The purpose of this study ­is to identify social workers’ perspectives on the barriers and motivating factors impacting Latino men in seeking mental health services, and to seek ways to overcome the barriers. Research has established that Latino men suffer from mental health problems at a similar rate compared to other populations, yet they underutilize mental health services. Given the rapid growth of the Latino population that continues to need mental health services, the findings of this study may influence the social work field to develop programs and interventions that are geared towards encouraging Latino men to seek services. They may also assist in preparing clinicians entering the field. This qualitative study used individual interviews as a tool to find themes from social workers’ point of views on the subject. The results from interviews were transcribed to written document. Major themes identified include barriers, motivating factors, and recommendations for change.

Malaria is a major threat to the public health worldwide as it is affecting populations in tropical and subtropical areas globally. Among those populations are around 40% of pregnant women and children who are susceptible to this disease. Plasmodium falciparum is the most lethal agent that causes malaria in human. Currently, there is drug resistance against antimalarial drugs in parasite against treatment of malaria infections, it is essential to search for new drug targets in order to find cure and alleviate suffering of human population. There are approximately 100 protein kinases in P. falciparum that are involved in phosphorylation of asexual blood stage. Hence, the phosphorylation plays an important part in the development of different stages of malarial parasites. Due to their significance in the parasite life cycle, one of the protein kinase of P. falciparum belongs to the ABC-1 family of proteins. PfABCK2 can be a therapeutic target due to its higher expression during the late schizont stage of blood stage form. The bioinformatic analysis and preliminary results of PfABCK2 showed the heterologous expression of this protein. Hence, the gene of PfABCk2 was ligated into pET21a+ vector with His-tag at C-terminus and transformed into BL-21 (DE3) competent cells that were verified through Miniprep and DNA sequencing. Furthermore, this gene construct is utilized to heterologous express this protein with IPTG and afterwards purified the recombinant protein kinase using nickel affinity chromatography as shown on 10% SDS-PAGE with the expected 36 kDa protein band. Therefore, the aim of this study is to partially characterize PfABCK2 protein kinase utilizing molecular cloning, heterologous express and protein kinase activity assay.

The health industry in Canada, as well as in other industrial countries, has been in the process of reform for many years. While such reform has been attributed to fiscal necessity due to increased health costs, the underlying causes are far more complex. Demographic changes, new technologies, expanded health care procedures and medications, increased demand and the globalization of health services have all contributed to the change and complexity of the industry. Health reform varies from country to country. In Canada, with a publicly funded health industry, the main reform method has been regionalization. This decentralized reform method arranges health services under a regional corporate management structure. The primary objective of this study was to assess the effects of health reform on the educational development of health-care managers in British Columbia, a western province of Canada. The study had a two-fold approach; to ascertain how health reform had changed the skill needs of health-care managers, and whether e-learning could benefit health management education. The key research questions that guided the study were: How might recent changes in the health industry have affected the learning needs and priorities of health-care managers? What factors might hinder attempts to meet any learning needs and priorities of health-care managers? and What benefits might e-learning provide in overcoming hindrances to effective health management education? / A combination of quantitative (survey closed questions) and qualitative (survey open-ended questions, interviews and stakeholder feedback) methods was employed in this study. Overall, this study is described as productive social theory research, in that it addressed a recognized change in learning needs for health-care managers following a period of health reform, a socially significant phenomenon in the health industry. Relying on such tools as a survey, interviews, and stakeholder discussions, data was collected from over five hundred health-care managers. The data collected in this study provided valuable insight into the paradigm shift occurring in the educational needs of these managers. The study found that health reform had expanded the management responsibilities of healthcare managers and increased the complexity of service delivery. Restructuring of the health industry decreased the number of managers, support systems, and career opportunities for managers and increased the manager’s workload, communication problems and the need for new knowledge and skills. In addressing the learning needs of health-care managers, the study found there were limitations in health management educational opportunities available to health-care managers. The findings also show that current health management education was focused on senior managers leaving the majority of industry leaders with limited learning opportunities to upgrade their knowledge and skills at a time of great organizational change. / In addition, a classroom format dominated the learning delivery options for many managers. A list of fourteen management skills was used in the survey instrument to ascertain what new skills were needed by health-care managers following thirteen years of health reform. The findings show that of the fourteen skills, twenty-nine percent of health-care managers had no training and fifty-seven percent received their training through in-service, workshops and seminars. Irrespective of gender, age, working location and education the data showed that healthcare managers were mainly receiving training in change and complexity and people skills with less training occurring in planning and finances. Using the same fourteen skills, health-care managers priorized their immediate learning needs, listing the top three, as: evidence-based management, change and complexity and financial analysis. While evidence-based management and financial analysis could be attributed to the introduction of a corporate management structure in the health industry, change and complexity was an anomaly as managers were already receiving training in this skill. Health industry stakeholders believed this anomaly was due to continued uncertainties with ongoing health reform and/or a need for increased social interaction during a time of organizational change. In addressing the many learning needs of health-care managers a new health management education strategy was proposed for the province which included the need for an e-learning strategy. / The e-learning approach being proposed in this study is an integration of skill training and knowledge sharing directly blended into the workflow of the managers, using a variety of learning technologies. To support this idea, the study found that the majority of health-care managers were not only familiar with e-learning, they also felt they had the computer and Internet skills for more learning delivered in this manner. While a strong need for face-to-face learning still remained, a blended e-learning strategy was proposed for skill training, one that would accommodate the learning needs of managers in rural and remote areas of the province. Knowledge sharing technologies were also proposed to improve the flow of information and learning in small units to both newcomers and experts in the industry. Since this would be a new strategy for the province, attention to quality and costs were identified as essential in the planning. The study found that after years of health reform a new health management educational strategy was needed for the health industry of British Columbia, one that would incorporate a number of learning technologies. Such a change in educational direction is needed if the health industry wishes to provide their leaders with a responsive learning environment to adapt to ongoing organizational change.

A popular class of yield curve models is based on the Nelson and Siegel (1987) (hereafter NS) approach of fitting yield curve data with simple functions of maturity. However, NS models are not theoretically consistent and they also lack an economic foundation, which limits their wider application in finance and economics. This thesis derives an intertemporally-consistent and arbitrage-free version of the NS model, and provides an explicit macroeconomic foundation for that augmented NS (ANS) model. To illustrate the general applicability of the ANS model, it is then applied to four distinct topics spanning finance and economics, each of which are active areas of research in their own right: i.e (1) forecasting the yield curve; (2) investigating relationships between the yield curve and the macroeconomy; (3) fixed interest portfolio management; and (4) investigating the uncovered interest parity hypothesis (UIPH). In each application, the ANS model allows the formal derivation of a parsimonious theoretical framework that captures the essence of the topic under investigation and is readily applicable in practice. Respectively: (1) the intertemporal consistency embedded in the ANS model results in a vector-autoregressive equation that projects the future yield curve from the current yield curve, and forecasts from that model outperform the random-walk benchmark; (2) the economic foundation for the ANS model leads to a single-equation relationship between the current shape of the yield curve and the magnitude and timing of future output growth, and empirical estimations confirm that the theoretical relationship holds in practice; (3) the ANS model provides a theoretically-consistent framework for quantifying risk and returns in fixed interest portfolios, and portfolios optimised ex-ante using that framework outperform a passive benchmark; and (4) the ANS model allows interest rates to be decomposed into a component related to economic fundamentals in the underlying economy, and a component related to cyclical influences. Empirical tests based on the fundamental interest rate components do not reject the UIPH, while the UIPH is rejected based on the cyclical interest rate components. This provides empirical support for suggestions in the theoretical literature that interest rate and exchange rate dynamics associated with cyclical interlinkages between the economy and financial markets under rational expectations may contribute materially to the UIPH puzzle.

<p>In this paper the Heath, Jarrow and Morton (HJM) framework is applied in the programming language Java for the estimation of the future spot rate. The subcase of an exponential model for the diffusion coefficient (volatility) is used for the pricing of interest rate derivatives (caps).</p>

In this paper the Heath, Jarrow and Morton (HJM) framework is applied in the programming language Java for the estimation of the future spot rate. The subcase of an exponential model for the diffusion coefficient (volatility) is used for the pricing of interest rate derivatives (caps).

Magistro darbe tiriama plėšriųjų žvėrių ir tetervinų populiacijos būklė. Tyrimo objektas – Radviliškio rajone esančiame Praviršulio tyrelio valstybinio botaninio - zoologinio draustinyje sutinkami plėšrieji žvėrys ir tetervinai. Darbo tikslas - nustatyti plėšriųjų žvėrių ir tetervinų populiacijos būklę Praviršulio tyrelio valstybiniame botaniniame – zoologiniame draustinyje. Siekiant darbo tikslo buvo iškelti tokie uždaviniai: 1) ištirti draustinio plėšriųjų žvėrių rūšinę sudėtį, atskirų rūšių gausą bei tankį; 2) apskaičiuoti tetervinų gausą bei tankį; 3) apskaičiuoti plėšrūnų ir aukų santykį bei jo atitikimą ekologiniam santykiui; 4) ištirti plėšriųjų žvėrių ir tetervinų populiacijos dinamiką. Tyrimo metodai - Lietuvos ir užsienio autorių mokslinės literatūros analizė bei sintezė, duomenų grupavimas, statistiniai metodai, grafinis vaizdavimas. Tyrimo laikotarpis apima 2008 -2009 metus. Darbo rezultatai: buvo išstudijuota lietuvių ir užsienio autorių moksliniais darbai bei periodinė literatūra apie medžiojamosios faunos elgseną įtakojančius veiksnius, buvo ištirta draustinio plėšriųjų žvėrių rūšinė sudėtis, apskaičiuota žvėrių gausa, bendras tankis, ištirta žvėrių populiacijos dinamika. Gauti tokie rezultatai: 2008-2009 metais plėšriųjų žvėrių gausa didėjo. Apskaičiuoti plėšriųjų žvėrių ir aukų santykiai gana labai neatitiko ekologinių. Tetervinų gausa 2008-2009 metais sumažėjo. / Master's work examined prey animals, and heath-cock population of the state. Object of research – Carnivora and heath-cocks met in the territory of Praviršulis tyrelis public botanical - zoological reservation in Radviliškis district. Purpose of the Paper – estimate the state of Carnivora and heath-cocks in the Praviršulis tyrelis public botanical - zoological reservation. Achieving the purpose the following goals were raised: 1) to determine the varietal composition, abundance and density of certain species of the Carnivora in the reservation; 2) to determine the abundance and density of heath-cocks in the reservation. 3) to determine the ratio between predators and preys, and its conformity with ecological ratio; 4) to explore the dynamics of Carnivora and the heath-cock populations. Methods of research - analysis and synthesis of Lithuanian and foreign scientific literature, data grouping, statistical methods, graphical presentation. The research period is the years 2008 - 2009. The results: there was studying scientific works of Lithuanian and foreign authors and periodic literature about the factors influencing the behaviours of fair game, there was determined the abundance of animals, general density, determined the dynamics of animals population. Obtain the following results: 2008-2009, increased the abundance of prey animals. Calculate prey animals and the relationship between the victims is quite inconsistent with the ecological. Hheath-cocks abundance declined in 20... [to full text]

Background: Social participation has been recognized as an important public health policy since the declaration of Alma-Ata presented it as one of the pillars of primary health care in 1978. Since then, there have been many adaptations to the original policy recommendations, but participation in health is still seen as a means to make the health system more responsive to local health needs, and as a way to bring the health sector and the community closer together. Aim: To explore the role that social participation has in a municipal-level health system in Guatemala in order to inform future policies and programs. Methods: The fieldwork for this study was carried out over eight months and three field visits between early January of 2009 and late March of 2010. During this time, 38 indepth interviews with provincial and district-level health authorities, municipal authorities, community representatives and community health workers were conducted. Using an overall applied ethnographic approach, the main means of data collection were participant observation, in-depth interviews, group discussions and informal conversations. The data was analyzed in two different rounds. In the first one we used documentary analysis, role-ordered matrices and thematic analsis (see papers I-IV) and in the second round, thematic analysis was utilized. Results: We found four themes that frame what the role of social participation in the municipality of Palencia is. The first theme presents the historical, political and social context that has contributed to shaping the participation policies and practices in Guatemala as a whole. The second theme takes a deeper look at these policies and how they have been received in the municipality of Palencia. The third theme presents data regarding the three situated practices of participation, each occurring at a different level: municipal, community and the individual level. Finally, the last theme presents reflections on what it means to participate to the people that were involved in this study. Conclusion: In the process of social participation there are two different and complementary kinds of power that depend on the amount and the kind of resources available at each level of the participation structure. Stakeholders that have higher levels of power to formulate policies will have better access to financial, human and material resources while stakeholders that have higher levels of power to implement policies will have resources like community legitimacy, knowledge of local culture, values and mores, as well as a deep understanding of local social processes. The coordination of financial, human and material resources is just as important as the legitimacy that comes from having community leaders involved in more steps of the process. True collaboration can only be obtained through the promotion and creation of meaningful partnerships between institutional stakeholders and community leaders and other stakeholders that are working at the community level. For this to happen, more structured support for the participation process in the form of clear policies, funding and capacity building is needed.

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The Bogong High Plains are a series of alpine and subalpine plateaux in NE Victoria. The vegetation of the High Plains consists of woodland, heathland, grassland herbfield and wetland communities. On the better drained sites, the transition from heath dominated communities to grass dominated communities is correlated with gradients of decreasing accumulation and persistence of snow, increasing exposure to wind and low minimum air temperatures, and decreasing steepness and rockiness of terrain. In many areas, shrubs have increased in cover and abundance, especially over the last 50 years. In particular, shrubs have invaded many areas of grassland, which has resulted in an expansion of both open heath and closed heath. The High Plains have been grazed by free ranging cattle each summer since the 1850's, and a primary aim of this thesis is to investigate the dynamics of heathland and grassland, and the impact that cattle grazing has upon these two vegetation types.