In this thesis connections between messages on the public wall of the Russian social network Vkontakte are analysed and classified. A total of 1818 messages from three different Vkontakte groups were collected and analysed according to a new framework based on Halliday and Hasan’s (1976) research into cohesion and Simmons’s (1981) adaptation of their classification for Russian. The two categories of textuality, cohesion and coherence, describe the linguistic connections between messages. The main aim was to find out how far the traditional categories of cohesion are applicable to an online social network including written text as well as multimedia-files. In addition to linguistic cohesion the pragmatic and topic coherence between Vkontakte messages was also analysed. The analysis of pragmatic coherence classifies the messages with acts according to their pragmatic function in relation to surrounding messages. Topic coherence analyses the content of the messages, describes where a topic begins, changes or is abandoned. Linguistic cohesion, topic coherence and pragmatic coherence enable three different types of connections between messages and these together form a coherent communication on the message wall. The cohesion devices identified by Halliday and Hasan and Simmons were found to occur in these texts, but additional devices were also identified: these are multimodal, graphical and grammatical cohesion.

The image of 'the Jew' in nineteenth-century Russian literary texts is traditionally viewed as a paradigm of anti-Semitic discourse. Critics have typically accentuated the presence and continuity of negative stereotypes of the Jews. Yet anti-Semitic discourse is not the only approach to the representation of the Jews in Russian literature. This study explores the manifold nature of the portrayal of 'the Jew' in the works of three Russian writers of the highest calibre: Gogol, Dostoevsky and Turgenev. Literature at the time was highly politicized and a writer was expected to examine the issues of the day from an ideological stance. This meant that a writer's fictional representation of 'the Jew' was treated by many as an illustration of Jews' qualities in real life. After the partitions of Poland in the eighteenth century, Russia acquired a large Jewish population. These new Jewish subjects were confined to the Pale of Settlement, which restricted their rights of residence in Russia proper. That in itself meant that the majority of Jews were invisible to Russian society. Writers mainly used Western literary patterns in describing 'the Jew'. Nevertheless, in using traditional mythic stereotypes of the Jews they not only applied the familiar framework of Western authors but also created images based on specifically Russian culture. Moreover, at different periods of the century 'the Jew' was endowed with traits uncharacteristic of previous myths. The writers' constructions of 'the Jew' thus became complex and flexible. In order to investigate the complex constructions of 'the Jew' the following matters are discussed: (1) the depiction of 'the Jew' by these three writers in conjunction with their understanding of their own identity, events occurring during their lifetime, and stereotypical frames of reference for the Jews; (2) the degree of controversy in their representations; (3) their use of the image of 'the Jew' to define the essential qualities of the Russian.

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / Introdução: O diagnóstico secundário mais frequente em pacientes oncológicos é a desnutrição, que pode afetar até 80% dos doentes. Evidências apontam que a desnutrição está associada a maior morbidade e mortalidade, pior resposta ao tratamento, aumento de custos hospitalares e piora da qualidade de vida. Objetivo: determinar a prevalência de desnutrição e mensurar a qualidade de vida nos pacientes oncológicos submetidos à quimioterapia na UNACON-RR. Materiais e métodos: o estudo quantitativo, tipo corte transversal, avaliou o estado nutricional dos pacientes através de métodos objetivos (IMC, percentual de gordura e área muscular do braço) e subjetivos (ANSG-PPP) e a qualidade de vida através do WHOQOL-Bref. Para caracterizar a população foram coletados dados sócioeconômicos e clínicos. Resultados: Entre os homens, os tumores do TGI foram mais prevalentes (58,5%), enquanto entre as mulheres destacou-se o de mama (52%). A maioria dos pacientes foi classificado como eutrófico (52,2%) e apenas 7,5% estavam desnutridos quando avaliados pelo IMC. Todos os pacientes com desnutrição tinham câncer do TGI, representando 24% destes. Nenhuma mulher com câncer de mama apresentou desnutrição por este método de avaliação. A avaliação pela ANSG-PPP mostrou que 70,1% dos pacientes estavam desnutridos. Dos pacientes com câncer do TGI 88% apresentaram desnutrição, enquanto 35,3% das mulheres com câncer de mama apresentaram esse diagnóstico. Quanto a qualidade de vida o domínio mais afetado foi o físico em todos os grupos de pacientes. Os pacientes bem nutridos apresentaram qualidade de vida significativamente superior aos pacientes desnutridos. Conclusão: Houve comprometimento do estado nutricional nos pacientes, sobretudo quando avaliados pela ASNG-PPP, sendo este um método mais sensível em relação aos métodos objetivos. A qualidade de vida dos pacientes apresentou-se comprometida, sobretudo no domínio físico e houve forte correlação com o estado nutricional. / Introduction: The most common secondary diagnosis in cancer patients is malnutrition, affecting up to 80% of patients. Evidences show that malnutrition is associated with increased morbidity and mortality, poorer response to treatment, increased hospital costs and poorer quality of life. Objective: To determine the prevalence of malnutrition and measure the quality of life in cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy at Unacon-RR. Materials and methods: Quantitative, cross-sectional study, assessing the nutritional status of patients through objective methods (BMI, percentage of fat and arm muscle area) and subjective methods using the PG-SGA assessment, and the quality of life WHOQOL-Bref questionnaire. Socioeconomic and clinical data were collected to characterize the population. Results: Among men, gastrointestinal tumors were more prevalent (58.5%), while among women, breasts were the prevalent site (52%). The majority of patients were classified as eutrophic (52.2%) and only 7.5% were malnourished based by their BMI. All malnourished patients had gastrointestinal cancer, representing 24% of the cases. No woman with breast cancer presented malnutrition by this method of assessment. The assessment by PG-SGA, showed that 70.1% of patients were malnourished, represented by 88% of patients with gastrointestinal cancer, and 35.3% of women with breast cancer. The quality of life assessment reveled that the most affected domain was the physical, in all groups of patients. The well-nourished patients had significantly higher quality of life than malnourished patients. Conclusion: There was compromised nutritional status in patients, especially when evaluated by PG-SGA, which turned out as a more sensitive method, compared to the other objective methods. The quality of life of patients was compromised, especially in the physical domain and there was a strong correlation with nutritional status.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-12T18:02:20Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 arquivo3641_1.pdf: 6593022 bytes, checksum: 0f5771c7ba5a598c9b448775b9fef6c4 (MD5) license.txt: 1748 bytes, checksum: 8a4605be74aa9ea9d79846c1fba20a33 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009 / Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico / A leucemia promielocítica aguda (LPA) corresponde a cerca de 20-28% das LMAs nos países latino-americanos, sendo caracterizada pelo acúmulo de células leucêmicas na medula óssea semelhantes a promielócitos e clinicamente associada à coagulopatia, que é responsável pela alta mortalidade precoce nas fases iniciais de tratamento. Apesar da LPA ser geralmente reconhecida por seus caracteres morfológicos, existem casos atípicos. A LPA é uma patologia beneficiada pelo tratamento com ATRA e, portanto, um rápido e eficiente diagnóstico é essencial. A citogenética em geral e a RT-PCR são amplamente utilizadas na detecção da fusão gênica PML-RARα. Estas técnicas fornecem informações adicionais sobre a presenca de outras anormalidades citogenéticas, porém consomem tempo e requerem laboratórios especializados. O padrão da PML provou-se útil ao diagnostico da LPA clássica através de técnicas imunológicas utilizando anticorpos monoclonais ou policlonais. Neste estudo foram analisados 15 pacientes, de ambos os sexos, idade variando de 4 a 17 anos, diagnosticados com LPA no Centro de Oncohematologia Pediátrica do HUOC ou Instituto Nacional do Câncer entre os anos de 2004 a 2008. As amostras de medula óssea dos pacientes foram tratadas de acordo com protocolos padrões sendo realizadas as técnicas de bandeamento G, RT-PCR, FISH usando sonda para o rearranjo PML-RARα e imunofluorescência com anticorpo monoclonal PG-M3. A análise por bandeamento G revelou alterações cromossômicas, com excessão de dois casos que apresentaram cariótipos normais. O estudo apresentou: um cariótipo complexo 47,XX,del(12p),add(14q),del(15q),i(19q),+mar, onde não foi detectada a fusão PML-RARα pela RT-PCR, nem pela FISH; um 48,XX,+2mar, no qual também não foi detectada a fusão PMLRARα pelas técnicas moleculares. Estes dois casos podem conter fusões variantes. Sete casos com t(15;17) foram detectados pela citogenética e confirmados pela FISH; cinco casos com t(15;17) confirmados pela FISH quando não foi possível realizar a análise citogenética. Em três casos a RT-PCR mostrou-se divergente da FISH. A imunofluorescência foi realizada em cinco casos e todos confirmaram o diagnóstico da LPA clássica. Sete pacientes estão vivos, seis em remissão, um em tratamento e oito foram a óbito. Estes dados mostram a importância da união de diversas metodologias para o aperfeiçoamento da eficiência e sensibilidade do diagnóstico e do tratamento desta doença

Increased availability of natural gas has boosted research and development efforts to further increase gas turbine performance. Performance has been increased remarkably and unit cost reduced due to achievements gained in improving thermodynamic cycles and cooling technologies. However, increased complexity in power industry regulations and fluctuations in fuel price have indicated that all the aforementioned improvements in gas turbine performance could not cope with the increased competition in the gas turbine industrial market. Innovation within the aero-derivative concept has enabled further significant improvement in the performance of industrial gas turbines. It allows a more beneficial approach than developing new designs of industrial gas turbines owing to reduced designing time and cost. Objectives in this project focus on developing a methodology of design and assessing aeroderivative gas turbine engines derived from a 130-seat aircraft engine. Developed methodology includes techno-economic and environmental assessment, conducted through further developments of models based on Techno-economic and Environmental Risk Assessment (TERA) philosophy, to be applied in further industrial applications. Tools used in this investigation include a significant literature research on the development of aero-derivative gas turbine technologies, including thermodynamic cycles and its land-based applications. Turbomatch is a homebased code developed in Cranfield University, used in calculating design point and predicting off-design performance of parent aero-engine and the aeroderivative engines developed. Excel and FORTRAN code are also used in calculating engine’s design parameters, and creating a model of life estimation Creep. Moreover, FORTRAN code is used for building emission and economic models for power generation and combined heat and power applications. Finally, MATLAP code is used in creating a small model for generating performance TXT files, and running marine integrated models platform. All models needed to develop the methodology have been created, and calculations of an engine’s performance and assessment were conducted based on this developed methodology. Sensible results are generated from the investigated methodology and they show acceptable designs of aero-derivative engines on different thermodynamic cycles. Based on the acceptable level of technology and material thermal barriers, all design and off-design performance limitations of new developed aero-derivative engines have been determined for a wide range of ambient conditions. Techno-economic and environmental assessment performed through implementing the developed aero-derivative engines on power generation and marine applications under different operating scenarios. Results of operating the engines on power generation and marine applications have been investigated and compared. It is observed that engines respond differently when operating under different environmental profiles, depending on the number of units engaged and their thermodynamic cycle as well as mechanical configurations. Also, the selected specific gas turbine engine can be the best economical choice for operating on determined scenario, while it cannot be when operating in different scenarios. Assessment of developed engines on the investigated application shows how the lowest specific cost (small engine size) can constitute important criteria in engine selection.

Background: In recent years, the emerging electronic cigarette (e-cigarette) marketplace has developed prosperously all over the world. By analyzing online e-liquid reviews, we seek to identify the features attracting users. Methods: We collected e-liquid reviews from one of the largest online e-liquid review websites and extracted the e-liquid features by keywords. Then we used sentiment analysis to classify the features into two polarities: positive and negative. The positive sentiment ratio of a feature reflects the e-cigarette users' preference on this feature. Results: The popularity and preference of e-liquid features are not correlated. Nuts and cream are the favorite flavor categories, while fruit and cream are the most popular categories. The top mixed flavors are preferable to single flavors. Fruit and cream categories are most frequently mixed with other flavors. E-cigarette users are satisfied with cloud production, but not satisfied with the ingredients and throat hit. Conclusions: We identified the flavors that e-cigarette users were satisfied with, and we found the users liked e-cigarette cloud production. Therefore, flavors and cloud production are potential factors attracting new users.

Pozzolanic reactions play a key role in improving the compressive strengths of compacted fly ash-lime specimens. Based on studies performed with cement amended fly ash (FA), activation of fly ash-lime pozzolanic reactions should accelerate the rate of strength development and mobilize larger compressive strengths facilitating improved engineering performance of fly ash amended materials. Further, use of phosphogypsum (PG) is a cause of environmental concern as the material is acidic (pH < 3.0) and contains considerable amounts of fluoride (0.86%). The main research objectives of the thesis are to activate lime-fly ash reactions by thermal and chemical activation process and examine the efficacy of fly ash pozzolanic reactions in controlling fluoride release by phosphogypsum. A comprehensive laboratory experimental program was performed to examine the influence of curing temperature (thermal activation) and calcined PG addition (chemical activation) on lime-fly ash reactions. The kinetics of fly ash-lime reactions are examined by monitoring the reacted lime content as function of curing period and temperature. The influence of variations in fly ash/lime content and dry density on the compressive strength developed by specimens is evaluated. The thermodynamic parameters for the fly ash-lime (FA-L) reactions have been delineated. Fly ash-lime-phosphogypsum (FA-L-G) mixes in slurry and compacted states were monitored for fluoride released as function of curing period The influence of curing temperature in activating fly ash-lime reactions is first examined. Specimens were cured at 25°C (termed RTC or room temperature cured) and at 80° (termed SC or steam cured) to understand thermal activation of fly ash-lime reactions. The rate of lime consumption by SC specimens classified as 2 stage process. The robust increase during stage 2 of steam curing suggested that the lime-solidification reactions did not reach equilibrium even after 4 days of curing at the elevated temperature. While only 3.1 to 3.3 % of added lime was consumed after 28 days of curing at room temperature, much larger amounts of lime ( 8.6-9.3%) were consumed after 4 days of steam-curing. Further, the lime-fly ash reactions were accelerated by 6 to 7 folds on curing the specimens at elevated temperature. The results indicated that activation of lime-fly ash reactions by curing at elevated temperature besides accelerating the rate of strength development also facilitated development of larger strength. Analysis of the free energy change values (ΔG°) indicated that the lime solidification reaction alters from dis-favored (less spontaneous) to favoured (spontaneous) state on curing at 80oC. The positive ΔH° (enthalpy change) values for the fly ash-lime reactions indicated that the reactions are endothermic in nature and are facilitated by increase in curing temperature. Gypsum activation was achieved by addition of 2.5 to 5% calcined phosphogypsum to fly ash lime mixes and curing the compacted specimens at room temperature (FA-L-G specimens). The rate of lime consumption by FA-L-G specimens appeared to be three stage process. The mass of lime consumed by FA-L-G specimens was about 1.5 to 3 folds higher than values of the RTC and SC specimens. Additional lime is consumed by FA-L-G specimens in ettringite formation. A similarity existed between rate of lime consumed and rate of strength developed by the FA-L-G specimens. It is proposed that besides lime solidification reactions, densification of the matrix by filling up of voids by fine gypsum particles and compaction of matrix by the growth of ettringite crystals also contribute to compressive strength of FA-L-G specimens; this additional mechanism of strength development accounts for their higher compressive strength in comparison to the SC and RTC specimens despite similar initial lime addition values. The trend of results suggests that activation of FA-L reactions by calcined PG addition is more effective than steam curing. Comparison of ΔG° values of RTC, SC and FA-L-G specimens revealed that the spontaneity of the lime solidification reactions is least for RTC specimens and improves with addition of phosphogypsum and further improves on curing at elevated temperature. Fly ash-lime pozzolanic reactions substantially reduced the fluoride released from the FA-L-G specimens. The marked reduction in fluoride released by PG amended with fly ash and lime is ascribed to entrapment of PG particles in the cemented matrix formed by fly ash-lime pozzolanic reactions together with consumption of fluoride in formation of insoluble fluoride bearing compounds. The thesis brings out that activation of fly ash-lime reactions leading to quicker and larger compressive strength development is achieved by curing the compacted fly ash-lime specimens at 80°C for 24 hr or by addition of 2.5 to 5% of calcined PG to fly ash-lime mix and curing the compacted specimens at room-temperature. As larger strengths are developed by PG addition than by curing at 80oC, it is recommended that FA-L-G technique be adopted for manufacture of building materials in the civil engineering industry. This technique is also sustainable as it does not require energy for heating which is needed in the steam-curing technique.

Concerns about global warming have resulted in a surge of research into alternatives to fossil fuels. In recent years, biofuels have gained traction due to their low environmental impact. Biofuel production most commonly employs microorganisms to convert biomass to fuel for industrial and transportation applications. Compounds made in biofuel production, however, are toxic to cell membranes and disrupt their integrity, harming the microorganisms and limiting biofuel yield. A key to overcoming this challenge is understanding how fuels interact with microorganisms’ cell membranes, which perform a host of functions, including transport, cell recognition, transduction, and movement. Phospholipids are the cell membrane’s building blocks and provide the critical matrix to support these vital functions. This research sought to make in-vitro membrane phospholipid models of the bacterium Bacillus subtilis (a biofuel producer candidate), subject them to fuel stress and employ fluorescence techniques to understand how fuels affect membrane integrity.

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Amongst its numerous functions, the liver is responsible for the synthesis and secretion of very low-density lipoprotein (VLDL). VLDL particles play the important role of facilitating the transport of lipids within the aqueous environment of the plasma; yet high plasma concentrations of these particles result in the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis, while low VLDL secretion from the liver results in hepatic steatosis. VLDL synthesis in the hepatocyte is completed in the Golgi apparatus, which serves as the final site of VLDL maturation prior to its secretion to the bloodstream. The mechanism by which VLDL’s targeted transport to the plasma membrane is facilitated has yet to be identified. Our lab has identified this entity. Our findings suggest that upon maturation, VLDL is directed to the plasma membrane through a novel trafficking vesicle, the Post-Golgi VLDL Transport Vesicle (PG-VTV). PG-VTVs containing [3H] radiolabeled VLDL were generated in a cell-free in vitro budding assay for study. First, the fusogenic capabilities of PG-VTVs were established. Vesicles were capable of fusing with the plasma membrane and delivering the VLDL cargo for secretion in a vectorial manner. The next goal of our study is to characterize key regulatory molecular entities necessary for PG-VTV biosynthesis. A detailed analysis was undertaken to determine the PG-VTV proteome via western blot and two-dimensional difference in gel electrophoresis. The identification of key molecular regulators will potentially offer therapeutic targets to control VLDL secretion to the bloodstream.