Aim: To compare the 0.018-inch and 0.022-inch conventional pre-adjusted orthodontic bracket slot systems in terms of the effectiveness of levelling and alignment stage of orthodontic treatment. Design: Prospective, multi-centre randomised clinical trial. Setting: This was undertaken in the secondary care hospital environment in Tayside NHS in the United Kingdom. Subjects and methods: One hundred and five orthodontic patients were randomly allocated to treatment with either the 0.018-inch bracket slot (n= 52) and 0.022-inch bracket slot (n=53) Victory conventional pre-adjusted bracket systems (3M Unitek). The patients were treated in three centres in secondary care hospitals Tayside NHS, United Kingdom. The levelling and alignment stage of treatment was assessed from the start of treatment until the ligation of the working archwire for each bracket slot system (0.016x0.022 stainless steel for the 0.018-inch group and 0.019x0.025 stainless steel for the 0.022-inch group). Periapical radiographs were taken before the start of treatment and after 9 months in treatment for the maxillary central incisors to assess orthodontically-induced inflammatory root resorption (OIIRR). The “Smiles better” questionnaire was completed by the participants at 6 months from the start of treatment. Primary outcome measures: The duration of the levelling and alignment stage of orthodontic treatment in the maxillary and mandibular arches. Secondary outcome measures: The number of scheduled appointments for the levelling and alignment stage of orthodontic treatment in the maxillary and mandibular arches, OIIRR at 9 months from the start of treatment using periapical radiographs and patient perception of wearing orthodontic appliances. Results: The data from 92 patients (mean age 19.55 years) were analysed after the completion of their levelling and alignment stage of orthodontic treatment. An ANOVA test showed no statistically significant difference in the duration or number of scheduled appointments for the levelling and alignment stage in the maxillary and mandibular arches between the two appliance groups. Non-parametric statistical test showed no statistically significant difference in the severity of OIIRR and patient perception of wearing orthodontic appliances between the two study groups except for the soreness of teeth, where more patients in the 0.022-inch group experienced significant teeth soreness than the 0.018-inch group. Multiple regression analysis determined that 49.6% of the variance in the duration of levelling and alignment duration for the maxillary arch can be explained by five factors: alignment of ectopic tooth, scheduled appointment intervals, gender, bracket slot size system and the number of failed scheduled visits. For the mandibular arch, 50.8% of the variance in the levelling and duration of alignment can be explained by three factors: scheduled appointment intervals, arch irregularity and the number of debonded brackets. Conclusions: There is no difference in the effectiveness of the levelling and alignment stage of orthodontic treatment between the 0.018-inch or 0.022-inch conventional bracket slot systems except for the soreness of teeth.

Genomic search tools can provide valuable insights into the chemical structure, evolutionary origin and biochemical function of genetic material. A homology search algorithm compares a protein or nucleotide query sequence to each entry in a large sequence database and reports alignments with highly similar sequences. The exponential growth of public data banks such as GenBank has necessitated the development of fast, heuristic approaches to homology search. The versatile and popular blast algorithm, developed by researchers at the US National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), uses a four-stage heuristic approach to efficiently search large collections for analogous sequences while retaining a high degree of accuracy. Despite an abundance of alternative approaches to homology search, blast remains the only method to offer fast, sensitive search of large genomic collections on modern desktop hardware. As a result, the tool has found widespread use with millions of queries posed each day. A significant investment of computing resources is required to process this large volume of genomic searches and a cluster of over 200 workstations is employed by the NCBI to handle queries posed through the organisation's website. As the growth of sequence databases continues to outpace improvements in modern hardware, blast searches are becoming slower each year and novel, faster methods for sequence comparison are required. In this thesis we propose new techniques for fast yet accurate homology search that result in significantly faster blast searches. First, we describe improvements to the final, gapped alignment stages where the query and sequences from the collection are aligned to provide a fine-grain measure of similarity. We describe three new methods for aligning sequences that roughly halve the time required to perform this computationally expensive stage. Next, we investigate improvements to the first stage of search, where short regions of similarity between a pair of sequences are identified. We propose a novel deterministic finite automaton data structure that is significantly smaller than the codeword lookup table employed by ncbi-blast, resulting in improved cache performance and faster search times. We also discuss fast methods for nucleotide sequence comparison. We describe novel approaches for processing sequences that are compressed using the byte packed format already utilised by blast, where four nucleotide bases from a strand of DNA are stored in a single byte. Rather than decompress sequences to perform pairwise comparisons, our innovations permit sequences to be processed in their compressed form, four bases at a time. Our techniques roughly halve average query evaluation times for nucleotide searches with no effect on the sensitivity of blast. Finally, we present a new scheme for managing the high degree of redundancy that is prevalent in genomic collections. Near-duplicate entries in sequence data banks are highly detrimental to retrieval performance, however existing methods for managing redundancy are both slow, requiring almost ten hours to process the GenBank database, and crude, because they simply purge highly-similar sequences to reduce the level of internal redundancy. We describe a new approach for identifying near-duplicate entries that is roughly six times faster than the most successful existing approaches, and a novel approach to managing redundancy that reduces collection size and search times but still provides accurate and comprehensive search results. Our improvements to blast have been integrated into our own version of the tool. We find that our innovations more than halve average search times for nucleotide and protein searches, and have no signifcant effect on search accuracy. Given the enormous popularity of blast, this represents a very significant advance in computational methods to aid life science research.

Information Technology (IT) systems are pervasive tools for contemporary enterprises to achieve their mission and goals. A key issue for a well-functioning enterprise is to keep business and IT strategies aligned as they continuously evolve. Although many practitioners and researchers offer business and IT alignment theories and approaches there is no silver bullet solution for all the issues involved in Strategic Business and IT Alignment (SBITA), which is still ranked amongst the five top enterprise executives? concerns year after year. In this thesis two SBITA assessment methods are presented. The first is the Organization-wide Approach for Assessing SBITA, developed as an enhancement of Jerry N. Luftman's SBITA assessment approach in terms of measurability, traceability and organizational involvement. The second is the Alignment Metamodel Assessment Method (AMAM). Both methods are based on well established references and approaches and they are presented with systematic documentation for their application and reusability as shown in the included papers and reported case studies. This is a composite thesis that, besides the introduction, includes five papers (papers A-E). Paper A describes Luftman's SBITA assessment approach and its enhancement in terms of measurability, traceability and organizational involvement, the proposed Organization-wide Approach for Assessing SBITA. Results from applying this approach in two case studies in companies in Sweden and Nicaragua are also included. Paper B describes the AMAM. It explains how a metamodel is deduced and how the SBITA assessment will be performed. This paper argues that the AMAM can be affiliated to the EA discipline as a guide or reference for identifying the relevant EA?s representations for the SBITA concern, mitigating the expenses and drawbacks of the often larger modeling required in applying EA frameworks. Paper C shows a weighting of the importance of the SBITA topics, taking as reference the Henderson & Venkatraman Strategic Alignment Model (SAM) - the basis of Luftman?s SBITA assessment approach -by relating it to the relevant and highly cited references in the field of SBITA. Paper D explains the criteria and the process for associating the AMAM artifacts with the Zachman´s Enterprise Architecture Framework and reports the pattern of association into the EA dominion. Paper E reports the details of the processes and results of applying the developed AMAM in a case study conducted in an intensive IT services enterprise in Nicaragua. / QC 20100805

To test nanosize surface patterning for application as implant material, a suitable titanium composition has to be found first. Therefore we investigated the effect of surface chemistry on attachment and differentiation of osteoblast-like cells on pure titanium prepared by pulsed laser deposition (TiPLD) and different Ti alloys (Ti6Al4V, TiNb30 and TiNb13Zr13). Early attachment (30 min) and alkaline phosphatase (ALP) activity (day 5) was found to be fastest and highest, respectively, in cells grown on TiPLD and Ti6Al4V. Osteoblasts seeded on TiPLD produced most osteopontin (day 10), whereas expression of this extracellular matrix protein was an order of magnitude lower on the TiNb30 surface. In contrast, expression of the corresponding receptor, CD44, was not influenced by surface chemistry. Thus, TiPLD was used for further experiments to explore the influence of surface nanostructures on osteoblast adhesion, differentiation and orientation. By laser-induced oxidation, we produced patterns of parallel Ti oxide lines with different widths (0.2–10 μm) and distances (2–20 and 1,000 μm), but a common height of only 12 nm. These structures did not influence ALP activity (days 5–9), but had a positive effect on cell alignment. Two days after plating, the majority of the focal contacts were placed on the oxide lines. The portion of larger focal adhesions bridging two lines was inversely related to the line distance (2–20 μm). In contrast, the portion of aligned cells did not depend on the line distance. On average, 43% of the cells orientated parallel towards the lines, whereas 34% orientated vertically. In the control pattern (1,000 μm line distance), cell distribution was completely at random. Because a significant surplus of the cells preferred a parallel alignment, the nanosize difference in height between Ti surface and oxide lines may be sufficient to orientate the cells by contact guiding. However, gradients in electrostatic potential and surface charge density at the Ti/Ti oxide interface may additionally influence focal contact formation and cell guidance. / Dieser Beitrag ist mit Zustimmung des Rechteinhabers aufgrund einer (DFG-geförderten) Allianz- bzw. Nationallizenz frei zugänglich.

This thesis was focused on determining the orientation of the body of domestic sheep while grazing or resting. Attention was also paid to the assessment of environmental conditions that may affect the position of animal behaviour. Data were collected through the direct observation compared to the previous studies, which have been based on satellite images from Google Earth. In this experiment, only selected designated individuals were evaluated. The direct observation detected the individual preferences of animals, not only the direction but also the location. The evaluating of photos of the animals found out, according to the time of day,north and west facing position of the body. The more significant directional preference was documented in resting individuals.

Le terme d’antipassif, qui s’inscrit depuis quarante ans dans le système des langues ergatives, désigne une construction intransitive ayant pour caractéristique générale la destitution du patient. Cette thèse remet en question l’opinion traditionnelle selon laquelle les constructions antipassives sont identifiées exclusivement dans les langues à alignement ergatif, et non dans les langues à alignement accusatif. Étant donné qu’une certaine proportion de langues ergatives utilise pour dériver l’antipassif le morphème polysémique réfléchie et/ou réciproque, dans cette étude nous nous sommes intéressée aux langues accusatives dont la marque antipassive présente la même caractéristique, d’où l’intérêt porté aux langues austronésiennes, Niger-Congo et Nilo-sahariennes, turciques, slaves et romanes. Dans la mesure où nous avons décidé de travailler sur les constructions antipassives dérivées par une marque étant à l’origine polysémique, l’impact sémantique de cette dernière sur l’ensemble de la construction apparaît comme non négligeable. Cette étude présente ainsi le double intérêt de s’appuyer sur une approche translinguistique, impliquant différentes familles de langues, et sur une vision bipolaire relative aux domaines de la syntaxe et de la sémantique. / The antipassive term, associated with ergative system since forty years, denotes an intransitive construction in which the patient argument is syntactically demoted. This study calls into question a traditional opinion according to which the antipassive phenomenon is encountered in ergative languages but not in those of accusative alignment. Since in some ergative languages the antipassive construction is triggered by a polysemous reflexive and/or reciprocal morpheme, this study deals exclusively with those accusative languages in which the antipassive marker presents the same characteristics (cf. Austronesian, Niger–Congo, Nilo-Saharan, Turkic, Slavonic, Romance languages). Building on the polysemous nature of such marker, its possible semantic impact on the whole derivation should also be taken into consideration. The aim of this study is to analyse the antipassive construction both from semantic and syntactic point of view in a crosslinguistic perspective.

Este trabalho tem o objetivo de identificar o alinhamento estratégico de gestão de gestão de pessoas através de seu sistema de RH, pacote dinâmico de políticas e práticas de gestão de pessoas que é desenhado para atingir os objetivos organizacionais. Para compreensão do alinhamento estratégico é necessário analisar a relação interna das práticas de RH, a relação do sistema de RH com os objetivos de gestão de pessoas e também co os objetivos organizacionais. Identificar os pontos de alinhamento e desalinhamento dessas relações pode contribuir para que a estratégia organizacional seja mais facilmente atingida. A relação entre a estratégia de gestão de pessoas e a estratégia organizacional pode ser considerada interativa e multidirecional visto que ambas se influenciam mutuamente e recebem e exercem influencia sobre os fatores internos e externos da organização. Nesta relação, a flexibilidade e a sinergia nas configurações dos recursos internos (processos, sistemas, estrutura, etc) são fatores determinantes. O esforço, de ajuste constante entre a estratégia organizacional, sua relação com o mercado e os recursos internos é chamado de alinhamento estratégico. Buscando identificar o alinhamento estratégico de gestão de pessoas, este estudo optou por um estudo de caso na empresa Ômega que se encontra em um mercado em expansão e que passou por uma recente reestruturação. A coleta de dados baseou-se em entrevistas em profundidade, análise documental, aplicação de questionário para a equipe de RH e discussão dos resultados com o gerente e diretor de RH. Esta pesquisa também buscou tangibilizar os resultados utilizando um instrumento de análise, assim foram possíveis identificar os pontos de alinhamento e desalinhamento das relações. Os resultados encontrados apontaram para a presença do alinhamento como um processo constante de ajuste da organização. Neste sentido destacam-se os ajustes das práticas de RH para atender aos diferentes públicos da organização e as diferentes contingências do negócio, fatores importantes no alinhamento de gestão de pessoas. Os pontos desalinhamento encontrados poderão ser utilizados pela empresa como parte do processo contínuo de alinhamento estratégico. / This study aims to identify the strategic alignment of human resource management through your HR system, dynamic package of policies and practices of human resource management which is designed to achieve organizational goals, and their relationship to the goals of human resource management and organizational objectives. Identify the points of alignment and misalignment of these relationships can contribute to organizational strategy is more easily achieved. The relationship between the strategy of human resource management and organizational strategy can be considered interactive and multidirectional as both influence each other and receive and exert influence on the internal and external factors of the organization. In this respect, flexibility and synergy configurations of internal resources (processes, systems, structure, etc.) are decisive factors. The effort, constant fit between organizational strategy, its relationship with the market and internal resources is called strategic alignment. Trying to identify the strategic alignment of human resource management, this study opted for a case study in the Omega company that is in a growing market and has undergone a recent restructuring. Data collection was based on interviews, documentary analysis, questionnaire application to the HR team and discussing the results with the HR manager and HR director. This research also sought to make tangible the results using an analytical tool, so were possible to identify areas of alignment and misalignment of relations. The results indicated the presence of alignment as a constant process of adjustment of the organization. In this sense we highlight the adjustments of HR practices to meet the different audiences of the organization and the different business contingencies, important factors in people management alignment. The misalignment points found may be used by the company as part of the ongoing process of strategic alignment.

Submitted by Marcos André Fernandes Spósito (mafsposito@gmail.com) on 2018-06-13T05:43:15Z No. of bitstreams: 2 TeseSpositoFinal.pdf: 19863748 bytes, checksum: a2456b54fd243f1e9685e0b51e538bcb (MD5) Folha de Aprovação - Sposito.pdf: 1078404 bytes, checksum: 240e924881898cfb4307dc8b364fc3bd (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Divisão de Documentação/BC Biblioteca Central (ddbc@ufam.edu.br) on 2018-06-15T12:29:57Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 2 TeseSpositoFinal.pdf: 19863748 bytes, checksum: a2456b54fd243f1e9685e0b51e538bcb (MD5) Folha de Aprovação - Sposito.pdf: 1078404 bytes, checksum: 240e924881898cfb4307dc8b364fc3bd (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Divisão de Documentação/BC Biblioteca Central (ddbc@ufam.edu.br) on 2018-06-15T12:36:23Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 2 TeseSpositoFinal.pdf: 19863748 bytes, checksum: a2456b54fd243f1e9685e0b51e538bcb (MD5) Folha de Aprovação - Sposito.pdf: 1078404 bytes, checksum: 240e924881898cfb4307dc8b364fc3bd (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-06-15T12:36:23Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 TeseSpositoFinal.pdf: 19863748 bytes, checksum: a2456b54fd243f1e9685e0b51e538bcb (MD5) Folha de Aprovação - Sposito.pdf: 1078404 bytes, checksum: 240e924881898cfb4307dc8b364fc3bd (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-11-23 / FAPEAM - Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Amazonas / CAPES - Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / IT has been gaining importance for organizations as it plays a strategic role, not only supporting their business operations, but also enabling new strategies for organizations. Many studies emphasize that IT must be aligned with the business area and vice versa. Most organizations agree on the importance of strategic alignment between IT and business, but they have difficulty evaluating it. Theoretical models and alignment techniques often fail to capture the reality of organizations and a lot of these techniques are subjective and difficult to use. In this sense, this thesis proposes an approach for the evaluation and recommendation of improvements for the strategic alignment between IT and business in the organizations based on the administrative activities of its managers. As part of the research methodology, exploratory studies were carried out based on systematic reviews of the literature, from which it was possible to obtain an overview on influential models of alignment in the national context, on several constructs or concepts on the theme and also on how the Strategic alignment between IT and business has been studied by researchers. As a result of these procedures, an approach composed of three components was proposed: a conceptual model, a reference model and a method for the evaluation and recommendations for improvements for the strategic alignment between IT and business in organizations. Finally, the approach was evaluated using a survey, a focus groups applied to IT and business managers, e in a case of practical use by an organization. The results demonstrated that the approach has the viability to be used by them, being effective to evaluate and recommend improvements for the strategic alignment between IT and business in organizations. / A TI vem ganhando importância para as organizações na medida em que ela desempenha um papel estratégico, não só dando suporte a suas operações de negócios, mas também viabilizando novas estratégias para as organizações. Muitos estudos destacam que a TI deve estar alinhada com a área de negócios e vice-versa. Além do mais, a maioria das organizações concordam sobre a importância do alinhamento estratégico entre TI e negócios, mas tem dificuldade em avaliá-lo. Modelos teóricos e técnicas de alinhamento frequentemente falham em capturar a realidade das organizações e uma grande quantidade destas técnicas são subjetivas e difíceis de serem utilizadas. Neste sentido, esta tese propõe uma abordagem para a avaliação e recomendação de melhorias para o alinhamento estratégico entre TI e negócios nas organizações baseada nas atividades administrativas de seus gestores. Como parte da metodologia da pesquisa, foram realizados estudos exploratórios baseados em revisões sistemáticas de literatura, dos quais foi possível obter uma visão geral sobre influentes modelos de alinhamento no contexto nacional, sobre diversos construtos ou conceitos sobre o tema e, também, sobre como o alinhamento estratégico entre TI e negócios tem sido estudado pelos pesquisadores. Como resultado destes procedimentos foi proposta uma abordagem composta por três componentes: um modelo conceitual, um modelo de referência e um método para a avaliação e recomendações de melhorias para o alinhamento estratégico entre TI e negócios nas organizações. Por fim, a abordagem foi avaliada utilizando-se um survey, um “grupo focal” aplicado aos gestores de TI e negócios e um caso de utilização prática por uma organização. Os resultados demonstraram que a abordagem possui viabilidade para ser utilizada pelas organizações, sendo efetiva para avaliar e recomendar melhorias para o alinhamento estratégico entre TI e negócios.

The aim of this study has been to examine if there is alignment between the national exam for writing in Swedish – ages 9 to10 – and main study materials for writing in Swedish intended for the school years leading up to the test. This study also aims to compare two different learning materials writing assignments with one another to find possible similarities and differences. The study focuses on writing assignments in one traditional (printed) textbook series and one digital study material. The material is analyzed according to Ivaničs theory about discourses of writing and learning to write. The results are compared to answer the following questions: In what way is there, or is there not, alignment – based on Ivanič’s theory of writing discourses– between the writing assignments in the national exam for ages 9 to 10, and the writing assignments found in printed and digital study materials? What are the similarities and the differences between the writing assignments in the printed and digital study materials based on Ivanič’s theory of writing discourses? The results show that there is some alignment between the writing assignments in the national exam and the study materials, however not a high one. The printed study material has a higher alignment than the digital one. The results also show that there are similarities between the writing assignments in the printed and the digital study materials. They both focus a lot on a skills and genre discourse. However, there are a lot of differences. The printed study material contains a process discourse while the digital study material does not. The printed material also contains more hybrids containing a combination of writing discourses.

Purpose – Motivated by the increasing role of information technology (IT) in today’s organizations, the purpose of this paper is to examine the relationships between business and IT executives in order to improve the organizational performance of the different aspects of IT technology and related systems. In the process, special attention is given to drivers which facilitate the cooperation between the parties involved. Design/methodology/approach – This survey-based research utilizes structural equation modeling methodology to uncover the relevant variables pertaining to the promotion of a positive social and strategic context needed to increase the effectiveness of organizational IT facets. Findings – The effectiveness of IT in modern organizations is contingent on a social alignment, business – IT alignment, strategic consistency, and common vision among the people who manage the IT function and those who need the organization. Research limitations/implications – This study is based on a sample of Portuguese manufacturing organizations. Therefore, findings and conclusions should be interpreted accordingly. In this context, future research in other organizational cultural settings is called for in order to refine and validate the results of this study. Practical implications – The role of establishing an organizational culture which stresses the common goal and mutual trust and cooperation in creating effective IT organizational utilization is underscored. As such, business executives are encouraged to exercise their leadership skills in order to create an organizational strategy which aligns IT capabilities and investments with the competitive strategy of the organization. In this context, creating an organizational culture which promotes business – IT alignment in a healthy social context is necessary. Originality/value – The issues and concerns addressed in this study should bridge the gap between business and IT executives. In the process, this study facilitates and encourages the effective utilization of the different facets of IT technology as they better serve the people of the organization. This advances the cost and practice of the strategic organizational role of IT investments.