Many midwives continue to use Continuous Electronic Foetal Monitoring (CEFM) on low risk women in labour, despite overwhelming clinical evidence that it is unnecessary. The use of CEFM on low risk labouring women has been linked to rising rates of medical intervention during labour and birth with no improvement in long term neonatal outcomes. This study examined the decision-making processes of midwives who used CEFM on low risk labouring women. Whilst a number of previous studies have examined various aspects of CEFM, none specific to midwives’ decision-making and CEFM on low risk labouring women. This study contributes to the literature in this specific area. The theoretical origins of Symbolic Interactionism and Grounded Theory (GT) methods underpin this study. SI, a sociological theory that emphasises meaning in human interactions and behaviours is used in this study to focus on the behaviours and interactions of five midwives’when deciding to use CEFM on low risk labouring women. Primary data were collected by conducting unstructured interviews and systematic analysis was undertaken using GT methods to generate a substantive theory of: Midwives’ CEFM decision-making despite evidence based guidelines. The midwives made the decision that led to CEFM at two key points in the woman’s labour care. Firstly, during the initial assessment of the woman and foetus, some midwives decided to use a baseline CTG rather than intermittent auscultation (IA). Secondly, following initial assessment, the midwives made an individualised assessment and decided whether to use CEFM as the method to monitor the foetus during labour. Trust was identified as the core variable, having a profound effect on the midwives’ decision-making at these two points. Another significant factor that impacted on decision-making was staff workload. Recommendations relating to these findings promote that labouring women be central and intimately involved in decisions about foetal monitoring. Workplace reforms, such as the introduction of midwifery led models of care for women within a community setting are recommended to address professional trust and workload issues. Through the implementation of these recommendations it is expected that midwives will embrace the notion of woman centred care and that the unnecessary use of CEFM on low risk labouring women will be reduced.

<p>Upper secondary school contains of several different programs, for some of them workplace training, APU, is a part. The Industry programme is one of those. The education within a programme where workplace training is a part works out differently. The workplace training part of the education is a collaboration between school and different working sites. The aim of this study is to illuminate one kind of education model from different perspectives.</p><p>The workplace training part of this model starts from term four and takes place two days every week, the other three days of the week used for education in school. The questions at issue for this study are in what meaning can workplace training affect the results of the programme goals? And how is the education interpreted, valued and described by different participants? The study contains of sex interviewees. In the study are six persons from three different categories; cooperative companies, teachers teaching core subjects and pupils. The results from the study show how important the cooperative companies think that communication and the possibility to be able to have influence in the education model are. They look at themselves not only as a company that provides trainee possibilities. They also consider the lifeexperience that the pupils get through the combination of education in school combined with workplaced training affect their efforts of reaching the programme goal positively. The education model is seen with positive eyes both from the cooperative companies and the pupils, while the results from the coresubject teachers interviews not are quit as distinct.</p>

by E.R. Kretzmer. / Includes bibliographical references. / Army Signal Corps Contract no. W-36-039 sc-32037.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2006. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes bibliographical references (p. 104-114).

Thesis (M. Soc. Sc.)--University of Hong Kong, 2003.

In today’s rapidly changing society company development and Continuous improvements are crucial to gain a competitive advantage on the global market. Through interviews this study investigated how two Chinese companies worked with Continuous improvements. The empirical findings were compared to the theoretical theories. The study showed that the biggest difference between western business and Chinese businesses was the organizational structure. The hierarchical organizational structure, since it hinders empowerment, was also the biggest barrier for Chinese companies to integrate further developmental work with Continuous improvements. Thus empowerment contributes to flexibility, innovation, employee development and increased communication processes.

Ovarian cancer remains the deadliest gynecologic malignancy. Current treatment has low efficacy in the long term, leading to low 5-year survival rates of 20-40%. Treatment-free periods between cycles of chemotherapy are accepted in standard treatment. These periods lead to accelerated tumor cell proliferation, angiogenesis and drug resistance development. Studies presented herein show advantages of continuous carboplatin dosing schedule over conventional intermittent regimen, both administered intraperitoneally. Continuous carboplatin therapy blocked acceleration of cell proliferation observed during treatment-free period of intermittent therapy. Moreover, continuous carboplatin led to 57% inhibition of SKOV3 tumors grown intraperitoneally in SCID mice, a significant advantage over the 33% tumor suppression observed with intermittent carboplatin. Immunohistochemical analysis revealed continuous carboplatin led to greater tumor cell death while suppressing tumor cell proliferation and angiogenesis when compared to intermittent administration. These results show that the suppression of tumor growth with carboplatin can be enhanced by the elimination of treatment free periods.

Ovarian cancer remains the deadliest gynecologic malignancy. Current treatment has low efficacy in the long term, leading to low 5-year survival rates of 20-40%. Treatment-free periods between cycles of chemotherapy are accepted in standard treatment. These periods lead to accelerated tumor cell proliferation, angiogenesis and drug resistance development. Studies presented herein show advantages of continuous carboplatin dosing schedule over conventional intermittent regimen, both administered intraperitoneally. Continuous carboplatin therapy blocked acceleration of cell proliferation observed during treatment-free period of intermittent therapy. Moreover, continuous carboplatin led to 57% inhibition of SKOV3 tumors grown intraperitoneally in SCID mice, a significant advantage over the 33% tumor suppression observed with intermittent carboplatin. Immunohistochemical analysis revealed continuous carboplatin led to greater tumor cell death while suppressing tumor cell proliferation and angiogenesis when compared to intermittent administration. These results show that the suppression of tumor growth with carboplatin can be enhanced by the elimination of treatment free periods.

Aquesta tesi tracta l'estudi de protocols de comunicació quàntica amb sistemes devariable continua (CV). Els sistemes de CV són aquells descrits per coordenades canòniques conjugades $x$ i $p$ dotades amb un espai de Hilbert de dimensió in&#64257;nita. Una classe especial de sistemes CV són, els anomenats estats Gaussians.Contràriament als sistemes discrets, els estats Gaussians entrellaçats no es podendestil·lar només amb operacions Gaussianes. No obstant va ser mostrat que, és possible extreure bits clàssics perfectament correlacionats per establir claus secretes aleatòries. Apropiadament modi&#64257;quem el protocol usant entrellaçament Gaussià bipartit per assolir la distribució de claus quàntiques de manera e&#64257;cient i realista. Descrivim i demostrem la seguretat en front de diversos possibles atacs enla comunicació, detallant els recursos necessaris. També hem considerat un protocol tripartit simple conegut com Acord Bizantí. És un vell protocol de comunicació clàssica en el què els participants (amb possibles traïdors entre ells)només podem comunicar-se en parelles, mentre intenten arribar a una decisiócomú. Clàssicament hi ha un límit en el nombre màxim de traïdors que poden estar involucrats dins el joc. No obstant, una solució quàntica existeix. Mostrem aquestasolució dins els CV usant estats entrellaçats Gaussians multipartits i operacionsGaussianes. A més, mostrem sota quines premisses, entrellaçament contingut als estats, soroll, detectors ine&#64257;cients, el nostre protocol és e&#64257;cient i aplicable amb tecnologia actual. És conegut que tot i que el seu rol excepcional dins els estats CV, de fet, els estats Gaussians no són sempre els millors candidats per desenvolupar tasquesd'informació quàntica. Així, ataquem el problema de la quanti&#64257;cació de correlacions(clàssiques i/o quàntiques) entre dos modes CV (Gaussians i no Gaussians).Proposem de&#64257;nir les correlacions entre dos modes com el màxim numero de bits correlacionats extrets a través de mesures locals en les quadratures de cadamode. En els estats Gaussians, on l'entrellaçament és accessible a través de la seva matriu de covariança la nostra quanti&#64257;cació majoritza l'entrellaçament, reduint¬se a un monotó d'entrellaçament per estats purs. Per estats no Gaussians, com estats fotònics de Bell, estats foto-substrets i mescles d'estats Gaussians, la correlació de bits en quadratures mostra ser també una funció monòtona amb la negativitat. Aquesta quanti&#64257;cació dóna una operacional i factible manera de mesurar l'entrellaçament no Gaussià en experiments actuals mitjançant detecció homodine directa i sense necessitar una tomogra&#64257;a completa de l'estat amb lamateixa di&#64257;cultat que si es tractes d'estats Gaussians. Finalment ens hem focalitzat amb col·lectivitats atòmiques descrites com CV. L'entrellaçament induït per la mesura entre dos col·lectivitats atòmiques macroscòpiques va ser reportat experimentalment al 2001. Allà, la interacció entreun únic pols làser apropant-se a través de dos col·lectivitats atòmiques separades espacialment combinat amb una mesura projectiva &#64257;nal en la llum permetia la creació d'entrellaçament EPR pur entre les dues col·lectivitats. Mostrem com generar, manipular i detectar entrellaçament mesoscopic entre un nombre arbitraride col·lectivitats a través d'una interfície llum-matèria quàntica no demolidora. Lanostra proposta s'extén d'una manera no trivial per entrellaçament multipartit (GHZ ide tipus clúster) sense la necessitat de camps magnètics locals. A més mostrem sorprenentment que, donat el caràcter irreversible de la mesura, la interacció de la col·lectivitat atòmica amb un segon feix de llum pot modi&#64257;car e inclús revertir la acció d'entrellaçament del primer deixant la col·lectivitat en un estat separable. / This thesis deals with the study of quantum communication protocols with Continuous Variable (CV) systems. CV systems are those described by canonical conjugated coordinates $x$ and $p$ endowed with in&#64257;nite dimensional Hilbertspaces, thus involving a complex mathematical structure. A special class of CVstates, are the so-called Gaussian states. We present a protocol that permits toextract quantum keys from entangled Gaussian states. Differently from discretesystems, Gaussian entangled states cannot be distilled with Gaussian operations only. However it was already shown, that it is still possible to extract perfectly correlated classical bits to establish secret random keys. We properly modify theprotocol using bipartite Gaussian entanglement to perform quantum key distribution in an ef&#64257;cient and realistic way. We describe and demonstrate security in front of different possible attacks on the communication, detailing the resources demanded. We also consider a simple 3-partite protocol known as Byzantine Agreement. It is anold classical communication problem in which parties (with possible traitors amongthem) can only communicate pairwise, while trying to reach a common decision. Classically, there is a bound in the maximal number of possible traitors that can be involved in the game. Nevertheless, a quantum solution exist. We show that solution within CV using multipartite entangled Gaussian states and Gaussian operations. Furthermore, we show under which premises concerning entanglement content of the state, noise, inef&#64257;cient homodyne detectors, our protocol is ef&#64257;cient and applicable with present technology. It is known that in spite of their exceptional role within the space of all CV states, in fact, Gaussian states are not always the best candidates to perform quantum information tasks. Thus, we tackle the problem of quanti&#64257;cation of correlations (quantum and/or classical) between two CV modes (Gaussian and non-Gaussian). We propose to de&#64257;ne correlations between the two modes as the maximal number of correlated bits extracted via local quadrature measurements on each mode. On Gaussian states, where entanglement is accessible via their covariance matrix ourquanti&#64257;cation majorizes entanglement, reducing to an entanglement monotone for pure states. For non-Gaussian states, such as photonic Bell states, photon subtracted states and mixtures of Gaussian states, the bit quadrature correlationsare shown to be also a monotonic function of the negativity. This quanti&#64257;cation yields a feasible, operational way to measure non-Gaussian entanglement in currentexperiments by means of direct homodyne detection, without needing a complete state tomography with the same complexity as if dealing with Gaussian states. Finally we focus to atomic ensembles described as CV. Measurement induced entanglement between two macroscopical atomic samples was reported experimentally in 2001. There, the interaction between a single laser pulsepropagating through two spatially separated atomic samples combined with a &#64257;nal projective measurement on the light led to the creation of pure EPR entanglement between the two samples. We show how to generate, manipulate and detect mesoscopic entanglement between an arbitrary number of atomic samples through a quantum non-demolition matter-light interface. Our proposal extends in a non-trivialway for multipartite entanglement (GHZ and cluster-like) without needing local magnetic &#64257;elds. Moreover, we show quite surprisingly that given the irreversiblecharacter of a measurement, the interaction of the atomic sample with a secondpulse light can modify and even reverse the entangling action of the &#64257;rst one leavingthe samples in a separable state.

This thesis focuses on convex sets and convex cones defined using hyperbolic polynomials. We first review some of the theory of convex sets in $\R^d$ in general. We then review some classical algebraic theorems concerning polynomials in a single variable, as well as presenting a few more modern results about them. We then discuss the theory of hyperbolic polynomials in several variables and their associated hyperbolicity cones. We survey various ways to build and decompose hyperbolic cones and we prove that every nontrivial hyperbolic cone is the intersection of its derivative cones. We conclude with a brief discussion of the set of extreme rays of a hyperbolic cone.