Submitted by Israel Vieira Neto (israel.vieiraneto@ufpe.br) on 2015-03-04T17:13:15Z No. of bitstreams: 2 DISSERTAÇÃO Horoldo Monteiro Lima.pdf: 7793020 bytes, checksum: 4f23d6b5396d264f0f6ba683c494373e (MD5) license_rdf: 1232 bytes, checksum: 66e71c371cc565284e70f40736c94386 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2015-03-04T17:13:15Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 DISSERTAÇÃO Horoldo Monteiro Lima.pdf: 7793020 bytes, checksum: 4f23d6b5396d264f0f6ba683c494373e (MD5) license_rdf: 1232 bytes, checksum: 66e71c371cc565284e70f40736c94386 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013 / CNPq / O ortognaisse sienítico Terra Nova é um corpo encaixado no Complexo Vertentes, no extremo leste do terreno Rio Capibaribe da Província Borborema, a sul do município de Feira Nova, PE. O sienito ocorre como intrusões tabulares dobradas por tectônica transcorrente relacionada à zona de cisalhamento transcorrente brasiliana de Glória de Goitá, que separa o embasamento paleoproterozoico da faixa Feira Nova. As rochas são álcali-feldspato sienitos a álcali-feldspato granitos bandados, com bandas máficas de aegirina-augita e magnetita que se alternam com bandas ricas em ortoclásio e rara albita. São rochas peralcalinas a ligeiramente peraluminosas, com razões FeO/MgO e Ga/ Al e concentrações Zr, Nb, Ce e Y típicas de granitóides anorogênicos do tipo A1, derivados do manto. Muito altas razões Rb/ Sr (até 100), por outro lado, sugerem fonte na crosta. Os padrões de elementos terras raras (ETR) normalizados em relação ao condrito mostram enriquecimento de ETR leves em relação aos ETR pesados e forte anomalia negativa de Eu sugerindo fracionamento de feldspato, compatível com as variações interelementais Rb, Sr e Ba, e Rb/Sr vs. Sr/Ba. Diagramas discriminantes de ambiente tectônicos são sugestivos de ambiente pós-colisional a intra-placa.

Many studies have reported individual differences in resting metabolic rate (RMR), the energetic cost of self-maintenance. Differences among individuals in the energetic cost of self-maintenance may influence life-history decisions and hence, fitness. In this study, we examined potential causes of intra-specific variation in RMR in zebrafish, Danio rerio. First, the repeatability of RMR was determined to check whether a single measure was reflective of future physiological performance. As predicted, RMR was repeatable over a period of three weeks. However, none of stress-coping style, baseline cortisol levels, metabolically-active organ (gill, heart, intestine and liver) mass, aggression or activity levels were correlated with RMR, i.e. none of these factors were significant contributors to individual variation in RMR. These results imply that other factors must be sought to explain the inter-individual variation in RMR observed in zebrafish.

Epidemiological studies that conform to the highest possible standards of research design are required to provide good quality caries data necessary for disease surveillance, health needs assessments and the evaluation of oral health intervention strategies. Caries detection methods used in such studies should be suitable for “blinding” examiners collecting research data, to exposure or group allocation of participants in order to minimise the introduction of bias. The purpose of the studies in this thesis was therefore to assess the diagnostic performance and the pragmatic applicability of the use of intra-oral photographs as a caries detection method in epidemiological studies.Phase I compared the caries detection performance of intra-oral photographic assessments with visual examination and histology as the reference standard. Extracted teeth were assessed for caries using visual examination and assessments of photographs. The diagnostic decisions made were compared to histology. The visual examination and photographic assessments method had median sensitivity values of 65.6% and 81.3%; and median specificity values of 82.4% and 82.4% respectively. The two methods both had good intra- and inter-examiner reliability.The study in phase II compared the assessment of intra-oral photographs as means of detecting dental caries with visual dental examination in 5-year-olds and 10/11-year-olds in an epidemiological survey setting. 5-year-olds and 10-/11-year-olds were visually examined. Intra-oral photographs taken of the children’s teeth were also assessed by the same examiners. There was good intra-examiner reliability for both the visual and the photographic methods for all the examiners. However the photographic method was found to be lengthier than visual examination.Phase III compare caries data obtained from a full mouth visual examination with that obtained from eight, six and four intra-oral photographs of index teeth in two groups of children aged 5 years and 10/11 years. The views of users of the methods (examiners) as well as those on whom the methods were used (children) were also sought using focus group discussions. The examiners found it easier to make caries detection decisions on intra-oral photographs of primary teeth and they suggested that the use of other drying methods are required to improve the utility of photographic method. Generally, the intra-oral camera was well received by the children as a means of caries detection. Caries information obtained from the assessment of eight intra-oral photographs of the primary dentition was comparable to that from full mouth visual examination and may be used as an alternative caries detection method in situations where the visual examination method may not be applicable.

Background The inter- and intra-subject variations of scintigraphy, which are used to identify colonic transit disturbances in irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), are unclear. The relationship between colonic transit and bowel functions is incompletely understood. To assess inter- and intra-subject variations of scintigraphic colonic transit measurements in 86 IBS patients and 17 healthy subjects and to quantify the relationship between colonic transit and bowel symptoms in 147 IBS patients and 46 healthy subjects. Methods Data from participants with multiple colonic transit measurements were analysed. Primary end points were colonic filling at 6 h (CF6h) and geometric center (GC) at 24 and 48 h for colonic transit. Bowel functions were assessed by daily stool diaries. Key Results Inter- and intra-subject variations were greater for small intestinal than colonic transit. Overall, inter- and intra-subject variations were relatively narrow for colonic transit (both GC24h and GC48h, with lower COV at 48 h); there was little intra-subject variation in health and IBS-constipation over a period of ≤3 weeks and over 2.0 years (median, range 0.1, 11.0 years). Significant intra-individual differences in GC24h were observed only in IBS-D patients. Colonic transit was significantly associated with stool form (accounting for 19-27% of the variance), frequency (19%), and ease of stool passage (12%). Conclusions & Inferences Despite inter-subject variation in scintigraphic colonic transit results, the intra-subject measurements are reproducible over time in healthy volunteers and patients with IBS; significant changes in colonic transit at 24 h were observed only in IBS-D. Colonic transit is associated with stool form, frequency and ease of passage.

With the social media platforms leading the internet in terms of user base and the average time spent, significant amount of data is being generated by these platforms every day. This makes social media platforms a go-to place to understand the reviews, trends, and opinions of the people. Any regular search for a popular topic would result in an abundance of information and thus it is impossible to go through these large amounts of data manually to understand the trends. This thesis discusses techniques for the intra-topic clustering of such social media data and discusses how social media noise increases the redundancy of the search results. Our goal is to filter the amount of redundant information an end-user must review from a regular social media search. The research proposes clustering models based on two string similarity measures Jaccard word token and T-Information distance. Evaluation parameters are introduced and the models are evaluated on clustering a set of current and historical topics to determine which techniques are the most effective. / Graduate

The study analyzes the effects of three maize market policies on strategic price volatility, oligopoly/oligopsony market power, distribution of market surplus and total welfare. Policies of interest are privatization, the Current Malawi government policy and a proposed policy. The study first develops a workable theory then tests the various government policies in laboratory market experiments. The laboratory results indicate that the proposed policy was the most effective in reducing strategic volatility, but resulted in high output and low input prices. In terms of welfare distribution, privatization had highest consumer surplus followed by the current policy. The same was the case with producers’ surplus. However, traders’ profits were substantially higher in the proposed policy treatment. Total welfare was highest in the proposed policy followed by the current policy. In all, there appears there can be significant policy tradeoffs between market volatility, market power, surplus distribution and total welfare.

This thesis is an exploration of numerical modeling and design of intra-cavity frequency doubled green lasers, which is one of the three key light sources in laser display systems. In this thesis the time-domain traveling wave (TDTW) model, which is well developed to model integrated photonic devices, is derived for modeling and design of a new proposed device. The device is based on the intra-cavity frequency doubling of high power distributed Bragg reflector laser diodes (DBRLD) and MgO-doped periodically poled lithium niobate (MgO:PPLN) waveguides. The numerical modeling and design suggest the superiority of the proposed intra-cavity frequency doubled DBR-LD/MgO:PPLN green laser over traditional single-pass frequency doubled DBRLD-LD/MgO:PPLN green laser. A plane-wave based coupled-wave model is implemented to model miniature intra-cavity frequency doubled DPSS lasers. Good agreement between the planewave model and experiment has been obtained. By employing the plane-wave model, we have explained the phase problem in our optical contact Nd:YVO4/MgO:PPLN green laser. Design examples of wide temperature operation of Nd:YVO4/MgO:PPLN green lasers are also completed by this numerical method. Finally, to model high power bulk intra-cavity frequency doubled diodepumped solid-state (DPSS) green lasers, a three-dimensional coupled-wave model is developed and compared with experimental results. A two-dimensional thermal model is incorporated into the three-dimensional coupled-wave equations to model thermal lensing and thermal de-phasing effects in intra-cavity frequency doubled DPSS lasers. The numerical models we developed are validated by the experimental results. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

This thesis is missing page 222, the other copies of this thesis are missing the page as well. -Digitization Centre / N/A / Thesis / Master of Science (MS)

Statistically significant prediction of stock price changes requires security returns' correlation with, or dependence upon, some variable(s) across time. Since a security's past return is commonly employed in forecasting, and because the lack of lower-order correlation does not guarantee higher-order independence, nonlinear testing that focuses on higher-order moments of stock return distributions may reveal exploitable stock return dependencies. This dissertation fits AR models to TAQ data sampled at ten-minute intervals for 20 small-capitalization, 20 mid-capitalization, and 20 large-capitalization NYSE securities, for the years 1993, 1995, 1997, 1999 and 2001. The Hinich Patterson Bicovariance statistic (to reveal nonlinear and linear autocorrelation) is computed for each of the 1243 trading days for each of the 60 securities. This statistic is examined to see if it is more or less likely to occur in securities with differing market capitalization, at various calendar periods, in conjunction with trading volume, or instances of changing investor sentiment, as evidenced by the put-call ratio. There is a statistically significant difference in the level and incidence of nonlinear behavior for the different-sized portfolios. Large-cap stocks exhibit the highest level and greatest incidence of nonlinear behavior, followed by mid-cap stocks, and then small-cap stocks. These differences are most pronounced at the beginning of decade and remain significant throughout the decade. For all size portfolios, nonlinear correlation increases throughout the decade, while linear correlation decreases. Statistical significance between the nonlinear or the linear test statistics and trading volume occur on a year-by-year basis only for small-cap stocks. There is sporadic seasonality significance for all portfolios over the decade, but only the small-cap portfolio consistently exhibits a notable "December effect". The average nonlinear statistic for small-cap stocks is larger in December than for other months of the year. The fourth quarter of the year for small-cap stocks also exhibits significantly higher levels of nonlinearity. An OLS regression of the put/call ratio to proxy for investor sentiment against the H and C statistic was run from October 1995 through December 2001. There are instances of sporadic correlations among the different portfolios, indicating this relationship is more dynamic than previously imagined. / Ph. D.

L'oxaliplatine est un médicament anticancéreux utilisé dans la chimiohyperthermie intrapéritonéale (CHIP), pour le traitement des carcinoses péritonéales (CP). En dépit de l'efficacité de la CHIP, l'infiltration de l'oxaliplatine dans les tumeurs traitées est très peu connue. L'étude de la pénétration du médicament dans des tumeurs prélevées à partir de patients atteints de CP et traités CHIP, a fait l'objet de la première partie du projet de recherche. Par ailleurs, les mécanismes de transport du médicament jusqu'à l'ADN cellulaire n'ont pas été bien déterminés. Néanmoins, des hypothèses suggèrent que certains métabolites soufrés de l'oxaliplatine pourraient constituer des "formes réservoirs", capables de transporter le médicament jusqu'à l'ADN. La deuxième partie du projet a consisté à étudier de manière plus approfondie la réactivité d'un des métabolites soufrés de l'oxaliplatine. Nous avons développé une méthode d'imagerie par spectrométrie de masse MALDI/TOF, qui permet de déterminer la distribution de l'oxaliplatine et ses métabolites, dans les tumeurs humaines traitées CHIP. Nos résultats révèlent une pénétration du médicament limitée à quelques millimètres et une détection exclusive du métabolite oxaliplatine-méthionine (Ox-M) : un métabolite considéré « inactif », puisqu'il serait stable et incapable d'interagir avec l'ADN. Afin de démontrer la réactivité de ce métabolite, nous avons tout d'abord étudié son interaction avec les cibles de l'oxaliplatine, à savoir la guanine et l'ADN. Nos résultats démontrent la capacité de Ox-M à libérer la partie réactive de la molécule pour interagir avec la guanine, et former des adduits sur des duplexes d'oligonucléotides qui miment la structure de l'ADN. De plus, les adduits formés par Ox-M induisent un arrêt de l'élongation de l'ADN. Ces résultats démontrent la réactivité du métabolite Ox-M de l'oxaliplatine, et suggèrent son implication dans une nouvelle voie active du médicament. / Oxaliplatin is an anticancer drug used in Heated Intraoperative Chemotherapy (HIPEC) to treat peritoneal carcinomatosis. In spite of HIPEC efficiency, oxaliplatin penetration in treated tumors is not very well known. Study of oxaliplatin penetration in tumors of patients suffering from CP and treated with HIPEC, was the first part of the research project. Furthermore, transport mechanisms of the drug to cell DNA are not well established. Nevertheless, hypotheses suggest that some sulfur metabolites of oxaliplatin, could constitute "tanks" which are able to transport drug until DNA. The second part of this project aimed to study more deeply the reactivity of oxaliplatin sulfur metabolites. We have developed a MALDI imaging mass spectrometry method, which allows studying the distribution of oxaliplatin and its metabolites in human tumors. Our results reveal a drug penetration limited to few millimeters and an exclusive detection of the oxaliplatin- methionine metabolite (Ox-M): a supposed "Inactive" metabolite, because of its stability that prevents its interaction with DNA. To provide evidence of Ox-M reactivity, we studied its interaction with oxaliplatin targets: guanine and DNA. Our results showed that Ox-M is able to release the active part of the molecule to interact with guanine, and to form adducts on oligonucleotides duplexes that mimic DNA structure. Moreover, Ox-M adducts induce an arrest of DNA elongation. These results suggest the implication of Ox-M in a new active pathway of oxaliplatin cytotoxicity.