Using latent growth curve modeling, this longitudinal study examined the patterns of the discrepancy between desired and actual frequency of sexual intercourse for 331 married couples over a period of 5 years. In addition, couple insecure attachment and control variables such as age, length of relationship, income, race, and education were used to predict each partner's sexual desire discrepancy (SDD) and its change over the 5 year time period. Participants were asked to report their actual frequency of sexual intercourse and their desired frequency in each wave of data collection. Discrepancy scores were created for each year by subtracting the reported actual frequency from the reported desired frequency separately for wives and for husbands. In terms of change over time, findings showed a significant change across time for wives with a trend toward less discrepancy over time. Husbands' discrepancy scores were higher than wives and remained stable over the five years. Insecure attachment predicted the average SDD for husbands. Wife income predicted the change in SDD over the five years for husbands but not for wives. Wife race predicted the average SDD for husbands. Implications for research and clinical use are highlighted.

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Cardiac troponins are crucial for the diagnosis of acute myocardial infarction. Despite known differences in their diagnostic implication, there are no recommendations for only one of the two troponins, cardiac troponin I (cTnI) and troponin T (cTnT) so far. In an everyday routine diagnostic, cTnT (Roche) as well as cTnI (Abbott) were measured in 5667 samples from 3264 patient cases. We investigated the number of identical or discrepant troponin findings. Regarding cTnI, we considered both, sex-dependent and unisex cutoffs. In particular, the number of cTnT positive and cTnI negative results was strikingly high in 14.0% of cTnT positive samples and increases to 23.8% by using sex-specific cTnI cutoffs. This group was considerably greater than the group of cTnI positive and cTnT negative results, also after elimination of patients with an eGFR < 60 mL/min/1.73 m2. Comparing the troponin cases with a dynamic increase or decrease between two measurements, we saw a balanced number of discrepant cases (between cTnT+/cTnI− and cTnT−/cTnI+), which was, however, still present. Using ROC analysis, sex-dependent cutoffs improved sensitivity and specificity of cTnI. This study shows in a large cohort that comparing the two cardiac troponins does not amount to identical analytical results. Consideration of sex-dependent cutoffs may improve sensitivity and specificity.

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本研究的主要目的在試圖提出一個架構，說明臺灣升大學重考生的情緒困擾問題，並描述出在此問題上，社會教化內容可能扮演的角色。經由文獻探討自我信念與情緒困擾間的關連，以及社會文化對個人情緒困擾的可能影響方式，研究者提出了「情緒困擾之整合性概念架構」作為說明重考生情緒困擾問題的起點，此架構主張：覺察自我落差導致了人們的情緒痛苦，而社會價值觀念不但形塑了人們的外在評價壓力，社會教化的內容也會經由影響個人的自我信念（含導引自我標準、預期自我信念及實際自我信念），對人們的情緒與行為產生重要的影響。 本研究的主要研究對象為：台北市某著名升大學補習班的197位重考生，其中121位為高中升大學重考生，其餘76位為高職升大學重考生。研究的工具除了Rosenberg自尊量表（RSE）、貝氏憂鬱量表（BDI）以及症狀檢核表焦慮分量表（SCL-A）外，還包括自行編製的「自我期許問卷」（可得到受測者所填寫的導引自我標準，以及他在這些標準上自評的各項自我落差量及落差覺察頻率），以及課業自我落差評量。 實徵研究的方法和結果可分為幾個部分，分別說明臺灣升大學重考生情緒困擾問題的不同面向： (一) 在情緒困擾相關評量上，對重考生及其他同齡學生（高三學生和大一學生）的狀況進行調查與比較，以巨觀描繪出臺灣升大學重考生的情緒困擾問題。研究結果發現：重考生較其他同齡學生具有更高的憂鬱和焦慮，而在自我落差評量方面，他們具有較高的自我落差覺察頻率，以及較大的課業自我落差量。 (二) 以大學生及重考生樣本，實徵檢驗自我落差量及其覺察頻率是否能有效預測人們的情緒困擾狀況，以瞭解本研究所提出來的概念架構是否可以用來說明臺灣學生的情緒困擾問題。研究結果顯示：學生的自尊、憂鬱以及焦慮都可以由一些自我落差評量有效解釋，然而由於重考生所具有的一些特質，使得自我落差評量對於重考生組內差異的解釋力多數比它們在大一樣本中為。 (三) 對高中升大學重考生的導引自我標準進行內容分析，以檢視社會教化內容與個人導引自我標準間的關連。由內容分析的結果可以發現：重考生的導引自我標準受到社會教化內容很大的影響（特別是升學觀念的社會教化），因此重考生的導引自我標準並不是散亂地分佈，絕大多數的項目可群集為二十一個類目，至於其餘的項目則是少見且較不具重要性的。 (四) 依據前述內容分析的結果，分析升學在臺灣社會中可能具有的社會心理意涵，並探索性地描繪重考生的心理處境。由內容分析發現：重考生的導引 自我標準包含很多與升學有關的價值觀（至少佔 46 %），由於這些價值觀在重考生群體中的普遍性與重要性，本研究將它們統合成一個整體結構，推論出升學在臺灣社會中可能具有的六種社會心理意涵：(1)「受高等教育，以取得謀職、營生的優勢」；(2)「具有豐富的學識，前途看好」；(3)「享受自 由學風，拓展自我潛能」；(4)「表現出眾，讓人看得起」；(5)「善盡本分，能榮顯父母師長」；(6)「戰勝自己，達成對自己的期許」。 在上述的整體結構中，由於「順利升學，取得文憑」居於最為核心的地位，因此重考生對於自我的評價普遍會受到他們對自己升學表現的預期很大的影響。「升學在臺灣社會中可能具有的社會心理意涵」與「個別重考生的心理處境」兩者之間的關係，彷彿就是「完整的圖像」與「殘缺的圖像複製品」兩者之間的關係，儘管複製不可能完美，使得後者在顏色上可能會比原圖較像 濃或是較淡，在色調上可能會比原圖像較為明朗或是更為陰鬱，然而，它們之間的共同點是，後者都可以在前者上面找到它相對應的部分（但僅為圖像的局部），使得個別重考生的心理處境與集體的社會升學觀念間，即使存在著許多表象的差異，但它們之間至少仍保有一種「理解的可滲透性」。 最後，本研究除了根據研究所得的結果，說明研究結果的意義並提出一些後續研究建議外，也討論了臺灣的升學主義解構運動，主張欲有效解決升學主義下臺灣的教育問題，需經歷一種「進步的問題轉換」，方能有效突破臺灣在教育改革中所面臨到的瓶頸。

The overall purpose of this study was to explore and describe the factors that affect theory-practice integration of student nurses at a selected campus of a nursing college in the Limpopo Province. Quantitative, descriptive, explorative and cross-sectional designs were used to accomplish the objectives of the study. Data collection was done using structured questionnaires with a few open-ended questions. The respondents were student nurses (n=106) and nurse educators (n=9). The findings revealed that failure of biological and natural sciences subjects, the use of traditional teaching strategies, inadequate use of simulation laboratory, inadequate clinical supervision, a shortage of resources, nature of the assessment process, extent of interest in the subject (s) taught, inability to draw clinical experiences during theoretical teaching, overpopulation of student nurses in the clinical area, negative attitude of ward staff and differences between the simulated skills and the actual clinical procedures in the ward affect theory-practice integration. / M.A. (Health Studies) / Health Studies

In developing an understanding of real-world problems, researchers develop mathematical and statistical models. Various model selection methods exist which can be used to obtain a mathematical model that best describes the real-world situation in some or other sense. These methods aim to assess the merits of competing models by concentrating on a particular criterion. Each selection method is associated with its own criterion and is named accordingly. The better known ones include Akaike's Information Criterion, Mallows' Cp and cross-validation, to name a few. The value of the criterion is calculated for each model and the model corresponding to the minimum value of the criterion is then selected as the "best" model. / Mathematical Sciences / M. Sc. (Statistics)