Thesis (doctoral)--Universität Rostock.

ABSTRACT Prioritizing Diseases, Disorders and Disabilities and the Relative Importance of Skin Cancer: A Public Health Faculty Survey By James Thomas Sandwich, MD April 21, 2016 INTRODUCTION: Academic faculty in public health have diverse career interests and occupy positions of considerable influence. They play an important role in setting curriculum and training the future public health workforce. However, there is little published scholarly information regarding which public health diseases, disorders, and disabilities are most important to them. Skin cancer is a major public health problem that has been declared an epidemic. AIM: The Aim of this study is to discover which public health disorders are of highest concern and to determine the relative priority of skin cancer to public health faculty. METHODS: The primary design of the study was that of a non-experimental opinion based survey. Subjects were faculty members of national academic, public health programs. To obtain the broadest distribution, primary and secondary faculty as defined by the ASPPH were included. A 19 question survey document was administered electronically through Qualtrics. There were 15 questions on the importance of specific disorders and five questions on skin cancer. Responses were categorized ranked and compared. RESULTS: Obesity ranked the highest among all concerns with cardiovascular disease and cancer also receiving high priority. Cancer, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease led in secondary outcomes. Tertiary outcomes were nearly evenly split between cardiovascular disease, cancer, and mental health. Priorities varied by regions, age, gender and race. The majority placed skin cancer in the second quartile of importance and believed it to be appropriately ranked. CONCLUSION: Public health faculty prioritize disorders similarly in spite of diverse interests with minor differences across regions and demographics. National Funding as a proxy for importance does not cleanly align with faculty priorities. Public health faculty express familiarity with skin cancer, however, do not generally considered it of highest priority compared to other disorders. Increased faculty emphasis on interventions that prevent skin cancer may improve awareness and reduce negative sequela.

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<p> Diabetes is a chronic disease that affects more than 2 million Canadians. In order to reduce the risk of complications, people with diabetes must monitor their symptoms and actively manage diet, exercise, and medication. Patient priority is defined as the patient's implicit or explicit ordering of importance, ease and frequency of preventative or treatment activities for managing diabetes. In this study, we report on the findings of a questionnaire of diabetes patient priorities. The primary purpose of this study was to identify patient priorities and their relationships for managing diabetes from a patient's perspective. Multivariate analysis techniques were applied to find the patterns within the ratings of importance, ease and frequency for seventeen diabetes care activities. Multivariate analysis is used when more than one measurement is taken on a given experimental unit and all the measurements need to be considered together so that one can understand how they are related and what the essential structure is. In our study, the multivariate techniques used were MANCOVA, multivariate regression, and factor analysis. Due to the missing values, simple and multiple imputations were necessary. This study acts as a pilot study for a future, larger study about patient priorities.</p> / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc)

This thesis addresses the following research paradox: Despite continual investment in e-mediated learning technology by higher education institutions, why has technological diffusion within UK universities been a slow process? It will be argued that the level of investment in e-mediated learning technology by UK universities and the impact of this technology across higher education as a whole, makes this subject area an appropriate setting in which to study this phenomenon. An interpretivist case study investigation of the adaptation process of e-mediated learning technology by academic staff is analysed through the development of a grounded theory approach. The investigation will show that the majority of academic staff in the School of Management at the Case Study University are adopting e-mediated learning technology at a basic level. Various factors can combine to influence technological adoption. These include conflicting priorities for academic staff, IT skills levels and the potential for the technology to transform the social relation between the academic member of staff and student leading towards a heightened culture of expectation. In addition, the study will show that e-mediated learning technology has the ability to place the expertise of the academic member of staff in a vulnerable position. Together these factors can combine to affect the successful diffusion of e-mediated learning technologies in UK universities. At a more critical level, the research identifies that using models of critical mass in isolation to indicate the take-up of multi-functional e-mediated learning technologies are misleading. As such, models that incorporate the levels and stages, as well as the pace of adoption provide a more detailed perspective of the successful diffusion of e-mediated learning technology.

The primary purpose of this study was to confirm the four-factor structure of the 30-item Adlerian Personality Priority Assessment (APPA) using a split-sample cross-validation confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). The APPA is an assessment, grounded in Adlerian theory, used to conceptualize clients based on the four personality priorities most commonly used in the Adlerian literature: superiority, pleasing, control, and comfort. The secondary purpose of this study was to provide evidence for discriminant validity, examine predictive qualities of demographics, and explore the prevalence of the four priorities across demographics. For the cross validation CFA, I randomly divided the sample, 1210 undergraduates, at a large public research university (53% Caucasian, 13.1% Hispanic/Latino(a), 21.4% African American, 5.4% American Indian, and 5.8% biracial; mean age =19.8; 58.9% females), into two equal subsamples. I used Subsample 1 (n = 605) to conduct the initial CFA. I held out Subsample 2 (n = 605) to test any possible model changes resulting from Subsample 1 results and to provide further confirmation of the APPA's construct validity. Findings from the split-sample cross-validation CFA confirmed the four-factor structure of the APPA and provided support for the factorial/structure validity of the APPA's scores. Results also present initial evidence of discriminant validity and support the applicability of the instrument across demographics. Overall, these findings suggest Adlerian counselors can confidently use the APPA as a tool to conceptualize clients.

Thesis (LL. M.)--University of Toronto, 2004. / Adviser: Anthony Duggan.

Zugleich: Diss. regensburg, 2008. / Literaturverz.

Many manufacturing firms, driven by the goal of beating the competition, have relocated their manufacturing operations from a high to a low cost environment, creating issues for the western social welfare. In order to maintain manufacturing in high cost environments, firms located in such environments must improve their competitiveness. Research has shown that firms need to be able to identify, develop and improve the operations capabilities that have the highest impact on the competitiveness. However, there is presently no coherent and contemporary framework of operations capabilities in the literature. There is also a lack of knowledge about operations capabilities in a high-cost environment. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to investigate critical operations capabilities in a high-cost environment. This purpose has been addressed through two studies. The first investigated critical operations capabilities in a general environment, and was conducted through a systematic literature review (Paper I). The second study investigated critical operations capabilities in a high cost environment and was conducted through a focus group (Paper II) and a multiple case study (Paper III). The result of this research is a framework of operations capabilities in a high cost environment. The framework includes seven dimensions and 23 operations capabilities. Specifically, the dimensions are: cost, quality, delivery, flexibility, service, innovation and environment. The findings revealed that quality is considered as the most critical dimension in a high cost environment, while environment is considered as the least critical in a high cost environment. The findings also revealed two additional operations capabilities in the empirical data, which are 'flow efficiency' and 'employee flexibility'. This research contributes to the current body of knowledge by introducing a novel perspective and original thinking about operations capabilities in a high cost environment. The framework of operations capabilities could support both practitioners and researchers in the identification and development of critical operations capabilities for winning strategies in a high cost environment.

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