Two hundred and three patients participated in a study designed to evaluate a structured learning package for teaching competent breast self-examination (BSE) at a Screening Center. The package consisted of modeling, practice without feedback on a breast model, and limited practice and feedback on the patients' own breasts. Performance proficiency was evaluated by an observer as the number of BSE's steps correctly practiced during pre and post-training evaluations. A questionnaire to gather information about patients history, knowledge, and attitudes toward BSE and breast cancer was also used. Results show that more than 80% of the patients who could improve did so in most steps of both components, visual inspection and palpation. In addition, only 31% of the patients performed a perfect and complete BSE immediately after the teaching session. The two steps patients failed the most were checking the axillary-tail and covering the complete breast. A corrective procedure to improve the teaching package is discussed.

Objectives: The new red blood cell (RBC) parameters from automated haematology analyzers, such as reticulocyte haemoglobin content and percentage of hypochromic red cells or equivalent, are useful in the laboratory assessment of iron deficiency anaemia (IDA). However, the clinical utility of these parameters are confounded by thalassaemia trait (TT) especially in geographical areas of high thalassaemia prevalence. We aimed to evaluate the new formula derived from some red cell parameters on the Beckman Coulter DxH800 in distinguishing between IDA and TT in Hong Kong population. Methods: A total of 246 normal subjects, 102 patients with IDA and 115 subjects with TT were accrued for the study. Concurrent chronic disorder and ovelapped IDA and TT cases were excluded. The new red cell parameters studied were red blood cell size factor (RSF), low haemoglobin density (LHD%), microcytic anaemia factor (MAF), standard deviation of conductivity of the non-reticulocyte population (SD-C-NRET) and unghosted cell (UGC). Comparison between groups was performed by student t-test and the diagnostic performance of the parameters was determined by receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis. Results: Both LHD% and RSF were significantly higher in IDA than TT, whereas MAF was significantly lower. Although the biological basis was uncertain, SD-C-NRET was significantly lower in IDA than TT and showed the best diagnostic performance as a single parameter. A formula ((RBC+HB)*(HCT+SD-C-NRET))/(RDW-SD ) was devised to distinguish between IDA and TT. With a cutoff value of 23, the area under curve (AUC) was 0.995 (95% CI of 0.99 – 1.00), the sensitivity was 97% and the specificity was 99.1%. This formula was superior to other discriminant functions in the literature. The UGC number was not significantly different between alpha- and beta-TT. Conclusions: The new RBC parameters on Beckman Coulter DxH800 provided useful information in distinguishing between IDA and TT, which is important for clinical decision making and streamlining further laboratory testing. This index can be used to screen patients who are likely to be IDA or TT for further hematological studies to confirm diagnosis. / published_or_final_version / Pathology / Master / Master of Medical Sciences

With an increase in the number of students and the number of courses offered by universities, examination scheduling based on the available facilities becomes much more complicated. At present, examinations must be appropriately scheduled not only based on the offered courses, but also with respect to the rooms’ capacities, available time-slots, days-off rules and other soft and hard constraints. From the Mathematical Programming point of view, timetabling and scheduling problems are somewhat related to Assignment problems, but have additional constraints that make them computationally challenging. Timetabling problems are NP-hard problems for which there is unlikely to be an economically viable method for finding the optimal solution. In our studies, we use Python interfaced with CPLEX as optimization software to find approximately optimal results for large problems in reasonable time.

With an increase in the number of students and the number of courses offered by universities, examination scheduling based on the available facilities becomes much more complicated. At present, examinations must be appropriately scheduled not only based on the offered courses, but also with respect to the rooms capacities, available time-slots, days-off rules and other soft and hard constraints. From the Mathematical Programming point of view, timetabling and scheduling problems are somewhat related to Assignment problems, but have additional constraints that make them computationally challenging. Timetabling problems are NP-hard problems for which there is unlikely to be an economically viable method for finding the optimal solution. In our studies, we use Python interfaced with CPLEX as optimization software to find approximately optimal results for large problems in reasonable time.

Diss. (sammanfattning) Umeå : Umeå universitet, 2006. / Härtill 4 uppsatser.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Columbia University, 1923. / Vita. "Reprinted from Archives of psychology ... no. 68."

Thesis (M. Div.)--Grace Theological Seminary, 1986. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 117-121).

No description available.

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by Lau Sing-chiu Thomas. / "August 1999." / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1999. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 69-74). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, MI : ProQuest dissertations and theses, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / Abstracts in English and Chinese.