No Brasil 72% dos óbitos são decorrentes de complicações destas doenças. Associado ao alto custo do Sistema Público de Saúde e elevado risco às doenças secundárias, o excesso de peso, pode ocasionar a lipodistrofia localizada, esta, caracterizada pelas poucas alternativas de tratamento, sendo o tratamento cirúrgico o mais realizado. Poucos estudos demonstram a utilização de terapia auxiliar para a redução da lipodistrofia localizada e ainda há maior restrição em pesquisas específicas visando o tratamento da lipodistrofia abdominal. O presente estudo procurou verificar os efeitos de uma terapia não invasiva, em uma região específica predisponente ao acúmulo de gordura, o abdome. Foi realizado um estudo longitudinal, de abordagem quantitativa, do tipo descritiva, composto por 33 mulheres, com acúmulo de adiposidade abdominal, na faixa etária dos 20 a 35 anos. Inicialmente todas assinaram o Termo de Consentimento Livre e Esclarecido (TCLE); sequencialmente, houve uma divisão da amostra em dois grupos: A, que realizou dez sessões seguidas do protocolo fisioterapêutico e B, que realizou cinco sessões, seguida de uma pausa e realizou outras cinco sessões do protocolo. Todas as voluntárias responderam o questionário e realizaram a primeira avaliação corporal que foi repetida após a quinta e décima sessão do protocolo fisioterapêutico além da realização do exame de Densitometria por Absorciometria de Raios X de Dupla Energia (DXA) que foi realizado ao início e término das sessões, que consistiu na aplicação abdominal de um protocolo desenvolvido baseado em associação de duas técnicas fisioterapêuticas: o ultrassom de 3MHz e a corrente alternada de média frequência. Foram analisados inicialmente os dados coletados da amostra geral seguido da análise de comparação entre os grupos A e B, para a verificação da normalidade da distribuição utilizou-se o teste de Shapiro-Wilk e para a comparação dos dados utilizou-se a ANOVA de Friedman. Os resultados encontrados para as variáveis analisadas da amostra geral: massa, perimetria de cintura, perimetria de cicatriz umbilical, perimetria da menor circunferência abdominal, perimetria da maior circunferência abdominal e percentual de gordura de tronco avaliado por meio da DXA, apresentou o valor de p<0,001 verificando uma diferença significativa comparada à avaliação inicial à final. Em relação ao percentual de gordura corporal total avaliado pela DXA, o valor de “p” foi p=0,779, demonstrando uma redução com variação de 0,1% a 2,7% entre as voluntárias. Quando comparados os grupos A e B, observou-se homogeneidade entre os grupos e não foi apresentada diferença estatística entre eles, portanto não houve alteração do resultado final. Sendo assim, este protocolo foi desenvolvido especificamente para o tratamento da lipodistrofia abdominal feminina e durante o estudo se mostrou eficaz no tratamento para redução deste tipo de adiposidade em mulheres jovens. / In Brazil the complications of these illnesses are responsible for 72% of the deaths. Overweight combined with not only the high costs of health service provided by the government, but also with the high risk of secondary diseases, can cause localized lipodystrophy which has few alternatives for treatment, being surgical treatment the most common. Few studies show the usage of adjunctive therapy in order to reduce localized lipodystrophy and still they have greater restriction in specific research aiming at the treatment of localized abdominal lipodystrophy. The objective of this study was to verify the results of a non-invasive therapy in a specific area more predisposed to fat accumulation – the abdomen. A longitudinal study was performed, using a quantitative-descriptive research composed of 33 women with abdominal fat accumulation, with an age range of 20 to 35 years old. All of them signed an informed consent term (TCLE) and the sample was divided in two groups: A, which held ten physiotherapy sessions according to the physiotherapy protocol and B, which held five physiotherapy sessions, followed by a pause, and then held other five sessions according to the protocol. All the volunteers answered a questionnaire and went through their first body evaluation, which was repeated after the fifth and tenth session according to the physiotherapy protocol. They also underwent a Dual-Energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) test, repeated in the beginning and in the end of the sessions, which consisted of an application of a protocol, in the abdomen, developed based on the association of two physiotherapy techniques: 3-MHz ultrasound and medium-frequency alternating current. Initially, the general sample data was analyzed, followed by the comparative analysis between groups A and B. A Shapiro- Wilk test was performed to check the normality of the distribution and ANOVA Friedman was used to compare the data. The results for the variables analyzed in general sample were: mass, waist measurement, umbilical scar measurement, narrowest abdominal circumference measurement, widest abdominal circumference measurement and midsection fat percentage p<0,001, evaluated by DXA, showing a considerable difference if compared from the initial evaluation to the final. The percentage of total body fat evaluated by DXA was p=0,779 demonstrating reduction with a variation of 0,1% to 2,7% among all the volunteers. Comparing groups A and B, homogeneity could be observed and there was no statistic difference between them. Therefore, this protocol was developed specifically for the treatment of abdominal lipodystrophy in women and during the present study it demonstrated to be efficient for the treatment of reduction for this type of adiposity in young women.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / The substantial increase demand for electrical energy requires high efficient apparatus dealing with energy conversion. Several technologies have been suggested to implement power supplies with higher efficiency, such as multilevel and interleaved converters. This thesis proposes an energy conversion unit with an optimized number of output voltage levels per number of switches nL=nS. The proposed five-level four-switch per phase converter has nL=nS=5/4 which is by far the best relationship among the converters presented in technical literature. A comprehensive literature review on existing five-level converter topologies is done to compare the proposed topology with conventional multilevel converters. The most important characteristics of the proposed configuration are: (i) reduced number of semiconductor devices, while keeping a high number of levels at the output converter side, (ii) only one DC source without any need to balance capacitor voltages, (iii) high efficiency, (iv) there is no dead-time requirement for the converters operation, (v) leg isolation procedure with lower stress for the DC-link capacitor. Single-phase and three-phase version of the proposed converter is presented in this thesis. Details regarding the operation of the configuration and modulation strategy are presented, as well as the comparison between the proposed converter and the conventional ones. Simulated results are presented to validate the theoretical expectations. In addition a fault tolerant converter based on proposed topology for micro-grid systems is presented. A hybrid pulse-width-modulation for the pre-fault operation and transition from the pre-fault to post-fault operation will be discussed. Selected steady-state and transient results are demonstrated to validate the theoretical modeling.