Epidemiology, management and outcome of facial injuries

Dental injuries are common and the incidence of maxillofacial injuries has increased over the recent decades in Finland. Accidental injuries are the global leading cause of death among children over the age of one year and among adults under the age of 40 globally. Significant resources and costs are needed for the treatment of these patients. The prevention is the most economical way to reduce trauma rates and costs. For the prevention it is crucial to know the prevalences, incidences and risk factors related to injuries. To improve the quality of treatment, it is essential to explore the causes, trauma mechanisms and management of trauma. The above mentioned was the aim of this thesis. With a large epidemiological cohort study (5737 participants) it was possible to estimate lifetime prevalence of and risk factors for dental trauma in general population (Study I). The prevalence of dental fractures was 43% and the prevalence of dental luxations and avulsions was 14%. Male gender, a history of previous non-dental injuries, mental distress, overweight and high alcohol consumption were positively associated with the occurrence of dental injuries Study II was conducted to explore the differences in type and multiplicity of mandibular fractures in three different countries (Canada, Finland and Kuwait). This retrospective study showed that the differences in mandibular fracture multiplicity and location are based on different etiologies and demographic patterns. This data can be exploited for planning of measures to prevent traumatic facial fractures. The etiology, management and outcome of 63 pediatric skull base fracture (Study III) and 20 pediatric frontobasal fracture patients (Study IV) were explored. These retrospective studies showed that, both skull base fracture and frontobasa fracture are rare injuries in childhood and although intracranial injuries and morbidity are frequent, permanent neurological or neuropsychological deficits are infrequent. A systematic algorithm (Study V) for computer tomography (CT) image review was aimed at clinicians and radiologists to improve the assessment of patients with complex upper midface and cranial base trauma. The cohort study was cross sectional and data was collected in the Turku and Oulu University Hospitals. A novel image-reviewing algorithm was created to enhance the specificity of CT for the diagnosis of frontobasal fractures. The study showed that an image-viewing algorithm standardizes the frontobasal trauma detection procedure and leads to better control and assessment. The purpose of the retrospective subcranial craniotomy study (VI) was to review the types of frontobasal fractures and their management, complications and outcome when the fracture is approached subcranially. The subcranial approach appears to be successful and have a reasonably low complication rate. It may be recommended as the technique of choice in multiple and the most complicated frontal base fractures where the endoscopic endonasal approach is not feasible.

Supporting the creation, management, and long-term preservation of social science research data

Poster at Open Repositories 2014, Helsinki, Finland, June 9-13, 2014

Review of investment strategy, portfolio management, and scorecard based portfolio selection tool for direct property investments in Finland

The lack of research of private real estate is a well-known problem. Earlier studies have mostly concentrated on the USA or the UK. Therefore, this master thesis offers more information about the performance and risk associated with private real estate investments in Nordic countries, but especially in Finland. The structure of this master thesis is divided into two independent sections based on the research questions. In first section, database analysis is performed to assess risk-return ratio of direct real estate investment for Nordic countries. Risk-return ratios are also assessed for different property sectors and economic regions. Finally, review of diversification strategies based on property sectors and economic regions is performed. However, standard deviation itself is not usually sufficient method to evaluate riskiness of private real estate. There is demand for more explicit assessment of property risk. One solution is property risk scoring. In second section risk scorecard based tool is built to make different real estate comparable in terms of risk. In order to do this, nine real estate professionals were interviewed to enhance the structure of theory-based risk scorecard and to assess weights for different risk factors.

Financial working capital - management and measurement

Unexpected changes in cash flow have started to occur more frequently after the financial crisis. The capital structures of companies have also changed, and financial flexibility as well as flexible asset management have therefore become more important. This thesis aims at presenting financial working capital management, a part of flexible asset management, as a possibility to gain financial flexibility and survive the changes. This thesis operates in the interface of corporate finance, strategic management and management accounting, and it has two main objectives: to examine financial working capital management and to develop measures of financial working capital. The research in this thesis has been conducted using archival research and design science. Qualitative comparative analysis and model building are used to formulate tools and strategies for financial working capital management. The tools are tested with simulations, case studies and statistical analysis. The empirical data is collected from companies listed in the Helsinki Stock Exchange. The results of this thesis indicate that there are several possible financial working capital management strategies. FOCAL matrix is created in the thesis to assist in the selection of a strategy. The results also imply that profitability can be improved by reducing financial working capital, which creates a need to change the financial working capital management strategy. Financial flow cycle, and its modification, is developed in this thesis to measure financial working capital. Financial working capital as a concept is presented in this thesis with an orientation towards the management view. New dimensions have also been produced to financial management and working capital management, while providing a holistic approach to financial flexibility. Financial working capital management strategies are presented to managers and practical tools are provided for decision-making.

A needs assessment of public health professionals: supporting the implementation of Ontario 2010 revised elementary health and physical education curriculum

Based on the Comprehensive School Health framework, Ontario's Foundations for a Healthy School (2009) outlines an integrated approach to school health promotion. In this approach the school, community and partners (including public health) are fully engaged With a common goal of youth health. With the recent introductions of the Ontario Public Health Standards (2009) and the revised elementary health and physical education curriculum (2010), the timing for a greater integration of public health with schools is ideal. A needs assessment was conducted to identify the perceived support required by public health professionals to implement the mandates of both policy documents in Ontario. Data was collected for the needs assessment through facilitated discussions at a provincial roundtable event, regional focus groups and individual interviews with public health professionals representing Ontario's 36 public health units. Findings suggest that public health professionals perceive that they require increased resources, greater communication, a clear vision of public health and a suitable understanding of the professional cultures in which they are surrounded in order to effectively support schools. This study expands upon these four categories and the corresponding seventeen themes that were uncovered during the research process.

Studies on the systematics and biology of the fisheries of the Vembanad lake

The thesis documents a comprehensive systematic account of Vembenad lake fishes and to study the effect of physico-chemical parameters on the distribution and abundance of fishes in the lake. This study is expected to advance the knowledge on the biological aspects of two commercially important fishes of the lake which are very desirable for brackish water fish farming. Additionally, the results of the studies on the ecology as habitat, occurrence, season and abundance of all the recorded fishes of the lake end the commercially important fish species of the lake are also incorporated. A general appraisal on the detrimental factors which are adversely affecting the fisheries resources of the lake are presented and some measures of conservation are also suggested. The results of the present study are helpful in formulating suitable schemes for management of parts of the Vembenad lake for capture and culture fisheries

Studies on seed pathology and seedling diseases of some important indigenous tree species of kerala

In forestry, availability of healthy seeds is an important factor in raising planting stock. Initial seed health and storage conditions are the major factors governing the germinability of seeds. Like seeds of agricultural and horticultural crops, forest tree seeds are also liable to be affected by micro-organisms during storage, which affects the germination, and reduces the viability. Further introduction of seed-borne diseases into newly sown crops/areas on account of using unhealthy seeds is also not ruled out. Availability of healthy stock of seedlings is intrinsic for raising plantations and to meet this requirement elimination of nursery diseases by appropriate chemicals is of prime imortance. As exotic tree species may become susceptible to various native pathogens, it is generally considered better to select indigenous tree species for large scale plantations as they are well adapted to local environment. However, before taking up large scale afforestation progranme involving any indigenous tree species, it is essential to have knowledge about seed disorders and seedling diseases and their management. with a View to select appropriate tree species with fewer seed disorders and seedling disease problems for use in further plantation programme, four indigenous tree species such as Albizia odoratissima (L.f) Benth., Lagerstroemia microcazpa Wt., Pterocazpus marsupiwn Roxb. and Xylia xylocarpa (Roxb.) Taub. were evaluated to meet the above parameters

‘Studies on the fishery and culture prospects of mud crabs (Genus Scylla de Haan) along the Kerala coast

Kerala has been one of the leading maritime states in India for the exploitation and export of mud crabs (Raj, 1992). Many brackishwater systems like the Ashtamudi lake, Vembanad lake, Cochin backwaters and Korapuzha estuary are well known for their rich population of mud crabs. Realizing the imperative need to build up a strong scientific base for proper management and conservation of the resource and also to develop proper technologiesfor seed production and farming of mud crabs, a detailed study was undertaken on the mud crabs of Kerala coast and the results are described in the thesis. The thesis is presented in four chapters

Studies On The Dynamics And Water Quality Of The Muvattupuzha River In Relation To Effluent Discharge

The present study aims at the investigation of the 1ysico—chemical features of a tropical tidal river viz. we Muvattupuzha river. This river is expected to receive Jderate to heavy pollution loads in years to come, from we lone industrial unit, already set up on its bank. ilike other rivers, the geographical disposition of this Lver attains unique importance as regards its dynamics for 3) availability of natural runoff water from catchment :eas, which becomes very heavy during the monsoon season 3) regular steady availability of tail race water from a /dro—electric power station throughout the yearThe study also aims at arriving at the balancing forces of inherent self~purification of the river verses pollution loads from the factory effluents. The investigation period falls ahead of actual pollution occurrence and so the ambient conditions for a period of nearly one-and-a—half years were investigated, the analyses of which providflz to formulate the inter-relations of parameters varying with seasons. Tracer experiments were carried out which revealed the dispersion and dilution characteristics of the river in the vicinity of effluent outfall. The studv covers the trial—cum-capacity production periods of the factory during which effluents of various strength and quantity were discharged into the river; a few computed values arQ’cjmpgrQdl ... with the observed values. The base data along with the profiles of Oxygen sag equation have been utilized fb develop a mathematical model of the river with regard to its water quality

Knowledge management and open access e-theses: Indian initiatives

This paper aims to describe recent developments in the services provided by Indian electronic thesis and dissertation (ETD) repositories. It seeks to explore the prospect of knowledge formation and diffusion in India and to discuss the potential of open access e-theses repositories for knowledge management.This study is based on literature review and content analysis of IndianETDrepository websites. Institutional repositories and electronic thesis and dissertation projects in India were identified through a literature survey as well as internet searching and browsing. The study examines the tools, type of contents, coverage and aims of Indian ETD repositories.The paper acknowledges the need for knowledge management for national development. It highlights the significance of an integrated platform for preserving, searching and retrieving Indian theses. It describes the features and functions of Indian ETD repositories.The paper provides insights into the characteristics of the national repository of ETDs of India, which encourage and support open access to publicly-funded research

User Profile Management and Selection in Context-Aware Service Platforms for Networks Beyond 3G

In recent years, progress in the area of mobile telecommunications has changed our way of life, in the private as well as the business domain. Mobile and wireless networks have ever increasing bit rates, mobile network operators provide more and more services, and at the same time costs for the usage of mobile services and bit rates are decreasing. However, mobile services today still lack functions that seamlessly integrate into users’ everyday life. That is, service attributes such as context-awareness and personalisation are often either proprietary, limited or not available at all. In order to overcome this deficiency, telecommunications companies are heavily engaged in the research and development of service platforms for networks beyond 3G for the provisioning of innovative mobile services. These service platforms are to support such service attributes. Service platforms are to provide basic service-independent functions such as billing, identity management, context management, user profile management, etc. Instead of developing own solutions, developers of end-user services such as innovative messaging services or location-based services can utilise the platform-side functions for their own purposes. In doing so, the platform-side support for such functions takes away complexity, development time and development costs from service developers. Context-awareness and personalisation are two of the most important aspects of service platforms in telecommunications environments. The combination of context-awareness and personalisation features can also be described as situation-dependent personalisation of services. The support for this feature requires several processing steps. The focus of this doctoral thesis is on the processing step, in which the user’s current context is matched against situation-dependent user preferences to find the matching user preferences for the current user’s situation. However, to achieve this, a user profile management system and corresponding functionality is required. These parts are also covered by this thesis. Altogether, this thesis provides the following contributions: The first part of the contribution is mainly architecture-oriented. First and foremost, we provide a user profile management system that addresses the specific requirements of service platforms in telecommunications environments. In particular, the user profile management system has to deal with situation-specific user preferences and with user information for various services. In order to structure the user information, we also propose a user profile structure and the corresponding user profile ontology as part of an ontology infrastructure in a service platform. The second part of the contribution is the selection mechanism for finding matching situation-dependent user preferences for the personalisation of services. This functionality is provided as a sub-module of the user profile management system. Contrary to existing solutions, our selection mechanism is based on ontology reasoning. This mechanism is evaluated in terms of runtime performance and in terms of supported functionality compared to other approaches. The results of the evaluation show the benefits and the drawbacks of ontology modelling and ontology reasoning in practical applications.

School management and sexual behavior of teenagers

This paper asks whether school based management may help reducing risky sexual behavior of teenagers. For this purpose we use student level data from Bogot´a to identify students from Concession School (CS), who are enrolled in public education system with a more school management autonomy at school level, and to compare them with those students at the traditional public education system. We use propensity score matching methods to have a comparable sample between pupils at CS and traditional schools. Our results show that on average the behavior of students from CS do not have a sexual behavior that differs from those in traditional public schools except for boys in CS who have a lower probability of being sexual active. However, there are important differences when heterogeneity is considered. For example we find that CS where girls per boys ratio is higher have lower teenage pregnancy rates than public schools with also high girls per boys ratios. We also find that teachers’ human capital, teacher-pupil ratio or whether school offers sexual education are also related to statistically significant differences between CS and traditional public schools.

Business Studies : Cambridge International AS and A Level.

Este libro ha sido escrito específicamente para el Cambridge AS y A Level en la asignatura de enseñanza secundaria de ciencias empresariales, con un CD-ROM, proporciona a los estudiantes y profesores curriculum, experiencia y guía en la preparación de exámenes. Los temas del libro son: los negocios y su entorno (la empresa, objetivos de los negocios, las partes interesadas en un negocio), la gente de las organizaciones (gestión y liderazgo, motivación, gestión de los recursos humanos), marketing (¿Qué es el marketing?, investigación de mercados, producto y precio, globalización y marketing internacional), finanzas y contabilidad, operaciones y gestión de proyectos.

The use of digital technology for portfolio creation, management and utilization

The purpose of this study was to create a digital portfolio that was practical and effective for both teachers and parents.

An educational curriculum outline for teaching sound and hearing in elementary schools

This paper provides curriculum on noise, ears, hearing and deafness for elementary school children.