Made available in DSpace on 2015-08-20T17:09:19Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2006-10-31. Added 1 bitstream(s) on 2015-08-20T17:27:19Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 000482132.pdf: 29183224 bytes, checksum: d645c6301c289af4367aa74c66c67c65 (MD5) / Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) / A área escolhida para a realização deste trabalho foi o município de Itápolis, o qual se localiza na porção oeste do estado de São Paulo. A escolha de Itápolis está relacionada à ausência de trabalhos vinculados à temática ambiental para a região em que o mesmo se insere, os quais se fazem necessários em decorrência da intensa atividade agrícola que ali se desenvolve. Neste contexto, o objetivo deste trabalho foi realizar um levantamento das características ambientais da área e, a partir da análise destas, elaborar o zoneamento geoambiental do município com base na proposta de Mateo Rodriguez (1994) a qual possibilita uma interpretação do meio através da análise sistêmica. Através dessa proposta metodológica o município foi dividido em diversas unidades e para cada uma delas estabeleceu-se o estado ecológico baseado na relação entre a capacidade de uso potencial e a função sócio-econômica atual. A aplicação desta metodologia se mostrou satisfatória, sendo que a mesma forneceu informações relevantes em relação às fragilidades ambientais da área e concomitantemente possibilitou a realização de uma análise geoambiental para o município, cujo maior problema identificado foi a intensa ação de processos erosivos, com formas erosivas já instaladas em decorrência do uso da terra sem que se empregue práticas conservacionistas. / The chosen area for accomplishment of this work was the Itápolis municipality, located in the west portion of the Sao Paulo State. The choice was due to absence of environmental works in the region, necessary because of intense agricultural activities. In this context, the goal was to carry out a survey of environmental features of the area and after analysis, to elaborate environmental zoning of the municipality, based on Mateo Rodriguez (1994) proposal which makes interpretation through system analysis. Through this methodological proposal, the municipality was divided in diverse units and each one of them, the ecological status is established according to capacity of potential use and present social and economic function. The application of this methodology was satisfactory, supplying relevant environmental vulnerability data making possible an environmental analysis of the municipality whose major problems are the intense erosive processes in course as a result of land use without conservatives practices.

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A presente pesquisa, tipo descritivo, objetivou descrever o sistema de utilização de medicamentos em dois hospitais situados na cidade de Recife-PE. Com essa finalidade, buscou-se caracterizar a estrutura do sistema de medicação, descrever o processo de medicação e analisar os resultados sob a perspectiva do paciente e dos profissionais de enfermagem sobre o sistema. Para tanto, a população foi composta por 14 médicos, 14 enfermeiros, 22 farmacêuticos, 30 auxiliares de farmácia, 50 auxiliares de enfermagem, 63 pacientes e 372 folhas de prescrição de medicamentos e evolução de enfermagem. As técnicas utilizadas para coleta de dados foram a observação não participante e a entrevista, por meio de roteiros estruturados. Os resultados revelaram que, na estrutura, os ambientes do preparo de medicamentos se encontraram em discordância com a legislação vigente; os recursos materiais para o preparo e administração dos medicamentos precisam ser revisados e ajustados de modo a suprirem as necessidades do serviço e oferecerem mais segurança aos pacientes; os recursos humanos da farmácia e da enfermagem precisam ser dimensionados. Foi observado que os recursos humanos de nível médio não receberam treinamento e nem foram reciclados, nos últimos cinco anos, sobre o tema medicamentos. Na análise do processo foi observado o conteúdo das prescrições e constatou-se que nelas faltavam informações importantes sobre as especificações dos medicamentos. Quanto ao processo de preparo e administração dos medicamentos revelaram pontos críticos nos dois hospitais. Apesar do sistema ter apresentado esses aspectos que comprometem a qualidade da assistência, na opinião de 70% dos pacientes no Hospital 1 e 52,4% do Hospital 2, o sistema foi considerado bom e na opinião de 44% dos profissionais de enfermagem do Hospital 1 e 53,3% do Hospital 2 o consideraram regular. Diante dos resultados apresentados para se atingir a qualidade no sistema de medicação, mudanças são necessárias em termos da política dos recursos humanos e do incremento da educação continuada. / The present descriptive research had the goal of describing the medication –use utilization system in two teaching hospitals located in the city of Recife – State of Pernambuco. With this aim, it was sought to characterize the structure of the medication system, describe the medication process, and analyze the results under the perspective of both patient and nursing professionals about the system. In order to do this, the population was composed of 14 doctors, 14 nurses, 22 pharmacists, 30 pharmacy auxiliaries, 50 nursing auxiliaries, 63 patients, and 372 medication prescription and nursing evolution sheets. The techniques used for data collection were non-participating observation and interview by means of structured questionnaires. The results showed that, within the structure, the environments for medication preparation are in disagreement with current legislation; material resources for the preparation and administration of medication must be reviewed and adjusted in a way to meet the needs of this service and offer greater safety to patients; human resources of both pharmacy and nursing must be better dimensioned. It was observed that the medium level human resources did not receive training and have not been recycled in the last five years regarding the theme of medications. In the analysis of the medication process, in regards to the content of the prescription, it was observed that the prescriptions lacked important information about the specifications of the medications. In regards to the process of preparation and administration of medications, critical points were revealed in both hospitals. Among these, special attention is drawn to the deficiency in washing hands and infusion lines during the administration of more than one medication. Despite the system having presented such aspects that compromise the quality of assistance, in the opinion of 70% of patients in Hospital 1 and 52.4% of patients in Hospital 2 the system was considered to be good, and 44% of the nursing professions of Hospital 1 and 53.3% of Hospital 2 considered the system medium. In view of the presented results, in order to achieve the quality in the medication system, there is a need for changes in terms of policy of human resources, and an increase of continuing education

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The Brazilian program of higher education evaluation, broadly known by the National Exam of Students\' Performance (ENADE), represents a governmental effort to gather information on undergraduate educational quality. As a product of that evaluation, reports are made available to each program evaluated; the main intent of the present research is to discover the extent to which these reports are used by undergraduate accounting program administrators and the impact of evaluation utilization on the programs\' performance. Based on the theoretical support of the literature on evaluation utilization, a web-based survey was developed and applied to collect the data. With a response rate of 62% (322 completed surveys), analyses were conducted through four steps: (1) a logistic regression to verify which factors were associated with the use of the ENADE evaluation report, (2) a descriptive verification of the incidence of use of the evaluation report among the undergraduate accounting program administrators and the most frequent types of use that they report, (3) multiple regressions to analyze the impact of the evaluation report\'s use or misuse on the programs\' performance in the subsequent evaluation, and (4) a descriptive analysis of the reasons for the nonuse of the evaluation report. The key findings of this research were as follows: the longer the program administrator\'s tenure, the higher his or her academic degree, the greater his or her involvement in the evaluation process, and the more positive his or her perception of the effectiveness of the communication between the evaluator and the programs, the greater the likelihood that the ENADE evaluation report would be used; the most frequent type of use among the administrators studied was conceptual; the main reason for nonuse was a lack of information about the online availability of the evaluation report; and finally, there was a positive correlation between the use of the ENADE evaluation report and the performance of undergraduate accounting programs in the subsequent evaluation. / O programa Brasileiro de avaliação da educação superior, largamente conhecido pelo Exame Nacional de Desempenho de Estudantes (ENADE), representa um esforço governamental para reunir informações sobre a qualidade dos cursos de graduação. Como um produto da avaliação, um relatório é disponibilizado para cada curso avaliado; e saber em que extensão esses relatórios são utilizados pelos coordenadores de cursos de graduação em ciências contábeis, assim como qual é o impacto do uso desse relatório sobre a performance dos cursos, foram os principais objetivos desse estudo. Fundamentado teoricamente na literatura sobre uso de avaliação, um questionário, que inclui uma escala para mensurar tipos de utilização, foi desenvolvido e aplicado. Com base em uma taxa de resposta de 62% (322 questionários completos), quatro diferentes aspectos foram analisados: (1) estudo dos fatores associados ao uso do relatório de avaliação do ENADE, através de regressão logística; (2) análise descritiva acerca da incidência de uso dos relatórios de avaliação, e acerca dos tipos de uso mais frequentes entre os coordenadores de cursos de ciências contábeis; (3) estudo do impacto da utilização, bem como do uso inadequado dos relatórios de avaliação, sobre o desempenho dos cursos de graduação em ciências contábeis na avaliação subsequente, por meio de regressão múltipla; e (4) análise descritiva das razões apontadas pelos coordenadores para o não uso dos relatórios de avaliação. Os principais resultados, a partir das evidências reunidas pelo presente estudo, foram: quanto maior o número de anos do coordenador no cargo, a sua titulação, o seu envolvimento no processo de avaliação e quanto mais positiva a sua percepção sobre a efetividade da comunicação entre o INEP e os cursos, maior a probabilidade de uso do relatório do ENADE; o uso conceitual foi o mais frequente entre os coordenadores pesquisados; a falta de conhecimento sobre a disponibilidade online dos relatórios de avaliação foi a principal causa de não uso verificada entre os pesquisados; e por fim, foi identificada uma correlação positiva entre o uso do relatório do ENADE e o desempenho dos cursos de graduação em ciências contábeis na avaliação subsequente.

Orientadores: Aline Carvalho da Costa, Sarita Cândida Rabelo / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Engenharia Química / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-20T15:17:22Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 BayonaAyala_OlgaLucia_M.pdf: 2487047 bytes, checksum: 8b5429f4a75079995619323320d0d52c (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012 / Resumo: A palha da cana-de-açúcar é um resíduo lignocelulósico que pode ser usado na produção de etanol através da hidrólise deste material e da fermentação dos açúcares resultantes. Neste trabalho, dois tipos de pré-tratamento, peróxido de hidrogênio alcalino e hidróxido de cálcio (cal), foram avaliados para aumentar a susceptibilidade da palha à hidrólise enzimática. Um planejamento experimental 2³ + configuração estrela com triplicata no ponto central para cada um dos pré-tratamentos foi elaborado considerando as variáveis tempo, temperatura e concentração do reagente no pré-tratamento como fatores e a concentração de glicose obtida após a hidrólise, em g/g de palha de cana, como resposta. As condições ótimas encontradas para o pré-tratamento com peróxido de hidrogênio alcalino foram 1 h de pré-tratamento a 60ºC, usando 0,44 mL de peróxido de hidrogênio/g de palha, em pH 11,5. A solubilização da hemicelulose e lignina foi de 83,10% e 71,85%, respectivamente. A hidrólise enzimática da palha pré-tratada nessas condições levou a um rendimento de glicose de 333 mg/g de palha bruta, equivalente a um rendimento global de 86,97% e a uma conversão na hidrólise de 90,35% quando a hidrólise enzimática foi realizada a 50ºC, pH 4,8 e em 48 h com 3% (m/m) de sólidos, empregando uma carga enzimática de 15 FPU de celulase/g de palha seca pré-tratada e 25 CBU de ?-glicosidase/g de palha seca pré-tratada. O resultado obtido após a hidrólise da palha pré-tratada com hidróxido de cálcio nas condições escolhidas como as melhores de pré-tratamento (53h, 90°C e 0,4 g cal/g palha seca) foi de 206 mg glicose/g de palha bruta, correspondendo a um rendimento de glicose global de 53,90% e conversão na hidrólise de 56,58%, quando a hidrólise foi realizada nas mesmas condições usadas para a palha pré-tratada com peróxido de hidrogênio alcalino. O pré-tratamento com peróxido de hidrogênio se mostrou mais efetivo em relação à liberação dos açúcares fermentescíveis, além de se trabalhar com uma maior concentração de sólidos quando comparado com o pré-tratamento com hidróxido de cálcio (15% (m/m) e 4% (m/m), respectivamente) / Abstract: The sugarcane straw is a lignocellulosic waste that can be used to increase the production of ethanol through hydrolysis of this material and fermentation of the sugars produced. In this work, the conditions of two pretreatments, alkaline hydrogen peroxide and calcium hydroxide (lime), were evaluated to enhance the susceptibility of sugarcane straw to enzymatic hydrolysis. A 2³ + central composite design was performed considering pretreatment time, temperature and reagent concentration in the pretreatment as factors and glucose concentration after hydrolysis, in g/g bagasse, as the response. The optimal conditions for the pretreatment with alkaline hydrogen peroxide were 1 h of pretreatment at 60 °C using 0.44 mL (0.65 g) hydrogen peroxide/g straw, at pH 11.5. At these conditions the solubilization of hemicellulose and lignin were of 83.10% and 71.85%, respectively. The enzymatic hydrolysis of the pretreated straw led to a glucose global yield of 86.97% and to hydrolysis conversion of 90.35% when enzymatic hydrolysis was performed at 50 °C, pH 4.8 and 48 hours with 3% (w/w) solids and 15 FPU cellulase / g pretreated straw and 25 CBU ?-glucosidase/g pretreated straw. The best results after hydrolysis of straw pretreated with lime in the chosen pretreatment conditions (53.07 h, 90 °C and lime concentration of 0 4 (g/g) dry straw) was of 206 mg glucose/g of raw straw, corresponding to an overall yield of 53.9% and hydrolysis conversion 56,58% when hydrolysis was performed in the same conditions used for peroxide pretreated straw. The alkaline hydrogen peroxide pretreatment was more effective in the release of fermentable sugars, besides working with higher solids concentration as compared with lime pretreatment (15% (w/w) and 4% (w/w), respectively) / Mestrado / Desenvolvimento de Processos Químicos / Mestra em Engenharia Química

Class of 2012 Abstract / Specific Aims: To evaluate the effect on the incidence and nature of pharmacists’ drug utilization review (DUR) interventions of including patient diagnosis on electronic prescription (e-prescription) orders. Methods: This prospective pre-post evaluation was conducted in the outpatient pharmacy of a federally funded community health center over two consecutive four-week periods. During the pre-phase, a clinical pharmacist in the clinic’s onsite pharmacy prospectively reviewed the e-prescriptions received from the clinic’s primary care providers using a standard prospective DUR process and recorded all therapy-related interventions. In the post-phase, providers added a diagnosis on each e-prescription. Interventions were documented using a standard intervention form that has been used in previous research. Chi square and t-tests were used to assess the nominal and interval data, respectively (α=0.05). The Institutional Review Boards of the two collaborating universities approved the study. Main Results: Pharmacist intervention rates on problematic e-prescription orders significantly decreased (4% pre vs. 1% post, p<0.001). Drug-drug interactions (17.5% pre vs. 20% post) and missing information (15% pre vs. 20% post) were the most frequently cited problems that prompted the need for the pharmacist’s intervention. The medication classes most frequently involved in interventions were antibiotics (53% pre vs. 50% post) and central nervous system agents (17% pre vs. 10% post). After receiving clarification, the pharmacist most often dispensed the prescription (33.3% pre vs. 38.4% post) and educated the patient regarding their treatments (18.8% pre vs. 7.7% post). Conclusions: In this small pilot project, including the patient’s diagnosis on e-prescription orders significantly reduced the incidence of pharmacists’ DUR-related interventions. If duplicated in larger studies, our results suggest that providing pharmacists with additional targeted clinical information could reduce confusion and uncertainty thereby decreasing the number of unnecessary pharmacist contacts with prescribers and improving workflow and efficiency for both.

Context. In the field of computer science, the concept of cloud computing plays a prominent role which can be hosted on the internet to store, manage and also to process the data. Cloud platforms enables the users to perform large number of computing tasks across the remote servers. There exist several cloud platform providers like Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Oracle and IBM. Several conventional databases are available in cloud service providers in order to handle the data. Cassandra is a NoSQL database system which can handle the unstructured data and can scale large number of operations per second even across multiple datacentres. Objectives. In this study, the performance evaluation of NoSQL database in AWS cloud service provider has been performed. The performance evaluation of a three node Cassandra cluster is performed for different configuration of EC2 instances. This performance has been evaluated using the metrics throughput and CPU utilization. The main aim of this thesis was to evaluate the performance of Cassandra under various configurations with the YCSB benchmarking tool. Methods. A literature review has been conducted to gain more knowledge about the current research area. The metrics required to evaluate the performance of Cassandra were identified through literature study. The experiment was conducted to compute the results for throughput and CPU utilization under the different configurations t2.micro, t2.medium and t2.small for 3 node and 6 node cluster using YCSB benchmarking tool. Results. The results of the experiment include the metrics, throughput and CPU utilization which were identified in the literature review. The results calculated were plotted as graphs to compare their performance for three different configurations. The results obtained were segregated as two different scenarios which were for 3 node and 6 node clusters. Conclusions. Based on the obtained values of throughput the optimal or sub-optimal configuration of a data centre running multiple instances of Cassandra such that the specific throughput requirements are satisfied.

Master of Public Health - MPH / Background: Drugs are essential components of the health system and their rational use is vital to delivering quality and efficient healthcare services. However, inappropriate prescribing is a common rational drug use problem globally, particularly in developing countries including Nigeria. Despite measures to address this problem, inappropriate drug use continues to be a major public health problem in Nigeria. Aim: This study assessed rational drug use (RDU), with a focus on rational prescribing and factors affecting it, among primary healthcare providers working in primary healthcare facilities of a LGA in Northwestern Nigeria. Methods: The study was a cross sectional descriptive study and it included retrospective review of patient encounters and interviews with prescribing healthcare providers in sampled health facilities. Stratified random sampling method was used to select 20 public primary healthcare facilities and 30 patient encounters were drawn by systematic random sampling from each facility. One hundred and sixty three prescribing healthcare providers in the health facilities were also included in the study. Adapted WHO's drug use study tools and a structured self-administered questionnaire were used to collect data. Data were analysed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS Version 17) software and presented as contingency table with chi square test used to test for relationship between variables with statistical significance taken at p < 0.05. Ethical approval was obtained from the University of the Western Cape Research Ethics Committee and Kaduna State Ministry of Health, and permission from local stakeholders. Confidentiality of individual patients, healthcare providers and health facilities data was maintained. Results: The prescribing staff at the selected facilities were predominantly Nurses/Midwives and community health assistants with SCHEWs constituting the majority (60.8%). More than half (54.4%) of providers did not know about the concept of RDU. Similarly, the computed knowledge score of RDU revealed that the majority (74.4%) had poor knowledge of the concept. Knowledge was significantly associated with duration of service, providers' previous training in rational drug use and professional status (p<0.05), with the CHOs having better knowledge of RDU compared with other professional cadres. High antibiotic use (68.3% in retrospective review and 82.9% in survey) and injection use (9.5% in retrospective review and 12% in survey) were found in the study with significant proportions of providers admitting that all cases of URTI should receive antibiotics (72.3% ) and that patients could be prescribed injections if they requested for it (35.3%). The Standing Order was the main source of information for the majority (50.6%) of providers and it served as the major influence affecting prescribing practices. Conclusion: This study revealed a poor understanding and knowledge of RDU among healthcare providers. High antibiotic and injection use also reflected providers' poor attitude to rational prescribing of these commodities. To improve prescribing practices at the PHC level, adequate staff skill mix, including physicians should be established. Since RDU knowledge was associated with prior training, curriculum development towards RDU and opportunities for in-service training should be provided to build prescribers capacity, in addition to instituting a system of rational drug use monitoring. Further research into rational drug use among different cadres of PHC healthcare providers is also recommended.

The mine planning process converts resources into economically mineable reserves, focusing on value addition and risk reduction. Equipment selection is traditionally addressed late in the process and addresses production capacity, equipment matching and equipment allocation. The primary focus being to reduce the operating cost per unit of material handled. Mineral resource management is an integration of the key functions in the mining process. A focus on resource utilisation plays a key role in the management process and leads to the question whether lower operating costs always add value in the long term. It was determined that traditional equipment selection methods are not effective for all mineral deposits and might even be short sighted, destroying value over the long term. The mine planning process was adapted to allow for an early investigation into the potential for increased recovery. The effect of selectivity in the loading action is simulated in a 3D environment over a range of bench heights. The results are analysed with a grade tonnage curve and the saleable product at each bench height is calculated, taking account of the required product qualities. The concept of financial materiality is applied to classify the resource as either a massive or selective deposit. A massive deposit support the traditional drive for bigger equipment and will benefit from lower operating costs. A selective deposit requires less focus on production capacity, equipment matching and allocation and more on resource recovery. In order to take advantage of the potential indicated in the evaluation, it is necessary to modify the traditional equipment selection techniques. A thorough understanding of the capabilities of the loading equipment is required in an attempt to match these abilities with the geometry of the ore deposit. The objective is to identify the equipment that will ensure the highest mining recovery at the lowest cost. This will be achieved when the loading equipment can attain a mining recovery smaller than the bench height it is mining or if the equipment can be applied economically on small bench heights. The most suitable equipment can only be determined at the hand of a total value chain costing analyses. This means that the production cost i.e. the cost to produce the final product must be evaluated and not the operating cost i.e. the cost to move a unit of material, as is often the case. The proposed mine planning approach and equipment selection technique was used on the Thabazimbi iron ore mine deposits. The results indicated that the NPV of the project could be increased dramatically. It was concluded that the ability to load selectively cannot be calculated mathematically. It is a judgment made on a thorough evaluation of the design and operating features of the shovel in conjunction with the ore body geometric parameters and the loading face conditions. The efficiency of the selected shovel can be manipulated through the application of different bench heights, and the optimum combination can only be determined through a total value chain costing analyses. / Dissertation (MEng (Mining Engineering))--University of Pretoria, 2005. / Mining Engineering / unrestricted