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Functional assessment procedures have proven effective in identifying the operant contingencies that maintain problem behavior. Typically, the evaluation of responding during functional analyses is conducted at the condition level. However, some variables affecting occurrences of behavior cannot be evaluated solely through the use of a cross-session analysis. Evaluating within-session patterns of responding may provide information about variables such as extinction bursts, discriminative stimuli, and motivating operations such as deprivation and satiation. The current study was designed to identify some typical response patterns that are generated when data are displayed across and within sessions of functional analyses, discuss some variables that may cause these trends, and evaluate the utility of within-session analyses. Results revealed that several specific patterns of responding were identified for both across- and within-session analyses, which may be useful in clarifying the function of behavior.

Student Number : 9100202J - MPH research report - School of Therapeutic Sciences - Faculty of Health Science / Background and purpose of the research The magnitude of disability observed in stroke survivors is believed to be dependent, in part, on the severity of neurological deficits incurred. As important, but less well understood, is the contribution of physical and environmental factors. The objectives of this study were to establish the degree of functional independence of patients who have had a stroke and to establish factors that influence functional independence post stroke. Research methods and procedures employed This was a quantitative research using a descriptive cross sectional study design. A sample of convenience was derived from patients who had a stroke more than six weeks previously from clinics and a hospital in Johannesburg. The Barthel Index was used to establish the degree of functional independence, and a self-designed questionnaire was used to establish factors that influence functional independence of patients who have had a stroke. Intra and inter rater reliability tests were done to validate the questionnaire. The questionnaire was interviewer administered. Caregivers were interviewed in cases where patients had receptive aphasia. Results: Ninety three percent of the patients were functionally independent post discharge. Younger patients had the highest likelihood of improved functional independence than the older age group (p = 0.003); married patients recovered functional independence faster than those who were single (p = 0.05). The following factors also improved chances of being functionally independent: having bowel continence (p = 0.003); staying in hospital for less than two weeks and more than six weeks; and participating in community (p = 0.02) and household activities (p = 0.01). Having a caregiver decreased the chances of regaining functional independence (p = 0.04). Factors which were found to have no influence on functional independence post stroke were: gender (p = 0.99); education level (p =0.78); duration of stroke (p = 0.58); side of stroke (p = 0.12); shoulder pain (p = 0.90); leg pain (p = 0.22); urinary incontinence (p = 0.53); financial role (p = 0.156); monthly income (p = 0.73); and depression (p = 0.30). Conclusion: Age, marital status, duration of hospital stay and the presence of a caregiver, as well as bowel continence are the factors that influence functional independence post stroke.

Genetic analyses such as linkage and genome wide association studies (GWAS) have been extremely successful at identifying genomic regions that harbour genetic variants contributing to complex disorders. Over 90% of disease-associated variants from GWAS fall within non-coding regions (Maurano et al., 2012). However, pinpointing the causal variants has proven a major bottleneck to genetic research. To address this I have developed SuRFR, an R package for the ranked prioritisation of candidate causal variants by predicted function. SuRFR produces rank orderings of variants based upon functional genomic annotations, including DNase hypersensitivity signal, chromatin state, minor allele frequency, and conservation. The ranks for each annotation are combined into a final prioritisation rank using a weighting system that has been parametrised and tested through ten-fold cross-validation. SuRFR has been tested extensively upon a combination of synthetic and real datasets and has been shown to perform with high sensitivity and specificity. These analyses have provided insight into the extent to which different classes of functional annotation are most useful for the identification of known regulatory variants: the most important factor for identifying a true variant across all classes of regulatory variants is position relative to genes. I have also shown that SuRFR performs at least as well as its nearest competitors whilst benefiting from the advantages that come from being part of the R environment. I have applied SuRFR to several genomics projects, particularly the study of psychiatric illness, including genome sequencing of a large Scottish family with bipolar disorder. This has resulted in the prioritisation of such variants for future study.

by Tang Shu Yan. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1995. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 75-76). / Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 1 --- Efficient point and proper efficient point --- p.3 / Chapter 1.1 --- Introduction --- p.3 / Chapter 1.2 --- Definition and properties --- p.4 / Chapter 1.3 --- Existence of bases and proper efficient points --- p.14 / Chapter 2 --- Density theorem for positive proper efficient point in normed space --- p.18 / Chapter 2.1 --- "Theorem of Arrrow, Barankin and Blackwell" --- p.18 / Chapter 2.2 --- Cone with strictly positive linear functionals --- p.20 / Chapter 2.3 --- Cone with closed bounded base --- p.25 / Chapter 2.4 --- Density theorem for other proper efficiency --- p.34 / Chapter 3 --- Density theorem in Topological Vector Space --- p.43 / Chapter 3.1 --- D-cone --- p.43 / Chapter 3.2 --- Space ordered by a D-cone --- p.47 / Chapter 3.3 --- Space ordered by a cone with closed bounded base --- p.49 / Chapter 4 --- Some results on multifunction --- p.52 / Chapter 4.1 --- Open mapping theorem --- p.53 / Chapter 4.2 --- Inverse function theorem --- p.63 / Chapter 4.3 --- Subtraction theorem --- p.66 / Bibliography

Wudu Lu. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1995. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 114-116). / Abstract --- p.ii / Introduction --- p.iv / Chapter 1 --- The Fundamental Theory of NFDEs with Infinite Delay --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1 --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 1.2 --- Phase spaces and NFDEs with infinite delay --- p.2 / Chapter 1.3 --- Local theory --- p.4 / Chapter 2 --- Periodicity and Bp -Boundedness in Neutral Systems of Non- linear D-operator with Infinite Delay --- p.12 / Chapter 2.1 --- Introduction --- p.12 / Chapter 2.2 --- Preliminaries --- p.15 / Chapter 2.3 --- Existence of periodic solutions --- p.22 / Chapter 2.4 --- BP-U.B and Bp -U.U.B of solutions --- p.29 / Chapter 2.5 --- Applications --- p.42 / Chapter 3 --- Stability in Neutral Differential Equations of Nonlinear D- operator with Infinite Delay --- p.47 / Chapter 3.1 --- Introduction --- p.47 / Chapter 3.2 --- Preliminaries --- p.49 / Chapter 3.3 --- Uniformly Asymptotic Stability --- p.57 / Chapter 3.4 --- Applications --- p.74 / Chapter 4 --- Nonoscillation and Oscillation of First Order Linear Neutral Equations --- p.79 / Chapter 4.1 --- Introduction --- p.79 / Chapter 4.2 --- Existence of Nonoscillatory Solutions --- p.80 / Chapter 4.3 --- Oscillation --- p.90 / Chapter 5 --- Nonoscillation and Oscillation of First Order Nonlinear Neu- tral Equations --- p.94 / Chapter 5.1 --- Introduction --- p.94 / Chapter 5.2 --- Existence of Nonoscillatory Solutions --- p.95 / Chapter 5.3 --- Oscillation --- p.102 / Bibliography --- p.108 / List of Author's Publications --- p.114