Aim: To develop an outcome measure to identify “responders” for patients who had a clinically important improvement in lupus disease activity with treatment. Methods: The outcome measure derived was based on the commonly used disease activity measure SLEDAI-2K which documents findings over the previous 10 days. Since patients in drug trials are followed at monthly intervals it was necessary to validate SLEDAI-2K 30 days against SLEDAI-2K 10 days. Two prospective studies were accomplished for this purpose. SLEDAI-2K 30 days was used to develop the new responder index, SLEDAI-2K Responder Index-50 (SRI-50). The SRI-50 data retrieval form was developed to standardize the documentation of the descriptors. The construct validity of SRI-50 was prospectively evaluated against an external construct. The reliability of SRI-50 was tested in a multi-centre study. A retrospective analysis over 10 years was used to further validate SRI-50. SRI-50 ability to enhance the SLE Responder Index (SRI) in detecting “responders” was evaluated. The performance of SRI-50 was investigated against SLEDAI-2K and SRI over 12 months. Results: SLEDAI-2K 30 days was validated to describe disease activity over the previous 30 days. The responder index to SLEDAI-2K, SRI-50 was developed including the SRI-50 Definitions and SRI-50 Data Retrieval Forms. The initial validation of SRI-50 confirmed its construct validity to identify ≥ 50 % improvement. SRI-50 is reliable and can be used by both rheumatologists and trainees. The retrospective analysis confirmed that SRI-50 is valid in identifying ≥ 50 % improvement in an efficient time. SRI-50 enhances the performance of SRI and identifies more “responders” than SLEDAI-2K and SRI at 6 and 12 months. Conclusions: SRI-50, is a valid and reliable responder index to identify patients with partial, ≥50% improvement in disease activity in an efficient time. SRI-50 can be used as an independent outcome measure of improvement in patients with SLE.

Aim: To develop an outcome measure to identify “responders” for patients who had a clinically important improvement in lupus disease activity with treatment. Methods: The outcome measure derived was based on the commonly used disease activity measure SLEDAI-2K which documents findings over the previous 10 days. Since patients in drug trials are followed at monthly intervals it was necessary to validate SLEDAI-2K 30 days against SLEDAI-2K 10 days. Two prospective studies were accomplished for this purpose. SLEDAI-2K 30 days was used to develop the new responder index, SLEDAI-2K Responder Index-50 (SRI-50). The SRI-50 data retrieval form was developed to standardize the documentation of the descriptors. The construct validity of SRI-50 was prospectively evaluated against an external construct. The reliability of SRI-50 was tested in a multi-centre study. A retrospective analysis over 10 years was used to further validate SRI-50. SRI-50 ability to enhance the SLE Responder Index (SRI) in detecting “responders” was evaluated. The performance of SRI-50 was investigated against SLEDAI-2K and SRI over 12 months. Results: SLEDAI-2K 30 days was validated to describe disease activity over the previous 30 days. The responder index to SLEDAI-2K, SRI-50 was developed including the SRI-50 Definitions and SRI-50 Data Retrieval Forms. The initial validation of SRI-50 confirmed its construct validity to identify ≥ 50 % improvement. SRI-50 is reliable and can be used by both rheumatologists and trainees. The retrospective analysis confirmed that SRI-50 is valid in identifying ≥ 50 % improvement in an efficient time. SRI-50 enhances the performance of SRI and identifies more “responders” than SLEDAI-2K and SRI at 6 and 12 months. Conclusions: SRI-50, is a valid and reliable responder index to identify patients with partial, ≥50% improvement in disease activity in an efficient time. SRI-50 can be used as an independent outcome measure of improvement in patients with SLE.

258 leaves : appendix, offprints / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Dept. of Mathematical Physics, University of Adelaide, 1973

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1966. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

M.A. / This study investigates the relationship between psychological birth order position, gender and different types and levels of prosocial tendencies in individuals. An ex post facto, between-family research design was used. The Prosocial Tendencies Measure (PTM) which assesses the six types of prosocial behaviours, was completed by eight hundred and eighty-eight participants. Despite the use of specific statistical and methodological procedures to increase sensitivity and reduce error, no significant support was found for the hypothesis that birth order affects prosocial tendencies in individuals on five of the subscales of the PTM. There were, however, statistically significant differences in scores between middleborns and lastborns on the Altruism subscale with middleborns scoring significantly higher than lastborns. Consistent with the hypotheses, statistically significant gender differences were found on the subscales measuring public, emotional, altruistic and compliant prosocial tendencies. The results of the study are discussed in the context of the mixed research findings relating to birth order effects and propose further research into the possible developmental dynamics that may produce greater levels of prosocial tendencies in individuals.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Research and clinical interest in self-compassion has grown due to its positive links with a variety of physical and psychological health outcomes. This burgeoning interest calls for measures of self-compassion that are theoretically supported and empirically validated. The purpose of this project was to (1) develop a new self-compassion measure, the Self-compassion Inventory (SCI), and (2) test its psychometric properties. To obtain feedback on potential SCI items, a cognitive interviewing study was completed with cancer patients (n = 10). Qualitative findings suggested that, in most cases, items were easily understood and participants’ reasoning for their responses aligned with the intention of each item. After altering certain items based on participant feedback, the scale was then tested with a group of adults with breast, gastrointestinal, lung, and prostate cancer (n = 404). Confirmatory factor analyses suggested a unidimensional structure and internal consistency reliability was excellent. Construct validity of the measure was established through correlations with other psychological variables hypothesized to be related to self-compassion. Evidence of the incremental validity of the SCI relative to the Self-Compassion Scale Short-Form (SCS-SF) also was obtained. For example, the SCI showed smaller correlations with negative psychological variables (e.g., depressive symptoms, anxiety) than the SCS-SF. In supplemental analyses, a 5-item version of the measure, the Brief Self-compassion Inventory (BSCI) was tested and found to have a unidimensional structure, excellent internal consistency, and evidence of validity. Furthermore, measurement invariance testing of the BSCI indicated that the measure could be used across populations of varying genders, cancer types, and stages of illness. Through robust testing, the SCI and BSCI were determined to be psychometrically sound and can be used in both clinical and research settings.

<p> Let G be a locally compact group (= locally compact Hausdorff topological group). By the measure algebra of G we mean the Banach *-algebra M(G) of bounded regular Borel measures on G. The major results of this work are a structure theorem for norm decreasing isomorphisms of measure algebras, and a characterization of those Banach algebras which are isometric and isomorphic to the measure algebra of some locally compact group. We also obtain some results on subalgebras of M(G) and on representations of G.</p> / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Monitoring electromyography signals (EMG) leads to a greater understanding of muscle properties hives insight into how muscles work together to coordinate tasks, and yields information about neuromuscular disorders. In this project we developed a PC based EMG data acquisition and analysis system to record and analysis EMG signals. We tested this system by recording EMG signals from the biceps brachii of a single normal subject. The acquired data was analyzed in both time and frequency domains to determine the behavior of the EMG signal during different experiment conditions. Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) and Short Time Fourier Transform (STFT) were applied during digital signal processing. The FFT only provides the information in frequency domain. STFT is a modification of the Fourier transform in an attempt to retain both time and frequency information during signal analysis. The STFT produces a two dimensional function with time and frequency as variables. Thus the STFT gives information about when in time a given frequency component occurs. The extracted features of EMG are RMS value, mean absolute value, mean power frequency, and median power frequency. The raw EMG signal is collected for 10 seconds. The sampling rate is set to 1000 Hz. The emphases of this project were software development, data collection, and simple signal analysis. / Thesis / Master of Engineering (ME)

No description available.

We study the Hausdorff dimension of a certain Borel measure associated to a positive weak solution of a certain quasilinear elliptic partial differential equation in a simply connected domain in the plane. We also assume that the solution vanishes on the boundary of the domain. Then it is shown that the Hausdorff dimension of this measure is less than one, equal to one, greater than one depending on the homogeneity of the certain function. This work generalizes the work of Makarov when the partial differential equation is the usual Laplace's equation and the work of Lewis and his coauthors when it is the p-Laplace's equation.