Stress, coping and presenteeism in nurses assisting critical and potentially critical patients

Objective to verify the associations between stress, Coping and Presenteeism in nurses operating on direct assistance to critical and potentially critical patients. Method this is a descriptive, cross-sectional and quantitative study, conducted between March and April 2010 with 129 hospital nurses. The Inventory of stress in nurses, Occupational and Coping Questionnaire Range of Limitations at Work were used. For the analysis, the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, correlation coefficient of Pearson and Spearman, Chi-square and T-test were applied. Results it was observed that 66.7% of the nurses showed low stress, 87.6% use control strategies for coping stress and 4.84% had decrease in productivity. Direct and meaningful relationships between stress and lost productivity were found. Conclusion stress interferes with the daily life of nurses and impacts on productivity. Although the inability to test associations, the control strategy can minimize the stress, which consequently contributes to better productivity of nurses in the care of critical patients and potentially critical.


Macrozoobentos de dos Áreas de la plataforma continental del Norte Peruano en el verano de 1987

Se estudiaron muestras de Macrozoobentos (> 1 mm) tomadas a diferentes profundidades en enero de 1987 por el BIC Humboldt de la plataforma continental de dos áreas del norte del litoral peruano, una frente a zorritos (3º35.5`- 3º51.3`) y otra entre Isla Lobos de Tierra y Pimentel (6º32.0`- 6º55.5`), de distinto tipo de sedimento en el fondo. Las muestras estudiadas, así como los datos de Temperatura, Oxigeno disuelto y Salinidad en el fondo, fueron proporcionadas por el Programa Cooperativo Peruano-Alemán de Investigación Pesquera (PROCOPA) y el Instituto del Mar del Perú (IMARPE). El trabajo consiste en identificar, cuantificar y comparar las taxa presentes en las muestras de ambas áreas, determinar la Biomasa, Densidad, Diversidad, Equidad y Riqueza, y analizar el tipo y característica del sedimento de las estaciones. Para el estudio del aspecto comunitario se emplearon el análisis de agrupamiento por racimos (“cluster análisis”; Legendre y Legendre, 1983) y la técnica de los Índices Biológicos (Guille, 1970). En el análisis estadístico se usaron preferentemente la prueba no paramétrica de dos grupos de Kolmogorov-Smirnov y correlaciones lineales entre los factores abiòticos, características del sedimento y parámetros biológicos hallados.

Heavy rainfall equations for Santa Catarina, Brazil

Knowledge of intensity-duration-frequency (IDF) relationships of rainfall events is extremely important to determine the dimensions of surface drainage structures and soil erosion control. The purpose of this study was to obtain IDF equations of 13 rain gauge stations in the state of Santa Catarina in Brazil: Chapecó, Urussanga, Campos Novos, Florianópolis, Lages, Caçador, Itajaí, Itá, Ponte Serrada, Porto União, Videira, Laguna and São Joaquim. The daily rainfall data charts of each station were digitized and then the annual maximum rainfall series were determined for durations ranging from 5 to 1440 min. Based on these, with the Gumbel-Chow distribution, the maximum rainfall was estimated for durations ranging from 5 min to 24 h, considering return periods of 2, 5, 10, 20, 25, 50, and 100 years,. Data agreement with the Gumbel-Chow model was verified by the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, at 5 % significance level. For each rain gauge station, two IDF equations of rainfall events were adjusted, one for durations from 5 to 120 min and the other from 120 to 1440 min. The results show a high variability in maximum intensity of rainfall events among the studied stations. Highest values of coefficients of variation in the annual maximum series of rainfall were observed for durations of over 600 min at the stations of the coastal region of Santa Catarina.

Quantum metric spaces as a model for pregeometry

A new arena for the dynamics of spacetime is proposed, in which the basic quantum variable is the two-point distance on a metric space. The scaling dimension (that is, the Kolmogorov capacity) in the neighborhood of each point then defines in a natural way a local concept of dimension. We study our model in the region of parameter space in which the resulting spacetime is not too different from a smooth manifold.

Duration-frequency relationships of heavy rainfall in Santa Catarina, Brazil

The purpose of this study was to adjust equations that establish relationships between rainfall events with different duration and data from weather stations in the state of Santa Catarina, Brazil. In this study, the relationships between different duration heavy rainfalls from 13 weather stations of Santa Catarina were analyzed. From series of maximum annual rainfalls, and using the Gumbel-Chow distribution, the maximum rainfall for durations between 5 min and 24 h were estimated considering return periods from 2 to 100 years. The data fit to the Gumbel-Chow model was verified by the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test at 5 % significance. The coefficients of Bell's equation were adjusted to estimate the relationship between rainfall duration t (min) and the return period T (y) in relation to the maximum rainfall with a duration of 1 hour and a 10 year return period. Likewise, the coefficients of Bell's equation were adjusted based on the maximum rainfall with a duration of 1 day and a 10 year return period. The results showed that these relationships are viable to estimate short-duration rainfall events at locations where there are no rainfall records.

Three essays in financial economics: asset pricing, optimal portfolio selection and financial integration

Executive Summary The unifying theme of this thesis is the pursuit of a satisfactory ways to quantify the riskureward trade-off in financial economics. First in the context of a general asset pricing model, then across models and finally across country borders. The guiding principle in that pursuit was to seek innovative solutions by combining ideas from different fields in economics and broad scientific research. For example, in the first part of this thesis we sought a fruitful application of strong existence results in utility theory to topics in asset pricing. In the second part we implement an idea from the field of fuzzy set theory to the optimal portfolio selection problem, while the third part of this thesis is to the best of our knowledge, the first empirical application of some general results in asset pricing in incomplete markets to the important topic of measurement of financial integration. While the first two parts of this thesis effectively combine well-known ways to quantify the risk-reward trade-offs the third one can be viewed as an empirical verification of the usefulness of the so-called "good deal bounds" theory in designing risk-sensitive pricing bounds. Chapter 1 develops a discrete-time asset pricing model, based on a novel ordinally equivalent representation of recursive utility. To the best of our knowledge, we are the first to use a member of a novel class of recursive utility generators to construct a representative agent model to address some long-lasting issues in asset pricing. Applying strong representation results allows us to show that the model features countercyclical risk premia, for both consumption and financial risk, together with low and procyclical risk free rate. As the recursive utility used nests as a special case the well-known time-state separable utility, all results nest the corresponding ones from the standard model and thus shed light on its well-known shortcomings. The empirical investigation to support these theoretical results, however, showed that as long as one resorts to econometric methods based on approximating conditional moments with unconditional ones, it is not possible to distinguish the model we propose from the standard one. Chapter 2 is a join work with Sergei Sontchik. There we provide theoretical and empirical motivation for aggregation of performance measures. The main idea is that as it makes sense to apply several performance measures ex-post, it also makes sense to base optimal portfolio selection on ex-ante maximization of as many possible performance measures as desired. We thus offer a concrete algorithm for optimal portfolio selection via ex-ante optimization over different horizons of several risk-return trade-offs simultaneously. An empirical application of that algorithm, using seven popular performance measures, suggests that realized returns feature better distributional characteristics relative to those of realized returns from portfolio strategies optimal with respect to single performance measures. When comparing the distributions of realized returns we used two partial risk-reward orderings first and second order stochastic dominance. We first used the Kolmogorov Smirnov test to determine if the two distributions are indeed different, which combined with a visual inspection allowed us to demonstrate that the way we propose to aggregate performance measures leads to portfolio realized returns that first order stochastically dominate the ones that result from optimization only with respect to, for example, Treynor ratio and Jensen's alpha. We checked for second order stochastic dominance via point wise comparison of the so-called absolute Lorenz curve, or the sequence of expected shortfalls for a range of quantiles. As soon as the plot of the absolute Lorenz curve for the aggregated performance measures was above the one corresponding to each individual measure, we were tempted to conclude that the algorithm we propose leads to portfolio returns distribution that second order stochastically dominates virtually all performance measures considered. Chapter 3 proposes a measure of financial integration, based on recent advances in asset pricing in incomplete markets. Given a base market (a set of traded assets) and an index of another market, we propose to measure financial integration through time by the size of the spread between the pricing bounds of the market index, relative to the base market. The bigger the spread around country index A, viewed from market B, the less integrated markets A and B are. We investigate the presence of structural breaks in the size of the spread for EMU member country indices before and after the introduction of the Euro. We find evidence that both the level and the volatility of our financial integration measure increased after the introduction of the Euro. That counterintuitive result suggests the presence of an inherent weakness in the attempt to measure financial integration independently of economic fundamentals. Nevertheless, the results about the bounds on the risk free rate appear plausible from the view point of existing economic theory about the impact of integration on interest rates.

Qualidade física de um cambissolo sob sistemas de manejo

A Chapada do Apodi vem se destacando como um promissor polo de fruticultura irrigada em virtude da potencialidade agrícola dos seus solos, que são submetidos a diferentes tipos de manejo, condicionando mudanças em seus atributos físicos. Este trabalho teve como objetivo avaliar fisicamente um Cambissolo cultivado com mamoeiro (Carica papaya L.), sob dois sistemas de manejo, comparado com um sob vegetação nativa secundária. Foram coletadas amostras de solo com estruturas deformada e indeformada para determinação de: granulometria, argila dispersa em água, densidade do solo e de partículas, estabilidade de agregados, carbono orgânico e resistência à penetração. Foram calculados o grau de floculação das argilas e o teor de matéria orgânica. No campo, foi realizado ensaio de condutividade hidráulica do solo. Os dados experimentais foram analisados considerando o delineamento inteiramente casualizado, adotando-se para todas as análises o esquema em parcela subdividida 3 x 3 x 5 (dois sistemas de manejo do solo - plantio do mamoeiro em sulco e camalhão - e mata nativa secundária; três camadas de solo - 0,0-0,1; 0,1-0,2; e 0,2-0,3 m; e cinco repetições), exceção para a condutividade hidráulica, em que se adotou o esquema fatorial 3 x 2 x 5 (dois sistemas de manejo do solo e mata nativa secundária; duas tensões - 0 e 5 hPa; e cinco repetições). Foram aplicados os testes de Kolmogorov-Smirnov para verificar a normalidade dos dados, o F para a análise de variância e o de Tukey para a comparação de médias, todos a 5 %. Concluiu-se que a hipótese de que os sistemas de cultivo pioram os solos fisicamente foi refutada, indicando que a qualidade dos atributos do solo sob cultivo, em geral, está mantida ou melhorada em relação à condição atual da mata nativa secundária; o decréscimo do teor de matéria orgânica, da porcentagem de agregados estáveis na classe de 4,76-2,00 mm de diâmetro e do diâmetro médio ponderado em solo cultivado, apesar de ainda estarem distantes de limites considerados críticos, é indicador da necessidade de adoção de práticas de manejo que evitem o desencadeamento de um processo de degradação do solo; e os indicadores de qualidade foram sensíveis às alterações provocadas pelos sistemas de manejo do solo e, portanto, podem ser utilizados como fonte para a interpretação da dinâmica de processos físicos do solo no tempo.

Método do hipercubo latino condicionado para a amostragem de solos na presença de covariáveis ambientais visando o mapeamento digital de solos

A amostragem é uma das etapas mais importantes dos levantamentos de solos. No entanto, os esquemas de amostragem utilizados nos levantamentos convencionais têm se evidenciado inadequados para o mapeamento digital de solos, pois podem comprometer os resultados e, além disso, não possibilitam a realização de análises estatísticas. Este estudo teve por objetivo avaliar o método de amostragem do hipercubo latino condicionado (cLHS, sigla em inglês), na presença de covariáveis ambientais (elevação, declividade, curvatura e mapa de uso e cobertura do solo), em comparação com a amostragem aleatória, na alocação de 100 pontos amostrais, buscando maior representatividade das características ambientais da bacia do rio Guapi-Macacu. O desempenho dos métodos foi avaliado pela análise qualitativa dos histogramas de frequência e das análises estatísticas pelos testes F, T de Student e Kolmogorov-Smirnov (K-S), para cada covariável. Os resultados apresentaram que os pontos selecionados pelo método cLHS possuíam distribuição geográfica mais adequada do que aqueles obtidos pela amostragem aleatória. Além disso, o método cLHS preservou mais a distribuição de frequência das covariáveis contínuas do que a amostragem aleatória; para covariável categórica uso e cobertura do solo os métodos foram equivalentes. Os testes estatísticos confirmaram o melhor desempenho do método cLHS, cujas amostras não diferiram estatisticamente da bacia. Entretanto, a amostragem aleatória apresentou diferença estatística para com a bacia, para todas as covariáveis contínuas para pelo menos um dos testes utilizados. Assim, o método cLHS pode ser considerado como um método satisfatório para seleção de locais de amostragem em áreas heterogêneas similares as deste estudo, visando a utilização no mapeamento digital de solos.

Quantum metric spaces as a model for pregeometry

A new arena for the dynamics of spacetime is proposed, in which the basic quantum variable is the two-point distance on a metric space. The scaling dimension (that is, the Kolmogorov capacity) in the neighborhood of each point then defines in a natural way a local concept of dimension. We study our model in the region of parameter space in which the resulting spacetime is not too different from a smooth manifold.

GERAÇÃO DE DRENAGEM ÁCIDA E DE CONTAMINAÇÃO POR METAIS PESADOS EM PERFIS DE SOLOS CONSTRUÍDOS EM ÁREA DE MINERAÇÃO DE CARVÃO

RESUMO Os solos construídos após a extração de carvão a céu aberto são compostos do solo superficial e, ou, do estéril de mineração. As propriedades químicas desses solos diferem das propriedades dos solos naturais, principalmente em razão do processo de sulfurização. O objetivo deste trabalho foi avaliar o potencial de acidificação da pirita e de contaminação com metais pesados ao longo de perfis de solos construídos após mineração de carvão, em áreas de diferentes idades, com e sem recuperação ambiental concomitante com a lavra. Foram selecionadas áreas mineradas denominadas de I e II, sem recuperação ambiental durante a lavra e compostas somente pelo estéril de mineração, representando as áreas mais antigas, e IV e VII, contendo topsoil e em alguns locais na camada de argila, constituindo as áreas mais jovens deste estudo. Foram coletadas amostras deformadas até 2 m de profundidade. Analisaram-se granulometria, densidade de partículas, pH em água, Ca, Mg, Al, K, Na, P, H+Al, potencial de acidificação, potencial de neutralização, potencial líquido, teor de C orgânico e condutividade elétrica no extrato da pasta saturada. Também foram extraídos os metais potencialmente biodisponíveis pela metodologia USEPA 3050B, cujos resultados foram comparados com os valores orientadores de prevenção e investigação para solos. Na análise univariada, foi aplicada a estatística descritiva e o teste de aderência de Kolmogorov-Smirnov. O grau de dispersão de cada variável foi avaliado qualitativamente e classificado como: baixo, moderado ou alto. A análise multivariada de componentes principais foi realizada para os solos construídos das áreas I, II, IV e VII; posteriormente, foram construídos biplots dos primeiros componentes principais. Os solos construídos das áreas mais antigas evidenciaram menores pHs e significativo potencial de acidificação. As camadas superficiais detopsoil, dos solos das áreas IV e VII, apesar de proporcionar condições químicas favoráveis ao estabelecimento de culturas agrícolas, não evitaram a formação de drenagem ácida em profundidade. O processo de sulfurização e sua relação com a liberação de metais foi melhor caracterizado pela análise de componentes principais realizada nas áreas IV e VII, em razão da correlação entre pH e saturação por bases nos estéreis só se expressar em saturações por bases acima de 40 %, não observada nos materiais dos estéreis das áreas I e II.

Front propagation in the A+B->2A reaction under subdiffusion

We consider an irreversible autocatalytic conversion reaction A+B->2A under subdiffusion described by continuous-time random walks. The reactants transformations take place independently of their motion and are described by constant rates. The analog of this reaction in the case of normal diffusion is described by the Fisher-Kolmogorov-Petrovskii-Piskunov equation leading to the existence of a nonzero minimal front propagation velocity, which is really attained by the front in its stable motion. We show that for subdiffusion, this minimal propagation velocity is zero, which suggests propagation failure.

Cost-Benefit Analysis of Sequential Warning Lights in Nighttime Work Zone Tapers, TPF-5(081), 2011

Improving safety at nighttime work zones is important because of the extra visibility concerns. The deployment of sequential lights is an innovative method for improving driver recognition of lane closures and work zone tapers. Sequential lights are wireless warning lights that flash in a sequence to clearly delineate the taper at work zones. The effectiveness of sequential lights was investigated using controlled field studies. Traffic parameters were collected at the same field site with and without the deployment of sequential lights. Three surrogate performance measures were used to determine the impact of sequential lights on safety. These measures were the speeds of approaching vehicles, the number of late taper merges and the locations where vehicles merged into open lane from the closed lane. In addition, an economic analysis was conducted to monetize the benefits and costs of deploying sequential lights at nighttime work zones. The results of this study indicates that sequential warning lights had a net positive effect in reducing the speeds of approaching vehicles, enhancing driver compliance, and preventing passenger cars, trucks and vehicles at rural work zones from late taper merges. Statistically significant decreases of 2.21 mph mean speed and 1 mph 85% speed resulted with sequential lights. The shift in the cumulative speed distributions to the left (i.e. speed decrease) was also found to be statistically significant using the Mann-Whitney and Kolmogorov-Smirnov tests. But a statistically significant increase of 0.91 mph in the speed standard deviation also resulted with sequential lights. With sequential lights, the percentage of vehicles that merged earlier increased from 53.49% to 65.36%. A benefit-cost ratio of around 5 or 10 resulted from this analysis of Missouri nighttime work zones and historical crash data. The two different benefitcost ratios reflect two different ways of computing labor costs.

Distribution of arm velocity and frequency of arm usage during daily activity: objective outcome evaluation after shoulder surgery.

In clinical settings, functional evaluation of shoulder movement is primarily based on what the patient thinks he/she is able to do rather than what he/she is actually performing. We proposed a new approach for shoulder assessment based on inertial sensors to monitor arm movement in the daily routine. The detection of movement of the humerus relative to the trunk was first validated in a laboratory setting (sensitivity>95%, specificity>97%). Then, 41 control subjects and 21 patients suffering from a rotator cuff tear were evaluated (before and after surgery) using clinical questionnaires and a one-day measurement of arm movement. The quantity of movement was estimated with the movement frequency and its symmetry index (SIFr). The quality of movement was assessed using the Kolmogorov-Smirnov distance (KS) between the cumulative distribution of the arm velocity for controls and the same distribution for each patient. SIFr presented differences between patients and controls at 3 month follow-up (p<0.05) while KS showed differences also after 6 months (p<0.01). SIFr illustrated a change in dominance due to the disorder whereas KS, which appeared independent of the dominance and occupation, showed a change in movement velocity. Both parameters were correlated to clinical scores (R(2) reaching 0.5). This approach provides clinicians with new objective parameters for evaluating the functional ability of the shoulder in daily conditions, which could be useful for outcome assessment after surgery.

Ajustes de funções de distribuição de probabilidade à radiação solar global no Estado do Rio Grande do Sul

O objetivo deste trabalho foi verificar o ajuste das séries de dados de radiação solar global média decendial, de 22 municípios do Estado do Rio Grande do Sul, às funções de distribuições de probabilidade normal, log-normal, gama, gumbel e weibull. Aplicou-se o teste de aderência de Kolmogorov-Smirnov, nas 792 séries de dados (22 municípios x 36 decêndios) de radiação solar global média decendial, para verificar o ajuste dos dados às distribuições normal, log-normal, gama, gumbel e weibull, totalizando 3.960 testes. Os dados decendiais de radiação solar global média se ajustam às funções de distribuições de probabilidade normal, log-normal, gama, gumbel e weibull, e apresentam melhor ajuste à função de distribuição de probabilidade normal.

Natural gene-expression variation in Down syndrome modulates the outcome of gene-dosage imbalance.

Down syndrome (DS) is characterized by extensive phenotypic variability, with most traits occurring in only a fraction of affected individuals. Substantial gene-expression variation is present among unaffected individuals, and this variation has a strong genetic component. Since DS is caused by genomic-dosage imbalance, we hypothesize that gene-expression variation of human chromosome 21 (HSA21) genes in individuals with DS has an impact on the phenotypic variability among affected individuals. We studied gene-expression variation in 14 lymphoblastoid and 17 fibroblast cell lines from individuals with DS and an equal number of controls. Gene expression was assayed using quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction on 100 and 106 HSA21 genes and 23 and 26 non-HSA21 genes in lymphoblastoid and fibroblast cell lines, respectively. Surprisingly, only 39% and 62% of HSA21 genes in lymphoblastoid and fibroblast cells, respectively, showed a statistically significant difference between DS and normal samples, although the average up-regulation of HSA21 genes was close to the expected 1.5-fold in both cell types. Gene-expression variation in DS and normal samples was evaluated using the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test. According to the degree of overlap in expression levels, we classified all genes into 3 groups: (A) nonoverlapping, (B) partially overlapping, and (C) extensively overlapping expression distributions between normal and DS samples. We hypothesize that, in each cell type, group A genes are the most dosage sensitive and are most likely involved in the constant DS traits, group B genes might be involved in variable DS traits, and group C genes are not dosage sensitive and are least likely to participate in DS pathological phenotypes. This study provides the first extensive data set on HSA21 gene-expression variation in DS and underscores its role in modulating the outcome of gene-dosage imbalance.