Submitted by Ricardo Cedraz Duque Moliterno (ricardo.moliterno@uefs.br) on 2015-10-08T22:13:49Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Disserta??o Final_Fabio Ribeiro Garcia.pdf: 1235311 bytes, checksum: 99c4c15b4044b2e3d060b0f7f4d595d4 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2015-10-08T22:13:49Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Disserta??o Final_Fabio Ribeiro Garcia.pdf: 1235311 bytes, checksum: 99c4c15b4044b2e3d060b0f7f4d595d4 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-05-07 / Coordena??o de Aperfei?oamento de Pessoal de N?vel Superior - CAPES / bromeliad species are native to Brazil and have great potential for use as an ornamental plant, and a relevant ecological importance. Considering the devastation of the Atlantic, currently 7.3% of its original area preserved and where about 70% are endemic bromeliad is important to establish methods of propagation and ex situ conservation in order to preserve this germplasm and avoid irreversible genetic erosion. Thus, the aim of this work was to establish protocols and micropropagation in vitro conservation of A. blancheteana and A. miniata. In the first chapter, for multiplication in vitro, we used different concentrations of BAP and for rooting tested different concentrations of auxins IAA, IBA and NAA. In the second chapter we tested two protocols, was first used in MS medium supplemented with different concentrations of auxin Picloram and 2,4-D combined with BAP and the second experiment evaluated MS medium supplemented with 2,4-D or picloram in different concentrations. In the third chapter, we investigated the effect of osmotic agents, sucrose, sorbitol and mannitol in vitro conservation A. blancheteana. For the best result micropropagation for multiplication was for medium supplemented with 4.44 ?M BA. To induce somatic embryos and regeneration of the concentration of 22.5 ?M 2,4-D was the most efficient. Independent of concentration, mannitol was more efficient for in vitro conservation of A. blancheteana for 12 months. / Aechmea blancheteana (Baker) L.B. Smith e Aechmea miniata (Beer) Baker s?o esp?cies de brom?lias nativas do Brasil que possuem grande potencial para uso como planta ornamental, al?m de relevante import?ncia ecol?gica. Considerando a grande devasta??o de Mata Atl?ntica, atualmente com 7,3% de sua ?rea original preservada, onde cerca de 70% das brom?lias s?o end?micas ? importante o estabelecimento de m?todos propaga??o e conserva??o ex situ com o objetivo de preservar esse germoplasma e evitar uma eros?o gen?tica irrevers?vel. Assim, o objetivo deste trabalho estabelecer os protocolos de micropropaga??o e conserva??o in vitro de A. blancheteana e A. miniata. No primeiro cap?tulo, para a multiplica??o in vitro, foram utilizadas diferentes concentra??es de BAP e na fase de enraizamento foram testadas diferentes concentra??es das auxinas AIA, AIB e ANA. No segundo cap?tulo foram testadas a combina??o de diferentes concentra??es das auxinas Picloram e 2,4-D e da auxina 2,4-D combinada com a citocinina BAP na indu??o de embri?es som?ticos. No terceiro cap?tulo, foi avaliado o efeito dos agentes osm?ticos, sacarose, sorbitol e manitol na conserva??o in vitro de A. blancheteana. Para a micropropaga??o o melhor resultado foi obtido em meio MS suplementado com 4,44?M de BAP. Para a indu??o e regenera??o de embri?es som?ticos, a concentra??o 22,5?M de 2,4-D foi a mais eficiente. Independente da concentra??o, o manitol foi mais eficiente para a conserva??o in vitro de A. blancheteana por 12 meses.

Geographic space is the large-scale and continuous space that encircles the earth and in which human activities occur. The study of geographic space has drawn attention in many different fields and has been applied in a variety of studies, including those on cognition, urban planning and navigation systems. A scaling property indicates that small objects are far more numerous than large ones, i.e., the size of objects is extremely diverse. The concept of scaling resembles a fractal in geometric terms and a power law distribution from the perspective of statistical physics, but it is different from both in terms of application. Combining the concepts of geographic space and scaling, this thesis proposes the concept of the scaling of geographic space, which refers to the phenomenon that small geographic objects or representations are far more numerous than large ones. From the perspectives of statistics and mathematics, the scaling of geographic space can be characterized by the fact that the sizes of geographic objects follow heavy-tailed distributions, i.e., the special non-linear relationships between variables and their probability. In this thesis, the heavy-tailed distributions refer to the power law, lognormal, exponential, power law with an exponential cutoff and stretched exponential. The first three are the basic distributions, and the last two are their degenerate versions. If the measurements of the geographic objects follow a heavy-tailed distribution, then their mean value can divide them into two groups: large ones (a low percentage) whose values lie above the mean value and small ones (a high percentage) whose values lie below. This regularity is termed as the head/tail division rule. That is, a two-tier hierarchical structure can be obtained naturally. The scaling property of geographic space and the head/tail division rule are verified at city and country levels from the perspectives of axial lines and blocks, respectively. In the study of geographic space, the most important concept is geographic representation, which represents or partitions a large-scale geographic space into numerous small pieces, e.g., vector and raster data in conventional spatial analysis. In a different context, each geographic representation possesses different geographic implications and a rich partial knowledge of space. The emergence of geographic information science (GIScience) and volunteered geographic information (VGI) greatly enable the generation of new types of geographic representations. In addition to the old axial lines, this thesis generated several types of representations of geographic space: (a) blocks that were decomposed from road segments, each of which forms a minimum cycle such as city and field blocks (b) natural streets that were generated from street center lines using the Gestalt principle of good continuity; (c) new axial lines that were defined as the least number of individual straight line segments mutually intersected along natural streets; (d) the fewest-turn map direction (route) that possesses the hierarchical structure and indicates the scaling of geographic space; (e) spatio-temporal clusters of the stop points in the trajectories of large-scale floating car data. Based on the generated geographic representations, this thesis further applies the scaling property and the head/tail division rule to these representations for urban studies. First, all of the above geographic representations demonstrate the scaling property, which indicates the scaling of geographic space. Furthermore, the head/tail division rule performs well in obtaining the hierarchical structures of geographic objects. In a sense, the scaling property reveals the hierarchical structures of geographic objects. According to the above analysis and findings, several urban studies are performed as follows: (1) generate new axial lines based on natural streets for a better understanding of urban morphologies; (2) compute the fewest-turn and shortest map direction; (3) identify urban sprawl patches based on the statistics of blocks and natural cities; (4) categorize spatio-temporal clusters of long stop points into hotspots and traffic jams; and (5) perform an across-country comparison of hierarchical spatial structures. The overall contribution of this thesis is first to propose the principle of scaling of geographic space as well as the head/tail division rule, which provide a new and quantitative perspective to efficiently reduce the high degree of complexity and effectively solve the issues in urban studies. Several successful applications prove that the scaling of geographic space and the head/tail division rule are inspiring and can in fact be applied as a universal law, in particular, to urban studies and other fields. The data sets that were generated via an intensive geo-computation process are as large as hundreds of gigabytes and will be of great value to further data mining studies. / <p>QC 20120301</p> / Hägerstrand project entitled “GIS-based mobility information for sustainable urban planning and design”

Made available in DSpace on 2014-12-17T14:13:34Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 AdalgisaIM.pdf: 212398 bytes, checksum: 91a56cbfe357d683d0b60cf3fa34bf87 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2007-08-14 / Medicinal plants have been studied and used in the world. Lantana camara has medicinal properties and it has been used in folk medicine. The aim was to verify the effect of a lantana extract on the labeling of blood constituents with 99mTc, and to evaluate the effect of an aqueous extract of Lantana camara on the morphology of RBC withdrawn from Wistar rats. The results showed that lantana extract has decreased the fixation of radioactivity on the IF-P. This effect was not observed in the BC compartment and in IF-BC. The BC-%ATI was decreased in all concentrations tested when the BC was washed. The osmotic fragility assay and morphological analysis were carried out. In presence of the extract, the data obtained indicated that (i) an increase of the hemolysis and (ii) modifications on the morphology of RBC. These effects of the Lantana camara could be associated with some pharmacological properties of the chemical compounds of this studied extract / Extratos de plantas medicinais s?o utilizados amplamente em todo o mundo. Entretanto, efeitos biol?gicos associados aos mesmos n?o t?m sido investigados exaustivamente. Atrav?s do uso de suas folhas e flores a Lantana camara (Cambar? de espinho) tem sido usado para tratamento de v?rias doen?as na medicina popular. O presente estudo teve como objetivo verificar o efeito do extrato desta planta na marca??o de constituintes sang??neo com tecn?cio 99m, bem como a morfologia de hem?cias de ratos Wistar. Os resultados mostraram que o extrato de Lantana camara acarretou uma diminui??o de fixa??o de radioatividade na fra??o insol?vel do plasma. Este efeito n?o foi observado na c?lula e nem na fra??o insol?vel da c?lula. O percentual de atividade teve diminui??o em todas as concentra??es quando as c?lulas foram lavadas, o que n?o foi observado com o controle. O extrato estudado aumentou a fragilidade osm?tica das hem?cias e modificou a morfologia dessas c?lulas. Os efeitos do extrato de Lantana camara podem estar associados a algumas propriedades farmacol?gicas de componentes qu?micos do extrato estudado. O estudo teve car?ter multidisciplinar com a participa??o das seguintes ?reas do conhecimento: Radiobiologia, Bot?nica, Fitoterapia e Hematologia

This diploma thesis Tetrahedra and their properties summarizes the basic properties of tetrahedron. The main goal is to introduce the topic to a reader of this thesis. Author would like to provide basic information about the particular types of tetrahedra and their properties. I try to examine there a spatial analogy of selected terms of a triangle. Conditions for the existence of the orthocenter of a tetrahedron are derived. Then for a non-orthocetric tetrahedron the Monge point as its generalization is introduced. By most properties their proofs are given. In the final part worksheets for pupils of primary and secondary schools are designed. Pictures in the thesis are created in a geometrical program called GeoGebra 3D. These pictures can help the reader to understand this problem.

The continuous progression of urbanization has resulted in an increasing number of people living in cities or towns. In parallel, advancements in technologies, such as the Internet, telecommunications, and transportation, have allowed for better connectivity among people. This has engendered drastic changes in urban systems during the recent decades. From a social geographic perspective, the changes in urban systems are primarily characterized by intensive contacts among people and their interactions with the surrounding urban environment, which further leads to subsequent challenging problems such as traffic jams, environmental pollution, urban sprawl, etc. These problems have been reported to be heterogeneous and non-deterministic. Hence, to cope with them, massive amounts of geographic data are required to create new knowledge on urban systems. Due to the thriving of Volunteer Geographic Information (VGI) in recent years, this thesis presents knowledge on urban systems based on extensive VGI datasets from three sources: highway dataset from the OpenStreetMap (OSM) project, photo location dataset from the Flickr website, and GPS tracking datasets from volunteers, taxicabs, and air flights. The knowledge primarily relates to two issues of urban systems: the urban space and the corresponding human dynamics. In accordance, on one hand, urban space acts as a carrier for associated geographic activities and knowledge of it benefits our understanding of current social and economic problems in urban systems. On the other hand, human dynamics reflect human behavior in urban space, which leads to complex mobility or activity patterns. Its investigation allows a derivation of the underlying driving force that is very instructive to urban planning, traffic management, and infectious disease control. Therefore, to fully understand the two issues, this thesis conducts a thorough investigation from multiple aspects. The first issue is investigated from four aspects. First, at the city level, the controversial topic of city size regularity is investigated in terms of natural cities, and the conclusion is that Zipf’s law holds stably for all US cities. Second, at the sub-city level, the size distribution of spatial units within different cities in terms of the clusters formed by street nodes, photo locations, and taxi static points are explored, and the result shows a remarkable scaling property of these spatial units. Third, enlightened by the scaling property of the urban space at the city or sub-city level, this thesis devises a novel tool that can demarcate the cities into three categories: compact cities, normal cities, and sprawling cities. The tool is then applied to cities in both the US and three European countries. In the last, another representation of urban space is taken into account, namely the transportation network. The findings report that the US airport network displays the properties of scale-free, small-world, and disassortative mixing and that the individual natural airports show heterogeneous patterns that are probably subject to geographic constraints and socioeconomic factors. The second issue is examined from four perspectives. First, at the city level, the movement flow contributed by agents using two types of behavior is investigated through an agent-based simulation, and the result conjectures that the human mobility behavior is mainly shaped by the underlying street network. Second, at the country level, this thesis reports that the human travel length by air can be approximated well by an exponential distribution, and subsequent simulations indicate that human mobility behavior is largely constrained by the underlying airport network. Third, at the regional level, the length that humans travel by car is demonstrated to agree well with a power law with exponential cutoff distribution, and subsequent simulation further reproduces this levy flight characteristic. Based on the simulation, human mobility behavior is again revealed to be primarily shaped by the underlying hierarchical spatial structure. Finally, taxicab static points are adopted to explore human activity patterns, which can be characterized as the regularities in space and time, the heterogeneity and predictability in space. From a complex system perspective, this thesis presents the knowledge discovered in urban systems using massive volumes of geographic data. Together with new knowledge from empirical findings, the development of methods, and the design of theoretic models, this thesis also shares the research community with geographic data generated from extensive VGI datasets and the corresponding source codes. Moreover, this study is aligned with a paradigm shift in that it analyzes large-size datasets using high processing power as opposed to analyzing small-size datasets with low processing power. / <p>QC 20121113</p>

Made available in DSpace on 2014-12-17T15:01:54Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 PriscilaVDMQ_TESE.pdf: 3706825 bytes, checksum: a3b44c4a57772c9356ce81d22bdb9174 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-03-19 / Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cient?fico e Tecnol?gico / The green bean has organoleptic and nutritional characteristics that make it an important food source in tropical regions such as the Northeast of Brazil. It is a cheap source of protein and important for nutrition of rural population contributing significantly in subsistence farming of the families from Brazil s northeast. It is consumed in entire region and together with the dry meat and other products composes the menu of typical restaurants, being characterized as an important product for economy of Northeast. The green bean is consumed freshly harvested and has short cycle, being characterized as a very perishable food, which hampers your market. The drying method is an alternative to increase the lifetime and provide a reduction volume of this product making easier your transportation and storage. However is necessary to search ways of drying which keep the product quality not only from the nutritional standpoint but also organoleptic. Some characteristics may change with the drying process such as the coloring, the rehydration capacity and the grains cooking time. The decrease of drying time or of exposure of the grains to high temperature minimizes the effects related with the product quality loss. Among the techniques used to reduce the drying time and improve some characteristics of the product, stands out the osmotic dehydration, widely used in combined processes such as the pretreatment in drying food. Currently the use of the microwaves has been considered an alternative for drying food. The microwave energy generates heat inside of materials processed and the heating is practically instantaneous, resulting in shorter processing times and product quality higher to that obtained by conventional methods. Considering the importance of the green beans for the Northeast region, the wastefulness of production due to seasonality of the crop and your high perishability, the proposal of this thesis is the study of drying grain by microwaves with and without osmotic pretreatment, focusing on the search of conditions of processes which favor the rehydration of the product preserving your organoleptic characteristics. Based on the analysis of the results of osmotic dehydration and dielectric properties was defined the operating condition to be used in pretreatment of the green bean, with osmotic concentration in saline solution containing 12,5% of sodium chloride, at 40?C for 20 minutes. The drying of green bean by microwave was performed with and without osmotic pretreatment on the optimized condition. The osmotic predehydration favored the additional drying, reducing the process time. The rehydration of dehydrated green bean with and without osmotic pretreatment was accomplished in different temperature conditions and immersion time according to a factorial design 22, with 3 repetitions at the central point. According to results the better condition was obtained with the osmotically pretreated bean and rehydrated at a temperature of 60?C for 90 minutes. Sensory analysis was performed comparing the sample of the green bean in natura and rehydrated in optimized conditions, with and without osmotic pretreatment. All samples showed a good acceptance rate regarding the analyzed attributes (appearance, texture, color, odor and taste), with all values above 70%. Is possible conclude that the drying of green bean by microwave with osmotic pretreatment is feasible both in respect to technical aspects and rehydration rates and sensory quality of the product / O feij?o verde apresenta caracter?sticas organol?pticas e nutricionais que fazem dele uma importante fonte aliment?cia em regi?es de clima tropical como o Nordeste do Brasil. ? uma fonte de prote?na barata e importante para a nutri??o da popula??o rural contribuindo significativamente na agricultura de subsist?ncia das fam?lias nordestinas. ? consumido em toda a regi?o e comp?e junto com a carne de sol e outros produtos o card?pio dos restaurantes t?picos, caracterizando-se assim como um produto importante para a economia da Nordeste. O feij?o verde ? consumido rec?m-colhido e apresenta ciclo curto, sendo caracterizado como um alimento de alta perecibilidade, o que dificulta a sua comercializa??o. A secagem desse produto se caracteriza como uma alternativa para o aumento da vida ?til deste alimento, al?m de proporcionar uma redu??o de volume facilitando seu manuseio no transporte e armazenagem. Todavia necess?rio se faz buscar formas de secagem que preservem a qualidade do produto n?o s? sobre o ponto de vista nutricional como organol?ptico. Dentre as caracter?sticas que se alteram com o processo de secagem, destacam-se a colora??o, a capacidade de reidrata??o e o tempo de cozimento dos gr?os. A diminui??o do tempo de secagem, ou de exposi??o dos gr?os a elevadas temperaturas minimizam os efeitos relacionados com a perda de qualidade do produto. .Dentre as t?cnicas empregadas para minimizar o tempo de secagem e melhorar algumas caracter?sticas do produto, destaca-se a desidrata??o osm?tica, muito utilizada em processos combinados como pr?-tratamento na secagem dos alimentos. Atualmente a utiliza??o do micro-ondas tem sido apontada como uma alternativa para a secagem de alimentos. A energia de micro-ondas gera calor no interior dos materiais processados e o aquecimento ? praticamente instant?neo, o que resulta em tempos de processamento mais curtos e qualidade do produto superior ? obtida pelos m?todos convencionais. Considerando a import?ncia do feij?o verde para a regi?o Nordeste, o desperd?cio da produ??o devido a sazonalidade da safra e sua alta perecibilidade, foi proposto nesta tese o estudo da secagem dos gr?os em micro-ondas com e sem pr?-tratamento osm?tico, tendo como foco principal a busca das condi??es de processo que favore?am a reidrata??o do produto, com preserva??o de suas caracter?sticas organol?pticas. A partir da an?lise dos resultados da desidrata??o osm?tica e propriedades diel?tricas foi definida a condi??o operacional a ser utilizada no pr?-tratamento do feij?o verde, com concentra??o osm?tica em solu??o salina contendo 12,5% de cloreto de s?dio, a 400C por 20 minutos. A secagem do feij?o verde por micro-ondas foi realizada sem e com pr?-tratamento osm?tico na condi??o otimizada. A pr?-desidrata??o osm?tica favoreceu a secagem complementar, reduzindo o tempo de processo. A reidrata??o do feij?o verde desidratado com e sem pr?-tratamento osm?tico foi realizada em diferentes condi??es de temperatura e tempo de imers?o de acordo com um planejamento fatorial 22, com 3 repeti??es no ponto central . De acordo com os resultados a melhor condi??o, foi obtida com o feij?o pr?-tratado osmoticamente e reidratado a uma temperatura de 600C por 90 minutos. Realizou-se a an?lise sensorial comparando-se as amostra de feij?o verde in natura e reidratado nas condi??es otimizadas, com e sem pr?-tratamento osm?tico. Todas as amostras apresentaram um bom ?ndice de aceita??o referente aos atributos analisados (apar?ncia, textura, cor, odor e sabor), estando todos os valores acima de 70%. Conclui-se que a secagem do feij?o verde por micro-ondas com pr?-tratamento osm?tico ? vi?vel, tanto em rela??o aos aspectos t?cnicos como aos ?ndices de reidrata??o e a qualidade sensorial do produto

Cardiotrophin-1 ist ein Zytokin der Familie Interleukin-6-Familie, zu der auch IL-11, CNTF, OSM und LIF gehören. Diese Substanzen wirken über die gemeinsame Rezeptoruntereinheit gp130. CT-1 induziert die Hypertrophie von Kardiomyozyten und inhibiert die Apoptose kardialer und Zellen. In verschiedenen Tiermodellen der Herzinsuffizienz konnte eine gesteigerte myokardiale CT-1 Expression beobachtet werden. Kardiomyopathien sind wiederum kardiale Erkrankungen, die mit einer Hypertrophie und Apoptose einhergehen und zu einer Herzinsuffizienz führen können. Man geht davon aus, dass 25-50 Prozent der familiär sind. Hierbei handelt es sich um eine monogenetische Erkrankung, die überwiegend autosomal-dominant vererbt werden. Daneben konnten aber auch modifizierende Polymorphismen in neurohumoralen Faktoren identifiziert werden. Basierend auf diesen Ergebnissen war das Ziel dieser Arbeit die Analyse der möglichen Beteiligung genetischer Varianten der kodierenden sowie der regulatorischen Region an der Pathogenese der Hypertrophen bzw. Dilatativen Kardiomyopathie. Zusätzlich sollte die mRNA-Expression von CT-1 in Myokardbiopsien von Patienten mit Herzinsuffizienz quantifiziert werden. Hierfür musste zunächst die Sequenzen der 5´-flankierenden Region identifiziert und bezüglich ihrer regulatorischen Eigenschaften analysiert werden. Es konnten 1,1 kb der 5´-flankierenden Region sequenziert werden. Die anschließende Luciferase-Reportergen-Analyse wies regulatorische Aktivitäten für den gesamten Bereich nach. Diese Region enthält zahlreiche cis-aktive DANN-Sequenzen aber keine TATA-Box. Für die Mutationssuche wurden 64 Patienten mit DCM, 53 Patienten mit HCM sowie 100 Kontrollpersonen mittels PCR-SSCP-Analyse untersucht. Es konnte eine kodierende Variante A92T bei jeweils einem DCM- bzw. HCM-Patienten identifiziert werden. Diese Substitution liegt in einem Bereich, der zwischen verschiedenen Spezies (Ratte, Maus, Mensch) konserviert ist. Diese Mutation könnte eine Veränderung der Sekundärstruktur bewirken und liegt in einem möglichen funktionellen Bereich. Die Promotorregion wies eine Basenpaarsubstitution bei -130 (G/T) sowie eine Deletion der Basen CTTT zwischen -992 und -995 auf. Der Polymorphismus an Position -130 fand sich tendenziell häufiger bei Patienten mit Dilatativer Kardiomyopathie. Die CTTT-Deletion konnte nur bei einer Patientin mit HCM nachgewiesen werden. Für die Quantifizierung der CT-1 mRNA wurden rechtsventrikuläre Endomyokardbiopsien von 6 Patienten mit eingeschränkter LVEF (CHI), 5 Patienten nach Herztransplantation (TX) sowie 3 Kontrollpatienten (KO) eingesetzt. Es konnte ein relativer Anstieg der CT-1 Expression um 82% bei den Patienten mit eingeschränkter LVEF festgestellt werden. Interessanterweise besteht eine enge Korrelation zur Schwere der eingeschränkten Herzfunktion sowie zur Zunahme der Hypertrophie. / Cardiotrophin-1 is a cytokine, which belongs to the interleukin-6 family, which includes IL-11, CNTF, OSM and LIF. These factors act via the receptor subunit gp130. CT-1 induces the hypertrophy of cardiomyocytes and inhibits the apoptosis of cardiac cells. Studies in animal models of congestive heart failure showed an enhanced expression of CT-1 in the myocardium. Cardiomyopathies are cardiac diesorders, which are charakterized by hypertrophy and apoptosis and which can terminate with congestive heart failure. About 25-50 percent of all cases are familial. It is a monogenetic mendelian disorder with an autosomal-dominant inheritance in most cases. Beside this, modifying polymorphisms in neurohunoral factors could be identified. Based on these facts, the aim of this study was to identify genetic variants within the coding and regulatory region of the CT-1 gene, which could influence the pathogenesis of hypertrophic or dilated cardiomyopathy. Additionally, the mRNA-expression of CT-1 in myocardial biopsies of heart failure patients should be quantified. First, it was necessary to sequence the 5´-untranslated region and to analyse its regulatory function. We could sequence 1.1 kb of the 5´-UTR. The luciferase reportergene assay showed a significant promoter activity for the whole region. The region contains various cis-active DNA sequences but no TATA-box.The TRANSFAC-analysis identified different binding sites for transcription factors but no TATA-box. The genetic material of 64 DCM and 53 HCM patients and 100 controls was screened for mutaions by using a PCR-based SSCP-analysis. A coding variant A92T could be identified for a patient with DCM and for an HCM patient. This mutation lies within a region which is conserved between different species (rat, mouse, human). This variant could disturb the secondary structure and lies in a probable functional region. Within the promoter we could identify a basepair substitution at position -130 (G/T) and a 4-basepair deletion between -992 and -995 (CTTTdel). The polymorphism at -130 showed a tendency for a higher occurrence in DCM patients. One HCM patient was heterozygous for the CTTT-deletion. To quantify the CT-1 mRNA we used endomyocardial biopsies of 6 patients with reduced LVEF (CHI), 5 patients after heart transplantation (TX) and 3 controls (KO). We performed a semiquantitative analysis by using HPLC and an external standard (PDH mRNA). We found an increased expression of CT-1 by 82% for patients with heart failure. Interestingly, we saw a tight correlation with to the reduction in LV function and to the degree of hypertrophy.

The thesis concentrates on the International Standard ISO 10014 - Quality management -Guidelines for realizing financial and economic benefits. In the thesis management principles and the simply methodology called PDCA are described. The thesis is focused on the priniple of process approach and nutually beneficial supplier relationship. These methods according to the Standard are applicated: Drum-Buffer-Rope within process approach and the graphical method of supplier rating, the zone control charts and the comprehensive supplier performance evaluation. The benefits from the effective application of these methods and tools are described.