A anotac~ao de papeis sem^anticos (APS) e uma tarefa do processamento de lngua natural (PLN) que permite analisar parte do signicado das sentencas atraves da detecc~ao dos participantes dos eventos (e dos eventos em si) que est~ao sendo descritos nelas, o que e essencial para que os computadores possam usar efetivamente a informac~ao codicada no texto. A maior parte das pesquisas desenvolvidas em APS tem sido feita para textos em ingl^es, considerando as particularidades gramaticais e sem^anticas dessa lngua, o que impede que essas ferramentas e resultados sejam diretamente transportaveis para outras lnguas como o portugu^es. A maioria dos sistemas de APS atuais emprega metodos de aprendizado de maquina supervisionado e, portanto, precisa de um corpus grande de senten cas anotadas com papeis sem^anticos para aprender corretamente a tarefa. No caso do portugu^es do Brasil, um recurso lexical que prov^e este tipo de informac~ao foi recentemente disponibilizado: o PropBank.Br. Contudo, em comparac~ao com os corpora para outras lnguas como o ingl^es, o corpus fornecido por este projeto e pequeno e, portanto, n~ao permitiria que um classicador treinado supervisionadamente realizasse a tarefa de anotac~ao com alto desempenho. Para tratar esta diculdade, neste trabalho emprega-se uma abordagem semissupervisionada capaz de extrair informac~ao relevante tanto dos dados anotados disponveis como de dados n~ao anotados, tornando-a menos dependente do corpus de treinamento. Implementa-se o algoritmo self-training com modelos de regress~ ao logstica (ou maxima entropia) como classicador base, para anotar o corpus Bosque (a sec~ao correspondente ao CETENFolha) da Floresta Sinta(c)tica com as etiquetas do PropBank.Br. Ao algoritmo original se incorpora balanceamento e medidas de similaridade entre os argumentos de um verbo especco para melhorar o desempenho na tarefa de classicac~ao de argumentos. Usando um benchmark de avaliac~ao implementado neste trabalho, a abordagem semissupervisonada proposta obteve um desempenho estatisticamente comparavel ao de um classicador treinado supervisionadamente com uma maior quantidade de dados anotados (80,5 vs. 82,3 de \'F IND. 1\', p > 0, 01) / Semantic role labeling (SRL) is a natural language processing (NLP) task able to analyze part of the meaning of sentences through the detection of the events they describe and the participants involved, which is essential for computers to eectively understand the information coded in text. Most of the research carried out in SRL has been done for texts in English, considering the grammatical and semantic particularities of that language, which prevents those tools and results to be directly transported to other languages such as Portuguese. Most current SRL systems use supervised machine learning methods and require a big corpus of sentences annotated with semantic roles in order to learn how to perform the task properly. For Brazilian Portuguese, a lexical resource that provides this type of information has recently become available: PropBank.Br. However, in comparison with corpora for other languages such as English, the corpus provided by that project is small and it wouldn\'t allow a supervised classier to perform the labeling task with good performance. To deal with this problem, in this dissertation we use a semi-supervised approach capable of extracting relevant information both from annotated and non-annotated data available, making it less dependent on the training corpus. We implemented the self-training algorithm with logistic regression (or maximum entropy) models as base classier to label the corpus Bosque (section CETENFolha) from the Floresta Sintá(c)tica with the PropBank.Br semantic role tags. To the original algorithm, we incorporated balancing and similarity measures between verb-specic arguments so as to improve the performance of the system in the argument classication task. Using an evaluation benchmark implemented in this research project, the proposed semi-supervised approach has a statistical comparable performance as the one of a supervised classier trained with more annotated data (80,5 vs. 82,3 de \'F IND. 1\', p > 0, 01).

PixD (Slr1694) ist ein Photorezeptor, der den sensors of blue light using FAD (BLUF) Proteinen zugeordnet wurde. Die Übertragung des Stimulus auf das Apoprotein erfolgt in dieser Proteinfamilie über eine Neuordnung des Wasserstoffbrückennetzwerkes um den Kofaktor, in das die strikt konservierten Reste Tyrosin-8 (Y8), Glutamin-50 (Q50) und möglicherweise das semi-konservierte Tryptophan-91 (W91) involviert sind. Ziel dieser Arbeit war es, weitere Hinweise auf die Wasserstoffbrückenkonfiguration der Flavinbindetasche in Dunkel- und Lichtzustand zu erhalten, um eine bessere Vorstellung von der Stabilisierung des Lichtzustandes zu bekommen und mögliche Wege der Signaltransduktion an die Proteinoberfläche einzugrenzen. Die Ergebnisse weisen darauf hin, dass sich lichtaktivierte Interaktionsänderungen zwischen Apoprotein und Chromophor auf die Neubildung einer Wasserstoffbrücke zum Flavin C4-Carbonyl beschränken. In Übereinstimmung zu früheren Analysen liegt das Q50 im Dunkelzustand in seiner Amid-Form vor. Sein Seitenkettencarbonyl ist im Lichtzustand vermutlich zu Y8 ausgerichtet, wobei Hinweise auf eine Amid-Imidsäure-Tautomerisierung des Glutamins in PixD gefunden wurden. Eine selektive Isotopenmarkierung des Tryptophan-91 zeigte Anzeichen für eine Verlängerung des β5-Stranges, die wahrscheinlich ein zentrales Element der Signalweiterleitung an die Proteinoberfläche darstellt. Möglicherweise erstreckt sich das Wasserstoffbrückennetzwerk dabei bis in die über dem beta5-Strang liegende alpha-Helix. Wird es gestört, scheint das Proteininnere für Imidazol zugänglich gemacht zu werden, wo es die Aktivierungsenergie für die Rückkehr in den Dunkelzustand beeinflusst. Auch Substitutionen des H73 im gegenüberliegenden Eckstrang des beta-Faltblattes beeinflussten die Geschwindigkeit der Dunkelrelaxation von PixD. Sie veränderten die IR-Absorption gegenüber dem Wildtyp jedoch nicht und unterstützen die Theorie einer Protonenleitung über das benachbarte H72. / The photoreceptor PixD (Slr1694) belongs to the sensors of blue light using FAD (BLUF) protein family. These photoreceptors propagate the signal by a rearrangement of hydrogen bonds surrounding the cofactor, involving the highly conserved residues tyrosine-8 (Y8), glutamine 50 (Q50) and perhaps the semi-conserved tryptophan-91 (W91). One aim of the presented work was to gain a deeper insight into the hydrogen bond configuration of the flavin binding pocket in the light and dark state conformations. Thereby, knowledge of the stabilization mechanisms for the light state and the signal propagation to the protein surface could be acquired. The results indicate a restriction of light induced changes in hydrogen bonding of the flavin to its C4 carbonyl. In agreement with former studies, the Q50 forms the amide isomer in the dark state. Its side chain carbonyl group most likely points towards Y8 in the active protein. Besides, the results support an amide-imidic acid-tautomerization of Q50 in PixD. A selective isotope labeling of the tryptophan-91 localized at the beginning of an edge strand of the beta sheet indicates an elongation of the secondary structure that may represent a central element of the signal propagation to the protein surface. The secondary structure is possibly connected with an alpha helix located above the beta5 strand by hydrogen bonds. A disturbance of this interaction probably allows the base catalyst imidazole to enter the protein core. Substitutions of H73 in the opposing edge beta strand changed the rate of the PixD dark relaxation as well. However, they had no visible effect on the infrared absorbance compared to the wild type and hence support a putative involvement of the neighbouring H72 in proton transfer reactions.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-08-10T10:47:25Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 LANKER VINICIUS BORGES SILVA LANDIN.pdf: 1157352 bytes, checksum: a1647bfe8ff1c03ac85f2fcf2955db7a (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-03-26 / This dissertation analyzes the white-collar crimes, selectivity and impunity. The investigation of this criminal modality is of paramount importance to Brazil, because contrary to what presents itself, this is one of the criminal activities that brings more harm to the Brazilian society, generating high financial losses, as the case of Petrobras, which is being investigated by Operation Lava jet. Even being involved in criminal activities, the white-collar criminals are not stereotyped as dangerous people to society, unlike what happens, for example, with the thieves. The stereotyping suffered by some criminals is one of the lines of the punishment selectivity of the approach in Brazil. White-collar crimes receive different treatment, if not privileged. The society, laws and agencies responsible for investigating and punishing those who commit crime have a greater tendency to promote exemplary punishment to common criminals, since these are considered dangerous to society. However, for the criminals of high society, the same punishment is not required, because this class is rarely labeled as a class of offenders. In addition, its close relationship with the media that allows use this to form and transmit a good social image. It is emphasized that impunity is taken for all crimes, but is more present in so-called white-collar crimes. For the research the hypothetical-deductive and statistical methods were used. The main findings are pessimistic , since impunity and selectivity serve as power maintenance tool of the great white-collar criminals , so the likelihood is remote to achieve modify the Brazilian criminal reality. / Esta dissertação analisa os crimes de colarinho branco, a seletividade e a impunidade. A investigação dessa modalidade criminosa é de suma importância para o Brasil, pois ao contrário do que se apresenta, essa é uma das práticas delituosas que mais danos traz à sociedade brasileira, gerando elevados prejuízos financeiros, como o caso da Petrobras, o qual está sendo investigado pela Operação Lava Jato. Mesmo estando envolvidos com atividades delituosas, os criminosos de colarinho branco não são estereotipados como pessoas perigosas para a sociedade, diferentemente do que ocorre, por exemplo, com os ladrões. A estereotipização sofrida por alguns criminosos é uma das linhas da abordagem da seletividade da punição no Brasil. Os crimes de colarinho branco recebem tratamento diferenciado, para não dizer privilegiado. A sociedade, as leis e os órgãos responsáveis pela investigação e punição de quem comete crime possuem uma grande tendência em promover a punição exemplar aos criminosos comuns, uma vez que estes são tidos como perigosos para sociedade. No entanto, em relação aos criminosos da alta sociedade, a mesma punição não é exigida, pois essa classe raramente é etiquetada como classe de delinquentes. Ademais, sua relação de proximidade com a mídia permite com que use desta para formar e transmitir uma boa imagem social. Ressalta-se que a impunidade é verificada em todos os crimes, mas se faz mais presente nos chamados crimes de colarinho branco. Para a realização da pesquisa foram utilizados os métodos hipotético-dedutivo e estatístico. Os principais resultados encontrados são pessimistas, posto que a impunidade e a seletividade servem como instrumento de manutenção do poder dos grandes criminosos do colarinho branco, sendo assim é remota a possibilidade de se conseguir modificar a realidade criminal brasileira.

O sistema de rastreabilidade possibilita a localização do alimento em todos os elos da cadeia produtiva desde a matéria-prima até o varejo; pode prover informações da natureza, origem e qualidade do alimento; permite ao consumidor decidir, conscientemente, sobre a compra dos produtos, e permite ao produtor e à indústria, o retorno a um procedimento ou problema através de rápidos mecanismos de localização (recall). Esta pesquisa teve como objetivo a padronização e rotulagem eletrônica do pescado minimamente processado e rastreado, tendo como foco principal a perspectiva do consumidor final bem como, o levantamento de informações sobre as características do consumo de pescado em ambiente universitário e sua relação com a qualidade de vida. Para tanto, foi utilizado um sistema de coleta de dados por meio do uso da internet. A amostra foi composta por voluntários da comunidade da Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Os resultados permitiram o desenvolvimento de um produto com rotulagem eletrônica que dá acesso as principais informações da cadeia de produção pertinentes ao consumidor. O instrumento que avalia o consumo de pescado compôs, juntamente com o questionário de qualidade de vida (WHOQOL-bref) e do nível de atividade física (IPAQ), ambos da Organização Mundial da Saúde (OMS), um sistema informatizado de coleta de dados por meio dos recursos da internet . Com os dados coletados de 1966 voluntários de sete Campi da USP foi possível realizar a análise estatística de validação do instrumento e levantar os principais pontos relacionados ao consumo de pescado e qualidade de vida. Entre os principais resultados, destacam-se que o processo de rotulagem eletrônica para o pescado minimamente processado e rastreado foi considerado eficiente, rápido e seguro quanto ao acesso às informações da cadeia. O sistema de coleta de dados apresentou-se seguro e de abrangência em toda a USP, facilitando o processo de tabulação e análise de dados, primeiramente para validar os constructos do instrumento apresentando bons indicadores estatísticos, após ajustes. Foi possível observar que dentre os atributos do pescado analisados, os que mais se destacam para os consumidores são a coloração, textura, embalagem e ausência de espinho, entre outros. Apenas 35,60 % consomem entre 100 e 200g de pescado por semana o que já seria suficiente para atender a recomendação de consumo e, dessa forma, garantir os benefícios do consumo de pescado. Dentre os que consomem pescado seguindo a recomendação, 60,9 % apresentaram estado nutricional na faixa de normalidade e 74,3 % indicaram ser ativos fisicamente, sendo a maioria mulheres (59,3%), alunas de graduação (42,7 %) do Campus de São Paulo (60,9 %). A maioria considera a iniciativa de disponibilizar o pescado rastreado boa (31,63 %) ou muito boa (41,6 %). Em relação ao preço, 46,57 % considera o valor pago muito importante. Essa pesquisa permitiu ainda sinalizar os principais problemas de comercialização e aceitação, bem como, a relação do consumo de pescado, saúde e qualidade de vida, o desenvolvimento do sistema informatizado de rastreabilidade aplicado à cadeia de produção do pescado, em específico a tilápia do Nilo (Oreochromis niloticus) / The traceability system gives the food location in all productive linked chain from raw material up to retail; it can provide information from nature, origin and food quality; allow the consumer decide and be aware about the products they are buying, also permit the producer and the industry, a procedure return or problem coming from this fast locator mechanism (recall). This research aimed to standardize and electronic fishing labeling detailed processed and traceability, which the main focus is on consumer perspective to obtain information about fish consumption characteristic in a university environment and its relation with quality of life. Thus, it was used a system to obtain data collection based through internet use. The sample was composed by community voluntaries from University of São Paulo (USP). The results allowed the development of a product with electronic labeling, which gives access to key information of chain production relevant to the consumer. The instrument that evaluates fish consumption consists, together with a quality of life questionnaire (WHOQOL-bref) and physical activity level (IPAQ) both from World Health Organization (WHO), and a computerized system for collecting data through internet resources. Data collected from 1966 voluntaries of seven USP Campuses was possible to make statistic analysis of the instrument validation and raise the main topic related to fish consumption and quality of life. In the main results, highlighted the process of electronic labeling for the fish detailed processed and traceability was considered efficient, fast and safe to the access in the chain information. Data collect system performed safe and comprised around USP, easily making tab and the data analyses, firstly evaluating the construct of the instruments and showing good statistics indicators, after adjust. It was possible to observe that among fish attributes, what most highlighted to the consumer was color, texture, packing and the absence of fish bone, among other. Only 35.60% consume between 100 and 200g of fish per week, what would be sufficient to attend recommended consumption and this way guarantee the benefits of FAO consuming. For those that consume fish following the recommendation, 60.9% show nutritional normality and 74.3% show being physically active, being the majority women (59.3%), under graduating students (42.7%) from São Paulo Campus (60.9%). The initiative to provide consumers tracked fish is considered good (31.63%) and very good (41.6%). In connection to the price, 46.57% consider the price paid very important. This research even allowed showing the main acceptance and trade problems, as the relation to the fish, health and quality of life, the developing of traceability computerized system applied to the fish chain production, specially the Tilapia from Nile (Oreochromis niloticus)

Miljö och hållbarhet är något som kommit att uppmärksammas allt mer sedan startskottet på 70-talet i samband med ökat fokus från regeringshåll och grundande av miljöorganisationer. I takt med konsumenters ökade medvetenhet har kraven höjts på svenska klädföretag och deras arbete med hållbar utveckling och hållbara produkter. Problematiken ligger i att svenska klädföretag utför sitt arbete på olika sätt och därav finns olika tolkningar av hur en hållbar produkt är framställd och vad denna ska innehålla. Det är även svårt för kunder att få ett grepp av en hållbar produkt, då de inte finns någon konkret definition.Den övergripande problemformuleringen i arbetet har berört hur olika svenska klädföretag och miljöorganisationer definierar en hållbar produkt. I uppsatsen presenteras olika definitioner av hållbar utveckling och den lagstiftning som ligger till grund för de produkter som produceras och säljs på den svenska marknaden. Uppsatsen innehåller en undersökning ur kvalitativ karaktär. I undersökningen har fyra svenska klädföretag och två miljöorganisationer intervjuats angående deras syn och arbete inom hållbar utveckling. Vi har ur analysen kommit fram till att företagen arbetar med hållbara produkter på olika sätt, med hänsyn till vilka förutsättningar företaget har. Vidare delar varken företagen eller miljöorganisationer en gemensam definition, utifrån vilket ger oss en slutsats är att det i dagsläget saknas en allmängiltig definition.Environment and sustainability have been very much focused since beginning of 1970´s in connection with increased focus from the governments and the founding of environmental organizations. As a result of the increased consumer awareness the requirements on Swedish clothing companies and their work with sustainability and sustainable products have increase as well. The problem is that the Swedish clothing companies perform their work in different ways and therefore have various interpretations of how a sustainable product is produced and what it should contain, which further on makes it difficult for the consumer to make purchases of these productsOverall has the formulation of the problems affected how Swedish clothing companies and environmental organizations define a sustainable product. The essay presents different interpretations of sustainable development and the regulations that are under laying the products that are produced and sold on the Swedish market. The essay contains a survey that has a qualitative character. In the survey four Swedish clothing companies and two environmental organizations have been interviewed regarding their views and work with sustainable development.We have from the analysis concluded that the companies are working with sustainable products in different ways, much depending on what conditions the company has. Furthermore neither the companies nor the environmental organizations have a common interpretation, from which a conclusion is drawn that today there is no general definition to be found. / Program: Butikschefsutbildningen

Submitted by Jorge Silva (jorgelmsilva@ufrrj.br) on 2017-05-10T19:19:55Z No. of bitstreams: 1 2012 - Felipe Reis Rodrigues.pdf: 1576034 bytes, checksum: f91efa30a06e540cab9e32f343fe64b0 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-05-10T19:19:55Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 2012 - Felipe Reis Rodrigues.pdf: 1576034 bytes, checksum: f91efa30a06e540cab9e32f343fe64b0 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-07-20 / CAPES / In Brazil on December 23, 2003 the National Agency of Sanitary Surveillance - ANVISA has published the resolution number 360 (360 RDC). The purpose of this resolution was to repeal the laws related to nutrition labeling of packaged foods ready for consumption (DRC 39 and 40). The legislation of 2003 had the requirement on the labeling of food content of trans fatty acids, as well as specific characteristics of the information contained therein. Currently, epidemiological studies have be associated the consumption of trans fats to the risk of developing cardiovascular and chronic degenerative diseases. In addition, health professionals report that the children have shown high rates of obesity, a situation directly related to excessive consumption of manufactured products. In order to ensure the maintenance and promotion of health, the accuracy of food labels sold in Brazil, mainly in relation to lipid content present in them should be more effectively monitor. This work aimed to make a critical analysis of the nutritional labeling of ?minibolos? sold in the city of Rio de Janeiro, relating lipid profile and content of trans fatty acids and their claim presented. The methodology used for derivatization of fatty acids is characterized by the extraction transesterification. It consists of an acidic or basic catalysis, where there is a double exchange of glycerides of esters of fatty acids. The method described by Huang (2006) for methylation of fatty acids was subjected to the validation process to ensure the accuracy of the results. The determination and quantification of fatty acids were performed by gas chromatography (GC-FID) using fused silica capillary column CP-Sil 88 (100 mx 0.25 mm), at the Analytical Laboratory of Food and Beverage - LAAB. We analyzed the products containing the information to be free of trans fatty acids to quantify the actual levels of these products in order to ascertain whether the labels were described in reliable information. From the results, the obligation to inform in the labels quantities of trans fatty acids was sufficient to make available to brazilian consumers which foods are free of trans fatty acids and which still have trans fatty acids in the food industry. There were no trans fatty acids in the composition of the samples, what means that is a real assertion to be exempt from the same type of fatty acid. / No Brasil no dia 23 de dezembro de 2003 a Agencia Nacional de Vigil?ncia Sanit?ria ? ANVISA publicou a resolu??o de n?mero 360 (RDC 360). O objetivo desta resolu??o era revogar as legisla??es relacionadas a rotulagem nutricional de alimentos embalados prontos para consumo (RDC 39 e 40). A legisla??o de 2003 teve como principal caracter?stica a exig?ncia de se constar no r?tulo dos alimentos o teor de ?cidos graxos trans, al?m de caracter?sticas especificas das informa??es contidas no mesmo. Atualmente, estudos epidemiol?gicos t?m associado o consumo de gorduras trans ao risco do desenvolvimento de doen?as cardiovasculares e cr?nico-degenerativas. Al?m disso, profissionais da ?rea de sa?de relatam que a popula??o infantil tem apresentado ?ndices elevados de obesidade, situa??o diretamente relacionada ao consumo excessivo de produtos industrializados. Com o intuito de zelar pela manuten??o e promo??o da sa?de da popula??o, deve-se fiscalizar de forma mais efetiva a veracidade dos r?tulos dos alimentos comercializados no Brasil, principalmente em rela??o aos teores lip?dicos presentes nos mesmos. O presente trabalho teve por objetivos fazer uma an?lise cr?tica da rotulagem nutricional de minibolos comercializados em estabelecimentos varejistas na cidade do Rio de Janeiro, relacionando o perfil lip?dico e o teor de ?cidos graxos trans e sua alega??o apresentada. A metodologia empregada para a derivatiza??o dos ?cidos graxos ? caracterizada pela transesterifica??o. Ela consiste em uma cat?lise ?cida ou b?sica, onde h? uma dupla troca de acilglicer?is em ?steres de ?cidos graxos. O m?todo descrito por Huang (2006) para metila??o dos ?cidos graxos foi submetido ao processo de valida??o para assegurar a veracidade dos resultados obtidos. A determina??o e quantifica??o dos ?cidos graxos foram realizadas por cromatografia gasosa (CG-FID), utilizando coluna capilar de s?lica fundida CP-Sil 88 (100 m x 0.25 mm), do Laborat?rio Anal?tico de Alimentos e Bebidas ? LAAB. Foram analisados os produtos que cont?m a informa??o de serem isentos de ?cidos graxos trans para quantificar os teores reais destes produtos, visando averiguar se o descrito nos r?tulos eram informa??es fidedignas. A partir dos resultados, verificou-se em que medida a obrigatoriedade de informar nos r?tulos as quantidades de AG trans foi suficiente para tornar dispon?veis aos consumidores brasileiros quais os alimentos que s?o livres de ?cidos graxos trans e quais ainda possuem ?cidos graxos trans na ind?stria aliment?cia no Brasil. N?o foram encontrados AG trans na composi??o das amostras analisadas, sendo real a alega??o das mesmas serem isentas desse tipo de ?cido graxo.

Microfluidics is a vibrant and expanding field that has the potential for solving many analytical challenges. Microfluidics shows promise to provide rapid, inexpensive, efficient, and portable diagnostic solutions that can be used in resource-limited settings. Microfluidic devices have gained immense interest as diagnostic tools for various diseases through biomarker analysis. My dissertation work focuses on developing electrokinetically operated integrated microfluidic devices for the analysis of biomarkers indicative of preterm birth risk. Preterm birth (PTB), a birth prior to 37 weeks of gestation, is the most common complication of pregnancy and the leading cause of neonatal deaths and newborn illnesses. In this dissertation, I have designed, fabricated and developed several microfluidic devices that integrate various sample preparation processes like immunoaffinity extraction, preconcentration, fluorescent labeling, and electrophoretic separation of biomarkers indicative of PTB risk. I developed microchip electrophoresis devices for separation of selected PTB biomarkers. I further optimized multiple reversed-phase porous polymer monoliths UV-polymerized in microfluidic device channels for selective retention and elution of fluorescent dyes and PTB biomarkers to facilitate on-chip labeling. Successful on-chip fluorescent labeling of multiple PTB biomarkers was reported using these microfluidic devices. These devices were further developed using a pH-mediated approach for solid-phase extraction, resulting in a ~50 fold enrichment of a PTB biomarker. Additionally, this approach was integrated with microchip electrophoresis to develop a combined enrichment and separation device that yielded 15-fold preconcentration for a PTB peptide. I also developed an immunoaffinity extraction device for analyzing PTB biomarkers directly from a human serum matrix. A glycidyl methacrylate monolith was characterized within microfluidic channels for immobilization of antibodies to PTB biomarkers. Antibody immobilization and captured analyte elution protocols were optimized for these monoliths, and two PTB biomarker proteins were successfully extracted using these devices. This approach was also integrated with microchip electrophoresis for combined extraction and separation of two PTB biomarkers in spiked human serum in <30 min. In the future, these optimized microfluidic components can be integrated into a single platform for automated immunoaffinity extraction, preconcentration, fluorescent labeling, and separation of PTB biomarkers. This integrated microfluidic platform could significantly improve human health by providing early diagnosis of PTBs.

The human cerebral cortex is a highly foliated structure that supports the complex cognitive abilities of humans. The cortex is divided by its cytoarchitectural characteristics that can be approximated by the folding pattern of the cortex. Psychiatric and neurological diseases, such as Huntington's disease or schizophrenias, are often related with structural changes in the cerebral cortex. Detecting structural changes in different regions of cerebral cortex can provide insight into disease biology, progression and response to treatment. The delineation of anatomical regions on the cerebral cortex is time intensive if performed manually, therefore automated methods are needed to perform this delineation. Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is commonly used to explore the structural change in patients with psychiatric and neurological diseases. This dissertation proposes a fast and reliable method to automatically parcellate the cortical surface generated from MR images. A fully automated pipeline has been built to process MR images and generate cortical surfaces associated with parcellation labels. First, genus zero cortical surfaces for each hemisphere of a subject are generated from MR images. The surface is generated at the parametric boundary between gray matter and white matter. Geometry features are calculated for each cortical surface to as scalar values to drive a multi-resolution spherical registration that can align two cortical surfaces together in the spherical domain. Then, the labels on a subject's cortical surface are evaluated by registering a subject's cortical surface with a population atlas and combining the information of prior probabilities on the atlas with the subject's geometry features. The automated parcellation has been tested on a group of subjects with various cerebral cortex structures. It shows that the proposed method is fast (takes about 3 hours to parcellate at one hemisphere) and accurate (with the weighted average Dice ~0.86). The framework of this dissertation will be as follows: the first chapter is about the introduction, including motivation, background, and significance of the study. The second chapter describes the whole pipeline of the automated surface parcellation and focuses on technical details of every method used in the pipeline. The third chapter presents results achieved in this study and the fourth chapter discusses the results and draws a conclusion.

Depuis longtemps les réactifs isothiocyanates (ITCs) sont largement utilisés dans le domaine de la bioconjugaison. Ces électrophiles forts réagissent avec les cystéines et les lysines des protéines pour former une liaison stable. Cette réactivité click permet de réaliser des marquages sélectifs ainsi que des fonctionnalisations de protéines. Cependant, les ITCs ne sont pas faciles à synthétiser et à isoler et leur stabilité ne permet pas une conservation optimale.Le but de ce projet est de développer le système enzymatique myrosinase-glucosinolate (MG) comme outil de conjugaison capable de former un ITC in situ. Le tandem MG est un mécanisme de défense des plantes de l’ordre des Brassicales bien connu. Dans ce système biochimique, la myrosinase opère comme thioglucosidase, en hydrolysant les glucosinolates (GLs), pour générer des ITCs. L’avantage de ce tandem enzymatique est de produire les ITCs à partir de précurseurs solubles dans l’eau, non toxiques, sous conditions douces.Afin d’explorer cet outil enzymatique, deux types de GLs non naturels ont été conçus. En raison de l’importance de l’interaction lectine-mannose dans les mécanismes d’adhésion bactérienne, nous avons conçu une petite librairie de GLs intégrant un mannoside. De cette façon il est possible d’étudier des lectines bactérienne (FimH). Le second type de glucosinolate est caractérisé par une deuxième fonction chimique, permettant de réaliser des réactions orthogonales.Le système MG a été évalué dans plusieurs approches de bioconjugaison telles que le marquage sélectif d’une lectine, la synthèse de néoglycoprotéines et la fonctionnalisation de nanoparticules. / Since many decades, Isothiocyanate (ITCs) reagents are widely used in bioconjugation approaches to create a stable bond onto the lysin and cysteine residues of proteins and peptides. Thanks to this click reaction it is possible to achieve a selective ligation or a high functionalization of proteins. On the others hand, isothiocyanates are not easy to prepare, to isolate, to store and most of the time insoluble in water.The aim of this work is to explore the myrosinase-glucosinolate (MG) enzymatic tandem as a ligation system, in order to release ITCs in-situ. The MG tandem is a well-known mechanism of defense in plants of the order Brassicales. In this biochemical system, myrosinase acts as a thioglucosidase, hydrolyzing glucosinolates (GLs) to liberate transient species that spontaneously form ITCs. The advantage of this enzymatic tandem is to generate ITCs from a stable non-toxic GLs precursor, soluble in water, using mild conditions.In order to develop this enzymatic tool, two kind of unnatural GLs were synthetized. Due to the important role of the mannoside-lectins interaction in the bacterial adhesion mechanism, at first, we designed a small library of GL bearing mannosides, in order to target and study the bacterial lectin FimH. The second kind of GL possess a chemical function allowing to study orthogonal reactions. After, the ability of the myrosinase to hydrolyze those unnatural GLs was investigated, as well their chemical reactivity.Then, the performances of the MG system was studied in different approaches of bioconjugation, such as: the synthesis of neoglycoproteins (NGPs), the site selective labeling of a lectin and the functionalization of gold nanoparticles. The feasibility of these strategies confirmed that the MG system can be used as an enzymatic tool in some bioconjugation approaches.

Labeling problem, due to its versatile modeling ability, is widely used in various image analysis tasks. In practice, certain prior information is often available to be embedded in the model to increase accuracy and robustness. However, it is not always straightforward to formulate the problem so that the prior information is correctly incorporated. It is even more challenging that the proposed model admits efficient algorithms to find globally optimal solution. In this dissertation, a series of natural and medical image segmentation tasks are modeled as labeling problems. Each proposed model incorporates different useful prior information. These prior information includes ordering constraints between certain labels, soft user input enforcement, multi-scale context between over-segmented regions and original voxel, multi-modality context prior, location context between multiple modalities, star-shape prior, and gradient vector flow shape prior. With judicious exploitation of each problem's intricate structure, efficient and exact algorithms are designed for all proposed models. The efficient computation allow the proposed models to be applied on large natural and medical image datasets using small memory footprint and reasonable time assumption. The global optimality guarantee makes the methods robust to local noise and easy to debug. The proposed models and algorithms are validated on multiple experiments, using both natural and medical images. Promising and competitive results are shown when compared to state-of-art.