Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'After crash'

Background Major road traffic crashes (RTCs) can have a significant impact on the survivors, their family, and their friends, as well as on emergency personnel, volunteers, and others involved. However, survivors’ perspectives are rare or missing in research on major RTCs in Sweden. A comprehensive understanding of the survivors and their experiences is also lacking. By studying what it is like to survive a major RTC, the care and support provided to survivors can be adapted and improved. The overall aim is to broaden the understanding of the short- and long-term consequences and experiences of surviving a major bus crash. Methods The contexts are two bus crashes that occurred in Sweden, in February 2007 and December 2014. In total, the participants are 110 out of the 112 survivors, and the data is collected through telephone interviews, official reports, and medical records at one month, three months, and five years after the crashes. Analysis methods include qualitative content analysis, descriptive statistics, thematic analysis, and mixed methods research analysis. Results One month after the crash, most of the survivors were experiencing minor or major physical and/or psychological stress in their everyday lives (Study I). Four main findings were identified regarding their experiences of immediate care (Study II): prehospital discomfort, lack of compassionate care, dissatisfaction with crisis support, and satisfactory initial care and support. The importance of compassion and being close to others was also highlighted. Five years after the bus crash in Rasbo (Study III), survivors were still struggling with physical injuries and mental problems. Other long-term consequences were a lasting sense of connectedness among fellow passengers, a gratitude for life, as well as feelings of distress in traffic, especially in regard to buses. The main findings from study IV indicated that injury severity did not seem to affect mental health, and that social aspects were important to the recovery process. There was an interconnection among survivors in which they seemed to be linked to each other’s recovery. Conclusion A strong need for short- and long-term social and psychological support in terms of compassion and community is evident in all the studies. The survivors ought to be acknowledged as capable and having the resources to contribute to their own and their fellow survivors’ recovery and health. There is a need for greater understanding of how different the survivors are, with each one of them having various physical, psychological, social, and existential needs.
Bakgrund Stora trafikskadehändelser kan ha en betydande inverkan på de överlevande och deras närståendes liv, likaså på sjukvårdspersonal, vittnen, och andra som är involverade. Trots detta så är de överlevandes perspektiv sällsynta eller saknas i forskning om stora trafikskadehändelser i Sverige. Det saknas även en helhetsförståelse av överlevande och deras erfarenheter. Genom att studera hur det är att överleva en busskrasch kan omhändertagande och stöd anpassas och förbättras. Det övergripande syftet är att öka förståelsen av kort- och långsiktiga konsekvenser och erfarenheter av att överleva en stor busskrasch. Metod Kontexten är två busskrascher som inträffade i februari 2007 och december 2014 i Sverige. Antal deltagare är 110 av 112 överlevande och data samlades in en månad, tre månader och fem år efter krascherna, via telefonintervjuer, officiella rapporter och medicinska journaler. Analysmetoder inkluderar kvalitativ innehållsanalys, deskriptiv statistik, tematisk analys och mixad metod. Resultat En månad efter kraschen upplevde överlevande fysiskt obehag och/eller psykisk stress i varierande grad i sin vardag (Studie I). Gällande upplevelser av det initiala omhändertagandet (Studie II) identifierades fyra huvudresultat; obehag på skadeplats, brister i omhändertagande och bemötande, missnöje med krisstöd, och tillfredsställande initialt omhändertagande och stöd. Betydelsen av empati och medkänsla från personal och frivilliga samt samhörighet med medpassagerare lyftes fram av de överlevande. Fem år efter busskraschen i Rasbo (Studie III) fanns det överlevande som fortfarande kämpade med fysiska skador och psykiska problem. Andra tydliga långsiktiga konsekvenser var en bestående gemenskap mellan medpassagerare, en tacksamhet över livet, samt oro och rädsla i trafiken, speciellt vid bussåkande. Uppföljningen efter busskraschen i Tranemo (Studie IV) indikerade att sociala aspekter var betydelsefulla för återhämtningsprocessen hos överlevande och att skadornas svårighetsgrad inte var betydande för det psykiska välbefinnandet. En stark samhörighet upplevdes bland de närstående som reste tillsammans och de verkade följa varandras återhämtning. Slutsatser Ett starkt behov av kort- och långsiktigt socialt och psykologiskt stöd i form av gemenskap och empati är tydligt i samtliga studier. De överlevande bör uppmärksammas som aktörer med kapacitet och resurser till att bidra till sin egen och medpassagerares återhämtning och hälsa. Det behövs en ökad förståelse för hur olika de överlevande är, med varierande fysiska, psykologiska, sociala, och existentiella behov.

Thesis (M. Arch.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 2010.
"February 2010." Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 67-68).
This thesis addresses the issue of ghost buildings in Bangkok, Thailand - buildings left unfinished since the financial crisis of 1997. Predicated by massive foreign investment, profligate lending and speculative construction, the crash left over five hundred 'interrupted' projects - buildings upwards of fifty storeys - standing as unwelcome monuments to global capital run amok. This project proposes reclamation strategies that would enable 'small agents' to inhabit and revive the abandoned structures. The design intends to echo both the populist, nativist movement that has taken root in post-crash Thailand, as well as the myriad informal systems that allow the overtaxed city of Bangkok to function vibrantly.
by Kevin M. Moore.
M.Arch.

Thesis deals with comparison of influence of chosen solution method on pre crash movement of vehicles in one simulation program and on differences between calculations for one method in different programs. Compared solution methods are kinematics and dynamics solutions of pre crash movement, compared programs are Virtual CRASH and PC-Crash.

The purpose of this thesis is to explore how the installations of traffic signals affect crash experience at intersections, to identify those factors which help predict crashes after a signal is installed, and to develop a crash prediction model. It is the intent of this thesis to supplement the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices Signal Warrant procedure and aid the traffic engineer in the signal installation decision making process. Crash data, as well as operational and geometric factors were examined for 32 state road intersections in the northeast Florida area before and after signal installation. Signal warrant studies were used as sources for traffic volumes, geometric information and crash history, before signal installation. The Florida Department of Transportation's Crash Analysis Reporting System (CARS) was used to gather crash data for the time period after signal installation. On average, the 32 intersections experienced a 12% increase in the total number of crashes and a 26% reduction in crash rate after signals were installed. The change in the number of crashes was not significant, but the rate change was significant with 90% confidence. Angle crash frequency dropped by 60% and the angle crash rate dropped by 66%, both are significant. Left-turn crashes dropped by 8% and their rate by 16%, although neither was significant. Rear-end crashes increased by 86% and the rear-end crash rate decreased by 5%. Neither of these changes was statistically significant. When crash severity was examined, it was found that the number of injury crashes increased by 64.8% and the rate by only 0.02%. Neither change was significant. Both the number of fatal crashes and the rate decreased by 100% and were significant. Property Damage Only (PDO) crashes increased by 96%, after signalization, but this change was not significant. The PDO rate, however, decreased by 46.5% and is significant. Operational factors such as AADT, turning movement counts, and speed limits; and geometric factors such as medians, turn lanes and numbers of lanes were considered to determine their effect on crashes at signalized intersections. Smaller roads, with low AADT, fewer lanes, and a rural character were found to benefit from signalization more than busier urbanized roads, in terms of crash rate reduction. The AADT, roadway cross section, number of lanes, medians, speed limit and left turn volume were all found to be important factors influencing crash rates. This thesis recommends: 1) the use of crash prediction models to supplement the MUTCD Crash Warrant, 2) the addition of a left-turn warrant to the MUTCD signal warranting procedure, and 3) development of an intersection database containing crash data as well as operational and geometric information to aid in future research.
M.S.C.E.
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Engineering and Computer Science
Civil Engineering

This thesis explores emergent knowledge dynamics in innovation in the context of ebusiness entrepreneurship. Based on a critique of the dialectic interpretation of knowledge dynamics, it forwards a perspective that stresses the creative force of emergence that disrupts existent meanings and produces new potentialities for innovation. It suggests ways of using such a perspective in policy-targeted research. The first part elaborates on the traditional uses of concepts of knowledge in explanations of entrepreneurial innovation and on the need to account for a dynamic perspective on emergent knowledge. The thesis employs work by Deleuze and Guattari as meta-theoretical vehicle to expand the conceptual potential of social representations theory beyond its traditional focus on a dialectic ontology of becoming. It highlights a dynamic which does not exclusively assume conceptual difference as the source of the novel and which allows for patterns of becoming other than the triadic continuity of dialectics. Together, this provides new possibilities for an understanding of knowledge dynamics taking into account both adaptive and creative dynamics of emergence. The empirical part combines thematic analysis of interviews and a focus group with Deleuzian analysis of participant observation to facilitate an exploration of emergent conditions for innovation in a particular milieu of e-business entrepreneurship. The exploration shows how changes in shared evaluative dimensions guided – and constrained – the creation of new concepts. Simultaneously, distinct assemblages arising from novel connections of affect and technology in networks created the conditions of fluidity and ambiguity required for new knowledge: in the aftermath of the dotcom crash, new concepts of network leadership and trust in business interaction were emerging. This study forwards new insights on the study of emergent knowledge dynamics as oscillating between rhizomic opening and dialectic closure. It is in the disruptive encounters between the two that new conditions for innovation can assemble.

Doctor of Philosophy
Department of Civil Engineering
Sunanda Dissanayake
Lane-departure crashes are the most predominant crash type in Kansas which causes very high number of motor vehicle fatalities. Therefore, the Kansas Department of Transportation (KDOT) has implemented several different types of countermeasures to reduce the number of motor vehicle fatalities associated with lane-departure crashes. This research was conducted to estimate the safety effectiveness of commonly used lane-departure countermeasures in Kansas on all crashes and lane-departure crashes using Crash Modification Factors (CMFs). Paved shoulders, rumble strips, safety edge treatments and median cable barriers were identified as the commonly used lane-departure countermeasures on both tangent and curved road segments while chevrons and post-mounted delineators were identified as the most commonly used lane-departure countermeasures on curved road segments. This research proposes a state-of-art method of estimating CMFs using cross-sectional data for chevrons and post-mounted delineators. Furthermore, another state-of-art method is proposed in this research to estimate CMFs for safety edge treatments using before-and-after data. Considering the difficulties of finding the exact date of implementation of each countermeasure, both cross-sectional and before-and-after studies were employed to estimate the CMFs. Cross-sectional and case-control methods, which are the two major methods in cross-sectional studies were employed to estimate CMFs for paved shoulders, rumble strips, and median cable barriers. The conventional cross-sectional and case-control methods were modified when estimating CMFs for chevrons and post-mounted delineators by incorporating environmental and human behaviors in addition to geometric and traffic-related explanatory variables. The proposed method is novel and has not been used in the previous cross-sectional models available in the literature. Generalized linear regression models assuming negative binomial error structure were used to develop models for cross-sectional method to estimate CMFs while logistic regression models were used to estimate CMFs using case-control method. Results showed that incorporating environmental and human-related variables into cross-sectional models provide better model fit than in conventional cross-sectional models. To validate the developed models for cross-sectional method, mean of the residuals and the Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) were used. For the case-control method, Receiver Operational Characteristic (ROC) was used to evaluate the predictive power of models for a binary outcome using classification tables. However, it was seen that the case-control method is not suitable for estimating CMFs for all crashes since the range of the crash frequency is wide in each road segment. A regression-based method of estimating CMFs using before-and-after data was proposed to estimate CMFs for safety edge treatments. This method allows researchers to identify the safety effectiveness of an individual CMFs on road segments where multiple treatments have been applied at the same time. Since this method uses road geometric and traffic-related characteristics in addition to countermeasure information as the explanatory variables, the model itself would be the Safety Performance Function (SPF). Therefore, developing new SPF is not necessary. Finally, the CMFs were estimated using before-and-after Empirical Bayes method to validate the results from the regression-based method. The results of this study can be used as a decision-making tool when implementing lane-departure countermeasures on similar roadways in Kansas. Even though there are readily available CMFs from the national level studies, having more localized CMFs will be beneficial due to differences in traffic-related and geometric characteristics on different roadways.

This diploma thesis analyses the influence of the change to the vehicle’s center of gravity on its after-impact movement. The theoretical part of the thesis describes the basic methods which are used in investigation of the transverse, lengthwise and height position of center of gravity or the influence of center of gravity’s vehicle position to its stability and handling. Next part of the thesis deals with basic division of the road accidents and briefly describes the methods used in its analysis. Problematic maneuvers and everyday road traffic situations are stated in this thesis. Chosen situations were simulated in Virtual CRASH and PC crash programmes. Influence of the transverse, lengthwise and height position of center of gravity was investigated in these programmes with regards to the after-impact behaviour of vehicle. The obtained results were evaluated in the final chapter.

Variable speed limit (VSL) systems are important active traffic management tools that are being deployed across the U.S. and indeed around the world for relieving congestion and improving safety. Oregon’s first variable advisory speed limit signs were activated along Oregon Highway 217 in the summer of 2014. The variable advisory speed system is responsive to both congestion and weather conditions. This seven-mile corridor stretches around Western Portland and has suffered from high crash rates and peak period congestion in the past. VSL systems are often deployed to address safety, mobility and sustainability related performance. This research seeks to determine whether the newly implemented variable advisory speed limit system has had measurable impacts on traffic safety and what the scale of the impact has been. The research utilizes a before-after crash analysis with three years of data prior to implementation and around 16 months after. Statistical analysis using an Empirical Bayes (EB) approach will aim to separate the direct impacts of the variable advisory speed limit signs from the long term trends on the highway. In addition, the analysis corrects for the changes in traffic volumes over the study period. Three data sources will be utilized including Washington County 911 call data, Oregon incident reports, and official Oregon Department of Transportation crash data reports. The analysis results are compared between data sources to determine the reliability of 911 call data as a proxy for crash statistics. The conclusions should be able to provide an indication of whether variable advisory speed limits can provide increased safety along high crash corridors.

Thesis (S.M. in Real Estate Development)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Program in Real Estate Development in Conjunction with the Center for Real Estate , 2010.
Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 71-72).
This thesis explores the topic of diversification opportunities in international real estate, with focus on private real estate markets in developed countries. In examining the characteristics of returns and interrelatedness between international real estate, stocks and bonds markets from the time period spanning 2000 to 2009, we find that 2008 was the only year within the past decade in which several countries saw synchronized negative returns on a calendar year basis in the stocks and real estate markets, and even so the synchronized negative returns was only experienced by half of the countries within the 10-country opportunity set. The amplitude of the peak to trough drop in the cumulative value of the assets was small in real estate on average relative to that of stocks. These findings suggest that investors' should benefit from holding international real estate within their portfolios, even in an extreme down market. Modern portfolio theory is used to analyze and compare ex-ante diversification opportunities in international real estate, stocks and bonds and domestic diversification opportunities for the three asset classes from the perspectives of U.S. and European investors. We project expected returns for each of the markets and used historical risks (volatility) from the 2000-2009 period as estimates for volatility. When returns are calculated in local currencies, international diversification in the real estate portfolio (diversified within a 10-country opportunity set) should help U.S. investors substantially improve their portfolio risk-return efficiency relative to domestic diversification (within a 6-metropolitan area opportunity set), as the markets within the U.S. domestic opportunity set provide unattractive risk-return efficiency and their movements are highly correlated. By contrast, European investors will benefit less from the same international diversification strategy relative to domestic diversification (within 5 Eurozone countries) as several Eurozone markets are able to provide considerable risk-return efficiency and low correlations can be found in some pairs of markets. Applying home bias and limits on exposure to any single country i.e. country caps to the portfolio allocation helps to balance the allocation weights for the investor's portfolio but also significantly limits the investor's ability to take advantage of diversification opportunities provided by the international markets. When returns are calculated in the investors' domestic currencies, additional currency risk increases the portfolio volatility without providing additional expected return, reducing diversification benefits of international real estate. Even so, international diversification potential to U.S. investors should still be considerable, while that to European investors' should be minimal.
by Onousa Boontanorm.
S.M.in Real Estate Development

The research examined the response of the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) to anti-austerity protests in London following the financial crisis of 2008 and the election of the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government in 2010. Research began in the wake of prevalent controversies at the time around how the police deployed force against demonstrators including the use of containment of large crowds for a substantial length of time and the death of a member of the public, Ian Tomlinson, after being struck with a baton during the G20 protests in 2009 (Rosie and Gorringe, 2009). There were also concerns around how the MPS gathered intelligence with Forward Intelligence Teams (FIT) accused of gathering and retaining data improperly (HAC, 2009), as well as emerging scandals of undercover officers amongst environmental and social justice campaigns (BBC, 2012a). These controversies led the police to innovate new methods of communication with protesters including liaison officers to mix in the crowd and explain police tactics for the day. This research investigated how the MPS deployed its different tactics which were grouped under the strategies of force, surveillance and negotiated management. Drawing primarily on writings on police culture it used a documentary analysis and a series of semi-structured interviews with MPS officers to examine how the police conceive of public order policing, anti-austerity protests and how their tactics were deployed and may change in the future. The conclusion ends with several interesting insights from the data. The most significant is how the police interviewees see little problem with how the MPS deploy surveillance. This is important as they recognise the controversy that can arise through the use of force. They tend to treat the recent moves towards liaison policing to replace the use of force at protests as the uppermost concern. They acknowledge the hostility that surveillance can engender in activists but see this as largely unavoidable and can be dismissive of civil liberty concerns. This is in contrast to the fact that the documentary analysis of policy recognises that the use of intelligence gathering needs to be proportionate (ACPO, 2010). It is also concerning in a time when there are several revelations around undercover officers embedded in environmental and social justice campaigns. This leads the research to recommend that any future research on public order policing must find a way to surmount the obstacle of gaining access to, and properly assessing, the role of undercover policing to complement research on overt forms of intelligence gathering on the day of the protest.

Master of Science
Department of Civil Engineering
Sunanda Dissanayake
Construction of by-pass lanes at rural intersections typically has been considered a low-cost safety improvement. Safety analysis utilizes two common approaches to evaluate treatment effectiveness: before-and-after study and cross-sectional study. This research performed paired sample t-test statistical analysis to estimate changes in total of crash frequency, crash rates, EPDO crash frequency, and EPDO crash rates at intersections, three to five years after adding a by-pass lane compared to identical time period before the by-pass lane was added. Crash data between 1990 and 2011 were obtained from Kansas Crash and Analysis Record System (KCARS) maintained by the Kansas Department of Transportation (KDOT). In order to perform a cross-sectional study, intersections with by-pass lanes were compared to intersections with no countermeasures; crash data were obtained for more than 1,100 intersections in the state of Kansas. According to before-and-after study, addition of by-pass lanes improves safety at unsignalized rural intersections; crashes and their severities are reduced after adding by-pass lanes. But, these reductions are not statistically significant under 95% confidence level. However, when considering intersection related crashes, a statistically significant reduction in crash rates is happened after adding by-pass lanes at 3-legged intersections. In cross-sectional study, crashes and their severities are lower at 3-legged intersections with the by-pass lanes versus 3-legged intersections without the by-pass lanes. However, these reductions are not statistically significant under 95% confidence level. When considering 300 feet intersection crash box, statistically significant reductions are happened at 4-legged intersection. In contrast, crashes and their severities increased at 4-legged intersections with the by-pass lanes, but these changes are not statistically significant under 95% confidence level. The Crash Modification Factors were calculated to evaluate safety effectiveness of adding by-pass lanes at unsignalized rural intersections. The calculated CMFs less than 1.0, indicate a reduction in crashes after implementation of by-pass lanes. Finally, this study concluded that expected crashes at intersections with by-pass lanes are lower than intersections without by-pass lanes.

During the economic boom of the late nineties and early noughties, the last Labour government identified paid employment obtained from the competitive labour market as a realistic goal for people disabled by mental illness. Despite the effects of the financial crash of 2008 and the consequent recession, its successors have continued to argue this is the case. One of the foundation stones of the policies they have used to pursue this goal is a biopsychosocial model of health, which sides with medicine in the longstanding dispute about the validity of the concept of mental illness. This model was used by the UK government to identify paid employment obtained from the competitive labour market as evidence of recovery in and recovery from mental illness. It did this by drawing on the belief recovery is an individual journey, the outcomes of disabled people's lives are determined by acts of agency; the language, but not the thinking, used by the disability movement to draw a distinction between disability and impairment; and research arguing people with a history of mental illness want to work and that they can obtain work from the competitive market when they are provided with appropriate support. Another one is neoclassical economics: a static, deductive and utilitarian theory-driven economic model that has dominated UK policy since the late seventies. Like the government's preferred approach to recovery, neoclassical economics prioritises agency over structure. It argues labour market activity is a risk-driven endeavour and that economies have natural rates of unemployment, which can only be reduced by the state dismantling institutions preventing scarce resources such as labour from being distributed via price competition. As with medical thinking about mental distress, the neoclassical idealisation of the labour market has its critics. Amongst them are the old institutional economics, the new institutional economics, stratification economics and the new economic sociology. Different mixtures of empiricism, inductive thinking, theorising and attitudes towards neoclassicism ranging from relative enthusiasm to outright hostility, have for different reasons, led them to conclude to various degrees that institutions are necessary to impose order on uncertainty, unemployment can be a consequence of their influence and the state has to take this on board when taking policy initiatives. The disputes within economics and between economics and sociology about the role of agency, structure and the state in the labour market raise doubts about the efficacy of the UK government's welfare to work policies regarding people disabled by mental illness. Doubts that have been echoed in comments made by the OECD in 2014, which voiced concern about the UK governments marginalisation of structural influences on the labour market. Surprisingly, the literature on disability and employability has not engaged with this dispute. This study starts to address this failure by drawing on the above models mental illness and the labour market activity to analyse how the UK government's welfare to work policies have affected demand from private sector employers in Scotland for labour from jobless people who have been disabled by mental illness. The analysis was conducted in two stages. First, it used evidence about the financial crisis of 2008 and statistics from the Westminster and Holyrood governments to paint a macroeconomic picture of the Scottish labour market for the period between 2008 and 2013. Then it conducted semi-structured interviews with thirty private sector employers about their understanding of mental illness and the labour market. The initial part of the analysis argues rational price competition between private financial organisations caused the flow of money through western economies to dry up and that this caused the global financial crisis of 2008 and the deepest worldwide recession since the 1930's. Then it shows the UK government's adherence to neoclassicism led it to respond to these developments by directing government spending away from redistribution and service provision towards facilitating market competition and that the current tranche of welfare to work policies are part of this response. Finally, it uses figures from the Scottish and UK government for the period between March 2008 and March 2013 to look at the challenges facing these policies. Here it is shown that although the rise in unemployment has been relatively small given the depth of the recession. However it is also shown that there has been a sharp rise in underemployment, a significant drop in the number of vacancies and that private sector demand for labour will have to grow by as much as a third if the Scottish labour market is to successfully absorb those people with a history of mental illness the UK government hopes to move off disability benefits. The second part found employers tend to link mental illness with strange and unpredictable behaviour; hold stigmatising beliefs about people with a history of these conditions; only hire them when information, which has been obtained independently of any vacancy, suggests they possess the technical and social skills necessary to fit in with how they do business; and they can discount the value of their labour. It then goes on to demonstrate five things. The first is that employers think workplace teams are different from the sum of their parts and that this has led them to believe the outcomes of recruitment decisions are always uncertain. The second is they protect themselves against uncertainty by taking a sequential approach to recruitment, one that involves ranking the sources of information they use to make recruitment decisions in terms of cost and reliability. In order of preference, these are personal experience, the experience of people they trust, recruitment agencies and open competition. The third is that their behaviour as they descend this hierarchy initially mirrors the thinking of the new economic sociology and stratification economists, then the new institutional economics until finally, it comes to bear its closest resemblance to neoclassical economics. The fourth is that employers descend the hierarchy for as long as their desire for profit outweighs their fear of harm. The implications of this sequential multifaceted approach to recruitment for the ability of the UK governments welfare to work policies to improve the employability of people disabled by mental illness are identified by drawing on Zelizer's ideas about the role of connected worlds, circuits of commerce and media of exchange in economic activity. These ideas emerged in response to the under and over socialised thinking about the economy such as that offered by the new neoclassical economics, the new institutional economics and the new economic sociology. They form a line of thought that resonates strongly with the heterodox approach to economic analysis of the old institutional economics and stratification economics. They also provide a theoretical framework - that does not automatically blame the jobless for being unemployed - to hang the findings of this study about employers’ multifaceted approach to recruitment; the co-existence of large numbers of vacancies and high rates of unemployment; the peripheral role played by human resources professionals in most recruitment decisions; the ignorance of employers about the UK government's welfare to work policies; and employers’ hostility towards welfare to work contractors. Taken together, the findings of this study indicate the people with a history of mental illness who will benefit most from the UK government's welfare to work policies will be those who inhabit the same social circles as private sector employers or those who have access to them.
They also suggest these policies will be unlikely to increase the demand for their labour to anything like the degree necessary to absorb the numbers of them that will be moving off disability benefits. However, by using Zelizer's thinking about circuits of commerce and connected worlds to frame them, they offer hope welfare to work policies can be developed that recognise the importance of paid employment to recovery without conflating them. A set of policies that acknowledge the influence of impairments, social structures, job-related skills, and competition on employability, which accepts people diagnosed with mental illnesses will often need to be provided with rights and access to resources over and above those that support them to look for work. Realising this possibility will require researchers in disability studies to engage with the economic and sociological debates about the labour market and build relationships with businesses, economists and other branches of sociology that are conducive to investigating how the economic and social lives of employers influence their targeting of pools of labour; clarifying when it is possible to include people with a history of mental illness in these pools, establishing how to go about doing this, determining when it is in their interests to do so and identifying what to do when it is not.

A model was developed in the rat using a nerve crush procedure, as a form of temporary denervation, to block neural input to the hindlimb muscle of one leg. The nerve crush has the advantage of allowing self-reinnervation of the muscles after regrowth of the damaged nerve, which occurred (in this study) after approximately 14 days. The initial denervation-like phase resulted in a large loss of muscle mass over the subsequent few days which was mostly through a loss of muscle protein. The results demonstrate the correlation between the concentration of glutamine in the muscles and the rate of protein synthesis over the first 3 days after the nerve crush, but other metabolites (alanine, lactate, and glutamate) were seen to react much more rapidly, with significant changes recorded in the first hour after injury. Further studies were undertaken in an attempt to find a link between these acute changes and the later changes in protein and glutamine metabolism. It was demonstrated that these rapid changes were not as a result of a local hypoglycemia, although a reduction in the rate of in vivo glucose uptake was reduced within 4 hours of the nerve crush. Similarly, measurement of activities of key glycolytic enzymes suggested that there were no acute changes in flux through the glycolytic pathway. Finally, a difference in regional blood flow was demonstrated in the experimental muscles and it was concluded that the acute changes in metabolite concentrations might result from simple physiological changes, in response to the anaesthesia and/or the surgical procedure, which subsequently resolved in the innervated, but not the nerve-deprived, muscles.

The visual system processes information at various levels. Initial processing takes place in the retina, which then sends information to the optic tectum, the first visual brain center in lower vertebrates, for further processing. There were two main goals of this study. The first goal was to obtain tectal evoked responses (TER) from adult zebrafish and to compare them to previous electroretinogram (ERG) spectral sensitivity data (Bilotta & Harrison, 1999). The second purpose of this study was to examine neural regeneration in the adult zebrafish at various times post-crush and to compare visual processing of these subjects to the normal subjects. The optic nerve tracts of the zebraflsh's right eye were damaged via optic nerve crush and subjects were tested at one of 5 times post-crush: 3, 14, 28, 42, or 90 days post-crush (dpc). Complete TER spectral sensitivity functions were obtained (n=10) and compared to ERG data. The TER ON-response was consistently about one log unit less sensitive than the ERG bwave (ON-response) across the entire spectrum (320-640 nm). The results show that the cone contributions to TER and ERG responses were different, particularly at the short and middle wavelengths. TER OFF-response sensitivity and the ERG d-wave sensitivity were both sensitive to ultraviolet and short wavelengths, but the TER OFF-response sensitivity dropped considerably to the middle and long wavelengths. Thus, it appears that the retina and the tectum process visual information differently. In addition to comparing ERG and TER responses, TER spectral sensitivity functions were obtained for 90 dpc subjects (n=7) and compared to the control data. No significant differences were found between the TER ON-response of the 90 dpc and the control subjects. In fact, their respective spectral sensitivities appear to have the same cone contributions. The only difference was that there was more variability in the 90 dpc subjects than in control subjects. However, the OFF-responses of the control subjects were considerably more sensitive to the ultraviolet wavelengths than the OFF-responses of the 90 dpc subjects. The results show that there was a general trend in optic nerve regeneration over time. This study has provided valuable information about the differences and similarities in visual processing of different levels of the visual system. In addition, this study has demonstrated the successful repair of the functional properties of CNS neurons in this species. All of this information further enhances the usefulness of the zebrafish as a model for vision science and neuroscience.

In decerebrate rats, recurrent inhibition between lateral gastrocnemius-soleus (LG-S) and medial gastrocnemius (MG) motor pools was assessed by conditioning monosynaptic reflexes elicited from the cut dorsal roots and recorded either from the LG-S and MG nerves by antidromic volleys delivered to the synergist muscle nerve. The results show that following sciatic nerve crush in both experimental groups there is a significant sustained depression in the level of recurrent inhibition. The reduction in recurrent inhibition observed is less in adult animals when comparisons are made with the results from rats given the nerve injury early in postnatal life. However, following lateral gastrocnemius-soleus nerve crush instead of sciatic nerve crush, which shortened the dennervation time respectively, the reduction of recurrent inhibition was not observed in adult rat group and was much less in 5-day-old rat group. In addition, the different contributions of the recurrent inhibition between LG-S and MG motor pools are dedifferentiated as a result of nerve injury. It is proposed that this reduction of recurrent inhibition occurs due to degeneration of motor axon collaterals following the nerve injury. Such degeneration has been observed in the cat following axotomy (Havton & Kellerth, 1984, 1990a). The maintained reduction of recurrent inhibition may therefore be a consequence of a failure of regenerating axon collaterals to re-establish contact with Renshaw cells and/or alterations in the membrane properties of the injured motoneurones. However, this kind of degeneration may not occur if dennervation is short enough. In conclusion, this observed reduction of recurrent inhibition may contribute to the hyperreflexia reported in young animals following nerve crush (Navarrete et al., 1990) and that the results in this study support the view that peripheral nerve injury induces plastic changes in the behaviour of spinal circuitry.

京都大学
新制・課程博士
博士(人間健康科学)
甲第23426号
人健博第93号
新制||人健||6(附属図書館)
京都大学大学院医学研究科人間健康科学系専攻
(主査)教授 山田 重人, 教授 林 悠, 教授 森本 尚樹
学位規則第4条第1項該当
Doctor of Human Health Sciences
Kyoto University
DFAM

In traumatic financial times, both shareholders and the media promptly blame companies for lack of decent corporate governance mechanisms. Proxy statement proposals have increasingly been used by the more active shareholders as to vindicate managers to correct anomalies and restore financial markets’ confidence. I examine the proposals of the largest companies in the S&P 500 index after the Lehmann Brothers crash and their effect on stock prices. Proposals initiated by shareholders negatively impact the company’s stock price, particularly if the proposers are unions, pension funds and institutional investors. Also, I find corporate governance proposals to harm firm’s market performance, unlike compensation and social policy proposals whose effects are intangible. The exception to these disappointing attempts to improve companies’ conduct relies on proposals shared by several investors.

碩士
國立成功大學
交通管理科學系
104
According to Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA), there was no turboprop aircraft accident in Taiwan for a decade from 2003 to 2014, but the record was broken in 2014 by the TransAsia Airways GE222 accident. Another plane of the same type crashed in the following year, resulting in an accident rate increase of 16.34%. How the airlines handle the crisis, effectively or ineffectively, impacts their reputation. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the before and after crisis management of TransAsia Airways for GE222 and GE235 air crash on their efforts to improve the aviation safety and crisis management plans. The framework and the attribute of this research were both developed from the crisis threat assessment frame work by using the Importance-Performance Analysis, Revised Importance-Performance Analysis, and Gap Analysis to find out the performance related to these two accidents and analyze their priority improvement strategies through the expert questionnaire survey. The result showed that the most important constructs are “command” and “coordination”. The top three rankings for the priority improvement strategies are “Airlines take action in emergency situation”, “Airlines give clear commands to divisions” and “Airlines communicate with families of victims”. This paper concluded by adding four attributes to help identify the priority improvement strategies for the airlines and management authorities to revise crisis management plans and enhance aviation safety.

Two way left turn lanes (TWLTL) and raised medians are common median treatments on roadways. This research focused on evaluating the safety effectiveness of conversion of TWLTLs into raised medians using Before-After and Cross Sectional Studies. In the Before-After Studies, we evaluated the effect of this treatment using the Naive, Before-After with Comparison Group (CG), and Before-After with Empirical Bayes (EB) Methods. In order to apply these methods, a total of 33 segments of a treated group and 109 segments of a comparison group have been collected. Also, safety performance functions (SPFs) have been developed using the negative binomial model in order to calibrate crash modification factors (CMF) using the Before-After with Empirical Bayes Method. This research also evaluated the safety effectiveness of this treatment on four and six lane roads using Before-After with CG and Before-After with EB. The type of raised medians was further evaluated using Before-After with CG and EB. In sum, the results from this study show that applying the before-After and Cross Sectional studies have proved that the conversion from a TWLTL to a raised median helped to reduce total, fatal and injury, head on, angle, and left turn crashes. It significantly reduces crashes for head-on and left turn crashes, by restricting turning maneuvers. Also, this study has proved that the treatment is more effective on four rather than six lane roads. Furthermore, two types of raised medians, concrete and lawn curb, were evaluated after the conversion from TWLTLs. It was found that both medians have similar effects due to the conversion, and both median types helped in reducing the number of crashes.
M.S.
Masters
Civil, Environmental and Construction Engineering
Engineering and Computer Science
Civil Engineering; Transportation System Engineering Track

博士
高雄醫學大學
醫學研究所
96
Purpose: The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effects of granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF) on neurodegeneration of optic nerve (ON) and retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) in a rat model of ON crush. Materials and Methods: The ONs of adult male Wistar rats (150-180 g) were crushed by a standardized method. The control eyes received a sham operation. G-CSF(100 µg/kg/day in 0.2 ml phosphate buffered saline) or phosphate buffered saline (PBS control) was immediately administered after ON crush for 5 days by subcutaneous injection. Rats were sacrificed at one or two weeks after the crush injury. RGC density was counted by retrograde labeling with Fluorogold application to the superior colliculus, and visual function was assessed by flash visual evoked potentials (FVEP). TUNEL assay, Western blot analysis and immunohistochemistry of p-Akt in the retina and ED1 (marker of macrophage/microglia) in the ON and Fluoro-Jade B in both the retina and the ON were conducted. RT-PCR of TNF-α mRNA in the retinas was also evaluated. Results: Two weeks after the insult, the RGC densities in the central and mid-peripheral retinas in ON crushed, G-CSF-treated rats were significantly higher than that of the corresponding ON crushed, PBS-treated rats (survival rate was 60% vs. 19.6% in the central retina; 46.5% vs. 23.9% in mid-peripheral retina, respectively; p<0.001). FVEP measurements showed a significantly better preserved latency of the p1 wave in the ON crushed, G-CSF-treated rats than the ON crushed, PBS-treated rats (78±9 ms in the sham operation group, 98±16 ms in the G-CSF-treated group, and 174±16 ms in the PBS-treated group; p<0.001). TUNEL assays showed fewer apoptotic cells in the retinal sections in the ON crushed, G-CSF-treated rats. P-Akt immunoreactivity was up-regulated in the retinas of the ON crushed, G-CSF-treated rats at one and two weeks. In addition, the number of ED1-positive cells was attenuated at the lesion site of the optic nerve in the ON crushed, G-CSF-treated group. Fluoro-Jade B immunoreactivity also decreased in both the retina and the ON in the ON crushed, G-CSF-treated group. The RT-PCR of TNF-α mRNA showed the expression of TNF-α mRNA in the retinas also inhibited in the G-CSF-treated group. Conclusions: Administration of G-CSF is neuroprotective in the rat model of optic nerve crush, as demonstrated both structurally by RGC density and functionally by FVEP. G-CSF may work by being anti-apoptotic involving the p-Akt signaling pathway as well as by attenuation of the inflammatory responses at the injury site as evidenced by less ED1-positive cell infiltration in the optic nerve and inhibited expression of TNF-α mRNA in the retinas. Key words: granulocyte colony-stimulating factor, rat model, optic nerve crush, ocular neuroprotection, flash visual-evoked potential, RGC density.

Purpose: Retinal ganglion cell (RGC) loss is a measure of the progression of many visual disorders. It is important to identify RGCs with good specificity, so RGC numbers can be reliably analyzed. The purpose of this study was to analyze the effectiveness of two current RGC markers: Brn3a immunohistochemistry and the expression of Thy1-CFP in the Thy1-CFP transgenic mouse. Methods: Rhodamine-?-isothiocyanate (RITC) retrograde labeling, immunohistochemistry, wholemount retinal imaging, western blot, cross sectional analysis and cell densities in uninjured control animals and 3, 5, 7 and 14 days post-optic nerve crush (ONC) or transection (ONT) were tabulated. Results: Brn3a positive (Brn3a+) cell density was significantly less than RITC positive (RITC+) cell density in control mice. After ON injury, Brn3a+ cell density did not decrease at the same rate as RITC+ cell density. The density of RGCs that express Brn3a was significantly less than the individual Brn3a+ and RITC+ cell density at all experimental time points. Thy1-CFP positive (Thy1-CFP+) cell density was significantly less than RITC+ in control mice and significantly more than RITC+ cell density 14 days after ON injury. Thy1-CFP co-localized with ChAT positive (ChAT+) cells 7 days after ONT. Conclusion: Brn3a and Thy1-CFP are not reliable markers of RGCs. Retrograde labeling remains one of the most reliable methods of labeling RGCs in mice.