O presente trabalho avaliou corações com pericardite e pulmões correspondentes através da análise anatomopatológica, bacteriológica, histopatológica e da técnica da Reação em Cadeia da Polimerase (PCR) a fim de identificar os agentes envolvidos no processo e correlacioná-los com as lesões macroscópicas presentes. O estudo foi realizado em quatro frigoríficos do estado do Rio Grande do Sul com o apoio do Serviço de Inspeção Federal (SIF) durante o período de fevereiro a outubro de 2010. Foram coletadas 120 amostras de corações com pericardite e pulmões correspondentes e avaliadas 3.487 carcaças na linha de inspeção em 20 lotes diferentes, totalizando 8 coletas. Os materiais foram examinados nos laboratórios de Microbiologia, Biologia Molecular e Patologia Veterinária da Faculdade de Veterinária da Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul. Entre as pericardites, 86,7% foram classificadas como fibrinosas (104/120), 6,7% serosas (8/120), 2,5% (3/120) sero-fibrinosas e 4,2% (5/120) amostras não puderam ser classificadas. Foram diagnosticadas lesões de endocardite em somente 2,5% (3/120) dos corações. Quanto aos pulmões analisados, as alterações macroscópicas mais encontradas foram 66,6% (80/120) aderências de pleura direita e/ou esquerda, 19,1% (23/120) hepatizações dos lobos apicais direito e 5,83% (7/120) do esquerdo, 23,33% (28/120) do lobo cardíaco direito e 23,33% (28/120) do esquerdo. Pela análise histopatológica do coração, a lesão mais frequente foi presença de tecido de granulação denso fibroso e em algumas amostras tecidos de granulação frouxo, com proliferação de vasos em ambos os casos. Havia presença de fibrina e células inflamatórias mononucleares em alguns casos. Na análise dos pulmões correspondentes, 70% (84/120) das amostras de pulmões apresentavam algum tipo de lesão aparente. As lesões mais comuns foram pleurite crônica, hiperplasia das células do tecido linfóide associado aos brônquios (BALT), presença de macrófagos alveolares e broncopneumonia purulenta. Não foram observadas lesões microscópicas em 23,3% (28/120) dos pulmões e 6,6% (8/120) não foram coletados para análise devido a cronicidade da lesão. A análise da carcaça mostrou pleurite parietal em 12,5% (15/120) e algum tipo de envolvimento articular em 1,6 % (2/120) dos animais, não sendo objetivo avaliar o tipo de lesão e sim uma possível correlação com Haemophilus parasuis. Das análises bacteriológicas dos corações, obteve-se um maior número de isolados de Pasteurella multocida 16% (20/120), seguido de Streptococcus spp. 17,3% (6 /120) e 5% (6/120) Haemophilus parasuis. A maior parte dos isolados foi obtida das pericardites fibrinosas. Com relação aos pulmões correspondentes, foram isolados 17,5% (22/120) Pasteurella multocida, 51.57% (8/120) Streptococcus spp., e 0,8% (1/120) Haemophilus parasuis. Entre os isolados de P. multocida foi realizada a tipificação capsular das cepas identificadas no pulmão e coração através da PCR e todas pertenciam ao tipo A. Na técnica da PCR no coração pode-se observar um grande número de M. hyopneumoniae 34,8% (39/112), seguido de A. pleuropneumoniae 23,2% (26/112), H. parasuis 6,2% (7/112), P. multocida tipo A 3,5% (4 /112) e M. hyorhinis 2,6% (3/112). A mesma técnica aplicada aos pulmões correspondentes, revelou M. hyopneumoniae 81,2% (91 /112), H. parasuis 36,6 % (41 /112), A. pleuropneumoniae 33,9% (38/112), P. multocida tipo A 30,3% (34/112), M. hyorhinis 9.8% (11/112). / The present work assessed hearts with pericarditis and the corresponding lungs through visual analysis of gross lesions, bacteriology, histopathology and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to identify agents involved in the processes and to correlate them with the lesions. The study was carried out in four slaughterhouses from the state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, with the help of the Service of Federal Inspection (SIF) during the period of February to October, 2010. Samples of 120 hearts with pericarditis and corresponding lungs were collected and examined, and 3.487 carcasses were assessed in the slaughter line in 20 different batches, in a total of 8 sample collections. Materials were examined in the laboratories of Microbiology, Molecular Biology and Pathology of the Faculdade de Veterinária da Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. Among the samples with pericarditis, 104 were classified as fibrinous (86.7%), 8 serous (6.7%), 3 sero-fibrinous (2.5%) and 5 remained unclassified (4.2%). Lesions of endocarditis were present in 3 hearts (2.5%). Regarding lungs, the commonest gross changes were 80 pleural adhesions (66.6%) and 23 consolidations of the right apical lobes of the lung (19.1%) and 7 (5,83%) of the left; 28 (23,33%) from right cardiac lobe and 28 (23,33%) of left. Using histopathological analysis of the heart, the most frequent lesions were the presence of dense fibrous granulomatous tissue and, in some samples, loose granulation tissue, with of vessels proliferation in both cases. It was also found fibrin and inflammatory mononuclear cells in some cases. In the analysis of the corresponding lungs, 84 (70%) of the samples showed some type of apparent lesion. Te most prevalent lesions were chronic pleuritis, hyperplasia of lymphoid tissue cells associated to bronchia (BALT), presence of lung macrophages and purulent bronchopneumonia. Twenty eight lungs (23.3%) did not show any microscopic lesion and 8 (6.6%) were not collected because of the chronicity of the lesion. The analysis of the carcass showed parietal pleurisy in 15 (12.5 %) and joint involvement in 2 (1.6 %), but the present study did not intend to assess such lesions but a possible correlation with Haemophilus parasuis infection. Regarding bacteriological examination of the heart, Pasteurella multocida was the biggest isolation rate 16% (20/120), followed by Streptococcus spp 17.3% (6 /120) and 5% (6/120) Haemophilus parasuis. Most isolates were obtained from fibrinous pericarditis. Regarding the corresponding lungs, Pasteurella multocida was isolated in 17.5% (22/120) materials, Streptococcus spp in 51.57% (8/120), and Haemophilus parasuis in 0.8% (1/120). Pasteurella multocida capsular typing was carried out from strains identified through PCR from heart and lungs, all belonged to the serotype A. By PCR from samples from pericarditis a large number of M. hyopneumoniae was detected: 34. 8% (39/112), followed by APP 23.2% (26/112), H. parasuis 6.2% (7/112), P. multocida type A 3.5% (4 /112) and M. hyorhinis 2.6% (3/112). The same technique applied to the corresponding lungs, showed M. hyopneumoniae in 81.2% (91 /112), H. parasuis in 36.6 % (41 /112), APP in 33.9% (38/112), P. multocida type A in 30.3% (34/112) and M. hyorhinis in 9.8% (11/112).

Os modelos autoregressivos simétricos são modelos de regressão em que os erros são correlacionados -- AR(1) -- e pertencem à classe de distribuições simétricas. O objetivo deste trabalho é discutir métodos de diagnóstico de influência para esses modelos. Para ilustrar a metodologia, são apresentados exemplos do modelo de precificação de ativos (CAPM). / The symmetric autoregressive models are regression models in which the errors are correlated and belong to the class of symmetrical distributions. The aim of this work is to discuss influence diagnostic methods for those models. To illustrate the methodology, examples of Capital Asset Pricing Models (CAPM) are presented.

Foram submetidas a prova do \"California Mastitis Test\"(CMT), 468 vacas leiteiras pertencentes a seis propiedades rurais produtoras de leite tipo B, localizadas na região do Município de Barretos, SP. Das 56 (12,0 por cento ) fêmeas reagentes a esta prova, 48 (1O,3 por cento ) foram confirmadas através do isolamento e identificação do agente etiológico. A elevada concordância (85,71 por cento ) verificada entre, a prova do CMT e o exame bacteriológico, confirma a eficiência desta prova na detecção de transtôrnos da glândula mamária não perceptíveis clínicamente, uma vez que nenhuma das fêmeas analisadas apresentou sinais da enfermidade. A contagem leucocitária e a pesquisa do teor de cloretos efetuadas nas 56 fêmeas reagentes a prova do CMT, apresentaram concordâncias de 87,5 por cento e 50,0 por cento , respectivamente, em relação ao exame bacteriológico. O Staphylococcus aureus foi o agente etiológico mais frequente (52,08 por cento ) nos casos de mastite bovina. O estudo comparativo entre a contagem padrão em placas e a prova da redução do azul de metileno, efetuado nas 56 amostras reagentes a prova do CMT, revelou que 30 (53,57 por cento ) amostras apresentaram tempo de redução não condizente com o número de microrganismos determinado, isto é, tempo de redução menor que 3 l/2 horas e contagem total de microrganismos inferior a 500.000 microrg/ml. Observou-se, ainda, que destas 30 amostras, 26 (86,67 por cento ) apreesentaram contagens leucocitárias superiores a 2.500.000 leucócitos/ml., sugerindo deste modo, uma provável interferência dos leucócitos quando em número elevado, na prova da redução do azul de metileno. O estudo comparativo entre a contagem padrão em placas e a prova da redução do azul de metileno, efetuado nas 30 amostras negativas a prova do CMT, revelou que 27 (90,0 por cento ) amostras apresentaram o tempo de redução condizente com o número de microrganismos determinado, o que confirma a importância de sua utilização na rotina do Serviço de Inspeção. A provãvel interferência dos leucócitos não compromete a eficiência desta prova, pois as variações observadas ocorrem no sentido de abreviar o tempo de redução, sendo muito pequena a probabilidade de aceitação de um produto com o número de microrganismos superior ao permitido pelo Ministério da Agricultura. Dentre as provas utilizadas pelo Serviço de Inspeção na detecção da mastite bovina a nível de Estabelecimentos Industriais a prova de Whiteside foi a que apresentou maior sensibilidade e especificidade, capaz de revelar a presença de leite anormal em rebanhos cuja prevalência desta doença foi igual ou superior a 7,0 por cento das fêmeas ou 1,4 por cento dos quartos analisados. A pesquisa do teor de cloretos apresentou menor sensibilidade e especificidade, incapaz de revelar a presença de leite anormal em todos os rebanhos analisados. Entretanto, este fato não invalida a utilidade de sua aplicação, pois esta prova pode ser de fundamental importância na detecção de fraudes no leite. A prevalência da mastite bovina em até 20,0 por cento das fêmeas leiteiras ou em ate 5,0 por cento dos quartos examinados, não foi suficiente para colocar os quesitos analisados nas amostras de leite, fora dos padrões normais. Acredita-se que estes padrões devam ser objeto de estudos posteriores. / Four-hundred and sixty-eigth milk cows, belonging to six type B milk producing dayry farms, located in the region of Barretos, SP, Brazil were submitted to \"California Mastitis Test\", of the fifty-six (12,0 per cent ) cows positive to the mentioned test, forty eigth (10,31) had the diagnosis confirmed throght isolation and identification of the etiologic agent. High agreement (85,7 per cent ) was obtained between CMT and bacteriologic examination, which confirms the efficiency of CMT in the detection of diseases of the mammary glands, not perceptible by clinical examination, as none the animals examined presented signs of disease. Leucocyte count and determination of chloride level performed on the fifty-six reactors presented agreement of 87,5 per cent and 50,0 per cent , respectively, with bacteriological examination. Staphylococcus aureus was the most frequently isolated bacterium (52,08 per cent of cases). Comparison between total plate count and reductase test, performed on thirty samples negative to CMT, showed that twenty-seven samples (90,0 per cent ) presented a reduction time compatible with the number of microorganisms present, confirming the importance of reductase test regarding inspection. The theoretical interference of leucocytes was not important in practice, as variations observed were abreviation of reduction time, rendering the propability of accepting a product with a number of microorganisms over legal limits very small. Considering tests used by the Inspection Service for detection of bovine mastitis, the Whiteside test presented highest sensivity and specificity, as it was capable of reveling abnormal milk when prevalence was 7,0 per cent and over, considering animals and 1,1 per cent considering quarters. Chloride level presented lower sensitivity and specificity as it was unable to detect abnormal milk in all dairy farms. However it is very important in the detection of frauds. Prevalence of mastitis of up to 20,0 per cent of animals or of 5,0 per cent of quarters was not sufficient to bring the total milk produced below standards.

The Diploma thesis deals with the Diagnostics of Reinforced Concrete Bridge in the village of Luhačovice. This thesis also describes the individual Diagnostic methods and instruments used in purpose to make Diagnosis of bridge constructions. The main aim of the Diagnostics is to determine the current state of the Bridge which consists in verification of the actual road structure, determination of the physical and mechanical parameters of the Concrete (strength, depth of carbonation) and in some parts of the bridge structure to determine the type, number and position of the bending or shear reinforcement. Based on the evaluation of the laboratory tests a static calculation of the selected part of the Bridge structure is performed. The final evaluation is the determination of the load and the subsequent design of the necessary and recommended measures for maintaining or improving the functionality of the bridge structure.

The thesis Building Investigation and Diagnosis of Reinforced Concrete Structure is focused on analyzing two reinforced concrete bridge structures. It discusses different evaluation surveys and its influence on later evaluation of the bridges. In this thesis there is included static evaluation finding supports at one of reinforced concrete bridges. Practical part is complemented by the necessary theoretical part, which deals with exploring bridges, ways of their implementation, and a summary of the most commonly used diagnostic methods for bridges.

This thesis is devoted to analysis of the diagnostic methods used in practice. It is divided into two parts: theoretical and practical. The theoretical part concerns with the general description of the transformers. Further it provils informatik about systems for sampling oil from transformers with insulating oil – paper system. Another important part is the description of gas chromatography and TRANSPORT X. Description of the most appropriate evaluation methods for assessment of the state of the transformer is included as well.

This thesis is focused on the area of analysis and diagnostic of monocrystalline solar cells, using local light radiation. Main goals of this thesis are focused on explanation of generation and behavior microplasma in solar cell, in dependence of temperature and reversed bias voltage. As a next focus of this thesis is strong regions of microplasma sources, analyzed by scanning electron microscope and a detailed analysis of edge and surface structure is made. The influence of the environment (air pressure, level of vacuum and nitrogen gas) on the microplasma generation and behavior is observed in the vacuum chamber of electron microscope. The results from microplasma method are correlated with noise diagnostic method and on the base of these results are set a new thesis and mathematical equations for the defects behavior in different conditions. The outcomes of the research are shared with the manufacturer od silicon solar cells, Solartec s.r.o. company. It is the advanced diagnostic methods that allow improving the quality of the production process, through early detection of individual groups of defects.

<p>Hearing loss afflicts as many as 10\% of our population.Fortunately, technologies designed to alleviate the effects ofhearing loss are improving rapidly, including cochlear implantsand the increasing computing power of digital hearing aids. Thisthesis focuses on theoretically sound methods for improvinghearing aid technology. The main contributions are documented inthree research articles, which treat two separate topics:modelling of human speech recognition (Papers A and B) andoptimization of diagnostic methods for hearing loss (Paper C).Papers A and B present a hidden Markov model-based framework forsimulating speech recognition in noisy conditions using auditorymodels and signal detection theory. In Paper A, a model of normaland impaired hearing is employed, in which a subject's pure-tonehearing thresholds are used to adapt the model to the individual.In Paper B, the framework is modified to simulate hearing with acochlear implant (CI). Two models of hearing with CI arepresented: a simple, functional model and a biologically inspiredmodel. The models are adapted to the individual CI user bysimulating a spectral discrimination test. The framework canestimate speech recognition ability for a given hearing impairmentor cochlear implant user. This estimate could potentially be usedto optimize hearing aid settings.Paper C presents a novel method for sequentially choosing thesound level and frequency for pure-tone audiometry. A Gaussianmixture model (GMM) is used to represent the probabilitydistribution of hearing thresholds at 8 frequencies. The GMM isfitted to over 100,000 hearing thresholds from a clinicaldatabase. After each response, the GMM is updated using Bayesianinference. The sound level and frequency are chosen so as tomaximize a predefined objective function, such as the entropy ofthe probability distribution. It is found through simulation thatan average of 48 tone presentations are needed to achieve the sameaccuracy as the standard method, which requires an average of 135presentations.</p>

Este texto apresenta um método alternativo de regressão que é denominado regressão L1. Este método é robusto com relação a outliers na variável Y enquanto o método tradicional, mínimos quadrados, não oferece robustez a este tipo de outlier. Neste trabalho reanalisaremos os dados sobre imóveis apresentados por Narula e Wellington (1977) à luz da regressão L1. Ilustraremos os principais resultados inferenciais como: interpretação do modelo, construção de intervalos de confiança e testes de hipóteses para os parâmetros, análise de medidas de qualidade do ajuste do modelo e também utilizaremos medidas de diagnóstico para destacar observações influentes. Dentre as medidas de influência utilizaremos a diferença de verossimilhanças e a diferença de verossimilhanças condicional. / This text presents an alternative method of regression that is called L1 regression. This method is robust to outliers in the Y variable while the traditional least squares method does not provide robustness to this type of outlier. In this work we will review the data about houses presented by Narula and Wellington (1977) in the light of the L1 regression. We will illustrate the main inferential results such as: model interpretation, construction of confidence intervals and hypothesis tests for the parameters, analysis of quality measures of model fit and also use diagnostic measures to highlight influential observations. Among the measures of influence we will use the likelihood displacement and the conditional likelihood displacement.

Bacterial bloodstream infections (BSIs) are a major healthcare problem causing high mortality and economic cost. BSIs require an immediate initiation of antibiotic therapy as any delay is associated with a mortality increase. With the emergence of antimicrobial resistance, the choice of the appropriate antibiotic becomes increasingly difficult, thus creating an urgent need for new diagnostics, ideally to be done at the point of care. The current gold standard is blood culture with subsequent susceptibility testing although several molecular methods have recently entered the market. However, in many instances there is a discrepancy between the in-vitro data provided by the test and the outcome of antimicrobial therapy in-vivo because current diagnostics fail to take into account the impact of the environment in the patient such as the immune system, pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics or bacterial fitness. In this thesis, it was hypothesised that the measurement of the bacterial gene expression after the beginning of antibiotic therapy might be a more accurate indicator of the therapy outcome because it reflects the bacterial response under in-vivo conditions. In the first part of the thesis the expression of a set of pre-defined mRNA markers was investigated under various conditions. Experiments conducted with clinical E. coli isolates incubated in human whole blood revealed an excellent correlation between the gene expression, the treatment outcome, the antibiotic susceptibility and the genetic background for three different classes of antimicrobial drugs. The second part of the thesis describes the extraction of bacterial RNA from human whole blood specimen. The effect of different agents for the lysis of human blood cells and the impact of co-purified human RNA were analysed and a method for high yield extraction of undegraded bacterial RNA was established. The third part of the thesis investigates two methods for the sensitive measurement of the bacterial gene expression. This is relevant because the bacterial loads in BSI patients are extremely low. For genes with high gene expression levels both methods yielded reliable results but were unable to quantify the expression of the previously investigated mRNA markers due to their low copy numbers. Other approaches, especially those based on single cell measurements, might be able to overcome the problem in the future and should be explored in greater detail. Overall, the foundations for a future diagnostic test based on the measurement of the bacterial gene expression have been laid in this work. Future work should address the mRNA quantification and further evaluate the connection between gene expression and therapy outcome, e.g. in animal models. A future diagnostic test should also fulfil point-of-care requirements. This will include integrated sample preparation and quantification as well as a time-to-result in the range of a few minutes.