The purpose of this study is to investigate specific contributing factors affecting quality assurance in the diagnosis of conventional cervical smears. More than half of South- African women fail to have one cervical smear in their lifetime and +/- 50 percent of those who do have cervical smears taken, are lost to follow-up. Since cervical cancer is the most common malignancy amongst women in developing countries, the medical profession will have to endeavor to screen a higher rate of women and ensure a 100 percent quality assurance with every patient treated in order to reduce the unacceptable high incidence of cervical carcinoma. At this stage it seems like an impossible task to screen all women in South Africa, due to far-off rural areas, shortage of medical professionals and the lack of knowledge of some women of the necessity of cervical smears. Many newly qualified South-African doctors leave the country to go and work elsewhere. South Africa then in turn has to recruit doctors from other countries to staff the State hospitals and clinics. Some areas have one doctor to thousands of patients, insufficient nursing personnel and inadequate equipment. Doctors in some areas cannot cope with the volume of work and the long hours. One has to accept that the quality of the management of some patients is affected negatively. There are a number of medico-legal issues (world wide) in relation to aspects of cervical cancer prevention practices which are controversial and are of particular concern to all of those involved in cervical cancer prevention. Various countries have therefore formed different national organizations to address the medico-legal issues in screening for the prevention of cancer. These organizations monitors procedures, internal quality control as well as external quality control. In South Africa, medico-legal cases are not so prevalent, but may become so shortly. The South-African medical professionals therefore have to ensure that their quality of work conforms to accepted good practice in all circumstances. State hospitals serve thousands of patients per month and it is an every day occurrence to see long queues of patients sitting waiting for doctors and who often have to come back the following day. The situation appears to be much improved in private practice and since patients have medical cover and accessible medical facilities. Since cervical cancer is the most common malignancy amongst women in developing countries, the medical profession will have to endeavor to screen a higher rate of women and ensure a 100 percent quality assurance with every patient treated in order to reduce the unacceptable high incidence of cervical carcinoma. At this stage it seems like an impossible task to screen 100 percent of women in South Africa, due to far-off rural areas, the shortage of medical professionals and ignorance of patients. Quality assurance is therefore of paramount importance to every medical professional for every patient treated. Laboratories all worldwide have been, or are in the process of being accredited by their specific accreditation authorities. The main reason for this is improvement of quality control and therefore quality assurance. The South African National Accreditation Society (SANAS) now accredits various laboratories in South Africa with the view of accreditting all laboratories within a certain time limit. The Ampath laboratory Port Elizabeth was successfully accredited during 2001. Accredited laboratories have to uphold a very high degree of quality to remain accredited. A team of professionals inspects the laboratory every 2 years and other quality assurance staff inspects the laboratories every few months. All aspects of the laboratory are checked, e.g. the qualification of staff, their registration with the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA), their curriculum vitaes, equipment, safety of the laboratory etc. Since the laboratory chosen for this study, is accredited, the author evaluated every cervical smear that was received in the laboratory since the year 2000, with the following objectives in mind: · Whether the presence or absence of an endocervical component has an effect on the adequacy of cervical smears · To determine the effect of using smaller coverslips on quality assurance in the cytology laboratory · Evaluate the effect that manual re-screening of smears has on quality assurance in the cytology laboratory. As there is a shortage of cytotechnologists and pathologists worldwide, several countries make use of automated screening devices as primary screening or secondary screening for quality assurance. These devices were tested in some laboratories in South Africa but were found to be very expensive and sensitivity and specificity were not up to standard. Sensitivity is a measure of the ability of a test to detect the abnormal - Sensitivity is the ratio of true positives to true positives + false negatives. Specificity is a measure of the ability of a test to correctly identify the negative - Specificity is the ratio of true negative to true negatives + false positives. The automated screening machines failed to identify abnormal cells amongst inflammatory cells, as well as in very blood stained smears. Several other problems also occurred and an increasing number of smears had to be manually rescreened, thus making this exercise costly and not helpful as a quality assurance instrument. The slides used for this thesis, have been retrieved from the archives of the Ampath laboratory in Port Elizabeth. Fourteen specific contributing factors affecting quality assurance in the diagnosis of cervical smears are also discussed and conclusions and recommendations given.

Author: Bc. Ondřej Martínek Title: Physical activity and its quality in children with ADHD Objectives: The aim of the theoretical part of the work was to process the issue of ADHD, especially in children of younger school age. The work also aimed to present the possibilities of testing and therapy in physiotherapeutic practice. The aim of the practical part was to obtain information about the subjective evaluation of children's motor skills by the DCDQ questionnaire from the point of view of their parents, to get an idea of leisure activities and physiotherapy care and to compare test results (One Leg Stance Test and The Ladder Agility Test) of experimental group with control group. Methods: The research group consisting of 22 probands and the control group of 25 probands completed 2 standardized tests (The Ladder Agility Test, One Leg Stance Test). Their parents completed The Developmental Coordination Disorder Questionnaire and answered 2 open questions. The obtained data were evaluated in Microsoft Excel. A two-sample t-test (Welch version) was used for statistical processing. Results: Statistically significant differences were found in the evaluation of probands by their parents with the ADHD questionnaire, but in practical motor tests no significant differences were found between the...

Embedded systems hold immense potential, but their integration into advanced devices comes with significant costs. Malfunctions in these systems can result inequipment failures, posing serious risks and potential accidents. To ensure theirproper functionality, embedded system components undergo rigorous testing phases,which can be time-consuming, especially for components with numerous connections. Therefore, it is crucial to reduce test time while maintaining high-qualitytesting to detect and address failures early in the development cycle, resulting in improved and safer products. This report delves into various techniques and algorithms aimed at expediting testingprocesses, such as machine learning, risk analysis, test parallelization, and combinatorial testing. It examines the practicality of mathematical models and automatedapproaches in real-world companies through experimentation and implementation.In essence, the report tackles the challenges involved in testing embedded systems,explores different approaches to reduce test time, and presents a suitable model formaintaining test quality. The ultimate goal is to present and implement a methodthat effectively reduces test time while upholding an acceptable level of test quality.The obtained results provide valuable insights for future test groups and researchersseeking to optimize their testing processes and deliver safer products