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Abstract Despite numerous biomechanical and clinical studies on ankle fractures, the optimal treatment method for a stable fibula fracture is poorly known. Additionally, the clinical relevance and optimal fixation method of syndesmosis injury for different ankle fracture types is unclear. This thesis aimed: (I) to compare six weeks of cast immobilization with three weeks of immobilization (cast or orthosis) in a randomized controlled trial (RCT) of 247 patients with stable Weber B-type fibular fracture; (II) to compare mid-term outcome of syndesmosis transfixation with no fixation in an RCT of 24 patients with supination external rotation (SER) ankle fractures and syndesmosis injury; (III) to evaluate the significance of the syndesmosis injury on clinical outcome in a case-control study of 48 patients with SER ankle fractures; and (IV) to compare the syndesmosis fixation with a screw versus a suture-button device in terms of the accuracy and the maintenance of syndesmosis reduction in an RCT of 43 patients with pronation external rotation (PER) ankle fractures. Three weeks of immobilization in either a cast or an orthosis resulted in non-inferior outcomes compared to traditional six weeks’ immobilization in patients with stable Weber B-type fibula fracture. In patients with SER ankle fracture and unstable syndesmosis after fixation of bone fractures, leaving unstable syndesmosis unfixed resulted in similar outcomes compared to syndesmosis transfixation at mid-term follow-up. Patients with SER ankle fractures with or without an associated syndesmosis injury had similar clinical outcomes after a minimum of four years of follow-up. The syndesmotic screw and the suture-button fixation in patients with PER ankle fracture and unstable syndesmosis resulted in a low malreduction rate and both methods maintained reduction well. In conclusion, stable Weber B-type fibula fractures can safely be treated with only three weeks of cast immobilization or even with a simple orthosis. A syndesmosis injury in SER ankle fractures seems to be of minor therapeutic or prognostic importance and syndesmosis screw fixation has no effect on patient’s recovery compared to no syndesmosis fixation. An associated syndesmosis injury in PER ankle fractures can be fixed with a syndesmotic screw or a suture-button device with comparable outcomes. / Tiivistelmä Stabiilin nilkkamurtuman konservatiivisen hoidon toteutuksesta on hyvälaatuista tutkimustietoa tarjolla niukasti. Syndesmoosivamman kliininen merkitys ja sen hoitomenetelmät eri nilkkamurtumatyypeissä ovat kirjallisuuden perusteella vielä osittain epäselvät. Ensimmäisessä osatyössä vertailtiin kolmen viikon immobilisaatiota (kipsi tai ortoosi) perinteiseen kuuden viikon kipsihoitoon satunnaistetussa ja kontrolloidussa tutkimuksessa, joka käsitti 247 stabiilin Weber B-tyypin pohjeluun murtuman saanutta potilasta. Toisessa osatyössä vertailtiin syndesmoosin ruuvikiinnitystä kiinnittämättä jättämiseen satunnaistetussa ja kontrolloidussa tutkimuksessa, johon osallistui 24 SER (supinaatio-ulkorotaatio) -tyypin nilkkamurtumapotilasta, joilla todettiin syndesmoosin epävakaus leikkauksen aikaisessa rasituskokeessa. Kolmannessa osatyössä selvitettiin syndesmoosivamman kliinistä merkitystä SER-tyypin nilkkamurtumapotilailla tapaus-verrokki-asetelmassa. Neljännessä osatyössä vertailtiin syndesmoosin ruuvi- ja jännitelankakiinnitystä syndesmoosin kiinnitystarkkuuden ja kiinnityksen pysyvyyden suhteen satunnaistetussa ja kontrolloidussa tutkimuksessa, joka käsitti 43 PER (pronaatio-ulkorotaatio) -tyypin nilkkamurtuman saanutta potilasta. Stabiilin Weber B-tyypin pohjeluun murtuman hoidossa kolmen viikon immobilisaatio joko kipsillä tai ortoosilla oli yhtä hyvä ja turvallinen kuin perinteinen kuuden viikon kipsihoito. Syndesmoosin ruuvikiinnitettyjen ja kiinnittämättä jätettyjen SER-tyypin nilkkamurtumapotilaiden hoitotuloksissa ei todettu merkittäviä eroja keskipitkän aikavälin seurannassa. Syndesmoosivammalla ei todettu merkitystä SER-tyypin nilkkamurtuma-potilaiden hoitotulokseen tai ennusteeseen vähintään neljän vuoden seurannan jälkeen. Syndesmoosin reduktion suhteen ruuvi- ja jännitelankakiinnityksellä saadaan yhtä hyvät varhaisvaiheen tulokset PER-tyypin nilkkamurtumapotilailla ja molemmat kiinnitysmenetelmät säilyttävät syndesmoosin reduktion hyvin. Stabiilin Weber B -tyypin pohjeluun murtuman hoito voidaan toteuttaa turvallisesti ja tehokkaasti kolmen viikon immobilisaatiolla joko nilkkaortoosilla tai saapaskipsillä. Syndesmoosivammalla ei vaikuta olevan kliinistä merkitystä SER-tyypin nilkkamurtumapotilaan ennusteeseen, eikä vamman hoitaminen ruuvikiinnityksellä paranna potilaan hoitotulosta kiinnittämättä jättämiseen verrattuna. PER-tyypin nilkkamurtumiin liittyvän syndesmoosivamman korjauksessa voidaan käyttää joko ruuvikiinnitystä tai jännitelankasidosta yhtä hyvin hoitotuloksin.

Magister Scientiae - MSc / In many forensic cases, such as mass disasters reconstruction cases, the recovered DNA is highly degraded. In such incidences, typing of STR loci has become one of the most powerful tools for retrieving information from the degraded DNA. However, as DNA degradation proceeds, three phenomena occur consecutively: loci imbalance, allele dropout and no amplification. To solve the problem of degraded DNA, redesigned primer sets have been developed in which the primers were positioned as close as possible to the STR repeat region. These reduced primer sets were called Miniplexes. Unfortunately, a few of the CODIS STR loci cannot be made into smaller amplicons. For this reason non-CODIS miniSTRs have been developed. The present study was undertaken for the population genetic analysis of microsatellite variation in four South African populations; Afrikaner, Xhosa, Mixed Ancestry and Asian Indian using eight non-CODIS miniSTR loci. These miniSTRs loci were characterized within the populations by estimating the levels of diversity of the markers, estimating the population genetic parameters, and studying the inter-population relationships. All of the miniSTRs were amplified successfully and the genetic variability parameters across all loci in Afrikaner, Mixed Ancestry, Asian Indian and Xhosa were estimated to be in the range of 3 (D4S2364) to 12 (D9S2157) alleles, the total number of alleles over all loci ranged from 100 to 204, the allelic richness ranged from 3.612 to 10.307 and the heterozygosity ranged from 0.4360 to 0.8073. Genetic distance was least between Afrikaner and Asian Indian and highest between Xhosa and Mixed Ancestry. Deviations from Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium were not observed for most of the loci. The low mean FIS (-0.027) and FIT (-0.010) and FST (0.017) values across the populations indicated low level of inbreeding within (FIS) and among (FST) the populations. The Asian Indian population showed higher levels of the inbreeding coefficient, indicating less gene exchange between it and other populations. These 8 markers can be used for genetic investigations and assessing population structure. The study contributed to the knowledge and genetic characterization of four South African populations. In addition, these MiniSTRs prove to be useful in cases where more genetic information is needed. / South Africa

Nowadays, we have millions of cameras in public places such as traffic junctions, railway stations etc., and capturing video data round the clock. This humongous data has resulted in an increased need for automation of visual surveillance. Analysis of crowd and traffic flows is an important step towards achieving this goal. In this work, we present our algorithms for identifying and segmenting dominant ows in surveillance scenarios. In the second part, we present our work aiming at predicting the visual saliency. The ability of humans to discriminate and selectively pay attention to few regions in the scene over the others is a key attentional mechanism. Here, we present our algorithms for predicting human eye fixations and segmenting salient objects in the scene. (i) Flow Analysis in Surveillance Videos: We propose algorithms for segmenting flows of static and dynamic nature in surveillance videos in an unsupervised manner. In static flows scenarios, we assume the motion patterns to be consistent over the entire duration of video and analyze them in the compressed domain using H.264 motion vectors. Our approach is based on modeling the motion vector field as a Conditional Random Field (CRF) and obtaining oriented motion segments which are merged to obtain the final flow segments. This approach in compressed domain is shown to be both accurate and computationally efficient. In the case of dynamic flow videos (e.g. flows at a traffic junction), we propose a method for segmenting the individual object flows over long durations. This long-term flow segmentation is achieved in the framework of CRF using local color and motion features. We propose a Dynamic Time Warping (DTW) based distance measure between flow segments for clustering them and generate representative dominant ow models. Using these dominant flow models, we perform path prediction for the vehicles entering the camera's field-of-view and detect anomalous motions. (ii) Visual Saliency Prediction using Deep Convolutional Neural Networks: We propose a deep fully convolutional neural network (CNN) - DeepFix, for accurately predicting eye fixations in the form of saliency maps. Unlike classical works which characterize the saliency map using various hand-crafted features, our model automatically learns features in a hierarchical fashion and predicts saliency map in an end-to-end manner. DeepFix is designed to capture visual semantics at multiple scales while taking global context into account. Generally, fully convolutional nets are spatially invariant which prevents them from modeling location dependent patterns (e.g. centre-bias). Our network overcomes this limitation by incorporating a novel Location Biased Convolutional layer. We experimentally show that our network outperforms other recent approaches by a significant margin. In general, human eye fixations correlate with locations of salient objects in the scene. However, only a handful of approaches have attempted to simultaneously address these related aspects of eye fixations and object saliency. In our work, we also propose a deep convolutional network capable of simultaneously predicting eye fixations and segmenting salient objects in a unified framework. We design the initial network layers, shared between both the tasks, such that they capture the global contextual aspects of saliency, while the deeper layers of the network address task specific aspects. Our network shows a significant improvement over the current state-of-the-art for both eye fixation prediction and salient object segmentation across a number of challenging datasets.

Made available in DSpace on 2017-06-01T18:20:24Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Rafael_confrontada.pdf: 1048050 bytes, checksum: 55e179f2f759949e7662179a0b029f4c (MD5) Previous issue date: 2007-07-23 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / The intense urban growth, production of domestic and industrial residues has been increased, mainly sewage sludge. This residue has high amount of pathogenic organisms and heavy metals. The viable alternative for this residue destination is its use in agriculture improving the chemical, physical and biological soil characteristics. Allied of the capacity of some plants, Leguminosae order, to carry through symbiosis with microorganisms, generically called rhizobia, which are capable of increase nitrogen uptake in soil. The present work had as objective the evaluation of different levels of sewage sludge that make possible the best interaction with fixing nitrogen bacteria in the productivity of cowpea, aiming at to maximize the agricultural production inside of the concept of sustainable development, supplying an ambiently safe destination for the solid residues with its potential in agriculture recycling. The experiment was conducted in a greenhouse of Empresa Pernambucana de Pesquisa Agropecuária (IPA), with experimental design adopted of randomized blocks (four blocks) containing five strains of Bradyrhizobium spp. (EI-6, NFB 700, BR 2001, BR 4406 and BR 3267) and sewage sludge in four different levels (0, 25, 50 and 75 Mg ∙ ha-1) including control (without inoculation of the equivalent level of sewage sludge of 0 Mg ∙ ha-1). The sewage sludge proceeding from Sewage Treatment Station from Mangueira, Recife/PE, incorporated in the soil, from IPA Experimental Station in Itapirema/PE. The cowpea, cultivar IPA 206 , used was inoculated by a bacterial suspension with 109 CFU ∙ mL-1. Plants were harvested at 45 days, to measure shoot and root dry matter (SDM and RDM), nodule fresh matter (NodFM), total nitrogen (NTR and NTS) and leghemoglobin content (LHb). The cowpea dry matter showed higher results with the equivalent level of sewage sludge of 75 Mg ∙ ha-1, however were not affected inoculated strains. This equivalent level of sewage sludge demonstrated content increment of CEC (cation exchange capacity), Ca, Mg, and Na in the soil after application. The nodule fresh matter was presented in higher quantity of equivalent level of sewage sludge 25 Mg ∙ ha-1. The strains EI-6 presented higher nodule fresh matter. The application of this residue as fertilizer and the use of the strains NFB 700 and BR 4406 showed that these treatments can be used for seeds production in cowpea / O intenso crescimento urbano aumentou a geração de resíduos domésticos e industriais, principalmente o lodo de esgoto, necessitando de um destino adequado. Este é um resíduo sólido proveniente do tratamento final do esgoto, o qual necessita de um destino adequado, pois, apresenta-se com alto teor de agentes patogênicos e metais pesados. A alternativa mais viável para a destinação desses resíduos é a sua aplicação na agricultura como recondicionante do solo, aliado à capacidade de algumas plantas, da ordem Leguminosae, de realizar simbiose com microrganismos, genericamente chamados de rizóbios, capazes de aumentar o aporte de nitrogênio disponível no solo. Com base no exposto, o objetivo deste trabalho foi avaliar as diferentes doses de lodo de esgoto que viabilizem a melhor interação com as bactérias fixadoras de nitrogênio na produtividade do caupi, visando maximizar a produção agrícola dentro do conceito de sustentabilidade, assim como aperfeiçoar o destino ambientalmente adequado para os resíduos urbanos, encontrando seu potencial na reciclagem agrícola. O experimento foi conduzido em casa de vegetação da Empresa Pernambucana de Pesquisa Agropecuária (IPA) utilizando-se o delineamento experimental de blocos casualizados (quatro blocos) e os tratamentos foram constituídos com cinco estirpes de Bradyrhizobium spp. (EI 6; NFB 700; BR 2001; BR 4406; BR 3267) e lodo de esgoto em quatro níveis diferentes (0, 25, 50 e 75 Mg ∙ ha-1), incluindo a testemunha absoluta (sem inoculação na dose zero de lodo). O lodo de esgoto foi proveniente da Estação de Tratamento de Esgoto da Mangueira, Recife/PE, incorporado ao solo proveniente da Estação Experimental de Itapirema IPA, Goiana / PE. A cultivar de caupi utilizada foi a cv IPA 206 inoculada com uma suspensão bacteriana contendo 109 UFC ∙ mL-1. A colheita foi efetuada aos 45 dias e foram avaliadas as seguintes variáveis: matéria seca da raiz (MSR) e parte aérea (MSPA), matéria fresca dos nódulos (MFNod), nitrogênio total da parte aérea (NTPA) e raiz (NTR) e teor de leghemoglobina (LHb). A produção de matéria seca do caupi apresentou melhores resultados na dose equivalente a 75 Mg ∙ ha-1, não sofrendo influência das estirpes inoculadas. Essa dose também se mostrou promissora no aumento da capacidade de troca de cátions (CTC), Ca, Mg e Na no solo, sem gerar riscos, a curto prazo. A matéria fresca dos nódulos apresentou-se em maior abundância na dose equivalente a 25 Mg ∙ ha-1. A estirpe EI-6 apresentou maior matéria fresca dos nódulos. A aplicação de lodo de esgoto e o uso das estirpes NFB 700 e BR 4406 apresentam potencial para produção de grãos no caupi

The aim of this work is to compile the linguistic picture of Chods, that is how the word is fixed in the language and the conceptual system of a native speaker. For this purpose, canonical literature has been chosen that thematizes Chods, furthermore some Chod newspapers, corpus syn2013pub and Jindřich's song-books and a few collections of Chod fairytales and legends representing folk literature. This thesis has also drawn upon systemic data, i. e. dictionaries wherein the word Chod can be found in order to record the denotations of this word. Next, the thesis explored the etymology of the word Chod and its synonyms, which also helps to clarify the objective of this work. All the data have been analysed and the connotations, collocations and also attittude towards the dennotation have been gathered that have been featured in more sources to compile the linguistic picture of Chods. Among the most frequent collocations and connotations confirmed in more than one source are Chodsko, border service, privileges and duties of Chods, Kozina and Lomikar, the uprising, Újezd, rebels, defenders against the Germans, nacionalism, freedom, a traditional costume, dialect, music, bagpipes, pies, Chod festival, ceramics, farmers, a banner, a dog, stubborness, repulsion, pride, distinctiveness, togetherness, hard...

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This diploma thesis deals with fixation of the lower jaw fractures using commercially produced fixators. The topic was researched on the basis of the available literature. The thesis also indicates basic anatomy of the surveyed area and nowadays the most commonly used materials. Subsequently, the stress-strain analysis of the lower jaw with the applied angular stable fixation plate was performed. The solution was performed for the lower jaw with a fracture in the area of the condyle with different types of fixation plates made of CP-Ti Grade 4. In addition, the strain analysis of the healed lower jaw with the fixators after the defect in the area of chin and angle was performed. The mechanical interaction analysis of the lower jaw with defect and applied fixation plate was solved by using computational modeling with variational approach, in use of the finite element method in Ansys Workbench 18.1. The thesis also describes in detail the creation of a computational model of the system and the subsequent solution.

No description available.

Abstract There is a broad consensus in the software engineering (SE) research community that understanding system desiderata and design creativity is critical for the success of software projects. This has motivated a plethora of research in SE to improve requirements engineering (RE) processes. However, little research has investigated the relationship between the way desiderata are presented (i.e., framed) and creative design performance. This dissertation, therefore, examines the effects of more formal presentations of desiderata on design creativity. The research was conducted in three phases. The first consisted of summarizing the available literature on cognitive biases in SE to build a comprehensive body of knowledge, understand the current state of research, and identify the relevant literature to position and delineate subsequent investigations involving the framing effect and fixation. This research phase also investigated how creativity is conceptualized (i.e., understood, assessed and improved) in SE by exploring the perceptual differences and similarities between SE researchers and practitioners. In the second phase, two controlled experiments were conducted to investigate the impact of framing desiderata first as requirements (in general) and then as prioritized requirements on design creativity (i.e., the originality and practicality of a design). The third phase involved a protocol study to explore the underlying cognitive mechanisms that may explain why framing desiderata as formal requirements affects creativity. The empirical evidence from the second and third phases was interpreted together to propose a theoretical framework that explains the effect of specification formality on design creativity. While the results of the experiments show that specification formality is negatively related to design creativity (i.e., desiderata framed as requirements or prioritized requirements result in designs that are less creative), the findings from the protocol study indicate that the negative relationship between specification formality and design creativity is mediated by fixation (i.e., more formal presentation of desiderata induces fixation and hinders critical thinking). Overall, the results of this dissertation suggest that more formal and structured presentations of desiderata cause requirements fixation—the tendency to attribute undue confidence and importance to desiderata presented as formal requirements statements—that affects design creativity, and thus undermines software engineering success. / Tiivistelmä Ohjelmistotuotannon tutkijoiden keskuudessa on laaja yksimielisyys järjestelmän tarpeiden ja suunnittelun luovuuden ymmärtämisen kriittisyydestä ohjelmistoprojektien menestyksessä. Tämä on motivoinut monia ohjelmistotuotannon vaatimusmäärittelyprosessien parantamiseen liittyviä tutkimuksia. Harvassa on tarkasteltu tarpeiden esitystavan (eli muotoilun) ja luovan suunnittelun lopputuloksen välistä yhteyttä. Tässä väitöskirjassa tarkastellaan tarpeiden muodollisempien esitystapojen vaikutuksia suunnittelun luovuuteen. Tutkimus oli kolmivaiheinen. Ensin referoitiin ohjelmistotuotannossa kognitiivisiin harhoihin liittyvä kirjallisuus kartoittamaan nykytutkimuksen tila ja merkityksellinen kirjallisuus myöhempien, kehysvaikutuksen ja fiksaation sisältävien tutkimusten sijoittamiseen ja rajaamiseen. Lisäksi tarkasteltiin luovuuden käsitteellistämistä (eli ymmärrettävyyttä, arviointia ja parantamista) tutkimalla katsannollisia eroja ja yhtäläisyyksiä tutkijoiden ja ammattilaisten välillä. Toisessa vaiheessa tehtiin kaksi kontrolloitua koetta tarpeiden muotoilun vaikutuksien tutkimiseksi, ensin vaatimuksina (yleisesti) ja sitten tärkeysjärjestykseen laitettuina vaatimuksina suhteessa suunnittelun luovuuteen (eli omaperäisyyteen ja käytännöllisyyteen). Lopuksi, protokollatutkimuksella selvitettiin taustalla olevia kognitiivisia mekanismeja selittämään syitä muodollisina vaatimuksina esitettyjen tarpeiden vaikutuksista luovuuteen. Toisesta ja kolmannesta vaiheesta saatujen empiiristen aineistojen tulkittiin yhdessä muodostavan teoreettisen viitekehyksen, joka selittää määrittelyn muodollisuuden vaikutusta suunnittelun luovuuteen. Vaikka kokeiden tulokset osoittavat määrittelyjen muodollisuuden vaikuttavan negatiivisesti suunnittelun luovuuteen (eli tarpeiden muotoilu vaatimuksina tai priorisoituina vaatimuksina vähentää suunnitelmien luovuutta), protokollatutkimuksen tulokset viittaavat fiksaation vaikuttavan negatiiviseen yhteyteen määrittelyjen muodollisuuden ja suunnittelun luovuuden välillä (eli tarpeiden muodollisempi esitystapa aiheuttaa fiksaatiota ja vaikeuttaa kriittistä ajattelua). Kaiken kaikkiaan, väitöskirjan tulokset esittävät muodollisempien ja strukturoidumpien tarpeiden esitystapojen aiheuttavan vaatimusten fiksaatiota, taipumusta pitää luottamusta ja tärkeyttä tarpeiden muodollisten vaatimusten ilmaisun ansioina, joka vaikuttaa suunnittelun luovuuteen heikentäen ohjelmistotuotannon menestymisen mahdollisuutta.