Bakgrund: Många människor väntar på att få genomgå en hjärt- eller levertransplantation. Det är viktigt att vården är patientcentrerad, så att sjuksköterskor ser hela människan och har kunskap att stödja patienter till anpassning i väntan på det nya organet. Syfte: Syftet var att beskriva patienters upplevelser i väntan på en hjärt- eller levertransplantation. Metod: En kvalitativ innebördsanalys med beskrivande ansats har gjorts baserat på fem självbiografier. Resultat: Resultatet presenteras i fyra teman; Att leva i ovisshet, Att befinna sig mellan liv och död, Betydelsen av stöd från anhöriga samt Betydelsen av stöd från sjukvårdspersonal. Dessa teman visar att patienter som väntar på en hjärt- eller levertransplantation upplever väntan som lång, med många känslor och tankar. Stödet patienterna fick ifrån anhöriga och sjukvårdspersonal hjälpte dem att ta sig igenom väntan inför en transplantation. Slutsats: Väntan inför en hjärt- eller levertransplantation upplevs av patienter som en livsomvälvande situation, där ovissheten i väntan är jobbig. Genom att sjukvårdspersonal använder sig av Roys anpassningsmodell kan det bidra till en patientcentrerad vård, där anpassning till den nya livssituationen sätts i fokus.

The purpose of this study was to discover what relationship, if any, exists between the actor's perception of audience feedback concerning his portrayal of a character in a drama and the audience's perception of that particular character.

The main subject matter of this thesis concerns radiotherapy patient scheduling subproblems formulated as four separate shop scheduling problem models (i.e. hybrid flowshop, flowshop, mixed shop and multiple identical parallel machine scheduling problems) based on the characteristics of the intricate real-life treatment processes observed at the Arden Cancer Centre in Coventry, UK. Insight into these processes was gained by developing and using a novel discrete-event simulation (DES) model of the four units of the radiotherapy department. By typifying the subproblems as well-known scheduling problem models, it was intended that methods amenable to them such as heuristics be used in the study. Four novel constructive heuristics based on priority dispatching rules and strategies adapted from some established algorithms have been developed and implemented using the C++ programming language. Further, these heuristics were incorporated into the DES model to create schedules of appointments for the patients generated daily. The effectiveness and efficiency of the constructive heuristics have been tested using the following performance criteria: minimising i) average waiting time to the start of treatment, and ii) average percentage of patients late for their treatment, and iii) the amount of overtime slots used for the patients received in a given period of time. The coordinated constructive heuristics and the DES model have also been tested using possible alternative pathways patients can follow in the treatment unit. The aim of these tests was to compare the efficiency of the radiotherapy department’s current pathway to other possible pathways. Further, strategies for using maximum allowed breaches of targeted due dates, reserved slots for critical treatments and overtime slots was also included in the heuristics. The results of several tests showed that the heuristics created schedules of appointments whose average waiting times for emergency, palliative and radical treatments improved by about 50%, 34% and 41%, respectively, compared to the historical data. However, their major slack was evidenced by the fact that about 13% of the patients needing palliative treatment were expected to be late for treatment compared to about 1% of those requiring radical treatment.

Vehicular Ad-Hoc Network (VANET)s are a key element of Intelligent Transport System (ITS)s. One of the challenges in VANETs is dealing with awareness and congestion due to the high amount of messages received from the vehicles in communication range. As VANETs are used in critical applications, congestion on the receiver side caused by the buffering of the packets is a safety hazard. In this thesis, we propose a stream-wise queuing system on the receiver side and show how it improves the timeliness of the messages received and main- tains the awareness of the system in a congestion situation.

Master of Public Health - MPH / Background: The appointment system learning initiative (ASLI) was introduced in 2016 as a way of implementing appointment systems in the City of Cape Town, in response to lengthy waiting times at PHC facilities It was intended as a safe space for learning, and piloted facility-generated planning in which knowledge was shared in workshops over 18 months. Variability in how well appointment systems had taken root was noted at the second feedback workshop. Currently, there is little information on the experiences, perceptions and roles of managers with regard to the initiative, or what unforeseen issues may have had an impact. Aim: This study aimed to reach an understanding of how the Appointment Systems Learning Initiative approach and its implementation was experienced by participating facility and PPHC managers at City Health facilities in Cape Town. This includes an exploration of the roles and experiences of health managers, including their perceptions of the benefits and challenges of the process. Methods: A qualitative, exploratory design was used. Individual, semi-structured interviews were conducted with a sample of twelve facility managers and two PPHC managers. Manager’s roles were analysed deductively according to Mintzburg’s 2009 framework, while other data analysis was inductive. Ethical clearance was obtained from UWC BMREC prior to commencement. Informed consent was obtained from participants and confidentiality was preserved at all stages of research. Results: Managers viewed the learning experience positively and felt that facility-generated planning was preferable to hierarchical imposition of programmes. They found it motivating to learn how other facilities had solved problems and designed their systems. Contextual changes to the health system affected ASLI by increasing the pace and prescriptiveness of implementation, and impeded the capacity for PPHC managers to offer support. Facility managers fulfilled critical leadership roles according to Mintzberg’s model, but the way in which they carried out roles such as delegation, team building or communicating may have affected implementation. Challenges included issues with human resources, insufficient time available for managing implementation, lack of preparation beforehand, insufficient support and contextual changes. Benefits included shorter working hours for staff, better organisation in facilities, shorter waiting times and improved satisfaction for end-users.

Magister Public Health - MPH / Long waiting times have, for many years, been synonymous with primary health care in South Africa, and this is evident by the long queues and consistent client dissatisfaction. There are multiple contributing factors that exacerbate waiting time in Primary Health Care (PHC) facilities such as shortage of health care providers, increase in the uninsured population and South Africa’s quadruple burden of diseases. Health establishments have initiated numerous strategies to reduce long waiting times with varying degrees of success. These strategies have mostly been quantified and linked to indicators to measure their level of success in relation to quality healthcare. This research explores the clients’ perception of one such intervention, which is the implementation of an appointment system in primary care facilities in the City of Cape Town. Qualitative, exploratory descriptive methods were used to gain understanding of the impact the appointment system has had on the clients’ experience of attending health care services. The researcher also explored how clients perceive their role with regard to the shaping of their clinic’s appointment system. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with fifteen purposively sampled clients from five City Health clinics, who have implemented an appointment system through the guidance of the Appointment System Learning Initiative (ASLI). Maximum variation in sampling ensured the inclusion of small, medium and larger facilities within different geographical settings. Data analysis was done using a thematic coding approach, the themes were derived from the emerging data and were used to guide the researcher in gaining a rich picture of the clients’ experiences within the clinics. Ethical approval was requested and received from both the University of the Western Cape (UWC) and City Health prior to engaging any participants.

Consideremos uma sequência de lançamentos de moedas em que denotamos o resultado de cada lançamento por H, se der cara, ou por T, se der coroa. Formemos uma palavra apenas com H\'s e T\'s, por exemplo, HHHHH ou HTHTH. Quantas vezes arremessaremos uma mesma moeda ate que uma das duas palavras acima ocorrera? Por exemplo, dadas as sequências THTHHHHH e TTHTTHTHTH. O numero de vezes que arremessamos a moeda ate que HHHHH e HTHTH ocorreram pela primeira vez e oito e dez, respectivamente. Podemos generalizar a ideia acima para um numero finito de palavras em um alfabeto finito qualquer. Assim, o nosso principal objetivo dessa dissertação e encontrarmos a distribuição do tempo de espera ate que um membro de uma coleção finita de palavras seja observado em uma sequência de ensaios de Markov de letras de um alfabeto finito. Mais especificamente, as letras de um alfabeto finito são geradas por uma cadeia de Markov ate que uma das palavras de uma coleção finita ocorra. Além disso encontraremos a probabilidade de que determinada palavra ocorra antes das demais palavras pertencentes a um mesmo conjunto finito. Por ultimo encontraremos a função geradora de probabilidade do tempo de espera. / Consider a sequence of independent coin flips where we denote the result of any landing for H, if coming up head, or T, otherwise. Create patterns with H\'s and T\'s, for example, HHHHH or HTHTH. How many times do we have to land the same coin until one such two patterns happens? For example, let the sequences being THTHHHHH and TTHTTHTHTH. The number of times that we landed the coin until HHHHH and HTHTH happens it was eight and ten times respectively. We can generalize this idea for a finite number of patterns in any finite set. Then, the first of all interest of this dissertation is to find the distribution of the waiting time until a member of a finite colection of patterns is observed in a sequence of Markov chains of letters in from finite set. More specically the letters in a finite set are generated by Markov chain until one of the patterns in any finite set happens. Besides that, we will find the probability of a pattern happen before of all patterns in the same finite set. Finally we will find the generator function of probability of waiting time.

In this thesis I seek to investigate in the physical expressions of waiting spaces, with a particular focus on Arlanda Airport outside of Stockholm. With increased mobility in society, non-places like this where the users mainly wait, will plausibly continue to develop. At the same time, the act of waiting is threatened as it is being affected by other functions such as logistic, operational and commercial interests. Challenging an archetypal relationship between the human body and the traditional waiting space, this thesis presents a diverse concept in architecture for waiting. I have, in this work, focused on the gap between the built environment and human bodies. A gap that generates form and questions the prioritized spatial values of our time.   With “Outlaw Behavior” I emphasise the relationship between human and the act of waiting to offer a new way of experiencing a non-place. It could be suggested that contemporary architecture’s focus on transit spaces has led to the primacy of commercialism, meaning “time killing”. Thus, architecture for waiting tends to miss opportunities for wider exploration and diversified experiences beyond the generic, universal waiting area. The goal of the project is to create a spatial value of waiting, which in a fast-paced society challenges and questions the way our time is being consumed.

Bakgrund: För många svårt sjuka patienter med organsvikt är organtransplantation deras enda chans till ett bättre och längre liv. Till följd av stora förändringar och framsteg har transplantationen utvecklats, men bristen på organ är global och beror på allmänhetens inställning. Förlorad kontroll är den mest centrala upplevelsen och upplevelsen av oförutsägbarhet och osäkerhet under väntetiden. Lagar och författningar som styr organdonation och organtransplantation ser olika ut i världen. Sverige har en samtyckeslag som betyder att personen är positivt inställd till donation, men närstående har vetorätt och kan motsätta sig ingreppet. Syfte: Syftet var att beskriva patienters upplevelse av att vänta på organtransplantation. Metod: En litteraturstudie med induktiv ansats som omfattas av tolv artiklar varav en kvantitativ. Databaserna Cinahl Complete och PubMed användes. Genom hela gransknings- och analysprocessen användes Polit och Becks niostegsmodell. Resultat: Fyra kategorier framkom: ”fysiska symtom”, ”den psykiska upplevelsen av att vänta”, ”copingstrategier” och ”sociala begränsningar”. Diskussion: Två huvudfynd framkom; det första beskriver fysiska symtom som genererar sociala begräsningar och det andra beskriver hur patienterna utvecklar copingstrategier, för att hantera den psykiska upplevelsen av att vänta. Dessa diskuteras med stöd från annan forskning och Antonovskys förhållningssätt KASAM.

Chat rooms are of enormous interest to social network researchers as they are one of the most interactive internet areas. To understand the behaviour of users in a chat room, there have been studies on the analysis of the Response Waiting Time (RWT) based on traditional approaches of aggregating the network contacts. However, real social networks are dynamic and properties such as RWT change over time. Unfortunately, the traditional approach focuses only on static network and neglecting the temporal variation in RWT which may have lead to misrepresentation of the true nature of RWT. In order to determine the true nature of RWT, we analyse and compare the RWT of three online chat room logs (Walford, IRC and T-REX) putting into consideration the dynamic nature of RWT. Our research shows that the distribution of the RWT exhibits multi-scaling behaviour, which signi cantly a ects the current views on the nature of RWT. This is a shift from simple power-law distribution to a more complex pattern. The previous study on users RWT between pairs of people claims that the RWT has a power-law distribution with an exponent of 1. However, our research shows that multi-scaling behaviour and the exponent has a wider range of values which depend on the environment and time of day. The di erent exponents observed on di erent time scales suggest that the time context or environment has a signi cant in uence on users RWT. Furthermore, using the chat characterise, we predicted the factors which could minimize response waiting time and improving the friendship connection during online chat sessions. We apply our ndings to design an algorithm for chat thread detection. Here, we proposed two variations of cluster algorithm. The rst algorithm involves the traditional approach while in the second one, the temporal variations in RWT was taken into consideration to capture the dynamic nature of a text stream. An advantage of our proposed method over the previous models is that previous models have involved highly computationally intensive methods and often lead to deterioration in the accuracy of the result whereas our proposed approach uses a simple and effective sequential thread detection method, which is less computationally intensive.