Thesis (M.B.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 1998. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 69-71).

Thesis (M.S.)--Rochester Institute of Technology, 1993. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 93-96).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2009. / Title from PDF title page (University of Texas Digital Repository, viewed on Sept. 17, 2009). Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

A epilepsia é uma patologia caracterizada como sinal ou sintoma de uma desordem neurológica que se manifesta por breves descargas de neurotransmissores neuronais, decorrentes de distúrbios nas funções elétricas cerebrais levando a ocorrência de crises. Entre os medicamentos disponíveis no mercado, a lamotrigina (LTG) tem sido amplamente utilizada, principalmente devido a sua maior tolerabilidade e menor índice de interação farmacológica com outros fármacos antiepilépticos (DAEs). A maioria dos DAEs, e particularmente os mais novos, são de elevado custo financeiro para o paciente, portanto o sistema de saúde oferece aos seus usuários a possibilidade os receberem, porém, uma mesma regional de saúde pode variar o fornecimento de um princípio ativo entre os seus equivalentes terapêuticos disponíveis no mercado. Assim sendo, esse estudo tem a finalidade de avaliar as conseqüências clínicas e laboratoriais relacionadas à utilização de diferentes equivalentes terapêuticos da LTG (referência e similares). O estudo foi dividido em três períodos de 42 dias cada, um para cada formulação onde se realizaram atendimentos médico e farmacêutico e foram coletados dados sobre a freqüência de crises, a ocorrência de eventos adversos, dosagem plasmática de LTG e qualidade de vida dos nove pacientes incluídos no estudo. As formulações A e B são medicamentos similares e a C é o medicamento referência. Com relação ao número médio de crises foi de 3,22; 7,17 e 5,75 para as formulações A, B e C, respectivamente, no entanto essa diferença não é estatisticamente significante. Também não houve diferença significativa entre as concentrações plasmáticas de LTG. Com relação à ocorrência de reações adversas houve três casos com a formulação C e nenhum com as demais, com significância estatística (p<0,05). Quanto a qualidade de vida não houve uma diferença significativa quando se comparou todas as formulações entretanto a formulação A aumentou significativamente a qualidade de vida dos pacientes durante de sua utilização. Assim sendo, concluí-se que os medicamentos similares apresentaram resultados satisfatórios quando comparado ao medicamento de referência, entretanto a substituição das formulações pode dificultar o controle das crises epilépticas e ao manejo da epilepsia. / Epilepsy is a condition characterized as a sign or a symptom of a neurological disorder manifested by brief discharges of neuronal neurotransmitters, resulting from disturbances in electrical brain fuctions leading to crises. Among the drugs available to patients, lamotrigine (LTG) has been widely used, mainly due to their greater tolerability and lower rate of drug interactions with other antiepileptic drugs (AEDs). Most of the AEDs, and particularly the newest, have high cost to patient, so the health system offers to users the possibility to receive then, but, the same regional health can change the supply of a drug within available therapeutic equivalents in the market. Thus, this study aims to evaluate the clinical and laboratory consequences related to use of different therapeutic equivalents of LTG (reference and similar drugs). The study was divided into three periods of 42 days, one for each formulation which held medical and pharmaceutical care, and data about the frequency of seizures, the occurrence of adverse effects, measurement of plasma LTG and quality of life were collected. The formulations A and B are similar drugs and C is the reference drug. Regarding the average number of seizures it was 3.22, 7.17 and 5.75 for formulations A, B and C, respectively, however, this difference is not statistically significant. There was no significant difference between plasma concentrations of LTG. Also, regarding the occurrence of adverse reactions three patients has one kind each one with the formulation C and none with the others, with statistical significance (p <0.05). Regarding quality of life there was no significant difference when comparing all formulations however the formulation A significantly increased the quality of life of patients on the period its use. Therefore, it is concluded that similar drugs showed satisfactory results when compared to the reference product, however the replacement of the formulations may hamper the control of seizures and epilepsy management.

Why and how much should we invest in this information technology (IT)? The difficulty to formulate well-justified, convincing answers to those questions asked by corporate decision-makers has been identified as a major impediment to one rapid adoption of IT innovations by the business community. This study investigates the fundamental construct underlying these questions by performing a formal assessment of the business value of financial electronic data interchange (EDI) technology for corporate adopters in Canada. Three major Canadian financial institutions, seven cross-industry financial EDI user organizations (originators and receivers), several reference firms and more than fifty individuals actively participated in this study which follows a triangulation data collection approach. Within a cohesive financial EDI value measurement framework based on the theory of capital budgeting, a set of realistic and flexible models for measuring the business value of financial EDI was developed from a rigorous, item-by-item analysis of the data. Following a scenario-based approach, the data and models were used to estimate the magnitude of potential net benefits of financial EDI to corporate adopters. A formal evaluation of the expected and actual costs and benefits of financial EDI to participating user firms was conducted using the models. Several major conclusions were drawn from this in-depth study of financial EDI investments including, among others, the substantiated observation that from a payment process perspective, financial EDI is potentially more beneficial to corporate receivers than originators. Compared to non-financial EDI applications, potential economic gains from reduced payment cycles accrue primarily to the supplier community, rather than the initiators of financial EDI systems. Major contributions of this study include first, the development of a theory-based value measurement framework, and second, the presentation and application of a structured, iterative methodology for the evaluation of financial EDI investments. The proposed financial EDI cost/benefit models also offer a useful, practical set of tools to potential and actual user firms in evaluating the organizational value of future or current financial EDI programs. Finally, the study is also intended to assist Canadian financial institutions in their financial EDI diffusion effort. / Business, Sauder School of / Graduate

The Tremarctinae are a subfamily of bears endemic to the New World, including two of the largest terrestrial mammalian carnivores that have ever lived: the giant, short-faced bears Arctodus simus from North America and Arctotherium angustidens from South America (greater than or equal to 1000 kg). Arctotherium angustidens became extinct during the Early Pleistocene, whereas Arctodus simus went extinct at the very end of the Pleistocene. The only living tremarctine is the spectacled bear (Tremarctos ornatus), a largely herbivorous bear that is today only found in South America. The relationships among the spectacled bears (Tremarctos), South American short-faced bears (Arctotherium) and North American shortfaced bears (Arctodus) remain uncertain. In this study, we sequenced a mitochondrial genome from an Arctotherium femur preserved in a Chilean cave. Our molecular phylogenetic analyses revealed that the South American short-faced bears were more closely related to the extant South American spectacled bear than to the North American short-faced bears. This result suggests striking convergent evolution of giant forms in the two groups of short-faced bears (Arctodus and Arctotherium), potentially as an adaptation to dominate competition for megafaunal carcasses.

As the population grows and the travel demands increase, alternative interchange designs are becoming increasingly popular. The diverging diamond interchange is one alternative design that has been implemented in the United States. This design can accommodate higher flow and unbalanced flow as well as improve safety at the interchange. As the diverging diamond interchange is increasingly considered as a possible solution to problematic interchange locations, it is imperative to investigate the safety effects of this interchange configuration. This report describes the selection of a comparison group of urban diamond interchanges, crash data collection, calibration of functions used to estimate the predicted crash rate in the before and after periods and the Empirical Bayes before and after analysis technique used to determine the safety effectiveness of the diverging diamond interchanges in Utah. A discussion of pedestrian and cyclist safety is also included. The analysis results demonstrated statistically significant decreases in crashes at most of the locations studied. This analysis can be used by UDOT and other transportation agencies as they consider the implementation of the diverging diamond interchanges in the future.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / This thesis demonstrates a novel idea on how components in a distributed real-time & embedded (DRE) system can choose from different data interchange formats at run-time. It also quantitatively evaluates three binary data interchange protocols used in distributed real-time & embedded (DRE) systems: the Common Data Representation (CDR), which collects data "as-is" into a buffer; Binary JSON (BSON), which enables "on the fly" discovery of elements in a message; and FIX Adapted for Streaming (FAST), which is a binary compression algorithm popularly used for data exchange in financial stock market domain. We compare these three data exchange formats to determine if it is possible to minimize the data usage without compromising CPU processing times, data throughput, and data latency. The lack of such a study has made protocols such as CDR popular based on the assumption that collecting data "as-is" will consume less processing time and send with high throughput. We perform the study in the context of an Open Source Architecture for Software Instrumentation of Systems (OASIS). To perform our study, we modified its existing data interchange framework to flexibly and seamlessly integrate either format, and let the components choose a format at run-time. The experiments from our study shows that as data size increases, the throughput of CDR, BSON, and FAST decreases by 96.16%, 97.23%, and 84.41%, respectively. The increase in packaging and un-packaging times are 1985.12% and 1642.28% for FAST, compared to 3158.96% and 2312.50% for CDR, and 5077.98% and 3686.48% for BSON.

by Alfred Cheng Hung Chi, Chan Sik Kuk. / Thesis (M.B.A.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1990. / Bibliography: leaves 82-84. / ABSTRACT --- p.ii / TABLE OF CONTENTS --- p.v / ACKNOWLEDGMENT --- p.vii / Chapter / Chapter I. --- INTRODUCTION --- p.1 / Chapter II. --- PROBLEMS AND METHODOLOGY --- p.6 / Chapter III. --- THE PAPER-BASED TRADING SYSTEM & THE EDI TRADING SYSTEM --- p.10 / Chapter IV. --- EXISTING EDI NETWORKS --- p.19 / Chapter ´Ø --- SWIFT --- p.19 / Chapter ´Ø --- TradeNet --- p.22 / Chapter ´Ø --- Intertrade --- p.25 / Chapter V. --- CONSIDERATIONS FOR A COMMUNITY-WIDE EDI NETWORK IN HONG KONG --- p.28 / Chapter ´Ø --- Legal Issues --- p.29 / Chapter ´Ø --- Regulatory Issues --- p.34 / Chapter ´Ø --- Security --- p.38 / Chapter ´Ø --- Standards --- p.40 / Chapter ´Ø --- Linkage with Global Networks --- p.42 / Chapter ´Ø --- Chinese EDI Capabilities --- p.42 / Chapter ´Ø --- Franchise --- p.45 / Chapter VI. --- DEVELOPMENT PLAN --- p.47 / Chapter ´Ø --- The Role of the Hong Kong Government --- p.47 / Chapter ´Ø --- Development Plan --- p.50 / Chapter VII. --- CONCLUSIONS --- p.52 / APPENDIX --- p.53 / Chapter 1. --- Case Study On EDI Network - TradeNet --- p.53 / Chapter 2. --- Message Standards --- p.64 / Chapter ´Ø --- Available EDI Message Standards --- p.65 / Chapter ´Ø --- UN/EDI FACT --- p.67 / Chapter 3. --- Message Handling Standard - X.400 --- p.70 / Chapter ´Ø --- What is X.400 ？ --- p.70 / Chapter ´Ø --- Why X.400 ？ --- p.72 / Chapter ´Ø --- Security and Audit --- p.73 / Chapter ´Ø --- Acknowledgement --- p.74 / Chapter ´Ø --- Performance --- p.74 / Chapter ´Ø --- Commitments and X.500 --- p.75 / Chapter 4. --- Trading Documents --- p.77 / BIBLIOGRAPHY --- p.82

The subject of the thesis is a variant solution of the interchange of roads I/ 52 and II / 152 near the village of Modřice, which lies in the district of Brno-Country in the South Moravian Region. Within the work, a total of four variants were proposed and subsequently processed in the form of a study. The aim of the proposal is to improve the traffic situation and traffic safety, due to the formation of queues on the ramps of the interchange at rush hour, which is caused by heavy traffic on the road II / 152.