cometadata/datacite-titles-descriptions-related-identifiers huggingface dataset:
DOI: 10.14457/cu.the.2016.82
title: Comparing anesthetic efficacy of intraosseous injection versus buccal infiltration in mandibular first molar

description: Aim: To compare the anesthetic efficacy between intraosseous injection and buccal infiltration when used as a primary anesthesia technique for mandibular first molars. Methodology: Using a crossover design, 20 adult subjects randomly received intraosseous injection of 1.7 mL 4% articaine with 1:100,000 epinephrine or buccal infiltration of 3.4 mL 4% articaine with 1:100,000 epinephrine at 2 separate appointments. The mandibular first molars were tested with an electric pulp tester at 3-minute cycles for 60 minutes after the injections. Successful pulpal anesthesia was defined as no response from the subject on two consecutive pulp tester readings of 80. Pain ratings for each injection were recorded. The data were analyzed using the McNemar and Wilcoxon signed ranks tests. Results: The success rate for the intraosseous injections and buccal infiltrations were 95% and 80%, respectively. There was no significant difference in success rate between the anesthetic techniques (P &gt; 0.05). However, the onset of pulpal anesthesia was significantly faster with the intraosseous injections (P &lt; 0.05). No significant differences were found between the two techniques for injection pain or postoperative pain (P &gt; 0.05). Conclusions: The anesthetic success rate of buccal infiltration using 2 cartridges of 4% articaine with 1:100,000 epinephrine is comparable to that of intraosseous injection using a single cartridge of 4% articaine with 1:100,000 epinephrine in asymptomatic mandibular first molars. Both techniques can be useful alternatives for inducing mandibular first molar anesthesia.
DOI: 10.14457/cu.the.2016.83
title: Decomposing human capital : education and health investments in the time of population aging

description: Why is the retirement age rigid while longevity improves? What are the plausible explanations for the recent upsurge in health expenditure while education expenditure has been stalemated? Complementarity between education and health capital, which encouraged education and health investments, enabled rapid economic growth and greater life expectancy in the developed economies. However, it was lost at some point in the last century, and the subsequent rise of trade-off between education and health capital has brought about low economic growth and high old-age dependency, namely the problems of population aging. By endogenizing both education and health capital accumulations, this dissertation develops the three-period overlapping generations models in order to investigate the issues such as rigidity of retirement age, financially unsustainable social security systems, and collapse of traditional family. The main findings of this dissertation are as follows: First, when highly innovative environments accelerate depreciation of productivity at old-age, people chose early retirement even if they are expected to live longer. Second, Pay-As-You-Go (PAYG) social security distorts both education and health investment decisions. The double moral hazards induce lower education and higher health investments than their optimal levels. Third, economic growth and longevity depend on the degrees of parental and filial altruism, respectively. If people are parentally and filially altruistic at varied degrees, policy changes affect their welfare differently. On the whole, the models in this dissertation succeed in replicating the trade-off between education and health capital and reveal that, in the advanced societies, investments in health tend to increase at the cost of those in education.
DOI: 10.14457/cu.the.2016.84
title: COST ANALYSIS OF ANATOMICAL PATHOLOGY LABORATORY

description: This study is a retrospective analysis of cost and unit cost in private and public anatomical pathology laboratory using direct cost allocation. Unit cost of pathology tests of private laboratory was compared to the company's price and the comptroller general’s department (CGD)’s price. Unit cost of public laboratory was compared to the CGD's price lists. Sensitivity analysis and Break-Even analysis were also performed. The results of the study showed the total direct cost in private and public pathology laboratory were 131 and 12 million bahts, the material costs were 63 and 2 million bahts, the labor costs were 65 and 7 million bahts and the capital costs were 2.5 and 2.3 million bahts, respectively. The highest cost 9,983.78 baht was HER2 Gene in private and the kidney with direct immunofluorescence 845.39 baht was the highest cost of public laboratory. The lowest cost was Pap smear 217 baht in private and 106.76 baht in public. The profit of the tests in private laboratory were positive when compare to the company's price except for C4d and special stains. The profit of the tests in public laboratory comparing with the CGD's prices were negative for small, medium and large biopsy. In conclusion, cost analysis is useful to private and public side and laboratory medicine like anatomical pathology should perform their own cost analysis in order to manage and improve the quality and efficiency of laboratory tests and cost reduction. The direct cost allocation method is suitable for private while for public laboratory should consider the other cost allocation methods. The CGD’s price listed needs to be revised in order to reflect the real cost of pathology examination.
DOI: 10.14457/cu.the.2016.85
title: THE IMPACT OF CROSS-CULTURAL TRAINING PROVISION FOR OVERSEAS WORKERS ON JOB PERFORMANCE- A case study of Chinese teachers from Hanban (The Confucius Institute Headquarter) in Thailand

description: With the globalization of economy, there is an increasing number of expatriate employees. How to improve this group of employee’s job performance become more important. Some companies or organizations start to provide the cross-cultural training, but some not. The objective of this study was to use the case of Chinese teachers from Hanban to study and find out whether the cross-cultural training has an impact on Chinese teacher's job performance in Thailand and which factors affect most on job performance. The scope of this study covered the Chinese teachers both from Hanban & Non-Hanban who worked together in a public or private secondary school during the 2015-2016 assignment year in Thailand. This is the first research that covered in such a wide scope in this area. The research used a quantitative method by sending out total 349 questionnaires to Chinese teachers and 104 questionnaires to Thai co-workers, collected data from the replies of 204 Chinese teachers and 52 Thai co-workers from 52 schools in 27 provinces in Thailand and did the in-depth interview with project officer of Thailand Education Ministry. The results of the descriptive analysis showed that all the factors average score of Hanban teachers are higher than total average score, Non-Hanban teachers are the lowest except the Thai language level. At high performance level, Hanban teachers have a higher rate than Non-Hanban teachers. And the regression analysis results showed that there were 6 factors that can significantly impact the job performance. So the results of the analysis proved that the cross-cultural training can impact on Chinese teacher’s job performance, and provide a systematic cross-cultural training can bring the performance to a higher level.
DOI: 10.14457/cu.the.2016.86
title: COSTING OF CLINICAL SERVICES AND COST DETERMINANTS AT PUBLIC DISTRICT HEALTH FACILITIES IN FOUR PROVINCES OF VIETNAM

description: This study aims first to calculate the unit cost of all outpatient services and inpatient services at 33 public district health facilities that pilot two different capitation models in Vietnam. It then seeks to explore the determinants of the calculated unit costs. Costing was conducted by using secondary data from the calendar year 2014 which was collected by the Health Strategy and Policy Institute. A “top-down” approach with step-down allocation method was applied to calculate the unit costs in the selected health facilities from the providers’ perspective. For exploring the determinants of unit costs, an ordinary least squares regression analysis was employed. On average, the unit cost per outpatient visit, inpatient bed-day and discharge in four provinces ranged from 73,000 VND (US$3.45) to 133,000 VND (US$ 6.29), 233,000 VND (US$ 11.04) to 282,000 VND (US$ 13.34), and 1,097,000 VND (US$ 51.90) to 1,487,105 VND (US$ 70.21), respectively. On average, the labour: material: capital costs ratio of four provinces is 41 : 46 : 13. The unit cost of outpatient visit and inpatient days at each province was found to be higher than the latest fee schedule which took effect in June 2017. The OLS regression showed that for hospital discharges, an increase in the occupancy rate results in a reduction in the unit cost whereas an additional day of hospital stay results in an increase in the unit cost. For hospital days, the increase in the occupancy rate was associated with the reduction in the unit cost per inpatient day. The capitation dummy is not significant, in other words, there is no difference in unit cost of inpatient services in facilities that pilot the capitation for outpatient services relative to those that pilot capitation for inpatient and outpatient services. This study not only supports efforts of reforming provider payment system but also provides useful information in financial management. The results on unit costs are useful for policy-makers in setting and revising the payment rates from health insurance scheme. Moreover, understanding the cost structure also helps hospital managers to run their facilities more efficient.
DOI: 10.14457/cu.the.2016.87
title: EFFECTS OF CONTENT-BASED INSTRUCTION USING SIX-T'S APPROACH ON ENGLISH ORAL PRESENTATION SKILLS OF LOWER SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS

description: The sample of the classroom unit-based simple sampling consisted of a class of 45 ninth grade students divided into 15 groups in Streesmutprakan School who enrolled English for Scientific Presentation Course in term 2, academic year 2016. The duration of the experiment was taken place for 8 weeks. The instruments were an English oral presentation evaluation scale which was used before and after conducting content-based instruction using Six-T’s approach and semi-structured interview. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, the Wilcoxon Signed Rank test and content analysis. The finding shows that 1) the English speaking post-test mean scores was higher that pre-test at the significant level of 0.05 2) students had positive opinions towards the content-based instruction using Six-T’s approach on English oral presentation skills.
DOI: 10.14457/cu.the.2016.88
title: Cost effectiveness analysis of total laparoscopic hysterectomy compare with total abdominal hysterectomy in uterine myomas at Rajavithi Hospital

description: The purpose of this study is to calculate the treatment cost on the perceptive of provider, to access short outcome of the patients with no complication as well as the cost- effectiveness of the surgical treatments for uterine myomas. This study aims to compare the 93 patients of total laparoscopic hysterectomy with 231 patients of total abdominal hysterectomy in Rajavithi Hospital during 2013-2015. The data source was from the medical records and hospital accounting bills. This result showed that the total direct cost per unit of total laparoscopic hysterectomy is 35,019.47 THB, the number no complication patients were 85 case (92.47 % ) patients. Therefore, the average cost of the operation that patients have no complication is 45,081.10 THB. Moreover the cost of total direct of Total abdominal hysterectomy is 34,739.5 THB, the number no complication patients were 178 cases. Hence, the average cost of the operation that patients have no complications 54,587.52 THB. The conclusion, from the provider perspective and based on the limited available database, the effectiveness of total laparoscopic hysterectomy seems to be more effective than the total abdominal hysterectomy. However, the interpretation of the study results should be with caution regarding the implementation of a surgical procedure to treat this disease further since this study employed only one hospital data base and compare only short-term outcome.
DOI: 10.14457/cu.the.2016.89
title: EFFECTS OF ENGLISH SPEAKING INSTRUCTION USING STORIES ON SPEAKING ABILITY AND PARTICIPATION OF THAI EFL SECOND GRADE STUDENTS IN INTERNATIONAL SCHOOLS IN THAILAND

description: This research project aimed to study 1) the effects of English Speaking Instruction Using Stories on the Speaking Ability of Second Grade Thai EFL Learners in an International School 2) the students' participation in the English Speaking Instruction Using Stories. The samples for this study were Thai EFL learner participants from the second grade level in an international school in Thailand. The instruments used in this research were a speaking pre-test and post-test, and student talk diaries and classroom observations form. The data was analysed using descriptive statistics: mean scores, S.D., and dependent t-test, and content analysis. The findings of the study indicated that 1) the speaking post-test mean scores were higher than that of the pre-test at a significant level, 2) the students showed positive participation in the English Speaking Instruction Using Stories.
DOI: 10.14457/cu.the.2016.90
title: The impact of learning-centered leadership on teacher engagement in professional learning in Thailand

description: This study explores the role of learning-centered leadership in fostering teacher trust, teacher agency, and teacher engagement in professional learning in Thailand. The research employed a mixed method with sequential explanatory design. Quantitative analysis employed confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling to define the measurement model. Qualitative research is conducted through an in-depth interview and focus-groups with principals, middle-level leaders, and teachers to elaborates on the quantitative findings and to gain further insight about the relationship of principal leadership and teacher learning. Research results affirmed the role of learning-centered leadership in fostering teacher engagement in professional learning and highlighted teacher trust and teacher agency as the two significant mediators. The study also suggests human resource gap between urban and rural schools. In addition, the research introduces new model of leadership for teacher learning in Thailand, which consists of eight practices: Teacher/Leader collaboration, Open/Supportive environment, Support through various sources/approaches, Internal/External learning opportunities, Coaching/Mentoring program, Teacher research program, Continuous evaluation system, and Cultural competency.
DOI: 10.14457/cu.the.2016.91
title: The scaled boundary finite element method for plate bending problems

description: This thesis presents an efficient and accurate semi-analytical solution procedure, based upon the scaled boundary finite element method (SBFEM), for modeling thin plates under transverse loadings and different types of boundary conditions. The key formulation is established within the framework of Kirchhoff’s plate bending theory. A standard weighted residual technique is then applied together with the discretization along the scaled boundary direction to derive the scaled boundary finite element equations. Standard implementations including the numerical integration, the determination of eigenvalues and eigenvectors, a procedure for solving a system of linear ordinary differential equations, and a linear solver are adopted to construct all involved unknown functions. An h-hierarchical adaptive procedure with the moment-recovery error estimator is also integrated into the present implementation to further enhance its computational performance and reduce meshing effort. A selected set of results is reported to demonstrate the accuracy and convergence of computed solutions and the computational performance of the developed technique.
DOI: 10.14457/cu.the.2016.92
title: Structured svm backpropagation to convolutional neural network applying to human pose estimation

description: In this work, we show, for the first time, how to formulate Structured SVM as two layers of Convolutional Neural Network, the top layer of which is loss augmented inference layer, and the bottom is normal convolutional layer. We show that Deformable Part Model can be learned with newly created Structured SVM neural network by propagating the error of Deformable Part Model back propagate to Convolutional Neural Network. The forward propagation calculates loss augmented inference. The back propagation calculates the gradient from the loss augmented inference layer to convolutional layer. By doing so, we create a new type of convolutional neural network: Structured SVM Convolutional Neural Network, which is then applied to Human Pose Estimation problem. This new creation is a neural network, which can be used as the last layers of deep learning. Our method jointly learns structural model parameters and appearance model parameters. Our back propaga- tion formulation can also be applied to Multiclass Classification Structured SVM where our result outperformed widely used Softmax classifier on standard MNIST dataset. We imple- ment our method as a new layer of existing Caffe library.
DOI: 10.14457/cu.the.2016.93
title: Convex formulations for path analysis problems in structural equation modeling

description: Structural equation modeling (SEM) is a statistical technique used for seeking a statistical causal multivariate model (called exploratory modeling) or for testing whether the model is supported by the given data (called confirmatory modeling). Path analysis is a problem in SEM analysis where its model describes causal relations among measured variables in a form of multivariable linear equations. This thesis proposes two alternative estimation formulations for solving problems of path analysis in SEM. For confirmatory SEM, our first formulation relaxes the original nonlinear equality constraints of the model parameters to an inequality, allowing us to transform the original problem into a convex problem that can be solved by many existing efficient algorithms. The second formulation is a regularized estimation proposed for exploratory SEM by adding ℓ1-type penalty of the path matrix into the cost objective of the first formulation which leads to sparse solutions. Practically, our optimal solution is useful when it has low rank which occurs under a mild condition on problem parameters. This solution can be used as an estimate of the inverse of covariance matrix from the original problem. Another contribution of this thesis is a numerical method based on ADMM algorithm that is suitable for solving the two formulations in a large-scale setting. This thesis also provides a scheme of learning a causal structure among variables by applying both proposed formulations. The best causal structure from our scheme is chosen from five model selection criterions, those are BIC, AIC, AICc, KIC and KICc. Our approach is examined with simulated and real data sets. The simulation results show that if the causal structure of true model is complex, AIC provides the better accuracy while BIC, AICc and KICc yield better performance when the causal structure of true model is simpler. An application of this scheme has been preliminarily illustrated by learning causal relations among brain regions from fMRI data, recorded from visual-hand hemifield stimuli experiments. A brain network from our findings shows strong relations among somatosensory, parietal, premotor, and motor area. In particular, the dominant pairs of strong connection are somatosensory-&gt;visual, somatosensory-&gt;parietal and somatosensory-&gt;premotor.
DOI: 10.14457/cu.the.2016.94
title: Concentration of carboxylic acids by forward osmosis process

description: To profoundly comprehend the forward osmosis performance, related to the process operation parameters during concentrating carboxylic acid, the mathematical model was developed by thoroughly enumerating and integrating each single logical phenomena equation with pertinent variables during the operation of FO process. By means of Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm, the precise dependent process variables as a function of time were simultaneously determined at each point in simulating time (Dynamic Simulation Model). In this research, the two selected draw solution, NH4Cl and NaCl, were also used to investigate the filtration mechanisms of carboxylic acid in forward osmosis so as to develop consistent mathematical process models. Forward osmosis experimental process was carried out to verify the developed model by using Thin-Film Composite (TFC) FO membrane whereas feed solution was varied types of carboxylic acids and a mixture of them. In case of NH4Cl draw solution, the standard error of prediction (SEP) for weight change of draw solution and pH of feed solution were in the range from 4.20% to 6.99% and 0.52% to 1.13% of single carboxylic acid feed solution and in the range from 5.88% to 9.34% and 0.68% to 0.88% of a mixture of two carboxylic acids, respectively. In case of NaCl draw solution, the standard error of prediction (SEP) for weight change of draw solution and pH of feed solution were in the range from 4.76% to 6.36% and 0.48% to 0.68% of single carboxylic acid feed solution and in the range from 5.31% to 5.90% and 0.66% to 1.15% of a mixture of two carboxylic acids, respectively.
DOI: 10.14457/cu.the.2016.95
title: Prediction of Alum Dosage in Coagulation Process by Weka Program: A Case Study in Vientiane Capital, Lao PDR

description: This research topic entitled of "Prediction of Alum Dosage in the Coagulation Process using Weka Program". The data resources collected from 2 water treatment plants i.e. Chinaimo Water Treatment Plant (CWTP) and Dongmarkkaiy Water Treatment Plant in Vientiane Capital, Lao PDR. Those data resources were collected from the previous Jar-Test experimental. For the CWTP, the data resources collected from 2009 to 2016, we selected 2,038 records. For the DWTP, the data resources collected from 2008 to 2016, we selected 2,802 records. The model building for alum dosage prediction, we used 4 methods i.e. Multilayer Perceptron (MLP), M5Rules, M5P, and REPTree with 2 data groups i.e. the first data group, we substituted all missing values of each parameter by the average values of that parameter. For the second data group, we have cut off the missing values to reduce bias. The results indicated that the model building for alum dosage prediction by M5Rules method from the model group 1 of the CWTP realizes the less RMSE of 4.043 than another method when we have used this method to predict the alum dosage in the real applications. Thus, the M5Rules method realizes higher precision and credibility than other methods. On the other hand, in the DWTP, we found that the model building for alum dosage prediction by using MLP method from model group 1 realizes the less RMSE of 1.849 when we used it to predict the alum dosage in the real applications. Therefore, the MLP method yields the higher accuracy and dependability than other methods of the DWTP. Finally, the model had the highest precision in the drying season than raining season.