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Objective: To determine if significant differences exist in timings and rates of Peak Mandibular Growth (PMG) and mandibular projections of subjects with vertical, average and horizontal facial growth patterns. Methods: Sixty-three Caucasian orthognathic subjects with cephalograms (9 to 18 years) available from the Burlington Growth Centre were categorized into average, vertical and horizontal growth pattern groups based on their change in Y axis from age 10 to 16 years. PMG timing and rates were determined and mandibular projections measured. Comparisons were made by ANOVA. Results: Inter-group differences of PMG timing or rate were not statistically significant. Although not statistically significant, PMG of vertically growing females was 14 month earlier than all other subgroups. Horizontal mandibular projection differences approached significance in older children. Conclusions: No statistically significant differences were found in the timing or rate of PMG in different facial growth patterns. Differences in horizontal mandibular projections approached significance with growth.

Objective: To determine if significant differences exist in timings and rates of Peak Mandibular Growth (PMG) and mandibular projections of subjects with vertical, average and horizontal facial growth patterns. Methods: Sixty-three Caucasian orthognathic subjects with cephalograms (9 to 18 years) available from the Burlington Growth Centre were categorized into average, vertical and horizontal growth pattern groups based on their change in Y axis from age 10 to 16 years. PMG timing and rates were determined and mandibular projections measured. Comparisons were made by ANOVA. Results: Inter-group differences of PMG timing or rate were not statistically significant. Although not statistically significant, PMG of vertically growing females was 14 month earlier than all other subgroups. Horizontal mandibular projection differences approached significance in older children. Conclusions: No statistically significant differences were found in the timing or rate of PMG in different facial growth patterns. Differences in horizontal mandibular projections approached significance with growth.

This thesis investigates the impacts of user choice in Swedish elderly care on quality and cost as well as the impact of marketisation on the Covid-19 death toll. In the last three decades welfare service provision in Sweden has been increasingly marketised. Since 2009, Swedish municipalities have been able to introduce user choice in elderly care and it has been widely adopted in home care. To investigate the impact of introducing user choice, new insights from econometrics literature is used to estimate a staggered Difference-in-Difference model, using panel data for the years 2003-2019 and the 290 Swedish municipalities. The impact of marketisation on the Covid-19 death toll is estimated through Ordinary Least Squares using a cross-sectional data set. There are three main findings of this thesis. (i) The impact on quality and cost of the introduction of user choice has had heterogeneous effects across adoption groups, calendar time, and exposure length of treatment, and hence, the standard Difference- in-Difference approach is likely to provide biased estimates in this setting. (ii) The introduction of user choice has no clear effect on non-contractible quality measured by mortality rate and fall accidents, nor on cost. However, user choice has increased subjective quality, as measured by user satisfaction. (iii) A higher degree of marketisation in home care is associated with a higher Covid-19 death toll amongst those which had home care.

Considering the pervasive presence of chlorides in concrete bridge decks, bridge engineers have a critical responsibility to perform proper and effective preventive maintenance and rehabilitation operations. Bridge engineers often perform scarification and overlay (SO) procedures on concrete bridge decks to minimize the corrosion of reinforcing steel due to chloride ingress. Given the need to develop guidelines for the initial timing of SO treatments, the specific objectives of this research were to collect information from several department of transportation (DOT) personnel about their SO procedures and, subsequently, to determine the recommended timing of initial SO procedures on concrete bridge decks for preventing the accumulation of corrosion-inducing levels of chlorides and extending deck service life. A questionnaire survey of state DOTs was conducted, and numerical modeling of SO treatments was performed. Simulations involving both decks with and without stay-in-place metal forms (SIPMFs) were performed. Numerical modeling was performed for each unique combination of variables through a service life of 50 years to determine the recommended initial timing of SO treatment in each case. The research results show that, overall, bridge decks without SIPMFs can endure longer delays in SO treatment timing than those with SIPMFs; in all cases, the absence of SIPMFs extended the amount of time before an SO treatment was needed. For decks with SIPMFs, the allowable delay in SO timing ranged from 2 to 6 years, while on decks without SIPMFs the allowable delay in SO timing ranged from 6 to 18 years. These delays are only 1 to 3 years longer than allowable delays associated with placement of surface treatments investigated in previous research. On average, the period of additional delay allowed before an SO treatment is required in decks with SIPMFs was 2 years with each additional 0.5 in. of OCD. In decks without SIPMFs, the presence of a greater OCD had a more pronounced effect on the latest recommended timing of treatment than in the decks with SIPMFs; an average additional delay period of 5 years was obtained with each additional 0.5 in. of OCD in decks without SIPMFs. Together with the findings of this research and the specific properties of the bridge deck under scrutiny, engineers can determine the appropriate timing of rehabilitation procedures to prevent or mitigate corrosion of the steel reinforcement of a bridge deck and ensure the usability of the deck for its intended service life. Although the conditions studied in this research were consistent with bridges located in the state of Utah, bridge decks that exist in similar environments and that are subjected to similar treatments of deicing salts as part of winter maintenance could exhibit similar properties to the decks simulated in this research. Engineers should carefully consider the results of this research and implement proper timing of SO treatments on their respective bridge decks to protect against and minimize the effects of corrosion due to chloride ingress.