Thesis--Lund. / Bibliography: p. 116-121.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hong Kong, 2010. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 312-325). Also available in print.

Thesis (M.S. in Biomedical Informatics)--Vanderbilt University, Dec. 2007. / Title from title screen. Includes bibliographical references.

Prefatory material introducing a collection of articles spanning fifty years of research into inborn errors of metabolism. Table of Contents: 1. Introduction -- 2. Background information about inborn errors of metabolism -- 3. Lessons from phenylketonuria [PKU] -- 4. My role in developing new medical foods -- 5. My role in solving an epidemic of benzyl alcohol poisoning in premature infants -- 6. My role in galactosaemia research -- 7. My start in the metabolic world - screening tests in urine -- 8. My experiences in disaster relief -- 9. My first appearance in the medical literature -- 10. A selection of rare and unusual diseases -- 11. Tyrosinaemia type II; tyrosine aminotransferase deficiency -- 12. Iminodipeptiduria due to prolidase deficiency -- 13. Citrullinaemia -- 14. Rippling muscle disease -- 15. A fatal X-linked disorder of diarrhoea, diabetes mellitus and immune dysregulation -- 16. Infantile Refsum disease -- 17. Hereditary hypocalcuric hypercalcaemia -- 18. Carbohydrate deficient glycoprotein disease type IAPKU -- 19. Thiamine-responsive diabetes and deafness -- 20. Folinic acid-responsive seizures: a false alarm -- 21. S-adenosylmethionine hydrolase deficiency -- 22. Deficiency of complex III of the respiratory chain -- 23. Current research: quantitation of infant sucking behaviour -- 24. Discussion and summary.

abstract: Several decades of transistor technology scaling has brought the threat of soft errors to modern embedded processors. Several techniques have been proposed to protect these systems from soft errors. However, their effectiveness in protecting the computation cannot be ascertained without accurate and quantitative estimation of system reliability. Vulnerability -- a metric that defines the probability of system-failure (reliability) through analytical models -- is the most effective mechanism for our current estimation and early design space exploration needs. Previous vulnerability estimation tools are based around the Sim-Alpha simulator which has been to shown to have several limitations. In this thesis, I present gemV: an accurate and comprehensive vulnerability estimation tool based on gem5. Gem5 is a popular cycle-accurate micro-architectural simulator that can model several different processor models in close to real hardware form. GemV can be used for fast and early design space exploration and also evaluate the protection afforded by commodity processors. gemV is comprehensive, since it models almost all sequential components of the processor. gemV is accurate because of fine-grain vulnerability tracking, accurate vulnerability modeling of squashed instructions, and accurate vulnerability modeling of shared data structures in gem5. gemV has been thoroughly validated against extensive fault injection experiments and achieves a 97\% accuracy with 95\% confidence. A micro-architect can use gemV to discover micro-architectural variants of a processor that minimize vulnerability for allowed performance penalty. A software developer can use gemV to explore the performance-vulnerability trade-off by choosing different algorithms and compiler optimizations, while the system designer can use gemV to explore the performance-vulnerability trade-offs of choosing different Insruction Set Architectures (ISA). / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Computer Science 2016

Resumo: O Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS), que congrega os vários sistemas de posicionamento por satélite existentes, tem como principal objetivo viabilizar o posicionamento de baixa, média e alta precisão. Dentre os sistemas de posicionamento que integram o GNSS, o Global Positioning System (GPS) tem grande destaque. Mas as observáveis GPS, tal como todas as outras observáveis envolvidas nos processos de medidas, estão sujeitas a erros aleatórios, sistemáticos e grosseiros. Os erros aleatórios são inevitáveis, sendo, portanto, considerados uma propriedade inerente das observações. Erros grosseiros (outliers) devem ser eliminados através do processo de controle de qualidade. Erros sistemáticos podem ser parametrizados ou eliminados por técnicas apropriadas de observação. Eles degradam a acurácia do posicionamento realizado com o GPS. Esses erros incluem erros da órbita dos satélites GPS, multicaminho, erros de refração atmosférica, dentre outros. Dessa forma, alguns trabalhos recentes têm utilizado o modelo semiparamétrico e o método dos mínimos quadrados com penalidades (MMQ com penalidades) para atenuar os efeitos desses erros residuais, utilizando dados de receptores de monofrequência. No modelo semiparamétrico as variáveis estimadas são divididas em uma parte paramétrica (coordenadas da estação e ambigüidades), que é de interesse do usuário, e uma parte não-paramétrica (funções de erros que variam suavemente com o tempo). Assim, devido ao número de incógnitas ser maior que o usual, é utilizado o MMQ com penalidades. Essa técnica utiliza uma spline cúbica natural, cuja suavidade é determinada pelo parâmetro suavizador, calculado pela validação cruzada generalizada. Nesse método, os erros são modelados como funções que variam suavemente com o tempo...(Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: The Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS), that encompasses several satellite positioning systems, has as main goal to make available the low, medium and high precision positioning. Among the positioning systems that integrate GNSS, the Global Positioning System (GPS) has a great importance. But the GPS observables, like all other observables involved in a measurement process, are subject to random, systematic and outliers errors. The random errors are inevitable, being, therefore, considered an inherent property of the observations. Outliers should be eliminated through the quality control process. Systematic errors can be modeled or eliminated by appropriate observation techniques. The systematic errors degrade the accuracy of the positioning accomplished by GPS. These errors are those related to GPS satellites orbits, multipath, atmospheric refraction among others. Thus, some authors have been using the semiparametric model and the penalised least squares technique to mitigate these residual errors, using single frequency receiver data. In a semiparametric model the estimated variables are divided into a parametric part (station coordinates and ambiguities), which is of interest to the users, and a nonparametric one (composed by error functions that vary smoothly with time). However, due to the unknowns number being larger than the usual, the penalised least squares is used. This technique uses a natural cubic spline, whose smoothness is determined by a smoothing parameter, computed by using the generalized cross validation. In this method, the errors are modeled as functions which vary smoothly in time. And more, the systematic errors functions, ambiguities and station coordinates are estimated simultaneously. As a result, the ambiguities and the station coordinates are estimated with better reliability and accuracy than the conventional least square method...(Complete abstract click electronic access below) / Orientador: João Francisco Galera Monico / Coorientador: Messias Meneguette Júnior / Mestre

nÃo hà / A seguranÃa relacionada ao sistema de medicaÃÃo tem sido objeto de pesquisas recentes, principalmente, em relaÃÃo aos antibacterianos que possuem alta especificidade farmacolÃgica e podem ter sua aÃÃo prejudicada em detrimento de erros associados Ãs fases de preparo e administraÃÃo. Assim, o estudo teve como objetivo geral: Analisar os fatores comportamentais e ambientais envolvidos na ocorrÃncia de erros durante as etapas de preparo de administraÃÃo de antibacterianos. Trata-se de um estudo observacional, exploratÃrio e transversal, de natureza quantitativa, realizado entre agosto a dezembro de 2014 em Hospital da Rede Sentinela em Fortaleza. A amostra compreendeu 44% das doses de antibiÃticos das clÃnicas mÃdicas A e B, 108 e 157, respectivamente. A coleta de dados se deu em duas fases: a primeira para caracterizar o perfil sÃcio ocupacional dos profissionais de enfermagem; e a segunda para identificar as adequaÃÃes e inadequaÃÃes comportamentais e ambientais nas fases de preparo e administraÃÃo. Os dados foram organizados em tabelas e analisados por meio da estatÃstica descritiva e analÃtica. Todos os princÃpios bioÃticos foram respeitados, conforme aprovaÃÃo da pesquisa pelo Comità de Ãtica da Universidade Federal do CearÃ, protocolo nÃmero 660.897. Os resultados permitiram realizar as seguintes inferÃncias: a concretizaÃÃo do preparo e administraÃÃo dos antibacterianos foi realizada por tÃcnicos de enfermagem (100%), predominantemente do sexo feminino, na faixa etÃria de 31 a 40 anos, que concluÃram a formaÃÃo entre os Ãltimos dez a 20 anos e atuam na Ãrea por um perÃodo semelhante, no entanto, hà menos de dez anos na instituiÃÃo onde a pesquisa foi realizada. Sobre a influÃncia de fatores ambientais verificou-se que durante o preparo houve inadequaÃÃo em 136 observaÃÃes na variÃvel limpeza e em 187 na organizaÃÃo. A dimensÃo para o preparo foi inadequada na ClÃnica MÃdica A (3,8m2), e os itens iluminaÃÃo, temperatura e ruÃdo foram extremamente oscilantes nos trÃs turnos e nas duas clÃnicas, com mÃdias geralmente acima do recomendado. Quanto Ãs variÃveis comportamentais observou-se: fontes produtoras de interrupÃÃes em 145 doses durante o preparo, e, no entanto, nÃo foram estatisticamente significativas para aumentar o tempo de preparo dos antibiÃticos (p=0,776). Houve maior frequÃncia de nÃo-conformidades respectivamente nas clÃnicas A e B quanto ao itens: comportamento de utilizaÃÃo da prescriÃÃo 86 (79,6%) e 157 (100%); confirmaÃÃo do nome do paciente 68 (62,9%) e 142 (90,4%); e, monitoramento 84 (77,7%) e 82 (52,2%). Jà a ClÃnica MÃdica B apresentou maiores Ãndices de conformidade no controle do tempo de infusÃo 84 (53,5%) e checagem imediata 93 (59,2%). Fator que contribuiu para aumentar as chances de interaÃÃo medicamentosa foi a ausÃncia de diretrizes com informaÃÃes sobre o medicamento (p=0,003). A principal categoria de erro encontrada foi o erro de dose (157). Jà o antibiÃtico mais comumente utilizado foi a Piperaciclina + Tazobactan com 51 doses. Conclui-se que o ambiente de trabalho e o comportamento adotado pelos profissionais de enfermagem sÃo condiÃÃes que podem favorecer a ocorrÃncia de erros com antibiÃticos.

M.Cur. (Nursing Science) / The purpose of the research study was to explore and describe the experiences of critical care nurses working in adult critical care units of a private hospital in Gauteng, following their involvement in a sentinel event. This information could enable the researcher to formulate guidelines for support of these nurses. Health care professionals aim to deliver safe, high quality care, but unfortunately, all humans can, and do make mistakes (Wakefield, 2007: 12). Since the report To err is human was released by The Institution of Medicine at Havard University (Kohn, Corrigen & Donaldson,1999), more authors have concluded that it is human to make mistakes (Erasmus, 2008:5). Mistakes in the nursing environment can be seen as sentinel events which could result in unintended harm to the patient (Muller, Bezuidenhout & Jooste, 2006:456). Sentinel events in health care, could lead to the devastating concepts of negligence, malpractice, or unprofessional practice, as nurses are held accountable for their acts and omissions according to Erasmus (2008: 5-6). The following research questions emerged:  What are the experiences of critical care nurses, following their involvement in a sentinel event, which harmed, or could have resulted in unintended harm to the patient?  What guidelines for support of these nurses could be formulated? This study was planned in two phases and the objectives of the study were: Phase 1: To explore and describe the lived experiences of nurses, working in the adult critical care units in a private hospital in Gauteng, following their involvement in a sentinel event, which harmed, or could have resulted in unintended harm to the patient. Phase 2: To formulate guidelines for support of these nurses, following their involvement in a sentinel event. A qualitative, exploratory, descriptive and contextual phenomenological research design was used to gain more information regarding critical care nurses` lived experiences, following their involvement in a sentinel event. The study was done in two adult critical care units, in a private hospital in Gauteng. Data was collected by means of six individual in - depth interviews and three naive sketches. Data analysis was done according to Tesch`s open-coding qualitative data analysis method (Creswell, 2007:156). Two main categories emerged from the data, namely the nurses` experiences following their involvement in a sentinel event and the recommendations towards guidelines for support of these nurses. The first main category was sub categorized as being personal, emotional, social and professional experiences and were found as being positive, as well as negative experiences. In the second main category, recommendations towards guidelines for support of nurses, following their involvement in a sentinel event, were proposed and these recommendations were sub- categorised as being at a personal, professional and organizational level of the nurse. In view of the findings of this study, the recommended guidelines for support of nurses, following their involvement in a sentinel event included communication, debriefing, in-service training, root cause analysis and organizational support. Consequently, the intent should be to implement these proposed guidelines for support in the hospital under study. If nurses were supported to follow these guidelines, it may help the nurses who had been involved in a sentinel event, to restore their strive for wholeness in body mind and spirit (University of Johannesburg, 2009:1) and these nurses could be able to render holistic nursing care.

M.Phil. (Optometry) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

Often predictor variables in regression models are measured with errors. This is known as an errors-in-variables (EIV) problem. The statistical analysis of the data ignoring the EIV is called naive analysis. As a result, the variance of the errors is underestimated. This affects any statistical inference that may subsequently be made about the model parameter estimates or the response prediction. In some cases (e.g. quadratic polynomial models) the parameter estimates and the model prediction is biased. The errors can occur in different ways. These errors are mainly classified into classical (i.e. occur in observational studies) or Berkson type (i.e. occur in designed experiments). This thesis addresses the problem of the Berkson EIV and their effect on the statistical analysis of data fitted using linear and nonlinear models. In particular, the case when the errors are dependent and have heterogeneous variance is studied. Both analytical and empirical tools have been used to develop new approaches for dealing with this type of errors. Two different scenarios are considered: mixture experiments where the model to be estimated is linear in the parameters and the EIV are correlated; and bioassay dose-response studies where the model to be estimated is nonlinear. EIV following Gaussian distribution, as well as the much less investigated non-Gaussian distribution are examined. When the errors occur in mixture experiments both analytical and empirical results showed that the naive analysis produces biased and inefficient estimators for the model parameters. The magnitude of the bias depends on the variances of the EIV for the mixture components, the model and its parameters. First and second Scheffé polynomials are used to fit the response. To adjust for the EIV, four different approaches of corrections are proposed. The statistical properties of the estimators are investigated, and compared with the naive analysis estimators. Analytical and empirical weighted regression calibration methods are found to give the most accurate and efficient results. The approaches require the error variance to be known prior to the analysis. The robustness of the adjusted approaches for misspecified variance was also examined. Different error scenarios of EIV in the settings of concentrations in bioassay dose-response studies are studied (i.e. dependent and independent errors). The scenarios are motivated by real-life examples. Comparisons between the effects of the errors are illustrated using the 4-prameter Hill model. The results show that when the errors are non-Gaussian, the nonlinear least squares approach produces biased and inefficient estimators. An extension of the well-known simulation-extrapolation (SIMEX) method is developed for the case when the EIV lead to biased model parameters estimators, and is called Berkson simulation-extrapolation (BSIMEX). BSIMEX requires the error variance to be known. The robustness of the adjusted approach for misspecified variance is examined. Moreover, it is shown that BSIMEX performs better than the regression calibration methods when the EIV are dependent, while the regression calibration methods are preferable when the EIV are independent.