VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
A multifaceted approach to professional development to advance practice in the rehabilitative management of low trauma fracture

Professional development activities attempt to bridge the gap between what is known through research and what is practiced in the clinical setting. Despite evidence to support the rehabilitation of low trauma fracture associated with osteoporosis, the condition is under-identified and poorly managed. This thesis investigates whether a multifaceted approach to professional development including workshops and online community of practice could advance practice in this area. The workshops were offered to rehabilitation therapists in four Ontario communities with a focus on the management of patients with low trauma fracture and osteoporosis. Workshop attendees completed pre-post and follow-up measures. A design research approach was used to examine the iterative evolution of the development of an online community of practice and the advancement of practice. Eighty-four subjects participated in the four workshops and scored significantly higher on the post tests related to knowledge and awareness of rehabilitation management of a case scenario. At six months follow-up, subjects considered their role to be important and low trauma fracture to be a priority with modest distribution of patient resources in their practice. Six rehabilitation therapists participated in the online community of practice over a seven month period. The community progressed through four cycles of innovation shifting from individual task based activity to mutual engagement in the joint enterprise of case development using evidence and theories to address authentic clinical problems. Technology played an essential role in the development and sustainability of the community of practice. The use of a design research approach allowed for just-in-time innovations for circumstances that could not be predetermined. Key words. professional development, rehabilitation, osteoporosis, knowledge translation, community of practice, technologyCreating and sustaining online communities of practice following more traditional professional development approaches holds potential for helping clinicians apply research findings to authentic clinical settings thereby contributing to the advancement of practice.
Exploring the association between the use of atypical antipsychotic therapy and the development of diabetes

We compared the risk of developing diabetes in older adults (?66) taking atypical antipsychotic therapy to a control group of benzodiazepine users using administrative databases. We conducted a cohort study among outpatients as well as those resident in the in the long-term care setting. We used the Cox Proportional Hazards model to estimate rate ratios adjusting for age, gender, socio-economic status, total drug use, use of drug therapy associated with development of diabetes including beta-blockers, thiazide diuretics and antiepileptic drugs. Compared to the control group, atypical antipsychotic therapy was associated with a reduced risk of developing diabetes in the outpatient cohort (HR 0.66 95% CI 0.54–0.78). We found no association between the use of atypical antipsychotic therapy and development of diabetes in the long-term care cohort (HR 0.89 95% 0.66–1.21). Our study suggests that atypical antipsychotic therapy is not associated with an increased risk of diabetes in older adults.
Error and reporting in surgery: exploring team and patient perceptions

This thesis presents a research study, conducted for my PhD. This research used mixed qualitative and quantitative methods to address four central questions: How do interdisciplinary team members perceive error and error reporting? How do patients perceive error and error reporting? What are the areas of congruence and conflict between different healthcare professionals' approaches to error and patients' needs and perspectives? Why are certain events not described as errors and not addressed in a systematic fashion that would improve patient safety? This study was conducted in the grounded theory tradition and included two phases. The first phase investigated the perceptions of OR team members and patients regarding error definition and error reporting; the second phase sought to elaborate two of the dominant themes from the first phase. The first three chapters of this thesis provide background information about the context, theoretical foundation, and design of the research. The following three chapters present the results of the study in the form of three self-contained articles that have been published or submitted to academic journals. The first of these articles describes and compares surgical team members' and patients' perceptions of error, its reporting, and its disclosure from the first phase of the study. It is published in the journal Surgery. The second article explores operating room (OR) nurses' error reporting preferences from the second phase of the study. This article has been submitted to an applied nursing research journal. The third article sought to probe the factors influencing whether team members saw error events in everyday work as problematic or whether they rationalized such occurrences to support the status quo. The analysis draws on three concepts from organizational and psychological theory to explore team members' responses to these error scenarios. This article has been submitted to the journal Quality and Safety in Healthcare. The final chapter draws the three papers together into an extended discussion about the significance and future implications of this work.
Assessing the effects of FireSmart forest management strategies on the habitat for three wildlife species near Whitecourt, Alberta

This thesis investigates the effects of the implementation of three forest management strategies, a no harvest strategy, a status quo harvest strategy and a new FireSmart strategy that seeks to reduce the flammability of the forest, on the habitat for Canada lynx (Lynx canadensis), American marten (Martes americana) and the three-toed woodpecker (Picoides tridactylus) using computer modelling techniques. The total area of suitable habitat for each species, the number of patches of suitable habitat as well as a measure of the aggregation of these patches was quantified. Analysis showed that there is a significant difference among the strategies tested. Further research is recommended in order to find the strategy that optimizes wildlife habitat and reduction in flammability of the forest. The new FireSmart strategy as modelled in this study is not a recommended solution.
The effects of growth hormone treatment on aerobic capacity in patients with human immunodeficiency virus associated wasting: from physiological mechanisms to functional status

This study sought to determine the effects of recombinant human growth hormone (rhGH) treatment on aerobic capacity and functional status, and the physiological mechanisms thereof, in patients with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-associated wasting, using clinical exercise testing. Twenty-seven HIV-infected men with unintentional weight loss ( ge;10%), despite antiretroviral therapy, received rhGH (6mg·day-1) in a randomized placebo-controlled cross-over trial. Following three months of rhGH treatment, effort-independent ventilatory threshold (VeT) significantly improved (mean +/- SEM: 17.6 +/- 3.7%, P
Preload: An adaptive prefetching Daemon

We build a Markov-based probabilistic model capturing the correlation between every two applications on the system. The model is then used to infer the probability that each application may be started in the near future. These probabilities are used to choose files to prefetch into the main memory. Special care is taken to not degrade system performance and only prefetch when enough resources are available. In this thesis we develop preload, a daemon that prefetches binaries and shared libraries from the hard disk to main memory on desktop computer systems, to achieve faster application start-up times. Preload is adaptive: it monitors applications that the user runs, and by analyzing this data, predicts what applications she might run in the near future, and fetches those binaries and their dependencies into memory. Preload is implemented as a user-space application running on Linux 2.6 systems.
Multi mega-bit per second data transmission over in-building power lines

Motivated by applications in home networking and the convenience of a pre-installed infrastructure, the aim of this work is to study the feasibility of multi mega-bit per second data transmission over in-building power lines. Power line channels are modelled in this work as linear time-invariant systems with additive noise. Based on restrictions placed on possible wiring configurations by the U.S. national electric code, as well as the physical structure and size of buildings, a channel simulator was developed. The simulator generates a random wiring structure and computes the channel transfer function and capacity between two randomly chosen wall-outlets. This process was repeated many times and a channel capacity distribution was found. This modelling approach suggests that with a transmit power of 1 mW, data transmission in the range of 24 Mbps and 67 Mbps should be feasible in 99% and 80% of all channels respectively. Regulatory constraints place limitations on the radiated electric field strength from communication signals imposed on power lines. A relatively simple method for computing radiated electric field has been introduced. The new capacity distribution, limited by FCC regulations, shows that 90% of channels have a capacity greater than 94 Mbps. A comparison between three modulation techniques namely single-carrier, multi-carrier and spread spectrum was made. It was verified that multi-carrier modulation is more suitable for power line communications. Specific values for different parameters of a multi-carrier modulation, such as the number of sub-channels and the length of cyclic-prefix, were proposed. Also a simplified approximate FFT/IFFT which is suitable to use in multi-carrier modulation was proposed. The proposed FFT/IFFT reduces the required area for adders and multipliers by a percentage between 20% to 72%. An error control coding technique suitable for power line, as well as other band limited high SNR channels, was developed. The developed technique combines the excellent error correction capability of low-density parity check (LDPC) codes, and good performance of multilevel codes in high SNR channels. The simulation results for power line channels showed that the system can operate within a 1 dB SNR gap from the channel capacity.
Refinement methods for reach control on a simplex

This thesis proposes refinement methods for reach control on a simplex. Solvability of a control to facet problem on a simplex by affine feedback was studied in [8, 12], and necessary and sufficient conditions were proposed. Given a system and a simplex, when the necessary invariance conditions fail, we propose methods to refine the simplex and find a polyhedral subset of it in which the conditions hold. We divide the problem into two subproblems based on the vertex on which the conditions fail. We provide a complete analytical solution of the first subproblem. The second subproblem is posed as a nonlinear optimization problem and we analyze properties of its solution as well as provide two iterative algorithms to solve it.
The effect of human serum on cancer cell growth: A study of methodology

The aim was to develop a human bioassay that detected changes in risk factors, e.g. diet, on cancer cell growth, by measuring the growth of cancer cells incubated with serum from individuals on specific diets. 72 hours of incubation with 10% pooled human serum appeared to support optimal growth for both breast and prostate cancer cells. The sensitivity of the model to endocrine changes was then tested through incubation of the cells with physiological levels of six hormones. The results of this experiment reflected previously published findings. Finally, the cells were incubated with serum from 20 individuals taken on three different occasions. Minimal intra-individual differences were observed but inter-individual differences were statistically significant. We conclude that the devised model can reliably detect changes in cell growth induced by serum from different subjects and can now be used to find a link between diet and various cancers.
Variability in adoption of preventative health technology in rural northern Malawi

This research examines adoption of preventative health technology at the household level. A number of levels of analysis were examined: household, community, government/national and international. The objective of the research was to construct a model to assist with prediction of households that would or would not adopt preventative health technologies. Two indicators of preventative health technology were employed: presence of a latrine for improved environmental sanitation and ownership of a bednet for prevention of malaria. A household level survey, covering 308 households and 1720 individuals, was employed in three villages in northern Malawi to collect primarily quantitative data. Qualitative data were gathered through key informant interviews, focus group discussions and participant observation. Statistical analysis of the quantitative data revealed high variation between respondents and households across the three villages. Chi square and regression analysis were used to determine which variables were associated with either of the two indicators in each of the villages. Based on the quantitative analysis, three overarching domains were found to be associated with presence of either of the indicators of preventative health technology: household structure and amenities, economics and demographics. The qualitative information indicated four domains associated with presence of the preventative health technology indicators: environmental circumstances, economics, health systems policy and capacity, and education and acquired health knowledge. This research found that despite geographical separation, the three communities displayed heterogeneity in terms of the variables related to possession of bednets or latrines. The lack of overlap was displayed among the three villages and across the two indicators for adoption of preventative health technology. While it may be possible to predict household adoption of preventative health technology at a more ‘macro’ level (i.e. domains), prediction at the more ‘micro’ level of indicators is hindered by household and community level variability. The variability displayed precludes development of a simple rapid assessment tool for determining preventative health technology adoption. The research asserts the importance of an anthropological approach for providing a comprehensive understanding of what is happening at a series of levels of analysis.
Ethno-racialized immigrant mothers and pediatric hospitalization

This study examines how experiences within a pediatric inpatient setting are structured by a dynamic interplay between intersecting identities (of immigrant, mother and ethno-racial minority) and the socio-political context of this institutional space. Nineteen women of colour were interviewed at two intervals during their child's hospitalization. Interpreters were employed for five non-English speaking mothers. Two techniques utilizing still photography augmented data collection. Analyses of findings was guided by critical feminist theory and the anti-racist writings of Philomena Essed. (1991) which describes three processes characterizing racist practice---containment, marginalization, and problematization and which formed the framework for analyses. The women's narratives were examined to determine to what extent expectations of conformity to dominant group values, unconscious and taken-for-granted assumptions of the superiority of Western hospital/medical care, denigration of "different" health care practices, the impact of feminist liberalism on the social construction of motherhood and patterns of colour blind responses shaped the women's experiences in hospital. Incidents which suggested discrimination were described by the mothers, but these were subtle, vague and challenged efforts to distinctly define. The study mothers, as a group, denied that any of their ascribed identities influenced interactions or care in the hospital. How the notion of "invisible power" and the outsider dilemma in research impacted on research findings is considered. Findings from this study more strongly suggest that the "normal" maternal stressors identified in the literature associated with pediatric illness and treatment are aggravated by the vulnerable and marginalized location of the study mothers as a result of their disadvantaged socio-economic circumstances. A significant finding was the additive strain experienced by the mothers as a result of language discordance and the difficulties in disentangling discrimination arising from limited English proficiency. Numerous issues related to ESL status of patients and families, including the need for more accurate language skill assessment and the use of trained medical interpreters in clinical situations and in research, suggest rich areas for further investigation.

Keywords: Women immigrants, Medical care
Women immigrants, Canada
Health services accessibility, Canada
Race discrimination, Canada
Sex discrimination against women, Canada
Marginality, Social, Canada
Evaluation of the demonstration project to direct low acuity ambulance patients to urgent care centres to improve ambulance availability

The Ontario Government initiated a demonstration project in Toronto where select patients with minor medical conditions travelling via ambulance will be transported to Urgent Care Centres (UCC) instead of emergency departments (ED) to improve ambulance availability in the city. This thesis presents the evaluation of this project to determine the feasibility of this strategy in improving ambulance availability. The quantitative aspect of the study utilizes a dataset generated via the probabilistic linkage of ambulance and ED patient records, while focus groups and interviews support the qualitative side. It was found that the demonstration project reached 50% of potential ambulance volumes and reclaimed 855 hours of ambulance time over two years. Twenty-four hour operation of the sites and acceptance patients with psychosocial problems stand out as changes that can significantly improve ambulance availability benefits of the UCCs. Implementation of paramedic field triage protocols is the primary challenge of the initiative.
The roles of realistic conflict and relative deprivation in explaining counterproductive work behavior

Theories of intergroup conflict (i.e., realistic conflict theory and fraternal relative deprivation theory) provide explanations for intergroup counterproductive work behavior in organizations. The perceptions of either realistic conflict between groups or deprivation relative to another group were predicted to produce counterproductive behaviors directed towards members of the conflicting outgroup. The first experiment revealed that the relationship between perceptions of realistic conflict and counterproductive work behaviors directed towards a competing outgroup was stronger among those who also perceived relative deprivation than among those who did not perceive relative deprivation, consistent with predictions. A second experiment revealed that the relationship between a joint conflict (realistic conflict and relative deprivation) and counterproductive work behaviors directed towards a competing outgroup was stronger among those who were high in self-categorization strength than among those who were low in self-categorization strength. However, this experiment did not support the hypothesis that the relationship between realistic conflict and counterproductive work behaviors directed towards the competing outgroup is stronger among those who are high in self-categorization strength than among those who are low in self-categorization strength. Contrary to predictions, low self-categorization rather than high self-categorization produced greater willingness to engage in counterproductive work behavior during realistic conflict. These results are discussed in terms of providing an extension to the counterproductive work behavior literature, their implications for intergroup conflict theories in an organizational context, and understanding specific outcomes of intergroup conflict within organizations.

Keywords: Personnel management
Dissertations, Academic, Canada
On desensitizing data from interval to nominal measurement with minimum information loss

Given a dataset of continuous variables full of nonlinear relationships, dual scaling analysis of the discretized data will make it possible to capture both linear and nonlinear relations, which principal component analysis (PCA) of original continuous data would fail to accomplish. Dual scaling (DS) is known as principal component analysis of categorical data (PCAC), a comprehensive framework of multidimensional analysis of categorical data that covers both incidence data and dominance data. When continuous data are treated as nominal data, the number of options may be quite large, leading to a large number of solutions, which may not even be interpretable. Therefore, it is legitimate to wonder (1) how many intervals would be optimal? (2) How should one categorize continuous variable so as to capture most of the information in the data?In this thesis, a search method called the maximum exhaustiveness coefficient algorithm (MECA) is proposed as an efficient way to discretize continuous data for dual scaling analysis of continuous data. MECA minimizes the discriminative information loss inherent in the discretization process while maximizing the exhaustiveness coefficient of the cross-classification. A condition typically deemed desirable from a dual scaling of multiple-choice data is imposed, namely that the optimal number of categories for a variable be between 3 and 6. MECA provides sets of thresholds determining both the number of intervals and their respective width for each variable.

Keywords: Multidimensional scaling
Scaling (Social sciences)