Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2001. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2003. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Sammanfattning Bakgrund: Upplevelsen av smärta är en inbyggd reflex, som normalt varnar för att något håller på att skadas eller redan har skadats i kroppen, och får kroppen att reagera innan något allvarligt sker. För att kunna ge en patient adekvat smärtbehandling bör en analys av smärtan göras, som förutsättning för att patienten ska kunna få en lämplig smärtbehandling. Smärtskattning är en viktig del av den fullständiga smärtanalysen. Dokumentation av smärtskattningen gör det möjligt att på ett systematiskt sätt utvärdera given smärt behandling. Forskning tyder på att sjuksköterskors smärtskattning innan smärtbehandling, dokumentation av smärtskattningen, smärtskattning innan undersökning och smärtskattning innan omvårdnad är bristfällig. Detta trots att många sjukhus, kommuner och landsting har smärtbehandling som kvalitetsmål. Syfte: Syftet med studien undersöka i viken utsträckning sjuksköterskor smärtskattar och dokumenterar skattning. Vidare var syftet att undersöka om det fanns skillnader mellan divisioner avseende frekvens av smärtskattning och dokumentation av skattningen. Studien avsåg även att undersöka om arbetslivserfarenhet påverkar smärtskattningsfrekvensen. Metod: En kvantitativ jämförande tvärsnittsstudie har utförts. Inklusionskriterier var sjuksköterskor som arbetade kliniskt på en vårdavdelning. Ett studiespecifikt frågeformulär konstruerades, och data bearbetades i SPSS samt med genom meningskoncentrering. Frågeformuläret delades ut på två kirurgavdelningar och en medicinavdelning. Resultat: Signifikant skillnad kunde påvisas mellan kirurgavdelningarna och medicinavdelningen avseende smärtskattning innan smärtbehandling, dokumentation av smärtskattningen, uppföljning och dokumentation av smärtbehandling, smärtskattning innan undersökning och omvårdnad. Tidsbrist tycktes vara den störta anledningen till utebliven dokumentation av skattningen. Slutsats: Utrymme för förbättring hos sjuksköterskorna fanns avseende både smärtskattning och dokumentation.         Nyckelord: Smärta, smärtskattning, smärtbehandling, sjuksköterska, dokumentation / ABSTRACT Introduction: The experience of pain is an intergraded reflex, which normally works as a warning system if something is about to get hurt or already is hurt in the body. This reflex get the body to react, hopefully, before any serious damage happens. Pain assessment is a necessity to be able to give a patient pain management with a successful outcome. Pain intensity is a part of the pain assessment. Recording of the pain intensity makes it possible to evaluate the pain management.  Earlier studies have shown that flaws do exist in the nurses’ recording of the pain intensity; they do not measure the pain intensity before neither medical examination nor nursing. Aim: The aim of this study was to examine in what extent nurses measure patients’ pain intensity and if they record the result of pain intensity. Furthermore, the aim was to investigate if there were any difference internally between the hospitals divisions. This study’s aim was also to examine if there were any gaps between nurses work experience and how often they measure the pain intensity. Method: A quantitative comparative study was made. Inclusion criteria was nurses that worked clinically at a hospital. The sample was 41 nurses who worked at a hospital in center of Sweden.  A study specific questionnaire was made, and data was processed in SPSS and through sentence condensation. Results: Significant difference was proven between the surgical division and the medical division about how often nurses measure patients’ pain intensity and how often they recorded the pain intensity. A lack of time was the main reason why nurses did not record the pain intensity. Conclusion: Nurses could improve the frequency of how often they measure and record pain intensity.      Key Words: Pain, pain intensity, pain management, nurse, recording

SAMMANFATTNING Bakgrund: Upplevelsen av smärta är en inbyggd reflex, som normalt varnar för att något håller på att skadas eller redan har skadats i kroppen, och får kroppen att reagera innan något allvarligt sker. För att kunna ge en patient adekvat smärtbehandling bör en analys av smärtan göras, som förutsättning för att patienten ska kunna få en lämplig smärtbehandling. Smärtskattning är en viktig del av den fullständiga smärtanalysen. Dokumentation av smärtskattningen gör det möjligt att på ett systematiskt sätt utvärdera given smärt behandling. Forskning tyder på att sjuksköterskors smärtskattning innan smärtbehandling, dokumentation av smärtskattningen, smärtskattning innan undersökning och smärtskattning innan omvårdnad är bristfällig. Detta trots att många sjukhus, kommuner och landsting har smärtbehandling som kvalitetsmål. Syfte: Syftet med studien undersöka i viken utsträckning sjuksköterskor smärtskattar och dokumenterar skattning. Vidare var syftet att undersöka om det fanns skillnader mellan divisioner avseende frekvens av smärtskattning och dokumentation av skattningen. Studien avsåg även att undersöka om arbetslivserfarenhet påverkar smärtskattningsfrekvensen. Metod: En kvantitativ jämförande tvärsnittsstudie har utförts. Inklusionskriterier var sjuksköterskor som arbetade kliniskt på en vårdavdelning. Ett studiespecifikt frågeformulär konstruerades, och data bearbetades i SPSS samt med genom meningskoncentrering. Frågeformuläret delades ut på två kirurgavdelningar och en medicinavdelning. Resultat: Signifikant skillnad kunde påvisas mellan kirurgavdelningarna och medicinavdelningen avseende smärtskattning innan smärtbehandling, dokumentation av smärtskattningen, uppföljning och dokumentation av smärtbehandling, smärtskattning innan undersökning och omvårdnad. Tidsbrist tycktes vara den störta anledningen till utebliven dokumentation av skattningen. Slutsats: Utrymme för förbättring hos sjuksköterskorna fanns avseende både smärtskattning och dokumentation.         Nyckelord: Smärta, smärtskattning, smärtbehandling, sjuksköterska, dokumentation / ABSTRACT Introduction: The experience of pain is an intergraded reflex, which normally works as a warning system if something is about to get hurt or already is hurt in the body. This reflex get the body to react, hopefully, before any serious damage happens. Pain assessment is a necessity to be able to give a patient pain management with a successful outcome. Pain intensity is a part of the pain assessment. Recording of the pain intensity makes it possible to evaluate the pain management.  Earlier studies have shown that flaws do exist in the nurses’ recording of the pain intensity; they do not measure the pain intensity before neither medical examination nor nursing. Aim: The aim of this study was to examine in what extent nurses measure patients’ pain intensity and if they record the result of pain intensity. Furthermore, the aim was to investigate if there were any difference internally between the hospitals divisions. This study’s aim was also to examine if there were any gaps between nurses work experience and how often they measure the pain intensity. Method: A quantitative comparative study was made. Inclusion criteria was nurses that worked clinically at a hospital. The sample was 41 nurses who worked at a hospital in center of Sweden.  A study specific questionnaire was made, and data was processed in SPSS and through sentence condensation. Results: Significant difference was proven between the surgical division and the medical division about how often nurses measure patients’ pain intensity and how often they recorded the pain intensity. A lack of time was the main reason why nurses did not record the pain intensity. Conclusion: Nurses could improve the frequency of how often they measure and record pain intensity.      Key Words: Pain, pain intensity, pain management, nurse, recording

On the eve of 1920, the U.S. recording industry had been through a number of near-fatal economic downturns since its precarious emergence in the 1890s, and yet stood on the verge of its most influential decade to date. Already in its short history, the recording industry had nearly ceased to exist in the 1890s, saved itself by transforming the phonograph from office machine to nickel-in-the-slot novelty, survived the first of many format wars to come, and reinvented itself by introducing the phonograph into American homes. During the 1920s and 1930s, the recording industry participated in creating genre categories and identifying audiences for music that had previously gone unrecorded. By concentrating on both industry giants (Victor, Columbia) and smaller labels that were key to industry trends (Gennett, Paramount, Okeh), this dissertation's working hypothesis is that a new mode of production in the recording industry between the world wars -- based both on previous business strategies and new market conditions -- allowed a few large corporations to develop into a highly organized industry. This relationship between genre (understood as a configuration of social, cultural, ideological, and aesthetic beliefs) and mode of production (in its most concrete sense, how a given company operates) has continued to be an important one to the record industry, because with each new genre and sub-genre the industry has the potential to connect with underserved or unrecognized audiences. By combining industrial history with cultural analysis, this dissertation analyzes institutional cultures at various record companies and the contributions of musicians and various cultural intermediaries who helped shape U. S. popular music beginning in the early twentieth century. The central questions to which I continually return are: How did the consolidation of the recording industry into distinct company cultures shape the records that were made? What role did these cultures play in the shaping of genres, in terms of both creative control and technological formats? And finally, how do these various aspects interrelate in the context of the recording industry -- both as an industry involved in manufacturing culture and reflecting its own participation as a cultural institution? / text

In April 2002 a National Crime Recording Standard (NCRS) was introduced across police forces in England and Wales. The intention of this standard, resultant of two highly critical reports regarding police recording of crime, was to improve crime data and promote a victim focussed approach. Research in the field of crime recording emphasises police reporting and recording mechanisms, with a significant reliance placed on police data. However, inter-personal and situational factors determining the ways in which notification of an event is, or is not, translated into a crime record are often inadequately explored. Consequently, there is little recent knowledge regarding the views of individuals reporting an event and the way in which they, through the interactions with the police, affect recording rates. This thesis explores these effects and investigates the impact of deviation from the rules governing crime recording upon service user experiences and satisfaction. Incident logs from three forces were analysed, officer focus groups and questionnaire-based surveys were undertaken and interviews were conducted with service users. Perceptions of service users and police officers vis-à-vis the effectiveness of police intervention were examined, together with the efficacy of previous research methodologies employed to gauge recording rates, the rules regarding crime recording and the existent performance frameworks. The findings suggest that previously reported recording rates are inevitably unreliable owing to a lack of detail within incident logs and the complexities involved in the recognition and labelling of events as crimes. Whilst easing of workloads is a common theme highlighted in previous research, there is notably less emphasis and recognition of other factors. The response, by officers at street level, to the realities of the social world, the conflicting priorities brought about by managerial dictum and the bureaucratic rules governing the recording of crime is to ‘define down crime’. The findings fill the considerable knowledge gap regarding diverse service user requirements and conflicting priorities faced by service providers prior to the introduction of the NCRS, suggesting that the imposition of managerial ideals, the accompanying bureaucratic rules and the corollary, the diminution of discretion, has a detrimental effect on service delivery.

The area of ultrafast (sub-nanosecond) magnetization dynamics of ferromagnetic elements and thin films, usually driven by a strong femtosecond laser pulse, has experienced intense research interest. In this dissertation, laser-induced demagnetization is theoretically studied by taking into account interactions among electrons, spins, and lattice. We propose a microscopic approach under the three temperature framework and derive the equations that govern the demagnetization at arbitrary temperatures.To address the question of magnetization reversal at high temperatures, the conventional Landau-Lifshitz equation is obviously unsatisfactory, since it fails to describe the longitudinal relaxation. So by using the equation of motion for the quantum density matrix within the instantaneous local relaxation time approximation, we propose an effective equation that is capable of addressing magnetization dynamics for a wide range of temperatures. The longitudinal and transverse relaxations are analyzed, magnetization reversal processes near Curie temperatures is also studied. Furthermore, we compared our derived Self-consistent Bloch equation and Landau-Lifshitz-Bloch equation in detail. Finally, the demagnetzation dynamics for ferromagnetic and ferrimagnetic alloys is studied by solving the Self-consistent Bloch equation.

No description available.

The hard-disk storage industry is at a critical time as the current technologies are incapable of achieving densities beyond 500 Gb/in2, which will be reached in a few years. Many radically new storage architectures have been proposed, which along with advanced signal processing algorithms are expected to achieve much higher densities. In this dissertation, various signal processing algorithms are developed to improve the performance of current and next-generation magnetic storage systems.Low-density parity-check (LDPC) error correction codes are known to provide excellent performance in magnetic storage systems and are likely to replace or supplement currently used algebraic codes. Two methods are described to improve their performance in such systems. In the first method, the detector is modified to incorporate auxiliary LDPC parity checks. Using graph theoretical algorithms, a method to incorporate maximum number of such checks for a given complexity is provided. In the second method, a joint detection and decoding algorithm is developed that, unlike all other schemes, operates on the non-binary channel output symbols rather than input bits. Though sub-optimal, it is shown to provide the best known decoding performance for channels with memory more than 1, which are practically the most important.This dissertation also proposes a ternary magnetic recording system from a signal processing perspective. The advantage of this novel scheme is that it is capable of making magnetic transitions with two different but predetermined gradients. By developing optimal signal processing components like receivers, equalizers and detectors for this channel, the equivalence of this system to a two-track/two-head system is determined and its performance is analyzed. Consequently, it is shown that it is preferable to store information using this system, than to store using a binary system with inter-track interference. Finally, this dissertation provides a number of insights into the unique characteristics of heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) and two-dimensional magnetic recording (TDMR) channels. For HAMR channels, the effects of laser spot on transition characteristics and non-linear transition shift are investigated. For TDMR channels, a suitable channel model is developed to investigate the two-dimensional nature of the noise.

No description available.