This thesis is comprised of four studies and concerns haemodialysis patients’ confidence in being able to manage fluid intake between treatment sessions, and whether the fluid intake is influenced by certain modifiable characteristics of the persons in question. The overall aim was to study aspects of excessive fluid overload and haemodialysis patients’ self-regulation of fluid allotment from a bio-psychosocial and behavioural medicine perspective. The extent of non-adherence to fluid allotment was described in Study I. National registry data were used. Three out of ten Swedish haemodialysis patients had excessive fluid overload and one out of five was at risk for treatment related complications due to too rapid ultrafiltration rate. The objective in Study II was to develop and psychometrically evaluate a self-administered scale to measure situation-specific self-efficacy to low fluid intake. The measure (the Fluid Intake Appraisal Inventory) was found to be reliable and valid in haemodialysis settings. Subgroups based on individual profiles of self-efficacy, attentional style and depressive symptoms were explored in Study III using a cluster analytic approach. Three distinct subgroups were found and the subgroup structure was validated for clinical relevance. The individuals’ profile concerning self-efficacy, attentional style and depressive symptoms has to be taken into account in nursing interventions designed to reduce haemodialysis patients’ fluid intake. In Study IV, an intervention designed to reduce haemodialysis patients’ fluid intake was introduced and its acceptability, feasibility and efficacy were evaluated and discussed. Acceptability of such an intervention was confirmed. Addressing beliefs, behaviours, emotions and physical feelings is clinically feasible and may reduce haemodialysis patient’s excessive fluid overload. This thesis indicates that there is a potential for improvement in the fluid management care of haemodialysis patients. Behavioural nursing strategies that aim to assist patients to achieve fluid control should be applied more extensively. Cognitive profiles of the patients should be taken into account when targeted nursing intervention aiming to encourage and maintain the patient’s fluid control is introduced.

This dissertation is composed of three research papers that deal with the topic of “accounting and innovation” and provide evidence for the area of innovation from two accounting perspectives, i.e., the external disclosure perspective and the internal management control system perspective. The disclosure perspective is addressed in the first paper. Using content analysis, it examines the innovation capital disclosure characteristics, i.e., disclosure quantity and quality, in intellectual capital statements of 51 European for-profit firms. Additionally, the relationship between innovation capital disclosure characteristics and industry, firm size, region of domicile, and disclosure guidelines adopted are analyzed. The second and third paper address the management control system perspective. The second paper contributes to the research on management control systems in product development by exploring the performance effects and the interplay of the levers of control, i.e., interactive, diagnostic, beliefs, and boundary control systems, based on data from a survey of 468 senior managers from the manufacturing industry. Therefore, I compare by structural equation modeling a base model of unrelated levers of control (additive model) with (a) a model of mutual association of levers of control (interdependence model), (b) a model of joint use of levers of control (interaction model), and (c) a combined model of mutual association and joint use of levers of control (combined interdependence/interaction model). The best fitting and most parsimonious model is analyzed in terms of the performance effects of the levers of control. Based on the sample of the second paper, the third paper contributes to the recent literature on the relationship between management control systems and innovation by considering how the four levers of control are used as “packages” in product development. I employ cluster analysis to determine how the levers of control are combined, depending on the type of strategy formation (i.e., intended or emergent) and the degree of innovativeness of the firm. Furthermore, I explore which of these combinations are equifinal in terms of product development and organizational performance.

Det finns i management control-litteraturen en efterfrågan på studier som tar ett helhetsperspektiv på styrsystem (Management Control Systems, MCS) och som förklarar hur dessa system bidrar till effektivitet hos organisationer. Utifrån ett contingency-synsätt undersöker vi i denna studie hur kulturell styrning och prestationsmätning som delar av MCS, tillsammans med den kontextuella variabeln osäkerhet i omgivningen, påverkar hur effektiva organisationer är. Vi antar en systemansats och önskar studera relationen mellan fler variabler, och därför tillämpas en klusteranalys där datamaterialet delas in i grupper med liknande karaktäristika. Då det är tveksamt om det finns en skillnad i effektivitet mellan de kluster vi identifierar, och för att få en bättre förståelse för vårt resultat, väljer vi att analysera detta utifrån två olika perspektiv. Utifrån det ena perspektivet antas organisationernas effektivitet skilja sig från varandra. Sett från detta perspektiv verkar en hög grad av prestationsmätning tillsammans med en hög grad av kulturell styrning vara effektivt under hög grad av osäkerhet i omgivningen. Utgångspunkten i det andra perspektivet är däremot att alla de företag som existerar och kan studeras är effektiva, och utifrån denna analys verkar det tvärtemot den tidigare analysens resultat som att en lägre grad av prestationsmätning tillsammans med en lika stor grad av kulturell styrning är mer effektivt i osäkra omgivningar, även om detta samband är något oklart. Under låg grad av osäkerhet i omgivningen visar analyser ur båda perspektiven att en hög grad av kulturell styrning tillsammans med en låg grad av prestationsmätning är en effektiv kombination. Dessutom visar det sig utifrån det sistnämnda perspektivet att även hög grad av båda styrmekanismerna är effektivt i mindre osäkra omgivningar. / Within the management control literature, studies have been requested that take a holistic view of Management Control Systems (MCS) and that explain how these systems contribute to organizational effectiveness. In this study, from a contingency perspective, we examine how cultural control and performance measurement as parts of the MCS, together with the contextual variable environmental uncertainty, affect the effectiveness of organizations. Adopting a systems approach we wish to study the relationship between several variables and therefore use a cluster analysis to divide the data into groups with similar characteristics. Since it is not clear whether there are any differences in effectiveness between the identified clusters and to get a better understanding of our findings, we choose to analyze the results from two different perspectives. Adopting one of the perspectives, the organizations are assumed to be unequally effective. From this perspective a high degree of performance measurement combined with a high degree of cultural control seem to be effective under high degrees of environmental uncertainty. From the other perspective it is implicitly understood that all of the observed organizations are effective since they exist. Seen from this, second, perspective it seems that a lower degree of performance measurement together with an equal degree of cultural control is more effective in uncertain environments, even though this relationship is somewhat vague. Under a low degree of environmental uncertainty, analyses from both perspectives show that a high degree of performance measurement together with a low degree of cultural control in an effective combination. Furthermore, the analysis from the second perspective indicates that also a high degree of both of the control variables is effective in high degrees of environmental uncertainty.

Approximately 2000 daily aerosol samples were collected at Antalya (30&deg / 34&amp / #900 / 30.54 E, 36&deg / 47&amp / #8217 / 30.54N) on the Mediterranean coast of Turkey between 1993 and 2001. High volume PM10 sampler was used for the collection of samples on Whatman&amp / #8211 / 41 filters. Collected samples were analyzed by a combination of analytical techniques. Energy Dispersive X-Ray Fluorescence (EDXRF) and Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (ICPMS) was used to measure trace element content of the collected samples from Li to U. Major ions, namely, SO42- and NO3-, were determined by employing Ion Chromatography (IC). Samples were analyzed in terms of their NH4+ contents by means of Colorimetry. Evaluation of short term trends of measured parameters have been shown that elements with marine and crustal origin are more episodic as compared to anthropogenic ones. Most of the parameters showed well defined seasonal cycles, for example, concentrations of crustal elements increased in summer season while winter concentrations of marine elements were considerably higher than associated values for summer. Seasonal Kendall statistic depicted that there was a decreasing trend for crustal elements such as Be, Co, Al, Na, Mg, K, Dy, Ho, Tm, Cs and Eu. Lead, As, Se and Ge were the anhtropogenic elements that decreasing trend was detected in the course of study period. Cluster and Residence time analysis were performed to find the origin of air masses arrving to Eastern Mediterranena Basin. It has been found that air masses reaching to our station resided more on Balkans and Eastern Europe. Positive Matrix Factorization (PMF) resolved eight factors influencing the chemical composition of Eastern Mediterranean aerosols as local dust, Saharan dust, oil combustion, coal combustion, crustal-anthropogenic mixed, sea salt, motor vehicle emission, and local Sb factor.

在我國土地開發市場中，開發者應偏好整合坵塊、以大面積土地進行開發，惟相關報導指出臺北市近年以狹小基地開發之鳥籠建案有所增加，遂形成實際與預期不符的矛盾情況。本文從土地供給角度出發，認為除了地價昂貴之外，土地整合成本亦對開發基地規模有決定性的影響，且由於容積獎勵制度的施行，當開發者取得大小足以開發的土地後，可能不再進行土地整合、而改以資本替代之。 為驗證上述推測，本研究以民國83至102年第三種住宅區新建住宅之使用執照存根為基礎，建立開發個案之資料庫；並利用集群分析方法，對開發個案之土地、資本配置型態進行歸納。經過統計，歷年均有近40%的新建住宅屬於基地狹小之鳥籠建案，且集群分析實證結果指出在空間上，市中心至郊區的住宅開發型態呈現單獨小規模開發至整合大規模開發的遞移變化，代表土地整合的難題已長期存在於臺北市住宅開發市場中，其中又以土地較零碎的市中心更為明顯。 此外，本文另以基地面積、公告現值與政策虛擬變數對實際容積率進行線性迴歸，結果顯示整併土地確實有提升容積總樓地板面積的規模經濟效果，但效果卻不如政策性容積獎勵來得明顯；且經過模擬亦得知若欲達到同樣的樓地板面積增量，申請政策性獎勵所需的成本將遠低於進行土地整合。是以在取得合理規模之基地後，土地整合已非必要，再加上多樣化卻缺乏總量管制的容積獎勵，開發者將傾向透過政策性手段來達到擴大資本開發規模之目的，遂造成住宅開發型態呈現空間垂直的成長。 / In Taiwan, land developers are expected to prefer assembling small plots into a large lot for development. However, it is widely reported recently that development projects of building on a small plot have been increasing in Taipei. This phenomenon is inconsistent with the above expectation. From the perspective of land supply, this study argues that apart from land prices, costs of land assembly also have a decisive influence on the lot size for land developments. Also, because of the bulk reward regulations, developers might be less willing to conduct land assembly. Instead, they choose capital intensive means which presented as building high-rise housings once they obtain a site. To verify the argument, this study establishes a database of housing projects based on the residential usage licenses from 1994 to 2013, and observes allocation patterns of land and capital by using cluster analysis. Statistically, there are about 40% of housing projects that were built on plots smaller than 330 m2 every year. The empirical result of cluster analysis shows that housing development patterns change from downtown to suburbs. In downtown area, most developers build houses on a small single plot. However, they assemble plots to get a bigger site in the suburbs. It means that housing development market of Taipei has been entangled by land assembly problems for a long time. This issue explicitly exists in downtown area where lands are much more fragmented. In addition, this study uses site area, current land value and a policy dummy as independent variables and building density as dependent variable to conduct a linear regression. The result shows that, although land assembly increases the floor area, its effect is not as large as that of policy incentives. Based on this result, the comparison analysis of land assembly and policy incentives also points out that the application of bulk reward costs less than land assembly, while they can enjoy the same floor area. Therefore, it is believed that developers tend to choose increasing housing scale by applying bonuses instead of assembling lands. This trend makes the housing development forms vertically expand consequently.

No description available.

This thesis is comprised of four studies and concerns haemodialysis patients’ confidence in being able to manage fluid intake between treatment sessions, and whether the fluid intake is influenced by certain modifiable characteristics of the persons in question. The overall aim was to study aspects of excessive fluid overload and haemodialysis patients’ self-regulation of fluid allotment from a bio-psychosocial and behavioural medicine perspective. The extent of non-adherence to fluid allotment was described in Study I. National registry data were used. Three out of ten Swedish haemodialysis patients had excessive fluid overload and one out of five was at risk for treatment related complications due to too rapid ultrafiltration rate. The objective in Study II was to develop and psychometrically evaluate a self-administered scale to measure situation-specific self-efficacy to low fluid intake. The measure (the Fluid Intake Appraisal Inventory) was found to be reliable and valid in haemodialysis settings. Subgroups based on individual profiles of self-efficacy, attentional style and depressive symptoms were explored in Study III using a cluster analytic approach. Three distinct subgroups were found and the subgroup structure was validated for clinical relevance. The individuals’ profile concerning self-efficacy, attentional style and depressive symptoms has to be taken into account in nursing interventions designed to reduce haemodialysis patients’ fluid intake. In Study IV, an intervention designed to reduce haemodialysis patients’ fluid intake was introduced and its acceptability, feasibility and efficacy were evaluated and discussed. Acceptability of such an intervention was confirmed. Addressing beliefs, behaviours, emotions and physical feelings is clinically feasible and may reduce haemodialysis patient’s excessive fluid overload. This thesis indicates that there is a potential for improvement in the fluid management care of haemodialysis patients. Behavioural nursing strategies that aim to assist patients to achieve fluid control should be applied more extensively. Cognitive profiles of the patients should be taken into account when targeted nursing intervention aiming to encourage and maintain the patient’s fluid control is introduced.

The incidence of many arboviral diseases is largely associated with social and environmental conditions. Ross River virus (RRV) is the most prevalent arboviral disease in Australia. It has long been recognised that the transmission pattern of RRV is sensitive to socio-ecological factors including climate variation, population movement, mosquito-density and vegetation types. This study aimed to assess the relationships between socio-environmental variability and the transmission of RRV using spatio-temporal analytic methods. Computerised data files of daily RRV disease cases and daily climatic variables in Brisbane, Queensland during 1985-2001 were obtained from the Queensland Department of Health and the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, respectively. Available information on other socio-ecological factors was also collected from relevant government agencies as follows: 1) socio-demographic data from the Australia Bureau of Statistics; 2) information on vegetation (littoral wetlands, ephemeral wetlands, open freshwater, riparian vegetation, melaleuca open forests, wet eucalypt, open forests and other bushland) from Brisbane City Council; 3) tidal activities from the Queensland Department of Transport; and 4) mosquito-density from Brisbane City Council. Principal components analysis (PCA) was used as an exploratory technique for discovering spatial and temporal pattern of RRV distribution. The PCA results show that the first principal component accounted for approximately 57% of the information, which contained the four seasonal rates and loaded highest and positively for autumn. K-means cluster analysis indicates that the seasonality of RRV is characterised by three groups with high, medium and low incidence of disease, and it suggests that there are at least three different disease ecologies. The variation in spatio-temporal patterns of RRV indicates a complex ecology that is unlikely to be explained by a single dominant transmission route across these three groupings. Therefore, there is need to explore socio-economic and environmental determinants of RRV disease at the statistical local area (SLA) level. Spatial distribution analysis and multiple negative binomial regression models were employed to identify the socio-economic and environmental determinants of RRV disease at both the city and local (ie, SLA) levels. The results show that RRV activity was primarily concentrated in the northeast, northwest and southeast areas in Brisbane. The negative binomial regression models reveal that RRV incidence for the whole of the Brisbane area was significantly associated with Southern Oscillation Index (SOI) at a lag of 3 months (Relative Risk (RR): 1.12; 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.06 - 1.17), the proportion of people with lower levels of education (RR: 1.02; 95% CI: 1.01 - 1.03), the proportion of labour workers (RR: 0.97; 95% CI: 0.95 - 1.00) and vegetation density (RR: 1.02; 95% CI: 1.00 - 1.04). However, RRV incidence for high risk areas (ie, SLAs with higher incidence of RRV) was significantly associated with mosquito density (RR: 1.01; 95% CI: 1.00 - 1.01), SOI at a lag of 3 months (RR: 1.48; 95% CI: 1.23 - 1.78), human population density (RR: 3.77; 95% CI: 1.35 - 10.51), the proportion of indigenous population (RR: 0.56; 95% CI: 0.37 - 0.87) and the proportion of overseas visitors (RR: 0.57; 95% CI: 0.35 - 0.92). It is acknowledged that some of these risk factors, while statistically significant, are small in magnitude. However, given the high incidence of RRV, they may still be important in practice. The results of this study suggest that the spatial pattern of RRV disease in Brisbane is determined by a combination of ecological, socio-economic and environmental factors. The possibility of developing an epidemic forecasting system for RRV disease was explored using the multivariate Seasonal Auto-regressive Integrated Moving Average (SARIMA) technique. The results of this study suggest that climatic variability, particularly precipitation, may have played a significant role in the transmission of RRV disease in Brisbane. This finding cannot entirely be explained by confounding factors such as other socio-ecological conditions because they have been unlikely to change dramatically on a monthly time scale in this city over the past two decades. SARIMA models show that monthly precipitation at a lag 2 months (=0.004,p=0.031) was statistically significantly associated with RRV disease. It suggests that there may be 50 more cases a year for an increase of 100 mm precipitation on average in Brisbane. The predictive values in the model were generally consistent with actual values (root-mean-square error (RMSE): 1.96). Therefore, this model may have applications as a decision support tool in disease control and risk-management planning programs in Brisbane. The Polynomial distributed lag (PDL) time series regression models were performed to examine the associations between rainfall, mosquito density and the occurrence of RRV after adjusting for season and auto-correlation. The PDL model was used because rainfall and mosquito density can affect not merely RRV occurring in the same month, but in several subsequent months. The rationale for the use of the PDL technique is that it increases the precision of the estimates. We developed an epidemic forecasting model to predict incidence of RRV disease. The results show that 95% and 85% of the variation in the RRV disease was accounted for by the mosquito density and rainfall, respectively. The predictive values in the model were generally consistent with actual values (RMSE: 1.25). The model diagnosis reveals that the residuals were randomly distributed with no significant auto-correlation. The results of this study suggest that PDL models may be better than SARIMA models (R-square increased and RMSE decreased). The findings of this study may facilitate the development of early warning systems for the control and prevention of this widespread disease. Further analyses were conducted using classification trees to identify major mosquito species of Ross River virus (RRV) transmission and explore the threshold of mosquito density for RRV disease in Brisbane, Australia. The results show that Ochlerotatus vigilax (RR: 1.028; 95% CI: 1.001 - 1.057) and Culex annulirostris (RR: 1.013, 95% CI: 1.003 - 1.023) were significantly associated with RRV disease cycles at a lag of 1 month. The presence of RRV was associated with average monthly mosquito density of 72 Ochlerotatus vigilax and 52 Culex annulirostris per light trap. These results may also have applications as a decision support tool in disease control and risk management planning programs. As RRV has significant impact on population health, industry, and tourism, it is important to develop an epidemic forecast system for this disease. The results of this study show the disease surveillance data can be integrated with social, biological and environmental databases. These data can provide additional input into the development of epidemic forecasting models. These attempts may have significant implications in environmental health decision-making and practices, and may help health authorities determine public health priorities more wisely and use resources more effectively and efficiently.

Η συνοπτική ταξινόμηση των συστημάτων καιρού αφορά πληθώρα περιβαλλοντικών εφαρμογών. Προσφάτως, η γνωστική περιοχή για την οποία η συνοπτική ταξινόμηση έχει βαρύνουσα σημασία είναι αυτή της ατμοσφαιρικής ρύπανσης. Η γνώση της συνοπτικής κλιματολογίας μιας περιοχής, επιτρέπει την πρόγνωση και ενδεχομένως την αποφυγή επεισοδίων ρύπανσης, τα οποία οφείλονται είτε σε τοπικές πηγές είτε στην μεταφορά ρύπων. Η γνώση αυτή ενισχύεται σημαντικά μέσω της κατηγοριοποίησης (ταξινόμησης) των συνοπτικών καταστάσεων που επικρατούν σε μία δεδομένη περιοχή. Τα τελευταία χρόνια έχουν γίνει προσπάθειες «αυτόματης», μη εμπειρικής, ταξινόμησης με την χρήση Η/Υ. Οι μέχρι τώρα προσπάθειες επικεντρώνονται σε κλασικές στατιστικές μεθόδους. Σκοπός αυτής της διδακτορικής διατριβής είναι η ανάπτυξη μεθόδων και η υλοποίηση αλγορίθμων για την εξαγωγή και ψηφιακή επεξεργασία περιβαλλοντικών σημάτων και εικόνων. Η εφαρμογή των ανωτέρω οδηγεί στη δημιουργία έμπειρων συστημάτων συνοπτικής ταξινόμησης των συστημάτων καιρού, η οποία βασίζεται σε μεθόδους επεξεργασίας εικόνας, ανάλυσης και ομαδοποίησης δεδομένων, αναγνώρισης προτύπων και θεωρίας γράφων. Η σκοπιμότητα της παρούσης έρευνας διαφαίνεται από τη πρωτοτυπία που παρουσιάζει, η οποία έγκειται στο γεγονός ότι οι τεχνικές που παρουσιάζονται και που έχουν αντιμετωπίσει επιτυχώς σειρά προβλημάτων ταξινόμησης σε διάφορους γνωστικούς τομείς, εφαρμόζονται για πρώτη φορά στην Ελλάδα σε θέματα Μετεωρολογίας-Κλιματολογίας-Φυσικής του Περιβάλλοντος και συγκεκριμένα για την συνοπτική ταξινόμηση των συστημάτων καιρού. Τα χαρακτηριστικά των σύγχρονων μεθόδων επεξεργασίας εικόνας, θεωρίας γράφων και ανάλυσης δεδομένων, καθιστούν τις προτεινόμενες προσεγγίσεις αυτής της διατριβής ανταγωνιστικές τόσο σε επίπεδο ποιότητας ταξινόμησης όσο και σε υπολογιστικό χρόνο. / The synoptic classification of weather systems involves a variety of environmental applications. Recently, the synoptic classification has been found to be relevant with the cognitive area of air pollution. Knowing the synoptic climatology of a region, allows the prediction and possibly the prevention of pollution incidents, resulting in either local sources or in transport of pollutants. This knowledge is greatly enhanced by the categorization (classification) of the synoptic conditions in a given area. In recent years ‘automatic’, non-empirical, classification methods have been developed using computers. So far these efforts have been based on classical statistical methods. The aim of this PhD thesis is the development of methods and the implementation of algorithms to extract and process digital signals and environmental images. Consequently, expert systems for the synoptic classification of weather systems are created based on methods relative to image processing, data analysis and clustering, pattern recognition and graph theory. The objective of this research is demonstrated by its own originality which lies in the fact that the presented techniques have successfully addressed a number of classification problems in different topics. It is the first time that such methods have been applied on Meteorology-Climatology-Physics of the Environment in Greece, namely the synoptic classification of weather systems. The characteristics of the modern methods proposed in this PhD thesis are competitive both in classification quality and in computational time.

This thesis deals with the evaluation of the quality of life in rural communities in the Region of Prachatice. The thesis is also focused on the evaluation of the economic weakness of the municipalities, its causes and manifestations, and, at least, the possibility of improving life in these communities. An integral part of this work is finding those sources of funding and the related use of funds and grants. In the theoretical part, I have discussed the importance of the regional and social policy focusing on rural issues and their development, with the development of the regions linked to the use of subsidies and the disbursement of funds, especially funds of the European Union. In the practical part, contingency tables and cluster analysis are used, as well as special methods. The results of this study has confirmed that quality of life in LFA municipalities and their economic weakness depends on the size of the village. The conclusion provides an overall assessment of the work and its results.