Abstact This thesis investigate the impact of smoking on the development of cancer. The main goal of this thesis is to determine the effect of smoking on the development of cancer in Czechia in the years 1978, 1988, 1998, 2008 and 2018 with a focus on differences in time, gender and age groups. The secondary goal of the thesis is to determine the distribution of smoking prevalence by gender, age groups and level of education, as well as the dependence of smoking prevalence on the level of education, social differences in the influence of smoking on cancer. The analytical part of the work uses the method of age-standardized incidence rate, population attributable fraction and the method of binary logistic regression. Data from the Institute of Health Information and Statistics of the Czech Republic, the Czech Statistical Office and Eurostat were used for the analysis. It has been shown that the prevalence of smoking depends on the level of education, where the probability of smoking is higher in people with a lower level of education than in people with a high level of education. In Czechia, between 1978 and 2018, the impact of smoking on the development of cancer decreased. While the impact of smoking on the development of cancer decreased in men, it was possible to observe an increase of the impact of...

No description available.

Thesis (M. Agricultural Management (Plant Production)) -- University of Limpopo, 2020 / Tomato is a major vegetable crop produced in Limpopo province by subsistence and commercial farmers. Biotic and abiotic factors such as diseases and drought affect its productivity and yield negatively. The most economically important tomato disease in Limpopo is early blight, caused by Alternaria solani. Early blight affects tomato growing under stressful conditions such as drought. The main aim of this study was to evaluate water management in tomato production and its effect on tomato yield, early blight occurrence and severity under smallholder farming systems in Giyani. A survey study and field experiments on early blight occurrence and severity were conducted in the Greater Giyani municipality in Limpopo province. Firstly, a survey of early blight was conducted in tomato fields selected from three service centres namely Guwela, Hlaneki and Mhlava Willem. Twenty five potential tomato grower’s farms were randomly selected for survey based on the location and production management strategies. A second study was carried out by establishing field experiments at two farms in the same area, namely: A hi tirheni Mqekwa and Duvadzi farms. The experiments were laid out in a randomized complete block design (RCBD) in a split plot arrangement, with irrigation as the main plot treatment and tomato variety as the subplot treatment. Each treatment was replicated four times. The irrigation treatments consisted of full irrigation up to field capacity and deficit irrigation. The tomato varieties planted were HTX14, Rodade, STAR9006 and Commander, and were irrigated with a drip irrigation system. The overall survey results showed that Guwela s/c had high disease incidence and the lowest disease severity as compared to the other two service centers. The lowest disease incidence was observed at Hlaneki s/c whilst Mhlava willem s/c had the highest disease severity. The two water treatments (full and deficit irrigation) in both farms have shown no significant pairwise differences among xx the volumetric water content means. There was no significant difference (P≥0.05) in early blight disease severity in both farms. Results shows that, all tomato varieties did not differ significantly (P≥0.05) in yield observed between treatments at Duvadzi and A hi tirheni Mqekwa Farm. Deficit irrigation can be used effectively to produce high yields in tomato production provided the cropping season window does not coincide with the hottest time of the year. Full and deficit irrigation did not have influence on the early blight disease incidence on tomato plants. Key words: Alternaria solani; disease incidence; disease severity and drip irrigation

The field of X-ray astronomy is only forty (43) years old, and grazing incidence X-ray telescopes have only been conceived and designed for a little over fifty (50) years. The Wolter Type I design is particularly well suited for stellar astronomical telescopes (very small field-of-view). The first orbiting X-ray observatory, HEAO-1 was launched in 1977, a mere twenty-eight (28) years ago. Since that time large nested Wolter Type I X-ray telescopes have been designed, build, and launched by the European Space Agency (ROSAT) and NASA (the Chandra Observatory). Several smaller grazing incidence telescopes have been launched for making solar observations (SOHO, HESP, SXI). These grazing incidence designs tend to suffer from severe aberrations and at these very short wavelengths scattering effects from residual optical fabrication errors are another major source of image degradation. The fabrication of precision optical surfaces for grazing incidence X-ray telescopes thus poses a great technological challenge. Both the residual "figure" errors and the residual microroughness or "finish" of the manufactured mirrors must be precisely measured, and the image degradation due to these fabrication errors must be accurately modeled in order to predict the final optical performance of the as manufactured telescope. The fabrication process thus consists of a series of polishing and testing cycles with the predictions from the metrology data of each cycle indicating the strategy for the next polishing cycle. Most commercially available optical design and analysis software analyzes the image degradation effects of diffraction and aberrations, but does not adequately model the image degradation effects of surface scatter or the effects of state-of-the-art mosaic detectors. The work presented in this dissertation is in support of the Solar X-ray Imager (SXI) program. We have developed a rigorous procedure by which to analyze detector effects in systems which exhibit severe field-dependent aberrations (conventional transfer function analysis is not applicable). Furthermore, we developed a technique to balance detector effects with geometrical aberrations, during the design process, for wide-field applications. We then included these detector effects in a complete systems engineering analysis (including the effects of diffraction, geometrical aberrations, surface scatter effects, the mirror manufacturer error budget tree, and detector effects) of image quality for the five SXI telescopes being fabricated for NOAA's next generation GOES weather satellites. In addition we have re-optimized the remaining optical design parameters after the grazing incidence SXI mirrors have been imperfectly fabricated. This ability depends critically upon the adoption of an image quality criterion, or merit function, appropriate for the specific application. In particular, we discuss in detail how the focal plane position can be adjusted to optimize the optical performance of the telescope to best compensate for optical figure and/or finish errors resulting from the optical fabrication process. Our systems engineering analysis was then used to predict the increase in performance achieved by the re-optimization procedure. The image quality predictions are also compared with real X-ray test data from the SXI program to experimentally validate our system engineering analysis capability.

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) was first passed in 1975 and requires states to have policies in place to prevent misidentification and overrepresentation, and to monitor disproportionate representation by race/ethnicity and disability category. The fundamental premise of this legislation is to ensure that students with disabilities are afforded a free and appropriate education (FAPE) in the least restrictive environment (LRE). Even with the passage of IDEA, the disproportionate representation of minority students continues to be a national issue. The disproportionate placement of minority students in Exceptional Student Education (ESE) began to receive attention prior to IDEA and has been well documented by researchers ever since. Hispanic disproportionality has received less attention in professional literature and has shown to vary depending upon the level of data being analyzed. Early studies analyzing national level data indicate that Hispanic students tend to be underrepresented in many ESE categories, while studies disaggregating state and district level data found that Hispanic students are overrepresented in the high incidence categories. The goals of this study were to determine (a) if a disproportionate representation of Hispanic students existed in the three high incidence categories of Emotional/Behavioral Disabilities (EBD), Specific Learning Disabled (SLD), and Intellectual Disabilities (ID) and (b) if Hispanic students already identified for Exceptional Student Education services were disproportionately represented, compared to all other students, in more restrictive educational placements in each of the 67 counties in the state of Florida. Three separate measures were iii employed to make this determination: the composition index (CI), the risk index (RI), and the risk ratio (RR). An analysis of the data revealed that in several of the school districts Hispanic students were both overrepresented and underrepresented across all high incidence categories. The data also indicated that Hispanic students already identified for ESE services were both overrepresented and underrepresented in several school districts across all educational environments. Also, differences in disproportionality were noted depending upon the measure being utilized for both research questions. Implications for practice and recommendations for further research are presented.

Highway bridges provide a critical lifeline during extreme seismic events and must maintain serviceability under a large range of earthquake intensities. Consequently, the advent of more computational power has allowed more advanced analysis approaches for predicting performance and vulnerability of highway bridges under these seismic loads. In traditional two-dimensional finite element analyses, it has been demonstrated that the incidence angle of the ground motion can play a significant role in structural response. As three-dimensional nonlinear time history analyses are used more frequently in practice, ground motions are still usually applied along a single bridge axis. It is unknown how three orthogonal components of ground motion excitation should be applied to the structure to best represent the true response. In this study, the fundamental behavior of three-dimensional ground motion was studied using single-degree-of-freedom elastic spectra. Mean spectra computed from various orientation techniques were found indistinguishable when the orthogonal components were combined. The effect of incidence angle on the nonlinear structural response of highway bridges was then investigated through extensive statistical simulation. Three different bridge models were employed for this study implementing a suite of 180 multi-component ground motion records of various magnitude-distance-soil bins. Probabilistic seismic demand models for various response parameters are presented comparing the effects of random incidence angle to that of recorded directions. Although there are instances where the angle of incidence can significantly amplify response, results indicated that incidence angle had negligible effect on average ensemble response. This is consistent with results from the spectral analysis, although existing literature has emphasized incidence angle as a significant parameter of multi-component analysis.

This dissertation is composed of three essays. In the first essay, I construct a supply and demand model for crude oil markets. I then fit the model to historical price and quantity data to be able to project future oil prices. Ex-post forecasts using this model predict historical price trends more accurately than most oil forecasting models. The second essay incorporates the supply and demand model from the previous paper into a complex systems model that also includes oil futures markets. Adaptive-agent investors in futures markets choose from a set of rules for predicting future prices that includes the rational expectations equilibrium rule, as well as rules that rely on more short-term information. The set of available rules evolves following a genetic algorithm; agents choose which rules to follow based on their past performance. While outcomes vary depending on the specific assumptions made, under a plausible set of assumptions investors can fail to anticipate shortages properly, leading to significant price spikes that would not occur in the rational expectations equilibrium. The last essay addresses the impacts of carbon cap-and-trade policies on consumers. I calculate how higher carbon prices would affect the prices of different consumer goods, how consumers would respond to the price changes, and how the price changes, along with revenue recycling, would impact consumers of different income levels.

Introduction: High levels of bilirubin in newborns can cause permanent neurodevelopmental disabilities, and it is crucial to keep the incidence low. However, the Swedish Neonatal Register revealed a high incidence of extreme neonatal hyperbilirubinemia (bilirubin ≥425 umol/L) in Region Örebro County during 2014-2019, and the reason behind this is unknown. Aim: This study aimed to review cases of extreme neonatal hyperbilirubinemia regarding the compliance to the local guidelines, and to explore potential benefits of an alternative method considering bilirubin’s rate of rise, the ruler method. Method: In this case series, a retrospective medical record review was performed on 63 newborns who were delivered at ≥35 gestational weeks and developed extreme hyperbilirubinemia before or during an admission to a hospital in Region Örebro County within the first 14 days of life (2014-2020). Results: The incidence was 2.7 cases per 1000 live births during 2014-2020. Forty-three (68.3%) cases were related to failed detection/treatment initiation and 20 (31.7%) to failed treatment. Out of the newborns classified as failed detection/treatment initiation, 27 individual newborns (62.8%) could potentially have been prevented from developing extreme hyperbilirubinemia if there were no cases of non-compliance (30.2%), if a pre-discharge screening had been performed (14.0%) and if the ruler method had been applied (19/31 investigated). Conclusion: The local guidelines used in Region Örebro County might not be sufficient in preventing the development of extreme neonatal hyperbilirubinemia. However, mandatory pre-discharge screening and a consideration of bilirubin’s current rate of rise when scheduling follow-ups could potentially lower the incidence further.

Research on anxiety in oldest-old individuals is scarce. Specifically, incidence studies based on large community samples are lacking. The objective of this study is to assess age- and gender-specific incidence rates in a large sample of oldest-old individuals and to identify potential risk factors. The study included data from N = 702 adults aged 81 to 97 years. Anxiety symptoms were identified using the short form of the Geriatric Anxiety Inventory (GAI-SF). Associations of potential risk factors with anxiety incidence were analyzed using Cox proportional hazard models. Out of the N = 702 older adults, N = 77 individuals developed anxiety symptoms during the follow-up period. The incidence rate was 51.3 (95% CI: 41.2–64.1) per 1000 person-years in the overall sample, compared to 58.5 (95% CI: 43.2–72.4) in women and 37.3 (95% CI: 23.6–58.3) in men. Multivariable analysis showed an association of subjective memory complaints (HR: 2.03, 95% CI: 1.16–3.57) and depressive symptoms (HR: 3.20, 95% CI: 1.46–7.01) with incident anxiety in the follow-up. Incident anxiety is highly common in late life. Depressive symptoms and subjective memory complaints are major risk factors of new episodes. Incident anxiety appears to be a response to subjective memory complaints independent of depressive symptoms.

Background Sensory impairments have been associated with dementia in older adults. However, the contribution of different impairments and how they interact in the development of dementia is not clear. We examined the independent and interaction effects of hearing impairment (HI) and visual impairment (VI) on incident dementia. Design Multi-centric population-based prospective cohort study. Setting Data were taken from the AgeDifferent.de platform, pooling participants aged 75 and older from the German LEILA75+ and AgeCoDe/AgeQualiDe cohorts. Participants Older adults (N = 3497) with mean age 79.8 years, 67.2% female. Measurements Standardized interviews and questionnaires were used to assess self-reported HI and VI at baseline and all-cause dementia in 9 follow-ups, spanning over 20 years. Methods Competing risk regression models were conducted to test the main and interaction effects of HI and VI on dementia incidence, adjusting for established risk factors of dementia and accumulated mortality. Results HI and VI at baseline were reported by 30.3% and 16.6% of individuals, respectively. Adjusting for baseline information on sociodemographics, substance use, cognitive functioning and morbidity, and controlling for accumulated mortality risk, HI (sHR 1.16, 95% CI 1.04–1.30, p = 0.011) but not VI (sHR 1.07, 95% CI 0.90–1.28, p = 0.462) was significantly associated with incident dementia. There was no interaction between HI and VI (sHR 1.09, 95% CI 0.81–1.46, p = 0.567). Conclusions Hearing impairment is associated with an increased incidence of all-cause dementia in older adults. There is no excess risk or risk compensation through the additional presence or absence of visual impairment. Early prevention measures for hearing impairment might help to reduce the long-term risk of dementia.