Difficult problems are tasks which number of possible solutions increase exponentially or factorially. Application of common mathematical methods for finding proper solution in polynomial time is ineffective. Signal prediction is an example of diffucult problem. Signal is represented with a time serie and there is no explicit mathematical formula describing the signal. When genetic algorithms are applicated, they try to discover hidden patterns in time serie. These patterns can be used for prediction. Implication rules are used for discovery of these hidden patterns in time serie. Each rule is represented by one chromosome in population. Rules consist of two parts: conditional part and result part. Rules in population are compared with time serie and then the rules are evaluated according to their success in prediction. After the evaluation of rules, simulated evolution is started. Result of this evolution process is a group of rules which represent the most distinct patterns in time serie. These rules are then validated on validation set. Application is implemented in JAVA programming language.

<b>Background:</b> The survival rate of preterm children has risen steadily due to advances in obstetric and neonatal intensive care. Children born extremely preterm (&le;28 weeks of gestation) are at high risk of long term developmental problems, including cerebral palsy, motor and cognitive impairment, visual and auditory deficits and behavioural problems. This can have serious implications for their quality of life and that of their family and carers. These children take up a disproportionate amount of neonatal intensive care unit resources and overall costs, and as they grow up are more likely to require additional health and social care services beyond routine care to compensate for their functional limitations. The early identification and management of factors that mediate long term outcome is necessary to assist healthcare professionals in selecting appropriate treatment pathways, and to develop, target and evaluate interventions. Many risk factor analyses for neurodevelopmental impairment have been published in preterm populations, but this vast literature has not been formally summarised. Furthermore, there is a dearth of studies reporting longitudinal analysis of neurodevelopmental trajectories from early childhood to adulthood. <b>Objectives:</b> The first aim of this thesis was to perform a comprehensive systematic review of the world literature over the last two decades, to consolidate the evidence about the prognosis of neurodevelopmental outcome in children born very preterm or with very low birth weight. The second aim was to conduct a longitudinal analysis of a cohort of extremely preterm participants followed up into early adulthood to investigate the trajectories of long term sequelae over time, and to examine the association of neurodevelopmental course in relation to the predictive factors identified in the systematic review. <b>Methods:</b> A systematic review was conducted using MEDLINE, EMBASE and PyscINFO databases to identify studies published between January 1 1990 and June 1 2014 reporting multivariable prediction models for the neurodevelopment of children born &le;32 weeks of gestation or with a birth weight &le;1250 grams (protocol registration number CRD42014006943). Seventy-eight studies reporting 222 risk factor models for neurodevelopmental outcome were identified. Two independent reviewers extracted key information about study design, outcome definition, risk factor selection, model development, reporting, and conducted a risk of bias assessment. To address the second objective of the study, a longitudinal analysis of cognitive and behavioural trajectories was conducted using a prospective, population-based cohort study in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. Three hundred and fifteen surviving infants born less than 26 completed weeks of gestation recruited at birth in 1995 and 160 term-born classroom peers recruited at age six were followed-up to 19 years. Participants were invited for up to four standardized, blinded cognitive assessments and the parent-completed Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire was used to assess behavioural problems. <b>Results:</b> The systematic review of risk factors for motor impairment in children born very preterm or with very low birth weight provided strong evidence that neonatal brain injury is a robust prognostic factor for cerebral palsy, and some evidence that the use of postnatal steroids increases the risk and the use of antenatal steroids reduces the risk of cerebral palsy. There was moderate evidence that male sex was prognostic for motor impairment at school age in children free of major disability. The systematic review of risk factors for cognitive impairment identified male sex, non-white ethnicity, lower levels of parental education and lower birth weight as significant predictors of global cognitive dysfunction in early infancy, with parental education having a sustained impact after five years of age. There was also evidence that male sex was predictive of delayed language development in early infancy. Gestational age was found to be of limited use as prognostic factor for cerebral palsy, motor and cognitive impairment in cohorts restricted to &le;32 weeks of gestation. There was a dearth of good quality studies investigating risk factors for behavioural problems and psychiatric disorders and the findings of this review were inconclusive. The only factors that appeared to be consistent predictors of general behavioural problems were markers of socio-economic deprivation, neurodevelopmental or cognitive delay, and an abnormal behavioural screen in early infancy. In the longitudinal analysis of the prospective, population-based cohort of extremely preterm children, cognitive trajectories were stable in both the extremely preterm and term-born groups over time with persistent deficit in the extremely preterm group of 25.2 IQ points (95&percnt; CI: -27.8 to -22.6, p&LT;0.001) and only minimal catch-up over time. Participants with neonatal brain injury and of male sex had the largest deficits, but a lower level of maternal education and earlier gestational age at birth were also associated with reduced IQ scores. Behavioural problems were also more prevalent among the extremely preterm participants who had a mean Total Difficulties Score of 4.81 points above their term-born peers (95&percnt; CI: 3.76 to 5.87, p&LT;0.001) and which persisted over the time period. Behavioural difficulties were mainly due to hyperactivity, inattention and peer problems and were strongly associated with a positive behavioural screen in early infancy. <b>Conclusions:</b> The most robust predictors of poor neurodevelopmental outcome identified by the systematic review were neonatal brain injury, male sex, and markers of social disadvantage. The unclear findings for many risk factors may reflect differences in study design, study population, methodological quality and lack of standardization of measures. Or it may simply reflect the fact that prognostic modelling in such a heterogeneous population is challenging and complex, with multiple risk factors acting sequentially over time, and often with the existence of multiple impairments within the same individual. The main conclusions from the longitudinal analysis of children born extremely preterm is that being born too soon appears to place limits on brain plasticity and function which is not recovered over time; with the most vulnerable being males and those with evidence of brain injury early in life. These structural abnormalities may disturb neurodevelopmental processes and impede the brain from maintaining a normal developmental trajectory. If extremely preterm children fail to achieve optimum levels of cognitive function and are still experiencing behavioural problems once they have reached maturity, then this has implications for health and well-being in later adulthood and old age. Cognitive test scores in infancy and early childhood reflect early adult outcomes and a positive behavioural screen in infancy is strongly associated with early adult behavioural outcomes. <b>Recommendations:</b> The systematic review revealed some shortcomings in methodology and reporting that could be improved in future studies, and confirmed that that there is a dearth of properly designed and well-conducted prognostic modelling studies in this field. The findings and recommendations of this critical review should be used as a basis for the design, analysis and reporting of future studies seeking to develop multivariate risk factor or prognostic models in this population. There is an urgent need for larger population cohorts followed up routinely beyond two years as subtle outcomes such as impairment of executive function and fine motor skills cannot be reliably assessed at this age, and the natural course of some disorders may have their onset later in childhood. / Studies with larger sample sizes and greater power are needed for studying less common conditions in preterm populations and there should be more standardisation of outcome and risk factor measurements, particularly with the use of standard diagnostic evaluations to assess psychiatric disorders. Future studies should include a term-born comparison group and adopt appropriate statistical analysis techniques to analyse longitudinal outcome data and the impact of risk factors on these trajectories. Additional research is required to improve the prediction of individual differences, and to identify the neuropathological differences underlying different developmental trajectories and their interaction with environmental influences over time.

Newspaper article: "Sit under oak and think of our ancestors”.

abstract: Time-series plots are used in many scientific and engineering applications. In this thesis, two new plug-ins for piecewise constant and event time-series are developed within the Eclipse BIRT (Business Intelligence and Reporting Tools) framework. These customizable plug-ins support superdense time, which is required for plotting the dynamics of Parallel DEVS models. These plug-ins are designed to receive time-based alphanumerical data sets from external computing sources, which can then be dynamically plotted. Static and dynamic time-series plotting are demonstrated in two settings. First, as standalone plug-ins, they can be used to create static plots, which can then be included in BIRT reports. Second, the plug-ins are integrated into the DEVS-Suite simulator where runtime simulated data generated from model components are dynamically plotted. Visual representation of data sets can simplify and improve model verification and simulation validation. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Computer Science 2015

Made available in DSpace on 2016-06-02T19:48:26Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 6683.pdf: 1309691 bytes, checksum: a89d34d3628e54a7f9ed01c34014ad28 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-02-26 / This work entitled "The search for natural childbirth and motivations to prepare the pelvic diaphragm with the epi-no" has as main objectives: to understand the elements involved in the choice of women for natural childbirth, identify motivations for the preparation of the pelvic diaphragm with the epi-no, seeking natural childbirth and identify the components that facilitate and those that hinder this choice. Was carried out with women who were part of the Epi-no Program, Health Laboratory initiative of Women of University of São Paulo, between 2013 and 2014. This is a qualitative research, for which we used as theoretical and methodological approach, Feminism Dialogic proposed by Lygia Puigvert (2001) and the Critical Communicative Methodology (MCC) proposed by Gomez et al (2006), both anchored in theoretical frameworks of Dialogic Learning, which in turn are based on concept of Communicative Action Habermas (1999) and dialogical of Paulo Freire (1994; 2005). The MCC seeks to identify the transformative dimensions, that is, those that promote or facilitate, in this case, a pleasurable experience of childbirth and cause difficulties dimensions, that is, those that represent a barrier to this experience, both relating to the categories of life and world system. Data collection began in November / 2013, and the analysis was organized as the basic level of analysis proposed by the MCC. Eight women were interviewed, seven of them completed the two phases of the communicative account, according to the methodology and there was canceling an interview, due to loss of material. The women were between 22 and 38 years with predominance of age above 30 years, all had a partner, five were primiparous (1st pregnancy) and two multiparous (2 or more pregnancies), with a history of cesarean section and abortion and all performed in childbirth hospital environment. The results showed that the discovery of pregnancy urged to talk with family, friends and health professionals about natural childbirth; aroused the personal search for information (books, magazines, internet, support groups natural childbirth); motivated to prepare the pelvic diaphragm with epi-no, among others. Childbirth, previously seen as traumatic and surrounded interventions (oxytocin, episiotomy, Kristeller) and suffering, in general gained a new meaning, exchanging a traumatic experience for a autonomous, self-control, fulfilling and unforgettable experience. The dimensions that transformed the labor context were linked to the experience of women and were related to world of life category. The analysis showed that they were more promising than category system, in other words , institutions, spaces, organization systems and guidelines governed by power or money. The processing dimensions were represented by groups who take the initiative to provide the dissemination of knowledge to women or who brought innovations (epi-no equipment, for example). In the case of cause difficulties dimensions, it was observed that the elements that related to the system and those related to the world of life is presented in similar numbers, showing that the woman is motivated to prepare the natural birth is difficult, both in his personal / family life, as in institutions. This work demonstrated that the changes initiated in the world of life category and that women rethought their way to see the birth, overcame their fears and naturelly tried to "convince" people around them. In the population studied was noted that the epi-no reduced lacerations, episiotomies warned, however in some cases did not prevent lacerations 1st degree. It is hoped that this work contribute to reflections on the delivery care model in order to rescue the female autonomy in childbirth and reduce myths and anxiety around the issue, reaffirming the importance, both from a personal point of view as a social and epidemiological , to follow the recommendations of the World Health Organization, as regards the issue of labor and birth. / O presente trabalho intitula-se A busca pelo parto natural e motivações para o preparo do assoalho pélvico com o epi-no e teve como principais objetivos: compreender os elementos envolvidos na escolha da mulher pelo parto natural, identificar motivações para o preparo do assoalho pélvico com o epi-no, visando o parto natural e identificar as dimensões que facilitam e aquelas que dificultam essa escolha. Foi realizado com gestantes que faziam parte do Programa de Epi-no, iniciativa do Laboratório de Saúde da Mulher de uma Universidade do interior de São Paulo, entre os anos 2013 e 2014. Trata-se de uma pesquisa qualitativa, para a qual se utilizou como referencial teórico-metodológico, o Feminismo Dialógico proposto por Lygia Puigvert (2001) e a Metodologia Comunicativa Crítica (MCC) proposta por Gomez et al (2006), ambos ancorados nos referenciais teóricos da Aprendizagem Dialógica, que por sua vez se baseiam no conceito da Ação Comunicativa de Habermas (1999) e na Dialogicidade de Paulo Freire (1994; 2005). A MCC busca identificar as dimensões facilitadoras, ou seja, aquelas que promovem, neste caso, uma vivência prazerosa do parto e as dimensões dificultadoras, ou seja, aquelas que representam uma barreira à esta vivência, relacionando ambas às categorias mundo da vida e sistema. A coleta de dados foi iniciada em novembro/ 2013 e a análise foi organizada conforme o nível básico de análise proposto pela MCC. Foram entrevistadas oito mulheres, sete delas concluíram as duas fases do relato comunicativo, de acordo com a metodologia e houve cancelamento de uma entrevista, devido à perda de material. As mulheres tinham entre 22 e 38 anos com predominância de idade acima dos 30 anos, todas tinham companheiro, cinco eram primíparas (1ª gestação) e duas multíparas (2 ou mais gestações), com histórico de cesárea e abortos e todas realizaram o parto no ambiente hospitalar. Os resultados mostraram que a descoberta da gravidez incitou, nessas mulheres, curiosidade em dialogar com familiares, amigos e profissionais da saúde sobre o parto natural; despertou a busca pessoal por informações (livros, revistas, internet, grupos de apoio ao parto natural); motivou para o preparo do assoalho pélvico com o epi-no, entre outros. O parto, visto anteriormente como traumático e cercado de intervenções (ocitocina, episiotomia, Kristeller) e sofrimento, em geral ganhou um novo significado e passou de uma experiência traumatizante para uma experiência autônoma, de autocontrole, realizadora e inesquecível. As dimensões que facilitam o contexto do parto estavam ligadas à vivência das mulheres e se relacionaram a categoria mundo da vida. A análise mostrou que foram mais promissoras do que aquelas que se apresentaram a categoria sistema, ou seja, as instituições, espaços, sistemas de organização e diretrizes reguladas pelo poder ou dinheiro. As dimensões facilitadoras foram representadas por grupos que tomam a iniciativa de proporcionar a difusão de conhecimento para as mulheres ou que trouxeram inovações (equipamento epi-no, por exemplo). No caso das dimensões dificultadoras, observou-se que, os elementos que se relacionaram ao sistema e os que se relacionaram ao mundo da vida se apresentaram em números equiparados, demonstrando que a mulher que se motiva para o preparo do parto natural encontra dificuldades, tanto em sua vida pessoal/familiar, quanto nas instituições. Este trabalho demonstrou que as mudanças iniciaram no mundo da vida e que as mulheres repensaram sua forma de ver o parto, superaram seus medos e tentaram contagiar as pessoas em seu entorno. Na população estudada notou-se que o epi-no reduziu as lacerações, preveniu episiotomias, porém em alguns casos não evitou lacerações de 1º grau. Espera-se com este trabalho contribuir para reflexões acerca do modelo de atenção ao parto, de forma a resgatar a autonomia feminina no parto e reduzir mitos e ansiedade em torno do tema, reafirmando a importância, tanto do ponto de vista pessoal como social e epidemiológico, de atender as recomendações da Organização Mundial da Saúde, no que se refere às questões do parto e nascimento.

The aim of the diploma thesis is to design a comparison process for reporting tools with accent on managerial decision-making needs, and to demonstrate its use in practice by comparing two selected reporting tools. Theoretical foundation, on which the thesis is built, is created first. The main accent is put on introducing performance measurement and management and the role, which is played by reporting in relation to it. Reporting itself is subsequently addressed in more detail separately. The theoretical part of the thesis focuses on analysis and synthesis of findings stemming from review of literature, theses dealing with related topics, and scientific articles published electronically. The practical part of the thesis deals with the introduction and utilization of the designed comparison process for reporting tools with respect to the tools' suitability for supporting decision-making. The process was used to compare Tableau Desktop and Eclipse BIRT. Outputs in the form of graphs and dashboards from Tableau Desktop, which - given the chosen criteria and their weights - achieved higher score in comparison to Eclipse BIRT, were used to demonstrate their possible use in the context of decision-making. In the practical part of the thesis comparison is used based on the designed process, defined method of calculating criteria weights and evaluation system. Criteria weights are calculated using Fuller's pairwise comparison method. Generic information shown is based on the analysis and synthesis of related publicly accessible business, economic, marketing and product information. The thesis puts reporting into the context of decision-making process, more specifically into the context of its role within performance measurement and management. The conclusion that can be drawn is that even though there are numerous processes, approaches, methods, disciplines etc. dealing with performance measurement and management, it is reporting that provides the means enabling smoother decision-making. Thanks to reporting it is possible to access large volumes of data and information stored in the source systems, transform them and present them to users in a way which will support their decision-making needs. The contribution of the thesis lies in the creation of a flexible process for reporting tools comparison. The introduced process can be used by any organization dealing with the matter of choosing the most suitable reporting tool from more alternatives. The introduced process enables organizations to use a clearly defined sequence of steps, while at the same time allowing them to choose appropriate parameters best fitting their needs. Thus, the introduced process reflects the fact that priorities and needs of organizations may differ and therefore it is not possible to introduce a set of rigid criteria suiting the needs of all in general.

The master thesis deals with a theme of Open Source Business Intelligence tools from the point of view of a small company. The theoretical part describes the historical background of Open Source software and Business Intelligence theory. The practical part summarizes possibilities and properties of particular selected tools, based on implementation of partial activities with fi?ctional company data. Based on a multicriterial analysis, a variant proposal of BI solution for a specifi?c small company is created at the end of the thesis.

The number of new born babies with very low birth weight (VLBW) is increasing. The percentage of those who survive is rising due to developments in modern technologies and science. While dealing with the problem of premature birth the medical, social, psychological and economical aspects needs to be considered. Therefore, the attention is primarily not only on to the question of saving the life but also to ensure the upmost quality of life and health. The care of the child provides a multidisciplinary team, where each role within the team is irreplaceable and their co-operation is necessary to ensure physical and psychological wellbeing of the child. An important role within the team has the surgery of the paediatric practitioner inclusive of the paediatric nurse and a quality follow-up care after the home discharge of the VLBW child. The following objectives were defined in the diploma thesis. To identify how nurses contribute to the care of the VLBW children in the paediatric practitioners surgery. To identify whether nurse given health education is sufficient to families of these children. To find out what are the most common health complications in VLWB children in the paediatric practitioner?s surgery. To find out how VLBW children influence the family psycho-social and economic status. To meet the theses objectives three research question were determined. Which of the nurse?s roles participates most in the care of the VLBW children in the paediatric practitioner?s surgery? Do parents apprehend the field nurse education activity as conductive to solutions to the VLBW issues? Threatens the birth of a VLBW child the family psycho-social and economic stability? The theoretical part of the theses laid out current knowledge in the care of the prematurely born in paediatrics institutions. It stressed out the importance of the elementary presumptions of a successful development such as nutrition, adjusted immunization schedule and differences in multidisciplinary care. Furthermore it explained the nurses? role and outlined the elementary problems premature birth can cause in a family. The practical part focused on qualitative research. The data were gathered via in-depth structural interviews with mothers of VLBW children who reached at the time of the interview 2 years of age and with nurses. The interviews were supplemented with observation. The research results suggest that like mothers like nurses understand the need for a specialized care of the prematurely born children. However, it further suggests differences in their understanding of the nurses? importance and nurses role in this care. The research identified areas which needs improvement in order to provide better care and to improve the mother-nurse relationship in the paediatric practitioner?s surgery. Furthermore, it demonstrated the need for further nurses? education and need for evidence based practice. Moreover, it emphasised the importance of the VLWB children multidisciplinary follow-up care and proved the hypothesis that the birth of a child with VLWB is a great interference with family life, especially in psycho-social domain.

Educators in many disciplines are too often forced to rely on intuition about how students learn and the effectiveness of teaching to guide changes and improvements to their curricula. In computer science, systems that perform automated collection and assessment of programming assignments are seeing increased adoption, and these systems generate a great deal of meaningful intermediate data and statistics during the grading process. Continuous collection of these data and long-term retention of collected data present educators with a new resource to assess both learning (how well students understand a topic or how they behave on assignments) and teaching (how effective a response, intervention, or assessment instrument was in evaluating knowledge or changing behavior), by basing their decisions on evidence rather than intuition. It is only possible to achieve these goals, however, if such data are easily accessible. I present an infrastructure that has been added to one such automated grading system, Web-CAT, in order to facilitate routine data collection and access while requiring very little added effort by instructors. Using this infrastructure, I present three case studies that serve as representative examples of educational questions that can be explored thoroughly using pre-existing data from required student work. The first case study examines student time management habits and finds that students perform better when they start earlier but that offering extra credit for finishing earlier did not encourage them to do so. The second case study evaluates a tool used to improve student understanding of manual memory management and finds that students made fewer errors when using the tool. The third case study evaluates the reference tests used to grade student code on a selected assignment and confirms that the tests are a suitable instrument for assessing student ability. In each case study, I use a data-driven, evidence-based approach spanning multiple semesters and students, allowing me to answer each question in greater detail than was possible using previous methods and giving me significantly increased confidence in my conclusions. / Ph. D.