published_or_final_version / abstract / Psychology / Master / Master of Philosophy

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Second-graders were tested for negative transfer and retroactive interference using an A-B, A-D paradigm. Four-pair, word-number lists were aurally presented to the children. Subjects were classified as being whole-only encoders or multiple encoders by the use of a recall test presented after list one. Significant negative transfer and retroactive interference were found. The multiple encoders experiences less difficulty in learning the second list that did the whole-only encoders, but these two groups did no differ with regard to transfer or retroactive interference effects. The results were considered in the context of Martin's encoding variability hypothesis.

The main theme of this thesis research is concerned with developing a computational pipeline for processing Next-generation RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) data. RNA-seq experiments generate tens of millions of short reads for each DNA/RNA sample. The alignment of a large volume of short reads to a reference genome is a key step in NGS data analysis. Although storing alignment information in the Sequence Alignment/Map (SAM) or Binary SAM (BAM) format is now standard, biomedical researchers still have difficulty accessing useful information. In order to assist biomedical researchers to conveniently access essential information from NGS data files in SAM/BAM format, we have developed a Graphical User Interface (GUI) software tool named SAMMate to pipeline human transcriptome quantification. SAMMate allows researchers to easily process NGS data files in SAM/BAM format and is compatible with both single-end and paired-end sequencing technologies. It also allows researchers to accurately calculate gene expression abundance scores.

Cette recherche avait pour objectif d’étudier les troubles cognitifs à l’origine de la dyslexie, et plus particulièrement le déficit d’apprentissage de paires associées (PAL) à composante verbale (input ou output). Tout d’abord, une étude longitudinale menée auprès d’enfants tout-venant pré-lecteurs et apprentis lecteurs a permis de mettre en évidence une contribution spécifique des PAL intermodales à l’efficience ultérieure en lecture/transcription. Les résultats de l’étude neuropsychologique indiquent pour leur part que les enfants dyslexiques présentent un déficit pour tous les types de PAL à composante verbale. Ce déficit apparait toucher à la fois la mémorisation des réponses, notamment verbales, et la mémorisation des liens entre les deux items. Il serait lié à un défaut de stockage de l’information et non à un problème de récupération et affecterait l’apprentissage des paires associées sans entraver leur rétention à long terme. / This research aimed to study the cognitive causes of dyslexia, particularly the paired associate learning (PAL) including a verbal component (input or output) deficit. First, a longitudinal study of normally developing pre-readers and beginning readers highlighted a specific contribution of intermodal PAL as predictors of later reading/transcription skills. As for the results of our neuropsychological study, they indicate that dyslexic children exhibit a deficit for all types of PAL with verbal component. This deficit appears to reach both the memorization of answers, especially verbal answers, and the storage of the mapping between the two items. It would be linked to an information storage failure but not to a recovery problem, and would affect the buildup of associations without impairing their long-term retention.

A crescente preocupação com o meio ambiente pressiona a sociedade como um todo para a uma mudança rumo a hábitos mais sustentáveis. No setor produtivo, o impulso se dá pelo desenvolvimento de técnicas mais eficientes de produção, embasados em pesquisas e experimentos de campo. No setor florestal, além da preocupação com a técnicas de manejo e com o solo, o principal recurso a ser preservado é a água. Por meio do monitoramento de rios em bacias hidrográficas, séries históricas são coletadas, possibilitando o uso da teoria de séries temporais para ajuste de modelos pela metodologia Box e Jenkins. Em casos de monitoramentos de microbacias pareadas, existe a possibilidade de se comparar séries temporais, como descrito no presente trabalho. Em duas microbacias pareadas localizadas na região centro-leste do estado do Paraná, em uma fazenda no município de Telêmaco Borba, dados correspondendo a duas séries temporais distintas de vazão específica foram coletados. Devido a presença de falhas nos conjuntos de dados, uma metodologia para imputação foi utilizada de duas maneiras diferentes, possibilitando a posterior comparação das duas séries temporais pela metodologia de séries temporais. De acordo com os resultados, verifica-se que ambas as séries são diferentes tanto para o teste de comparação das funções de autocorrelação, quanto para o teste de comparação de séries temporais proposto por Silva, Ferreira e Sáfadi (2000). Portanto, segundo a caracterização dos estudos em microbacias pareadas, pode-se constatar que o manejo florestal empregado nos dois locais influenciam de forma diferente no comportamento da variável avaliada. / The growing concern for the enviroment presses society as a whole for a change towards sustainable habits. Regarding the production systems, more efficient production techniques based on research and field experiments are needed. As for forestry, besides the concern with management techniques and with soil preparation, the main resource to be preserved is water. Time series are collected by monitoring rivers in drainage basins, making possible the use of time series theory for fitting models based on Box and Jenkins methodology. When studying paired drainage basins, it is possible to compare time series, as described in this work. Two time series consisting of specific flow data were collected in a farm situated in the municipality of Telêmaco Borba, Eastern Paraná state, in two paired drainage basins. Because there were missing data, imputation techniques were used, making it possible to compare the two time series. Results showed that the time series are different for the comparison of the autocorrelation test and the time series comparison test proposed by Silva, Ferreira e Sáfadi (2000). Therefore, according to studies involving paired drainage basins, different forest management techniques influence differently the behavior of the response variable in the different drainage basins.

In the field of drug addiction, relapse back to drug seeking and taking is the major unmet clinical need. The rate of relapse back to drug-taking is ~70-80% within a year of drug abstinence. Gaining a better understanding of the prolonged neuronal changes that have taken place during drug addiction may lead to the design of better anti-relapse therapies. It is now widely believed that one component of drug addiction is by aberrant learning and memory processes. To study this, we investigated synaptic changes caused by the development of drug-seeking behaviour in C57BL/6J mice. Mice were treated either with non-contingent morphine or trained to exhibit drug-seeking behaviour following morphine-induced conditioned place preference (CPP) training, hippocampal slices were taken from these animals and synaptic changes examined at the CA3-CA1 synapse using electrophysiological methods. Mice that underwent morphine CPP were demonstrated to exhibit a significant preference for the morphine paired compartment before ex vivo electrophysiological analysis. Using field recordings, both non-contingent morphine and morphine CPP treatments resulted in a reduced ability to undergo stimulus-induced LTP compared to their respective controls. Whole cell patch clamp was then utilised to further investigate these effects. Non-contingent morphine treatment resulted in both pre- and post-synaptic changes with an increased AMPA:NMDA receptor ratio, concurrent increases in cell size, and reductions in the release probability of both glutamate and GABA. Morphine CPP treatment resulted in a more variable increase in AMPA:NMDA receptor ratio (presumably by the same mechanism but in a more specific group of neurones) and GABA release probability was also decreased. There were no detected increases in cell size however, or any detected changes in glutamate release probability. These findings therefore reveal a set of synaptic adaptations in the hippocampus unique to morphine-induced behavioural change, and may provide targets for future intervention in drug addiction.

National soccer teams are currently ranked by soccer's governing body, the Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA). Although the system used by FIFA is thorough, taking into account many different factors, many of the weights used in the system's calculations are somewhat arbitrary. It is investigated here how the use of a statistical model might better compare the teams for ranking purposes. By treating each game played as a pairwise comparison experiment and by using the Bradley-Terry model as a starting point some suitable models are presented. A key component of the final model introduced here its ability to differentiate between friendly matches and competitive matches when determining the impact of a match on a teams ranking. Posterior distributions of the rating parameters are obtained, and the rankings and results obtained from each model are compared to FIFA's rankings and each other.

Made available in DSpace on 2017-07-25T19:29:59Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Marina Senger.pdf: 672810 bytes, checksum: 4349ab10f1f5d2436d6c99566564a482 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-07-22 / The arrangement of plants spaced paired is one of the management practices being used in some cultures and has resulted in increased yield. Aiming to evaluate the arrangements and plant density on agronomic characteristics, yield components and yield of two cultivars of wheat and barley, there were four experiments, differing in culture and farming in the city of PontaGrossa, PR, 2012. The experimental design used in was randomized blocks in a 2x4 factorial design with four replications. The treatments consisted of two plant arrangements (single spaced and paired) and four plant densities (45, 60, 75 and90plantsm-1). Treatments were applied in two wheat cultivars (BRS-Tangará and Marfim) and two barley (BRSCauêandMN-743). Increasing plant density reduced the number of tillers, stem diameter and number of spikelets per spikein wheat and barley, promoted height increaseonly inBRSCauêand lowerthousand grain weightin cultivarsBRS-Tangará e Marfim. In bothwheat cultivarsspacingpairedpromotedfewerspikeper square meter, higherthousand grain weightandlower yield. In the twobarley cultivarsin the spacing paired occurred fewer spikes persquare meter.On BRS-Cauê pacingpairedincreasedyieldandMN-743 pairedspacinghigher yieldsin the density of90plantsper meter. / O arranjo de plantas em espaçamento pareado é uma das práticas de manejo que está sendo utilizada em algumas culturas e tem resultado em aumento de produtividade. Com o objetivo de avaliar arranjos e densidades de plantas em características agronômicas, componentes de produção e produtividade de duas cultivares de trigo e de cevada, realizaram-se quatro experimentos, diferindo pela cultura e cultivar, no município de Ponta Grossa, PR, no ano de 2012. O delineamento experimental foi de blocos ao acaso, em esquema fatorial 2x4 com quatro repetições. Os tratamentos constaram de dois arranjos de plantas (espaçamento simples e pareado) e quatro densidades de plantas (45, 60, 75 e 90 plantas.m-1). Os tratamentos foram aplicados em duas cultivares de trigo (BRS-Tangará e Marfim) e em duas de cevada (BRSCâue e MN-743). O aumento da densidade de plantas reduziu o número de perfilhos, o diâmetro do caule e o número de espiguetas por espiga no trigo e na cevada,promoveu aumento da altura apenas na cultivar BRS-Câue e menor massa de mil grãos nas cultivares Marfim e BRS-Tangará. Nas duas cultivares de trigo o espaçamento pareado promoveu menor número de espiga por metro quadrado, maior massa de mil grãos e menor produtividade. Nas duas cultivares de cevada no espaçamento pareado ocorreu menor número de espigas por metro quadrado. Na cultivar BRS-Câue o espaçamento pareado aumentou a produtividade e para MN-743 o espaçamento pareado promoveu maior produtividade na densidade de 90 plantas por metro.

Chocolate is a food that is craved by many in the world and healthy chocolates have become a current topic in the healthy eating trend. The healthiness of a chocolate depends mainly on the polyphenol, fat and sugar contents. Although the literature serves several interventions to reduce the fat content and total calorie content of chocolates, it does not provide many interventions that consider both improving the polyphenol and reducing the fat content simultaneously. Considering this gap in the literature, this research project sought to develop a chocolate that is both low in fat and high in polyphenol content, without sacrificing the taste that consumers would expect in a good dark chocolate. The research resulted in three chocolate formulas that consists of 60% cocoa and 30% fat (formula A, formula B and formula C). They differed from each other in the polyphenol content due to the changes in the cocoa powder type and the presence or absence of freeze-dried blueberry powder. Formula A and formula B mainly differed in the percentage of each type of cocoa powder, both alkalized and non- alkalized. Formula C differed from the other two formulas because there was no freeze-dried blueberry powder. The resulted chocolates were evaluated for the sensory characteristics using paired preference tests and consumer-oriented attribute diagnostic tests (color, flavor, melting properties, overall preference, likelihood to buy). They were analyzed for polyphenol content using Folin-Ciocalteu assay. The chocolates were compared with a well-established commercial chocolate (formula D) of a 60% cocoa. Sensory evaluation tests revealed that formula C was superior and comparable to the commercial chocolate D in all the tested attributes except for color. Polyphenol analysis confirmed that all three developed formulas had a higher polyphenol estimate than formula D. Consumers preferred to buy each chocolate type regardless of the differences in their preference for the other attributes, if the chocolates were known to be healthier. Formula C was found to be the best prototype formula among the developed formulas and it can further be developed to enhance the color and other attributes in future work.