Digitized by Kansas Correctional Industries

Call number: LD2668 .T4 1937 A31

Call number: LD2668 .T4 1955 A53 / Master of Science

Primary rhegmatogenous retinal detachment (RRD) is one of the most common ophthalmic emergencies. RRD is caused by a full thickness break in the retina which initiates separation of the neurosensory retina from the underlying retinal pigment epithelium. The subsequent accumulation of fluid within this potential space extends the area of detachment and causes visual loss. Previous assessments of RRD incidence have demonstrated large differences in case definition and methodology, with incidence estimates varying 3-fold geographically and in different time periods. To date there have been no systematic or prospective incidence estimates of primary RRD in the U.K. In this thesis I present the findings of a 2-year epidemiology study that prospectively aimed to recruit all incident cases of primary RRD diagnosed in Scotland. Case recruitment from consenting participants comprised a detailed questionnaire and a blood sample. In this thesis, I present the findings of the Scottish retinal detachment study that examined the incidence, demographic features, temporal incidence trends, as well as clinical and socio-economic associations of primary RRD in Scotland. From the clinical and genetic resource I assembled, I calculated the first population based estimate of the sibling recurrence risk ratio for RRD and designed and assisted in the analysis of the first case-control genome wide association study of this condition. Results from this study have estimated the annual incidence of primary RRD in Scotland to be 12.05 per 100,000 population. Based on this estimate, there are approximately 7,300 new cases annually in the United Kingdom. RRD incidence increases with age, is more common in men and right eyes, and is strongly associated with socio-economic affluence. In addition, using hospital episode data, the overall age-standardised incidence of RRD in Scotland was shown to be steadily increasing since 1987 with an average annual increase of 1.9%. Analysis of the clinical findings highlighted that the majority of RRD cases are caused by more than one retinal break; an important consideration for appropriate surgical management. Ocular trauma, previous cataract surgery, family history, and retinal degeneration are important predisposing features. In addition, over a 2 year period approximately 7% of individuals will suffer a RRD in the fellow eye representing an important risk of bilateral visual loss. Furthermore, I demonstrate that the risk of having an affected sibling with RRD is increased 2-fold given that one sibling has had the condition, substantiating a genetic component to the pathogenesis of this condition. In the final aspect of this thesis I will present the design and analysis of a two stage case-control genome-wide association study examining the role of common genetic variants and selected candidate genes in predisposing to RRD development.

published_or_final_version / Social Work / Master / Master of Social Work

No description available.

In multi-tier cellular networks, user performance is largely a ected by the varying transmit powers, distances, and non-uniform tra c loads of di erent base stations (BSs) in both the downlink (DL) and uplink (UL) directions of transmission. In presence of such heterogeneity, decoupled UL-DL user association (DUDe), which allows users to associate with di erent BSs for UL and DL transmissions, can be used to optimize network performance. Again, in-band full-duplex (FD) communi- cation is considered as a promising technique to improve the spectral e ciency of future multi-tier fth generation (5G) cellular networks. Nonetheless, due to severe UL-to-DL and DL-to-UL interference issues arising due to FD communications, the performance gains of DUDe in FD multi-tier networks are inconspicuous. To this end, this thesis develops a comprehensive framework to analyze the usefulness of DUDe in a full-duplex multi-tier cellular network. We rst formulate a joint UL and DL user association problem (with the provision of decoupled association) that maximizes the sum-rate for UL and DL transmission of all users. Since the formulated problem is a mixed-integer non-linear programming (MINLP) problem, we invoke approxi- mations and binary constraint relaxations to convert the problem into a Geometric Programming (GP) problem that is solved using Karush-Kuhn-Tucker (KKT) opti- mality conditions. Given the centralized nature and complexity of the GP problem, the solution of which serves as the upper bound for any sub-optimal solution, we formulate a distributed two-sided iterative matching game and develop a solution to obtain the solution of the game. In this game, the users and BSs rank one another using preference metrics that are subject to the externalities (i.e., dynamic interfer- ence conditions). The solution of the game is guaranteed to converge and provides Pareto-e cient stable associations. Finally, we derive e cient light-weight versions of the iterative matching solution, i.e., non-iterative matching and sequential UL-DL matching algorithms. The performances of all the solutions are critically evaluated in terms of aggregate UL and DL rates of all users, the number of unassociated users, and the number of coupled/decoupled associations. Simulation results demonstrate the e cacy of the proposed algorithms over the centralized GP solution as well as traditional coupled and decoupled user association schemes. / October 2016

The primary purpose of this study is to review the actions of the Texas State Teacher's Association as an organization in support of the needs of Texas teachers for adequate tenure and retirement, and to evaluate their effectiveness in securing these needs.

The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of stimulus meaningfulness and position on the cue selection of elementary school children in verbal paired-associate learning.

Mining frequent itemsets and association rules is a popular and well researched approach for discovering interesting relationships between variables in large databases. The R package arules presented in this paper provides a basic infrastructure for creating and manipulating input data sets and for analyzing the resulting itemsets and rules. The package also includes interfaces to two fast mining algorithms, the popular C implementations of Apriori and Eclat by Christian Borgelt. These algorithms can be used to mine frequent itemsets, maximal frequent itemsets, closed frequent itemsets and association rules. (authors' abstract)