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Secondary analysis of the Australian Longitudinal Study of Women's Health (ALSWH) cohort to assess the link between physical activity and mortality.

Secondary analysis of the Australian Longitudinal Study of Women's Health (ALSWH) cohort to assess the link between physical activity and health-related quality of life.

A subject area is analyzed and the topicality of the problem of face recognition is shown. Methods for matching images by applying position lines, convolutions and invariants to the group of affine transformation for 2D and 3D images are examined. Proper comparison is a necessary condition for solving the recognition problem. Proper use of the position-line method for reducing face images to the normalized form is shown.

Selv om restaurantbransjen i Norge stadig omsetter for mer, er det også en bransje som er preget av høy gjennomtrekk og konkursrate. Oslo står alene for omtrent 30% av hele bransjens omsetning og det er også fylket hvor det etableres flest restauranter. Tidligere studier viser at god økonomistyring er helt avgjørende for suksessen til restauranter, men litteraturen indikerer at bruken av økonomiske styringsverktøy ikke nødvendigvis praktiseres. Teorien påpeker at det er spesielt stor forskjell på hvordan mindre og større organisasjoner utøver styring. Målet med utredningen er dermed å besvare følgende problemstilling: «I hvilken grad bruker restauranter regnskapsbaserte styringsverktøy og hvilke funksjoner har disse verktøyene?» Empirien som er brukt for å belyse oppgavens formål er samlet inn gjennom en casestudie av restaurantbransjen i Oslo. Datainnsamlingen foregikk kvalitativt gjennom personlige intervjuer med innehavere og økonomisjefer av enkeltstående restauranter og restaurantgrupper. Funnene fra studie er diskutert i lys av teorier om styringskonfigurasjon blant norske bedrifter og praksisen av regnskapsbaserte styringsverktøy blant restauranter. Resultatene fra utredningen viser at bruken av regnskapsbaserte styringsverktøy i restaurantbransjen i stor grad avhenger av størrelsen på bedriften. Restaurantgruppene hadde gjennomgående omfattende og klare prosesser for hvordan de klassiske styringsverktøyene som er undersøkt skal anvendes. Bruken av styringsverktøyene var av vesentlig betydning siden de ga informasjon som var kritisk for gruppenes beslutningstaking. Blant de enkeltstående restaurantene var det større ulikheter for bruken av regnskapsbaserte styringsverktøy. Mens fokuset og praksisen av de undersøkte verktøyene var klart mindre enn hos gruppene, var det likevel tilfeller hvor verktøyene ble tatt i bruk. Formålet og praksisen av eventuelle styringsverktøy var derimot vag og lite målrettet. Inntrykket er at enkeltstående restauranter i stor grad er fornøyd med rapportene de får tilsendt fra eksterne regnskapsførere, og bruk av styringsverktøy føles unødvendig på grunn av høy tilstedeværelse av innehaverne i restaurantene. Med mindre bruk av de samme styringsverktøyene som restaurantgruppene og fravær av andre supplerende verktøy, virker det som at mange beslutninger blir basert på antakelser og estimater. Although the revenues of the restaurant industry in Norway is constantly increasing, it is also an industry characterized by high levels of turn over and bankruptcy rates. Oslo alone accounts for about 30% of the entire industry's turnover and it is also the county where most restaurants are established. Previous studies show that good financial management is crucial to the success of restaurants, but the literature indicates that the use of financial management tools is not necessarily practiced. The theory points out that there is a particularly big difference between how smaller and larger organizations exercise control. The aim of the study is thus to answer the following problem: "To what extent do restaurants use accounting-based management tools and what features do these tools have?" The empiricism used to illustrate the purpose of the study was collected through a case study of the restaurant industry in Oslo. The data collection was conducted qualitatively through personal interviews with the owners and financial managers of individual restaurants and restaurant groups. The findings from the study are discussed in light of theories of management configuration among Norwegian companies and the practice of accounting-based management tools among restaurants. The results of the study show that the use of accounting-based management tools in the restaurant industry largely depends on the size of the company. The restaurant groups had extensive and clear processes for how to use the classic management tools that were investigated. The use of the management tools was essential since they provided information that was critical to the group's decision-making. Among the individual restaurants, there were greater differences in the use of accounting-based management tools. While the focus and practice of the tools examined were clearly less than in the groups, there were nonetheless cases where the tools were used. The purpose and practice of any management tools, on the other hand, was vague and untargeted. The impression is that individual restaurants are largely satisfied with the reports they receive from external accountants, and use of management tools feels unnecessary due to the high presence of restaurant owners in the restaurants. With less use of the same management tools as the restaurant groups and the absence of other complementary tools, many decisions seem to be based on assumptions and estimates. M-ØA

Prevention of cardiovascular disease (CVD), a leading cause of death in men and women, is both a global and national public health priority. Prevention efforts have generally focused on well-known lifestyle (e.g., physical inactivity, unhealthy diet, smoking) and metabolic (e.g., overweight/obesity, hypertension, hyperlipidaemia) risk factors. It is also important for public health strategies to consider emerging risk factors, innovative approaches to risk factors, and evidence in middle-aged men and women, to develop effective prevention strategies. This thesis explored innovative aspects of cardiovascular risk in a large cohort of middle-aged and older Australian men and women (“the 45 and Up Study”) by examining: 1) emerging or lesser known risk factors such as raw vegetable intake (Chapter 3), sedentary behaviour (Chapter 4, Appendix 1) and psychological distress (Chapter 5); 2) the single versus joint influence of lifestyle risk factors on incident type 2 diabetes (Chapter 4, Appendix 1) and hypertension (Chapter 5); 3) potential gender differences (Chapters 3-5, Appendix 1), and female-specific behaviours such as breastfeeding (Chapters 6-7). Overall, findings support Australian recommendations for fruit and vegetable intake, physical activity, alcohol intake and infant breastfeeding. While the importance of reducing known risk factors for CVD prevention was evident, the role of raw vegetable intake, sedentary behaviour and psychological distress was inconclusive. Breastfeeding was associated with a lower maternal risk of CVD. Findings confirmed that adopting a cluster of healthy lifestyle behaviours can reduce CVD risk in the middle-aged and older population. Potential gender differences were explored and identified. This thesis contributes to the literature by exploring innovative aspects of cardiovascular risk that are relevant to middle-aged adults, particularly women, as well as informs health care providers, researchers and policy makers.

The lack of our understanding about Parkinson’s Disease (PD), the second most common and incurable neurodegenerative disorder, has caused a great impact in both treatment and research for this disease. Although not a few intensive studies have been conducted with the hope of gaining more knowledge about the complex biology underlying this debilitating condition, it seems that our efforts have not completely uncovered the molecular mechanisms related to the neurodegeneration, which is critical in PD. Phenotypic assay, particularly cytological profiling (CP), has recently emerged as a powerful unbiased strategy to study the mechanisms of action in many biological systems. CP is a cell-based and image-based approach that evaluates the effects of small molecules on several organelles within the cell, enabling the assessment of multidimensional phenotypic functions instead of a single interaction that is usually seen in target-based approaches. Previous research in our institute utilizing CP has identified quite a few compounds that interacted with PD patient-derived cells. It is therefore worth believing that CP could be a future approach for combating PD. This project was conducted as part of our ongoing research intending to discover molecules from nature to study the biology of PD. Our aim was to use 1H NMR guidance to discover natural products from a traditional Chinese medicinal plant. Cytological profiling on a patient-derived cell line (human olfactory neurosphere-derived (hONS) cells) was performed for the isolated compounds to determine if they are potentially qualified as chemical probes to serve the research of PD. This thesis will demonstrate the study that integrates chemistry and biology to identify small molecules and the effects they influenced to the cell model, revealing their potential value as molecular tools for a better interrogation of the disease mechanism. The thesis was initiated with an introduction that covered several concepts, including traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), PD, CP, hONS cell model and chemical probes. Starting with TCM – a multi-century health care system in China, the introduction acknowledged that TCM herbal plants are invaluable sources of bioactive small molecules with respect to the traditional experience accumulated for thousands of years. It then moved on to a brief discussion of Parkinson’s Disease ‒ an irremediable neural degenerative disorder, and some current therapeutic treatments for this disease, as well as giving rationale as to why this condition should be researched. The introduction went on with a review on CP and its application in drug discovery, followed by a description of current disease models for PD, as well as the hONS cell model used in this project. It was noted that hONS cells derived from PD patients can recapitulate some functional aspects of this disease, and thus coupling CP with hONS cell model could shed light on the biological studies of PD. The chapter continued with a description of chemical probes, their importance in medicinal research and that these small molecules are valuable tools for interrogating the pathways of PD. Finally, the durability of NMR fingerprinting in identify compounds was demonstrated in the last part of this chapter. Chapter 2 provided details of the equipment and procedures involved in this project to assist the chemical purification and biological characterization of the compounds isolated from the selected herbal plant. Detailed spectroscopic data were also present in this chapter. Chapter 3 first gave in introduction on the selected biota, Macleaya cordata (Willd.) R.Br., including how it was initially chosen in the previous PhD project and its traditional medicinal use. The chapter then moved on to the targeted isolation of natural product from this species by utilizing the robustness of 1H NMR spectroscopy and mass spectrometry (MS), which resulted in the isolation of two new compounds and fourteen known metabolites. The in-depth structural elucidation of the two new compounds, (6R)- 10-methoxybocconoline and 6-(1-Hydroxyethyl)-10-methoxy-5,6-dihydrochelerythrine, were also mentioned in this chapter, followed by the use of density functional theory (DFT) to assign the absolute configuration (AC) of one new molecule. The chapter concluded with discussion on the validity of NMR fingerprinting and future directions on the remaining work which involved AC assignment for the other new compound. Chapter 4, the final chapter, presented the intensive data analysis for the CP screening of the isolated compounds. It was revealed that four out of sixteen metabolites showed significant perturbations to the hONS cellular parameters. Those compounds included bocconoline which impacted EEA1- and mitochondria-associated features, 6- (1-hydroxyethyl)-5,6-dihydrochelerythrine, 3-O-feruloylquinic acid and ferulic acid 4-Oglucoside which influenced LC3b-related features. These compounds can potentially be used as molecular tools to probe the biological pathways of PD. The last part of the chapter was the discussion on the CP platform used to identify the above potential probes, as well as future directions on the biology cohort. It was concluded that more justifications should be made in order to verify the potency of the compounds being qualified as useful probes. Dose dependence, mechanisms of action and drug-like properties for the candidate probes were among the future follow-up research to have a better understanding in the exploration of complex molecular mechanisms underlying PD.

E-banking is an inevitable trend of the banking industry in the future. E-banking benefits not only banks but also customers, so the study of models of adoption and usage of E-banking is essential. Nguyễn & Cao (2011) propose the adoption and usage of E-banking model in Vietnam - E-BAM (E-Banking Adoption Model), and their findings showed that eight following factors - performance expectancy, compatibility, perceived ease of use, perceived behavioral control, subjective norm, perceived risk in transaction, bank image, and macro impact of law - affect the E-banking adoption and E-banking adoption affects E-banking usage. However, according to some relevant theoretical models, this model does not show relationships among independent variables and the effects of independent variables on the E-banking usage. In this paper, authors re-propose a new model of E-BAM to overcome the limitations of the 2011 research, the relationships in the model were analyzed by linear structural model - SEM (Structural Equation Modeling). Factors including perceived behavioral control, compatibility, performance expectancy, bank image and perceived risk in transaction are mutually influenced and affect the E-banking adoption intention; while perceived ease of use and E-banking adoption affect the E-banking usage.