The primary objective of the project was to survey audiologists in clinical practice setting to determine the amount of time taken to perform various audiologic tests using Current Procedural Terminology, (CPT) codes to define these tests and if these CPT codes were felt to be adequate. Audiologists were also asked to respond regarding possible impact and reimbursement changes in their clinical practices related to managed care. Responses of audiologists were analyzed to determine: a) adequacy of CPT codes; b)average time to perform various audiologic tests; c) impact managed care onclinical practice; and d) changes in reimbursement as a result of managed care. The survey was designed to determine the type of work setting, typical job duty, average monthly caseload and hours per day spent on patient care for each respondent. The survey with a cover letter explaining the purpose was mailed to 93 audiologists in clinical setting in the state of Florida. Five were returned undeliverable, and 39 of the remaining 88 were returned either completed or partially completed. The survey results revealed over 71% of the audiologists felt the current CPT codes were adequate. Time spent performing traditional audiologic tests, such as comprehensive audiometric evaluations and impedance testing, was fairly consistent. Greater time variability occurred in tests used to determine vestibular function. Over three-quarters of the respondents believed managed care has had a negative impact on their clinical practices, while 11% believe they have been positively impacted. Approximately 82% of the audiologists have had reductions in reimbursement as a result of managed care, while 10% have seen no change and 5% have enjoyed slightly greater reimbursement.

Thesis (M.A. (Nursing Science)) -- University of Limpopo, 2019 / Quality health care includes availability, accessibility, affordability, acceptability, competence of health care providers, reducing waiting time, ensuring privacy and confidentiality, ensuring safety and security, and reducing mortality and morbidity. Despite many initiatives made by the National Department of Health through the Minister of Health, provision of quality health care services remains a serious challenge in South Africa, especially in the public rural clinics. Communities from rural areas face many challenges at the public healthcare clinics such as poor infrastructure, attitudes from staff, old equipment, insufficient medicines, dirty healthcare sectors, and longer waiting times, which has led to provision of poor health care services. Methodology A quantitative research approach was used to conduct this study. The study was conducted in the Capricorn District of the Limpopo Province. Three municipalities; namely Blouberg, Lepelle-Nkumpi and Aganang, were selected from the five municipalities located in the Capricorn District because they are predominantly rural. A simple random sampling applying fish bowl method was used to select the public clinics in each municipality. A cross-sectional study design was used to conduct the study. Only professional nurses were selected to participate in this study. Data were collected using a structured self-administered questionnaire, over a period of three months. A total of 155 professional nurses were selected because they met the selection criteria. The response rate was 100% because all the 155 questionnaires distributed were completed. Data were analysed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences program version 22.0 with the assistance of the University of Limpopo statistician. Results The findings of the study indicated that only 3 (2%) of the clinics operated for 24 hours, 72 (46%) operated for 8 hours and 80 (52%) operated for 12 hours. The majority of the professional nurses 123 (83%) said that the clinics are overwhelmed by large numbers of patients, whereas 26 (17%) of the professional nurses said that the clinics are not overwhelmed by large numbers of patients. Very few 29 (19%) professional nurses were satisfied with the salary they were paid, whereas the majority 124 (80%) were not satisfied with salary they were paid, and only 2 (1%) were unsure. Recommendations Recommendations were made to improve the quality of healthcare services in the public rural clinics: The Department of Health should review the salaries they pay professional nurses in rural clinics, particularly the Occupational Specific Dispensation, and they should be given a higher salary. Furthermore, the government should increase the salaries of nurses working in the public rural clinics to at least 10% higher than those in urban clinics within the next 5 years to attract more nurses to the public rural clinics. The Limpopo Provincial Department of Health should liaise with the treasury department to provide realistic budget to accommodate the population. Conclusion The findings of this study revealed the factors related to the provision of quality health care services at the selected public clinics in the rural areas of the Capricorn District, Limpopo Province. The study was limited to public clinics in the rural areas; therefore, the findings of this study cannot be generalised to the clinics that did not participate in the study. Keywords: Quality, healthcare services, public rural clinics.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationships between selected end-user training programs corporations provide to their employees and subsequent employee performance based on these opportunities.

Social Web of Things (SWoT) is a user centric framework which facilitates interaction between software agents deployed on smart things and in the cloud. Software agents deployed on smart things are remotely accessible, host sensitive resources, and often represent high value targets. SWoT currently does not feature adequate security mechanisms which could protect software agents from unauthorized access. In this thesis, we aim to rectify this deficiency by introducing platform independent, exible, and user centric authorization mechanism inSWoT. We derive requirements and design of abstract authorization architecture from the preceding seminal work performed in SENSEI project. SENSEI and SWoT share same problem domain, but while SENSEI addresses enterprise use cases SWoT focusses on consumer use cases. This single but fundamental difference motivates adaptations of SENSEI contributions for application in SWoT. To realize concrete authorization architecture we perform extensive study of various authorization solutions. Results of our study indicate that novel User Managed Access (UMA) protocol represents promising solution for SWoT. We present the Authorization as a Service solution for SWoT framework, based on UMA protocol. This solution enables users to manage and control communication between software agents deployed on smart things and in the cloud from single centralized location. It also features runtime association of software agents, management, evaluation, and enforcement of access permissions for resources provided by software agents. / "Social Web of Things" (SWOT) är en användarcentrerad ram som underlättar samverkan mellan agenter som körs på smarta saker och i molnet. Agenter som körs på smarta saker är fjärråtkomst, värd känsliga resurser, och ofta utgör högt värde mål. För närvarande SWOT ramverket omfattar inte lämpliga säkerhetsmekanismer som skulle kunna skydda dessa agenter från obehörig åtkomst. I denna uppsats vill vi rätta till detta brist genom att införa plattformsoberoende, flexibel och användarvänlig centrerad auktorisation mekanism i SWOT ramen. Vi härleda krav och design av abstrakt tillstånd arkitektur från föregående sädes-arbete som utförs i ett SENSEI projektet. SENSEI och SWOT delar samma problem domän, men samtidigt SENSEI behandlar ärenden företagsbruk SWOT fokuserar på konsumenten användningsfall. Denna singel men grundläggande skillnaden motiverar anpassningar av SENSEI avgifter för ansökan i SWOT. Till realisera konkreta tillstånd arkitektur vi utför ett omfattande studie av olika lösningar för tillstånd. Resultat av vår studie tyder på att en ny användarhanterad tillgång (UMA) Protokollet utgör lovande lösning för SWOT. Vi presenterar tillståndet som en service lösning för SWOT ramverk, baserat på UMA-protokollet. Denna lösning gör det möjligt för användare att hantera och kontrollera kommunikationen mellan agenter utplacerade på smarta saker och i molnet från enstaka centraliserad plats. Dessutom gör vår lösning dynamisk sammanslutning av agenter, ledning, utvärdering och tillsyn av tillträde behörigheter för resurser som tillhandahålls av agenter.

Detta examensarbete analyserar effekterna av volatilitet och korrelation på trading strategier brukade av Commodity Trading Advisors (CTA´s). Denna studie bygger på en kvantitativ analys av data som insamlats från Barclay Hedge database. Studien har genomförts i samarbete med RPM Risk & Portfoliomanagement i Stockholm, Sverige. Traditionellt sett, när globala marknader visar på högre volatilitet än genomsnittet, har detta identifierats som ett tecken på en björnmarknad med negativ avkastning på aktier. Förhållandet mellan volatilitet och negativ avkastning på aktier var initialt uppmärksammat av Black år 1976. Förhållandet mellan volatilitet och korrelation mellan marknaderna har analyserats i denna uppsats och resultaten tyder på att högre nivåer av volatilitet för även med sig högre nivåer av korrelation. Den uppmäta korrelationen mellan volatilitet och korrelation var så hög som 0,7. CTA´s handlar så kallade Managed Futures, framtida kontrakt på råvaror, där varje kontrakt har en lång och kort position vilket gör det möjligt att nå en positiv avkastning även under hög volatilitet. De tre mest använda strategierna för CTA´s, short term trading (kortsiktig handel), fundamental handel och Trendföljande handel, presenteras i denna studie och deras möjlighet att bära positiv avkastning i en mycket volatil marknad härleds. Resultaten tyder på att en hög volatilitetsregim med hög korrelation gynnar den kortsiktiga handelsstrategin mer än fundamental och trendföljande handel. / This master thesis analyses the impacts of volatility and correlation on common strategies for Commodity Trading Advisors (CTAs). It is based on a quantitative analysis of data gathered from the Barclay Hedge database. The study was done in cooperation with RPM Risk and Portfolio Management based in Stockholm, Sweden. Traditionally, when global markets see higher levels of volatility this has been identified as a sign of a bear market with negative returns on equities. The relationship between volatility and negative returns on equities was first acknowledged by Black in 1976. The relationship between volatility and correlation between markets has been analyzed in this thesis and the findings suggest that higher levels of volatility brings with it higher levels of correlation. The correlation between volatility and correlation is as high as 0.7. CTAs trade future contracts where every contract has a long and short position which is making it possible to reach positive returns even under extreme volatility. The three most popular strategies for CTAs, Short Term trading, Fundamental trading and Trend Following, are presented in this study and their possibility to have positive returns in highly volatile environments is derived from the analysis. The findings suggest that in a high volatility regime with high correlation Short Term trading strategy has been the most profitable.

This study examines whether a trend following managed futures fund can improve its performance by changing its position sizing method. Trades for a simple trend following strategy was simulated on 47 futures contracts over the period 1990-2012, using varying methods for determining position size. Eleven different position sizing methods where investigated, among them Target Volatility, Omega Optimization and correlation ranking methods. Both methods previously detailed in academic papers as well as novel approaches was implemented, and compared to the baseline performance of the strategy. The results from this study show that the Target Volatility method, and to some degree Max Drawdown Minimize and Dynamic Stop Lock-In, improved the performance of strategy. The final recommendation for a trend following managed futures fund is to use Target Volatility as position sizing method, possibly in conjunction with Max Drawdown Minimize. / Denna studie undersöker huruvida en trendföljande managed futures-fond kan förbättra sina resultat genom att ändra positionsskalningsmetod. Handel med en enkel trendföljande strategi simulerades på 47 futureskontrakt åren 1990-2012, för olika metoder att för bestämma positionsstorlek. Elva positionsskalningmetoder undersöktes, exemplevis Target Volatility, Omega Optimization och metoder baserade i korrelationsrankning. Både tidigare beskrivna metoder och nya tillvägagångssätt testades, och jämfördes med den grundläggande strategin med avseende på risk och avkastning. Denna studies resultat visar att framförallt Target Volatility, och i viss uträckning Max Drawdown Minimize och Dynamic Stop Lock-In förbättrade nyckeltalen för den handlade strategin. Den slutgiltiga rekommendationen för en trendföljande managed futures-fond är att använda Target Volatility som positionsskalningsmetod, möjligtvis tillsammans med Max Drawdown Minimize.

Please read the abstract in the front of this document. / Dissertation (MMed)--University of Pretoria, 2004. / School of Health Systems and Public Health (SHSPH) / Unrestricted

Background: Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection constitutes a major health problem for homeless persons. Ability to complete an HBV vaccination series is complicated by the need to prioritize competing needs, such as addiction issues, safe places to sleep, and food, over health concerns. Objectives: The objectives of this study were to evaluate the effectiveness of a nurse-case-managed intervention compared with that of two standard programs on completion of the combined hepatitis A virus (HAV) and HBV vaccine series among homeless adults and to assess sociodemographic factors and risk behaviors related to the vaccine completion. Methods: A randomized, three-group, prospective, quasiexperimental design was conducted with 865 homeless adults residing in homeless shelters, drug rehabilitation sites, and outdoor areas in the Skid Row area of Los Angeles. The programs included (a) nurse-case-managed sessions plus targeted hepatitis education, incentives, and tracking (NCMIT); (b) standard targeted hepatitis education plus incentives and tracking (SIT); and (c) standard targeted hepatitis education and incentives only (SI). Results: Sixty-eight percent of the NCMIT participants completed the three-series vaccine at 6 months, compared with 61% of SIT participants and 54% of SI participants. NCMIT participants had almost 2 times greater odds of completing vaccination than those of participants in the SI program. Completers were more likely to be older, to be female, to report fair or poor health, and not to have participated in a self-help drug treatment program. Newly homeless White adults were significantly less likely than were African Americans to complete the vaccine series. Discussion: The use of vaccination programs incorporating nurse case management and tracking is critical in supporting adherence to completion of a 6-month HAV/HBV vaccine. The finding that White homeless persons were the least likely to complete the vaccine series suggests that programs tailored to address their unique cultural issues are needed.

Data were analyzed from the 1998-2004 Uniform Data System (UDS) to identify trends and predictors of financial performance (costs, productivity, and overall financial health) for health centers (HCs). Several differences were noted regarding revenues, self-sufficiency, service offerings, and urban/rural setting. Urban centers with larger numbers of clients, centers that treated high numbers of patients with chronic diseases, and centers with large numbers of prenatal care users were the most fiscally sound. Positive financial performance can be targeted through strategies that generate positive revenue, strive to decrease costs, and target services that are in demand.

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