Survivors of childhood cancer are a relatively new phenomenon in the medical world. The introduction of treatment protocols in the 1970s started a trend in curing children of cancer that historically had been a death sentence. Under these treatment protocols children were given different treatment regimens based on past research that helped remove cancerous cells from their bodies, but were later found to be the cause of treatment related morbidities years into the future; for most survivors roughly ten to 20 years post treatment. These morbidities, commonly called late-effects, are the prime reason that survivors of childhood cancer need to participate in survivorship care. Survivors of childhood cancer are particularly vulnerable to late-effects because the majority of them receive their treatment at a time when their bodies are still growing and developing. Survivorship care services vary by site, but all maintain the common goals of providing long-term follow up for the survivor and education about the ways in which treatments may affect a survivors’ health as they age. Similar to many other facets of healthcare and medicine, there are many populations who do not participate in survivorship care. The purpose of this research is to identify possible barriers to care, assess the level of impact these barriers have upon the survivor’s potential for participation and provide suggestions as to how these barriers can be mitigated. Additionally, this research highlights areas that need further research and analysis.

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While some individuals can successfully age at home, others with similar levels of need may require facility based long-term care (LTC). The question addressed in this thesis is: “What factors determine whether or not older persons age at home?” I argue that in addition to the characteristics and care needs of individuals (the demand side); access to home and community care (H&CC) at the local level (the supply side) determines whether or not older people receive care at home relative to other settings. In emphasizing the role of the supply side, I draw on Neoinstitutional Theory and the Theory of Human Ecology to examine how institutions of the state (policies, norms, values, and organizational structures) facilitate or constrain opportunities to age at home across urban and rural areas. In conducting my analysis I draw on the Balance of Care (BoC) framework to analyze the characteristics of individuals waiting for LTC placement in Thunder Bay (urban community) and the surrounding Region (rural communities) of Northwestern Ontario. The BoC framework provides the means to estimate the extent to which their needs could potentially be met in the community if home and community care (H&CC) services were available. The results show that individuals waiting for LTC placement in Thunder Bay experienced higher levels of impairment than those in the Region. However in both areas, most individuals required assistance with instrumental activities of daily living (e.g. housekeeping, meal preparation, etc). In both areas there was limited access to informal caregivers. If a H&CC package were to be made available, 8% of those waiting for facility based LTC in Thunder Bay could potentially be supported safely and cost-effectively at home compared to 50% in the surrounding Region. The results confirm that the supply side matters. When H&CC cannot be accessed, LTC may become the default option, particularly in rural and remote areas. If given access to H&CC, a significant proportion of individuals can potentially age at home.

2nd International Conference on Advances in Experimental Structural Engineering, Tongji Univ., Shanghai, China, December 4-6, 2007

While some individuals can successfully age at home, others with similar levels of need may require facility based long-term care (LTC). The question addressed in this thesis is: “What factors determine whether or not older persons age at home?” I argue that in addition to the characteristics and care needs of individuals (the demand side); access to home and community care (H&CC) at the local level (the supply side) determines whether or not older people receive care at home relative to other settings. In emphasizing the role of the supply side, I draw on Neoinstitutional Theory and the Theory of Human Ecology to examine how institutions of the state (policies, norms, values, and organizational structures) facilitate or constrain opportunities to age at home across urban and rural areas. In conducting my analysis I draw on the Balance of Care (BoC) framework to analyze the characteristics of individuals waiting for LTC placement in Thunder Bay (urban community) and the surrounding Region (rural communities) of Northwestern Ontario. The BoC framework provides the means to estimate the extent to which their needs could potentially be met in the community if home and community care (H&CC) services were available. The results show that individuals waiting for LTC placement in Thunder Bay experienced higher levels of impairment than those in the Region. However in both areas, most individuals required assistance with instrumental activities of daily living (e.g. housekeeping, meal preparation, etc). In both areas there was limited access to informal caregivers. If a H&CC package were to be made available, 8% of those waiting for facility based LTC in Thunder Bay could potentially be supported safely and cost-effectively at home compared to 50% in the surrounding Region. The results confirm that the supply side matters. When H&CC cannot be accessed, LTC may become the default option, particularly in rural and remote areas. If given access to H&CC, a significant proportion of individuals can potentially age at home.

The main goal of these thesis is : to carry out all organization process that must be computerized. There are some processes which man cannot carry out withuot special software. The main critical proces is financial control of contracts. Contract begins with signing between our handing organization and customers. Each contract consists of terms and good‘s that must be delivered at time. The name of thesis „long term... „ says that contract conditions are exercised in parts. Goods are been delivered in parts and payment is been getting in parts too. So there are many contracts, and the man is unable to control all its himself. So our software must do financial contract control : to mark parts of good of each contract, allow to see every condition of contracts, and allow to solve the problem of goods identification (BAR codes), because our organization is an agent in trading range. We made our software, theretofore did analysis of excisting software, software that can be partially useful for us and can be upgraded using our functional requirements. We used to modificate typical agreement data model by Len Silverston and use it to transform to DB schema (realationships). Our software (projecting and coding) is made using these tools : Rational Rose, MS Visio, Borland Delphi, MS Access and MS SQL Server.

Tyrimo objektas – bedarbių, augusių ilgalaikių bedarbių šeimose, gyvenimo siekiai. Tyrimo aktualumą atspindi probleminiai klausimai: 1) kaip tėvų ilgalaikė bedarbystė įtakoja vaikų gyvenimo siekius? 2) kokiais gyvenimiškais siekiais pasižymi bedarbiai, augę ilgalaikių bedarbių šeimose. Probleminiai klausimai suponavo tyrimo tikslą: ištirti tėvų ilgalaikio nedarbo įtaką vaikų gyvenimo siekiams. Iškelti tyrimo uždaviniai: 1) aptarti asmenybės gyvenimo siekių formavimosi turinį; 2) atskleisti ilgalaikio nedarbo poveikį šeimos funkcionavimui; 3) išryškinti tėvų ilgalaikės bedarbystės poveikį vaikų gyvenimo siekiams; 4) atskleisti bedarbių, augusių ilgalaikių bedarbių šeimose, gyvenimo siekių ypatumus. Iškelta tyrimo hipotezė: ilgalaikių bedarbių šeimose augę bedarbiai pasižymi žemesniais gyvenimo siekiais lyginant su bedarbiais, augusiais šeimose, nepriskirtinose ilgalaikių bedarbių kategorijai. Darbe panaudoti teoriniai (mokslinės literatūros ir dokumentų analizė), empiriniai (kiekybinis ir kokybinis) ir statistiniai tyrimo metodai. Mokslinės literatūros analizė atskleidė, kad ilgalaikė bedarbystė kaip būklė ir statusas neišvengiamai įtakoja asmens ir jo artimiausios aplinkos socialinį ir asmeninį gyvenimą bei savimonę. Ši įtaka pasireiškia negalėjimu pilnavertiškai tenkinti asmeninių ir socialinių poreikių bei dalyvauti visuomenės gyvenime, o tuo pačiu iškreipia moralinių normų ir bendrabūvio taisyklių suvokimą. Ilgalaikių bedarbių šeimose stipriai... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / The influence of parent‘s long-term unemployment towards the children‘s life aspirations is analysed in this paper. The paper is based on the doctrin that the jobless who has lived within the family of long-term unemployed are distinquished for the lower life aspirations on comparison to the jobless who has lived within the family of parents who weren’t unemployed. The problematic questions have reflected the topicality of this research: 1) what influence the parent‘s long-term unemployment has towards the children‘s life aspirations? 2) what kind are the life aspirations of the jobless who has lived within the family of long-term unemployed? The aim of the research is to explore the influence of parent‘s long-term unemployment toward the children‘s life aspirations. The next tasks have been realized in the work: 1) to discuss the content of the pesonal development of the life aspirations; 2) to reveal the influence of long-term unemployment towards the families function; 3) to show the influence of parent‘s long-term unemployment towards the children‘s life aspirations; 4) to reveal the peculiarities of the life aspirations of the jobless who has lived within the family of long-term unemployed. The methods of the research has been used: theoretical (analysis of the academic literature), empirical (the quantitative and the qualitative analysis), statistical. The theoretical analysis of the research problem show that the long-term unemployed as the state... [to full text]

The aim of this study was to investigate fall risk and predisposing factors for fall among the residents in long-term care institutions. Methods. Elderly care homes residents 48 men (mean ± SD, 78,6±7,0) and 101 women (mean ± SD, 81,6±6,4), all 149 residents, participated in the study. For investigation a questionnaire was used, which was made according literature and including following instruments: Environmental Falls Audit Tool – Individual, Falls Risk Assessment Tool and Risk Factor Checklist, Mini Mental State Examination. Results. The most frequently diseases among men and women were heart and vascular (89,6 % and 92,1 %) and eyes diseases (70,8 % and 75,2 %). Ambulatory aid was needed for a half of all residents (54,4 %); ambulatory aid, which respondents didn’t want to used were three times common for women than men (p=0,007). Most residents had low fall risk (72,5 %), but high fall risk was more common in women (14,9 %) than men group (4,2 %); there were no significant difference between groups. High fall risk significantly dominated among the residents older than 85 year in comparison with 65-74 and 75-84 year age groups. Residents who had lower education (p<0,001), were older (p=0,005) and took more medications (p=0,002) had higher fall risk scores evaluated by Fall Risk Assessment Tool. Residents who had such risk factors as unsafe mobility, over-reaches transfer, forgot gait aids, observed behavioural agitation, disorientation had more medium-high fall risk... [to full text]

Citizen science, which uses volunteer observers in research, is fast becoming standard practice in ecology. In this thesis, I begin with an essay reviewing the benefits and limitations of citizen science, and then measure the influence of several forms of observer error that might bias ornithological citizen science. Using an internet-based survey, I first found that observer skill level can predict the nature of false-positive detections, where self-identified experts tend to falsely detect more rare species and moderately-skilled observers tend to falsely detect more common species. I also found that overconfidence is widespread among all skill levels, and hence that observer confidence is an unreliable indication of data quality. Using existing North American databases, I then found that older observers tend to detect fewer birds than younger observers -- especially if the birds' peak call frequencies exceed 6 kHz -- and that published long-term population trend estimates and high-pitched (>= 6 kHz) peak bird vocalization frequencies are negatively correlated. Taken together, these data suggest that both hearing loss and other sensory changes might be negatively biasing long-term trend estimates. In the next chapter, I measured how observer experience can bias detection data. In solitary observers, I found that detections tend to increase over the first 5 years of service (e.g. learning effects), after which they decline consistently (e.g. observer senescence). Conversely, among survey groups that may be motivated to exceed a previous year's species count, I found that species richness tends to increase consistently with consecutive survey years. In this case, individual sensory deficits may be offset by group participation. Lastly, I re-evaluated the established assumption that the quality of new volunteers on North American Breeding Bird Survey routes is increasing over time. I showed that the existing measure of “quality” ignores variable lengths of observer service, and that, after accounting for this variable, “quality” is unchanging. Throughout this thesis, I also show how generalized additive mixed models can address these biases statistically. My findings offer new opportunities to improve the accuracy and relevance of citizen science, and by extension, the effectiveness of wildlife conservation and management.

This study is a secondary analysis of data collected from a six-year longitudinal qualitative study called Eating Together (ET), which sought to better understand the mealtime experience of community dwelling persons with dementia and their primary partners in care. Findings from the primary study highlighted the importance of mealtimes for these families, and as persons with dementia moved into long-term care homes it was noted that the meaning of the mealtime experience was challenged. Data from select dyads in the primary study was thematically analyzed, to understand the mealtime experience of persons with dementia and their primary partners in care, when persons with dementia relocated to a “new place”; a long-term care home. Findings revealed five themes related to the new mealtime experience in the long-term care home, including: systemizing the meal, adjusting to dining with others, holding on to “home”, evolving roles, and becoming “at home”. / Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada