In this thesis we have shown that a seemingly complicated mathematical structure can exhibit 'tame behaviour'. The structure we have dealt with is a field (a space in which there are addition and multiplication which satisfy natural properties) together with a dense subset (a subset which has spread in all parts of the this set, as Q does in R) and a discrete subset (a subset comprised of single points which keep certain distances from one another). This tameness is essentially with regards to not being trapped with the 'Godel phenomeonon' as the Peano arithmetic does.

Introduction: Bantu languages, such as Tswana, are tone languages which use syllabic tone variation to convey word meaning. Vocal pathologies may affect vocal fold control that is required to vary syllabic tone. A person with a voice disorder could therefore be misperceived due to inability to effectively vary tone. Aim: To develop and validate a Tswana minimal pair word list for the assessment of tone production and tone perception, and to determine whether a voice disorder in a first language (L1) Tswana-speaker influences the accuracy of tone perception by typical L1 Tswana-speaking individuals. Method: A word list of 45 Tswana words, with accompanying pictures and sentences were compiled and validated by means of three pilot studies. Based on the results of the pilot studies the word list was narrowed down to 16 minimal pairs. Data were collected from a control group (9 typical L1 Tswana-speaking individuals) and an experimental group (5 L1 Tswana-speaking individuals with voice disorders). Participants from both groups produced the target words and a recording of each word production was judged by a listeners’ panel of five typical L1 Tswana-speaking judges. Results: Typical L1 Tswana listeners did not achieve 100% accuracy in a tone perception task. The mean scores of the control speakers ranged between 71% and 98%. The experimental group participants’ scores were lower although not significantly lower (p=0.109), ranging between 61% and 90%, compared to the scores of the control group. The experimental participant, who obtained the lowest mean score (61%), presented with a severe primary organic voice disorder. Conclusion: Not all typical speakers were able to produce word-level tone variation that makes word identification possible in a single-word context. Although no significant difference was found between the results of the two groups, indications are that a voice disorder could negatively impact syllabic tone variation. / Dissertation (MCommunication Pathology)--University of Pretoria, 2016. / Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology / MCommunication Pathology / Unrestricted

Orientador: Charlotte Galves / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem / Made available in DSpace on 2018-07-23T23:26:49Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 GuimaraesMiranda_Maximiliano_M.pdf: 11311967 bytes, checksum: 496d585bffd2aec679a254409cc559b7 (MD5) Previous issue date: 1998 / Resumo: Esta dissertação trata da interface sintaxe-fonologia. O quadro teórico é definido no âmbito de duas teorias complementares: o Programa Minimalista (Chomsk.ry 1993, 1994, 1995; Kayne 1994) & a Teoria da Hierarquia Prosódica (Selkirk 1984, 1986; Nespor & Vogel 1986; Inkelas & Zec 1990). Faço aqui as seguintes propostas: (i) Ao se reinterpretar o passos de base & o passo recursivo da versão pós-kayneana do LCA como sendo dois algoritmos distintos de mapeamento do componente fonológico, é possivel capturar algumas propriedades básicas da estrutura prosódica; (ii) Os procedimentos de mapeamento da computação fonológica são aplicados na seguinte ordem: linearização, morfologia, hierarquização prosódica e regras fonológicas stricto sensu, (iii) Depois da linearização, as informações sintáticas deixam definitivamente de estar disponíveis para o componente fonológico. Toda e qualquer operação subseqüente deverá se aplicar com 1;>ase apenas nas informações codificadas nas strings geradas pelo 'LCA fatorado'; (iv) O sistema computacional permite a geração de projeções vácuas através de operações de auto-conexão - para evitar estruturas não-linearizáveis; (v) A geometria da hierarquia prosódica é organizada em camadas, de tal' modo que palavras prosódicas são imediatamente p-dominadas tanto por sintagmas fonológicos como por sintagmas entoacionais, os quais pertencem a duas subierarquias paralelas / Abstract: This dissertation deals with the syntax-phonology interface. The theoretical framework consists of two complementary theories: the Minimalist Program (Chomsky 1993, 1994, 1995; Kayne 1994) & the Theory of Prosodic Hierarchy (Selkirk 1984, 1986; Nespor & Vogel 1986; Inkelas & Zec 1990). Here I make the following claims: (i) By taking the base & the recursive steps of the bare-phrase version of Kayne's LCA to be two distinct mapping algorithms of the PF component, it is possible to account for some core properties of prosodic structure; (ii) The mapping procedures of the phonological computation . are derivationally ordered as follows: linearization, morphology, prosodic phrasing and pure phonological rules; (iii) After linearization takes place, syntactic information is not availabe for the PF component. Any further operations have to proceed solely on the basis of the information encoded in the strings generated by the 'factored LCA'; (iv) The computational system allows the generation of vacuous projections, through self-merge operations, in order to avoid unlinearizeable structures; (v) The geometry of the prosodic .hierarchy is organized in tiers, so that prosodic words are immediately p-dominated both by phonological phrases and by intonational phrases, which belong to two parallel subhierarchies / Mestrado / Mestre em Linguística

As ataxias recessivas são um grupo heterogêneo de doenças, mais frequentemente com idade de início precoce (antes dos 30 anos), neuropatia sensitivo-motora periférica e envolvimento extraneurológico, mas também com quadro puro de ataxia e início tardio. A mais conhecida e comum delas é a ataxia de Friedreich (FRDA), motivo do presente trabalho. A FRDA é causada pela perda de função da frataxina, proteína transcrita pelo gene FXN. A mutação causal mais comum corresponde a uma expansão GAA no primeiro íntron desse gene. O quadro clínico clássico caracteriza-se por ataxia, arreflexia e sinal de Babinski, iniciando antes da puberdade. Também podem ocorrer alterações ósseas, Diabetes Mellitus e cardiomiopatia. Após o advento dos testes genéticos, viu-se que existem casos FRDA que iniciam após os 25 anos, chamados de late onset (LOFA), e mesmo após os 40 anos (very late onset ou VLOFA), e casos FRDA com reflexos tendinosos mantidos ou até mesmo com espasticidade (FARR). Embora a FRDA seja a ataxia recessiva mais comum no mundo, pouco se sabe sobre a sua ocorrência no Brasil. Os objetivos do presente estudo foram descrever as manifestações da ataxia de Friedreich entre os pacientes do Rio Grande do Sul e ajudar a esclarecer critérios de seu sucesso diagnóstico, e estimar a prevalência mínima da FRDA no Rio Grande do Sul em 2017. Métodos: foi realizado estudo transversal onde todos os casos de pacientes que realizaram análise molecular para FRDA que não apresentassem critérios de exclusão (certas características jamais presentes no FRDA e presença de outros diagnósticos explicativos, descritos no texto) foram avaliados, por meio de revisão retrospectiva de seus prontuários. As seguintes variáveis foram buscadas: história familiar de recorrência, consanguinidade, gênero, primeiro sintoma, idade de início, ano do diagnóstico molecular, duração da doença, subtipo fenotípico, achados de neuroimagem, presença de cardiopatia e Diabetes Mellitus. Os sujeitos foram classificados em quatro grupos: fenótipo 1, ou FRDA parcial - se apresentassem ao menos dois dos achados da tríade clássica (ataxia, arreflexia e sinal de Babinski) e menos de 10 de evolução; com qualquer idade de início; fenótipo 2, clássico, com início antes dos 25 anos; fenótipo 3, se aparentassem ser LOFA ou FARR; e fenótipo 0, se não se incluíssem em nenhuma das categorias acima. Para a estimativa da prevalência mínima, ligações telefônicas para todos os sujeitos foram feitas e todos os vivos (de fato ou muito provavelmente) ao final do estudo (setembro de 2017) foram somados. Esse numerador foi então comparado ao da população do Rio Grande do Sul ao final do período (o denominador). Resultados: 211 pessoas de 197 famílias realizaram análise molecular para FRDA desde 1997; 27 dos 197 casos-índices (13,7%) foram diagnosticados como afetados por FRDA. Se forem considerados apenas os casos índice com ataxia de marcha (156 sujeitos), este percentual chega a 17,3%. Vinte e seis eram homozigotos para expansões GAA (98% dos alelos mutantes). A grande maioria apresentava o quadro típico. Os achados extraneurológicos foram mais comuns nos FRDA do que nos demais atáxicos (apesar de também encontrados nos outros casos em menor proporção), enquanto que sinais e sintomas neurológicos atípicos foram virtualmente inexistentes nos FRDA. Não houve variabilidade fenotípica intrafamilial na FRDA, nem diferenças entre os fenótipos em relação à presença de DM e cardiopatia ou à duração da doença. O rendimento diagnóstico reduziu-se a partir de 2010, quando mais sujeitos sem qualquer manifestação característica da FRDA (os com fenótipo 0) passaram a ser investigados. O levantamento realizado sobre os FRDA vivos em 2017 correspondeu a uma prevalência mínima estimada de 0.20:100.000 habitantes no RS. Discussão: A frequência da FRDA entre as AR/E foi menor do que a encontrada em países da Europa Ocidental, mas maior do que a encontrada em estudos latino-americanos realizados no México e em Cuba. Também a prevalência mínima estimada foi menor do que a encontrada entre europeus. É difícil se inferir a partir do nosso levantamento se esses dados refletem ou não nossa mistura étnica. As características clínicas dos FRDA foram semelhantes às descritas em estudos realizados no hemisfério norte. O baixo rendimento diagnóstico foi em alguma medida associado a critérios de indicação relaxados e que incluíram sujeitos sem suspeita clínica, em especial nos últimos anos. Apesar disso, a baixa frequência de FRDA entre os atáxicos AR/E entre nós levanta a preocupação sobre protocolos diagnósticos locais e sobre o que eles devam incluir. Finalmente, recomendamos que a investigação da FRDA seja postergada nos casos com achados raros (como a atrofia cerebelar) ou ausentes na FRDA, e nos casos sem qualquer um dos elementos da tríade clássica. / Recessive ataxias are a heterogeneous group of diseases, more frequently with early age of onset (before 30 years), peripheral motor and sensory polyneuropathy and extraneurological involvement, but also with cases of pure ataxia e late onset.. The most known and common is Friedreich ataxia (FRDA). FRDA is caused by the loss of function of frataxin, a protein coded by the gene FXN. The most common causal mutation is a GAA expansion in the first intron of this gene. The typical clinical condition is characterized for ataxia, arreflexia and Babinski sign, beggining before puberty. Bone deformities, cardiomyopathy and Diabetes Melittus can also occur. After the advent of genetic tests, other FRDA phenotypes were observed: beggining after 25 years of age, called late onset (LOFA), or even after 40 years (very late onset – vLOFA), and with retain reflexes (FARR). Althouth FRDA is considered to be the most common recessive ataxia worldwide, little is known about its occurence in Brazil. The objectives of the presente study were to describe FRDA manifestations among the carriers in Rio Grande do Sul (RS) and to help clarify the reasons for its diagnostic success and estimate the minimal prevalence of FRDA in Rio Grande do Sul in 2017. Methods: a cross-sectional study was made where all the cases of patients who investigated for FRDA in our institution who didn’t met the exclusion criteria (certain features never described in FRDA and presence of other explanatory diagnosis) were analysed by medical record retrospective review. The following variables were searched: heritage pattern, gender, first symptom, age of onset, year of molecular diagnosis, disease duration, phenotypic subtype, neuroimaging findings, presence of cardiomyopathy and DM. The subjects were classified in four groups: phenotype 1, or partial FRDA – if at least two features of classical triad being and less than 10 years of evolution; phenotype 2, typical, begginig before 25 years; phenotype 3, if phenotypes LOFA or FARR; and phenotype 0 if not included on none of the later categories. To estimate the minimal prevalence, phone calls were made to all subjects and all the alive (in fact or probably) by the end of the study (september 2017) were summed up. This numerator was then compared to the population of RS in the end of the period (denominator). Results: 211 people of 197 families performed the molecular analysis for FRDA since 1997; 27 of the 197 index cases (13,7%) were diagnosed as affected by FRDA. Twenty six were homozygous for the GAA expansion (98% of the mutante alleles). The majority presented the typical picture. The extraneurological findings were more common in FRDA patients than in the other ataxics (even though they could also be found on them), while the atypical neurologic findings were virtually absent in FRDA group. There was no intrafamilial variability or diferences between the phenotypes and the presence of DM, cardiomyopathy and disease duration. The diagnostic yield was reduced after 2010, when more ataxic subjects without a suggestive phenotype of FRDA (the phenotype 0) started to be investigated. Minimal estimated prevalence by September 2017 was of 0,20:100.000 inhabitants in RS. Discussion: the frequence of FRDA between AR/E was lower than the figures found in countries from western Europe, but higher than those found in Mexico and Cuba. In accordance, minimal prevalence was also lower than those found amog Europeans. If these findings reflect or no our ethnic admixture, remains to be established. The features of FRDA were similiar to those described in studies performed on the North Hemisphere. The low diagnostic yield was somehow associated to relaxation of criteria to ask the test for FRDA in the last years. Besides that, the low FRDA frequency among us rises some concern about local diagnostic protocols and about what they should include. Finally, we recommend that FRDA investigation should be postponed in the cases with rare findings (like cerebelar atrophy), findings unrelated to FRDA, or without the other elements found in the classical triad or in FARR

This thesis presents an overview of some approaches to compute Gaussian and mean curvature on discrete surfaces and discusses discrete minimal surfaces. The variety of applications of differential geometry in visualization and shape design leads to great interest in studying discrete surfaces. With the rich smooth surface theory in hand, one would hope that this elegant theory can still be applied to the discrete counter part. Such a generalization, however, is not always successful. While discrete surfaces have the advantage of being finite dimensional, thus easier to treat, their geometric properties such as curvatures are not well defined in the classical sense. Furthermore, the powerful calculus tool can hardly be applied. The methods in this thesis, including angular defect formula, cotangent formula, parallel meshes, relative geometry etc. are approaches based on offset meshes or generalized offset meshes. As an important application, we discuss discrete minimal surfaces and discrete Koenigs meshes.

Control at the molecular level over porous solid-state materials is of prime importance for fine-tuning the local structures, as well as the resultant properties. Traditional porous solid-state materials such as zeolite and activated carbon are the benchmarks in the current market with vital applications in sorption and heterogeneous catalysis. However, the adjustments of pore size and geometry of those materials, which are essential for the broader aspect of modern prominent applications, remain challenging. Reticular chemistry has emerged as a dominant tool toward the ‘designed syntheses’ of porous crystalline frameworks (e.g. metal-organic frameworks (MOFs)) with a specific pore system. This dissertation illustrates the power of reticular chemistry and its use in the directional assembly of highly coordinated MOF materials, as well as their potential applications such as gas storage, natural gas upgrading, and light hydrocarbon separation. Highly connected minimal edge-transitive derived and related nets, obtained via the deconstruction of nodes of the edge-transitive nets, are suitable blueprints and can potentially be deployed in the future ‘designed syntheses’ of MOFs. The further employment of the conceptual net-coded building units (e.g. highly connected MBBs and edge-transitive SBLs) in the practical reticular synthesis results in the rational design and construction of functional MOF platforms like shp-, alb-, kce-, kex- and eea- MOFs. In addition, the isoreticular synthesis of Al-cea-MOF-2 with functionalized pendant acid moieties inside pore channels in comparison to the parent Al-cea-MOF-1 led to enhanced light hydrocarbons separation performance. Moreover, controlling the molecular defects in Zr-fum-fcu-MOFs resulted in the development of an ultramicroporous adsorbent with an engineered aperture size for the highly efficient separation of butane/iso-butane.

Pavla Šedinová: Minimal art and minimal music Abstract: This thesis focuses on the theoretical description of minimalism in the fine arts and music. It follows the progression of minimisation in art in the first half of the twentieth century, which culminates in minimal art and minimal music, and compares its principles with multiplication in the work of Andy Warhol and Velvet Underground. At the same time the paper discusses the difference between American minimalism and its European and Czech parallels. The aim of this thesis is describing main concepts of minimalism that could be relevant for teaching purposes. The pedagogical part of the thesis focuses on the manner in which the obtained information about the fine arts and music could be utilised in teaching, particularly in Elementary Art Schools. The practical part demonstrates my own approach to minimalist principles.

In this work, we studied three selected problems in FRW spacetime. In the first part, we analysed the motion of a test particle in the homogeneous and isotropic universe. We presented a framework in which one can derive the uniformly accelerated trajectory and geodesic motion if a scale factor for a given spacetime is provided as a function of coordinate time. By applying the confomal time transformation, we were able to convert second order differential equations of motion in FRW spacetime to first order differential equations. From this, we managed to obtain a formalism to derive the uniformly accelerated trajectory of a test particle in spatially curved FRW spacetime. The second part of this work is devoted to dynamical cosmology. In particular, we analyse the cases of barotropic fluids and non-minimally coupled scalar field in spatially curved FRW spacetime. First, we set up the dynamical systems for an unspecified EoS of a barotropic fluid case and an unspecified positive potential for a non-minimal coupled scalar field case. For both of these systems, we determined well-defined dynamical variables valid for all curvatures. In the framework of these general setups we discovered several characteristic features of the systems, such as invariant subsets, symmetries, critical points and their...

Nephrotic syndrome (NS) is a set of symptoms defined by heavy proteinuria and associated with a host of kidney diseases that cause injury to the glomerulus, the filtration apparatus of the kidney. Primary podocytopathies (Px), a group of diseases including minimal change disease (MCD), primary focal segmental sclerosis (pFSGS), and lupus podocytopathy (LP), are the principal cause of idiopathic NS in both children and adults. The hallmark feature of Px is the ultrastructural finding of podocyte foot process effacement (FPE), so current differential diagnosis of Px relies on technically exhaustive electron microscopy (EM) analysis. During routine immunofluorescence (IF) microscopy of many Px cases, we have observed punctate IgG (P-IgG) immunoreactivity in the glomerulus. P-IgG may represent a disease-specific reactivity that could not only provide clues for understanding Px etiology but could also serve as a diagnostic tool. However, we have found that P-IgG may be misinterpreted as protein reabsorption granules (PRGs), a morphological feature seen in proteinuric conditions. We sought to definitively characterize the key characteristics of PRGs and P-IgG in order to differentiate these features. To accomplish this, we reviewed prior IF immunostaining of MCD biopsies to evaluate anti-human IgG and anti-human albumin staining. We conducted additional IF staining on archived MCD biopsies using antibodies against IgG and against the markers of PRGs: albumin, megalin, and cubilin. We found that the P-IgG demonstrates a diffuse, global distribution pattern that is specific to glomerular epithelium and is fine and scattered. Conversely, the PRGs are coarse, clustered, and frequently demonstrate a focal, segmental pattern in the glomeruli and tubules. Co-staining with albumin and megalin revealed that the P-IgG and the PRGs do not colocalize in the tissue. While the cubilin antibody positively stained the tubular epithelium, it did not stain glomeruli. Our results showed that punctate IgG and protein reabsorption granules are morphologically and constitutionally distinct and do not colocalize with each other, indicating that P-IgG is highly likely to represent a distinct process from epithelial protein reabsorption.

Based on the cartoon show The Simpsons, the present investigation finds out that  there are differences in the communicative competence between male and female speakers, especially the selected characters from the cartoon show, in terms of their use of minimal responses. The focus will be on the frequency, type and function of male and female usage of minimal responses.