Objective: To evaluate the psychometric properties of the Spanish version of Jenkins Sleep Scale with 4 items (JSS-4) of the Peruvian health system's (PHS) nurses and physicians. Methods: We carried out a psychometric study based on secondary analysis in a sample from a nationally representative survey that used acomplex sampling design. The participants were physicians and nurses aged 18–65 years, working in PHS private and public facilities, who have fulfilled all JSS-4 items. We performed a confirmatory factor analysis. Reliability was evaluated via two estimates - classic alpha (α) and categorical omega (ω) coefficients. Also, we tested the invariance across groups of variables. The convergent validity was evaluated based on the relation between JSS-4 and PHQ-2 using Pearson's correlation coefficient and effect size (Cohen's d). Also, we designed normative values based on percentiles. Results: We included 2100 physicians and 2826 nurses in the analysis. We observed that the unidimensional model has adequate goodness-of-fit indices and values of α and ω coefficients. No measurement invariance was found between the groups of professionals and age groups; however, invariance was achieved between sex, monthly income, work-related illness, and chronic illness groups. Regarding the relation with other variables, the JSS-4 has a small correlation with PHQ-2. Also, profession and age-specific normative values were proposed. Conclusion: JSS-4 Spanish version has adequate psychometric properties in PHS nurses and physicians. / Revisión por pares

Das Auftreten von Umbilikalhernien zeigt eine deutliche Zunahme. Mittlerweile stellen sie nach Inguinalhernien die zweithäufigste Hernienform dar. Durch die stete Zunahme der konventionellen Laparoskopien sowie der Single-Port-Laparoskopien ist in den nächsten Jahren mit einem weiteren Anstieg von Umbilikalhernien zu rechnen. Ein Goldstandard zur Versorgung von Umbilikalhernien existiert aktuell nicht. Vielmehr herrscht das Prinzip des tailored approaches nach dem kleine Hernien mittels Naht und größere Hernien mittels Netz versorgt werden. Durch die Entwicklung der Visible-Technologie, die Netze ohne Strahlenbelastung der Patienten mittels MRT sichtbar macht, besteht die Möglichkeit das Verhalten von Netzen in vivo besser beurteilen zu können. Ziel dieser Studie war es, nach der operativen Versorgung von Umbilikalhernien, eine bildmorphologische Verlaufskontrolle durchzuführen, um so genauere Aussagen über das Verhalten der Netze im Laufe der Zeit treffen zu können. Zudem sollte die Entwicklung der Lebensqualität nach Versorgung kleiner Umbilikalhernien mit Netz untersucht werden. Hierfür wurden in zwei Hernienzentren Patienten, die an einer Nabelhernien litten mit einem Netz in Underlay-Position versorgt. Dabei wurde eine Probandengruppe mit einem sichtbaren Netz und die andere Gruppe mit einem konventionellen, nicht- sichtbaren Netz versorgt. Es erfolgten nach einem und nach 12 Monaten Befragungen hinsichtlich der Lebensqualität, klinische Nachuntersuchungen sowie MRT-Bildgebungen. Anhand der MRT-Bilder konnten durch drei verschiedene Forscher unabhängig voneinander verschiedene Messungen der Netze erfolgen. Insgesamt konnten 25 Patienten (14 Visible-Netze, 11 NonVisible-Netze) zu beiden Zeitpunkten nachuntersucht werden. Es zeigten sich in beiden Untersuchungsgruppen signifikante Besserungen der Lebensqualität. Die Bildgebung ermöglicht eine eindeutige Zuordnung in Visible- und NonVisible-Netze. Etwa die Hälfte der Netze zeigte eine kompakte Morphologie. Dabei kam es zu keinen Rezidiven. Man kann die Wirkung des Netzes mehr oder weniger als „Stöpselfunktion“ ansehen. Die Visible-Netze zeigten nach einem Jahr eine Schrumpfung der Netzlänge um durchschnittlich 12,4% und der Netzbreite um durchschnittlich 12,5% der ursprünglichen Länge. Dabei muss jedoch beachtet werden, dass hierbei die Knitter- und Faltenbildung, die durch das Einbringen in den engen präperitonealen Raum entsteht, vermutlich einen großen Anteil dazu beiträgt und es sich somit nicht um eine tatsächliche Schrumpfung der Netze handelt. Auf eine weitflächige Präparation von 5-6 cm in jede Richtung kann auf Basis der Ergebnisse dieser Studie bei der Versorgung kleiner Hernien verzichtet werden. Allerdings sollte bei der Wahl der Netzgröße ca. 20% Schrumpfung bedacht werden. / The incidence of umbilical hernia is rising. By now they are the second most common hernia after the inguinal hernia. Currently the principle of the tailored approach of Dalenbäck is used in Germany. That means small hernias are treated with primary suture and bigger hernias are treated with meshes. For a short time there is a new mesh available, which combines all the necessary requirements as elasticity, effective porousness and monofilamtenal structure with MRI visibility. The aim of this study was to achieve a better understandig of the meshes in vivo in the course of time. Furthermore we wanted to investigate the quality of life after the operation of small umbilical hernias. Therefore we treated patients with umbilical hernias with a mesh in underlay position. One group was treated with MRI-visible meshes, the other group was treated with conventional non-visible meshes. After 1 and 12 months all patients received a physical investigation, an imaging via MRI and answered a questionnaire about their quality of life. By means of the MRI-Imaging it was possible to measure different variables of the meshes. In total we achieved the database of 25 patients (14 Visible, 11 Non-Visible) to both follow-up examinations. The quality of life showed a significant improvement in both patient groups. The imaging allows an exact classification to visible/non-visible meshes. Around half of the meshes show a compact morphology in vivo. There were no recurrences. After 12 months the visible meshes showed a shrinkage of the meshlenght on average of 12,4% of the original lenght and 12,5% of the meshwidth. However there should be considered that there is a wrinkling and folding of the meshes when placed in the small preperitoneal space. That means the shrinkage shouldn´t be considered as a real shrinkage of the mesh. In view of the results of the study it is possible to surrender the extensive taxidermy when treating small umbilical hernias. The shrinkage of about 20% should be considered when choosing the right meshsize.

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Science and Agriculture in fulfilment of the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Zululand, 2017 / InfrastructureWireless Mesh Networks (I-WMNs) are increasingly used to provide network connectivity and Internet access to previously under-served areas in the developing world. It is common for some of these deployments to be battery-powered due to a lack of electrical infrastructure in the targeted areas. Thus, the energy-efficiency of these networks gains additional importance. Topology Control (TC) has been previously reported to improve the energy-efficiency and network performance of wireless ad-hoc networks, including I-WMNs. However,simulation-based studies have been relied upon to reach these conclusions and the study of TC prototypes applicable to I-WMNs has largely been limited to design issues. Thus, the study of the efficacy of TC prototypes as a mechanism for improving energy-fficiency and network performance remains an open issue. The thesis addresses this knowledge gap by studying the dynamic, run-time behaviours and the network topologies created by two standards-compatible TC prototypes. This study provides unique insight into how the prototypes consume computational resources, maintain network connectivity, produce cumulative transceiver power savings and affect the workings of the routing protocol being employed. This study also documents the topology instability caused by transceiver power oscillations produced by the PlainTC prototype. A context-based solution to reduce transceiver power oscillations and the subsequent topology instability is proposed. This solution applies the Principal Component Analysis statistical method to historical network data in order to derive the weights associated with each of the identified context variables. A threshold value is defined that only permits a node to adjust its transceiver power output if the observed change in a node’s context exceeds the threshold. The threshold mechanism is incorporated into the PlainTC+ prototype and is shown to reduce topology instability whilst improving network performance when compared to PlainTC.The results obtained in this study suggest that I-WMN topologies formed by TC are able to closely match the performance of networks that do not employ TC. However, this study shows that TC negatively affects the energy efficiency of the network despite achieving cumulative transceiver power savings.

No description available.

Generating and rendering ribbons from a stream of particles is common in games and VFX to visualize flow. To create detailed smooth particle ribbons this work combines tessellation and B-splines, which gives smooth surfaces with contiguous normals. The traditional pipeline for doing hardware tessellation with hull- and domain shaders is limited to a maximum tessellation level, which limits how much detail a ribbon can get. In Nvidia’s Turing architecture, mesh- and task shaders were introduced, which provide support for tessellating geometry while not having any constraints on the amount of geometry that can be generated. This work evaluates three implementations for generating and drawing smooth particle ribbons by measuring performance in terms of execution time. The implementations are based on mesh shaders, mesh + task shaders and the traditional pipeline. In turn, three optimizations are proposed. The optimizations evaluated are adaptive level of detail, culling and Gouraud shading. The results show that the traditional pipeline is faster than using mesh shader based tessellation up to its maximum tessellation factor. For larger tessellation factors, when combining adaptive LOD, culling and Gouraud shading, mesh and task shaders combined can generate ribbons at higher quality than the traditional tessellation pipeline, with comparable performance. / Att generera och rendera band från partikelströmmar är vanligt i spel och VFX för att visualisera flöden. För att skapa detaljrika mjuka partikelband kombinerar det här arbetet tessellering och B-splines, vilket ger mjuka ytor med kontinuerliga normaler. Den traditionella pipelinen för att göra hårdvarutessellering med hull- och domain shaders är begränsade till en maximal tesselleringsnivå, vilket begränsar hur detaljrik ett band kan bli. Med Nvidias turingarkitektur introducerades mesh- och task shaders, vilket också stödjer tessellering av geometri med fördelen att inte vara begränsade till en maximal tesselleringsnivå. Det här arbetet evaluerar tre implementationer av mjuka partikelband när de genereras och ritas genom att mäta prestanda genom exekveringstid. Implementationerna är baserade på mesh shaders, mesh + task shaders och den traditionella pipelinen. Utöver detta föreslås tre optimeringar. Dessa optimeringar är adaptiv LOD, culling och Gouraud shading. Resultaten visar att den traditionella pipelinen är snabbare än att använda mesh shaderbaserad tessellering upp till och med dess maximala tesselleringsfaktor. För större tesselleringsfaktorer, när adaptiv LOD, culling och Gouraud shading kombineras, kan mesh och task shaders tillsammans generera band med högre kvalitet än den traditionella tesselleringspipelinen, med jämförbar prestanda.

No description available.

Researchers have been developing techniques to predict inlight icing in order to determine aircraft behavior under different icing conditions. A key component of the techniques is the mesh generation strategy. Automated meshing facilitates numerical simulation of ice accretion on realistic aircraft configurations by deforming the surface and volume meshes in response to the evolving ice shape. The objective of this research is to validate an ice accretion strategy for wings, using a previously developed meshing strategy. The intent is to investigate the effect of varying numerical parameters, on the predicted ice shape. Using this framework, results are simulated for rime and glaze ice accretions on a rectangular planform wing with a constant GLC-305 airfoil section. The number of time steps is shown to have a significant effect on the ice shape, depending on the icing time and conditions. Decreasing the height smoothing parameters generally improves the ice shape accuracy.

The development of algorithms for the automatic creation of finite element meshes composed entirely of hexahedra (all-hex) is an active area of research. All-hex meshes are desirable for their characteristic of high accuracy with a low node count. Sweeping is one of the most widely used algorithms for generating all-hex meshes. A limitation of sweeping, however, is that it can currently be applied only to prismatic or extruded geometry types. This thesis develops a method to combine sweeping with another algorithm known as "Grafting". Grafting adjusts the mesh on one volume to conform to a second volume. In this manner it is useful for meshing multi-axis geometry in that a single axis can be meshed with sweeping and then secondary axes can be grafted on. By creating an algorithm for automatically performing these processes, the base set of geometry that can be automatically meshed with these methods is greatly increased. This new algorithm is called Graft-Sweeping. With the combination of sweeping and Grafting, geometry that contains multiple source surfaces, multiple target surfaces, and multiple sweep axes can be meshed. The results of this algorithm on several example geometries are given showing the strengths and weaknesses of this technique. From the results it can be seen that the Graft-Sweep algorithm can produce a finite element mesh in about half the time of manual Grafting and sweeping operations with similar mesh quality. When compared to sweeping alone, Graft-Sweeping is several times faster but the quality is usually reduced. A second area of research for this thesis is to determine when Grafting can be used to enhance the meshing process. It is shown that the best results are obtained when Grafting is used on structured meshes and the mesh size is considerably smaller than the size of the feature that is being grafted.

This thesis describes a new method to create three-dimensional finite element meshes using the horizons to mesh algorithm. The algorithm uses available geologic data and user-defined inputs to guide the mesh generation process. This new approach allows for material layer pinch outs and many different layer refinement options to create well-formed elements that better represent hydrogeologic formations. Two case studies are presented that demonstrate the application of the algorithm's options and capabilities. A graphical interface for the algorithm was developed in the Groundwater Modeling System.

Hexahedral refinement increases the density of an all-hexahedral mesh in a specified region, improving numerical accuracy. Previous research using solely sheet refinement theory made the implementation computationally expensive and unable to effectively handle multiply-connected transition elements and self-intersecting hexahedral sheets. The Selective Approach method is a new procedure that combines two diverse methodologies to create an efficient and robust algorithm able to handle the above stated problems. These two refinement methods are: 1) element by element refinement and 2) directional refinement. In element by element refinement, the three inherent directions of a hexahedron are refined in one step using one of seven templates. Because of its computational superiority over directional refinement, but its inability to handle multiply-connected transition elements, element by element refinement is used in all areas of the specified region except regions local to multiply-connected transition elements. The directional refinement scheme refines the three inherent directions of a hexahedron separately on a hexahedron by hexahedron basis. This differs from sheet refinement which refines hexahedra using hexahedral sheets. Directional refinement is able to correctly handle multiply-connected transition elements. A ranking system and propagation scheme allow directional refinement to work within the confines of the Selective Approach Algorithm.