This dissertation deals with the position of foster-mother in SOS children's villages. The first part focuses on the legislative background of the operation of these facilities for foster care in the context of the development organization SOS Children's Villages in the Czech Republic and the international organization SOS Kinderdorf International. It discusses the problem of Czech SOS Children's Villages, when foster-mother is responsible for the child entrusted to foster care, which is the difference from the Czech villages than villages in the other countries. The second part analyzes the role of the SOS foster-mother. It offers a reflection on the meaning of the concept of the archetypal mother and changes of maternal role. The dissertation maps a question of motivation and readiness for fostering.Step by step are described SOS foster-mothers's career stages and are development cycles of SOS families. The work deals with the controversial topic, such as support for an SOS foster-mother. It introduces the concept of an integrated following educational community youth, boarding facilities for teenagers and young adults from the SOS villages. Work thinks how sustainability cyclic replenishment of children and families in the SOS families and possibilities and individualized needs of clients in the SOS...

Master of Science / Department of Computing and Information Sciences / Daniel A. Andresen / The aim of the project is to develop an Android application that lets its users to send notifications in case of an emergency or a panic situation. The users can send multiple text messages and emails on the press of a single button. The phone numbers, email ids and the contents of the text and email messages can be set from within the application. The text messages and emails sent, along with the content, also have the last known location of the user. This is very helpful in tracking the whereabouts of the person. The user can also call 911 directly from within the application, if the nature of the situation demands it. Additionally the user of the application may allow the app to track their location. If this option is selected, the application fetches the device’s location at about every 15 minutes and stores it in a database. This information is very useful and can be used in a variety of ways. One such use of the location data is from within the Android app where the user can view a map that shows their location history over a period of time for a particular day.

We investigated the role of Shc¡BPYK2¡BGrb2-sos binding complex¡BRas and Raf proteins at the rostral ventrolateral medulla (RVLM), the origin of sympathetic neurogenic vasomotor tone, in mevinphos (Mev) intoxication. Adult Sprague-Dawley rats anesthetized by sodium pentobarbital (45 mg/kg) and maintained by propofol (20-25 mg/kg/hr) were used. Bilateral microinjection of Mev (10 nmol) into the RVLM elicited two distinct phases of cardiovascular responses, designated Phase I (sympathoexcitatory) and Phase II (sympathoinhibitory) Mev intoxication. Pretreatment with microinjection of a phospho-Shc-tyrosine 317, phospho-PYK2-tyrosine 402, phospho-PYK2-tyrosine 579/580 antibody (1:20), Grb2-sos complex inhibitor (SH3b-p), Ras specific inhibitors (manumycin A or FTA) or Raf specific inhibitor (GW5074) into the bilateral RVLM blunted the magnitude of the Mev-elicited sympathoexcitatory cardiovascular effect without affecting the duration. The Mev-elicited sympathoinhibitory cardiovascular effect was not influenced. Our results suggest that signaling pathways that involve Shc, PYK2, Grb2-sos complex, Ras or Raf protein in the RVLM participate in the sympathoexcitatory phase of Mev intoxication.

Chromosome replication and cell division of Escherichia coli are coordinated with growth such that wild-type cells divide once and only once after each replication cycle. Two components of this coordination are the SOS system and nucleoid occlusion. The SOS regulon expresses DNA repair genes after DNA damage and delays FtsZ-ring formation and cell division to enhance survival. Nucleoid occlusion prevents cell division over un-replicated nucleoids, a process partially dependent on the SlmA protein. Z-ring formation is shown here to be dependent on DNA replication by an additional mechanism, independent of the SOS regulon and of the SlmA protein and which acts by preventing FtsZ-ring formation when replication is perturbed. Replication dependent Z-ring formation (RDZ) was shown to be SOS-independent by the fact that FtsZ-rings were inhibited, after replication blockage, in a lexA1 mutant and in strains containing a null allele of sulA or the ftsZ/sulB103 mutation. SlmA protein-independence was shown by the fact that FtsZ-rings were also inhibited in lexA1 [Delta]slmA double mutants after replication blockage. This SOS- and SlmA-independent mechanism functions effectively in cells growing slowly with only one replicating chromosome and also in cells growing rapidly with multi-fork replication and after replication inhibition by different methods - chemical inhibitors and a temperature-sensitive polymerization mutation. / text

Chaque année, de nombreux génomes bactériens sont séquencés et il devient de plus en plus évident que la participation des îlots génomiques à la plasticité bactérienne est prépondérante. Pourtant, bien que la définition même des îlots génomiques implique qu'ils aient été acquis par transfert horizontal, le mécanisme de transfert de nombre d'entre eux demeure inconnu. L'un des mécanismes employés par les îlots génomiques pour se transférer est le transfert conjugatif. Le but de ce projet de recherche était d'étudier le mécanisme de mobilisation d'une nouvelle classe d'îlots génomiques, initialement identifiés dans les genres Vibrio et Alteromonas. Les résultats obtenus ont permis la caractérisation d'un mécanisme de mobilisation inédit reposant sur la reconnaissance par un élément intégratif et conjugatif (ICE) d'une séquence similaire à son origine de transfert sur des îlots génomiques. Grâce à cette reconnaissance spécifique, ces îlots génomiques sont mobilisables par les ICE de la famille SXT/R391, retrouvés principalement chez Vibrio. Cette étude présente l'ensemble du mécanisme de mobilisation des îlots génomiques mobilisables (MGI) par les ICE SXT/R391 à partir de l'excision du chromosome de la cellule donneuse jusqu'à l'intégration dans le chromosome de la cellule réceptrice, en passant par l'initiation du transfert au niveau de l'origine de transfert et le transfert au travers du pore de conjugaison synthétisé par l'ICE. La diversité génétique de la famille des MGI a également été étudiée et apporte des précisions sur leurs rôles et leur possible origine évolutive.

abstract: The first part describes Metal Semiconductor Field Effect Transistor (MESFET) based fundamental analog building blocks designed and fabricated in a single poly, 3-layer metal digital CMOS technology utilizing fully depletion mode MESFET devices. DC characteristics were measured by varying the power supply from 2.5V to 5.5V. The measured DC transfer curves of amplifiers show good agreement with the simulated ones with extracted models from the same process. The accuracy of the current mirror showing inverse operation is within ±15% for the current from 0 to 1.5mA with the power supply from 2.5 to 5.5V. The second part presents a low-power image recognition system with a novel MESFET device fabricated on a CMOS substrate. An analog image recognition system with power consumption of 2.4mW/cell and a response time of 6µs is designed, fabricated and characterized. The experimental results verified the accuracy of the extracted SPICE model of SOS MESFETs. The response times of 4µs and 6µs for one by four and one by eight arrays, respectively, are achieved with the line recognition. Each core cell for both arrays consumes only 2.4mW. The last part presents a CMOS low-power transceiver in MICS band is presented. The LNA core has an integrated mixer in a folded configuration. The baseband strip consists of a pseudo differential MOS-C band-pass filter achieving demodulation of 150kHz-offset BFSK signals. The SRO is used in a wakeup RX for the wake-up signal reception. The all digital frequency-locked loop drives a class AB power amplifier in a transmitter. The sensitivity of -85dBm in the wakeup RX is achieved with the power consumption of 320µW and 400µW at the data rates of 100kb/s and 200kb/s from 1.8V, respectively. The sensitivities of -70dBm and -98dBm in the data-link RX are achieved with NF of 40dB and 11dB at the data rate of 100kb/s while consuming only 600µW and 1.5mW at 1.2V and 1.8V, respectively. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Electrical Engineering 2011

Bakgrund: Enligt statistiken har ambulansutryckningarna ökat men ambulanstätheten minskat. Det behövs därför en väl fungerande prioritering av patienterna som söker akut vård från larmcentralen. De som inte är i akut behov av ambulanstransport till sjukhus ska kunna omdirigeras till att söka annan vård som vårdcentral eller stanna hemma med egenvård.   Syfte: är att jämföra patienter med samma ESS kod i ambulansjournalerna som endera transporterades till sjukhus eller kvarstannande med egenvård vid prio ett larm. Metod: En retrospektiv fallkontroll studie med en kvantitativ ansats. En journalgranskning med 139 inkluderade ambulansjournaler från södra Sverige.   Resultat: Andelen prio ett uppdrag där patienten lämnades hemma med egenvård i föreliggande studie var 193 stycken, 7,2 procent. Utifrån resultatet fanns det inga skillnader i åldern mellan patienter som stannade kvar respektive transporterades med ambulans till akuten på respektive sjukhus. Det fanns heller inga signifikanta skillnader mellan könen utifrån tid på dygnet. Dock fanns det en signifikant skillnad då det gällde avstånd till sjukhus. För patienterna som bodde ≤ 8 km radie från ett sjukhus stannade 83st (59,7%) kvar i hemmet med egenvård. För patienter med ≥ 8 km ifrån ett sjukhus stannade 106 (76,3 %) kvar i hemmet med egenvård. Totalt för patienter som transporterades överensstämde larmcentralens index med ambulanssjuksköterskans ESS-kod vid 52%. För patienter som kunde kvarstanna i hemmet var överensstämmelsen 42% mellan larmcentralens index och ambulanssjuksköterskans ESS.   Slutsats: Studien kunde inte påvisa någon skillnad mellan kön och tidpunkt av de som transporterades mot de som kunde stanna hemma, dock fanns det en signifikant skillnad på antal patienter som transporterades och kunde stanna hemma beroende på avstånd mellan deras boende och sjukhus. Även fanns det en förbättringspotential mellan SOS index och ambulanssjuksköterskans ESS kod, att denna skulle stämma mer överens. För ambulanssjuksköterskan är det viktigt att behandla alla patienter lika oberoende på yttre faktorer, i denna studie framkom att avståndet hade en betydelse. Detta får vi som ambulanssjuksköterskor ta till oss och inte låta ha en avgörande betydelse för den vård vi beslutar oss för att ge patienten. / Background: According to statistics, ambulance emergency were increased but the density decreases, which requires a well-functioning prioritization of patients seeking emergency care from the central station. Those who are not in need of urgent ambulance transport to the hospital to be redirected to seek other care medical center or stay at home with self-care.   Purpose: is to compare patients with the same ESS Code of ambulance records that are either transported to a hospital or keeping people with self-care at priority alarm. Method: A retrospective case-control study with a quantitative approach. A medical record review of 139 included ambulance records from southern Sweden.   Results: The proportion of priority a mission in which the patient was at home with self-care in this study were 193 pieces, 7.2 per cent. Based on the results, there were no differences in age between patients who remained and was transported by ambulance to the emergency room and hospital. There were also no significant differences between the sexes based on time of day. However, there was a significant difference as regards the distance to the hospital. For patients who lived ≤ 8 km radius of a hospital stayed 83st (59.7%) remain in the home with self-care. For patients with ≥ 8 km from the hospital stayed 106 (76.3%) remain in the home with self-care. Total of patients transported consistent monitoring center index with the ambulance nurse ESS Code at 52%. For patients who were able to remain in the home was the consistency 42% between the central station's index and the ambulance nurse ESS. Conclusion: The study did not demonstrate a difference between gender and time of the transported toward those who could stay at home, however, there was a significant difference in the number of patients who were transported and could stay home, depending on the distance between their accommodation and hospitals. Although there was an improvement in potential between SOS Index and the ambulance nurse ESS code. For ambulance nurse, it is important to treat all patients equally regardless of external factors, in this study revealed that the distance had a meaning. This we get that ambulance nurses bring to us and not let be crucial for the care we decide to give.

Les bactériophages sont les virus spécifiques des bactéries. Ils sont considérés comme les entités biologiques les plus abondantes de la biosphère (1031 au total). Une grande partie des bactériophages sont dits tempérés de part leur propriété à intégrer leur génome dans celui de leur hôte et à s'y maintenir en état de réplication passive appelé lysogénie. Les gènes de prophages apportent de nouvelles propriétés à l'hôte via la conversion lysogénique. De nombreux prophages défectifs et fonctionnels sont maintenus dans les génomes bactériens. Nous avons émis l'hypothèse que des stratégies de maintien aient été sélectionnées pour maintenir cette source de gènes, même si elle est potentiellement dangereuse car les prophages peuvent être induits dans des conditions de stress.Nos résultats suggèrent que le maintien de la lysogénie d'une catégorie de prophages, qui présente une organisation génétique atypique du module de recombinaison spécifique de site, est sous le contrôle du facteur de terminaison de la transcription Rho. Pour ces prophages, qu'ils soient défectifs ou fonctionnels, leur induction par inactivation de Rho, fait intervenir une nouvelle voie d'induction lytique indépendante de la voie classique via la réponse SOS.Ces interactions hôtes-virus reflète la coévolution de ces microorganismes, qui permet l'acquisition de gènes via le transfert horizontal tout en contrôlant l'expression des gènes délétères. Ceci permet l'acquisition de nouvelles propriétés et l'adaptation de l'hôte à différentes conditions environnementales. / Bacteriophages are the most abundant biological entities in the biosphere. A majority of them are temperate phages that are able to integrate their genome into the host and replicate passively in a lysogenic state. Hosts frequently benefit from such massive gene acquisition through lysogenic conversion. As prophages may be beneficial to their hosts, we hypothesize that hosts adapted strategies for maintaining that gene source. Since prophages integrate into and excise from the host chromosome through site-specific recombination (SSR), we investigated whether regulation of SSR at the level of gene expression could be involved in the maintenance process. Our results suggest that lysogeny maintenance of a class of prophages, which all share a same unusual genetic organization, are controlled by the transcription termination factor Rho. Rho is not only involved in horizontally acquired gene silencing but also in prophage maintenance, which can be seen as an adaptation of the host to maintain prophage genes. For these prophages, whether defective or functional, their induction by the inactivation of Rho, involves a new pathway of lysogeny escape, which is independent of the classical pathway via the SOS response. This newly characterized interaction reflects the coevolution of host and viruses, which allows the acquisition of genes, and thus new properties, via horizontal transfer, while controlling the expression of deleterious genes.

O sistema SOS controla a expressão de diversos genes, muitos envolvidos com o reparo de DNA. Caulobacter crescentus vem emergindo como um modelo alternativo interessante para o estudo de mecanismos de reparo de DNA. Temos como objetivos realizar uma análise funcional de genes de função desconhecida regulados por SOS, e investigar a indução de SOS por antibióticos beta-lactâmicos em C. crescentus. Análises funcionais dos genes CC_3424 e CC_3467 mostraram que deleções nestes genes resultam em fenótipo de sensibilidade à mitomicina C (MMC). CC_3424 possui similaridade com glioxalases e CC_3467 com endonucleases. Acreditamos que CC_3467 atue no reparo de ligações intercadeia no DNA, e que CC_3424 atue detoxificando a MMC das células. Estudos dos efeitos biológicos da indução do sistema SOS mostram que a cefalexina (CFE) induz este regulon em concentrações subinibitórias. Células tratadas com CFE apresentam mais danos oxidativos do tipo 8-oxoguanina. Estes resultados mostram que concentrações subinibitórias de CFE resultam em estresse oxidativo em C. crescentus. / The SOS response controls the expression of several genes, many of which are involved in DNA repair mechanisms. Caulobacter crescentus has emerged as an alternative bacterial model for DNA repair. As aims, we will undertake a functional analysis of some of the genes regulated by the SOS response, and will investigate the SOS induction by beta-lactam antibiotics in C. crescentus. Functional analysis of the genes CC_3424 and CC_3467 showed that deletions in these genes result in a phenotype of sensitivity to mitomycin C (MMC). CC_3424 has similarity to glyoxalase and CC_3467 to endonucleases. We believe that the CC_3467 gene plays a role in the repair of interstrand crosslinks in the DNA, while CC_3424 acts in MMC cellular detoxification. Studies of biological effects of SOS induction showed that subinibitory concentrations of cephalexin (CFE) induce the SOS regulon. Cells treated with CFE have higher concentrations of 8-oxoG oxidative damage. These results show that subinibitory concentrations of cephalexin leads to cellular oxidative stress in C. crescentus.

Context: Software-intensive systems have been increasingly interoperated forming alliances termed as Systems-of-Systems (SoS). SoS comprises a collection of systems joined to achieve a set of missions that none of the systems can accomplish on its own. Each constituent system keeps its own management, goals, and resources while coordinating within the SoS and adapting to meet SoS goals. Applications of SoS range from traffic control to emergency response and crisis management. As SoS often support critical domains, such systems must be correct by dealing with malfunction or defects and avoiding failures that could cause extensive damage and losses to the users. Problem: Correct SoS operations depend on a precise specification and a rigorous attestation of its operational consistency. However, besides limitations on languages to jointly capture SoS structure and behavior, predictions on the SoS operational consistency rely on constituent systems not totally known at design-time. Therefore, SoS have been developed and deployed without evaluating their operations, since current languages do not support such precision in evaluation. Objectives: This thesis provides solutions founded on a formal architectural description language to support an early evaluation of SoS operation regarding SoS structure and behavior by means of simulations. Contribution: The main contributions of this project comprise (i) a model transformation approach for automatically producing simulation models from SoS software architecture descriptions, combining SoS structure and behavior description in a same solution, (ii) a SoS software architecture evaluation method for SoS operation prediction considering the inherent changes that can occur, (iii) environment modelling and automatic generation of stimuli generators to sustain the SoS simulation, delivering data to feed such simulation, and (iv) a method for the automatic synchronization between the runtime descriptive architecture (changed at runtime due to dynamic architecture) and its original prescriptive architecture based on model discovery and recovery mechanisms and a backward model transformation. Evaluation: We conducted case studies to assess our solutions using Flood Monitoring SoS and Space SoS. Results: Our solutions support a high accuracy to (i) produce fault-free and fully operational simulations for SoS software architectures, (ii) support evaluation and prediction of SoS operation at design-time, (iii) automatically generate stimuli generators to sustain and feed the simulation execution, and (iv) maintain the synchronization between the runtime architecture and the intended version of the SoS architecture. Conclusions: We concluded that the proposed solutions advance the state of the art in SoS software architecture evaluation by offering solutions to predict the SoS operations effectiveness to maintain a continuous operation despite architectural changes, providing more trust for users that futurely shall rely on SoS services. / Contexto: Sistemas intensivos em software tem sido interoperados para formar alianças conhecidas como Sistemas-de-Sistemas (SoS). Domínios de aplicação de SoS variam do controle de tráfego ao gerenciamento de situações de crises e emergência. Devido à criticidade destes domínios, tais sistemas precisam ser confiáveis e robustos, lidando com potenciais defeitos e mal funcionamento, e evitando falhas que poderiam causar ameaças à integridade dos usuários. Problema: O funcionamento correto de um SoS depende da especificação precisa e da garantia rigorosa da consistência de suas operações. Entretanto, além das limitações nas linguagens quanto à especificação de ambos estrutura e comportamento do SoS, prever seu comportamento depende da especificação de constituintes que não são totalmente conhecidos em tempo de projeto e de seu comportamento emergente. Neste sentido, SoS têm sido desenvolvidos e implantados sem a devida avaliação de seus comportamentos, uma vez que as linguagens disponíveis atualmente não dão suporte a uma especificação precisa destes comportamentos. Objetivos: Este projeto de doutorado relata avanços teóricos e práticos fundamentados em uma linguagem de descrição arquitetural formal para permitir a predição e avaliação do comportamento e estrutura dos SoS com base em simulações. Contribuições: As principais contribuições deste projeto envolvem (i) uma transformação de modelos para produzir automaticamente modelos de simulação para descrições de arquitetura de software de SoS, combinando estrutura e comportamento em uma mesma solução, (ii) um método de avaliação de arquitetura de software de SoS para prever o comportamento do SoS considerando sua dinâmica inerente, (iii) modelagem do ambiente e derivação automática de geradores de estímulos entregando dados continuamente e sustentando a execução de simulações de SoS, e (iv) um método para promover a sincronização automática entre modelos descritivos e prescritivos de arquitetura de software de SoS baseados em mecanismos de descoberta e recuperação de modelos, e transformação de modelos reversa. Avaliação: Estudos de caso foram conduzidos para avaliar as soluções nos domínios de Monitoramento de Enchentes e Espacial. Resultados: As abordagens propostas exibem alta acurácia no que tange (i) a produzir simulações operacionais e sem falhas para arquiteturas de software de SoS, (ii) ao suporte á avaliação, ainda em tempo de projeto, do comportamento que emerge da operação do SoS, (iii) à derivação automática de geradores de estímulos para entrega contínua de dados e manutenção da execução das simulações geradas, e (iv) à manutenção do alinhamento entre os modelos descritivos e prescritivos da arquitetura do SoS avaliado. Conclusões: Conclui-se que as abordagens propostas avançam o estado da arte no projeto de arquiteturas de Software de SoS ao permitir prever, em tempo de projeto, como o SoS vai operar em tempo de execução, permitindo estabelecer estratégias para manter a simulação rodando, e sua operação contínua, mesmo com as mudanças arquiteturais inerentes ao seu funcionamento, provendo mais confiabilidade para os usuários futuramente dependerão de seus serviços.