Masking Level Difference (MLD) tests are an established component of auditory processing test batteries; however, normative data for these tests vary according to procedure. In this study, forty normal, native-English speaking adults between the ages of 18 and 26 were tested for MLD via a newly developed computer software program using both an adaptive procedure (MLDA) and a Bekesy procedure (MLDB). The results from the two procedures were analyzed for sex differences and compared with each other. For both the MLDA and MLDB, the results showed statistically significant sex differences in the masked thresholds used to obtain the MLD (NoSo and NoSπ), but no significant difference in the calculated MLD value (NoSo - NoSπ). These results suggest that since the MLD was similar for both sexes, the normative data need not be reported separately by sex. The results also showed statistically significant differences between procedures, with the MLDA procedure producing higher MLDs than the MLDB procedure. The MLDA procedure lent itself to a d´ analysis, which could not be determined using MLDB due to the nature of a Bekesy assessment. For MLDA, d´ = 1.4, test sensitivity = 96.4%, and test specificity = 60.3%. The results of this study indicate that MLDA is a better testing procedure due to MLDA’s higher MLD average and the statistical data available (d´, and measures of sensitivity and specificity) when using the MLDA procedure.

[pt] Nesta dissertação é desenvolvida uma metodologia para previsão de demanda mensal de energia elétrica considerando cenários de racionamento. A metodologia usada consiste em, a partir das taxas de crescimento da série temporal, identificar e eliminar os efeitos do racionamento de energia elétrica através da aplicação de Modelos Lineares Dinâmicos. São analisadas também estruturas de intervenção nos modelos estatísticos de Box & Jenkins e Holt & Winters. Os modelos são então comparados segundo alguns critérios, basicamente no que tange à sua eficiência preditiva. Conclui-se ao final sobre a eficiência da metodologia proposta, dado a grande dificuldade para solucionar o problema a partir dos modelos estatísticos de Box & Jenkins e Holt & Winters. Esta solução é então proposta como a mais viável para criar cenários de racionamento e pósracionamento de energia para ser utilizado por agentes do sistema elétrico nacional. / [en] In this dissertation, a methodology is developed to forecast monthly demand of electric energy, considering the rationing scenery. The methodology is based on, taking the growth rate from the time series, identify and eliminate the effects of electric energy rationing, using Dynamic Linear Models. It is also analyzed intervention structures in the statistics models of Box & Jenkins and Holt & Winters. The models are compared according to some criterions, mainly forecast accuracy. At the end, we concluded that the methodology proposed is more efficient, due to the difficult to solve the problem using the statistics models with intervention. This solution is proposed as the best among them to create scenery during the energy rationing and after energy rationing, to be used by the national electric system agents.

Le multicast est un mécanisme efficace qui permet à un grand nombre de récepteurs de recevoir le même contenu puisqu'un paquet traverse une fois et une seule un lien donné. Le multicast a été étudié de longue date et pourtant à ce jour aucun déploiement à grande échelle n'a eu lieu. Aujourd'hui l'une des raisons du non déploiement du multicast auprès des opérateurs de réseaux est la problématique de la sécurité. Or, deux niveaux complémentaires de sécurité doivent être considérés : (1) la sécurité applicative qui est essentiellement la préoccupation des clients finaux et les fournisseurs de contenu, et (2) la sécurité de l'infrastructure de routage multicast, qui est la préoccupation de l'opérateur de réseau. <br />Ce travail considère la sécurité de l'infrastructure multicast du point de vue de l'opérateur de réseau. Or, l'opérateur est essentiellement concerné par un problème de « continuité de service en toutes circonstances », même dans le cas ou son réseau est victime d'une attaque.<br />Dans cette thèse nous identifions les attaques possibles, nous les classons selon leur dangerosité pour l'opérateur, et identifions divers mécanismes de sécurité pour y faire face. Cette étude révèle que l'infrastructure est fortement vulnérable aux attaques DoS consommant les ressources de réseau, ce dernier devenant alors lent voir indisponible. Ces attaques sont faciles à lancer de la périphérie de réseau (intentionnellement ou non) en utilisant les protocoles de gestion de groupe IGMP/MLD. Notre étude révèle également les limites des approches proposées pour répondre à ces attaques. A la lumière de l'analyse détaillée de la problématique, des vulnérabilités, et des solutions actuelles, nous proposons une nouvelle approche pour aider le réseau de l'opérateur à se défendre contre les attaques basées sur IGMP ou MLD. Notre proposition suit une approche pragmatique et flexible, qui garantit qu'elle sera facilement déployée dans les infrastructures existantes, et vise également à protéger les clients légitimes en cas d'attaque.

Submitted by Divisão de Documentação/BC Biblioteca Central (ddbc@ufam.edu.br) on 2017-09-15T13:04:07Z No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) Dissertação - Jhonata S. Pereira.pdf: 1330884 bytes, checksum: 5c3f022fb575b398978d304cf0c97352 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Divisão de Documentação/BC Biblioteca Central (ddbc@ufam.edu.br) on 2017-09-15T13:04:24Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) Dissertação - Jhonata S. Pereira.pdf: 1330884 bytes, checksum: 5c3f022fb575b398978d304cf0c97352 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-09-15T13:04:24Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) Dissertação - Jhonata S. Pereira.pdf: 1330884 bytes, checksum: 5c3f022fb575b398978d304cf0c97352 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-03-22 / CAPES - Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / We present in this dissertation a model for continuous time series in which the observed values are nonnegative but have a proportion of zeros (mass in zero). The model is based on the theory of Dynamic Linear Model (DLM) and Dynamic Generalized Linear Model (DGLM) Which allows us to make inferences of the parameters in a recursive way through the Kalman filter. To evaluate the proposed model was developed a simulation study and applications in time series of pluviometric precipitation. / Apresentamos nesta dissertação um modelo para séries temporais contínuas em que os valores observados são não negativos, mas tem uma proporção de zeros (massa em zero). O modelo é baseado na teoria do Modelo Linear Dinâmico (MLD) e Modelo Linear Generalizado Dinâmico (MLGD) que nos permite fazer inferências dos parâmetros de forma recursiva através do filtro de Kalman. Para avaliar o modelo proposto foi desenvolvido um estudo de simulação e aplicações em séries temporais de precipitação pluviométrica.

Hydrophobic coatings find application in various sectors of the economy including to electronics, textiles, optical devices, and in scientific and commercial equipment. These different applications demand that different hydrophobic coatings posses a range of properties that may include smoothness or roughness, thicknesses on the order of a monolayer or a micron, robustness or the ability to dissolve quickly, transparency or opacity, water resistance or water permeability, electrical conductivity, oleophobicity, etc. However, whatever the final/desired properties, deposition via dry-deposition processes offers significant advantages, including greater reproducibility, increased environmental friendliness, and cost effectiveness on an industrial scale. Herein I explore the chemical vapor deposition of silanes and the characterization of a commercial, hydrophobic coating to better prepare and understand hydrophobic coatings on different materials. One of the characterization techniques I used frequently in these studies is X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). Accordingly, in Chapter 2 of this thesis I discuss this technique vis-à-vis the chemical shifts it detects, which reflect the oxidation states of materials being probed. In particular, I discuss a recommendation made over a decade ago by Gion Calzaferri for 'fixing' the problem of oxidation numbers as applied to organic materials and show how XPS confirms his suggestion. In Chapter 3 I introduce hydrogen as an etch/cleaning gas for silicon wafers. I first show that, like argon and oxygen plasmas, hydrogen plasmas will effectively clean silicon wafers. However, I then show that hydrogen plasma treatment leads to a silicon surface that is chemically different than those prepared with the other plasmas and that undergoes silanization to a greater extent -- the resulting surfaces have higher water contact angles and thicknesses. In Chapter 4 I study the deposition of a potential barrier layer for water, which was prepared from an aza silane: N-n-butyl-aza-2,2-dimethoxysilacyclopentane (1) in a molecular layer deposition (MLD)-like process using either water or ammonium hydroxide as the second half reactant. This molecule has the interesting property of undergoing self-limiting growth, where the termination of this growth is accelerated by use of an ammonium hydroxide catalyst. Interestingly, films of 1 are considerably thicker on nylon than on silicon, which is explained by nylon acting as a water reservoir in the reaction. In Chapter 5 I show the careful characterization of the hydrophobic coating on an Apple iPod nano, which was probed by ToF-SIMS, wetting, and XPS. I could identify that the coating is only applied to the touchscreen of the device. SIMS suggested that the fluorinated coating contains oxygen, which should add to its biodegradability. Finally, in Chapter 6 I make recommendation for future work in these areas.

Metachromatic leukodystrophy (MLD) and Gaucher disease (GD) are caused by a deficiency of arylsulphatase A (ASA) and b-glucocerebrosidase (GBA), respectively. They are lysosomal storage disorders with a heterogeneous clinical spectrum encompassing visceral, skeletal and neurologic involvement resulting in high morbidity and mortality. The overall aim of this study is to elucidate the genetic component/s of high ASA and GBA enzyme activity in normal healthy individuals with the ultimate goal of using this information to produce greater protein activity from a recombinant protein. A wide variation in ASA and GBA enzyme activity levels has been observed in the normal population. The first objective of this project was to identify and characterise single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the arylsulphatase A (ARSA) and glucocerebrosidase (GBA) genes that are responsible for determining the levels of expressed enzyme activity in the normal population. The second objective was to assess the contribution of transcriptional regulation and TCP80 mediated translational control to normal enzyme variation. TCP80, a translational control protein that interacts with the GBA coding region, is a splice variant of the interleukin binding factor 3 (ILF3) gene. Ten samples from individuals with high ASA activity and twenty samples from individuals with high GBA activity were screened for polymorphisms via denaturing high pressure liquid chromatography (dHPLC) and sequencing. The frequency of these polymorphisms in the normal population was determined using dot-blot hybridisation. Fifteen ARSA polymorphisms (4 promoter, 5 coding, 5 intronic and 1 poly(A) signal) and two GBA polymorphisms (1 intronic and 1 in 3¢-UTR) were identified. Two low frequency ASA polymorphisms (2723A > G, W193C) were found to be correlated with low activity, while another low frequency ASA polymorphism (1101+123C > T) was found to be correlated with high activity in a population of 113 individuals. Real time PCR was used to measure mRNA levels of GBA, ASA and LF3 along with enzyme activity levels of GBA and ASA in two cell types (leucocytes and skin fibroblasts) from four healthy individuals and seven cell lines (HL60, THP1, Huh7, U118, SW1353, Hep G2, and B-cells). Transcriptional control was evident for all three genes with GBA mRNA levels varying over 30 fold, ASA mRNA levels varying over seven fold and ILF3 levels varying more than 24 fold. The 5¢-flanking region of GBA was investigated for the cis-elements responsible for tissue-specific expression. However, it was not possible to demonstrate that the cis-element region was influencing GBA expression. Translational efficiency was measured using the magnitude of the mRNA:enzyme activity ratio as an indicator. GBA translational inefficiency was most pronounced in B cells which require four times more mRNA molecules than hepatocytes (Hep G2) and over 25 times more mRNA molecules than chondrocytes (SW1353) to produce one unit of GBA enzyme activity. Except in B-cells, GBA translational efficiency appears to increase as ILF3 mRNA levels decrease. The tissue-specific variation observed in the protein levels of the ILF3 splice variants, TCP80 and DRBP76, may play a role. The correlation of several low frequency SNPs with low ASA enzyme activity or high ASA activity indicates a role in determining the distribution of enzyme activity levels in the normal population. However, there do not appear to be any common high activity polymorphisms. Knowledge of the exact mechanisms responsible for the observed transcriptional and translational control of these lysosomal genes will greatly enhance the understanding of genotype-phenotype correlation and the contribution of genetic variants to natural variation.

<p>Испитивање повезаности особина из перформанс теста назимица са<br />величином легла крмача, обављено је на седам генотипова животиња (чистих<br />раса: дански ландрас, холандски ландрас, немачки ландрас, шведски ландрас и<br />велики јоркшир и програмских мелеза: мелеза чија је мајка ландрас и мелеза чија<br />је мајка велики јоркшир).<br />Фенотипска повезаност особина из перформанс теста (ектеријер, маса на<br />крају теста, старост на крају теста, дневни прираст у тесту, дебљина сланине<br />у слабинском делу, дебљина сланине у леђном делу, дубина МЛД-а, број легла,<br />приплодна вредност назимица процењена селекцијским индексом и проценат меса<br />у трупу) и два основна репродуктивна параметра (број живорођене прасади и број<br />залучене прасади), статистички је анализирана софтверским пакетом &bdquo;Статистика<br />13&ldquo; и &bdquo;SPSS верзија 23&ldquo;. Испитано је постојање/непостојање утицаја сваке<br />појединaчне особине из перформанс теста на репродуктивне особине<br />Није утврђена општа повезаност свих особина перформанс теста и<br />репродуктивних особина<br />Анализиране особине показале су велику зависност од генотипа<br />испитиваних животиња.</p> / <p>Ispitivanje povezanosti osobina iz performans testa nazimica sa<br />veličinom legla krmača, obavljeno je na sedam genotipova životinja (čistih<br />rasa: danski landras, holandski landras, nemački landras, švedski landras i<br />veliki jorkšir i programskih meleza: meleza čija je majka landras i meleza čija<br />je majka veliki jorkšir).<br />Fenotipska povezanost osobina iz performans testa (ekterijer, masa na<br />kraju testa, starost na kraju testa, dnevni prirast u testu, debljina slanine<br />u slabinskom delu, debljina slanine u leđnom delu, dubina MLD-a, broj legla,<br />priplodna vrednost nazimica procenjena selekcijskim indeksom i procenat mesa<br />u trupu) i dva osnovna reproduktivna parametra (broj živorođene prasadi i broj<br />zalučene prasadi), statistički je analizirana softverskim paketom &bdquo;Statistika<br />13&ldquo; i &bdquo;SPSS verzija 23&ldquo;. Ispitano je postojanje/nepostojanje uticaja svake<br />pojedinačne osobine iz performans testa na reproduktivne osobine<br />Nije utvrđena opšta povezanost svih osobina performans testa i<br />reproduktivnih osobina<br />Analizirane osobine pokazale su veliku zavisnost od genotipa<br />ispitivanih životinja.</p>