In recent years civil engineering structures such as floors, footbridges, and staircases, have reported unacceptable vibration when they are dynamically excited by pedestrians. When such structures have a particular combination of high structural flexibility and low inherent damping, there is potential for excessive vibration. Pedestrian-structure interaction (PSI) is especially noticeable when the lowest structural natural frequencies are close to the dominant pedestrian pace frequency or its harmonics. Although most of these structures are designed according to existing standards and guidelines, there are still many uncertainties in the human actions that may lead to unexpected structural behavior, increasing the vibration responses and exceeding serviceability limit states. How a pedestrian excites a structure and how that structure affects a pedestrian's gait is not fully understood. Therefore, a realistic analysis of PSI must be performed to properly incorporate these effects toward more rational structural designs. This study aims to identify, within this class of the walking-induced load problem, the vibration mechanisms, the mathematical models, and methods, to address excessive vibration in pedestrian structures. After conducting an in-depth evaluation of current guidelines and provisions for analysis and design of pedestrian structures, models to enable more realistic design under such uncertainties have been developed. The results establish a body of knowledge regarding human loads and structural responses, yielding the potential for more rational approaches to improve the analysis and design of pedestrian structures.

Durante anos, a manteiga foi muito apreciada pelo consumidor, mas por conter grande quantidade de ácidos graxos saturados e colesterol, seu consumo tem diminuído. Recentemente, a descoberta dos malefícios causados pelos ácidos graxos trans presentes nas margarinas produzidas por hidrogenação parcial aumentou o interesse por métodos alternativos de modificação de lipídios. Assim, o objetivo deste trabalho foi desenvolver um lipídio estruturado à base de gordura do leite que apresentasse maiores teores de ácidos graxos insaturados que a manteiga original e, consequentemente, melhor espalhabilidade, além de conter fitosteróis, constituindo a base de um alimento funcional com capacidade de reduzir os níveis de colesterol no sangue. Foram realizadas misturas da gordura do leite (GL) com óleo de girassol (OG) e ésteres de fitosteróis (EF) e foi efetuada interesterificação química e enzimática. As misturas e os lipídios estruturados obtidos foram analisados quanto a composição em ácidos graxos, consistência, conteúdo de gordura sólida (CGS), cinética de cristalização e estrutura cristalina, entre outras propriedades físico-químicas. Foram obtidos produtos contendo cerca de 60% de ácidos graxos insaturados pela adição de até 40% de OG e 25% de EF à gordura do leite, que originalmente possuía cerca de 33% de ácidos graxos insaturados. A interesterificação química melhorou a plasticidade das misturas, enquanto que a modificação enzimática não modificou de maneira expressiva sua consistência. A adição de pequenas quantidades de OG à GL provocou grande diminuição de sua consistência, enquanto que a diminuição do CGS ocorreu em proporções semelhantes às esperadas por interpolação linear. A edição de vídeos que permitam a observação da formação da estrutura cristalina de gorduras mostrou ser uma ferramenta de grande utilidade no estudo da cristalização de óleos e gorduras. A emulsão preparada com a mistura contendo 25,0% de EF, 7,5% de OG e 67,5% de GL apresentou diminuição expressiva na consistência quando comparada à manteiga, representando um efeito benéfico. / For many years, butter has been held in the highest esteem by consumer but its world consumption has steadily declined due to its high contents of saturated fatty acids and cholesterol. More recently, trans fatty acids, which are commonly resent in hydrogenated argarines, have been found to cause detrimental effects when consumed in high amounts. This observation has increased the interest in alternative methods of lipid modification. Therefore, the objective of this work was to develop a milkfat based structured lipid, presenting higher contents of unsaturated fatty acids than original butter and consequently better spreadability, besides containing phytosterols and serving as a base of a functional food with a cholesterol lowering health claim. Blends containing milkfat (MF), sunflower oil (SO) and phytosterol esters (PE) were prepared and then chemically and enzimatically interesterified. The fatty acid composition, consistency, solid fat content (SFC), crystallization kinetics and crystal structure, among other physical and chemical properties were analyzed. The blends presented about 60% of unsaturated fatty acids with the addition of up to 40% of SO and 25% of PE to MF, which originally presented close to 33% of unsaturated fatty acids. Chemical interesterification improved the plasticity of the blends, while the enzymatic reaction did not substantially alter it. The addition of small amounts of SO and PE to MF caused a great decrease in its consistency, while SFC decreased almost proportionally to the addition of these components. The edition of videos made possible the observation of crystal structure formation and it represented a tool of great importance in the fats and oils crystallization research. The emulsion prepared with the blend containing 25.0% of PE, 7.5% of SO, and 67.5% of MF presented a substantial improvement in consistency when compared to butter commercially available.

Esta dissertação investiga o processo de conversão automática de textos estruturados para hiperdocumentos. Analisa vantagens e desvantagens da utilização de um processo automático. Faz um levantamento detalhado das etapas envolvidas nesta conversão. Como resultado da pesquisa propõe um processo de conversão baseado em definições formais da estrutura dos documentos e das citações. O domínio de aplicação do processo de conversão é o conjunto de normas estatutárias jurídicas brasileiras. Outro resultado deste trabalho é a ferramenta WebifyLaw que implementa o processo de conversão automática para o conjunto das normas estatutárias jurídicas brasileiras. Os resultados da aplicação da WebifyLaw na Constituição Federal, no Código Civil e no Código de Processo Civil e em outras 42 normas são apresentados e discutidos. / This work centered in the research of the automatic conversion of structured texts into hyperdocuments. It presents an analysis concerning the advantages and disadvantages of such automatic process. It also details the steps involved in this conversion. As one of the results it proposes an automatic conversion process, which is based on document structure and citations´ formal definitions. The application domain is set as Brazilian statutory norms. Another contribution from this work is a tool called WebifyLaw, which implements the automatic conversion process for the chosen domain. The tool was applied to the Brazilian Constitution, the Civil Code among other 42 norms. The results obtained in using this application are also presented and discussed.

Neuroimagiologia funcional é uma área da neurociência que visa o desenvolvimento de diversas técnicas para mapear a atividade do sistema nervoso e esteve sob constante desenvolvimento durante as últimas décadas devido à sua grande importância para aplicações clínicas e pesquisa. Técnicas usualmente utilizadas, como imagem por ressonância magnética functional (fMRI) e tomografia por emissão de pósitrons (PET) têm ótima resolução espacial (~ mm), mas uma resolução temporal limitada (~ s), impondo um grande desafio para nossa compreensão a respeito da dinâmica de funções cognitivas mais elevadas, cujas oscilações podem ocorrer em escalas temporais muito mais finas (~ ms). Tal limitação ocorre pelo fato destas técnicas medirem respostas biológicas lentas que são correlacionadas de maneira indireta com a atividade elétrica cerebral. As duas principais técnicas capazes de superar essa limitação são a Eletro- e Magnetoencefalografia (EEG/MEG), que são técnicas não invasivas para medir os campos elétricos e magnéticos no escalpo, respectivamente, gerados pelas fontes elétricas cerebrais. Ambas possuem resolução temporal na ordem de milisegundo, mas tipicalmente uma baixa resolução espacial (~ cm) devido à natureza mal posta do problema inverso eletromagnético. Um imenso esforço vem sendo feito durante as últimas décadas para melhorar suas resoluções espaciais através da incorporação de informação relevante ao problema de outras técnicas de imagens e/ou de vínculos biologicamente inspirados aliados ao desenvolvimento de métodos matemáticos e algoritmos sofisticados. Neste trabalho focaremos em EEG, embora todas técnicas aqui apresentadas possam ser igualmente aplicadas ao MEG devido às suas formas matemáticas idênticas. Em particular, nós exploramos esparsidade como uma importante restrição matemática dentro de uma abordagem Bayesiana chamada Aprendizagem Bayesiana Esparsa (SBL), que permite a obtenção de soluções únicas significativas no problema de reconstrução de fontes. Além disso, investigamos como incorporar diferentes estruturas como graus de liberdade nesta abordagem, que é uma aplicação de esparsidade estruturada e mostramos que é um caminho promisor para melhorar a precisão de reconstrução de fontes em métodos de imagens eletromagnéticos. / Functional Neuroimaging is an area of neuroscience which aims at developing several techniques to map the activity of the nervous system and has been under constant development in the last decades due to its high importance in clinical applications and research. Common applied techniques such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and positron emission tomography (PET) have great spatial resolution (~ mm), but a limited temporal resolution (~ s), which poses a great challenge on our understanding of the dynamics of higher cognitive functions, whose oscillations can occur in much finer temporal scales (~ ms). Such limitation occurs because these techniques rely on measurements of slow biological responses which are correlated in a complicated manner to the actual electric activity. The two major candidates that overcome this shortcoming are Electro- and Magnetoencephalography (EEG/MEG), which are non-invasive techniques that measure the electric and magnetic fields on the scalp, respectively, generated by the electrical brain sources. Both have millisecond temporal resolution, but typically low spatial resolution (~ cm) due to the highly ill-posed nature of the electromagnetic inverse problem. There has been a huge effort in the last decades to improve their spatial resolution by means of incorporating relevant information to the problem from either other imaging modalities and/or biologically inspired constraints allied with the development of sophisticated mathematical methods and algorithms. In this work we focus on EEG, although all techniques here presented can be equally applied to MEG because of their identical mathematical form. In particular, we explore sparsity as a useful mathematical constraint in a Bayesian framework called Sparse Bayesian Learning (SBL), which enables the achievement of meaningful unique solutions in the source reconstruction problem. Moreover, we investigate how to incorporate different structures as degrees of freedom into this framework, which is an application of structured sparsity and show that it is a promising way to improve the source reconstruction accuracy of electromagnetic imaging methods.

Geralmente, o resultado de um exame diagnóstico é transmitido através de um relatório, elaborado pelo médico que o executa para o médico solicitante. A elaboração livre, sem qualquer regra ou padrão, do laudo pelo médico executante, é rotineira, porém gera reclamações por parte dos médicos solicitantes, freqüentemente relacionadas à terminologia e ao conteúdo, que nem sempre é completo, preciso e conclusivo. O objetivo desse trabalho foi estudar a viabilidade, identificando os obstáculos, para implantação de um laudo estruturado, em um hospital universitário e, se isso resulta em melhoria na transmissão de informações. O laudo escolhido foi o laudo de ultra-sonografia de tireóide. As informações e terminologias foram padronizadas, utilizando um software de laudo estruturado, construído a partir de informações dos médicos solicitantes e executantes, em ambiente de internet. A ferramenta utilizada para construção do software foi o Borland Developer Studio 2006 (Zarko, 2009), sob plataforma Microsoft.Net (Microsoft, 2009). Durante dois meses, o tempo para elaboração do laudo textual (livre) foi medido e gravado. O mesmo foi feito com o laudo estruturado nos dois meses seguintes. Ambos os modelos de laudo foram avaliados, após o período de utilização, através de questionários específicos, aplicados aos médicos solicitantes e executantes para avaliar a mudança do textual para o estruturado. Cento e cinqüenta e sete (157) exames com tempo médio igual a 7,1 (± 4,5) minutos foram elaborados sob a forma livre. Com o uso do laudo estruturado, 100 exames com tempo médio igual a 5,4 (± 3,6) minutos. A diferença do tempo total (laudos com presença de nódulos e sem presença de nódulos) e do tempo com nódulos entre os laudos gerados estruturado e os por texto livre foi significativa após a análise estatística (p-valor < 0,01). No entanto, quando se considera apenas os laudos sem nódulos,a diferença não é significativa (p-valor=0,20). Entre os médicos solicitantes (n=10), a maioria (8/10 = 80%) preferiu o laudo estruturado. Todos concordaram que houve padronização da descrição e 70%, que houve melhora na transmissão de informação. Dos médicos executantes (n=21), 16 (76,2%) também preferiram o laudo estruturado porque padronizou a descrição dos achados (20/21 = 95,2%) e facilitou a emissão do laudo (14/21 = 66,7%). Este trabalho concluiu que é viável a implantação de um laudo estruturado em um hospital universitário, melhorando a velocidade da elaboração do laudo e a transmissão das informações entre médico solicitante e executante. / Usually, the findings of an imaging study are transmitted by a written report, from the radiologist to the requiring physician. The free text (FT), without precise and defined rules, is generally applied for this purpose. However, results in complaints by clinicians, mainly related to imprecise terms, vague and inconclusive content. The purpose of this study was to verify the feasibility of making structured report (SR), through the identification of the obstacles, within university hospital and the impact over information transmission. Thyroid ultrasonography (Thyroid US) was the exam chosen. The information and terms was standardized, and the SR was made based on information from clinicians and radiologists using web-based software, the Borland Developer Studio 2006, under Microsoft Net. During two months, time used to generate a report for Thyroid US was measured using FT. The same was done in the next two months with SR. Both models of reports were evaluated by questionnaire directed to clinicians and radiologists. 157 exams, average time 7.1 +/- 4.5 minutes were generated using FT and 100, average time 5.4+/-3.6 using SR. The difference of time to report between the SR and the FT was significant after the statistical analysis (p-value <0,01).for all examinations (reports with and without nodules) and for examinations with nodules However, when is just considered the reports without nodules, the difference was not significant (p-valor=0,20). Among the clinicians, the majority (80%- 8/10) preferred the SR. All of them agreed that standardization was reached and 70% stated that improved information transmission. 76.2%, sixteen out of twenty-one, of the radiologists preferred the SR because the description was more uniform and facilitates report generation. In conclusion, this study showed that implementation of SR in an university hospital is feasible and improves information transmission between clinicians and radiologists.

Perovskite-like layered structured (PLS) compounds display a range of interesting physical and chemical properties, including photocatalysis, photoluminescence, ion conductivity, electrochemical stability, magnetic properties, ferroelectricity and piezoelectricity. There are mainly three homologous series of PLS compounds distinguished by their different BO6 octahedra orientation: the Dion-Jacobson phase (A'An-1BnO3n+1); the AnBnO3n+2 phase; and the hexagonal phase (AnBn-1O3n). Some of the 4-layer AnBnO3n+2 compounds, like La2Ti2O7 and Sr2Nb2O7, have been reported to be ferroelectrics with super high Curie point (above 1300 °C), but no ferroelectric properties have been reported for the 2-layer and 3-layer AnBnO3n+2 compounds, and also there are few reports on the ferroelectric properties of compounds with Dion-Jacobson structure and hexagonal structure. Consequently, in this work, the crystallographic structures, microstructures, dielectric, ferroelectric and piezoelectric properties of (AxLa1-x)Ti2O7 (A = Sm and Eu) solid solutions with 4-layer AnBnO3n+2 structure, Pr3Ti2TaO11 with 3-layer AnBnO3n+2 structure, LaTaO4 with 2-layer AnBnO3n+2 structure, ABiNb2O7 (A = Rb and Cs) with Dion-Jacobson structure and Sr6TiNb4O18 with hexagonal structure were studied. Spark plasma sintering (SPS) was used to sinter ceramics with high density and preferred orientation. X-ray diffraction refinement (XRD) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) were used to study the crystallographic structures and microstructures of the layer structured compounds. The ferroelectricity was studied using the current-electric field and polarization-electric field hysteresis loops. The Curie point and phase transitions were studied using the temperature dependence of the dielectric constant and loss. Piezoresponse force microscopy (PFM) was also used to study the ferroelectric domain structure of some layer structured compounds. In the first part of this work, the piezoelectric constant of La2Ti2O7 was improved by doping Sm. The crystallographic structure of (Eu1-xLax) 2Ti2O7 and (Sm1-xLax) 2Ti2O7 solid solutions were well studied. (AxLa1-x)Ti2O7 solid solutions were isomorphous with La2Ti2O7 when x was less than 0.5 for (EuxLa1-x)Ti2O7 and 0.8 for (SmxLa1-x)Ti2O7. When x was above their solubility limit, a biphase was observed. The XRD and Raman data suggested that the biphase consisted of (AxLa1-x)2Ti2O7 perovskite-like layered structure and pure Sm2Ti2O7 pyrochlore structure. Ferroelectric domain switching was observed in the I-E and P-E hysteresis loops for textured (SmxLa1-x)Ti2O7 (x < 0.2). The highest d33 was 2.8 pC/N for (Sm0.1La0.9)Ti2O7. In the second part, The Pr3Ti2TaO11 compound was demonstrated to have a 3-layer type II AnBnO3n+2 PLS structure belonging to space group Pmc21 with unit cell parameters a = 3.8689(3) Å, b = 20.389(2) Å, c = 5.5046(5) Å, and its ferroelectric properties were investigated. Analysis of the XRD and TEM results showed that Pr3Ti2TaO11 ceramics have an n = 3 (type II) heteroblock structure consisting of alternating n = 2 and n = 4 octahedral oxide layers. High resolution electron microscopy revealed the layered structure to be highly disordered, with faulting of the heteroblock structure and the coexistence of a n = 4 phase on a fine scale (nm), which was evident as a broadening of the XRD peaks of the ceramics. Pr3Ti2TaO11 ceramic exhibits a super-high Curie point (1415±5 °C). A small, but measurable piezoelectric constant d33 between 0.1 and 0.2 pC/N was detected for the samples poled above 900 °C under an electric field of 100~200 V/cm. Pure LaTaO4 powders with orthorhombic phase were be prepared by co-precipitation method. The orthorhombic LaTaO4 powders have a 2-layer perovskite-like layered structure with space group A21am, which was refined using Rietveld method. The single phase O-LaTaO4 ceramic was prepared using SPS with a slow cooling rate (20 °C/min). A d33 of 0.3 pC/N was obtained from the electric field induced orthorhombic phase. In the second part of this work, the ferroelectricity and piezoelectricity of CsBiNb2O7 with Dion-Jacobson type PLS structure was successfully demonstrated for the first time. The ferroelectricity and piezoelectricity of RbBiNb2O7, which have similar structure with CsBiNb2O7, were also fully studied. Highly textured 2-layer Dion-Jacobson ceramics ABiNb2O7 (A = Rb and Cs) were prepared by one-step SPS. High resolution TEM showed well ordered (0 0 1) lattice planes. Striped ferroelectric domains were observed using PFM. The ferroelectricity and piezoelectricity of CsBiNb2O7 has been demonstrated for the first time. The Tc of RbBiNb2O7 and CsBiNb2O7 are 1098±5 and 1033±5 °C, respectively. The piezoelectric constant of RbBiNb2O7 and CsBiNb2O7 were approximately 5 and 8 pC/N. Thermal depoling studies confirmed the Curie point and the stability of the piezoelectricity. Sr6Nb4TiO18 ceramics with non-centrosymmetric structure were successfully prepared, but no obvious evidence was found to prove its ferroelectricity. The untextured and textured 6-layer Hexagonal compound Sr6Nb4TiO18 was prepared by solid state reaction and spark plasma sintering. Its Curie point was found to be greater than 1500 °C. No ferroelectric properties were observed by studying of I-E and P-E loops, and no d33 was observed after poling.

"3D shape measurements are critical in a range of fields, from manufacturing for quality measurements to art conservation for the everlasting archival of ancient sculptures. The most important factor is to gather quantitative 3D information from measurement devices. Currently, there are limitations of existing systems. Many of the techniques are contact methods, proving to be time consuming and invasive to materials. While non-contact methods provide opportunities, many of the current systems are limited in versatility. This project focuses on the development of a fringe projection based system for 3D shape measurements. The critical advantage of the fringe projection optical technique is the ability to provide full field-of-view (FOV) information on the order from several square millimeters to several square meters. In the past, limitations in speed and difficulties achieving sinusoidal projection patterns have restricted the development of this particular type of system and limited its potential applications. For this reason, direct coding techniques have been incorporated to the developed system that modulate the intensity of each pixel to form a sinusoidal pattern using a 624 nm wavelength MEMS based spatial light modulator. Recovered phase data containing shape information is obtained using varying algorithms that range from a single image FFT analysis to a sixteen image, phase stepping algorithm. Reconstruction of 3D information is achievable through several image unwrapping techniques. The first is a spatial unwrapping technique for high speed applications. Additionally, the system uses an optimized Temporal Phase Unwrapping (TPU) algorithm that utilizes varying fringe frequencies ranging from 4 to 512 pixels per fringe to recover shape information in the time domain. This algorithm was chosen based on its robustness and accuracy for high resolution applications [Burke et al., 2002]. Also, unwrapping errors are minimized by approximately 90% as the number of images used is increased from the minimum to maximum fringe density. Cxoontrary to other systems, the 3D shape measurement system developed in the CHSLT laboratories has unprecedented versatility to accommodate a variety of applications with the z-depth resolution of up to 25.4 µm (0.001 inches) and speeds close to 200 frames per second. Hardware systems are integrated into user-friendly software that has been customized for fringe projection. The system has been tested in two extreme environments. The first is for quantification of cracks and potholes in the surface of roads under dynamic conditions. The second application was digitization of an art sculpture under static conditions. The system shows promising results and the potential for high quality images via algorithm optimization. Most importantly, there is potential to present real time 3D information at video speeds."

Submitted by Filipe dos Santos (fsantos@pucsp.br) on 2016-09-02T14:31:38Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Newton Juniano Calegari.pdf: 2853517 bytes, checksum: e1eda2a1325986c6284a5054d724a19f (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-09-02T14:31:38Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Newton Juniano Calegari.pdf: 2853517 bytes, checksum: e1eda2a1325986c6284a5054d724a19f (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-04-02 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo / The tool proposed in this research aims at bringing together the Semantic Web technologies and content publishers, this way enabling the latter to contribute to creating structured data and metadata about texts and information they may make available on the Web. The general goal is to investigate the technical feasibility of developing a semantic annotation tool that enables content publishers to contribute to the Semantic Web ecosystem. Based on (BERNERS-LEE et al., 2001; ALESSO; SMITH, 2006; RODRÍGUEZ-ROCHA et al., 2015; GUIZZARDI, 2005; ISOTANI; BITTENCOURT, 2015), the Semantic Web is presented according to its technological stack. Considering the importance of the ontologies and vocabularies used to create Semantic Web applications, the essential subjects of the conceptual modelling and the ontology language used on the Web are presented. In order to provide the necessary concepts to use semantic annotations, this dissertation presents both the way annotations are used (manual, semi-automatic, and automatic) as well as the way these annotations are integrated with resources available on the Web. The state-of-the-art chapter describes recent projects and related work on the use of Semantic Web within Web-content publishing context. The methodology adopted by this research is based on (SANTAELLA; VIEIRA, 2008; GIL, 2002), in compliance with the exploratory approach for research. This research presents the proposal and the architecture of the semantic annotation tool, which uses shared vocabulary in order to create structured data based on textual content. In conclusion, this dissertation addresses the possibilities of future work, both in terms of the implementation of the tool in a real use case as well as in new scientific research / A proposta apresentada nesta pesquisa busca aproximar as tecnologias de Web Semântica dos usuários publicadores de conteúdo na Web, permitindo que estes contribuam com a geração de dados estruturados e metadados sobre textos e informações que venham disponibilizar na Web. O objetivo geral deste trabalho é investigar a viabilidade técnica de desenvolvimento de uma ferramenta de anotação semântica que permita aos usuários publicadores de conteúdo contribuírem para o ecossistema de Web Semântica. Com suporte de (BERNERS-LEE et al., 2001; ALESSO; SMITH, 2006; RODRÍGUEZ-ROCHA et al., 2015; GUIZZARDI, 2005; ISOTANI; BITTENCOURT, 2015) apresenta-se o tópico de Web Semântica de acordo com a pilha tecnológica que mostra o conjunto de tecnologias proposto para a sua realização. Considerando a importância de ontologias e vocabulários para a construção de aplicações de Web Semântica, são apresentados então os tópicos fundamentais de modelagem conceitual e a linguagem de ontologias para Web. Para fornecer a base necessária para a utilização de anotações semânticas são apresentados, além da definição, os modos de uso de anotações (manual, semi-automático e automático) e as formas de integrar essas anotações com recursos disponíveis nas tecnologias da Web Semântica. O estado da arte contempla trabalhos e projetos recentes sobre o uso de Web Semântica no contexto de publicação de conteúdo na Web. A metodologia é baseada na proposta apresentada por SANTAELLA; VIEIRA (2008), seguindo uma abordagem exploratória para a condução da pesquisa. É apresentada a proposta e os componentes de uma ferramenta de anotação semântica que utiliza vocabulários compartilhados para geração de dados estruturados a partir de conteúdo textual. Concluindo o trabalho, são apresentadas as possibilidades futuras, tanto da implementação da ferramenta em um cenário real, atestando sua viabilidade técnica, quanto novos trabalhos encaminhados a partir desta pesquisa

Rather than designing focused experiments to test individual hypotheses, scientists now commonly acquire measurements using massively parallel techniques, for post hoc interrogation. The resulting data is both high-dimensional and structured, in that observed variables are grouped and ordered into related subspaces, reflecting both natural physical organization and factorial experimental designs. Such structure encodes critical constraints and clues to interpretation, but typical unsupervised learning methods assume exchangeability and fail to account adequately for the structure of data in a flexible and interpretable way. In this thesis, I develop computational methods for exploratory analysis of structured high-dimensional data, and apply them to study gene expression regulation in Parkinson’s (PD) and Huntington’s diseases (HD). BOMBASTIC (Block-Organized, Model-Based, Tree-Indexed Clustering) is a methodology to cluster and visualize data organized in pre-specified subspaces, by combining independent clusterings of blocks into hierarchies. BOMBASTIC provides a formal specification of the block-clustering problem and a modular implementation that facilitates integration, visualization, and comparison of diverse datasets and rapid exploration of alternative analyses. These tools, along with standard methods, were applied to study gene expression in mouse models of neurodegenerative diseases, in collaboration with Dr. Myriam Heiman and Dr. Robert Fenster. In PD, I analyzed cell-type-specific expression following levodopa treatment to study mechanisms underlying levodopa-induced dyskinesia (LID). I identified likely regulators of the transcriptional changes leading to LID and implicated signaling pathways amenable to pharmacological modulation (Heiman, Heilbut et al, 2014). In HD, I analyzed multiple mouse models (Kuhn, 2007), cell-type specific profiles of medium spiny neurons (Fenster, 2011), and an RNA-Seq dataset profiling multiple tissue types over time and across an mHTT allelic series (CHDI, 2015). I found evidence suggesting that altered activity of the PRC2 complex significantly contributes to the transcriptional dysregulation observed in striatal neurons in HD.

Information Communication Systems (ICT) has brought about a change in the way people handle transactions. The payment systems have undergone an incredible evolution over the passing years from physical transfer of cash to exchanging money in a digital form. Mobile Payment (mPayment) which is a branch of mobile commerce is one of the areas that is becoming more and more popular these days. In Sweden, there is a growing success of mPayment system such as SEQR, Swish amongst others. However, a huge chunk of the population is yet to adopt the system. Hence, there is a need to identify factors that influence peoples’ decisions to adopt or not to adopt the mPayment system like Swish. This study aimed at identifying the factors that influence the adoption of mPayment system amongst the consumers in Sweden. The research question was: what factors influence the adoption of Swish mobile payment app among the consumers in Sweden? A qualitative research was conducted. A semi structured interview was used as the data collection method. This data collection method was used because this research work seeks to identify the feelings, opinions and experiences of people and this method fits best into the research work. The thematic analysis approach was used for the data analysis. The study showed that impact of the system on day-to-day activities, speculation of risk and trust of the system, integration to lifestyle, speculation of user friendliness and flexibility, age and peer influence are the factors that influence the adoption of swish mobile payment app amongst the consumers in Sweden. Furthermore, the research was viewed through the lens of the UTAUT by comparing the findings of the study and how it relates to the determinants and moderating factors of the model. In conclusion, this study has contributed to the field of ICT specifically the mobile technology field. The conceptual model that was built will be useful for developers and researchers to be able to know the areas to put in more efforts and areas to keep maintaining. Furthermore, this research was conducted within a country that has experience with m-payment apps. Hence, this study can serve as an example for other countries moving towards higher smartphone and application usage.