Presented in this study is a wide-ranging investigation into the use of properties of balance in an operational numerical weather prediction context. Initially, a joint numerical and observational study is undertaken. We used the Unified Model (UM), the suite of atmospheric and oceanic prediction software used at the UK Met Office (UKMO), to locate symmetric instabilities (SIs), an indicator of imbalanced motion. These are areas of negative Ertel potential vorticity (in the Northern hemisphere) calculated on surfaces of constant potential temperature. Once located, the SIs were compared with satellite and aircraft observational data. As a full three-dimensional calculation of Ertel PV proved outwith the scope of this study we calculated the two-dimensional, vertical component of the absolute vorticity, to assess the inertial stability criterion. We found that at the synoptic scale in the atmosphere, if there existed a symmetric instability, it was dominated by an inertial instability. With the appropriate observational data, evidence of inertial instability from the vertical component of the absolute vorticity, predicted by the UM was found at 12km horizontal grid resolution. Varying the horizontal grid resolution allowed the estimation of a grid length scale, above which, the inertial instability was not captured by the observational data, of approximately 20km. Independently, aircraft data was used to estimate that horizontal grid resolutions above 20-25km should not model any features of imbalance providing a real world estimate of the lower bound of the grid resolution that should be employed by a balanced atmospheric prediction model. A further investigation of the UM concluded that the data assimilation scheme and time of initialisation had no effect on the generation of SIs. An investigation was then made into the robustness of balanced models in the shallow water context, employing the contour-advective semi-Lagrangian (CASL) algorithm, Dritschel & Ambaum (1997), a novel numerical algorithm that exploits the underlying balance observed within a geophysical flow at leading order. Initially two algorithms were considered, which differed by the prognostic variables employed. Each algorithm had their three-time-level semi-implicit time integration scheme de-centred to mirror the time integration scheme of the UM. We found that the version with potential vorticity (PV), divergence and acceleration divergence, CA[subscript(δ,γ)], as prognostic variables preserved the Bolin-Charney balance to a much greater degree than the model with PV, divergence and depth anomaly CA[subscript(tilde{h},δ)], as prognostic variables. This demonstrated that CA[subscript(δ,γ)] was better equipped to benefit from de-centring, an essential property of any operational numerical weather prediction (NWP) model. We then investigate the robustness of CA[subscript(δ,γ)] by simulating flows with Rossby and Froude number O(1), to find the operational limits of the algorithm. We also investigated increasing the efficiency of CA[subscript(δ,γ)] by increasing the time-step Δt employed while decreasing specific convergence criteria of the algorithm while preserving accuracy. We find that significant efficiency gains are possible for predominantly mid-latitude flows, a necessary step for the use of CA[subscript(δ,γ)] in an operational NWP context. The study is concluded by employing CASL in the non-hydrostatic context under the Boussinesq approximation, which allows weak stratification to be considered, a step closer to physical reality than the shallow water case. CASL is compared to the primitive equation pseudospectral (PEPS) and vorticity-based pseudospectral (VPS) algorithms, both as the names suggest, spectral-based algorithms, which again differ by the prognostic variables employed. This comparison is drawn to highlight the computational advantages that CASL has over common numerical methods used in many operational forecast centres. We find that CASL requires significantly less artificial numerical diffusion than its pseudospectral counterparts in simulations of Rossby number ~O(1). Consequently, CASL obtains a much less diffuse, more accurate solution, at a lower resolution and therefore lower computational cost. At low Rossby number, where the flow is strongly influence by the Earth's rotation, it is found that CASL is the most cost-effective method. In addition, CASL also preserves a much greater proportion of balance, diagnosed with nonlinear quasigeostrophic balance (NQG), another significant advantage over its pseudospectral counterparts.

Bioinformatics and Computational Biology (BCB) is a relatively new multidisciplinary field which brings together many aspects of the fields of biology, computer science, statistics, and engineering. Bioinformatics extracts useful information from biological data and makes these more intuitive and understandable by applying principles of information sciences, while computational biology harnesses computational approaches and technologies to answer biological questions conveniently. Recent years have seen an explosion of the size of biological data at a rate which outpaces the rate of increases in the computational power of mainstream computer technologies, namely general purpose processors (GPPs). The aim of this thesis is to explore the use of off-the-shelf Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) technology in the high performance and efficient implementation of BCB applications in order to meet the demands of biological data increases at affordable cost. The thesis presents detailed design and implementations of GPU solutions for a number of BCB algorithms in two widely used BCB applications, namely biological sequence alignment and phylogenetic analysis. Biological sequence alignment can be used to determine the potential information about a newly discovered biological sequence from other well-known sequences through similarity comparison. On the other hand, phylogenetic analysis is concerned with the investigation of the evolution and relationships among organisms, and has many uses in the fields of system biology and comparative genomics. In molecular-based phylogenetic analysis, the relationship between species is estimated by inferring the common history of their genes and then phylogenetic trees are constructed to illustrate evolutionary relationships among genes and organisms. However, both biological sequence alignment and phylogenetic analysis are computationally expensive applications as their computing and memory requirements grow polynomially or even worse with the size of sequence databases. The thesis firstly presents a multi-threaded parallel design of the Smith- Waterman (SW) algorithm alongside an implementation on NVIDIA GPUs. A novel technique is put forward to solve the restriction on the length of the query sequence in previous GPU-based implementations of the SW algorithm. Based on this implementation, the difference between two main task parallelization approaches (Inter-task and Intra-task parallelization) is presented. The resulting GPU implementation matches the speed of existing GPU implementations while providing more flexibility, i.e. flexible length of sequences in real world applications. It also outperforms an equivalent GPPbased implementation by 15x-20x. After this, the thesis presents the first reported multi-threaded design and GPU implementation of the Gapped BLAST with Two-Hit method algorithm, which is widely used for aligning biological sequences heuristically. This achieved up to 3x speed-up improvements compared to the most optimised GPP implementations. The thesis then presents a multi-threaded design and GPU implementation of a Neighbor-Joining (NJ)-based method for phylogenetic tree construction and multiple sequence alignment (MSA). This achieves 8x-20x speed up compared to an equivalent GPP implementation based on the widely used ClustalW software. The NJ method however only gives one possible tree which strongly depends on the evolutionary model used. A more advanced method uses maximum likelihood (ML) for scoring phylogenies with Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC)-based Bayesian inference. The latter was the subject of another multi-threaded design and GPU implementation presented in this thesis, which achieved 4x-8x speed up compared to an equivalent GPP implementation based on the widely used MrBayes software. Finally, the thesis presents a general evaluation of the designs and implementations achieved in this work as a step towards the evaluation of GPU technology in BCB computing, in the context of other computer technologies including GPPs and Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA) technology.

No description available.

The third generation of mobile communication systems introduce interactive Multicast and Unicast multimedia services at a fast data rate of up to 2 Mbps and is expected to complete the globalization of the mobile telecommunication systems. The implementation of these services on satellite systems, particularly for broadcast and multicast applications to complement terrestrial services is ideal since satellite systems are capable of providing global coverage in areas not served by terrestrial telecommunication services. However, the main bottleneck of such systems is the scarcity of radio resources for supporting multimedia applications which has resulted in the rapid growth in research efforts for deriving efficient radio resource management techniques. This issue is addressed in this thesis, where the main emphasis is to design a dynamic scheduling framework and algorithm that can improve the overall performance of the radio resource management strategy of a UMTS compatible satellite network, taking into account the unique characteristics of wireless channel conditions. This thesis will initially be focused on the design of the network and functional architecture of a UMTS -compatible satellite network. Based on this architecture, an effective scheduling framework is designed, which can provide different types of resource assigning strategies. A functional model of scheduler is defined to describe the behaviours and interactions between different functional entities. An OPNET simulation model with a complete network protocol stack is developed to validate the performance of the scheduling algorithms implemented in the satellite network. Different types of traffic are considered for the OPNET simulation, such as the Poisson Process, ONOFF Source and Self Similar Process, so that the performance of scheduling algorithm can be analyzed for different types of services. A novel scheduling algorithm is proposed to optimise the channel utilisation by considering the characteristics of the wireless channel, which are bursty and location dependent. In order to overcome the channel errors, different code rates are applied for the user under different channel conditions. The proposed scheduling algorithm is designed to give higher priority to users with higher code rate, so that the throughput of network is optimized and at the same time, maintaining the end users' service level agreements. The fairness of the proposed scheduling algorithm is validated using OPNET simulation. The simulation results show that the algorithm can fairly allocate resource to different connections not only among different service classes but also within the same service class depending on their QoS attributes.

This thesis is concerned with the Schrödinger representation of quantum field theory. We describe techniques for solving the Schrödinger equation which supplement the standard techniques of field theory. Our aim is to develop these to the point where they can readily be used to address problems of current interest. To this end, we study realistic models such as gauge theories coupled to dynamical fermions. For maximal generality we consider particles of all physical spins, in various dimensions, and eventually, curved spacetimes. We begin by considering Gaussian fields, and proceed to a detailed study of the Schwinger model, which is, amongst other things, a useful model for (3+1) dimensional gauge theory. One of the most important developments of recent years is a conjecture by Mal-dacena which relates supergravity and string/M-theory on anti-de-Sitter spacetimes to conformal field theories on their boundaries. This correspondence has a natural interpretation in the Schrödinger representation, so we solve the Schrödinger equation for fields of arbitrary spin in anti-de-Sitter spacetimes, and use this to investigate the conjectured correspondence. Our main result is to calculate the Weyl anomalies arising from supergravity fields, which, summed over the supermultiplets of type JIB supergravity compactified on AdS(_s) x S(^5) correctly matches the anomaly calculated in the conjecturally dual N = 4 SU{N) super-Yang-Mills theory. This is one of the few existing pieces of evidence for Maldacena's conjecture beyond leading order in TV.

Why do you experience yourself as a continuous self? This is a central question when regarding the self and it has two kinds of answers: either there is something like an ego inside you which is the entity perceiving all your experiences (the ego theory-view), or there is no such thing as a self or an ego and you are just a collection of different perceptions (the bundle theory-view). There are many different components all contributing to the concept of self as a whole leading to different neuroscientific ways of measuring it and some researchers are arguing for the nonexistence of a unified self-system within the brain. The aim of this thesis is to review how neuroscientific findings might contribute to the philosophical debate about the nature of self. The thesis starts off by reviewing the different concepts and components with which the self is typically described, both in philosophy and in the empirical research field of neuroscience. Then follows a presentation of three important aspects of self-awareness – first-person perspective, self-reflection, and interoception – and their specific associated brain areas (namely, the medial prefrontal cortex, the posterior and anterior cingulate cortices, and insula). The purpose here is to examine how the self is approached in these studies. After this the thesis explores to what extent neuroscience supports the bundle theory-view, with a focus on reviewing the different brain networks involved in the processing of self. In conclusion, the thesis suggests that the literature reviewed provides neuroscientific support for the bundle theory-view that there is no unified self located in the brain, mostly because of the dissimilar neural activations associated with different self-related processes. In other words, the bundle theory seems to be correct despite the experienced feeling you have of being a continuous and unified self.

Introdução: O estudo da Atenção Primária à Saúde (APS) tem promovido discussões a respeito da organização dos sistemas de saúde e como eles se comunicam, no Brasil e no mundo. A falta de coordenação da atenção à saúde é apontada como um dos principais obstáculos na instituição de melhorias no cuidado aos usuários. Uma vertente de avaliação da APS em diversos países tem utilizado a análise das internações por condições sensíveis à atenção primária (ICSAP), por meio de indicadores de sua efetividade. As taxas de ICSAP podem ser utilizadas como forma de avaliar o acesso, a cobertura, a qualidade e o desempenho da APS e, assim, pensar em melhorias na comunicação entre os serviços de saúde. Objetivos: Propor um fluxo de comunicação entre um serviço de urgência e emergência e a APS em uma região do município de São Paulo; identificar os pontos de fragilidade e potencialidade na comunicação entre os serviços de urgência e emergência e a Atenção Primária à Saúde a partir da análise das condições sensíveis à atenção primária (CSAP). Método: Trata-se de um estudo transversal, descritivo, exploratório e retrospectivo, com abordagem quantitativa, desenvolvido na Unidade de Pronto-Atendimento (UPA 24h) Campo Limpo a partir de dados secundários obtidos de um banco de dados, referente ao período de janeiro de 2015 a dezembro de 2016. As análises foram realizadas com o auxílio do pacote estatístico SPSS. O fluxograma de comunicação foi proposto a partir do sistema informatizado NISI-online. Resultados: O banco de dados foi composto por 434.883 atendimentos, no período de 2 anos, com prevalência de ICSAP de 17,1%. O sexo feminino foi o mais acometido pelas internações sensíveis e crianças de 1 a 4 anos apresentaram chance aumentada de atendimento por ICSAP. A maioria das ICSAP foi composta por infecções de ouvido, nariz e garganta (45,4%). Há evidências de aumento da chance de atendimento por ICSAP em pacientes crônicos (p< 0,001), com possibilidade estimada em torno de quatro vezes a dos pacientes não crônicos. A proposta de fluxograma de comunicação entre UPA e APS se deu a partir de pacientes com doenças crônicas (asma/bronquite, hipertensão arterial sistêmica, diabetes mellitus e transtorno mental) com importância de intervenção junto à APS. Conclusão: A consolidação das Redes de Atenção à Saúde voltada para a coordenação do cuidado, por meio da utilização de abordagens que aproximem os diferentes pontos de atenção à saúde, constitui-se como instrumento importante na continuidade do cuidado aos pacientes crônicos com ICSAP. / Introduction: The study of Primary Health Care has promoted discussions about the organization of the health systems and how they integrate to each other in Brazil and around the world. The lack of coordination is pointed out as one of the main obstacles to implement improvements in the health care. Some countries are using the numbers of Ambulatory care sensitive conditions (ACSC) as parameter to evaluate the Primary Health Care effectiveness. ACSC indexes can be used to evaluate the coverage, quality, and performance of Primary Health Care, analyzing the potential improvements in communication between the health services. Objectives: Introduce a communication flow between an emergency department and Primary Health Care in determinate region from São Paulo city; Identifying the fragilities and potentialities in the communication between an emergency department and Primary Health Care using the analysis of the ACSC cases. Method: This is a cross-sectional, descriptive, exploratory and retrospective study, with a quantitative approach, developed at the Emergency Department Campo Limpo based on secondary data obtained from a database, from the period of January 2015 to December 2016. The analyzes were executed with the assistance of the statistical package SPSS. The communication flowchart was developed using data from the NISI-online computerized system. Results: The database was composed by 434,883 consultations in a 2-year period, with 17.1% prevalence of ACSC. The female gender was the most affected by the sensitive hospitalizations and children from 1 to 4 years old presented an increased tendency of ACSC. Most of ACSC were composed by ear, nose and throat infections (45.4%). There are evidences that increases the chances four times more for ACSC care in chronic patients (p < 0.001), when comparing to non-chronic patients. The proposed communication flow between Emergency department and Primary Health Care was based on patients with chronic diseases (asthma / bronchitis, systemic arterial hypertension, diabetes mellitus and mental disorder) highly recommended to have Primary Health Care intervention. Conclusion: The consolidation of health care networks focused on the coordination of care process using an approach that turn close the different scenarios of health care is important for the continuity of care for chronic patients with ACSC.

Neste trabalho são exploradas as potencialidades e efeitos de possíveis aplicações do UPFC (Unified Power Flow Controller) em redes elétricas. Este recente equipamento da família FACTS, apesar de mais complexo, apresenta rapidez e versatilidade de respostas que podem justificar sua aplicação em redes elétricas. São apresentados modelos matemáticos deste dispositivo, para regime permanente e transitório, utilizando transformações para coordenadas ortogonais. Com base nas respostas obtidas, durante as simulações das aplicações estudadas, pode-se constatar que a tensão série e seu posicionamento angular, introduzidos pelo UPFC, desempenham um importante papel no controle rápido e eficiente do fluxo de potência. Como contribuição deste trabalho, explorou-se a conexão do conversor shunt ao enrolamento terciário de autotransformadores, demonstrando a viabilidade do controle do fluxo de potência nestes equipamentos de transformação. O esquema proposto, instalado em transformadores em paralelo, eleva a disponibilidade de operação do UPFC, aumentando a flexibilidade operativa do sistema em implementações práticas. Através da formulação apresentada, o transformador de acoplamento shunt, convencionalmente utilizado pelo UPFC, apresenta dimensões reduzidas. Foi também examinada a possibilidade de limitação de correntes de curto-circuito, equilibrados ou não, com a ação dos controles do UPFC, particularmente, aprofundando a análise do seu desempenho mais eficiente diante de curtos monofásicos. Os resultados satisfatórios obtidos permitem considerar a viabilidade de limitação destas correntes como um subproduto interessante da atuação deste dispositivo FACTS. / In this thesis, the UPFC (Unified Power Flow Controller) various capabilities and effects for possible network applications, are studied. Although its structure is relatively more complex, when compared to the other FACTS controllers, its fast response and versatility can justify its application within the network. By utilising the orthogonal co-ordinates transform both the steady-state and transient mathematical models of the UPFC, are presented herein. Based on the results obtained and regarding the applications studied, it can be stated that the UPFC series voltage along with its phase angle play an important role for the fast and efficient control of the power flow. As a contribution of the present work, it has been proposed the connection of the shunt converter to the tertiary winding of autotransformers, demonstrating in this way the feasibility for controlling the power flow over such transforming assets. The proposed scheme, which regards two paralleled transformers, offers the UPFC a high operation availability increasing the system operative flexibility in actual implementations. By means of the proposed approach, the shunt coupling transformer, usually utilised in a classical UPFC configuration, presents a reduced size. Also, by utilising the UPFC control actions, it has been examined the possibility of short-circuit limitation over balanced and unbalanced circuits. Particularly, it has been analysed the UPFC most efficient performance towards line-to-ground faults. The satisfactory results obtained lead to consider the UPFC feasibility in limiting such currents; this, as an interesting by-product of this FACTS device action.

A sociedade, em suas múltiplas dimensões, tem estado em constante construção de uma nova realidade. Valores, ideias e paradigmas se a lternam em \"des\" e \"reconstrução\" daquilo que a sustenta e norteia. A Reforma Sanitária se torna um movimento específico, porém contextualizado num processo de redemocratiz ação política da sociedade brasileira. Esse movimento, além de representar uma luta específica pelo modelo de atenção à saúde, também é parte de uma totalidade, uma vez que consolidava, na saúde, os direitos democráticos debatidos por diversos setores da sociedade brasileira. A busca por um novo desenho do cuidado da saúde pela sociedade se dá a partir dos princípios e dire trizes fundamentais do Sistema Único de Saúde, uma vez que estes, além de garantir um novo modelo de atenção, possibilitariam as bases para um modelo de gestão mais participativo que daria condições de continuidade deste movimento. Nesse contexto, a enfermagem carece de um processo de atualização em seus conceitos e arranjos. Pr ecisa permitir que as transformações sociais colaborem na construção do perfil profissional que se necessita para que se garanta a \"continuidade\" no processo natural de mudanças das políticas públicas que requerem, dentre outras, \"flexibilidade e criatividade\" por parte dos trabalhadores. Este estudo teve como objetivo analisar a Gestão Participativa, no contexto do Sistema Único de Saúde, à luz das evidências científicas, visando a identificação de categorias relevantes na construção do processo do trabalho em enfermagem. Para atender aos objetivos deste estudo, foi realizada a revisão integrativa da lite ratura existente que propo rcionou um aprofundamento no conhecimento dessa temática e deu condições para o desenvolvimento de um conceito próprio. A leitura dos artigos selecionados seguiu a proposta da análise temática de conteúdo, segundo Minayo, e alguns temas emergiram da leitura, de modo que eles representam alguns aspectos importantes do Trabalho em Enfermagem no contexto da Gestão Participativa. Desta forma, identificou-se os seguintes temas nas amostras selecionadas: Reorientação da Prática Assistencial, Sobrecarga de Trabalho, Gestão Ética, Participação, Liderança, Administração de Conflitos, Qualificação Profissional, Formação Política e Flexibilização das Relações. Conclui-se que a enfermagem necessita de uma reorientação sistemática de seu processo de trabalho de modo que possa se alinhar com a política pública da Gestão Participativa e alcançar os benefícios desta gestão no perfil de seus trabalhadores. / The society, in its multiple dimensions, has been in constant construction of a new reality. Values, ideas and paradigms alternate in \"des\" and \"reconstruction\" of what sustains and guides. The Sanitary Reform becomes a particul ar movement, but contextualized in a process of political democratization of Brazilian society. This movement represents a struggle for specific model of health care and is also part of a totality, since consolidated in health, democratic rights debated by various sectors of Brazilian society. The search for a new design of health care by society starts from the fundame ntal principles and guidelines of the Unified Health System, since these, in addition to ensure a new model of care, would allow the foundation for a more participatory management model which would enable the continuation of this movement. In this context, nursing lacks a process to update its concepts and arrangements and needs to allow social change to collaborate in building the profile that is needed to ensure the \"continuity\" in the natural process of changing public policies that require, among other things, \"fle xibility and creativity\" by wo rkers. This study aimed to analyze the participatory management in the cont ext of the Unified Health System, in light of the scientific evidence for the identification of relevant categories in the construction process of nursing work. To meet the objectives of this study, we performed an integrative review of existing literature that provided a deeper knowle dge of thematic and gave conditions for the development of a specific concept. The reading of the articles followed the proposal of thematic content analysis, by Minayo, and some themes emerged from the reading, so that they represent some important aspects of nursing work in the context of Participatory Management. Thus, we identified the following themes in the selected samples: Reorientation of Care Practice, Work Overload, Ethics Ma nagement, Participation, Leadership, Conflict Management, Professional Qualification, Political Education, and Flexibilization of the Relations. It is concluded that nursing requires a systematic reorientation of their work process, so that it can align itself with the public policy of participatory management and achieve the benefits of this management in the profile of their workers.

O presente estudo configura-se como uma pesquisa de abordagem qualitativa exploratória do tipo estudo de caso, com o objetivo de analisar as bases de financiamento federal e estadual no campo da Atenção Básica dos municípios do Estado da Bahia, evidenciando os conflitos presentes após a implantação do Pacto pela Saúde, bem como as incertezas que cerceiam seu financiamento. Os dados foram coletados em duas etapas: na primeira realizaram-se entrevistas semiestruturadas, com perguntas fechadas e abertas, aplicadas aos representantes da diretoria da atual gestão do Conselho Estadual dos Secretários Municipais de Saúde do Estado da Bahia (COSEMSBA); na segunda etapa desenvolveu-se uma revisão documental, através da leitura e análise das portarias, resoluções federais e estaduais, assim como atas de reuniões da Comissão Intergestores Bipartite (CIB), que trataram como tema a Política e o Financiamento da Atenção Básica. Observou-se que os problemas em relação ao financiamento da saúde, em especial da Atenção Básica, persistem, mesmo após a instituição do Pacto pela Saúde. Desta forma, conclui-se que descentralização só obterá sucesso se a quantidade de recursos financeiros necessários para responder aos compromissos assumidos no atendimento à população for adequada, e também quando houver regularidade do financiamento e da capacidade de incremento de recursos destinados à saúde pelas três esferas, ou seja, não basta a simples transferência financeira, também se faz necessário discutir os critérios e as formas de alocação dos recursos / This study characterizes as an exploratory qualitative case study, with the aim of analyzing the foundations of federal and state funding in Primary Healthcare of the municipalities of the state of Bahia, bringing light upon current conflicts after the deployment of the Pact for Health as well as the uncertainties that surrounded its funding. Data were collected in two stages, the first semi-structured interviews were conducted with closed and open questions, applied to current managers of the State Council of Municipal Health Secretaries of the State of Bahia (BA-COSEMS/ Conselho Estadual dos Secretários de Saúde-BA), in the second stage, it was developed a document review, through reading and analysis of ordinances, resolutions, state and federal, as well as minutes of meetings of the Managers Bipartite Commission (Comissão Intergestores Bipartite-CIB), which dealt with the theme Politics and funding of primary healthcare. It was observed that the issues, in relation to health financing, particularly Primary Healthcare, persist even after the institution of the Pact for Health. Therefore, it was concluded that decentralization will succeed when the amount of financial resources needed to meet commitments assumed to serve the population is adequate, and also when there is regular funding, increased resources for health by the three spheres of government. It is estimated to be necessary to discuss the criteria and forms of resource allocation in primary healthcare, as there are disagreements about the equality of financial transfers to all municipalities and regions of the state.