4.29-13.01)]. In the final model, gender was found to be significantly associated with smoking in a vehicle containing a child, with males having increased odds of violation [OR=3.13, CI95 (2.44-4.01)]. However, when stratifying by gender, there were significant differences between site locations, dates, and time of the day that males or females were observed smoking. After adjusting for gender, site location, and age, adults observed in the Fall of 2008 were significantly more likely to be smoking in vehicle than those observed in the Fall of 2010 [OR=2.25, CI95 (1.64-3.09)]. The change in prevalence between dates indicates that smoking in a vehicle not only decreased over time, but also that season could have an effect on smoking in vehicle containing children behavior.

This thesis is based on cross-sectional data analyses by using Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) Method in order to determine the main drivers of the environmental performance and specifically the effects of environmental audits conducted by Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs) on sustainable development. Two general models are employed throughout the study that have the Environmental Performance Index (EPI) as dependent variable and various sub-models for different income groups are produced to observe the individual and interactive effects of explanatory variables. First model includes 150 countries regressing their EPI scores on income, population, literacy rate and indicators of the strength of institutional structure such as corruption perceptions index or government effectiveness score. Then, second model which comprises 52 countries introduces the number of environmental audit reports as a new explanatory variable. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) is also applied to highly correlated variables and the models are reestimated. The results indicate that well functioning environmental management systems and resulting positive effects on the environmental performance can only be attained through strengthened governmental institutions with high transparency and accountability as well as rigid implementation of the related regulations. More specifically, environmental audit reports generated by SAIs are of vital importance for especially improving the environmental management systems of the developing countries.

The scope of this thesis is to process and analyze statistically Magnetic Resonance Images (MR-T1) from Parkinson’s disease patients in order to detect brain areas that exhibit brain change which is caused by the disease. Parkinson’s disease is an idiopathic disease which means that its cause is yet unknown. It is a chronic neurodegenerative disorder of the central nervous system which causes the progressive death of specific brain neurons that leads to motor impairments (tremor, bradykinesia, muscle rigidity) and non motor ones (cognitive, sleep, sensation disturbances). Magnetic Resonance Images (T1-weighted) were acquired from both Parkinson’s patients and healthy subjects (Controls) at intervals of 0 and 5 years. The data have undergone longitudinal (two-time-point), cross sectional (single-time-point) and statistical analysis with the use of FSL software library. Evidence of atrophy among Parkinson’s patients aroused, in brain areas near the ventricles and the middle temporal gyrus, after statistical analysis / Ο σκοπός αυτής της εργασίας είναι η επεξεργασία και στατιστική ανάλυση μαγνητηκών τομογραφιών (MR-T1) από ασθενείς με Πάρκινσον για την ανίχνευση περιοχών του εγκεφάλου που παρουσιάζουν μεταβολές που οφείλονται στην ασθένεια. Η ασθένεια Πάρκινσον είναι ιδιοπαθής, δηλαδή ασθένεια της οποίας η αιτία παραμένει ακόμη άγνωστη. Είναι μια χρόνια δυσλειτουργία λόγω εκφυλισμού των νευρώνων του κεντρικού νευρικού συστήματος η οποία προκαλεί τη σταδιακή νεκρωση συγκεκριμένης ομάδας εγκεφαλικών νευρώνων. Αυτή η νέκρωση οδηγεί σε κινητικές δυσλειτουργίες (τρέμουλο, βραδυκινησία, και μυϊκή δυσκαμψία και σε μή κινητικές όπως γνωστικές, διαταραχής ύπνου,διαταραχές αφής κ.α. Μαγνητικές τομογραφίες (τύπου Τ1) ασθενών και υγιών ελήφθησαν σε διαστήματα 0 και 5 ετών. Τα δεδομένα αναλύθηκαν με δυο μεθόδους (longitudinal και cross-sectional) και εν συνεχεία έγινε στατιστική επεξεργασία των αποτελεσμάτων. Έγινε χρήση της βιβλιοθήκης FSL Μετά από στατιστική ανάλυση προέκυψαν ενδείξεις ατροφίας στους ασθενείς με Πάρκινσον σε περιοχές του εγεκφάλου κοντά στις εγκεφαλικές κοιλίες (ventricles) και στη μέσο-κροταφική έλικα (middle temporal gyrus).

An asymptotically-exact methodology is presented for obtaining the cross-sectional stiffness matrix of a pre-twisted, moderately-thick beam having rectangular cross sections and made of transversely isotropic material. The beam is modelled with-out assumptions from 3-D elasticity. The strain energy of the beam is computed making use of the constitutive law and the kinematical relations derived with the inclusion of geometrical nonlinearities and initial twist. Large displacements and rotations are allowed, but small strain is assumed. The Variational Asymptotic Method (VAM) is used to minimize the energy functional, thereby reducing the cross section to a point on the reference line with appropriate properties, yielding a 1-D constitutive law. In this method as applied herein, the 2-D cross-sectional analysis is performed asymptotically by taking advantage of a material small parameter and two geometric small parameters. 3-D strain components are derived using kinematics and arranged as orders of the small parameters. Warping functions are obtained by the minimisation of strain energy subject to certain set of constraints that renders the 1-D strain measures well-defined. Closed-form expressions are derived for the 3-D non-linear warping and stress fields. The model is capable of predicting interlaminar and transverse shear stresses accurately up to first order.

La profession infirmière en France a vécu des changements récents en termes de recherche et de formation. Dans notre pays, la discipline infirmière est en cours d'institutionnalisation, pourtant il existe déjà des infirmières françaises mettant en ¿uvre des projets de recherche dans une relative autarcie. Dans le contexte actuel professionnel, disciplinaire et intellectuel, comment la recherche infirmière française peut-elle à la fois intégrer la sphère internationale et développer son programme singulier? Il est ambitionné de mettre en lumière ce à quoi les infirmières françaises tiennent, leurs " valeurs " scientifiques. Le programme de recherche Thot, programme séquentiel multi-méthodes, lancé en 2010, étudie le développement de la capacité de recherche infirmière en France. L'étude Thot 1 est une analyse descriptive transversale de l'activité scientifique infirmière à partir du Programme Hospitalier de Recherche Infirmière 2010 et 2011. L'étude Thot 2 est une ethnographie des pratiques de recherche infirmière mises en ¿uvre, combinées à la pratique clinique. Thot 3 est une étude phénoménographique sur les conceptions de la recherche, acquises pendant la formation, par des infirmières titulaires d'un doctorat, en France et en Suède. Les résultats des trois études ont été triangulés au regard de la définition de la science comme pratique socio-culturelle et sept valeurs sont proposées : réflexivité, formation dédiée, cohérence, diversité, confiance, transmission et transformation. Ce programme, déployé et mis en ¿uvre lors d'une des étapes charnières, contribue à l'intégration, dans le futur, des valeurs des infirmières françaises, comme des valeurs scientifiques. / Nursing research and education recently changed in France. In our country, the nursing discipline is currently transforming toward an academic institutionalisation. European development of nursing research is heterogeneous, but the paths of progress seem similar if four sequential stages. Nursing research is characterized by its diversity. However, French nurses implement research projects, in a relative seclusion. In the current professional, disciplinary and intellectual French nursing context, how can nursing research integrate both the international arena and develop its own unique programme? This thesis further aspires to highlight French nurses? scientific values and provide guidelines for nursing research and education in France. The research programme Thot, a multi-method programme, was launched in 2010 to study the development of French nursing research capacity. Thot 1 study was a descriptive cross-sectional analysis of the Hospital Nursing Research Programme 2010 and 2011 scientific activity. Thot 2 study was an ethnography of nursing research practices, combined with clinical practice. Thot 3 was a phenomenographic study of research concepts acquired during a doctoral apprenticeship in France and Sweden. Seven values were derived from the integration of the results of the three studies: reflexivity, dedicated education, coherence, diversity, confidence, transmission and transformation. We hope that this programme, deployed and implemented concurrently to one of the stage of development of nursing in France, will participate in the future integration of the values of French nurses as scientific values,

<p><br></p> <p>In my dissertation research I document information price discovery through investments in the alternate asset class of Venture Capital. The two chapters of this dissertation studies the effect of these investments in two different contexts. The first chapter analyses improvements in valuations of venture capital funds through syndication by VC funds. The second chapter documents improvements in stock prices, and valuations, of publicly traded firms through investments by institutional investors in VC funds and in public equity.</p> <p><br></p> <p>In the first chapter I examine the effect of syndication among venture capital (VC) funds on the funds' incentives to manipulate their performance measures. I show that the presence of new syndicate partners reduces misreporting by VC funds. About half of the reduction in manipulation is during the follow-on fundraising period. To identify that syndicate partners reduce performance misreporting I use: (i) a triple-difference approach around fundraising and (ii) availability-of-syndicate-partners as an instrument for the number of new syndicate partners. The implications of my findings are that LPs should better monitor VC funds with fewer new syndicate partners and regulators should consider the presence of peer-monitoring among VC funds before imposing disclosure requirements.</p> <p>  </p> <p>  Chapter two includes John J. McConnell, Timothy E. Trombley, and M. Deniz Yavuz as coauthors. In this chapter we report evidence consistent with institutional investors using industry-level information that they obtain from their investments in venture capital (VC) funds to earn excess returns in publicly-traded equities.  We use court rulings regarding the Freedom of Information Act as an exogenous shock affecting the information flow between VC firms and institutional investors to show that the excess returns are explained by information received via this channel.  Thus, institutional investors serve as conduits of information, making publicly-traded stock prices more efficient.  In the process, institutional investors earn higher returns from their VC investments than implied by the cash flows thereby received. </p>

Submitted by Jadson Francisco de Jesus SILVA (jadson@uefs.br) on 2018-07-13T22:26:25Z No. of bitstreams: 1 DISSERTA?AO FABIANA MANDELO CASAES.pdf: 2073577 bytes, checksum: 852aa3522aa12d871a39ed83930f5bb7 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-07-13T22:26:25Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 DISSERTA?AO FABIANA MANDELO CASAES.pdf: 2073577 bytes, checksum: 852aa3522aa12d871a39ed83930f5bb7 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-04-07 / Coordena??o de Aperfei?oamento de Pessoal de N?vel Superior - CAPES / Objective: To identify factors associated with violence witnessed and experienced by health workers in Bahia municipalities. Method: This is an exploratory cross-sectional study, which is part of the multicentric research "Working conditions, conditions of employment and health of health workers in Bahia", carried out in the Basic Attention and Medium Complexity services in the Sanitary District of Historic Center of Salvador and in the municipalities of Feira de Santana, Santo Ant?nio de Jesus, Jequi? and Itabuna, in the years 2011 and 2012. The population of the study was constituted by 6,191 workers. In this study, the dependent variable was the violence experienced by the worker outside the workplace and the violence witnessed by health workers in their workplace. The analysis was made through Hierarchical Logistic Regression based on the conceptual hierarchical model for violence outside work and the multivariate analysis with Poisson Regression for violence witnessed in the workplace. Results: The analysis showed a positive association between age, marital status, schooling, professional category and respiratory diseases for the violence experienced by health workers outside work. The violence witnessed by health workers remains statistically associated with high school / technical education, higher education, post-graduation, threatened personal security, Cap X, health unit. Final Considerations: It has been found that in all contexts, a prevalence of violence is an important fact and that it is an observatory with caution, both on the part of the workers, with the management of public powers. The factors that contributed the most to the dissemination of problems, both in the national and international literature, and ratify the importance of this work. This study was developed with the health team because of the importance of its native role in the entire population, but it is worth mentioning an eminence of future work on the problem, which is that you know the expansion of study places, expanding to other states And Municipalities, in order to compare the reality in which health workers live, as a study population, is already an issue that involves all members of society without distinction. / Objetivo: Identificar fatores associados ? viol?ncia presenciada e vivenciada por trabalhadores da sa?de em munic?pios baianos. M?todo: Trata-se de um estudo de corte transversal, explorat?rio, integrante da pesquisa multic?ntrica ?Condi??es de trabalho, condi??es de emprego e sa?de dos trabalhadores da sa?de na Bahia?, realizado nos servi?os de Aten??o B?sica e de M?dia Complexidade no Distrito Sanit?rio do Centro Hist?rico de Salvador e nos munic?pios de Feira de Santana, Santo Ant?nio de Jesus, Jequi? e Itabuna, nos anos 2011 e 2012. A popula??o do estudo foi constitu?da por 6.191 trabalhadores. Neste estudo a vari?vel dependente foi a viol?ncia vivenciada pelo trabalhador fora do local de trabalho e a viol?ncia presenciada pelos trabalhadores de sa?de no seu local de trabalho. A an?lise foi feita atrav?s da Regress?o Log?stica Hierarquizada baseada no modelo hier?rquico conceitual, para a viol?ncia fora do trabalho e a an?lise multivariada com Regress?o de Poisson para a viol?ncia presenciada no local de trabalho. Resultados: A an?lise mostrou associa??o positiva entre faixa et?ria, situa??o conjugal, escolaridade, categoria profissional e doen?as no aparelho respirat?rio para a viol?ncia vivenciada pelos trabalhadores de sa?de fora do trabalho. A viol?ncia presenciada pelos trabalhadores de sa?de permaneceu estatisticamente associadas a escolaridade ensino m?dio/t?cnico, ensino superior, p?s-gradua??o, seguran?a pessoal amea?ada, Cap X, unidade de sa?de. Considera??es Finais: Verificou-se que, em todos os contextos, a preval?ncia da viol?ncia ? um dado importante e que deve ser observado com cautela, tanto por parte dos trabalhadores, com da gest?o e dos poderes p?blicos. Os fatores associados a viol?ncia confirmam os achados de v?rios outros estudos, tanto na literatura nacional, como internacional e ratificam a import?ncia desse trabalho, advertindo sobre a necessidade de enfrentamento desse problema. Este estudo foi realizado com trabalhadores de sa?de pela import?ncia do seu papel na assist?ncia a toda a popula??o, mas vale destacar a emin?ncia de trabalhos futuros acerca da problem?tica, tanto no que se refere a amplia??o de locais de estudo, se expandindo para outros Estados e munic?pios, afim de comparar a realidade em que vive os trabalhadores de sa?de, como a pr?pria popula??o de estudo, j? ? um tema que envolve todos os membros da sociedade, sem distin??o.

The diploma thesis focus on elaboration of economic analysis of company Mlékárna Hlinsko, a. s. The thesis includes the basic characteristics of the industries in which the company operates, including the composition of Porter's five forces model. In the thesis are used profitability ratios, leverage, activity, liquidity and capital market. At the same time, it analyzes the degree of operating leverage and impact assessment of financial leverage. To determine the incremental impact on the return on equity is used Du Pont decomposition. As part of a comprehensive evaluation were applied credibility and bankruptcy models - Altman model, Index IN05 and Index bonity. Company Mlékárna Hlinsko, a. s. was compared with relevant competitors in the market and industry averages. In conclusion of the thesis were drawn appropriate advices and recommendations for the future. The thesis is drawn up with regard to the specifics of the food industry and the connection with company Agrofert, a. s.

<div>State and local adoption/repeal of highly polarized policies causes migration responses both out of and into the affected region. Interpreting the responses as revealed policy pref?erences leads to the conclusion that marijuana legalization and abortion waiting periods had been favored nationally, while gay marriage had been opposed. Policy preferences are geographically heterogeneous, which leads to different responses across counties. From 1992- 2017, these policy changes reduced domestic migration by two percent, which is approxi?mately 20% of the total migration decline. The migration changes, via partisan sorting, accounted for a significant share of the increased political polarization from 2012-2016 in western, urban, and swing counties. <br></div><div><br></div><div>In cases where unmarried parents have joint physical custody of their child(ren), there is a wide range of default relocation restrictions that depend on their state of origin. Using IRS county-to-county migration data, demographic data from the ACS, and state relocation restrictions gathered from divorce law websites, I study the impact of these default reloca?tion restrictions on domestic US migration. Results from both regression discontinuity and selection on observables designs, find about 10% - 30% less migration to counties that are outside the allowed relocation range. This migration friction is shown to strengthen from 1992 - 2012, as both joint physical custody and unmarried parents became more common, thereby contributing to the decline in domestic US migration. <br></div><div><br></div><div>In the United States, between 2004 and 2008, 28 states increased their minimum wage; the national minimum wage was increased in 2007. The average migration response to these increases was a 3% change in migration away from a one dollar increase. These effects are not distributed evenly across the population. People from more impacted demographic groups are more likely to move away from minimum wage increases.</div>

Traffic safety is a major concern for the public, and it is an important component of the roadway management strategy. In order to improve highway safety, extensive efforts have been made by researchers, transportation engineers, Federal, State, and local government officials. With these consistent efforts, both fatality and injury rates from road traffic crashes in the United States have been steadily declining over the last six years (2006~2011). However, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA, 2013), 33,561 people died in motor vehicle traffic crashes in the United States in 2012, compared to 32,479 in 2011, and it is the first increase in fatalities since 2005. Moreover, in 2012, an estimated 2.36 million people were injured in motor vehicle traffic crashes, compared to 2.22 million in 2011. Due to the demand of highway safety improvements through systematic analysis of specific roadway cross-section elements and treatments, the Highway Safety Manual (HSM) (AASHTO, 2010) was developed by the Transportation Research Board (TRB) to introduce a science-based technical approach for safety analysis. One of the main parts in the HSM, Part D, contains crash modification factors (CMFs) for various treatments on roadway segments and at intersections. A CMF is a factor that can estimate potential changes in crash frequency as a result of implementing a specific treatment (or countermeasure). CMFs in Part D have been developed using high-quality observational before-after studies that account for the regression to the mean threat. Observational before-after studies are the most common methods for evaluating safety effectiveness and calculating CMFs of specific roadway treatments. Moreover, cross-sectional method has commonly been used to derive CMFs since it is easier to collect the data compared to before-after methods. Although various CMFs have been calculated and introduced in the HSM, still there are critical limitations that are required to be investigated. First, the HSM provides various CMFs for single treatments, but not CMFs for multiple treatments to roadway segments. The HSM suggests that CMFs are multiplied to estimate the combined safety effects of single treatments. However, the HSM cautions that the multiplication of the CMFs may over- or under-estimate combined effects of multiple treatments. In this dissertation, several methodologies are proposed to estimate more reliable combined safety effects in both observational before-after studies and the cross-sectional method. Averaging two best combining methods is suggested to use to account for the effects of over- or under- estimation. Moreover, it is recommended to develop adjustment factor and function (i.e. weighting factor and function) to apply to estimate more accurate safety performance in assessing safety effects of multiple treatments. The multivariate adaptive regression splines (MARS) modeling is proposed to avoid the over-estimation problem through consideration of interaction impacts between variables in this dissertation. Second, the variation of CMFs with different roadway characteristics among treated sites over time is ignored because the CMF is a fixed value that represents the overall safety effect of the treatment for all treated sites for specific time periods. Recently, few studies developed crash modification functions (CMFunctions) to overcome this limitation. However, although previous studies assessed the effect of a specific single variable such as AADT on the CMFs, there is a lack of prior studies on the variation in the safety effects of treated sites with different multiple roadway characteristics over time. In this study, adopting various multivariate linear and nonlinear modeling techniques is suggested to develop CMFunctions. Multiple linear regression modeling can be utilized to consider different multiple roadway characteristics. To reflect nonlinearity of predictors, a regression model with nonlinearizing link function needs to be developed. The Bayesian approach can also be adopted due to its strength to avoid the problem of over fitting that occurs when the number of observations is limited and the number of variables is large. Moreover, two data mining techniques (i.e. gradient boosting and MARS) are suggested to use 1) to achieve better performance of CMFunctions with consideration of variable importance, and 2) to reflect both nonlinear trend of predictors and interaction impacts between variables at the same time. Third, the nonlinearity of variables in the cross-sectional method is not discussed in the HSM. Generally, the cross-sectional method is also known as safety performance functions (SPFs) and generalized linear model (GLM) is applied to estimate SPFs. However, the estimated CMFs from GLM cannot account for the nonlinear effect of the treatment since the coefficients in the GLM are assumed to be fixed. In this dissertation, applications of using generalized nonlinear model (GNM) and MARS in the cross-sectional method are proposed. In GNMs, the nonlinear effects of independent variables to crash analysis can be captured by the development of nonlinearizing link function. Moreover, the MARS accommodate nonlinearity of independent variables and interaction effects for complex data structures. In this dissertation, the CMFs and CMFunctions are estimated for various single and combination of treatments for different roadway types (e.g. rural two-lane, rural multi-lane roadways, urban arterials, freeways, etc.) as below: 1) Treatments for mainline of roadway: - adding a thru lane, conversion of 4-lane undivided roadways to 3-lane with two-way left turn lane (TWLTL) 2) Treatments for roadway shoulder: - installing shoulder rumble strips, widening shoulder width, adding bike lanes, changing bike lane width, installing roadside barriers 3) Treatments related to roadside features: - decrease density of driveways, decrease density of roadside poles, increase distance to roadside poles, increase distance to trees Expected contributions of this study are to 1) suggest approaches to estimate more reliable safety effects of multiple treatments, 2) propose methodologies to develop CMFunctions to assess the variation of CMFs with different characteristics among treated sites, and 3) recommend applications of using GNM and MARS to simultaneously consider the interaction impact of more than one variables and nonlinearity of predictors. Finally, potential relevant applications beyond the scope of this research but worth investigation in the future are discussed in this dissertation.