The thesis is composed of two topics : a fully bidirectional mixed-voltage-tolerant I/O buffer using a clamping dynamic gate bias generator and a wide range fully bidirectional mixed-voltage-tolerant I/O buffer with a calibration function. The first topic, a mixed-voltage-tolerant I/O buffer implemented in 2P4M 0.35 £gm CMOS process, comprises a low-power bias circuit with clamping transistors in a feedback loop, a power supply level detector circuit, a voltage level converter circuit, a logic switch circuit, a dynamic driving detector circuit, and a clamping dynamic gate bias generator. The proposed design can transmit and receive digital signals with voltage levels of 5/3.3/1.8 V without any gate-oxide overstress and leakage current path in different voltage interface applications. The second topic, a 0.9 V to 5.0 V (0.9/1.2/1.8/2.5/3.3/5 V) mixed-voltage-tolerant I/O buffer carried out in 2P4M 0.35 £gm CMOS technology, contains a dynamic gate bias generator to provide appropri¬ate gate voltages for the output stage composed of stacked PMOS and stacked NMOS, an I/O buffer which can transmit the signal with a higher voltage level (VDDH), a floating N-well circuit to remove the body effect at the output PMOS, and a dynamic driving detector to balance the turn-on voltages for the pull-up PMOS and pull-down NMOS in the output stage. The duty cycle of the output signal of the proposed I/O buffer can then be equalized even if the output stage power supply is biased at a low voltage. In order to adapt to wide range input voltage applications, a logic calibration circuit is added in the input buffer.

Extracts of 16 South African Salvia species commonly used in traditional medicine to treat various microbial infections were investigated for in vitro antibacterial and antimycobacterial activities using the micro-dilution and respiratory BACTEC method, respectively. The microorganisms tested include two Gram-positive (Staphylococcus aureus and Bacillus cereus); two Gram-negative (Escherichia coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae) bacterial strains and the common pathogen responsible for tuberculosis, Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Extracts of the majority of species exhibited moderate to good antibacterial activity with minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) values ranging from 0.03 to 8.00 mg/ml. Promising activity was observed against M. tuberculosis (MIC≤0.50 mg/ml) with S. radula, S. verbenaca and S. dolomitica displaying the most favourable activity (MIC: 0.10 mg/ml). The antibacterial bioassay-guided fractionation of S. chamelaeagnea resulted in the isolation of four compounds: carnosol, 7-O-methylepirosmanol, oleanolic acid and its isomer ursolic acid as the active principles against S. aureus. The in vitro antibacterial and antimycobacterial activities may support the use of Salvia species in traditional medicine to treat microbial infections.

No description available.

D. O. Fagunwa's Igbo Olodumare (The Forest of God) is a novel about the story of Olowo-aiye's adventure in the Forest of God. Olowo-aiye sets out to Igbo Olodumare (The Forest of God) out of sheer love for an adventure and a quest for an opportunity to prove himself as a powerfulhunter who cannot be daunted by the awe of the unknown--a basic characteristic of the traditional Yoruba hunters. Thus Fagunwa, in his characteristic vividness of imagination, artistic prowess, dazzling language, and a compelling descriptive skill, projects events and episodes around Olowo-aiye as he moves along on his journey to, in and from Igbo Olodumare. The events and the episodes are those of Olowo-aiye's struggle with the trolls, gnomes, weird creatures, and his visits to the sage, (Mr.) Death, and Miss Disease. After this experience-packed sojourn in the Forest of God, he finally returns home to join his family and to rejoice at the sight of his son Akara-ogun--who is now grown. Akara-ogun, of course, is the hero of Fagunwa's first novel Ogboju Ode minu Igbo Irunmale translated by Wole Soyinka as The Forest of a Thousand Daemons: A Hunter's Saga.This dissertation translates and annotates D. 0. Fagunwa's Igbo Olodumare with a critical introduction which is divided into seven parts. Part one deals with the literature review; while part two deals with a brief biography of D. 0. Fagunwa--the author whose Judeo-Christian background, his culture, and the tradition and the world-view of his ethnic group--Yoruba--shape his thought-pattern and his imagination. These cultural traditional and philosophical background strongly inform his work of art.Part three briefly comments on the thought-pattern that informs his works, emphasizes and explains the nature of Fagunwa's dichotomized world--a concept that emanates from his cultural and traditional background. Part four gives a synopsis of his (Fagunwa's) Igbo Olodumare with a brief comment on the structure and the symbolic aspects of the novel.Part five briefly discusses the structure, syntax and the tone of the language in which Fagunwa wrote--Yoruba--a linguistic parameter which makes the task of translating Yoruba literature to English a difficult task. As a corollary to that part, part six discusses Fagunwa's rhetorical prowess as evident in 1is esoteric use of Yoruba--a technique which saturates his entire novels, and makes him the master of his mother tongue, Thus it is the translator's task to adequately convey in English-a nontonal language--the rhythm and the verbal gymnastics which Fagunwa displays particularly in his Igbo Olodumare (The Forest of God).The last part, part seven, spells the translator's main objective, Philosophy, and the method of translation. The overriding objective, the note explains, is readability, intelligibility and an equivalent effect.In order to achieve this end, the translation is annotated; while the idea of narrative bridge is ventured as a mechanism which allows a smooth flow of the narratives in the translated edition. Furthermore, the translator's stylistic idiosyncrasy is sacrificed in order to unveil the author's meanings in his own words and style.

Zugl.: Göttingen, Univ., Diss., 2008

Inaug.-diss.--Basel.

Inaug.-Diss.--Zürich. / Curriculum vitae.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Vanderbilt University, 1936. / Bibliography: p. [53]-57; "Appendix: Supplementary bibliography of N.O. Losskys̓ works": p. [59]-68.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-12-17T15:54:54Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 IltonAS_DISSERT.pdf: 1448193 bytes, checksum: f8d58bca2c062ed6c6946d11628a4495 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010-02-26 / Coordena??o de Aperfei?oamento de Pessoal de N?vel Superior / The purpose of this paper is to identify and analyze the main environmental impacts taking place in the permanent preservation areas located in the Cear?-Mirim River estuary/RN and its surrounding areas. For that, the study was divided in two chapters, structured in the shape of a scientific paper. The first is a theoretical proposition on the occupation of the APPs in light of the discussion of the geographic space and the sustainability of the development, where a bibliographical review was made emphasizing the production of the geographic space, the sustainability of the development and the permanent preservation areas. In the second chapter, from a systemic approach, geoprocessing techniques and the adaptation of the Pressure-State- Response Indicators System were used, the latter being developed by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development OECD. Therefore, from the methodological approaches used, it's been observed that the use of permanent preservation areas for purposes other than those determined in the legislation and, mainly guided by capitalist interests, leads to the environmental degradation of these areas, fact which has been confirmed in the empiric study conducted in the second chapter, where it was possible to identify a series of environmental impacts such as: deforestation of mangrove and riparian vegetation for carciniculture implantation, the devastation of dune areas caused by the urban expansion in the coastal stretch and siltation of fluvial channel / O objetivo desta disserta??o ? identificar e analisar os principais impactos ambientais ocorrentes nas ?reas de preserva??o permanente localizadas no estu?rio do Rio Cear?-Mirim/RN e suas ?reas adjacentes. Para isto, o estudo foi dividido em dois cap?tulos estruturados em forma de artigo cient?fico. O primeiro ? uma proposi??o te?rica sobre a ocupa??o das APPs a luz da discuss?o do espa?o geogr?fico e da sustentabilidade do desenvolvimento, onde foi feita uma revis?o bibliogr?fica enfatizando a produ??o do espa?o geogr?fico, a sustentabilidade do desenvolvimento e as ?reas de preserva??o permanente. No segundo cap?tulo, a partir de uma abordagem sist?mica foram utilizadas t?cnicas de geoprocessamento e a adapta??o do Sistema de Indicadores Press?o-Estado Resposta, desenvolvido pela Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development OECD. Desta forma, a partir das abordagens metodol?gicas utilizadas, observou-se que a utiliza??o de ?reas de preserva??o permanente para fins diferentes do que est? posta na legisla??o e, principalmente guiada por interesses capitalistas, leva a degrada??o ambiental destas ?reas, fato confirmado no estudo emp?rico realizado no segundo cap?tulo, onde foi poss?vel identificar uma s?rie de impactos ambientais como: desmatamento de vegeta??o de mangue e de mata ciliar para implanta??o da carcinicultura, a devasta??o de ?reas de dunas provocada pela expans?o urbana na faixa litor?nea e assoreamento de canal fluvial

Submitted by Automa??o e Estat?stica (sst@bczm.ufrn.br) on 2017-11-22T20:29:38Z No. of bitstreams: 1 RenanFelintoDeFariasAires_TESE.pdf: 3160492 bytes, checksum: 77c09a889c670959db28ea23ee009ac3 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Arlan Eloi Leite Silva (eloihistoriador@yahoo.com.br) on 2017-11-23T22:03:32Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 RenanFelintoDeFariasAires_TESE.pdf: 3160492 bytes, checksum: 77c09a889c670959db28ea23ee009ac3 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-11-23T22:03:32Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 RenanFelintoDeFariasAires_TESE.pdf: 3160492 bytes, checksum: 77c09a889c670959db28ea23ee009ac3 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-09-29 / Durante as ?ltimas d?cadas, v?rios m?todos de Apoio Multicrit?rio ? Decis?o (MCDM) t?m sido utilizados para auxiliar decisores na sele??o de melhores alternativas para problemas de decis?o diversos. Dentre eles, o Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) ? um dos mais utilizados. Apesar da sua grande difus?o, este tem sido criticado devido ? ocorr?ncia de um problema chamado rank reversal (revers?o de ordena??o), que, em sua mais conhecida denomina??o, se refere ? mudan?a na ordena??o de um grupo de alternativas anteriormente ordenadas ap?s uma alternativa irrelevante ter sido adicionada ou exclu?da desse grupo. Apesar da quantidade significativa de estudos sobre este problema para os m?todos MCDM, tem-se que a an?lise desse problema para o TOPSIS ainda ? feita de forma superficial, sem um estudo criterioso acerca das causas e condi??es de ocorr?ncia, bem como marcada por proposi??es de modelos inadequados. Por conta disso, o objetivo desse estudo foi propor uma extens?o do m?todo TOPSIS para minimizar a revers?o de ordena??o. Para isso, foi realizada uma pesquisa experimental a partir de simula??es computacionais geradas aleatoriamente com base em quatro situa??es de revers?o selecionados na literatura. Nos casos de ambas as problem?ticas investigadas, de escolha e de ordena??o, foram analisados os efeitos da normaliza??o utilizada e dos limiares de indiferen?a. Adicionalmente, os casos da problem?tica de escolha tamb?m foram analisados a partir da regress?o log?stica, no intuito de estimar as condi??es em que h? uma maior probabilidade de ocorr?ncia de revers?o de ordena??o. Com base nos experimentos e na an?lise dos modelos da literatura, foi proposta uma extens?o do TOPSIS. O modelo proposto ? baseado na defini??o de um conjunto de valores intitulado de Dom?nio, que representa os valores limites de cada crit?rio na matriz de decis?o no intuito de ultrapassar os inconvenientes do TOPSIS. Para a valida??o da proposta, foi realizada uma aplica??o num?rica para a problem?tica de sele??o de estudantes e concluiu-se que o modelo proposto ? robusto por, simultaneamente, evitar a ocorr?ncia da revers?o de ordena??o e apresentar uma boa capacidade discriminat?ria. / During the last decades, various multi-criteria decision-making methods (MCDM) have been used to assist decision makers in selecting the best alternatives for many decision problems. Among them, the Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) is one of the most used. Despite its wide dissemination, it has been criticized due to the occurrence of a problem called rank reversal, which in its most known meaning refers to the change in the ordering of a group of previously ordered alternatives after an irrelevant alternative has been added or removed from this group. Despite the significant amount of research on this problem for MCDM methods, it has been superficially analyzed in the case of TOPSIS, without a careful study on the occurrence causes and conditions, as well as marked by propositions inadequate models. Therefore, the aim of this study was to propose an extension of the TOPSIS method to minimize rank reversal. For this, it was realized an experimental research through computer simulations randomly generated based on four reversal situations selected in the literature. In the cases of the both problems types investigated, of choice and rank, the effects of the normalization used and the indifference thresholds were analyzed. In addition, the cases of the problem of choice were also analyzed from the logistic regression, in order to estimate the conditions in which there is a greater probability of occurrence of rank reversal. Based on the experiments and analysis of the literature models, an extension of TOPSIS was proposed. The proposed model is based on the definition of a set of values called Domain, which represents the limit values of each criterion in the decision matrix in order to overcome the drawbacks of TOPSIS. For the validation of the proposal, a numerical application was made for the problem of student selection and it was concluded that the proposed model is robust because it simultaneously prevents the occurrence of ranking reversal and presents a good discriminatory capacity.