Cerebrospinal fluid is examined using a variety of methods, which also include determining the number and type of each cell. Now the method of the first choice to determine the cellular elements is a microscopic method. This determination, however, can also be done using the analyzer method, which is not yet so widespread. The aim of my thesis was to compare these two methods and determine whether the examination of cerebrospinal fluid on the analyzer Sysmex XE-5000 in the "Body Fluid" mode can replace commonly used microscopic methods. To this purpose, we gathered the laboratory data measured by using both these methods. These data was compared, evaluated and statistically processed. The resulting data suggest that the values measured on the analyzer Sysmex XE-5000 are more accurate than from microscopic determination, especially at highly cell samples of cerebrospinal fluid. To this end, we came evaluation of Bland-Altman graphs and comparison graphs with marked of limits of physiological oligocytosis. For checking of the accuracy of measurements, we verified the repeatability of the analyzer for the values of leukocytes and erythrocytes, coefficients of variation corresponding to the values specified by the manufacturer's documentation. We also investigated the stability of samples of...

Diferenças na espessura e regularidade da cartilagem da articulação temporomandibular (ATM) ocorrem como o resultado de áreas em crescimento ou em remodelamento. Esse aspecto dificulta a interpretação clínica das imagens e geralmente negligencia a presença da fibrocartilagem. O estudo, por meio da Ressonância Magnética utilizando bobinas microscópicas, possibilita uma melhor observação da cartilagem articular. Confirmamos essa evidência por meio do estudo que analisou 20 indivíduos (40 ATM), divididos em grupo sintomático (DTM) com 10 pacientes (20 ATM) apresentando queixa clínica e suspeita diagnóstica de DTM e, o grupo controle com 10 voluntários (20 ATM) assintomáticos ou que não apresentavam sinais e sintomas clínicos de DTM. As imagens de RM sagitais oblíquas ponderadas em DP SPIR da ATM foram capazes de mostrar a cartilagem com melhor evidência tanto na cabeça da mandíbula quanto na eminência articular proporcionado mensurações, as quais se apresentaram estatisticamente iguais entre os grupos e também a avaliação da regularidade com o mesmo comportamento entre os grupos e geralmente acompanhando a morfologia da cortical óssea. Em muitos casos, principalmente quando da presença de deslocamento para anterior do disco articular, a observação se torna mais difícil, requerendo mais prática para esse tipo de avaliação. Observamos que pacientes do grupo controle apresentaram deslocamento de disco. Dessa maneira, consideramos um exame muito útil como auxiliar no diagnóstico da DTM, e com o desenvolvimento de novas terapias para doenças degenerativas e traumas na cartilagem, as imagens de RM com o uso de bobina microscópica são de crescente importância clínica e poderão desempenhar um papel importante na avaliação da eficácia dessas terapias. / Differences in thickness and regularity of the temporomandibular joints (TMJ) cartilage occur as the result of areas of growth or remodeling. This fact leads to misinterpretations on diagnosis and generally neglects the presence of fibrocartilage. The present study, using MRI microscopic coils, allows better observation of the articular cartilage. This evidence was confirmed by this study that examined 20 individuals (40 TMJ), divided into: symptomatic group with temporomandibular dysfunction (TMD) of 10 patients (20 TMJ) presenting clinical complaint and TMD diagnosis; and the control group of 10 volunteers (20 TMJ) that were asymptomatic or who had no clinical signs and symptoms of TMD. On both groups were measured cartilage thickness and if the cartilage was regular or not. The oblique sagital MR images of weighted SPIR protons density (PD\'s) TMJ were able to show the best cartilage images either in the mandibles head or on the articular eminence providing measurements. Both groups presented no statistically significant differences regarding to thickness and the evaluation of the regularity presented the same result. The regularity of the cartilage generally was similar to the morphology of the cortical bone. In many cases, especially when the presence of anterior articular disc displacement, the evaluation was more difficult, requiring practice. The control group with asymptomatic patients was found also to have disc displacements. Thus, we review a very useful tool in the diagnosis of TMD and its importance to evaluate the cartilage to development new therapies for degenerative diseases and trauma. The MRI images with the use of microscopic coil are of increasing clinical importance and might play an important role in assessing the effectiveness of these therapies.

Une analyse exhaustive de la piézoélectricité a été réalisée par la modélisation moléculaire basée sur l'application des principes de la mécanique quantique. La calibration de la méthode et des paramètres du calcul est d'abord examinée en comparant les résultats calculés concernant les oxydes de silicium et de Germanium à leurs homologues expérimentaux. Ensuite, les paramètres microscopiques qui influencent chaque contribution de cette propriété macroscopique de réponse sont distinctement rationalisés. Enfin, après la rationalisation de la propriété piézoélectrique, la conception de matériaux montrant un effet piézoélectrique élevé a été tentée. Nous avons montré que la grande piézoélectricité induite par un dopage dans le plan du graphène tendra vers une valeur unique, ni nulle ni infinie, et de façon indépendante de la nature physique ou chimique particulière du défaut. L'induction d'une piézoélectricité hors du plan du graphène en brisant sa planéité selon la direction-z est également étudiée. La réponse piézoélectrique obtenue est largement améliorée par rapport à la limite finie de la piézoélectricité dans le plan, mais aux grandes concentrations du défaut seulement. En effet, contrairement à la composante dans le plan de la piézoélectricité, la composante hors du plan, dépend de la nature du défaut et diminue jusqu'à tendre vers zéro à dilution infinie. / An exhaustive analysis of the technologically important piezoelectric phenomena is here done by applying quantum chemical simulations. At first, the calibration of the assumed computational scheme is examined by comparing our calculated piezoelectric properties of the well-known piezoelectric quartz to their experimental counterparts. Secondly, the microscopic parameters that influence each contribution of piezoelectric macroscopic property are distinctly rationalized. After the rationalization of the piezoelectric property, the design of materials that exhibiting a high piezoelectric effect has been attempted. It has been shown that a large in-plane piezoelectricity induced in graphene by doping can be acquired by including any in-plane defect(s). Moreover, in the limit of vanishing defect concentration, the piezoelectric response tends toward a unique value, neither null nor infinite, regardless of the particular chemical or physical nature of the defect. The induction of an out-of-plane piezoelectricity in graphene by breaking its planarity through the non-periodic z-direction is stated, where the obtained piezoelectric response is largely improved compared to the finite in-plane piezoelectric limit, at however higher concentration of the defect. Contrarily to what has been discussed for the in-plane piezoelectric effect, the out-of-plane one eventually vanishes as far as the limit of infinite defect dilution is reached, and so it relies ultimately on the nature of the defect.

Estudos envolvendo a utilização do sangue de cordão umbilical foram intensificados na última década, devido ao grande potencial que estas possuem nas pesquisas de transplantes e ontogenia celular. A investigação dos métodos para a purificação e caracterização dessas células em diferentes animais pode aumentar a utilização destes como modelos experimentais para uma variedade de propostas científicas e terapêuticas. Para desenvolver a caracterização das células de sangue de cordão umbilical foram utilizadas 20 amostras oriundas de fetos de com idades compatíveis ao segundo e terceiro terço de gestação. Estas amostras foram processadas de duas formas distintas. A primeira forma visou às células presentes na camada leucocitária total, a segunda visou as células com densidade menor que 1077 separadas pelo Ficoll Paque. Os “pellets" resultantes foram processados para posterior observação por microscopia eletrônica de transmissão. Foram constatadas a presença de células granulares (basófilos, eosinófilos e neutrófilos) e agranulares (células bláticas, precursores eosinofílicos e linfócitos) em diferentes estágios de maturação em ambos os grupos e também células com características morfológicas compatíveis a apoptose. / Studies involving the use of umbilical cord blood were intensified in the last decade, due to its huge potential for transplant research and the ontogeny of leucocytes cells. The investigation of the methods to purify and characterize these cells in different animals are a base for experimental models for a variety of scientific and therapeutic proposals. To develop the characterization of the umbilical cord cells, twenty samples of fetal were collected. The fetal were in the second and third thirds of the gestation. These samples were processed in two distinct forms. The first form, studied the cells in the buffet coat. The second, studied the cells with density less than, 1,077 separated by the Ficoll Paque. The resulting pellets were processed for later observation by electronic microscopy transmission. The presence of granular and non granular cells were detected in different maturation stages in both groups and also morphological compatible cells with apoptosis.

abstract: Researchers and practitioners have widely studied road network traffic data in different areas such as urban planning, traffic prediction and spatial-temporal databases. For instance, researchers use such data to evaluate the impact of road network changes. Unfortunately, collecting large-scale high-quality urban traffic data requires tremendous efforts because participating vehicles must install Global Positioning System(GPS) receivers and administrators must continuously monitor these devices. There have been some urban traffic simulators trying to generate such data with different features. However, they suffer from two critical issues (1) Scalability: most of them only offer single-machine solution which is not adequate to produce large-scale data. Some simulators can generate traffic in parallel but do not well balance the load among machines in a cluster. (2) Granularity: many simulators do not consider microscopic traffic situations including traffic lights, lane changing, car following. This paper proposed GeoSparkSim, a scalable traffic simulator which extends Apache Spark to generate large-scale road network traffic datasets with microscopic traffic simulation. The proposed system seamlessly integrates with a Spark-based spatial data management system, GeoSpark, to deliver a holistic approach that allows data scientists to simulate, analyze and visualize large-scale urban traffic data. To implement microscopic traffic models, GeoSparkSim employs a simulation-aware vehicle partitioning method to partition vehicles among different machines such that each machine has a balanced workload. The experimental analysis shows that GeoSparkSim can simulate the movements of 200 thousand cars over an extensive road network (250 thousand road junctions and 300 thousand road segments). / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Computer Engineering 2019

The physics that result in the decoupling of a molecule from a bosonic solvent at 0 K are studied. Fixed-node diffusion Monte Carlo (FNDMC) coupled with a Genetic Algorithm is used to perform simulations of the bosonic droplets doped with various molecules. The efficacy and accuracy of this approach is tested on a strongly coupled 2-dimensional quartic oscillator with excellent results. This algorithm is then applied to 4He-CO and 4He-HCN clusters respectively in an effort to determine the factors that result in the onset of microscopic superfluidity. The decoupling of the doped molecule from the bosonic solvent is found to be, primarily, a result of the combined effect of the repulsive interaction between the helium atoms and bose symmetry. The effects of rotor size versus molecular anisotropy in a NH3 molecule seeded into a 4He droplet is studied as well. Simulations are done using the accurate rotational constants (B0=9.945 cm-1, C0=6.229 cm-1) and using "fudged" versions of the rotational constants (Bfudged=0.9945 cm-1, Cfudged=0.6229 cm-1) for the |0011〉state. The simulations done with the fudged rotational constants experience a slightly smaller reduction than those done using the accurate rotational constants. This is attributed to the importance of molecular anisotropy versus the size of larger rotational constants in molecules whose rotational constants fall in an intermediate regime.

<p>Driving simulators are used to conduct experiments on for example driver behavior, road design, and vehicle characteristics. The results of the experiments often depend on the traffic conditions. One example is the evaluation of cellular phones and how they affect driving behavior. It is clear that the ability to use phones when driving depends on traffic intensity and composition, and that realistic experiments in driving simulators therefore has to include surrounding traffic.</p><p>This thesis describes a model that generates and simulates surrounding vehicles for a driving simulator. The proposed model generates a traffic stream, corresponding to a given target flow and simulates realistic interactions between vehicles. The model is built on established techniques for time-driven microscopic simulation of traffic and uses an approach of only simulating the closest neighborhood of the driving simulator vehicle. In our model this closest neighborhood is divided into one inner region and two outer regions. Vehicles in the inner region are simulated according to advanced behavioral models while vehicles in the outer regions are updated according to a less time-consuming model. The presented work includes a new framework for generating and simulating vehicles within a moving area. It also includes the development of enhanced models for car-following and overtaking and a simple mesoscopic traffic model.</p><p>The developed model has been integrated and tested within the VTI Driving simulator III. A driving simulator experiment has been performed in order to check if the participants observe the behavior of the simulated vehicles as realistic or not. The results were promising but they also indicated that enhancements could be made. The model has also been validated on the number of vehicles that catches up with the driving simulator vehicle and vice versa. The agreement is good for active and passive catch-ups on rural roads and for passive catch-ups on freeways, but less good for active catch-ups on freeways.</p>

Motor proteins are microscopic biological machines that convert chemical energy into mechanical motion and work. They power a diverse range of biological processes, for example the swimming and crawling motion of bacteria, intracellular transport, and muscle contraction. Understanding the physical basis of these processes is interesting in its own right, but also has an interesting potential for applications in medicine and nanotechnology. The ongoing rapid developments in single molecule experimental techniques make it possible to probe these systems on the single molecule level, with increasing temporal and spatial resolution. The work presented in this thesis is concerned with physical modeling of motor proteins on the molecular scale, and with theoretical challenges in the interpretation of single molecule experiments. First, we have investigated how a small groups of elastically coupled motors collaborate, or fail to do so, when producing strong forces. Using a simple model inspired by the motor protein PilT, we find that the motors counteract each other if the density becomes higher than a certain threshold, which depends on the asymmetry of the system. Second, we have contributed to the interpretation of experiments in which the stepwise motion of a motor protein is followed in real time. Such data is naturally interpreted in terms of first passage processes. Our main conclusions are (1) Contrary to some earlier suggestions, the stepping events do not correspond to the cycle completion events associated with the work of Hill and co-workers. We have given a correct formulation. (2) Simple kinetic models predict a generic mechanism that gives rise to correlations in step directions and waiting times. Analysis of stepping data from a chimaeric flagellar motor was consistent with this prediction. (3) In the special case of a reversible motor, the chemical driving force can be extracted from statistical analysis of stepping trajectories. / QC 20100820

This research focuses on a study of the material parameters of horse hoof. The study of the problem with the factors that affect to the fastening of the shoe is not performed. Three different tests are carried out to obtain the behavior of the horn wall of the horse hoof in different ways, under physiological conditions and variation of hydration level. The first one is a tensile test to obtain both the force/displacement relation and the stress/strain relation and the parameters derived from them. The second is a hardness test to determine how the material resists to several kinds of permanent-shape changes when a force is applied.Finally, a microscopic study is performed to analyze the fracture surface after testing the specimens. A meticulous analysis of the results and a broad comparison with several researches are performed. The end of the thesis work suggests future works needed to solve the problem.

Transportation safety has been recognized as a public health issue worldwide, consequently, transportation researchers and practitioners have been attempting to provide adequate safety performance for the various transportation components and facilities to all road users given the usually scarce resources available. Safety engineers have been trying to make decisions affecting safety based on the knowledge extracted from different types of statistical models and/or observational before-after analysis. It is generally recognized that this type of factual knowledge is not easily obtained either statistically or empirically. Despite the intuitive link between road safety and observed crashes, a good understanding of the sequence of events prior to the crash can provide a more rational basis for the development of engineering countermeasures. The development of more comprehensive mechanistic models for safety assessment is heavily dependent on detailed vehicle tracking data that is not readily available. The potential of microscopic simulation in traffic safety and traffic conflict analysis has gained increasing interest mostly due to recent developments in human behaviour modelling and real-time vehicle data acquisition. In this thesis, we present a systematic investigation of the use of existing behavioural microscopic simulation models in short-term road safety studies. Initially, a microscopic framework is introduced to identify potentially unsafe vehicle interactions for different vehicle movements based on three types of traffic behaviour protocols: car-following, lane change and gap acceptance. This microscopic model for safety assessment applies a safety performance measure based on pairwise comparisons of spacing and speed differential between adjacent vehicles and individual braking power in real-time. A calibration/validation procedure using factorial analysis is presented to select best model input parameters for this safety performance measure by using high resolution vehicle tracking data. The ability of the proposed safety performance measure to reflect real-life observed high-risk vehicular interactions is explored in three intuitive tests using observed crash data. Finally, the usefulness of the model is illustrated through its application to investigate the safety implications of two different geometric and operational traffic strategies. The overall results indicate that, notwithstanding the fact that actual behavioural microscopic algorithms have not been developed strictly to model crashes, they are able to replicate several factors directly related to high risk situations that could lead to crashes with reasonable accuracy. With the existing upward trend in computing power, modelling techniques and increasing availability of detailed vehicle tracking data, it is likely that safety studies will be carried out using a more mechanistic and inclusive approach based on disruptive driving behaviour rather than ultimate unpredictable and heavily restrictive crash events.