Class of 2006 Abstract / Objectives: To determine the economic impact of controlled substance destruction in multiple long term care facilities in Southern Arizona and to identify related demographic characteristics of the patients and facilities. Methods: Subjects had controlled substance prescriptions destroyed at nursing homes serviced by a pharmacy nursing home provider in Tucson, Arizona. Controlled substances destruction records and existing prescription records were reviewed and data was collected on the name, strength, number of units destroyed, date of destruction and schedule of each controlled medication that was destroyed for a particular patient over the course of a year. Demographic data was collected on patient gender, age, type of insurance coverage and the size of the nursing home facilities. Results: A total of 1095 controlled substance prescriptions were destroyed during the time period of the study and the total cost of destroyed medication was $26,886.37. The average cost of destroyed medication per prescription was $24.55 ± 60.38 (mean ± SD). Schedule II controlled substances accounted for the highest total cost per prescription destroyed and destruction of unused controlled substances cost indigent insurance programs more than any of the other payers studied. There was no difference in mean cost per prescription destroyed by facility, therapeutic class or between women and men. Conclusions: The value of controlled substance destruction in long term care facilities is sizeable. To reduce waste, prescribers and pharmacy providers should initially dispense moderate quantities of controlled substances until it is apparent that the medication is tolerable and efficacious for the patient.

The purpose of the study was to design a reliable and valid assessment instrument that would provide a multidimensional profile of the elderly resident of a long term care facility. Use of this instrument would be a method of collecting and corrmunicating information concerning the full range of problems experienced by this group, in a form that is suitable for use at different levels of decisionmaking. The instrument consists of 31 unweighted items measuring functioning in 5 essential areas - cognitive, physical, emotional, social, and instrumental. Ratings were based on the observations of long term care staff who were in close contact with the individual over extended periods. Reliability and validity were tested using a non random sample of 76 elderly residents of one extended care unit. Both test-retest and interjudge reliability proved to be high and item analysis indicated that, with the exception of 2 items, the instrument provides levels of functioning appropriate to the sample population. The instrument also showed a high degree of internal consistency with the 3 major components identified as - cognitive behaviour, independence in daily living, and physical functioning. The validity of the instrument and its subsections was demonstrated through significant relationships with external criteria, namely - the number of problems listed on the multidisciplinary problem-oriented record, a health index measure, and a mental status rating. Further evidence of the instrument's validity was its ability to predict, retrospectively, 72 percent of the sample deaths in the first year following admission. Although only a preliminary form of analysis, this showed that a high level of mental functioning, combined with a low level of independence in daily living, was predictive of death within 3 to 9 months in the sample population. The implications of these results are discussed along with suggestions for further research in the area. Finally, potential uses for the assessment instrument in the field of long term care are provided. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Nursing, School of / Graduate

In this thesis, I present my study on the impact of multi-group network structure on the performance of consensus building strategies, and the preliminary mathematical formulation of the problem on improving the performance of the National Airspace system (NAS) through long-term investment. The first part of the thesis is concerned with a structural approach to the consensus building problem in multi-group distributed sensor networks (DSNs) that can be represented by bipartite graph. Direct inference of the convergence behavior of consensus strategies from multi-group DSN structure is one of the contributions of this thesis. The insights gained from the analysis facilitate the design and development of DSNs that meet specific performance criteria. The other part of the thesis is concerned with long-term planning and development of the NAS at a network level, by formulating the planning problem as a resource allocation problem for a flow network. The network-level model viewpoint on NAS planning and development will give insight to the structure of future NAS and will allow evaluation of various paradigms for the planning problem.

Experimental evidence was needed to help answer the question of whether the decrease in retention from Trial 1 to Trial 2 was caused by PI from Trial 1 decreasing retention of Trial 2, or by a primacy effect increasing retention of Trial 1 over the natural retention baseline of a S. The present experiment was designed to help answer this question.

No description available.

[pt] A chegada da tecnologia 4G acontece simultaneamente com a tecnologia que hoje temos (2G e 3G). Deste modo, uma pergunta natural é se elas vão conseguir coexistir ou se, no futuro, apresentarão problemas de coexistência. Para responder a estas perguntas, é preciso pesquisar para podermos predizer se, de alguma maneira, há possibilidade de falhas no futuro. E é assim que poderíamos explicar interferência, que é um problema que sempre existe e que se opõe à boa qualidade de serviço. No Brasil, já se discute o uso da frequência de 2.5 GHz, para serviços de 4a geração, por atender melhor as necessidades dos usuários. Isto que acontecerá também se, de alguma maneira, usarmos outras frequências como no caso de 900 MHz, que é considerada uma banda muito disputada na Europa. Existem operadoras que começaram a fazer testes com esta banda, e isso nos faz pensar que, de qualquer forma, teremos que conviver com a mesma banda em diferentes tecnologias. Assim, este trabalho apresenta um estudo de simulação de diversos casos de interferência e como cada um deles irá afetar o desempenho dos sistemas 4G coexistindo com sistemas mais antigos. / [en] The arrival of 4G technology takes place simultaneously with the technology we have today (2G and 3G). Thus, a natural question is whether they will be able to coexist in the future or will present problems of coexistence. In order to answer these questions, it is necessary to search predicting if there is possibility of failure in the future. And that s how we explain interference, which is a problem that always exists and precludes good quality of service. In Brazil there is discussion about the use of 2.5 GHz frequency for 4G to better meet the users’needs. This will happened if in some way we use other frequencies as the case of 900 MHz band which is considered a hard fought in Europe. There are carriers that have begun to experiment with this band, and this makes us think that in any way we will live with different technologies in the same band. Thus, this work presents a simulation study of several cases of interference, in which each will affect the performance of 4G systems coexisting with older systems.

Magister Scientiae - MSc / Despite recent advances in radiotherapy, some tumours have shown to be resistant to treatment and patients still experience long term side effects. Gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) have been identified as effective radiosensitizers when employed concurrently with kilovoltage X-rays, which could selectively increase the dose delivered to a patient's tumour. The clinical application of proton radiation has gained renewed attention due to the lower integral body dose of protons compared to traditional X-ray based therapy. While extensive research has been formed on the behaviour of AuNPs in photon beams, limited information is available on the combination of AuNPs and proton radiation. Several questions remain regarding the interaction of protons with the AuNPs and possible dose enhancement effects at different depths along the Spread Out Bragg Peak (SOBP).

Future generation cellular networks are expected to deliver an omnipresent broadband access network for an endlessly increasing number of subscribers. Long term Evolution (LTE) represents a significant milestone towards wireless networks known as 4G cellular networks. A key feature of LTE is the implementation of enhanced Radio Resource Management (RRM) mechanism to improve the system performance. The structure of LTE networks was simplified by diminishing the number of the nodes of the core network. Also, the design of the radio protocol architecture is quite unique. In order to achieve high data rate in LTE, 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) has selected Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) as an appropriate scheme in terms of downlinks. However, the proper scheme for an uplink is the Single-Carrier Frequency Domain Multiple Access due to the peak-to-average-power-ratio (PAPR) constraint. LTE packet scheduling plays a primary role as part of RRM to improve the system’s data rate as well as supporting various QoS requirements of mobile services. The major function of the LTE packet scheduler is to assign Physical Resource Blocks (PRBs) to mobile User Equipment (UE). In our work, we formed a proposed packet scheduler algorithm. The proposed scheduler algorithm acts based on the number of UEs attached to the eNodeB. To evaluate the proposed scheduler algorithm, we assumed two different scenarios based on a number of UEs. When the number of UE is lower than the number of PRBs, the UEs with highest Channel Quality Indicator (CQI) will be assigned PRBs. Otherwise, the scheduler will assign PRBs based on a given proportional fairness metric. The eNodeB’s throughput is increased when the proposed algorithm was implemented.

Synaptic plasticity is the process whereby connections between neurons can be altered in an experience dependent manner. For example, drugs of abuse alter plasticity in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) of the midbrain. A large amount of research has been applied to uncovering the mechanism whereby synapses on the reward signaling dopamine cells is altered, however, less is known regarding the VTA inhibitory GABA neurons. Our objective was to examine the ability of GABA neurons to exhibit plasticity, and determine how drugs of abuse could influence it. Here we report a novel type of plasticity of excitatory neurotransmission onto VTA GABA cells. This plasticity is dependent on the metabotropic glutamate receptor 5, to signal for diacylglycerolipase alpha to make the endocannabinoid 2-arachadonoyl glycerol to signal via cannabinoid receptor 1 (CB1). Marijuana and cocaine are drugs of abuse that have been shown to alter the endocannabinoid system. Tetrahydrocannabinol is the active ingredient in marijuana, and is a known agonist of CB1, and cocaine is able to attenuate endocannabinoid signals. We tested the effects of these drugs on VTA GABA plasticity and found that it can be blocked by chronic injections of tetrahydrocannabinol, as well as acute and chronic injections of cocaine. If VTA GABA neurons are depressing excitatory inputs, that could lead to less inhibition onto VTA dopamine cells, and therefore, more reward signaling in the brain. This new type of plasticity could be an additional mechanism whereby cocaine and marijuana exert their rewarding and addictive effects. Another brain structure known to exhibit use-dependent plasticity is the hippocampus, which is involved in learning and memory. The stratum oriens is a layer of inhibitory interneurons in the hippocampus that is involved in feedback inhibition onto the principle excitatory cells in the stratum pyramidale. Our goal was to determine whether oriens interneurons were capable of producing an endocannabinoid signal, and if so, whether they could influence plasticity. We identified 2 major subtypes of oriens interneurons, oriens lacunosum-moleculare cells, and parvalbumin-positive basket cells, which are capable of receiving and producing an endocannabinoid signal. Furthermore, we demonstrated that one such endocannabinoid, anandamide, is responsible for signaling for synaptic plasticity. This plasticity is also dependent on CB1, and is unique in that there are few examples of CB1 signaling for potentiation rather than depression. Collectively, these experiments demonstrate two mechanisms of endocannabinoid mediated synaptic plasticity, which could influence reward signaling, addiction and memory.

This master’s thesis is focused on detailed analysis of possibilities of implementing a private cloud and secure data archiving for a long period of time using open-source tools. It describes the individual standards and processes of data preparation, as well as the OAIS reference model for long-term preservation. From the analyzed information, a complete design of the final solution is created, with a description of the functionality and the method of deployment in the environment of Docker containers. The design implementation and the main functionality of individual systems such as Archivematica or Nextcloud are thoroughly described and also the hardware requirements and cryptographic security were evaluated.