The set of all sequences that are generated by a bio-molecular protocol forms a language over the four letter alphabet Delta = [A,G,C,T]. This alphabet is associated with natural involution mapping Theta, A maps to T and G maps to C which is an antimorphism of Delta* In order to avoid undesirable Watson-Crick bonds between the words the language has to satisfy certain coding properties. Hence for an involution Theta we consider involution codes: Theta-infix, Theta-comma-free, Theta-k-codes and Theta-subword-k-codes which avoid certain undesirable hybridization. We investigate the closure properties of these codes and also the conditions under which both X and X+ are the same type of involution codes. We provide properties of the splicing system such that the language generated by the system preserves the desired properties of code words. Algebraic characterizations of these involutions through their syntactic monoids have also been discussed. Methods of constructing involution codes that are strictly locally testable are also given. General methods for generating such involution codes are given and teh information capacity of these codes show to be optimal in most cases. A specific set of these codes were chosen for experimental testing and the results of these experiments are presented.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:29:15Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2006-03-31Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T20:19:15Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 alonso_gg_me_jabo.pdf: 488378 bytes, checksum: 68c7d1cc797fc604504ec5006a0dd857 (MD5) / Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) / Estudou-se o fenômeno da involução uterina eutócica, em 16 fêmeas caninas divididas aleatoriamente em dois grupos de oito animais cada, onde o grupo 1 (G1) recebeu tratamento com estimulação elétrica (eletroacupuntura) da agulha nos pontos 8P6, F3, 8ai Hui, VC1, 823, 826, e o grupo 2 (G2), considerado grupo controle, recebeu tratamento em pontos Sham (pontos falsos) também com estímulos elétricos. O acompanhamento do fenômeno da involução uterina foi realizado por ultra-sonografia, nos dias ° (dia do parto), 1,3,7 e 14 pós-parto. Utilizou-se a avaliação estatística pelo método SAS, com o propósito de comparar os grupos. Os resultados dos exames ultra-sonográficos (média e desvios padrões em centímetros) para o período próprio de observação foram respectivamente: G1: 0,30 :t 0,01 (P); 2,08 :t 0,21 (LU); 4,13 :t 0,23 (OU) e G2: 0,31 :t 0,01 (P); 1,82 :t 0,09 (LU); 3,92 :t 0,11 (DU). A freqüência de 5-15 Hz causou sobre o tônus uterino efeitos mais discretos no início e mais duradouros e uniformes no final, o que nos faz deduzir sobre a existência de um efeito cumulativo. De outra parte, observamos que o fenômeno, involução uterina, foi mais lento no grupo 2. Sendo assim, conclui-se que a eletroacupuntura infere positivamente no tônus uterino, corroborando com a prevenção de transtornos puerperais embora não tenha observado diferenças estatísticas entre os grupos. / The phenomenon of the eutocic uterine involution was studied, in 16 female dogs, they were split in 2 groups of 8 animais each, group 1 (G1) received a needle electrical stimulation treatment (eletroacupuncture) on points SP6, F3, Sai Hui, VC1, 823, 826 and group 2 (G2), which was considered the control group, it also received treatment in Sham points (false points) with electric stimulations. The follow up of the uterus involution phenomenon was made by ultrasound, at days (birth day), 1, 3, 7 and 14 post birth. It was used an statistic evaluation by method SAS, with the intention to compare the groups. The results of ultrasound exams (average and standard pattem are in centimeters) for the proper period of comment they had been respectively: G1: 0,30:t 0,01 (P); 2,08:t 0,21 (LU); 4,13:t 0,23 (DU) e G2: 0,31 :t 0,01 (P); 1,82:t 0,09 (LU); 3,92 :t 0,11 (DU). The frequency of 5-15 Hz caused on uterine tonus discreter effect in the beginning and more lasting and uniform at the end, what in make one deduce of the existence of a cumulative effect. Otherwise, we observed that this phenomenon, of uterine involution, were slower in group 2. Finally, we understand that the eletroacupuncture infers positively in uterine tonus, phenomenon that we believe still in important way for the prevention of puerperal upheavals even them were no statistical differences between the groups. The statistic evaluation was not significant.

Orientador: Marion Burkhardt de Koivisto / Banca: Márcia Valério Rizzo Scognamillo-Szabó / Banca: Silvana Martinez Baraldi Artoni / Resumo: Estudou-se o fenômeno da involução uterina eutócica, em 16 fêmeas caninas divididas aleatoriamente em dois grupos de oito animais cada, onde o grupo 1 (G1) recebeu tratamento com estimulação elétrica (eletroacupuntura) da agulha nos pontos 8P6, F3, 8ai Hui, VC1, 823, 826, e o grupo 2 (G2), considerado grupo controle, recebeu tratamento em pontos Sham (pontos falsos) também com estímulos elétricos. O acompanhamento do fenômeno da involução uterina foi realizado por ultra-sonografia, nos dias ° (dia do parto), 1,3,7 e 14 pós-parto. Utilizou-se a avaliação estatística pelo método SAS, com o propósito de comparar os grupos. Os resultados dos exames ultra-sonográficos (média e desvios padrões em centímetros) para o período próprio de observação foram respectivamente: G1: 0,30 :t 0,01 (P); 2,08 :t 0,21 (LU); 4,13 :t 0,23 (OU) e G2: 0,31 :t 0,01 (P); 1,82 :t 0,09 (LU); 3,92 :t 0,11 (DU). A freqüência de 5-15 Hz causou sobre o tônus uterino efeitos mais discretos no início e mais duradouros e uniformes no final, o que nos faz deduzir sobre a existência de um efeito cumulativo. De outra parte, observamos que o fenômeno, involução uterina, foi mais lento no grupo 2. Sendo assim, conclui-se que a eletroacupuntura infere positivamente no tônus uterino, corroborando com a prevenção de transtornos puerperais embora não tenha observado diferenças estatísticas entre os grupos. / Abstract: The phenomenon of the eutocic uterine involution was studied, in 16 female dogs, they were split in 2 groups of 8 animais each, group 1 (G1) received a needle electrical stimulation treatment (eletroacupuncture) on points SP6, F3, Sai Hui, VC1, 823, 826 and group 2 (G2), which was considered the control group, it also received treatment in Sham points (false points) with electric stimulations. The follow up of the uterus involution phenomenon was made by ultrasound, at days (birth day), 1, 3, 7 and 14 post birth. It was used an statistic evaluation by method SAS, with the intention to compare the groups. The results of ultrasound exams (average and standard pattem are in centimeters) for the proper period of comment they had been respectively: G1: 0,30:t 0,01 (P); 2,08:t 0,21 (LU); 4,13:t 0,23 (DU) e G2: 0,31 :t 0,01 (P); 1,82:t 0,09 (LU); 3,92 :t 0,11 (DU). The frequency of 5-15 Hz caused on uterine tonus discreter effect in the beginning and more lasting and uniform at the end, what in make one deduce of the existence of a cumulative effect. Otherwise, we observed that this phenomenon, of uterine involution, were slower in group 2. Finally, we understand that the eletroacupuncture infers positively in uterine tonus, phenomenon that we believe still in important way for the prevention of puerperal upheavals even them were no statistical differences between the groups. The statistic evaluation was not significant. / Mestre

O timo é um órgão essencial para a maturação, diferenciação e seleção de linfócitos T, consequentemente fundamental para o desenvolvimento da imunidade do organismo. Além do papel na manutenção da integridade tecidual, os vasos sanguíneos tímicos desempenham função no processo de migração de células precursoras de linfócitos para o interior do órgão. Sua arquitetura típica é caracterizada por grandes vasos localizados na junção corticomedular e uma fina cadeia de ramificações e anastomoses no interior do córtex, porém são pouco conhecidas as bases moleculares que induzem a formação desta particular vascularização, bem como os exatos mecanismos que desencadeiam a involução do órgão, evento relacionado a alterações nos padrões vasculares. Entretanto, tem sido demonstrado que as interações entre o estroma, que inclui o endotélio vascular, e o compartimento hematopoiético tímico desempenham papéis cruciais na funcionalidade do órgão. Sendo o VEGF um fator angiogênico essencial na formação do leito vascular tecidual e na modulação de funções diretamente relacionadas à vascularização, objetivamos neste estudo avaliar a expressão gênica e protéica deste fator de crescimento durante estágios de desenvolvimento e involução do órgão. Foram utilizadas amostras de timo suíno em 3 diferentes estágios de desenvolvimento fetal (65, 85 e 111 dias) e 2 estágios de vida pós-natal, um compreendendo fase de maturação (5 meses) e outro de involução do órgão (2 anos), compreendendo um total de 25 animais, divididos em 5 grupos (n = 5). A análise da expressão relativa do mRNA do sistema VEGF-A, acessada por meio de PCR em tempo real, apresentou modificações tempo-dependentes significativas (P<0,05) em relação ao controle endógeno GAPDH. Também foram observadas diferenças significativas (P0,05) na quantificação vascular por meio de estereologia entre as idades. A imunolocalização da proteína do VEGF e de seus receptores Flt-1 e KDR foi identificada no timo de todos os grupos experimentais e variou entre os grupos pré e pós-natais, com expressão mais rara nestes últimos, o que sugere diferenças temporais na modulação do mRNA no órgão. Assim como as células endoteliais, as células epiteliais tímicas demonstraram modulação pelo sistema VEGF-A, indicando ação parácrina e/ou autócrina deste fator de crescimento no timo. Os valores das variáveis estereológicas Sv[m] e Vv[m] do timo fetal em período próximo ao nascimento mantiveram-se maiores do que no córtex e se correlacionaram positivamente com a expressão do mRNA do KDR e negativamente com a do Flt-1 até a idade adulta. Ao contrário da expressão protéica, a expressão gênica do sistema VEGF-A pode se correlacionar negativamente com aspectos quantitativos da vascularização do timo pós-natal, como observado para o mRNA do VEGF e seu receptor Flt-1 a partir dos 5 meses de idade, quando os valores das variáveis Vv[vasos,timo], Sv[vasos,timo] e Lv[vasos,timo] diminuíram significativamente (P0,05), o que sugere uma resposta de compensação ou manutenção de uma condição hipóxica instalada no órgão. / Crucial for maturation, differentiation and selection of T lymphocytes, the thymus is an essential organ to the development of immunity. In addition to its role in the maintenance of tissue integrity, thymus blood vessels play a role in migration of T-cell precursors into the organ, and show a typical architecture characterized by the presence of large blood vessels at the corticomedullary junction and fine network of branching vessels and anastomosing arcades extending into the cortex. The molecular basis of this typical vasculature and the exact mechanisms that trigger thymus involution are both not well understood. However, it has been shown that the interactions between thymus stroma, including vascular endothelium and the hematopoietic compartment play crucial roles for normal organ function. Thus, because VEGF is an essential angiogenic factor for induction of the vascular bed and modulation of functions directly related with vascularization, the aim of this study was to assess the temporal protein and mRNA expression of VEGF and its receptors Flt-1 and KDR in the thymus during early stages of its development and involution. Samples of thymus from 3 different stages of fetal development (65, 85, and 111 days) and 2 stages of postnatal life of pigs, including one stage of maturation (5 months) and another of involution (2 years) comprising a total of 25 animals that were divided into 5 groups (n = 5). Relative mRNA expression of VEGF-A system, accessed by real-time PCR, showed temporal significant changes (P<0.05) compared to endogenous control GAPDH. Quantification of blood vessels by means of stereology also showed significant differences (P0.05) between ages. Positive immunostaining for VEGF and its receptors Flt-1 and KDR was identified in the thymus of all groups and it varied between the pre and postnatal groups with rare expression in the latter, suggesting temporal differences in the modulation of mRNA. Endothelial and epithelial cells showed modulation by the VEGF-A system, suggesting paracrine or alternatively autocrine activity of this growth factor. The values of the stereological parameters Sv[m] and Vv[m] of the thymus in fetal period around the birth remained higher than in the cortex and upregulated with mRNA expression of KDR and downregulated with mRNA expression of Flt-1 until adulthood. Unlike protein expression, gene expression gene expression of VEGF-A system can be downregulated with quantitative aspects of the postnatal thymus vascularization as observed for the mRNA of VEGF and its receptor Flt-1 from the age of 5 months, when the values of the stereological parameters Vv[vessels,thymus], Sv[vessels,thymus] and Lv[vessels,thymus] decreased significantly (P0.05), which suggests a compensatory or maintenance response to an hypoxic condition in the organ.

京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・論文博士 / 博士(医学) / 乙第13160号 / 論医博第2147号 / 新制||医||1029(附属図書館) / 京都大学大学院医学研究科医学専攻 / (主査)教授 生田 宏一, 教授 杉田 昌彦, 教授 椛島 健治 / 学位規則第4条第2項該当 / Doctor of Medical Science / Kyoto University / DFAM

Le thymus subit un vieillissement précoce, appelé involution thymique, qui cause une perte de fonction du thymus avec l’âge. À ce jour, les mécanismes de renouvellement des cellules épithéliales thymiques (TECs) sont encore mal compris, c’est pourquoi nous avons voulu identifier les cellules souches de l’épithélium thymique. Comme les cellules souches sont quiescentes dans plusieurs tissus, les objectifs de notre étude étaient de déterminer si l’épithélium thymique contenait des cellules quiescentes et d’étudier la cinétique de prolifération des TECs chez les souris jeunes et adultes. Pour ce faire, nous avons utilisé une souris transgénique (H2B-GFP Tet-On) nous permettant d’identifier les cellules ne se divisant pas sur une longue période de temps (LRC, label-retaining cells¬). Nous avons d’abord montré que les TECs proliféraient plus rapidement chez les femelles que les mâles. De plus, nous avons trouvé plusieurs différences entre l’épithélium thymique post-natal et adulte : (1) les TECs corticales (cTECs) et médullaires (mTECs) ont un taux de prolifération similaire chez les jeunes souris, mais chez l’adulte, les cTECs prolifèrent plus lentement que les mTECs; (2) les TECs prolifèrent plus rapidement chez les souris jeunes que adultes; (3) des LRC sont détectées chez l’adulte, mais pas chez les jeunes souris. Les LRC, retrouvées dans le compartiment cTEC, sous-expriment des gènes associés à la sénescence et surexpriment des gènes importants pour le développement et le renouvellement des TECs. Ces résultats montrent que ces cellules sont quiescentes et suggèrent qu’elles pourraient bel et bien être les progéniteurs thymiques responsables du renouvellement des TECs adultes. / The thymus undergoes a rapid degeneration with age termed thymic involution that causes a loss of function of the thymus with age. To this day, mechanisms of thymic maintenance are still unknown. This is why we aimed to identify thymic epithelial stem cells. Since stem cells are quiescent in many tissues in adults, our main objectives were to determine whether the thymic epithelium contains quiescent cells and study the proliferation kinetics of thymic epithelial cells in neonatal and adult mice. To this end, we used the transgenic mouse model H2B-GFP Tet-On, a label-retaining assay allowing us to identify cells that have not divided for a prolonged period of time, which are called label-retaining cells (LRC). First, we showed that in the adult thymus, females’ thymic epithelial cells (TECs) proliferated more actively than males’ TECs. We observed three main differences between neonatal and adult thymi: (1) cTECs and mTECs have similar proliferation rates in young, but mTECs cycled more actively in adult mice; (2) neonatal TECs have a higher turnover rate than adult’s TECs, and (3) we were able to detect LRC in adult mice, but not in neonatal mice. These LRC are contained in the cTEC compartment and express very low levels of senescence-associated proteins and show a high expression of genes important for thymic development and. These results show that the LRC identified in adult thymi are not senescent cells and therefore might represent the elusive thymic progenitor cells responsible for thymic maintenance and regeneration in adult mice.

Pairs in involution are a Hopf algebraic structure with applications to category theory, cyclic homology and knot theory. In the present dissertation we will answer the question whether every finite-dimensional Hopf algebra admits such pairs, construct and investigate their categorical analogues, and develop, based on our previous findings, the theory of pairs in involutions for Hopf monads.

Although there is no natural internal product for hermitian forms over an algebra with involution of the first kind, we describe how tomultiply two ε-hermitian forms to obtain a quadratic form over the base field. This allows to define a commutative graded ring structure by taking together bilinear forms and ε-hermitian forms, which we call the mixedWitt ring of an algebra with involution. We also describe a less powerful version of this construction for unitary involutions, which still defines a ring, but with a grading over Z instead of the Klein group. We first describe a general framework for defining graded rings out of monoidal functors from monoidal categories with strong symmetry properties to categories of modules. We then give a description of such a strongly symmetric category Brₕ(K, ι) which encodes the usual hermitian Morita theory of algebras with involutions over a field K. We can therefore apply the general framework to Brₕ(K, ι) and theWitt group functors to define our mixed Witt rings, and derive their basic properties, including explicit formulas for products of diagonal forms in terms of involution trace forms, explicit computations for the case of quaternion algebras, and reciprocity formulas relative to scalar extensions. We intend to describe in future articles further properties of those rings, such as a λ-ring structure, and relations with theMilnor conjecture and the theory of signatures of hermitian forms.

Mémoire numérisé par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

This project assesses effects of four -week active rehabilitation combined with Vojta reflex stimulation on mobility of bed-bound seniors. Sixteen female patients were divided into two groups of eight members, i.e. tested group and control group. Both groups were put through training focused on self-support, maintaining or enhancement of range of movement, strengthening of weak muscle groups, stability training, practicing sitting up and lying down from sitting position, and walking in the high walking frame in the case of stronger patients. Besides that the tested group underwent Vojta reflex stimulation (global model of reflex turning), coordination and stability exercise and exercise with rehabilitation tools (elastic band, over ball, small ball, water bottle). In the beginning and in the end of the project the EMS (Elderly Mobility Scale), BI (Barthel Index), and MMSE (Mini-mental State Examination) scales were tested as well as ability to turn from back to side and stability in the sitting position. Statistical comparability of both groups was proved true in the beginning of the therapy by Mann-Whitney test. There was a noticeable tendency towards higher probability of enhancing measured scores in the tested group compared to the control group after the therapy. In case of the EMS this probability was...