As doenças cardiovasculares ateroscleróticas (DACV) não só têm apresentado prevalência crescente em portadores de epilepsia, mas também acarretam prognóstico menos favorável do que nas populações de controle. A busca pelos critérios para definir de síndrome metabólica (SDMET) padroniza a avaliação de fatores de risco (FR) metabólicos de especial interesse, e consequentemente, ajuda na avaliação do risco cardiovascular. Neste trabalho, buscamos desenhar um estudo transversal para avaliar e comparar a acurácia diagnóstica de diferentes critérios de SDMET entre adultos epilépticos em risco de eventos cardiovasculares. Também objetivamos analisar as associações entre fatores clínicos / neurológicos e a ocorrência de SDMET. Noventa e cinco pacientes foram recrutados e avaliados de acordo com os critérios National Cholesterol Education Program’s Adult Treatment Panel III (NCEP ATP3), American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists (AACE), International Diabetes Federation (IDF), American Heart Association / National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (AHA/NHLBI) e International Diabetes Federation / National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute / American Heart Association / International Atherosclerosis Society / International Association for the Study of Obesity (IDF/NHLBI/AHA/WHF/IAS/IASO.) Os adultos com epilepsia tiveram prevalência elevada de SDMET (34,8- 49,4%), se comparados com referenciais históricos. Os critérios IDF demonstraram a maior sensibilidade [S = 95,5% (IC 95% 84,5-99,4)]. Os critérios AACE demonstraram o menor valor preditivo negativo [VPN = 75,4% (IC 95% 68,5-77,7)]. A obesidade foi o distúrbio metabólico mais frequente (53,9-79,8%), e a dislipidemia foi o que teve melhor concordância com o diagnóstico da síndrome (κ = 0,391 a 0,691, p<0,001). Regressão logística binária reafirmou a associação entre SDMET e idade [RC = 1,03 (IC 95% 1,001-1,06)], comorbidade psiquiátricas [RC = 2,57 (IC 95% 1,01-6,51)] e não ter história de status epilepticus [RC = 3,69 (IC 95% 1,15-11,87)]. Este estudo sugere que epilépticos adultos, investigados neste estudo, estão em risco particularmente elevado para eventos cardiovasculares. Neste contexto, uma correta avaliação pode melhorar as taxas de detecção de SDMET e incentivar medidas de prevenção primária. Dessa forma, sugerimos que uma avaliação estruturada de risco cardiovascular desses pacientes deveria ser incorporada na prática rotineira dos cuidados aos pacientes com epilepsia. / Cardiovascular atherosclerotic diseases not only are increased in prevalence among epileptic patients but also portend them a worse prognosis. Searching for criteria to fulfill metabolic syndrome definition helps in estimating cardiovascular risk in a standardized fashion. We designed a cross-sectional study to assess and compare the diagnostic accuracy of different metabolic syndrome criteria among adults at risk for cardiovascular events. We also sought to analyze associations between clinical / neurological factors and metabolic syndrome occurrence. Ninety-five patients were enrolled and evaluated according to the ATP3, AACE, IDF, AHA / NHLBI and the IDF/NHLBI/AHA/WHF/IAS/IASO criteria. Epileptics had high metabolic syndrome prevalence (34.8-49.4%) when compared to historic references. IDF criteria showed the highest sensitivity [S = 95.5% (CI 95% 84.5-99.4)]. AACE criteria showed the lowest negative predictive value [NPV = 75.4% (CI 95% 68.5-77.7)]. Obesity was the most frequent metabolic disturbance (23.9-79.8%), and dyslipidemia showed the greatest concordance with the syndrome (κ = 0.391 to 0.691, p<0.001). Binary logistic regression supported an association of metabolic syndrome and age [OR = 1.03 (95% CI 1.001-1.06)], psychiatric comorbidities [OR = 2.57 (95% CI 1.01-6.51)] and not having a history of status epilepticus [OR = 3.69 (95% CI 1.15-11.87)]. This study adds evidence that adult epileptics are at especially high risk for cardiovascular events. Correct assessment can improve metabolic syndrome detection rates and foster primary prevention. Structured cardiovascular risk assessment should be incorporated in routine epilepsy care.

Os limites de uma firma são determinados a partir das capacidades e recursos que esta possui. A firma não poderá desenvolver atividades que necessitem de capacidades e recursos dos quais não dispõe, ao menos que seja capaz de aprimorar tais elementos em sua estrutura. A capacidade tecnológica é o conjunto de habilidades que permitem este aperfeiçoamento e que determina a diferenciação dos recursos da firma, gerando suas especificidades, ou o que chama-se de ativo específico. A capacidade tecnológica e os ativos específicos atuam para que a firma apresente vantagens competitivas e se mantenha atuante frente a um mercado que muda constantemente. Contudo, as diferenças que podem ser percebidas de setor para setor de atividade, ou até mesmo entre firmas de um mesmo setor, são capazes de influenciar a relação entre tais elementos para o desenvolvimento da firma. Com o intuito de analisar a relação entre os ativos específicos e a capacidade tecnológica, foi conduzida uma survey no setor vitivinícola gaúcho. A escolha do setor deve-se a sua busca contínua para expressar a singularidade de suas técnicas através do produto que comercializa, o vinho. Ademais, o setor vitivinícola gaúcho concentra atualmente mais de 90% da produção brasileira de uva e derivados. Foram entrevistadas 221 vinícolas, com vistas a avaliar a especificidade de ativos e a capacidade tecnológica em seus negócios. Após avaliar as variáveis mencionadas, realizou-se testes de análise de regressão para conhecer o comportamento entre as variáveis, a forma como se relacionam no setor. Através dos testes realizados foi possível verificar que como formas de predição, ou seja, o quanto uma variável é capaz de determinar a variância de outra, os ativos específicos e a capacidade tecnológica representam somente 31% deste poder e, que ainda existe uma discreta superioridade de influência da capacidade tecnológica nos ativos específicos. Foi possível também realizar uma análise por tipo de produto, e observou-se que tanto vinícolas que se destacam na produção do vinho de mesa, quanto as que dedicam-se ao vinho fino apresentam níveis de especificidade de ativos e características acerca de sua capacidade tecnológica semelhantes. Os resultados mencionados destacam o potencial que pode ser encontrado no vinho de mesa, com vistas a reduzir as diferenças de qualidade deste produto em comparação ao vinho fino. Este último, já se encontra em um patamar mais elevado de desenvolvimento, no entanto o vinho de mesa também pode ser encarado como um produto de alta qualidade, porém com características distintas e que, na realidade, agradam uma significativa parcela dos consumidores brasileiros. / Firm boundaries are determined by its capabilities and resources. The firm cannot develop activities that require capabilities and resources it does not have, unless it can improve those elements in its structure. Technological capability is the set of skills that allow this improvement and define resources’ differentiation, generating its specificity, or what is called asset specificity. Technological capability and asset specificity provide competitive advantage to the firm and maintain its operations in a constantly changing market. However, differences between industries, or even between firms in the same industry, could influence the relationship of these elements for the firm’s development. In order to analyze the relationship between asset specificity and technological capability, a survey has been carried out in the wine industry. This industry has been selected due to a constant search to express the uniqueness of its techniques through its product, wine. Moreover, the focus is on the wine industry of Rio Grande do Sul state, which concentrates over 90% of Brazilian grape products. It has been interviewed 221 wineries, with the aim to assess the asset specificity and technological capabilities in their business. After evaluating these variables, regression analysis tests have been performed to understand the way variables are related in the mentioned industry. It has been verified that as a mean of prediction, i.e., how much of a variable can predict the other variable’s variance, asset specificity and technological capability represent only 31% of this power, but there is still a slight superiority of technological capability influence on asset specificity. An analysis based on the type of product has been also conducted, which showed that both wineries, those who excel in the production of table wine, and those who are dedicated to fine wine, present levels of asset specificity and technological capacity characteristics alike. The results emphasize the potential table wines may have, in order to reduce the differences in quality when compared to fine wine. The latter is already in a higher level of development, however, table wine can also be seen as a product of high quality, but with different characteristics, that actually, please a significant portion of Brazilian consumers.

OBJETIVO: verificar a acurácia de um protocolo de avaliação clínica da deglutição em uma amostra de crianças com diagnóstico de laringomalacia ou de glossoptose, bem como descrever a prevalência de disfagia em cada uma dessas doenças e a resposta da dinâmica da deglutição às intervenções fonoterapêuticas de redução de fluxo e de modificação de consistência dos líquidos. DELINEAMENTO: estudo transversal. MATERIAIS E MÉTODOS: foram avaliadas crianças com idade entre um mês e 11 anos de vida, acompanhadas pelo Serviço de Otorrinolaringologia do Hospital de Clínicas de Porto Alegre, Brasil. Realizou-se a avaliação clínica da deglutição por uma fonoaudióloga e, após, a videofluoroscopia, seguindo-se a mesma rotina e padronização da avaliação clínica, porém por outra fonoaudióloga, cegada para o resultado da avaliação clínica, e por um médico radiologista. Os protocolos utilizados foram baseados nos instrumentos propostos por DeMatteo et al. (2005), sendo testadas as consistências líquida rala e líquida engrossada na viscosidade néctar. RESULTADOS: a amostra do estudo foi composta por 29 pacientes, sendo 10 portadores de laringomalacia e 19 de glossoptose. A sensibilidade da avaliação clínica não ultrapassou 50% em nenhuma das observações, mas a especificidade alcançou valor de 100% quando avaliada a consistência líquida engrossada. A prevalência de disfagia foi de 100% e o espessamento dos líquidos reduziu significativamente as aspirações traqueais. CONCLUSÕES: a disfagia foi altamente prevalente em crianças com laringomalacia ou glossoptose. A avaliação clínica mostrou-se pouco sensível na identificação de penetração laríngea e de aspiração traqueal. No entanto, sua elevada especificidade sugere repensar a indicação da videofluoroscopia nos casos em que tais eventos são identificados através da avaliação clínica. / OBJECTIVE: to investigate the accuracy of a swallowing clinical evaluation protocolin a sample of children with laryngomalacia or glossoptosis and describe the prevalence of dysphagia in each disease and the swallow response to speech and language therapy interventions with thickened liquids and reduced flow. STUDY DESIGN: cross-sectional study. MATERIALS AND METHODS: children aged one month to 11 years followed at the Otolaryngology Division of Hospital de Clínicas de Porto Alegre, Brazil, were evaluated. A clinical evaluation was performed by a speech pathologist. Subsequently, videofluoroscopy was performed, following the same steps as in the clinical evaluation, by a different speech therapist who was blinded to clinical data, and by a radiologist. The protocols used were based on those proposed by DeMatteo et al., (2005). The consistencies tested were thin liquid and thickened liquid (nectar-thick). RESULTS: the study sample consisted of 29 patients, 10 patients with laryngomalacia and 19 patients with glossoptosis. The sensitivity of clinical evaluation did not exceed 50% in any of the evaluations, but specificity reached 100% in some cases. The prevalence of dysphagia was 100%, and the use of thickened liquids significantly reduced tracheal aspiration. CONCLUSIONS: dysphagia was highly prevalent in children with laryngomalacia or glossoptosis. The sensitivity of clinical evaluation to detect laryngeal penetration and tracheal aspiration was low. However, its high specificity suggests that referral for videofluoroscopic swallow study in cases in which these events are detected during clinical evaluation should be reconsidered.

xii, 55 p. : ill. A print copy of this thesis is available through the UO Libraries. Search the library catalog for the location and call number. / Selective attention refers to perceptual selection and working memory refers to the active maintenance of mental representations. Selective attention and working memory are believed to be two of the most important functions in human cognition and have been intensively investigated in cognitive psychology. However, it is quite recent that the link between attention and working memory has been systematically researched. One question that remains controversial is the effect of working memory on attentional control with inconsistent results reported in the human psychophysical literature, despite clear and strong evidence from physiological studies with nonhuman primates that working memory is the main source of top-down attentional control. The main goal of the current study is to provide a plausible solution to the puzzle of attentional control by introducing the concept of goal-specificity and competition between working memory representations. I hypothesized that the strength of the biasing effect of working memory on attention depends on the specificity of representations in working memory, and developed an experimental paradigm (the goal-specificity paradigm) to test this hypothesis using psychophysical and neuroimaging methods. One of the most important manipulations in the goal-specificity paradigm is how specifically targets in different tasks are defined. The results demonstrate that there is competition between items in working memory for attentional control that is influenced by the specificity of each representation as well as task relevancy. Also, it is shown that the effect of goal-specificity is present in both spatial and temporal domains as revealed by visual search and rapid serial visual presentation tasks. The results suggest the possibility that the negligible effect of working memory in some previous studies may be due to insufficient specificity of the objects in working memory or to the presence of other specifically-defined information in working memory. Furthermore, based on the implication from the current study that goal-specificity has a significant influence on attentional control, I expect that the experimental paradigm introduced in the current study can be utilized as an objective psychophysical measure of attentional control. / Committee in charge: Margaret Sereno, Chairperson, Psychology; Scott Frey, Member, Psychology; Michael Wehr, Member, Psychology; Richard Taylor, Outside Member, Physics

xii, 41 p. : ill. / Cells convey information through signaling pathways. Distinct signaling pathways often rely on similar mechanisms and may even use the same molecules. With a variety of signals conveyed by pathways that share components, how does the cell maintain the integrity of each pathway? Budding yeast provides an example of multiple signaling pathways utilizing the same components to transduce different signals. The mating pathway, the high osmolarity glycerol (HOG) pathway and the filamentous growth (FG) pathway each respond to different environmental conditions and generate unique cellular responses. Despite the individuality of the pathways, they each contain a core group of the same signaling proteins. How does the cell generate a variety or responses utilizing the same group of proteins? Both the mating and HOG pathways utilize scaffolding factors that concentrate pathway components to the location of activation and in the case of the mating pathway alter the kinetics of the interaction. In addition, negative regulatory mechanisms operate in both the mating and HOG pathways. These negative regulatory mechanisms are understood in detail for the mating pathway but not for the HOG pathway. Mechanisms for providing specificity for the FG pathway are as yet unknown. The purpose of this work is to elucidate the mechanisms that provide specificity to the FG pathway. The search for specificity factors was done through both a random mutagenesis screen and a synthetic genetic array screen, looking for mutants in which activation of the FG pathway led to inappropriate activation of the HOG pathway. The random mutagenesis screen resulted in a large number of mutants that I organized into five complementation groups. The identity of the gene mutated in the largest complementation group was sought using a variety of methods including complementation with the yeast deletion collection and whole genome sequencing. A synthetic genetic array was screened as an alternative method to identify genes necessary for FG pathway specificity. These experiments have resulted in a list of candidate genes, but thus far have not yet led to any discernable mechanism for maintenance of FG pathway specificity. / Committee in charge: Karen Guillemin, Chairperson; George F. Sprague Jr., Advisor; Tom Stevens, Member; Tory Herman, Member; Diane Hawley, Outside Member

Proteins perform an incredible array of functions facilitated by a diverse set of biochemical properties. Changing these properties is an essential molecular mechanism of evolutionary change, with major questions in protein evolution surrounding this topic. How do new functional biochemical features evolve? How do proteins change following gene duplication events? I used the S100 protein family as a model to probe these aspects of protein evolution. The S100s are signaling proteins that play a diverse range of biological roles binding Calcium ions, transition metal ions, and other proteins. Calcium drives a conformational change allowing S100s to bind to diverse peptide regions of target proteins. I used a phylogenetic approach to understand the evolution of these diverse biochemical features. Chapter I comprises an introduction to the disseration. Chapter II is a co-authored literature review assessing available evidence for global trends in protein evolution. Chapter III describes mapping of transition metal binding onto a maximum likelihood S100 phylogeny. Transition metal binding sites and metal-driven structural changes are a conserved, ancestral features of the S100s. However, they are highly labile at the amino acid level. Chapter IV further characterizes the biophysics of metal binding in the S100A5 lineage, revealing that the oft–cited Ca2+/Cu2+ antagonism of S100A5 is likely due to an experimental artifact of previous studies. Chapter V uses the S100 family to investigate the evolution of binding specificity. Binding specificity for a small set of peptides in the duplicate S100A5 and S100A6 clades. Ancestral sequence reconstruction reveals a pattern of clade-level conservation and apparent subfunctionalization along both lineages. In chapter VI, peptide phage display, deep-sequencing, and machine-learning are combined to quantitatively reconstruct the evolution of specificity in S100A5 and S100A6. S100A5 has subfunctionalized from the ancestor, while S100A6 specificity has shifted. The importance of unbiased approaches to measure specificity are discussed. This work highlights the lability of conserved functions at the biochemical level, and measures changes in specificity following gene duplication. Chapter VII summarizes the results of the dissertation, considers the implications of these results, and discusses limitations and future directions. This dissertation includes both previously published/unpublished and co- authored material.

Doctor of Philosophy / Psychological Sciences / Patrick A. Knight / This study was designed to examine the combined influence of feedback sign (i.e., positive or negative), feedback specificity, and goal orientation on individuals’ receptivity to performance feedback. Performance feedback is an often-prescribed solution to performance problems for both individuals and organizations, but evidence regarding its effectiveness as a mechanism for promoting positive outcomes has been mixed. It has been argued that one reason for the inconsistency in previous research findings may be a failure to adequately account for reactions to feedback (e.g., receptivity). Accordingly, this study focused on a series of variables with the potential to influence receptivity, in pursuit of a more comprehensive understanding of the feedback process. It was expected that individuals with certain achievement goal orientations would be more or less receptive to different characteristics of the feedback itself, and that the nature of the task being performed would further influence their willingness to accept feedback and implement task-relevant behavioral changes. Data were collected from 536 participants via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk marketplace. Participants completed the experiment in an online environment. Each participant was asked to complete a pair of error-detection tasks, focused on either mathematical computations or grammatical accuracy. Conditionally-assigned, fabricated feedback was provided after task performance on the initial trial. Surveys were used to assess goal orientation and feedback receptivity. Results indicated that greater feedback specificity was associated with greater receptivity to feedback. Analysis also revealed that feedback sign, feedback specificity, and goal orientation interact to influence receptivity, such that for performance-oriented individuals, specific positive feedback leads to the highest levels of receptivity and specific negative feedback prompts the lowest levels of receptivity. For mastery-oriented participants, however, specific feedback was associated with high levels of receptivity, regardless of whether that feedback was positive or negative. The results are discussed within the context of relative theoretical perspectives. Practical implications, promising avenues of future inquiry, and strengths and limitations of the research are discussed.

abstract: The remarkable conservation of molecular and intra-/inter-cellular pathways underpinning the fundamental aspects of sugar partitioning in two evolutionarily divergent organisms – a non-vascular moss Physcomitrella patens and a vascular cereal crop Oryza sativa (rice) – forms the basis of this manuscript. Much of our current knowledge pertaining to sugar partitioning in plants mainly comes from studies in thale cress, Arabidopsis thaliana, but how photosynthetic sugar is loaded into the phloem in a crop as important as rice is still debated. Even less is known about the mechanistic aspects of sugar movement in mosses. In plants, sugar either moves passively via intercellular channels called plasmodesmata, or through the cell wall spaces in an energy-consuming process. As such, I first investigated the structure of plasmodesmata in rice leaf minor vein using electron tomography to create as of yet unreported 3D models of these channels in both simple and branched conformations. Contrary to generally held belief, I report two different 3D morphotypes of simple plasmodesmata in rice. Furthermore, the complementary body of evidence in arabidopsis implicates plasma membrane localized Proton Pyrophosphatase (H+-PPase) in the energy-dependent movement of sugar. Within this wider purview, I studied the in situ ultrastructural localization patterns of H+-PPase orthologs in high-pressure frozen tissues of rice and physcomitrella. Were H+-PPases neo-functionalized in the vascular tissues of higher plants? Or are there evolutionarily conserved roles of this protein that transcend the phylogenetic diversity of land plants? I show that H+-PPases are distinctly expressed in the actively growing regions of both rice and physcomitrella. As expected, H+-PPases were also localized in the vascular tissues of rice. But surprisingly, H+-PPase orthologs were also prominently expressed at the gametophyte-sporophyte junction of physcomitrella. Upon immunogold labeling, H+-PPases were found to be predominantly localized at the plasma membrane of the phloem complexes of rice source leaves, and both the vacuoles and plasma membrane of the transfer cells in the physcomitrella haustorium, linking H+-PPases in active sucrose loading in both plants. As such, these findings suggest that the localization and presumably the function of H+-PPases are conserved throughout the evolutionary history of land plants. / Dissertation/Thesis / 3D MODEL OF SIMPLE PLASMODESMATA / 3D MODEL OF COMPLEX PLASMODESMATA / MODELING SIMPLE PLASMODESMATA IN IMOD / MODELING COMPLEX PLASMODESMATA IN IMOD / Doctoral Dissertation Biology 2016

abstract: Ensemble learning methods like bagging, boosting, adaptive boosting, stacking have traditionally shown promising results in improving the predictive accuracy in classification. These techniques have recently been widely used in various domains and applications owing to the improvements in computational efficiency and distributed computing advances. However, with the advent of wide variety of applications of machine learning techniques to class imbalance problems, further focus is needed to evaluate, improve and optimize other performance measures such as sensitivity (true positive rate) and specificity (true negative rate) in classification. This thesis demonstrates a novel approach to evaluate and optimize the performance measures (specifically sensitivity and specificity) using ensemble learning methods for classification that can be especially useful in class imbalanced datasets. In this thesis, ensemble learning methods (specifically bagging and boosting) are used to optimize the performance measures (sensitivity and specificity) on a UC Irvine (UCI) 130 hospital diabetes dataset to predict if a patient will be readmitted to the hospital based on various feature vectors. From the experiments conducted, it can be empirically concluded that, by using ensemble learning methods, although accuracy does improve to some margin, both sensitivity and specificity are optimized significantly and consistently over different cross validation approaches. The implementation and evaluation has been done on a subset of the large UCI 130 hospital diabetes dataset. The performance measures of ensemble learners are compared to the base machine learning classification algorithms such as Naive Bayes, Logistic Regression, k Nearest Neighbor, Decision Trees and Support Vector Machines. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Computer Science 2017

Each year the level of migration rises. In the Czech Republic, we observe a sustained increase of variety in terms of nationalities, cultures, ethnicities. Among the numerous communities that can be found within our borders are the ethnic groups of Russians and Ukrainians. The influence that a person's cultural background has on their behavior in times of sickness and in times of health is enormous. Culture has an impact not only on a person's lifestyle, but also on the way in which such a person responds to, and should be treated with, medical care and nursing. Medical staff should be aware of the different patterns of behavior of members of various nationalities and ethnicities. The objectives of this diploma thesis are: identify specific aspects of providing nursing services to the Russian and Ukrainian minorities, and ensure that Russian and Ukrainian clients are satisfied with the nursing service in our hospitals. This paper is divided into two sections. In the theoretical part, the reader may familiarize himself or herself with the religious beliefs that form a part of the life of Russian and Ukrainian clients. This part also includes an overview of the history of these peoples, their migration, their assimilation to our conditions, the issue of barriers to communication, and the ensuing problems. The practical part of this thesis relies on qualitative research via structured interviews within the Russian and Ukrainian communities, and on quantitative research in the form of a questionnaire with which we identified the degree to which nurses are knowledgeable in the belief system of orthodox christianity, and their opinion regarding the necessity of a specific approach to providing care to Russian and Ukrainian clients. Four research questions were formulated, and have drawn answers, in the course of our research. Based on this research, we put together a nursing standard that should facilitate and improve the care provided by nurses in our hospitals. The results of this research, and this thesis itself, could be used in practice to enhance, and to improve the quality, of nursing services rendered, as a training tool for nurses, to present the results on scientific or undergraduate conferences, and for publication in professional journals.