Background: During the past 50 years, novel diagnostic tools, interventional approaches, and population-wide changes in the major coronary risk factors have occurred. However, few studies have examined relatively recent trends in the demographic characteristics, clinical profile, and the short-term outcomes of patients hospitalized for acute myocardial infarction (AMI) from the more generalizable perspective of a population-based investigation. Methods:We examined decade long trends (2001 to 2011) in patient’s demographic and clinical characteristics, treatment practices, and hospital outcomes among residents of the Worcester metropolitan area hospitalized with a validated initial AMI (n = 3,730) at all 11 greater Worcester medical centers during 2001, 2003, 2005, 2007, 2009, and 2011. Results:The average age of the study population was 68.5 years and 56.9% were men. Patients hospitalized with a first AMI during the most recent study years were significantly younger (mean age = 69.9 in 2001/03; 65.2 in 2009/11), had lower serum troponin levels, and experienced a shorter hospital stay compared to patients hospitalized during the earliest study years. Hospitalized patients were more likely to received evidence-based medical management practices during the years under study. Multivariable-adjusted regression models showed a considerable decline over-time in the hospital death rate (9.6% in 2001/03; 6.5% in 2009/11), and a significant reduction in the proportion of patients who developed atrial fibrillation, heart failure, and ventricular fibrillation during their acute hospitalization. Conclusions: These results highlight the changing nature of patients hospitalized with an incident AMI, and reinforce the need for surveillance of AMI at the community level.

Magister Educationis - MEd / Onderwyseropleiding, 'n integrende deel van die onderwysstelsel in die Republiek van Suid-Afrika, soos dit ook die geval in ander lande is, is die spil waarom die opheffing van en kulturoordrag van 'n nasie in die algemeen en die van 'n ontwikkelde gameenskap in die besonder draai. Sonder 'n onderwysstelsel, en meer belangrik, sonder 'n onderwyserskorps kan geen gemeenskap ver op die beskawingspad vorder nie.

Thesis (D.Min.)--Dallas Theological Seminary, 2008. / Appendix F has an image of The Nestorian Stele and the translation of the text. Includes abstract. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 125-132).

Thesis (MA)--Stellenbosch University, 2011. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The deaf community face similar access barriers to health care services and information as do other linguistic minority groups. Amongst others, this includes limited access to English communication, misunderstanding of medical terminology, irregular contact with health care professionals of the same language and cultural background and the need to overcome the challenges experienced by using others as interpreters in a health care setting. Barriers to the written and spoken word limit access to health care information as deaf people cannot overhear conversations, have limited access to mass media and present with low literacy rates. The South African Constitution stipulates that every citizen has an equal right to health care services and should not be unfairly discriminated against, on the basis of language. Unfortunately, despite what is written in the Constitution, the reality is that many South Africans are denied equal access or receive compromised access to health care services because of language barriers. The lack of access to interpreters at health care facilities across South Africa inhibits patients from expressing themselves correctly and limits the providers’ professional ability to make a correct diagnosis and provide relevant information. The current study explores the barriers and facilitators to accessing health care services and health care information for people who are deaf in a relatively well-resourced setting. A sample of deaf participants from the National Institute for the Deaf in Worcester were interviewed to gain an understanding of problems experienced with accessing health care services and health care information. Participants reported communication and socio-economic factors as barriers to accessing health care services. The main barrier to accessing health care information was considered to be the inaccessibility of the mass media. Recommendations were made by participants on ways to improve access to health care services and health care information for the deaf population of South Africa. Keywords: Health care acces, Health care information, Deaf, Worcester, Barriers and facilitators to health care services. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die dowe gemeenskap ervaar soortgelyke struikelblokke as ander linguistiese minderheidsgroepe met toegang tot gesondheidsdienste en inligting. Dit sluit onder andere in beperkte toegang tot Engelse kommunikasie, wanbegrip van mediese terminologie, ongereelde kontak met mediese dienspraktisyne van dieselfde taal en kulturele agtergrond, en die uitdaging wat oorkom moet word om ander mense te gebruik as tussenganger en tolk in ’n mediese situasie. Hindernisse met geskrewe- en spreektaal beperk die toegang tot gesondheidsinligting. Dowe mense kan nie na gesprekke luister nie, het beperkte toegang tot massamedia en vertoon oor die algemeen 'n laer geletterdheidsprofiel. Die Suid Afrikaanse Grondwet stipuleer dat elke burger ’n gelyke reg tot gesondheidsdienste het en verbied onregverdige diskriminasie op grond van taal. Ten spyte van die Grondwet is die realiteit dat baie Suid Afrikaners nie gelyke toegang het nie en ’n laer vlak van mediese dienslewering ervaar as gevolg van taalprobleme. Die ontoereikende beskikbaarheid van tolke by gesondheidsfasiliteite reg oor Suid Afrika beperk die vermoë van pasiënte om hulself behoorlik uit te druk. Dit beperk daarom ook die mediese praktisyn se vermoë om ’n korrekte diagnose te maak en relevante inligting rakende die diagnose aan die pasiënt oor te dra. In die huidige studie is die struikelblokke en fasiliteerders vir toegang tot gesondheidsdienste en inligting ondersoek vir dowe mense in ’n relatief goed toegeruste omgewing. ’n Steekproef van dowe deelnemers is by die Nasionale Instituut vir Dowes in Worcester geselekteer. Deur middel van onderhoude is die probleme wat ondervind word met toegang tot gesondheidsdienste en gesondheidsinformasie geïdentifiseer. Deelnemers het kommunikasie en sosio-ekonomiese faktore as struikelblokke tot die toegang van gesondheidsdienste geïdentifiseer. Die grootste struikelblok met toegang tot mediese inligting was die beperkte toegang tot massamedia. Voorstelle is deur die deelnemers gemaak vir die verbetering van die toeganklikheid tot mediese dienslewering en gesondheidsinligting vir die dowe populasie in Suid Afrika.

This thesis argues that the Middle English alliterative prosody of the Piers Plowman tradition was influenced by a discourse combining law, history, homily and poetry which was inherited from the administrative practices of the Anglo-Saxon period. As literary and legal textual genres developed recognizably distinct formal characteristics in the later Middle Ages, the combination of homiletic rhetoric and alliterative sound-patterning evoked a surviving discourse in which the formal characteristics of poems and documents were less clearly distinguished. Thus insofar as it evoked Anglo-Saxon textual culture, Piers Plowman provided a formal model which was particularly suitable to criticisms of political institutions that consolidated their power by developing new distinctions between the genres of bureaucratic texts. In each of the texts and traditions studied – Wulfstan’s homiletic law code I–II Cnut and its Latin translations, The First Worcester Fragment, Laȝamon’s Arthurian Brut chronicle-poem, The South English Legendary "Life of St. Egwine", and the Piers Plowman tradition poem Mum and the Sothsegger – apparently “literary” devices are used to authorize historically-based “legal” claims, particularly on behalf of ecclesiastical institutions looking to maintain their local influence in the face of increasingly consolidated royal administrative authority. Though oaths played a much less important procedural role after the Norman Conquest than they did in the Anglo-Saxon period, the appearance of "creative" authenticating procedures in "commemorative" texts created the appearance of orality to post-Conquest readers, to criticize a government which claimed its English "common" law to originate in the remotest recorded antiquity, even as it abandoned the practices actually recorded in the earliest surviving law codes and documents to be written in England. Comparing these texts allows a deeper understanding of their shared authenticating strategies, and also a re-appraisal of the methods we use to describe the relationships between medieval documents and authors, literature and law, texts and contexts. Appended to the dissertation is an edition of the SEL "Life of St. Egwine." Because Egwine's hagiographic tradition is so thematically invested in political concerns and closely interconnected with legal documents attributed to Egwine himself, the edition provides an opportunity to take a "disjunctively" literary and diplomatic approach to the tradition, in the process exploring some of the practical implications of the larger theoretical issues raised by the thesis as a whole.

This thesis argues that the Middle English alliterative prosody of the Piers Plowman tradition was influenced by a discourse combining law, history, homily and poetry which was inherited from the administrative practices of the Anglo-Saxon period. As literary and legal textual genres developed recognizably distinct formal characteristics in the later Middle Ages, the combination of homiletic rhetoric and alliterative sound-patterning evoked a surviving discourse in which the formal characteristics of poems and documents were less clearly distinguished. Thus insofar as it evoked Anglo-Saxon textual culture, Piers Plowman provided a formal model which was particularly suitable to criticisms of political institutions that consolidated their power by developing new distinctions between the genres of bureaucratic texts. In each of the texts and traditions studied – Wulfstan’s homiletic law code I–II Cnut and its Latin translations, The First Worcester Fragment, Laȝamon’s Arthurian Brut chronicle-poem, The South English Legendary "Life of St. Egwine", and the Piers Plowman tradition poem Mum and the Sothsegger – apparently “literary” devices are used to authorize historically-based “legal” claims, particularly on behalf of ecclesiastical institutions looking to maintain their local influence in the face of increasingly consolidated royal administrative authority. Though oaths played a much less important procedural role after the Norman Conquest than they did in the Anglo-Saxon period, the appearance of "creative" authenticating procedures in "commemorative" texts created the appearance of orality to post-Conquest readers, to criticize a government which claimed its English "common" law to originate in the remotest recorded antiquity, even as it abandoned the practices actually recorded in the earliest surviving law codes and documents to be written in England. Comparing these texts allows a deeper understanding of their shared authenticating strategies, and also a re-appraisal of the methods we use to describe the relationships between medieval documents and authors, literature and law, texts and contexts. Appended to the dissertation is an edition of the SEL "Life of St. Egwine." Because Egwine's hagiographic tradition is so thematically invested in political concerns and closely interconnected with legal documents attributed to Egwine himself, the edition provides an opportunity to take a "disjunctively" literary and diplomatic approach to the tradition, in the process exploring some of the practical implications of the larger theoretical issues raised by the thesis as a whole.

Drawing upon rhetorical evidence of three art education activities in Worcester, Massachusetts at the close of the 19th century−The Public School Art League, evening drawing classes, and School Arts magazine−it is argued through this research that the many active facets of art education that occurred in Worcester at this time were constructed in great part as response to the economic climate of the city. This thesis argues that the activities were representative of art education for the improvement of public taste, patience, and the recognition of beauty. In this study, parallels are drawn between these three organizations and activities in Worcester, demonstrating many common initiators and motivations. Exploring art education motivations in Worcester at the turn of the 19th century, this investigation also advocates the need for the study of Japanese influence on art education activities in New England during this same period. / text

This thesis is a meditation on liberatory futures for colonized pasts. It begins with a history of the imperial relationship between the US and the Philippines and how coloniality took root in the lives of Filipinos. The second chapter explores the critique of imperialism offered in post/colonial cultural productions by Manuel Ocampo and his location within the museum, as a constitutive site of modernity. The third chapter explores the project of de-coloniality and the role of ritual and imagination.

Text in Afrikaans / Sedert 1994 het drastiese veranderinge in die Suid-Afrikaanse onderwysstelsel plaasgevind, wat ’n direkte invloed het op die vlak van werkstevredenheid wat opvoeders ervaar. Alhoewel die ongelykhede van die verlede in hierdie beleid ondersoek is, word sekere organisatoriese faktore wat die moraal van opvoeders beïnvloed egter nie hierin erken nie. In hierdie navorsingstudie maak die navorser gebruik van die kombinasie van kwalitatiewe en kwantitatiewe navorsingsmetodes wat as triangulasie bekend staan. Semigestruktureerde onderhoude (kwalitatief) en vraelyste (kwantitatief) is as data-insamelingstegnieke gebruik om vas te stel wat die aard, omvang en moontlike oplossings vir die navorsingsprobleem is. Faktore wat werksbevrediging by opvoeders beïnvloed, is geïdentifiseer en ondersoek. Aanbevelings is gemaak rakende die rol van die Onderwysdepartement, prinsipaal, kollegas en ouers in opvoeders se werksbevrediging. Die vernaamste hiervan is dat prinsipale werkstevredenheid by opvoeders kan verhoog deur die bou van verhoudings van vertroue, betrokkenheid in die besluitnemingsproses en deur ondersteuningstrukture vir opvoeders in plek te stel. / Since 1994, drastic changes occurred in the education system in South Africa, which had a direct impact on the level of job satisfaction that teachers experienced. Although this policy addressed the inequalities of the past, certain organisational factors influencing the morale of teachers were not recognised herein. In this research study the researcher made use of a combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods, known as triangulation. Semi-structured interviews (qualitative) and questionnaires (quantitative) were used as data collection techniques to determine the nature, extent and possible solutions to the research problem. Factors affecting job satisfaction among educators were identified and examined. Recommendations were made regarding the role of the Department of Education, principals, colleagues and parents in teachers' job satisfaction. The main recommendation is that principals may maximise teachers’ job satisfaction through building relationships of trust, involvement in the decision-making process and by implementing support structures. / Educational Leadership and Management / M. Ed. (Onderwysbestuur)

This study is concerned with the compositional analysis of Roman and early post-Roman glass from both domestic assemblages and the remains derived from glass working and producing sites in Britain, using Inductively Coupled Plasma Spectrometry (ICPS). Samples analysed were from glassworking waste from Mancetter (midsecond century), Leicester (third century) and Worcester (first to third centuries), glass production debris, probably manufactured from the raw materials, in conjuncton with a domestic assemblage, from Coppergate (first to fourth centuries, or possibly later), and a domestic assemblage from Fishergate (spanning both the Roman and immediate post- Roman periods). All the glass analysed was shown to be of a typical and uniform soda-limesilica composition, except for a small number of vessel fragments from York which were higher in calcium. Any compositional differences between blue-green glasses typologically dated either to the Roman or Saxon periods, were found not to be consistent. Analysis of the colourless glass showed that the majority appeared to be actively decolorized using antimony, in conjunction with apparent differences in the compositions of the raw materials, when compared to glass of the same date in other colours. Compositional differences between melted waste from Mancetter, Leicester and Worcester, were apparent, but not to an extent which allowed characterization to be successful. Analysis of glassmelting pots from Coppergate showed some high temperature glassworking (and possibly glassmaking) could have occurred. Other debris, thought to be indicative of glassmaking was also analysed and compared to the composition of the Roman domestic assemblage.