Objectives: This dissertation comprises three essays on geographic variations in healthcare, and the association between utilization and health outcomes. I first explore associations between outpatient visits and Medicare beneficiaries'...
Roof eaves and a boardwalk in the fore-left. Probably a mission. Building, school [?]; Children; Flagpole [?]; Individuals, male, Inuit; Mission; River, Mackenzie; U. S. Anthropological Expedition;[Line of boys in western dress standing on...
Opinion dynamics is a complex procedure that entails a cognitive process when it deals with how a person integrates influential opinions to form revised opinion. Early research on opinion formation and social influence can be traced back to the...
Two experiments were designed to investigate the effects of brain damage on source monitoring. Source monitoring is the process of making decisions about the origins of memories. Previous research has demonstrated that source monitoring judgments...
Ice mechanics. Compressibility. Fracture mechanics. Strains and stresses. Brittleness.
This work describes the effect of triaxial compressive confinement on the strength of columnar S2 ice loaded under conditions leading to brittle failure. Cubes of columnar S2 ice were tested at -10 °C under triaxial (proportional) loading where...
Vibrio cholerae is the etiologic agent of cholera in humans. Intestinal colonization occurs via ingestion of contaminated food and water and results in symptoms that include the production of the characteristic rice water stool, vomiting, and...
Public key infrastructure (Computer security). ; Computer networks -- Security measures. ; Operating systems (Computers). ; Microcomputers.
In 1976, Whitfield Diffie and Martin Hellman demonstrated how public key cryptography could enable secure information exchange between parties that do not share secrets. In order for public key cryptography to work in modern distributed...
During an immune reaction to an invading pathogen, a population of lymphocytes with receptors that specifically recognize the pathogen are activated and become memory cells. Characteristically, memory lymphocytes persist for long periods of time...
Sensing light from the environment using photoreceptors is of great adaptive significance to eukaryotes. A prominent feature of the photochemistry of these receptors is the photocycle length, the time taken to decay from the initial signaling light...
The main driving force behind the development of computers was the attempt to solve problems that would otherwise require a large amount of time to be solved. Despite the technological development that has made computers ubiquitous in daily lives,...
Hypercapnia -- Regulation. ; Carbon dioxide -- Physiological effect. ; Carbon dioxide in the body. ; Brown garden snail -- Respiration. ; Potassium channels.
After more than 150 years of studying the respiratory effects of hypercapnia, the intrinsic neuronal mechanism by which carbon dioxide (CO²) stimulates electrical excitability of respiratory neurons, and hence respiratory drive, is still...
The ectomycorrhizal symbiosis between temperate forest trees and some soil fungi is an adaptation to resource limitations of both symbionts. Nitrogen enrichment of historically N-limited forest ecosystems may change this symbiosis through direct...
Electron donor-acceptor complexes. ; Complex compounds. ; Photochemistry.
In this study we have utilized spectroscopic and photoconductivity techniques to investigate free ion formation in the fumaronitrile/trans-stilbene charge transfer-complex. We report free ion yields resulting from the direct excitation of this...
Clinical medicine -- Decision making -- Mathematical models. ; Diagnosis Laboratory. ; Medical screening -- Mathematical models. ; Osteoporosis -- Diagnosis. ; Mycobacterial diseases -- Diagnosis.
This dissertation focuses on the use of decision analysis to study the optimal use of medical tests. The classic threshold model of clinical decision making provides methodological background and motivation for the dissertation. In this model,...